Jade Dragon Beauty

Head Mistress Li ran over. "What do you think you're doing, attacking a fellow…" she then realized that the girl had purple skin. "A Demon?" she gasped in shock. "How did she get here? I didn't know they were still here."

"That's the point." said Shen with a sigh. "She was invisible. They didn't trust that we were just refugees, and left her behind to make sure." Shen lifted the girl's chin with the tip of her sword. "Now, what did you tell them?"

The girl started speaking in the demon language and Shen slapped her hard in the face with the side of the blade. "I know you can speak our language. You understood what those idiots said when they blew our cover." Shen motioned towards the boys with her head. "So tell us what you told your handlers through the necklace." She wasn't certain that the necklace was a communications relic, but the way the girl had used it implied that.

The girl sighed. "I told them you were from the sect, and had fooled them. You cut off my hand before I could say more." She had a bit of an accent and struggled to speak a bit, but she was understandable. "They will send troops to capture you. Surrender, and they will send you to the mines. Fight them, and you will be executed, even if you survive the battle."

Mistress Li looked at the boys. "You gave away our identity?"

"We didn't know she was there." said the oldest boy in their defense. "I thought the only people that might hear were one of us."

"We don't have time to play the blame game." said Shen. "We need to prepare for the attack."

Mistress Li agreed. "You five," she pointed to the boys. "We don't have a jail, so take her to one of the empty cultivation caves and lock her inside." The caves had stored water and food enough for a week, so she would be fine there until her people found her.

The boys acknowledged the order and ran over to grab her arm, forcing her to stand. "You won't survive if you fight." said the girl as she was being lead away, seeming almost desperate to spread the message. "None of you are even Foundation. Just give up and continue to live."

The Head Mistress sighed and picked up the communication relic, then looked at the severed hand as she thought. After a minute Shen spoke up. "I put defensive talismans in the entrance. That should slow them down. If you have somewhere to talk I can tell you about the other things I did."

The Head Mistress nodded, then ordered one of her disciples that was nearby to put out the word that everyone was to prepare for evacuation. "Am I correct in assuming that when we disconnected the teleportation formation from the sect it meant that any use of it will send everything to a random location?"

"Yes," said Shen. "Everything will go to the same location each time it is activated, with it changing each time, but we don't know where that will be. The main problem is that the formation can only send things up to 200 li from here. That is within the demon's search range."

The head mistress nodded and had Shen follow her back to her office, one of the few such rooms in the cave, as they hadn't counted on needed administrative facilities it what should have been a simple staging area for evacuees. Once they were inside the office she locked the door, then paused. "How do we know there isn't another spy in the room with us?"

Shen pulled out her talisman paper and made another light charm. "I didn't see any of the ones we passed light up, so we probably aren't being followed, but this will verify it." She started injecting Fire chi into it to help it dry, but greatly lowering the quality. Only the simple nature of the item let it keep working. "These will turn red when someone with a core is near. Not all demons have cores, of course, but the stronger ones do, and the more red it is, the closer they are." It started glowing bright white and she stopped injecting chi, then glued it to the door. "I can also confirm that Shoom didn't set them off, so Beast Cores won't trigger them." After entering Foundation he had started to form one, though it was still only the size of a pebble.

"Shoom, as in my brother's pet?" she asked, and Shen nodded. "You brought a spirit pet with you?"

"He reached Foundation about a week before the attack, so he was accepted as a sect member, as he was basically adopted by Mr. Li. In fact, Shoom called you 'Aunt' the first time he saw you here. I think he remembers you fondly."

She sighed. "I never spent much time with my little brother, and even less with his pet. I suppose I can get to know him now, since he's intelligent now. He's the closest thing I have to family, after all." Shen nodded. "That isn't why I called you here, though."

"Right." said Shen, before creating a Fire barrier that quickly expanded to reach the walls of the room. Once it was expanded she altered it to block sound by absorbing sound waves as if they were an attack. "Nothing but the two of us, inanimate objects, and a few relics passed through my barrier, so there aren't any demons hidden in the room. Now, though, the barrier has been adjusted to block sound."

Head Mistress Li nodded. "In that case, my first question is, can you expand the range of the teleportation formation? Maybe make it only go away from the demons?"

Shen shook her head. "Range, yes. From what I could tell that's just a function of how much chi is allowed to be used. If I inject more, then it will go further. I should be able to increase the amount to ten times its previous level fairly easily. I can't really do anything about the direction, though. The formation is a Nascent level one, and as far as I know any direction function would be a Nascent effect, so I can't imbue it even if I knew the basics. I doubt you had any experience with such a thing when you were Nascent, either, so you couldn't do it with some instruction. Nor does the other elder here."

Mistress Li nodded. "Unfortunately I never studied teleportation or the Space Dao. I was more interested in Water and Alchemy. In that case, second question. What have you done to help defend this place and what do you think you can add to those defenses?"

Shen explained the barrier talismans near the entrance, including the fact that they could be activated in layers, and that she had snuck a few explosives into the mix. "I also added an explosion to the stone reinforcing talismans. Only I know how to trigger them, but since they were all placed on areas that are weak already, I can almost guarantee a collapse wherever they explode."

Mistress Li nodded again. "That's good. That's at least the start of a defense. In that case, what if we…" One of her assistants opened the door and started speaking, but the barrier blocked what was being said.

Shen dropped the barrier. "I'm sorry, I had a sound barrier up. Can you repeat that?"

"I said 'The demons are approaching. At least five hundred of them.'"

Shen looked at the Head Mistress. "That was quick. Looks like I won't have time to shore up the defenses."

The Head Mistress agreed. "I will control the barrier and try to keep them out as long as possible. You need to adjust the formation so that we can get to safety."

Shen nodded and ran by the assistant towards the teleportation room. She saw Xing Lu and he followed her to the room. Once inside the room she checked everything once again to refresh her knowledge of the formation. She wasn't familiar with it like her own formations, nor did she have the knowledge loaded into her head like with the Five Elements Barrier, so she wasn't sure about all of the details. "Are you going to modify it to send us elsewhere?" Lu asked. "I'm not sure you can properly target it without being intimately familiar with the targeted formation."

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"I'm not targeting another formation." she said, looking over the rest of the formation. "I'm extending the range."

Lu looked impressed. "That should be possible. All we would need to do is increase the amount of chi being fed into the formation." He went to an indent in the wall and lifted a panel. "This tray can contain one hundred spirit stones. That much energy is enough to send the target up to two hundred li. It won't hold much more than that, though." He thought for a minute while Shen started adjusting the main feeder line to accept far more chi. "I can fix that, though." He waved his hand and brought out a bag. "This is one hundred medium grade stones. My father gave them to me so that I could live somewhere nice while trying to reach Immortal. I think saving the lives of these people is more important, though."

Shen stood and nodded, and the dumped the bag into the box. The array lit up to reveal that it was functional, but didn't draw more chi than the stones could easily restore.

The two left the room and heard sounds of attacks hitting a barrier, a sound every sect member was familiar with after the siege. They went to the entrance where they found Mistress Li standing. Just as they arrived one of the barriers collapsed and she activated another one behind it, always keeping two of them active. "I don't know how much longer we can hold out." Li said. "Foundation level barriers can only do so much against them."

Shen nodded. "I know. We got the teleportation array working again. Please get everyone into the room and evacuate. I will control the barriers and buy you as much time as possible."

Head Mistress Li agreed and ran off to gather everyone from the complex. "I'm going to start collecting everything of value." said Lu. "No point leaving it for the demons." Shen nodded and activated another layer of barrier just as the next one collapsed. She had only placed eleven layers, and they had broken three already. She only hoped that she could hold out for long enough. There was one way to ensure that, though. If she fought them after the barrier fell, she might be able to buy more time.

Mae and Ponma ran up to her. Apparently they had been together when the evacuation alarm was sounded. "Do you need any help?" Ponma asked.

"Do you have your gear?" Shen asked, and both of them pulled their adventurer gear from their bags. "Good, put it on. The demons will be inside in less than a minute. We will need to fight them to buy the Head Mistress enough time for the evacuation." They started doing so and the outer most barrier collapsed again, requiring another to be activated.

Danka and Shoom arrived just after that, having been sparing and with Danka already wearing his gear. Shen repeated what she had said and they agreed to help her. Several more barriers broke before the Head Mistress ran up to them. "You are the only people left. We need to get you into the room so that…" A Nascent level attack struck the last two barriers and a large explosion took both of them out while knocking everyone down.

"We'll buy you time and use the formation after you." said Shen. "Now please go."

"But you.." she started, but Shen cut her off.

"Only myself and the elders know how to activate the teleporter. You need to activate it." There was another Elder here, but Shen wasn't certain if he could be relied on. "The new village will need their Head Mistress. The five of us, though," several demons ran into the entrance and Shen detonated all of the explosive talismans, causing a minor cave in. "The five of us are adventurers. We can survive in the wilds."

The Head Mistress looked surprised for a few seconds, then saw another group of demons approaching. "May the gods watch over you." she said, before running back towards the room.

Everyone prepared themselves for battle just as the demons got to the cave in and started throwing rocks out of the way, though Shen wasn't sure if they meant to dig up their dead or injured comrades or if they meant to clear a path. Shen knew she didn't have long and pulled all of the Fire Explosion talismans from her ring, making them float around her in several rings.

The demons started coming and Ponma signaled the start of combat by firing an arrow into the eye of a demon just before Shen started throwing talismans. The arrow pulled itself out of the socket as the man screamed in pain, then returned to Ponma's hand just as over a dozen explosions took out the first wave of troops. These talismans were all Foundation quality and were imbued with her full purity of Fire chi, so they did far more damage than such a talisman normally would.

Another wave came from out of the smoke and Shen threw another stack of talismans, with Danka adding Sword chi and Mae adding flying needles into the attacks. They manged to stop another three waves like that, but then Shen ran out of talismans and had to start using fire balls, which let a few of them through. Shen, Danka, and Shoom were forced to stop the advancing troops as Ponma and Mae fired on them from the back line.

Just as they started to get overwhelmed, the demon that had locked blades with Shen found its head separated from its shoulders. This happened several more times before Shen realized that there was a man performing the attacks, though he appeared to move too quickly to be seen properly. After the area was somewhat clear Lu appeared behind them, wearing a leather strap with dozens of rings on it around his neck. "Looks like I got here in time." he said.

"Lu?" Shen asked. "I thought you were leaving with the others."

"Did I say that? My intention was to stay with you, so I apologize if I gave that impression."

Another wave of Demons approached and Shen launched several Fireballs, injuring but not killing them. "How did you move like that? Did you learn Flash Step?"

"Warp step." he said, suddenly appearing in front of them, cutting off a Demon's head, then appearing behind them. "But I'm almost out of chi, as it uses more than most movement techniques, so we need to evacuate."

The others finished off the last of the demons from that wave and they ran for the teleportation room. Another wave of demons started chasing them, so Shen grabbed her flash step sword from her ring, then paused and sent a bit of chi to all of the talismans reinforcing the ceiling before using Fire to Lightning to power the sword, escaping as quickly as she could. A second after she released the chi the talismans started detonating and the ceiling started collapsing.

The others entered the teleportation room just before a human with a lightning aura entered the room. Lu closed the door and stuck a talisman to it and a Nascent level barrier formed over the door. Everyone started breathing heavily while pulling in all of the chi they could. Normally one would sit and meditate when they were exhausted, but they didn't have time for that now, and would have to rely on chi breathing. Shen tossed a bag of one hundred spirit stones to everyone and they all quickly absorbed the chi from as many as needed. It might be neutral chi, but it was better than not having any and the bracelets would purify it into the right type before long.

Something hit the door and Lu ran over to the tray where the crystals went. "How far do you want to go?" he asked Shen.

"The question is, how far can we go?" She quickly examined the formation. "The feeder line is damaged. If we go further than about a thousand li the array will explode, releasing all of the unused chi being fed to it."

"But will it send us away?" asked Lu.

"Yes, the explosion won't be instantaneous. It will take the chi a few seconds to build up to the level needed to explode, less time the more excess energy there is, but…" she then realized what Lu was trying to say. "But it doesn't matter because we can't return here and the only people harmed will be our enemies." She nodded. "Add at least as much as last time if you have it. I don't have any high value stones, and I'll…" Something heavy slammed into the barrier and it started to crack.

"Nascent level attack." said Lu. "We need to leave now." He quickly added some stones to the array and ran into the formation as it started to glow.

A few seconds later, just before the transportation occurred, the barrier shattered from an attack and the door exploded inwards. A red skinned man ran at them, then they were gone, along with the man.

In the tray a few crystals, three transparent and one red, glowed dully. Then the formation activated and they started glowing brighter and brighter. Even after it sent away the people in the formation they continued to glow brighter until even the demons inspecting the room saw the glow brighter than a noon sun leaking from the cracks at the edge of the panel.

Then the chi release rate was too much, and the crystals evaporated, releasing all of their chi into the air. The formation released all of its chi as well, and the force of several immortal level attacks spread out from the room. The added Fire crystal only heated up things, turning an explosive force into an explosion.

Soon the top of the mountain was shattered into billions of pieces which were throw into the air. Those that saw the phenomenon from a distance could swear that a glowing mushroom the size of a large hill grew from the top of the mountain, then quickly dried up and was blown away.