Chapter 475: Twisting the Old Gambit

As far as Gorndron was concerned, training on Deadwaste was an endless series of brutal cliffs. Average folks with no real talent or opportunity might become warriors and end up with 50 Power or so. Then there was an awkward gulf for those with greater ability who couldn't make it to the Frontier.

Those went in all kinds of directions. Some got into three digits and were prominent members of an individual city somewhere. Others who rejected working with a major organization would top out at 100-200 Power or so, either becoming "elites" somewhere or going to another continent to die. Those who actually had what it took joined the Frontier guard, rocketing up to 300 or more, then found out how far their power could take them.

Gorndron himself had thought he was unstoppable, back in the Earth Union, but he had eventually come to realize how far his parents and upbringing had carried him. When it came to phase training, where there were no shortcuts and no excuses, he had faltered.

So he ended up in a strange middle ground... he would never be a true elite, but his 400 Power and knowledge of the incursions separated him from all the normal people. Sometimes he thought that he should have stopped earlier when he was actually impressed with himself.

Instead he found himself leading a mercantile shipment into the Southern Reaches, actually riding on a wagon as if he was a merchant. That boy had more backing than he had expected, so somehow the elites had agreed to support his plan. And since everyone was stretched so thin preparing for the incursion, the work fell to Gorndron.

Just a simple wagon train, but they'd brought two dozen guards... in the 100ish range, of course, so only formidable to those who didn't know what real power was. He was actually the strongest guard, and arguably his presence was necessary: they were moving an immensely valuable shipment of foreign qi to the Southern Reaches, ostensibly to support their allies there in return for assistance in the incursion.

How did this Kai Clanless have so much support? Krainuun, the new administrator of Krysal, been positive and wanted to meet him. And then Gunjin Granfian, who was Gorndron's rival within the ranks of partial failures, had been very strange about him. He'd voted in favor of the idea but seemed to be keeping his distance for some unspoken reason. If he didn't know better, Gorndron would have said that it was an avoidance mechanism. Hmm, they were both Goralian...

He was starting to think it was all a waste of time, or a bizarre joke, when the attack finally came.

The foreigner was wearing a local tunic and hiding his power, but with the spiritual sight taught at the Frontier, Gorndron spotted him instantly. This was an Earth Soul stage cultivator, so the guards had no chance. Gorndron leapt off the front wagon to intercept and they clashed in midair, both rocking back.

As they fought, qi techniques against earth barriers, Gorndron realized that this cultivator had also reached a sort of cliff. He had some potential, but he had stumbled several hurdles in and would never reach beyond that. Yet he didn't seem to have come to the same grim realization, instead fighting with utter confidence.

Perhaps some of that confidence was the fact that there were more: Gorndron heard the cries of pain and caught a glimpse of at least two other cultivators attacking the caravan. So the first was a distraction and the others would make off with everything in case they couldn't win. Guards would start dying at any moment, so he needed to act quickly.

Phase training had defeated him in the end, but Gorndron could reach a half-phase or two on a good day. He took a deep breath, tried to summon the deepest strength of the Earth Union, and launched a single spire of stone from the ground.

The first attempt failed and the cultivator knocked it aside, snorting scornfully. But the second attempt attained a half-phase and the spire of stone wasn't so easily destroyed.

It pierced through the opponent's qi technique and then his stomach. Not a killing blow, at least not immediately, but it utterly destroyed all of the man's attempts at techniques and changed the battle. The cultivators who had been trying to steal the qi shipment paused, realizing that their ally was in danger.

Gorndron turned and saw that there were not two others, but three. He couldn't possibly fight four Earth Souls... but he had to try. Remarkably, they seemed to be considering abandoning their ally and just running off with the shipment, which he couldn't allow.

"Come on!" Gorndron summoned three more earthen spikes, just underneath each cultivator. They didn't reach half-phases, and in fact weren't even very good attacks, but his opponents still treated them cautiously.

And moved to attack him.

As they hurled out qi techniques, Gorndron did his best to evade and took his shot at a defensive half-phase. But the qi still burned him, and even in the moments when he attained a half-phase, he couldn't ignore the attacks entirely.

What struck him, more than the danger, was that the others had always been right. The worst monsters during an incursion could do the same, tearing through defenses and eventually shredding the body. He had hit a wall he could never climb, against both monsters and these foreign opponents. Unless the plan worked - and there was no sign so far - he was going to die.

Then one of the boxes on the caravan exploded. It had contained only one item: a teleportation anchor. When Kai Clanless appeared beside it, his body destroyed the box and sent the fragments in all directions. His hair whipped madly in the wind and when he began to smile, his teeth didn't look quite human.

The cultivators, who had been so confident up to that point, let out cries of panic. Gorndron was getting light-headed, but he tried to raise the earth under their feet, binding them in place. They broke free easily, but the moment it took them to do that was a moment too long.

Kai was on them in that instant, hand going through the first cultivator's chest. It wasn't a true phase, but he used the half-phase like it was second nature, tearing through even the qi-reinforced flesh. Gorndron had planned to help and found he could only watch.

One cultivator attacked directly while two others retreated to prepare more powerful techniques. The one who got in range of Kai died almost instantly, and even while he was striking, a spike of mana shot from his shoulder and pierced another through the forehead. In an instant there was only one cultivator left.

Even though she was outmatched, the woman wasn't so slow compared to Kai that she had no time to act. She had gathered up all her qi into a single technique, and now she seemed to burn her soul itself, draining an essential part of her strength to create one incredibly lethal attack. A massive blue dragon formed around her, with incredible detail and intensity in its eyes. When it flew, it would sweep through both of them and destroy the caravan as well.

Kai simply exhaled, and he breathed out death.

The cloud moved unnaturally, the roiling movements and flashing interior looking like they came from a vast thunderstorm, vaster than the cloud could possibly be. It swept over the dragon and the cultivator, and when the darkness finally faded, nothing remained of either.

When it was over, the guards celebrated. Gorndron should have joined them, but instead he found himself staring at Kai.

It seemed there were people who had climbed past cliffs he hadn't even known, toward some peak he couldn't imagine.

"Good work," Gorndron had to say. "I shouldn't have been skeptical."

"It was a risk," Kai said politely, as if he hadn't just won a great victory. "Sorry you had to babysit the caravan for so many days."

"Why were you so confident that they'd attack? They had to be suspicious of traps."

"So far I'd been trying to stop them from killing the weak, and they were getting wise to that. But they aren't just bloodthirsty... you shouldn't underestimate how greedy they can be. Most resources on Deadwaste are worthless to them, but the idea of qi that could help them break through to another stage was enough to lure them out. All of them, apparently."

Gorndron frowned at the bodies. "Not all of them, right? Isn't the strongest one still out there?"

"Yes, but his behavior has been different because he's guarding the son of one of their patriarchs. If it's down to just them, I can finally justify working on some other things." Kai turned to him with a smile. "I trust you made contact with other groups, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. You'll still have to negotiate if you want anything important, though."

"Just to check, you weren't withholding earlier, were you? There's really no way to teleport to Cloudspire?"

"I told you the truth earlier. Not within our power."

"That's fine." Kai looked over the shipment and grinned, and Gorndron tried not to look at his teeth. "I'll just have to make my own way, then."