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“This is bad, right?” Barrett crossed his arms as he leaned back against the wall. “They definitely haven’t given up…”
Reina shook her head from across him where she stood on guard duty, “No way. They must be saving something big for the final day. Maybe they’ll just ambush us when we go out.”
Barrett’s head hung, “Right. And if the alliance was doing especially well holding them away, we’d have gotten word. As it is, the communication is sparse.”
“At least we can keep in contact. Master Thorn has been quite a big help there. How’d you hear about this place?”
Barrett shrugged, “It was the first place Nilima thought of. She used to stay here with Mistress Joshi. We didn’t know about the defenses.”
Reina nodded seriously, “As an independent cultivator she’d have to know safe places to stay. It would have been nice if that wasn’t necessary in Stredo.”
“Pretty useful now, though.”
The door to the rear area opened up and Master Thorn’s voice came out. “Young Cael has devised a plan of some sort and wishes to discuss it. I can watch for anyone approaching.”
—–
It was nice that Cael had a plan, but Barrett felt it ultimately disappointing that it didn’t make his part any easier. The whole not-dying and getting to the courthouse thing. The other parts of the plan weren’t even set in stone, because it relied on the specific details of what the opposing side did. Barrett wasn’t going to complain, though, because Cael was getting involved in a way that risked his life- more than he already had. Frankly, he didn’t stand much chance if anyone actually attacked him, but he was participating anyway.
In the early hours of the morning well before dawn, they said their momentary goodbyes. “I’ll catch up with you,” Cael bowed his head. “Well, sort of.”
Barrett smiled, “I know. You’re not much of a runner.” He turned to the others, “Are you all ready?”
Everyone nodded, but Master Alnherr had something to say. “You’re the most important person here, so if necessary you need to be ready to leave us behind.”
“With all due respect, Master Alnherr… that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Barrett shook his head, “Regardless of the fact that I couldn’t bear to abandon any of you, if you aren’t with me I can’t say I’ll get past the next hidden group of enemies.”
“An excellent counterpoint…” Master Alnherr nodded slowly.
Before he could say more, Nilima interrupted. “Wait, is that stupider than jumping into a volcano? Or ripping out your own heart?”
Reina rolled her eyes, “Technically he never heard anyone propose those ideas.”
Master Alnherr got things back on track, “Anyway, I wasn’t suggesting abandoning us to die. Merely that if we are close enough for you to break away you can leave us to finish up with whoever is remaining.”
“… I can accept that, if it becomes necessary.” Barrett turned to Master Thorn. “Thank you for letting us stay, and the excellent hospitality.”
“You’re welcome. I know you all have places to stay, but you’re welcome to drop by again in the future.” Master Thorn smiled jovially and then waved his hand. “You’d better get going. Lots of stairs to climb.”
—–
Overall, it wasn’t that many stairs. Especially not for a cultivator. There wasn’t any sort of extra gravity or anything crazy going on… just getting to the top of a building. As for why… well, they wanted to take the safest route. During normal times, jumping around on rooftops was frowned on. However, if the social niceties of using the road were going to make them less safe… then they would choose to be rude.
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop was a handful of meters at most, nothing dangerous for master tier cultivators. Even if they fell, it would merely be an inconvenience. They managed to close most of the distance to the courthouse before they ran into trouble.
As Barrett was jumping between two rooftops, a myriad of attacks flew at him as cultivators were revealed from hiding. Through his own efforts and a sudden wind conjured by Reina he avoided the most dangerous attacks, but he still took over a dozen hits. Most didn’t penetrate through his living metal armor, but he found himself with a few cuts and burns.
As soon as his feet hit the rooftop, Barrett counterattacked. He needed a solid surface to push off of as he sent his stone pits out in all directions. A single stone pit targeted at each enemy barely had a chance to kill anybody, especially if they saw it coming. However, just because it wouldn’t kill them didn’t mean it would do nothing. As the stone pits struck, Barrett pushed off against the roof while giving as much mass to them as possible. Of the twenty stone pits, ten of them had the intended effect. A fourth tier master from the Majestic Invoker’s Circle confidently blocked the stone pit with his shields, and took no damage at all. However, it couldn’t be said that the attack had no effect as the momentum affected his whole body at once, sending him flying off the roof. He probably wouldn’t die… but it would at least keep him out of the fight for a few moments.
Reina actually floated past Barrett before landing, her winds whipping in all directions as she built up their momentum. Nilima’s whip flashed out, but she had no intention to knock anyone back- a few lucky people got away with a shattered arm or leg, while others were struck in more important areas and had their heart exploded. Master Alnherr grabbed one of the Steadfast Shields and threw them in the way of an attack coming for him as easily as if he were tossing a sheet of paper.
The enemy had set up some rudimentary magical formations, both to hide them and increase their combat strength… but it seemed they didn’t have that long. At least, the effects were manageable. Barrett estimated a hundred or so third tier or lower cultivators, a few dozen fourth tier cultivators, and about a dozen each of fifth and sixth tier. Those numbers made things seem almost hopeless, even if they weren’t fighting people who were future grandmasters. Fortunately the enemies attacks were more limited when they were among them, and Barrett was only getting attacked by a half dozen people at a time at most.
His spear moved almost without thought, just like the rest of his body. He couldn’t stop to think about what he was doing. If they survived, they might go down in legend… and if they died then everything was over. The same was true for the enemies that surrounded them, but they were following orders instead of acting out of their own ambition. That was the sort of thing that could make all the difference.
As Barrett moved, for every attack he made he had to face a half dozen or more times that. While he could deflect or avoid most of them, he still ended up taking at least one hit for every move he made. His living metal armor could reduce the damage he took, but where energy and magic were involved a small amount would make it through to his body. Barrett was glad for every moment he’d spent training his toughness, inside and out.
Barrett couldn’t spare the effort to actually lock eyes on his friends around him, but he was aware of their presence just like everything else. Even though it would likely be a long battle, nobody could afford to hold back at all. Barrett moved, killing with his spear when he could and knocking people away, disrupting them with his stone pits as much as possible. Reina was a whirlwind of her own attacks as well as what she captured from enemies, weapons the dead had dropped or those the living couldn’t hold onto. Nilima very nearly bounced back and forth between enemies, using the momentum of some of their attacks to push herself where she wanted to go and avoiding others. Master Alnherr moved almost casually, but each motion he made was exactly what was necessary to defend himself and at the same time attack.
Like Barrett, the others couldn’t completely avoid taking damage. While it was nothing critical yet, Reina had a long gash along one arm. Her energy had been broken through several times, and she was starting to weaken- her magic couldn’t last forever. Nilima likewise had some damage, burns from a wide area fire attack and it seemed her left wrist was broken as she had used it to deflect a heavy blow with an axe. Master Alnherr had no energy or magic to defend himself, but he could shift his body’s toughness all to one area, making his body just how it needed to be. When he was struck in the chest by a large hammer, his body turned rubbery and bounced it back… but there was only so much he could do.
Barrett wasn’t sure when, but his defensive talisman had cracked. The Blank Tomes, probably? If they were generalists who didn’t really care about Stredo’s laws, they would likely have learned curses. Maybe they were the ones who taught the Silver Blades, or at least Victoria. Certainly not all of the Silver Blades had learned curse magic.
The enemy numbers hardly seemed diminished. In fact, with those climbing back up the building and what seemed to be additional reinforcements, Barrett wasn’t sure if they ever would be. Killing intent was all around, but a particularly ominous feeling made Barrett stab out with his spear. For his efforts he took a heavy hit to his back… but he stabbed through the curse magic heading towards Master Alnherr. He wasn’t sure of the remaining durability on everyone else’s talismans, but he couldn’t just leave them be.
No. This wasn’t enough. He needed more. One spear wouldn’t do it… Barrett’s thoughts were filled with an extreme sharpness… and his living metal armor responded to his will. While his entire body was a weapon, blunt force from a kick only went so far towards disabling someone. Spikes and blades concentrated the force much better. Barrett turned into a whirling dervish of death. The only downside was that he was less focused on defense… and since he was forming spikes and blades, his armor was thinner in other places. Since he was the one they had to stop the most, a slightly larger portion of attacks were concentrated on Barrett. He even intentionally took on more attacks to protect the others.
He took a cut deep into the muscle tissue of his left arm. A long needle pierced his right shoulder, covered in poison. Concussive attacks battered his brain and other organs. Lightning coursed through him. Finally, he was sent flying as he failed to dodge an attack, and another attack slammed him down into the roof of the building and through the top two floors. Buildings in Stredo were sturdy, but there were limits.
Barrett could barely move, his body filled with all sorts of holes and his blood starting to run out. Half of the wounds it seemed like still had weapons in them, or pieces of weapons at least. Given a brief few seconds while enemies jumped down to finish him off, Barrett reached into his bag and pulled out a snack. His living metal helmet barely managed to pull open as he chomped into the pear, eating it in three bites. A hammer the size of his head swung down towards him… and Barrett’s arm grabbed it. Then he squeezed, crushing it. The sound of metal shards tinkling on the hard floor of some sort of workshop around him rang out, more than just from the hammer but also the various things that had been stuck in him.
As the power of the vitality pear flowed through him and replenished his stamina, Barrett marveled. Unfortunately, he was still limited to how much stamina he could recover in a day- a vitality pear just had most of that all at once, with less effort involved. There was only so much a non-magical but basically magical fruit could do. Barrett shoved the haft of the hammer into the man wielding it, piercing through his heart, and stood up. He stabbed his spear at a sword user jumping down towards him… and prepared to go through everything he had just experienced again. Probably even more than what he’d just recovered from, based on how things had been going.