Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS

Karie barely needed to breathe in the slightest amount of Sulno’s manifested incense before she felt a shift in her body. She felt stronger, her body motion was smoother, and she was filled with a seemingly boundless well of energy. Of course, she knew better than to take this for granted. This was the effect of a medicine, and it would fade with time. If she were to stretch her body too far, she would find herself injured just as easily as she normally could be. It was as if the product of this thin purple smoke was as illusory as the products of extant miasma.

“Thank you,” she told him.

Sulno gave a subtle nod, a soft smile on his face as if to imply he appreciated her acknowledgement. The move caused her impression of the man to drop even lower. He was a snake, and one who only sought out his own self interest. He had even tried to set Karie up with his wastrel of a son when she was younger. Luckily, Karie’s mother had given her the opportunity to refuse.

The energy filling her veins amped Karie up, causing her to feel ready for battle once more, even more so than usual. She glanced down at her swords, both of which had been turned to scrap by the ferocity of their collisions, and frowned. They had been very finely crafted and expensive.

This was one of the problems that occurred when a Hadal Clan spirit refiner fought against an enforcer- because their Momentum Devouring Mist involved miasma flowing outside of their body, when their weapons collided against the enforcer’s plating, the sword would be in simultaneous contact with both flickering and genesis miasma. They simply did not have the metallurgic capability to refine materials which could handle such strain for long. While some miasmas could contact others without issue, flickering miasma inevitably began causing extremely unpredictable effects when such contact occurred.

Luckily, Karie was not so foolish as to have been unaware of this matter. She had long prepared in advance. Discarding her ruined weapons, Karie simply pulled her extra pair from a second set of hidden sheathes under her robes, placing them in the easier to access main sheathes falling from her robe’s belt. She patted her body with both hands, checking to make sure she had not major injuries, and relaxed her body for a few moments to check the state of her meridians. They were slightly strained, but Karie was more than resilient enough to manage, especially with the energizing effects of Sulno’s medicine upon her body.

The gunfire from the Celans had yet to die down, but Karie paid no heed. Unless they approached closer, these Staiven-constructed walls could hold for a while longer.

“Alright, I’m ready again. This time,” she finally said, making sure to catch Pakas’s attention by locking eyes with the man, “I want a group to follow after me and reduce the pressure so I can take another enforcer down.”

She glanced at Sulno, and frowned.

“You come as well, and keep the incense flowing. Stay in the center of our formation.”

Karie saw Sulno’s eyebrow twitch, and couldn’t help but smirk.

“Don’t you want to earn yourself some wartime merit, Chief Apothecary?”

He gave her a strained smile.

“Wouldn’t I be better put to use back here, First Commander?”

She laughed at his words, a dark look in her eyes.

“Aren’t you a spirit refiner?” she asked. “I trust in your ability to handle yourself.”

He sighed, and simply nodded in resignation. Karie imagined that he had not expected to become so immediately involved in battle at his own level after arriving. Moreover, she suspected he had not wished to even be here in the first place.

She turned back to Pakas, a thought crossing her mind.

“Also, get me another pair of swords, just in case.”

Pakas bowed his head.

“Of course, First Commander.”

The power held by a medicine path practitioner was obviously something that could be replicated using science. Just like poisoners, they enhanced their abilities by absorbing more effective medicines. For this reason, their battle prowess did not greatly enhance at higher stages like most martial artist’s did. Instead, what improved was their production capability. As the Chief Apothecary of the clan, Sulno mass produced medicines for the clan’s usage as well as for sales to exterior forces. He had been well trained for battle, but despite his realm, in direct combat he was only as dangerous as a powerful martial artist at the peak of core formation.

The true reason he had been sent here was because of the impact his presence could have on other martial artists. For a few minutes, he could greatly increase the power of any martial artist of the spirit refiner level or below, using the power of his medicines. The medicine was most effective direct from the source.

Their force charged, with Karie in the lead, her mist shielding the martial artists from most of the bullets which tore at them. They tore across the bridge, and Karie flung herself through the air, only to be slammed backwards by the force of one of the enforcer’s swords. Keeping her balance, she skidded her way back on the stone of the bridge, her face filled with a widened grin. The other martial artists began to activate their own abilities.

Muscles grew, illusions formed, and the sickly sweet scent of incense floated in the air as the chaotic mass of martial artists from various skill levels attacked the enforcers. With the enforcers’ attention inevitably split, Karie was able to avoid the suppression of the others and focus on only one of the machines, able to meet it on equal terms.

The two exchanged several volleys of blows, Karie able to duck and parry her way around the slowed blades, only taking minor grazes at most from the projectiles, while she made several contacts with its armor but was unable to find a weak point she could break through.

Another of the enforcer’s blades tore its way through a flickering practitioner who had attempted to charge in, and Karie took advantage of the moment to step inside its guard and dig her sword into one of the gaps in the metal plating. She could see the hazy appearance of the sword as it warped in the intersection between the green and orange smoke, and wrenched it out to see her sword having become a slightly lighter color. Uncaring, she used it to parry a swing from one of the enforcer’s blades to try and force her back. The blade cracked slightly, but her other sword was able to dig into the same hold, causing more damage to the enforcer’s internals.

The enforcer took a sudden step forward, and this time Karie couldn’t help but retreat, escaping from the dangerous position. As she took that step backwards, a part of her mind was able to focus on the status of the fight around her, seeing that at least five of her men had already died, though another of the enforcers had already been damaged.

This was the nature of fights against the Celans. Only a spirit refiner could fight an enforcer on equal terms. For others to fight the machines, what was needed was luck or the trading of lives to take it down. This was a trade that Karie was obliged by her position to make.

A sudden series of rumbling noises resounded behind their lines, surprising Karie, and against her better judgement, she glanced back, only to swear profusely when she recognized what she was seeing. Three more enforcers were climbing out of a hole that had collapsed from the roof of the stack.

She looked all around, unable to help but worry that she might see similar events occurring on every stack around them. Just how many hidden enforcers had they set up? If they could do it here without anyone noticing, could they do it deeper into Hadal territory?

The enforcers behind them began firing, and Karie soon found herself and her soldiers sandwiched between the two lines of fire. Because the Celan infantry had stayed behind, they were safe from the gunfire shot by the enforcers on the other side.

Karie swore, knowing she only had mere moments to make a decision. Two of the enforcers here had been heavily damaged, but there was nothing she could do.

Without hesitating, Karie slid her swords back into the sheaths on her waist and leapt over the bridge’s railing.

“Enforcers behind! Follow me!” she shouted as she tumbled almost thirty feet down to the bridge one level below. During her fall, one portion of her mind controlled her hands to sheathe both of her blades, while another calculated the proper moment to reach out and firmly grip the railing of the bridge and haul herself back up.

This bridge was seemingly empty, all civilians having fled the area long ago. However, Karie knew that it would not take long for the Heirs’ forces to catch up. She stretched her arms out and gripped onto a pair of falling soldiers, easing them in clambering back up. She knew that many of her soldiers would die under fire due to the trap, while some others would tumble to their deaths, failing to grab onto the bridge. However, she was also aware that the alternative was much worse.

She growled in annoyance at the situation. Her spirits had taken a great dive, from triumph to abject failure, but she did not beat herself up about the matter. Rather than her tactical abilities failing, the problem was her lack of information. So long as she could escape with her remaining troops, Karie would be able to continue forward, and seek out new opportunities.

Had she been weaker, or had her lineage been any different, Karie knew that this would have been the end of her career. But she was not one to avoid using the advantages she had been granted out of some misguided sense of fairness. In her opinion, to do so would be to demean those who had not been granted such fortune.

Branch Families in the Hadal Clan: [Treated of secondary importance, while the branch families of the Hadal Clan are considered full clan members and are able to learn the family’s techniques, they are not directly given access to the clan’s vast economic resources. They are forced to vie for benefits with one another, competing over the rights to manage the various businesses and territories of the clan on the main family’s behalf. The most effective way to do so is to build connections with the prospective heirs for the position of clan leader, as well as with the clan’s Elders. While anyone can become an Elder if they surpass the bottleneck and become a spirit refiner, such a matter is easier said than done.]