Chapter 9-278: Just Winging it a Bit (2/2)
They couldn’t run, they couldn’t hide. All I had to do was keep finding some so I could recharge, and we could just go and go and go.
Of course, Teleporting chopped up my Lived-line something fierce, and we always had to return to the main line to continue it. But, yeah, see Formation, ‘port to Formation, kill Formation. If it had defenders, it was for free.
It was why when the Buddhists were running away from the cities, they hadn’t escaped me. I’d Teleport within Shard range and simply wipe them without mercy.
-Stop making me envious.- Her teams were already splitting up to find the Cultivator prey waiting for them, while a few were exsanguinating the dead with great enthusiasm. The Blooded and Gluttons along were particularly adept at the task, and their Alchemists were moving with great speed and efficiency to harvest the valuable red-black-gold stuff.
How they worked out payment was on them. Sure, the mercs wouldn’t be moving too fast, but I knew The Mick could bleed a whole stack of corpses at once if he was of a mind to. It was among the spells I gave him.
He and the Marked were also noting to the Chinese that the faster the dead got bled, the faster the mercs got back to hunting for more of them. The Mick had already taken out ammo for the shooters among the Chinese, and certainly wasn’t above trading more supplies for some quick hauling of dead corpses together to get drained, and the Chinese weren’t too proud to treat Cultivator corpses that way, either.
I did Teleport ten miles to a location with over a hundred Cultivators lying in ambush, appearing right in the middle of them, to their astonishment.
Six seconds later, the screaming stopped, and they were all dead.
I bled them all dry, swirling the blood up into a large urn for The Mick to come and collect, noting the location on The Map, and stacked up the quasi-magical Gear for them to claim and Burn away to make something productive with.
I didn’t have a Lived-line to this place, but one of my tracks was within easy hop range. I informed them that I was available for emergencies, but the best thing they could do is handle things themselves, and get stronger by doing so. If they saw a huge force of the enemy, well, I was two spells away. That was a mere twelve seconds if someone could get an Energized Focus up.
The Mick pulled out one he’d had pre-made... no, he pulled out twenty of them. I smirked as he distributed them among the hunting teams, and they moved out for their targets, lamenting that I was leaving and couldn’t continue spotting for all of them.
Then they heard what I was doing and shut the Hell up, even as they considered the sheer amount of blood going to waste when I slaughtered everything. I didn’t have time to harvest it.
That was totally intentional. The blood they were harvesting wasn’t going back to the Land, and I definitely wanted that to happen. Saving a few thousand gallons for some decadent Blooded or their undead elders to feed on was somewhere below the soles of my feet on the priority scale.
But night was coming. The Tomb Clans did very well at night...
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The next four days were filled with levels of massacre I hadn’t ever wanted to have to inflict on anything living... but Cultivators were an exception. Even after personally slaughtering over three million of them by now, I felt no sympathy or mercy for them whatsoever.
Back on Terra-Luna, a Harsite Priest Communed every single damn day, asking questions of the Ivory King. One of those questions was always “Are there Cultivators alive on our world?”
If the answer was yes, Tens were mobilized to deal with them instantly. There was no hesitation whatsoever.
They’d shown us what they were; we’d learned where they came from and what they intended. We simply could not exist in the same world as them, an absolute clash over territory that could not be resolved amicably.
That Powered were walking Cultivation resources to them, and they were excellent Karma for us, didn’t make matters better at all.
As I returned to the location I’d left Master Fred at, dusk fluttered by on an evening wind and a whispered Salute; my magical day reset, and quiet pings announced themselves.
Pact Theurge/5 had completed itself three nights ago. Monk/5 had ticked over two nights ago. Melee/5 had happened last night. Tonight, Vizard/5 ticked into place.
Five confident dings announced that the Shroud was pretty happy about what it was giving me. I looked them over.
Mind Over Matter: A Wizard Discovery as a Feat. Get Intellect bonus instead of strength on Combat Maneuvers and Defense, and Breaking or Lifting chances. Combined with Imbue Staff, basically replaced Strength with a telekinetic equivalent.
So, my 29 Strength was basically for show now, which was amusing. Oh, right, carrying stuff... if I didn’t just dump it on a Disk.
Magic Strike: As a Swift action, imbue my Weapon for +1 damage, +1/5 Caster Levels, for six seconds. Well, if I never needed to use the Swift action, which I most certainly would if at all possible, I suppose it wasn’t bad... and me just wanting to jump into Melee combat, mm mmm...
Eldritch Tapestry/1 & 2. Okay, War Weaving was somewhat okay... but, sheesh, I had Chain/Mass Spell now, and Reach Spell and everything... The key thing was being able to store the spells and just kind of drop them all at once, which, if I wanted to Buff up myself and a bunch of allies with some killer spells all at once, I had to admit was pretty nice.
I suppose that meant I should be fighting with allies I could Buff up more often? Ah, it was for those Emergency Situations and Boss Fights I might find myself in...
And lastly, Way Mastery/3, adding the Moon Dragon to Sun and Shadow, allowing me to use all their techniques concurrently if need be. Oh, with +1 ki.
I had four more Classes to take, all non-Casting, before my Mandatory Mastery Choices Run would probably hit, so they were probably going to be focused on ki-based techniques to get my Pool up, like Melee and Monk had been. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. I appreciated a big Pool, as it gave me lots of spellcasting flexibility with a quick recharge.