NOVEL NEXT 127: Unexpected Penetration
Golden sunbeams, puffy white clouds, and baby blue skies.
Close to a week had passed and their mission was on its last day. For the past five days, rain had come pouring down in unending waves.
In the ever familiar courtyard, Lin Songmei took a deep breath of fresh air as she stared up into the sky. Today, she, Yan Mingqing, Wang Taigang, Han Youhong, and Zhao Liying had been assigned to defend the leftover two carriages.
Songmei couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why they, of all people, had been assigned to this carriage. Sure, over the course of the week, everyone had made leaps and bounds of progress after going through four to six massive battles everyday. Songmei herself was close to opening her sixth main meridian and everyone else in the party had gotten to at least five.
However, even if they had improved, they were far from the best party to handle the lone caravan! There were parties filled with people who had opened all twelve of their main meridians, plus some of their extraordinary ones!
Climbing onto the carriage roofs, Songmei’s unease only grew as Yang Tianshu didn’t show up. Instead, the older gentleman they had built some rapport with was replaced by a middle-aged, suit-wearing, briefcase carrying man who looked about as interesting as the cobblestones he walked over to get to their carriage.
Songmei wasn’t a fly by the seat of her intuition type of gal, but today, of all days, her gut was telling her something was wrong.
“You feel it too?” Mingqing asked, leaning against the railing beside Songmei as the caravan rumbled to life. “I didn’t know we had cultivated high enough to feel this type of stuff. My parents always talk about it.”
“Yours too?” Zhao Liying laughed, scratching the back of her head as she walked over. “It’s kind of annoying since they make a lot of decisions according to their gut feeling. But then they’re also always right.”
“Ahh... that could get annoying,” Songmei agreed, patting Zhao Liying and Mingqing on the shoulders. “So we’re alone today with... him. What’s the plan? I assume we’re all feeling this icky feeling of foreboding, yeah?”
Calling an impromptu team huddle, the five cultivators all bundled together, whispering about their jumbled feelings. With the weird company-assigned man in a suit and glasses walking over, the five agreed to just stay alert and to try and conserve as much as possible during the first few battles while anticipating unforeseen circumstances.
“Anything I can help you all with?” The man asked with a machine-like, detached tone.
“We were just discussing our feelings of unease, it’s fine.” Taigang reassured, trying to stave the man off without coming off as rude.
“Ah, I understand,” the man nodded, pushing his glasses up. “I agree that it’s not ideal to have a party as weak as yours guarding a caravan alone. I do not have the power to tell you why you were assigned here due to my position. However, if it gives you any comfort, I’ve been instructed to start up the carriages and leave you five behind if any extreme unforeseen circumstances do arise. No matter what, we’ll be successful in getting these supplies past the assaults by the buffoons who side with Avarice.”
Nodding along with a dubious expression, Songmei resisted the retort trying to claw its way out of her. In fact, for some reason, it did not comfort her knowing the man had no qualms about leaving them behind to protect the ‘supplies.’
There were so many of them! They ran twenty to thirty caravans of carriages five out of the seven days of the week! They could lose a couple to save a few lives, couldn’t they?
Sighing, Songmei tried her best to shove her thoughts aside. She knew she sounded entitled, but she had heard about other carriages being lost to rush people to the hospital after a mishap during battle.
If she just did her job and prepared for a mishap, how bad could it go?
------
In the end though, the first few battles had been uneventful. Frame by frame, each battle had been the same as the ones from the days before. The amount of enemies seemed similar, the type of enemies seemed identical, and the timing between the battles was about the same.
It was during the last battle though where things started unraveling. Hopping off the carriages as the distinctive rhythmic clanking of enemies began to sound out from the houses beside the road they traversed, Songmei and the others had expected for the carriage to... stop.
It didn’t.
Kind of an a-hole move in Songmei’s opinion, but the man in the suit—who didn’t share his name due to ‘personal reasons’—continued on, waving towards the five. “I’m going to go on ahead! I can’t afford another failure so good luck!”
What was this man on? Tempted to climb back onto the carriage just to drag him down, Songmei sighed as the carriages just plowed into the machines surging in from the front.
At least he’d take some enemies with him. As a bonus, there was no way he wasn’t going to get in trouble for bringing enemies with him to the meeting site and forcing other groups to fight another round.
“Group up! Group up!” Taigang called, waving everyone over as the carriages disappeared around the corner, taking a fair chunk of the mindless machines with them. “We can all tell that someone’s orchestrated this. So stick together! Mingqing, don’t go dive-bombing deep into enemy lines, Songmei, stay near me. I can only do close combat and you mostly do ranged, though we’ll be more inefficient, it’s worth the safety. Liying and Youhong, stay close. You two are more balanced fighters but you can get overwhelmed easily.”
With their weapons at the ready, they split off into their groups, staying near each other as they began the fight.
Mingqing, contrary to usual, stayed close, her swordplay a little more defensive as she continued to disassemble the machines like fine art, leaving only a trail of mangled parts in the area around her.
Youhong, as per usual, began his job as the human blender. For this battle in particular though, he put aside his assassination duties of unsuspecting opposing leaders deep in the enemy swarm. Carving out a silver sphere around himself, Youhong went to work, tuning out as much of the battle as he could to focus on his own share.
Zhao Liying, deciding against throwing her spear, had ignited it instead, twirling it around her as she staved off the swarm of enemies coming at her. Leaving a trail of half-melted plastic and metal behind her, Zhao Liying grimaced, channeling more Qi into her weapon to heat it further.
Taigang, acting as Songmei’s tank, took a new cautionary role, only attacking when enemies came close enough instead of seeking them out himself.
Songmei, on the other hand, now as the primary attacker instead of a support, channeled as much Qi as she could into her arrows, sending shotgun blasts into the enemy waves. Staying near Taigang, Songmei worked in a circle, leaving clumps of enemies encased with iridescent crystals in her wake.
And so, the battle continued, grinding down both sides for ten to fifteen minutes of grueling pain.
-----
With most of the machine swarm cleaned up and exoskeleton-suit wearing human combatants taken care of, the five of them advanced forward towards the meeting point at a slow pace. Cleaning up the rest of the stragglers as they went.
The unease had begun to fade, but Songmei couldn’t tell why. The battle had gone without a hitch. It had only taken longer due to their conservative changes.
Songmei, with her eyes scanning the area, froze. Reaching out to push Zhao Liying who was looking the other way, Songmei squeezed out a “DODGE!” moments before a knife whizzed by, clattering to the ground.
Turning to face their attackers, Songmei cried out in horror as another knife plunged into her stomach. Stumbling, Songmei scampered backward as Mingqing and Taigang also cried out behind her.
