Chapter 9-258: The Storm Comes to Shanghai, Part II (1/2)

Call Lightning is the best single targetable damage over time spell there is, unless you count someone sitting in a Wall of Fire or something. Perhaps I should instead say multi-shot Area of Effect direct damage spell.

It has a massive range of Long, which I promptly doubled. Its damage is an extremely nice d8/Caster Level, capping at base 20d8. You get a number of bolts equal to your Caster Level, falling once every ten minutes.

The Casting Time is a full minute, but Rapid Ritual got that down to six seconds. Ten minutes between shots sounds like a lot, sure... but what about if you kept Casting them?

And Casting, and Casting...

Ten such spells means a big crashing bolt of doom coming down once per minute. A hundred of them means one every six seconds, flattening everything within 30’ of the impact point...

Just one more Valence IV to refill courtesy of dead Daoist ki, fit in when I had a chance. It made it really easy to tell where we were, if the flying woman spitting out a kaleidoscope of colors in all directions wasn’t enough of a sign.

In the Kill Them All parlance of experienced grinders, we called this Building Momentum.

Still, even the Buffed-up lads and ladies didn’t let themselves wander out of my support range. All of them had received cumulative injuries that would have killed them twice over within the first half hour, had happy new battlescars to tote around, and really, really wanted to live through all of this while getting into some extremely violent and lethal fights with these alien bastards.

The city was burning, but now it was also raining cold shit, and cracks of lightning and thunder were coming down as regular as drumbeats. Totem Beasts of chi and Qi were crashing into one another, flying Daoists were falling out of the sky when Sama or Briggs got close to them, and we were a moving circle of death.

The Warlocks were doing a lot of clean-up work on junior Daoists and those who had just started Dantians, coldly merciless and unfortunately necessary work. Most of those had changed loyalty from their own species and energetically joined the attack against us. Many were mobbed and killed, sometimes by their own families.

There were a lot of Daoists, and all types and manners of attacks, and if you were into the aesthetics of profound combat, there were so many Forms, Techniques, Styles, and Disciplines being unleashed here, it would have been a feast for any martial enthusiast. Certainly the DW’s and DHA’s on our side were getting the fighting experience of their lives seeing all this shit and having to constantly change their own attack styles to deal with different foes.

Happily, the rain coming down really annoyed the Daoists despite themselves, reducing the usefulness of things like bugs, poison, eye Techniques, and advanced movement Techniques, while not hampering our side at all. Yes, the water and ice Cultivators loved it, but they still had to deal with the lack of visibility... and such people were my ideal Cultivators for Death from Far, Far Above.

Windwise/Shvaughn was, as normal, a literally unholy terror. She was Dim-Dooring around like a ghost, coming out of the wind like a Wraith for +13d6 of stacked damage on that Sword of hers, all nice and helped out by a Cultivator Baneskull. Her howling pack of Amazons was also introducing many Cultivators to the wonders of the physical perfection they were so insistent on chasing and how the gods perceived such things, and the wonders of Amazons fighting in Cadence who knew what they were doing and finally had the power to do so.

Another Ray attack slid past me from the distance as yet another Cultivator tried to snipe me. I gave him ten Shards back, and the Chains blew through everything behind him wildly, if the other thirteen didn’t do the same to those close by.

There was a Sect headquarters a bunch of Daoists in orange and white were retreating to, protected by a Formation that ostensibly would ward us outside until we pounded it down.

The Spellflare at Forty blew it and its Nodes apart rather violently, sending the Daoist Sect members powering it flying in all directions screaming. Shards hunted for the weakest, while a force of ten Dragon Warriors raged into them in corkscrews of fire, stone-shattering charges, and a literal charging wall of spears.

Daoists screamed and died; survivors screamed louder and evoked some great fiery tiger Totem of their Qi Style just before the Bear, Elephant, and Rhino stylists led by Master Go Man crashed into and began to harvest them, whereupon they started screaming yet again.

There was a mob of people over there, clawing at some Cultivators trying to rip them off and get away. I sent a Ray of Greater Magical Fang through them, and suddenly all their attacks were at +V. Shining fists and feet crashed down onto the Daoists, and with an exultant roar, the crowd took them down.

The only ones who could keep up with Sama and Briggs afoot were basically Wind stylists. They got to witness Cleave Trains being used by two masters of the Technique who had the fixed damage, AoO uses, and Masteries to turn a charge and a kill into a bloody rampage of mangled bodies getting shredded in explosive gore.

Seriously, it was like watching serpentine explosions winding through the press of the hapless Daoists and their profound fireworks, snuffing the Qi Techniques in passing, and then bodies coming apart with extreme violence to the Singing Weapons that were utterly terrorizing the pale bastards.

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“There is a time to endure, it has passed.

Rise, rise, and let them tremble, tremble, tremble...

You’ve felt their fear, ate their scorn,

For that moment of light, for victory’s horn.

Unfair Heavens? Challenge the gods? Defy Fate?

Hollow lies, empty scorn, proud contempt, bitter hate!

Let their words live! Rise, rise, rise!

Wrath lifting to the heart of the skies!

Bring it down!