The peninsula was going to be an island when they were done. Martin wasn't even a little sorry. He would fix it later. The important thing was that they were winning. Whoever the strangers were would be getting a talking to later, but for now, they had turned the tide. Rao and Name were working with the others to subdue, and Laurel was flying over to help him finish off Dariella.

Munitions peppered the battleground, arcing down from the floating weapons stations that had joined the air cabs above the City. Always pleasant when preparations exceeded expectations.

He could taste the victory toast they would be raising later. Or maybe that was blood. Didn't matter, Dariella was dying today. She was just as ragged as he was, but like with any master cultivator, that meant she was at her most dangerous. They had all felt Vulurus die. Which meant the stakes had been carved into stone. There would be no surrender or easy victory.

Fine by him.

**********

Devon was still reeling from their new allies. They couldn't have been part of the Order's little plan. Which meant they had somehow survived to this point on their own. Something he wasn't sure the others had realized. Questions for later. It was a mystery, but a mystery he intended to take advantage of.

Metal squares flooded out of his storage ring. Another reason it was good they had found some extras to spread the burden around, he was running out of options. Unless he wanted to just start throwing chunks of metal around. Crude methods were not his style.

The squares combined into six identical constructs, made from a series of interlocking rings, one for each of their opponents. The rings started to spin. Focus split so many ways would have been impossible for most cultivators, but Devon was the best in the world at what he chose to do. Ask any of the battle crazed vortex cultivators to control six of these things at once and they would crumble.

He pressed mana into the series of carvings that would activate each construct. They had to be calibrated to individual mana signatures. Something other people might find difficult in the middle of a fight.

With a nudge of willpower, they flew up and out, each to their own attacker. A few stray attacks managed to connect, burning off some of the scales. That was the beauty of modular enchanting. It would take a whole lot more than that to destroy one of his creations. When they were in position, Devon activated the final step.

He enjoyed the moment of pure, visceral pleasure when each of the attackers stumbled in unison. It wouldn't be enough to stop any of them individually. But the mana siphon would slow all of them down. Enough that his own allies could take advantage. It was a simple enchantment in theory and nearly impossible to get right. Each of the constructs would weigh on the attuned enemy's meridians, slowing their mana and wreaking havoc on their control. At the same time, it would filter the ambient mana to make it harder for any of them to control.

The ploy was already having an effect. The outer edges of the corroding mist were already dissipating, giving him that much more room to work. He swung his newly summoned staff and pressed mana into his armor, taking a few hits directed at him. More of the pieces flaked off. It would be the work of months to fix it, but he was unharmed.

Jade had responded along the same lines. Vines stabbed into one of their opponents, and began to leech. Blood, mana, and everything else sucked out of the man until his arms were mostly husks.

*********

Laurel carefully ignored the truth she could feel, in the ambient mana and in her gut. They were winning. But there was still far too much work to be done to let up now. Dariella was someone Laurel had once considered aspirational. She had been a famous master cultivator when Laurel was still learning to feel mana on her own. Now she would be happy to see her head rolling from her shoulders.

It was a swirl she'd had more than once when she let herself go there. Why had the Order done this at all, what did they get out of it? Those weren't productive thoughts in the midst of a life or death battle. What mattered was that they had seized power by destroying all the progress that existed outside of their cabal, and they were trying to do the same thing now.

Over Laurel's dead body would they succeed.

Dariella's hand flicked out, the one that was still functional, and diverted Laurel's lightning to aim at Martin instead. Laurel had to waste time and mana stopping it. That was the problem with old masters. Every one of them had a bag of tricks a mile deep.

It was natural to slow down the pace of advancement the further along their path a cultivator got. Both to ensure a strong foundation before the next stage, and because it just took that much longer. For someone like Dariella, who had been on the cusp of grandmaster for centuries, that meant she was lethal in a way few others could match. And likely resentful on top of it.

None of that mattered as she and Martin went to war.

Metal flooded out of Laurel's tattoo as she took a cue from Devon. Instead of each being an enchanted gadget that would form into some complex whole, Laurel went simple. Knives. Hundreds of blades flew through the air, whipping around and around on the wind. Naked, without handles or guards, they were made by the prickly enchanter himself.

All towards the singular purpose of shredding anyone or anything she demanded. The sky was already black as the storm clouds gathered. Wind that would have tossed a mortal out to sea and infused with her own mana flung dirt and debris into the air.

To her side, Martin drew on the water flooding into their emergency moat. Dariella was old, but Laurel and Martin had fought together for decades. It took no effort to let their techniques merge.

They area around their fight became a hurricane. Water and wind, hidden blades and torn up sections of mana-infused rock swirled and smashed. Laurel grinned. Dariella was bleeding again. Beams of light lanced through the clouds, clearing a section as everything burned away.

Only to be replaced a moment later. Chains of shadow slithered from the clouds, but Laurel's blades tore them to pieces.

It wasn't enough to put Dariella out of the fight entirely. She pulled out another glass bauble and all of a sudden, the entire world went white. Laurel's shut eyes didn't matter to whatever Dariella had done, her spiritual senses seared as if they'd looked at a sun from meters away. Her skin split along her cheeks as it burnt and blistered. Pus seeped down, mixing with blood.

With a scream, she exploded with air mana, somehow managing to push the light away. Enough for Martin and Laurel to regain their footing and reinvigorate their technique. Dariella had turned a wan grey. Good. Let the bitch burn her own soul up trying to stop them.

Smiling hurt, and she was sure she looked feral, but Laurel didn't care in the moment. Lightning struck out, infusing the hurricane to something far worse. No one would survive that, master or no.

A ripple trembled through her spirit.

Laurel paused; only for a moment but that was an eternity in a fight like this. Blood dripped from her wounds as she panted, trying to get a handle on what she was feeling. Something was very wrong.

With a wordless cry she turned and fled the battle, pushing herself as fast as she could to reach the sect house in only a few seconds. It was too late.

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A man stood in front of a growing bank of clouds, too close to the ground. A man she couldn't feel at all. He had the audacity to wink, then ripped off a mask and activated a construct in his hand. Her lightning scorched the ground where he had been standing, a hair too late to stop the teleportation.

The cloud continued to spread, obscuring the sect house. She reached for air, for lightning, for her sword. Anything that would stop the assault. Her attacks passed through and disappeared.

Something feather-light and dangerous reached for Laurel. Pulled out of the sky, she hit the ground with a thud. She hardly noticed. Pain unlike anything she had felt or imagined was coursing through Laurel, and it was all she could do to stay sane as it dragged her under.

Her mind was adrift in a gray fog. Each contact with the mist burned through her soul, scarring and leaving behind a residue she was unsure she would ever get rid of. But in this space, where her body was a distant concern, she could tell these were only side effects. Coincidences of proximity. The true target of this attack was the Core.

In that world distance had little meaning, and Laurel forced herself to materialize next to the Core. She watched as tendrils of the cloud latched onto the metaphysical crystal, searching for seams or cracks to wedge inside. Drilling for entrance when it couldn't find anything else.

Laurel reached to stop one of them and was wracked with a new agony for the effort. Fear, deep and dark, threatened her then.

She was helpless as all of her work unraveled in front of her. The connections to the natural treasures, the City perks she had so meticulously planned with Madam Curson, the citizens that had bonded to the Core. All of it was under attack, grey fog eroding the bonds down to a slim thread.

What could she do? She watched this attack, so perfect it must have been planned to the hilt, and she was lost. Hours, months, years spent pouring over the records for how to manage a City Core, and she was helpless to defend in the moment that mattered.

A snap, like her own bone breaking. That was the Arena. Gone without a chance to use it, effort and mana wasted. At least they got to mostly finish the tournament before it was ruined. The inane thought crossed her mind as she watched the destruction spread.

Another blow, that one she felt like a punch to the solar plexus. One of the natural treasures. The air quality would suffer.

The tendrils reached for the link to the Obsidian and Laurel couldn't stand by. There was a way to fight back, there had to be. She could take the pain.

Laurel gave herself over to the mission at hand. Her link to the physical body outside the sect house strained and then floated away as she merged with the Core. If before was agony, this was something Laurel had no words for. Her whole world became an ocean of pain, the deepest trenches where the mist attacked the most rabidly.

This time if there was a difference in the pain when she fought back, it was too small to notice.

Laurel ripped at the fog, tearing and mangling with all the ferocity she could bring to bear. It didn't stop the advance. Another tendril started attacking the Crafting Hall.

Laurel wasn't sure what would happen if the effects holding all the dangerous experiments were removed all at once. But it would be bad. On instinct more than anything else she reached out and grabbed it. Her own consciousness filled in where the City Core had been eroded away.

*********

Never before had a day gone from good, to bad, to great, to absolute and utter shit so fast. Martin felt the crumbling of the City Core behind him, as what had been shaping up to be a rout turned into a desperate bid for survival.

The defensive shield was faltering. Already patches were blinking out, a grey fog seeping around the city like a plague to destroy anything it touched.

Enemy masters were flinging attacks behind him, content to do damage.

A spike of spatial mana flared and his ax passed through empty air. Dariella was gone, pulled out and sent far away by some emergency measure.

A few final techniques erupted on both sides. Jade took a particularly bad hit, as did Oro. Devon's armor flaked off entirely, though the man underneath seemed to have suffered little besides a few burns. At least they had come out ahead in the exchange.

Two of the attackers fell while the rest made the same escape.

After the battle there was silence. By most metrics, they had won. He should be celebrating.

Martin was already sprinting towards the sect house. The Core was shaking and shuddering. His own connection was weaker than Laurel, but it was enough to see the looming disaster.

The others would need to deal with the fallout.

Poisonous grey fog enshrouded the sect house by the time he arrived. Except for the dome on the roof, which was glowing a brilliant gold as the embedded defenses held strong.

That wasn't the worst part.

Laurel's body was crumpled in front of the entrance, lying across the grass, limbs splayed where they had fallen.

He didn't recall passing the distance between them but he came to full awareness at her side, holding fingers to the side of her neck, afraid of what he might find. There, weak and thready, she had a pulse. A scan didn't reveal any significant injuries, so she would have to stay there for a little while.

Martin leapt onto the roof and knelt down, placing his hands against the glass. He could feel it then. Like acid or poison that spread through the mana matrix, corrupting anything it found.

Not in his City and not in his sect.

He poured his own mana and willpower into the defenses and commanded them to hold. It was like setting his skin on fire and trying to put it out with acid. Everything burned but there was nothing else he could do.

In the back of his mind he felt it. The Core, not shattering but being slowly dissolved as the different pieces were cut off. A Hospital. Most of the fancier parts of the Administration Hub. Gone.

Then he felt what Laurel was doing to stop it. "No, no, no," he muttered. He wasn't sure it would work, but he was sure it would be bad if it did. And worse if it didn't. She was forcing her own soul to act as the links the fog was destroying. Spreading out to encompass the City and enduring the pain as it washed over her.

He needed to stop it. Neither of them would last. But he couldn't move.

Devon and Jade appeared out of the gloom. He should be worried he didn't feel them approach but all he had left was gratitude. Neither were in top form, Jade's clothes were still slightly smoldering, and Devon had blood dripping off the fingertips on his left arm, which was stiffly held at his side.

"It's a Heaven's Ghost. They must have anchored it somewhere. Find it."

Martin understood about half of that but his prickly friend was helping so he focused on the last part. Find it. He forced his mind to split focus. Pushing past the pain he searched like a blind man in an unfamiliar room, flailing for anything to orient towards.

Find it.

It must be near the sect house, so he scoured the grounds. This was his earth. He knew it like his own mind.

There. A snag in the smooth sweep of his senses. He focused more, but nothing was there. But there was nothing else it could be.

"In front of the doors. Ten meters. On the road." He grunted out the instructions.

Devon and Jade melted back and all he could do was hope they were faster than his rapidly fading will.

He couldn't watch, he couldn't help. All he had left was staring down at his hands and the dome beneath them.

An eternity of time later, a hand came down on his shoulder, jolting him from his trance. It was Devon, shaking him none too gently.

"Relax. Break the connection." The words came as though through molasses, and it took Martin long moments to understand their meaning.

When he did, he wrenched his hands away from the glass beneath him, now covered in blood, sweat, and dirt. Far harder was breaking the mental connection. He managed it, but the feedback felt like his mind was put through a meat grinder.

He staggered upright and would have fallen straight off the dome if Devon hadn't caught him. That wasn't the most important thing though, he could take a fall that short.

"Laurel?" He coughed and tried again. "Start talking, please."

"Sure," Devon answered. Then proceeded to not say anything else as he dragged Martin off the roof and towards the sect door.

Where Jade had Laurel's limp form thrown over her shoulder.

The rest of their allies had gathered. The others were bloody and covered in grime but all of them had made it through the fight. Though not unscathed. Oro was back in human form, swathed in fabric of dubious origin, going by the stains. He was avoiding putting any weight on one of his legs as well. Jade had taken the brunt of several attacks and it showed. The arm that wasn't carrying his best friend was not moving, black spreading through the veins and visible even against her dark skin.

Rao and Kallia had fared better, if only because they joined the fight late. Kallia had some scrapes but nothing concerning. Body cultivators had better regeneration than anyone else, Rao's wounds were already visibly closing.

Strang masters showing up. A battle they would have to explain and a Core that could barely be counted as intact. Martin had no idea where to start.

That was untrue. He knew where to start and that was something he could handle. Stepping forward, he put his hand on the door. Now that the fog was dissipating, his spiritual senses could once more feel the surroundings. They were alone. But he was in so much pain, and half delirious, what remained of his faculties didn't want to trust it.

"Are they gone?"

"Just us," Devon confirmed.

Martin turned to look at the newcomers. "You two gonna cause problems or no?"

"We would never," Kallia replied easily.

Martin looked to the others.

"I am inclined to believe them," Jade said. "But I believe there is an easier way than straining trust none of us have to spare at the moment. Devon, do you have something."

"Of course I do," the enchanter replied, walking up to the two masters. His hands flourished and his storage ring produced two metal cuffs. The etchings were so small he couldn't make them out, but they were solid and he could feel the power from meters away.

Rao looked bemused, Kallia slightly annoyed, but both offered their wrists when prompted. Devon snapped the cuffs closed and nodded once before turning to Martin.

"That should be enough for now."

Enough for him. Paranoia was exhausting on a good day and he'd never been particularly talented at it. Intent flowed from his hand into the door, and the security systems disengaged, one after another.

The doors swung open, giving Martin freedom to feel the entirety of the sect house. Which sent him running forward with all the speed he could muster. Most of his sect, and all of their visitors, were lying unconscious in the rotunda.

The travel was a blur, and he was kneeling at Cooper's side, where he was slumped over on one of the couches. He flailed to check the initiate's pulse, along with a spiritual scan.

Everything said Cooper was fine. Drained but recovering. He moved on to Natalia. Then Gabrielle. All the same.

"DID WE WIN?"

"Fuck!" Martin swore and spun, to see Leander blinking owlishly from his own cushion. The others had arrived and entered behind him. Seeing their own students, Jade had dropped Laurel and joined Devon in a similar investigation.

Laurel, who was still unconscious.

"I'm not sure," he answered Leander's question.

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