NOVEL NEXT Chapter 345 - BOHICA
The teleport feels… different.
Portals are fine and easy, and usually feel no different than walking through a door- so long as the environment on the other side of that door is sufficiently weird. Most teleports, on the other hand, have a sort of stretchiness to them, like you're being pulled far out in all directions, but also haven't moved. This one felt more like he stood still, and the world stretched around him, like he was cast through a tunnel and out again on the other side without having moved.
Disorienting, but not damaging. Not like the place he emerges into.
He immediately has to start cycling his cultivation to push back against the disparate forces pushing in on his body and Souls. The dead sands beyond the Wall have been fed non-stop for the duration of the Breach, and they were hungry and hateful already. Now, the unprepared can have their life force sucked dry in seconds rather than minutes, their flesh torn from their bones to be turned to more rot and ash for the dunes.
The protective charms he's wrapped in activate at his command, shining bright and trailing paper talismans from where he has placed gold and steel armor pieces over his robes. Some of them remain inert, but plenty begin to glow to his Qi senses, creating a skintight bubble that rebuffs the swirling sand and malignant Qi of the deserts. More still are designed to prevent infections, counteract memetic hazards, and reduce the impact of certain radiations on one's body, flickering to life on occasion as gusts of metaphysical currents flow around him.
What was once a wasteland has become something closer to hell itself.
And still they come.
Gunfire rumbles over the ash like distant thunder, heralding an ever-present storm. The marching of undead legions and the galloping of strange beasts always dance on the wind, carrying alongside them the screams of the dying and the roaring of those locked in battle. Distantly, the sounds of Imperial arrays and orders being shouted can be heard beneath it all, an undercurrent of ever-churning industry and ever-building violence holding back an apocalyptic tide.
There is very little difference between where he stands and the sights of his nightmares.
He takes a deep breath, tasting the ash and Ruin. He exhales, his breath trialing flickering embers of an overfull cultivation.
And then he turns to the dead thing beside him.
"Honored Taran, was it?"
The thing that smiles back reminds him of the weapons wielded against Paleblossom City, so many years ago. Black bandages wrap around corpse-pale flesh, acupuncture needles of varying width stabbed through hundreds of locations across the body of the figure before him. They clatter lightly, like chimes, against the dizzying array of guns the figure wears, ranging from pistols to massive, weight-distorting rifles and most styles that Shin Ren can identify in between.
The eyes are the only part that still seem human, or really that still seem alive at all.They flicker wildly, dozens of colors fading in and out of the pupils around a center of liquid gold and deathless pitch.
The figure bows, that same rictus smile somehow flowing almost organically. "The very same, senior brother. We have heard many tales of the great Shin Ren, the Flame Atop the Wall. It's an honor indeed to fight alongside you. Been a while since we've been let out to play."
Shin Ren frowns. "There are many lives at stake here. I admire the Dao in its myriad forms, but-"
"Just a joke, senior. This Taran fully intends to commit entirely to the act of violence for violence's sake as we wander out in these dead lands."
…They really do make them all weird as hell in the Division of Altered Cultivation, apparently.
Case in point, the figure accompanying the corpse-man, standing to one side of Shin Ren's own squadron.
Yula, despite her protests, was very clearly ordered not to leave the Wall proper. The excuse (and potentially entirely valid reason) given was that she would be too capable of removing the danger entirely, rather than containing or comprehending it, and thus would be held back and deployed as a final measure. She and the forces of the Fourth Blade would be "better suited" to leading a counter-charge in the Breach proper, so as to draw attention away from the subterfuge unfolding.
Instead, Shin Ren has at his side a group that has rarely been able to work together recently. He, Gou Mai, and Mei Yu were all chosen and equally equipped, armed with exoskeletal armor suits bedazzled with protective arrays and enchantments and sent out together. Gou Mai looks particularly uncomfortable in his suit, which seems to strain against his bearlike frame, while Mei Yu almost immediately found a way to craft an illusion to make it disappear rather than "clutter her wardrobe".
Beside Taran, opposite the group and facing outward, is another new face, delivered from the Bull's retinue. He can't sense much from their cultivation, simply that it carries a lot of Qi, most of it seemingly held in the advanced set of armor being worn. Dozens of mechanical limbs stretch to and fro, holding sensors and tools Shin Ren is ill equipped to understand, all leading back to something that might look more comfortable standing against cannon fire or walking the depths of an ocean floor than on a covert mission.
The voice that emerged was entirely robotic, deeply changed from its origin, but the researcher assigned to accompany them apparently goes by the name of Yun Ka, and has earned plenty of renown of her own by becoming one of the few known apprentices to Runemaster Boriah, the very Head Researcher she operates under.
Despite the… strange energies he can sense from the two members of the Division of Altered Cultivation, he's fairly certain that they're all at or near the heights of the Nascent Soul Realm. Taran in particular reads as weaker, perhaps even closer to Core Formation, but it's hard to trust that. Frankly, he wouldn't be surprised to discover that they have equal or even stranger secrets than he does when it comes to hidden strengths. A formidable group, more than equal to the elites on reserve in the lesser fortress cities of the Wall.
"The location is. This way," says the mechanical voice of the safely entombed researcher. She starts to tread without waiting for a response, the mechanized spider-limbs beneath her main chassis moving fluidly in spite of their bulk and awkward-looking construction.
Taran shrugs, his body moving more like a puppet than anything living. "The expert has spoken."
"Do we know anything more about this location?" Mei Yu asks, summoning a flight artifact shaped like a gilded pillow. "Considering your connection to the honorable Head Researcher Boriah…"
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Taran walks backward, bowing politely in spite of the slight grin he's wearing. "Surely the honorable disciple of the Divine Veil Sect wouldn't be implying that this lowly junior would be withholding information from their excellent and impressive allies? I'm afraid that the information possessed in the official dossier is all this lowly one has been gifted."
"The briefing said nothing useful!" Gou Mai grumbles, his steps impossibly light and taking up a supernatural amount of space with each movement. "A replicator of some kind, taking over a patch of land, that our enemies are using. That's barely anything at all, much less proper preparations for danger. What use is the Division of Divination if they can only provide directions? So can a compass!"
Shin Ren shoots Gou Mai a look, but the larger man just shrugs it off. "Don't give me that glare, senior brother! You know that if they wanted to, they could tell us more. How else could they be called the great Oracles of a Division of the Empire?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps this is a test, much like any other."
Mei Yu and Taran show no response to the statement, but Shin Ren notices a slight hitch in the steps of the armored researcher.
"Oh? And what use might they have for testing us, senior brother? Are you not the Flame Atop the Wall? Are we not part of the retinue of a Sword Saint herself, the young Blade of the Empire?"
"That's exactly why."
Gou Mai blinks. Then he sighs, and turns.
"It is a cold day in the hells when I must turn to you for clarity, sister Mei Yu, but I'm afraid my ascetic brother here has left his good mood behind us. What the hell is he talking about?"
"Yula is the young Blade, Gou Mai," Mei Yu says, rolling her eyes. Still, Shin Ren can't help but smile at the fact that she's clearly planning out her next words properly. "She's only been around, what, a few decades? It's one thing to be the heroes of a frontline, but to stand beside a Blade requires more than simple talent and luck on the killing floor. By sending us out here, they challenge us, such that our deaths free up a Blade for other, more suitable entourages. They also challenge her, daring us to fail so that she loses face in whatever politics the Division of War plays against and alongside the Blades, who have divisions of their own."
"I would actually go a step further," Taran says, his voice cold and rasping in spite of the liveliness of his gaze. "They also have a chance to see how the battlefield does without you there. Easier to analyze morale and the defensive lines when you three aren't around holding shit together. If they manage to properly test some up and coming stars, great, but if you die, then the resources they would have spent on you go somewhere more efficient, and you stop making trouble."
"Making- I- junior, this Gou Mai has made nothing but excellent strides in his cultivation and fresh bodies to add to the tally, not trouble! Surely the cultivator didn't mean to imply such insult."
The smile widens, reminding Shin Ren abruptly of a very different smile from a very different member of the Bull's (now former) retinue of experiments. "No implication, senior, for this junior only says what he means. As someone equally troublesome, despite having performed no ill-willed actions (recently), I know what it looks like. If you succeed, they can pat themselves on the back- if you fail, they don't have to bother with you. No figuring out where you fit, or how to control you, or having to worry about how you'll influence one of the single most important people in the Empire- they can just write you off. The trouble isn't that you're malicious, sky-stepper– it's that you're new. You're different. That's plenty of trouble all on its own."
"Enough," Shin Ren says. Taran's gaze darts to him, and it looks like he might say something for a moment… but instead he quiets, shrugging and bowing again. There's something a little manic about the movements, like in spite of how jerky they are, there's more motion there than there should be, more than would be efficient or fluid. Shin Ren wonders what being in a dead place like this must be doing to whatever cultivation has given the gun-wielder the corpse-like complexion they wear.
"There is politics and there is reality. We don't have their pieces to play, so we play with the ones we have. We reach this dead-zone of replication and by surpassing what is expected of us, we can both gain something for ourselves and gain new tools we can use. Our success gets us in deeper with Captain Orix, strengthens the position of the Head Researcher and Yula both, and takes something off the battlefield that's costing lives. Thus, we focus, and deal with all the… bullshit of Imperial politics later."
Gou Mai gasps. "Senior brother! What foul language! I never would have thought-"
Shin Ren kicks a bit of sand at the larger man's shins, prompting him to hop backwards before it tries to eat through his wards. "I curse plenty, I'm just not as drunk or foul-mouthed as the people you hang out with normally. Not all of us can be brothers to the soldiers- some of us have to be their heroes."
Mei Yu is actually the first one to snort at that, prompting a grin from Shin Ren. "What? Frankly, I'm quite the hero indeed. I'm sure they have posters of me by now. Truly I stand at the apex of popularity as an icon, rather than something so bland and boring as a real person."
Gou Mai laughs at that, sharp and loud, which gets him a smack upside the head from Mei Yu. "Quiet! You don't know what could be listening! We're supposed to be sneaking."
"And yet my senior brother has discovered his sense of wit! Long thought lost to his dour meditations! What else is a brother in arms to do if not celebrate it to the heavens!"
Shin Ren joins them in laughing, shaking his head. A bit of air escapes him, a little lighter than it was before. The tar, still present, bubbles a little quieter. It is easy to forget exactly how much one misses something when it's been gone so long. It's been months of fighting alongside strangers, dashing all over the Breach day and night.
In spite of their surroundings, it's… nice.
"If you're all quite done?" Taran asks, an eyebrow raised a bit too high as he stands atop a nearby dune. "You might want to see this."
Their movement techniques carry them up to the peak of the same hill, looking over the horizon. The sands stretch on for days, ash-grey and even duller under the perpetual clouds of gunpowder and techniques roving overhead. Flashes of powers and esoteric attacks color the terrain in bright bursts, like lightning strikes of all colors reflecting off of the clouds above. Everywhere one looks, there is nothing but endless grey of ground bone and ruinous ash, save for where bits of old corpses and ruins poke out, half-remembered and all-consumed.
It is a vision of hell, straight out of one's nightmares. Millenia of war, of billions of lives dashed eternal against the Wall.
And if it is a hell, then the vision before them holds a point where a Daemon might rule.
For a stretch, several miles across, wide enough that even a cultivator's senses have to strain to see the edges, there is pitch. There is black. There is death.
It's like an art project of black spikes. Like the shrapnel of a hundred caltrops, sized for giants, has been cast across the landscape, rivers of tarry oil binding them to the sands as this forested landscape of black coral grows. It shines metallic under the gleaming storm of war, and in the glinting of its structures, Shin Ren can see other metals growing between the Black of the shrapnel-landscape. Brass, copper, iron and steel all grow, shaped as if by natural growth and artifice alike, birthing bullets and blades of all kinds in groves all across the lands. In some places there is fire, eternal cordite-smoke billowing up into the air from flames that glow iridescent and True as much as they do conventional colors, and here and there, there are glimpses of movement, insectile and mechanical in turn.
Even as they watch, a bit of the tar-liquid of the valley oozes out, covering a fresh patch of sands like a slow molasses roll. Things stir beneath the bone-ash, rising up and sipping with empty sockets and broken bodies at the ooze, and hints of further shrapnel-coral can be seen beginning to peek up from the mess.
The tinny voice of the researcher buzzes forth from their armor.
"I do believe. We've found our. Destination."