Way To The East, Dragon Heart Series Book 17

“W hat are we going to do?” Itia covered her face with her hands. A storm of wind and energy ravaged the buildings, crushing the masonry and tearing off the roofs. Glass shattered, becoming little more than dust, and like a sparkling shroud, covered the ground. The Lord level cultivators were simply being obliterated. Neither their defensive artifacts nor armor could save them. The incredible power of the storm and lightning raining down from the blackened sky like the sharpened scythe of death itself tore through the ranks of those who had come here looking for easy money and resources. The Nameless level cultivators, by using all their defensive Techniques, could barely endure the pressure. All of them were amazed that this insane power wasn’t coming from Essenin, the peak-stage Heaven Empress, but from a simple mid-stage Nameless. Admittedly, he was the famous Mad General, the Wind of the Northern Valleys himself, but it was one thing to merely listen to songs about his exploits, and quite another to actually witness what he could truly do firsthand. “Hadjar is buying us time,” Abraham pulled his bandana down across the back of his head and drew his blades. “Gustaf, cover him. The rest of you, head to the gates. I don’t think he can keep this up for longer than a minute. In that time, we have to open the gates for the Star Rain clan to get in.” Abraham stepped off the ledge, but instead of falling to the ground, he disappeared. “Death is near!” Guy exclaimed with delight. He jumped down and struck a crushing blow with his axe, aiming right for the street. In response, the ground reared up like a turbulent sea and rolled out in lethal waves, heading in every possible direction. The horrific shockwave destroyed houses and threw the battered and wounded cultivators into the air. “Death is near!” The half-faced man growled and, spinning his axe over his head, rushed into a group of Underground Whisper warriors, among whom two numbered warriors with stripes on their armor could be seen. “Sick bastards,” Itia hissed and, unwinding her whip and drawing a dagger, also stepped off the roof. “Cover him, boy!” The bowstring creaked as Gustaf took aim. “Wouldn’t kill you to say please…” He murmured absently. Hadjar felt a kind of energy surging inside of him that he had never felt before. If there was almost no increase in the volume of energy one could wield between the stages of the Heaven Emperor level, then within the Nameless one, on the contrary, they were all quite different. His Core had increased in size by almost threefold and become far stronger, and its walls were now bound by a thin, but unusually strong membrane of ice. This membrane simultaneously compacted his Core, allowing it to compress energy more efficiently, and cooled it as well, making its flow calmer and more malleable. He could sense that he had become at least four times stronger compared to the previous stage. Considering all the training he’d done with the ‘Wind Warrior’ Technique and his new power-up, he could now use it for almost twenty full seconds, which would surely be enough to delay Essenin for at least a minute. He hoped that the time he was buying them would be enough for the others to open the gates. “Who are you?” Essenin asked. Her crossed sabers trembled beneath the weight of the Blue Blade, next to which a sword woven from the streams of raging wind hung in the air, still barely discernible, but much more clear and substantial than it had been in his battle against the Dragon Emperor. He still couldn’t control his power completely: a third of it surged out into the outside world, turning into a storm and dark clouds. If he’d had more time to train, he might’ve even wounded Essenin with his first attack as she hadn’t been expecting something like it. “I am the Mad General,” Hadjar introduced himself. “Humph,” the Head of the Underground Whisper clan snorted. “You live up to your name, boy.” She strained her arms a little, and then forcefully spread them apart. The blow made Hadjar, around whom the wing of the black dragon had wrapped itself like a cocoon, move several feet back. Suddenly, he felt empty air under his heels. Essenin, with a simple movement, not even a Technique, had almost thrown him off the improvised stage. “You’re strong,” she raised the short saber in her left hand and pointed it at his chest, “But your power is too straightforward and limited. Here in the Strange Lands, it isn’t even worth mentioning.” Hadjar didn’t understand what exactly she’d just done, just as he couldn’t understand the capabilities of Lathea or Light Feather. Then an invisible wave of power, which formed the silhouette of a blade, struck his defenses. Despite the distance between them, the attack felt as if all the might of this Heaven Emperor had fallen on him like a meteor, delivering a perfect, direct blow. The dragon’s wing arched inward and touched his chest. His defenses, which consisted of a mixture of his energy and the Sword’s mysteries, couldn’t withstand the onslaught. If not for his armor, which had taken the brunt of the damage, he would’ve already been greeting his forefathers. Gritting his teeth, he touched a deep cut that ran from his left shoulder to his right thigh. The blood stopped and a new, terrible scar now marred his body. But it was all just flesh in the end… The invisible power reached out toward his energy body and, although it didn’t injure him, it was able to disrupt his energy flow for a short time, completely depriving Hadjar of any protection. “Farewell.” Essenin, apparently counting on this, swung the long and heavy saber in her right hand. Runes shone along her blade and a Technique that created ten crystal blades in the air was further enhanced by the power of the Star level artifact. The blades doubled in number and acquired a predatory, menacing glint. All twenty blades, each of which carried the power of an all-out attack from a Heaven Emperor, surged toward Hadjar. The most terrifying aspect of it was that it looked like an attack made by a simple practitioner. Not a single trace of an echo leaked out into the surrounding area. Essenin was in complete control of her power, directing it wherever she needed it to be. Such skill elicited not respect, but outright horror at the realization of just how much he had been mistaken when it came to the dangers of the Strange Lands. He shouldn’t have dismissed the rumors about what kind of monsters lived here. They walked on two legs and looked like humans, but fought at a level completely inaccessible to the other mortal regions. And it wasn’t just their mysterious usage of will, either, but their skill in general that was awe-inspiring as well.