Chapter 10-323: Outsider (1/2)

It wasn’t like the Outsider was subtle. He was pulling in negative energy and all the Death Qi he could to himself, creating a black whirlpool in the sky which turned and began to reach right in our direction in a howling vortex, a congratulatory gift for ridding him of the annoyances of the native undead here.

There were only two light-offs from the undead going up in sacrifice to Aru, but that was still enough for a handful of elite warriors to get laenwork Weapons from them.

One of them was The Mick. He took the ex-Cardinal’s head and blew ruby bloodfire through its deathflaming carcass, which exploded into vivus as the last of its Shroudlink went off. The sheer amount of power rose towards the thick and churning Shroud overhead, pushing it back with the death of the other ex-Bishop a couple hundred meters.

Smior looked like a perfect arc of frozen blood around milk now. Very impressive. The Mick would be able to take it all the way to Zehn Slots...

They all looked at the horizontal tornado coming at us, and then sort of glanced my way.

I stuffed a Spellflare down its throat.

The coruscating comet of jet and silver trailing polyspectral arcs went spiraling down the middle of the incoming vortex, and detonated in a multi-hued explosion, much like a high-grade firework with electrical effects.

Those arcs of wild magic went into the whirling, howling mass of shadows and darkness coming our way.

In slow motion, the tornado pulsed once... and that pulse headed back the way the vortex had come, faster than it had arrived.

Perhaps the Outsider knew it was coming, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Their magnificent spell headed right back into them, and on the second pulse, the structure of the spell Flared with magic, and fed back into the Caster.

The BOOM of it going off was like a signal for us, while the earth and sky lit up with a reality-twisting display of magic fed by vivus into a children’s paradise of bubbles and butterflies and fluttery birds and flowers and clouds in all sorts of gentle pastel hues, and some very strange rainbows going every which way, before it all fell down to the ground in many-colored vivus to be Fed to the Land, and incidentally totally cleanse the landscape between us and them.

I really hoped they tried that again. I was sure they had monstrous amounts of Health Qi as a Shroudlord from Outside, some realm where powerful Daoists got to go, but that didn’t mean it enjoyed eating its own backlash.

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Alas, but no. We proceeded the rest of the distance quite smoothly, as buildings that had been infused with necroic energy crumbled to white dust along our path, erasing the heritage of centuries. That spot of black light grew ever larger, the thousands of undead Cultivators in the air waited patiently for us, and we stepped into Tiananmen Square.

The Old Steed stepped out ahead, his horns up and burning, one blue, one crimson, tinged in white, totally ready to do something messy to these guys.

“<Well,>” I called out conversationally in the old Daoist language, “<You certainly got what you had coming to you, didn’t you?>”

The undead didn’t flutter, but there was a flaring of more darkness from inside that dark star, and the owner stepped forth.

Ho, my mistake. The Outsider was female.

She was probably beautiful, except her skin was more like chalk than cream, much gaunter than was optimal, her hair looked like she’d slept in a coffin too much (I was looking for spiders in it), and those nails! Nobody needs nails eight inches long unless all you do is claw stuff all day.

Not even Sama did that! (Sama snickered.)

“<You have some petty tricks, little creature,>” she sneered at me. “<We shall see how you perform as another of my slaves, I think!>” she laughed, exuding boundless confidence, while I wondered how to tell her that the cut of her robe really did leave something to be desired, as my sisters and mother and cousins were all on top of it instantly.

“<And your hair looks like a ghoul cut it,>” I sniffed back, and she actually blinked in shock. She was threatening my soul with eternal slavery, and I was mocking her hair? “<And your skin! What do you take care of it with, bone dust? You’ve got the muscle tone of a bedridden leper, and your teeth!>” She had painted them black. “<You actually talk out of that mouth? How do the words even stand being spoken by your tongue? I’m just waiting for the words to start spewing->”

“<BITCH!>” she roared, and raised her hands, and the Death Qi gathered to her...

And then a couple thousand Forsaken put their feet down, and charged.