The Power of Ten

Chapter 9-260: The Storm Strikes!

The guns stopped firing as Sama smirked, an occasional pop or two happening as Daoists on the walls poked their heads up, intercepted the bullets already on the way for them, and soon no more heads were poking up.

Bring it down! Briggs ordered, and the world heaved.

The spiraling jetsilver-and-rainbow helices of two Spellflares came spinning through the rain, impacting on the obdurate and roiling smooth hemisphere of The Egg of Nine Dragons. The Formation wasnt a force field so much as a deflecting screen of energy, absorbing and redirecting incoming energy, a combination of effects much stronger than a mere rigid defense.

Naturally it was totally useless against Energized Lead ammunition, totally null to magic and treating the Formation as air. The Cyclonic enchantment on the rifles sent them through the rain and winds without faltering or being misdirected in the slightest, while Chained True Seeking spells on the snipers helped their Watersighting Eagle Eyes pick out targets at a time-sighting +20 Insight bonus to hit, the maximum bonus possible for the basic spell.

A massive downpour and illusions concealing their presence did the rest.

Now, the Spellflares coming in at a Caster Level close to Fifty hit the Egg, and promptly ripped that section of the field apart into wild magic.

Chirping polycolored sparrows flew in all directions, incidentally putting new holes in confused Daoists in the way. A vortex of razored pickles sliced out in one direction, and slow spider-webs fell down and cut through everything in their path over there. Leaves tumbled about, struck the living, and detonated like each one was made of solid C4.

Of course, the Qi going wild left a momentary hole in the protection of The Egg.

Only three Thunderbolts came down from above on that anchoring Node, but 66d8+500 or so was more than enough to blow it, and all the Daoists helping supply it with extra energy, into stray chunks of burning matter shooting in all directions.

A sixth of the protective Egg promptly vanished, and even as the first raindrops were hitting them and the Daoists were gaping up at the loss of their protection, another ten Thunderbolts came down on them.

These bolts were seething with both Divine and Primal power, and mere protection against electricity did nothing to protect the Daoists, all of whom had gone through at least one Lightning Tribulation.

One whole wall of the Sect was obliterated, along with all the Daoists on or near it, and then two more Thunderbolts came shooting in from angles, raging in along underneath the remaining Dome. They drove into the bases of two other Nodes, blasting out their foundations and short-circuiting fully half the Nodes of the Formation.

The Cultivators in the front of the Sect could feel the wind and rain assaulting them, and only gape in horror at the skies seething so madly above them, feeling a horrible, awesome pressure up above that was far, far beyond any Lightning Tribulation.

I Bring Your Last Day, whispered into all their ears on the wind, and the skies truly opened up.

The Haze itself burned away from the discharge, and all the people outside were facing in the opposite direction as the light which would have burned out their eyeballs was fractured and spread in all directions, the holy energies imbued in it dancing in the skies in gold and silver and rainbow glory.

For just a moment, the wrath of heaven coming down bathed everything in the Light of Heaven, and then the Thunder hit.

Without a Sound Bubble, the shooters and normal people nearby likely would have died from curdled blood at the volume of the noise. The Daoists were screaming as their ears blew out, their Qi roiling inside them as it tried to adjust to the truly anathemic energies of the Primal and Divine raging through this lightning. Thunderbolts pounded at every single cluster of them in killing strokes that fanned twenty paces across, and blew Daoists into bloodspray as their Qi was overloaded.

The falling rain cut off like a knife as Briggs roared, Over the walls and at them!

The thousands of natives of Shanghai, raising butchers knives, clubs, old spears, scavenged Weapons from dead Cultivators, or even just their bare hands, all such things now burning with Banefire and the glow of Magic Weapons, turned as the Lights of Heaven danced in crackling overlight in the raging clouds above them, and howled as they raced for those shattered walls blown into scattered ruins by the falling lightning. Where they didnt form a hill, arches of force politely appeared and extended across them. The wildly-running townsfolk of Shanghai surged into the Sect of the Jade Dragon, led by the endless, no ammo-conserving gunfire of hundreds of pistols and rifles blazing with +V Banefire Goodness.

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A lot of Qi-heavy figures in the Heavens-Up Display were bolting for the rear of the Sect, and The Egg of Nine Dragons and its impotent ability to turn the force of an attacker back at them was abandoned, fizzling out and fading as it lost its controllers.

Ten Thunderbolts came down and blew the Qi-Gathering Formation into craters of rock, igniting a vivic firestorm in the heart of the Sect there. More pounding Thunderbolts came down, chasing after the fleeing Daoists anywhere they clustered up, and not incidentally blowing the total shit out of the grandiose pagodas, mansions, halls, and other buildings they were trying to hide in or running through in their haste to escape out the back.

The first ones there slid to a halt, eyes wide as they stared at the entire assembled force of Dragon Warriors and Dragon Hand Adepts of Taiwan, currently twice normal size, seething with all kinds of mystical enhancements and Buffs, waiting for them.

Way faster than they believed any force of measly Powered should be able to move, the oh-so-ready martial artists of Taiwan came for the Cultivators, not bothering to waste any mercy on them.

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Jade Dragon was almost to his secret escape tunnel when the Axe came slicing through the paneled wall to his right and bit deep into his side. Swirling Helices gathered about the edge of it, eating away the Qi that naturally rose to stop it, and the force and impact of it sent the Daoist Sect Leader spinning and stumbling away into a large potted vase of precisely tended bamboo grasses on his left.

He was totally surprised when a little man unfolded from the shadow of said vase and buried two long daggers in his chest, gaping at the child-like killer who had administered such lethal wounds to him.

With a curse, he spun away, gasping, his palm smashing into the little man and hurling him back towards the looming orc crashing through the wall behind him, old black and weathered grey ribbons of color contrasting the interchanging white and whorls of the little man. Jade Dragon gasped as he pulled on the torch leading to the tunnel-

There was no sense of killing intent as two slender swords swirling with all the colors of the rainbow, burning with death, inserted themselves into his neck and chest, the swordsman beyond staring into his eyes with orbs full of revulsion and hate.

There was no Aura of the Powered on any of them...

With a snarl, the orc behind him struck down, moving fast and powerful, the hyn who had been hurled away somehow riding on the orcs back now as the brutes Axe, its edge wrapped in the energies of things of times long past, came down and split Jade Dragons reinforced skull, tearing the Qi out of flesh and bone as it continued down with the force of ages.

The sword in the Daoists throat flashed, and the split halves of the head of Jade Dragon fell from the stump of his neck, red-golden-black blood already curdling as he fell, eyes unwilling, his progression to infinite power and godhood forever halted.

All three of his killers glared at his corpse, then flinched as a glowing white jetsilver Shard of force shining white flashed past them, hit the corpse, and it exploded into a bonfire of vivic energy.

If the honored Brothers of the Void could reunite with the people, they are in need of your help. Thousands of undead are going to be rising in the city shortly, and we need your help to track and kill them all before the Shroudzone to the north expands to cover the city.

The gentle voice blew past them on the wind, and the three killers looked at one another in shock and some dismay.

It appears we were not as unseen as we thought, the orc rumbled in a remarkably cultured voice.

And she is right. The feel of death is gathering. A lot of corpses have to die again, the human sighed, and the hyn hanging on the much bigger orc merely nodded agreement.

She knew we were here, as did the others, the little man judged, staring at the burning corpse. There is no one following him, even though he has to be the one they wanted to kill the most. Her spell came only after he died. They knew we were here waiting the whole time, and that we would kill him.

They are very dangerous people, the human said, bending down to quickly loot the corpse of the Cultivator. Not even Daoists were stupid enough to use spatial tools after the first couple Cultivator-eating failures of exploding space, so what valuables Jade Dragon had were light and scattered, yet numerous.

However, the mans hands were deft, and it helped to be able to sense everything important on the corpse. The blazing vivic fire was harmless, of course, and they could sense the billowing mana dispersing around them, pure and untainted, as it devoured the corrupt Qi inside the Daoist.

They would settle up their loot in the future, as all of them knew exactly what he had taken, so there was nothing to hide. Mundane wealth and gold was largely too heavy for them to carry about, and they dared not carry Gear that could be sensed by Daoists.

Gemstones, on the other hand, were fair game, and they pocketed more than a few, prying them out of the overdone decorations that were everywhere proclaiming the wealth and superiority of the Daoists, arrogantly ignoring the fact that all this wealth was all taken by blood and murder.

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Few saw the three men of three species emerge from the buildings of the Sect, as the normal citizens were in the midst of looting the place to the ground and then setting everything on fire.

Was it counter-productive? Oh, most certainly. More buildings to shield people was hardly a bad thing.

On the other hand, the stains of blood were sunken so deep into the ground there that only fire and vivus were going to wipe them away.

Wealth wasnt going to be a problem. Looting the dead Daoists had yielded plenty of salvageable materials for all the martial artists, and theyd have no problems upgrading their Gear for some time... and with newly Named Weapons flashing all about, had no intentions of stopping the process.

There were a lot more Cultivators to kill, and the fastest way to get stronger was to kill all of them.

I was impossible for the Void brothers to miss, my Caster Level shining in the manafield like a dark sun, making it all twitch and dance to my touch. They knew they werent my equal, and they knew I was aware of them. Like sensible men, they made a beeline for me, while I did little now but coordinate the people... and scan Auras, and call people over who were Gold and Silver, to give them a Blessing for daring to stand up and fight.

If they chose to swear to my Banner in the future, well enough. This was their reward for now.

Sama and Briggs would also be recruiting in the hundreds and thousands, Shvaughn probably pitching in to help with the Mark Tats.

More importantly, I was staring at all these Chinese who had risen up to kill their oppressors, who had known in their hearts of hearts that they were alien things and had to die.

Huo Jiang, Human/5.

Chu Kwan, Human/4.

Wang Xiaotu, Human/6...

No Class Levels. Humans straight through.

Human Racial Class Levels!