Following behind the horde of skittering Yao Guai, Ao Tian could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

All was going according to plan, with the first wave of Yao Guai having already met up with both the traitor and his travelling companions. In accordance with his style, the Yellow Devil split from his party to divert the bulk of the horde by himself, while the three round-eyed Aberrants dealt with a minor scouting party on their own. That was merely the opening salvo however, a probing attack from the hibernating Ferals Ao Tian and his companions had disturbed, who as he understood were themselves the vanguard of an attacking force that would lay siege to New Hope come Spring. An event that took place every year as the Progenitors of the Divide sought to expand their territory, and leave it to the Americans to face the problem head on. There were better ways of defending against Yao Guai attacks besides building up walls in their path of advance. The Americans were simple-minded people however, ones who thought violence the solution to all their problems, and as such cared little for subtlety and nuance.

Of course, might made right had a certain charm to it, but while the Venerable Tian Zi had the strength to conquer the entire world for many centuries before the advent of technology, he refrained from doing so because his war was not against the human race. No, his war was with the Great Devourer and its minions sent up into the middle realms from the lower planes of existence, minions like the Progenitors and their manufactured Yao Guai whom Ao Tian made use of today. He trailed along behind one such group, not too closely, but not too far away either, because there were few scouting mantids or scurrying Swarmlings to pick up on his presence. No, the group he followed was a Yao Guai strike force, an elite team of what the Americans called Dreadmaw Juggernauts. Larger, stronger, tougher beetles that were covered in armoured carapace and armed with a piercing nose horn and thick, barbed mandibles that could chew through steel in a single bite.

Even Armour Penetrating Aetherarms would have difficulty punching through their thick, Aberrtin reinforced hides, and unlike their lesser cousins the Beetle Behemoths, the Dreadmaw Juggernauts were densely packed with the thick muscles, powerful tendons, and sturdy skeletal framed required to support all that mass. As such, even if a Bolt managed to punch its way through the durable chitinous armour, it was unlikely to do much damage after the fact, making it a most dangerous opponent on the battlefield indeed. Costly to produce no doubt, else their Feral Progenitors would flood the battlefield with Dreadmaws at the expense of all else, as these massive, superheavy beetles were nigh unstoppable in massed numbers unless you were ready and waiting with the combined arms fire of Acid and Force to deal with them post haste.

That wasn't to say they were without weakness, the first being that the Dreadmaw Juggernauts were fairly slow. Unable to match the pace of a horse at full gallop, they were still fast enough to run down a man on foot however, so Ao Tian kept a careful distance away to avoid their notice. They were also somewhat clumsy and lacking in agility, as they were forced to go around a good number of rock formations instead of climbing right over them like their smaller cousins would. Add in the complete and utter absence of any built-in ranged attacks alongside subpar perception, and these Dreadmaws were clearly a product of a bygone era, when Aetherarms were rare, weak, and had slower rates of fire than the semi-automatic abominations of today.

Progenitors were nothing if not adaptable however, and they knew good and well that these Dreadmaws were still a formidable force if utilized correctly. Year after year, several groups of these lumbering Behemoths would be sent at the stone walls of various towns along the Blue Bulwark, usually in tandem with the Acid-filled Exploder bugs who presented a similar threat, namely one that was capable of bringing down the enhanced fortifications in a single blow. While the strategy had yet to bring down any American towns, it kept them busy and cost them resources to repair broken walls and gates, and it was only a matter of time before the Progenitors of the Divide figured out how many Dreadmaws and Exploders they'd need in order to guarantee success.

The Dreadmaws were not the only tile up their sleeves however, as a comrade to the north was shadowing a band of Barbed Silverfish, pony-sized six-legged insectoids with armoured torsos baring blade-like thorns protruding out from all angles. The creatures moved in a wiggling motion much like a fish, creating sinuous waves of mottled greens that were both hypnotizing and stomach churning to behold. Once they sensed their prey nearby, they would shoot over towards them with startling speed to impale them upon their thorns, or at the very least rend and tear as they moved past. There were also several bands of Burrow Hulks marching east alongside Beetle Behemoths ferrying Swarmlings, Spitters, and Exploders aplenty, all moving headlong towards the traitor's wagon and ready to slaughter and consume without remorse.

This, as the Prince had so aptly stated, was killing with a borrowed knife. The first wave had already struck, and the traitor might well already be dead, though Ao Tian did not believe this to be so. The traitor was far too mobile and resourceful to fall before common Yao Guai chaff, even if caught off guard whilst fast asleep. Alarm Wards would only afford him so much warning against the stealthy mantids escorting the advance party of Swarmlings and Spitters, all of whom were more than capable of tying a party down long enough for the larger, more powerful Yao Guai to arrive and clean up the fight. That was usually how these encounters would go for travellers beset by Ferals out in the badlands, but Qian had already reported that the traitor had foreseen the attack and was handling the matter with ease.

How he managed that was a mystery, as he always took last watch while his blond Aberrant took first. A question to be answered at another time perhaps, as the night was still young and many more Yao Guai to come. It was three women and one man against a veritable army of Yao Guai, part of a force meant to take down the town of New Hope itself. Not the entire besieging army, as there were bands of bugs scattered all across the border currently lying in wait for winter's end and ready to strike once the first frost faded. Ao Tian and his comrades had disturbed less than a tenth of that army, perhaps even less than one twentieth, as there were always more Yao Guai hiding under dark than you might expect. They had even lucked out in their findings and unearthed a plethora of dangerous Yao Guai like the Dreadmaws and Barbed Silverfish who were now on the warpath and aimed directly at the traitor's wagon.

With all that arrayed against them, why was Ao Tian still so worried? Probably because it'd been almost an hour since Qian reported in, with his last message relaying that the target was engaging the better part of the advance Yao Guai scouts sent against him as well as a small group of slower, heavier Yao Guai who had been stationed closer than the rest. After that, Qian fell silent and his mirror-box no longer glinted, while he'd already sent his two partners away to watch over the wagon because he didn't want to risk the traitor spotting them as they trailed him. A plausible cause for concern, one Ao Tian didn't think twice about, but now he suspected the fence-sitting Scout had finally taken a side, one that went counter against the Republic.

Small wonder Qian had tried to dissuade them so many times. A born lapdog is what he was, an old-blood sympathizer who sided with the General and his ilk. Ao Tian would never understand them, those fools who were given the option of freedom or tyranny and opted for the latter, as if they enjoyed the taste of boots on their tongues. From a young age, Qian would have been chosen as a Scout once he displayed the requisite skills, and thus he would forever be a Scout even if he excelled in his role. Never would he have a chance to enter into the world of politics or make a play for power for himself, because Scouts were kept low in rank due to the nature of their role. Theirs was an advisory position, never a commanding one, as they were all too often away from the cadre to carry out their tasks. It would be too much of a burden on the chain of command to place a Scout high up within, so they were often relegated to lower rankings even though a good Officer knew a competent Scout was well worth their weight in salt.

A shame Qian chose to side with the traitor and his outdated uncle then. Why though? Difficult to say. Perhaps the Scout was impressed by the traitor's potential and believed in the propaganda of how the old blood had been blessed by the Venerable One and their bloodlines bestowed with gifts beyond that of mere mortals. Perhaps he hoped to bargain with the traitor for the knowledge those families guarded with great secrecy, knowledge gathered over the centuries while in positions of absolute power over the people. The Zhu's had more secrets than most, for they were the Venerable One's spiders, his spymasters and intelligence agents entrusted with the stability of the Empire turned Republic. Or perhaps it was something simpler, like a youthful friendship with the traitor's father Ming and a bygone promise to look out for one another made during training.

Whatever the reason, Qian's betrayal did not sit well with Ao Tian, assuming it was in fact a betrayal. Which wasn't likely, seeing how the wagon and women had come under attack, meaning almost everything Qian had done beforehand was completely without guile. It was more likely that the Scout had come across his own difficulties while tracking the traitor across the badlands. Though the bow had been drawn and the arrow aimed at the Yellow Devil, Yao Guai were notoriously intractable and Ferals especially so. Perhaps he'd hidden himself from the traitor and accidentally exposed himself to the Yao Guai, so was now struggling to get away without any allies to aid him. Or had already been killed, as Qian could not match the traitor's mobility by skating about atop a Floating Disc. Whatever the reason for his silence, Ao Tian did not like it one bit, and his misgivings continued to grow even after linking up with the rest of his team.

There were only ten of them total, plus three absent scouts including Qian. They were all armed with Mao Box Cannon pistols and SKS Type 56 semi-automatic rifles in 22-10 caliber with mechanical silencers, save for three Sharpshooters armed with Dragunov Type 79 sniper rifles chambered in 7.62 x 54mm rounds. They were the largest bullets Ao Tian had ever seen, and the shooters carrying those rifles were 100% confident they could shoot the traitor dead so long as they were within 200 meters and he was still unaware. Which wasn't to say they couldn't hit him if he was farther out, but the shooters lacked the confidence of getting a perfect shot, and Ao Tian would leave nothing to chance. Still, 200 meters was not exactly close, but it was closer than he'd like, or too far depending on how you approached it.

Because when you got right down to it, there was nothing more reliable than killing a man with blade in hand. Even the best shooters didn't have 100% accuracy against stationary targets at unfamiliar ranges, whereas Ao Tian could perform the same strikes a thousand times in a single day with minimal variance. It was all down to the reliance on a tool that was anything but reliant, as a standard SKS Type 56 was rated with a Minute of Angle of 4 inches. In his admittedly lacklustre understanding, Ao Tian took to mean that the rifle could consistently hit shots within a 4-inch grouping at 100 yards, or 10.16 centimetres at a 91.44-meter range. Why the world still catered to American measurements when they were they only ones still using their outdated and nonsensical system was a mystery to unravel, but at the very least, he knew that the Dragunov was far from the most accurate rifle around, nor was it particularly inaccurate as far as these things went.

That said, you could get far more accurate with less moving parts, like the single-shot, breech loading, Rolling Block Rifles that were standard issue for most Vanguard Cadres like Jinfeng's. They were good, cheap weapons that could double as a spear thanks to the long barrel and bayonet fixtures that came with the rifle, and they served the Republic well, but they were slow to load and Prime which made them less than ideal in a mobile situation. The SKS in Ao Tian's hands now was on the other end of the spectrum, a fast-firing, highly inaccurate, semi-automatic rifle of Soviet design which had been adapted by the Republic for mass production, though the factories still had yet to scale up to the point where anything but the most elite or financially backed cadres could equip them.

Money was no issue for Prince Gong however, which was why his soldiers had so many of these wonder weapons, but they were built on a similar principal to the Mao Box Cannons in that quantity was valued over quality. The Dragunov's were slightly better, but not of Qin make, imported from the northern deserts at great expense over 5 years ago and exceedingly costly to maintain, on top of utilizing large bore, overpacked ammunition that the Republic did not mass produce. As such, these three Sharpshooters were among a select few who were familiar with the rifles, and everything Ao Tian had learned about them did not inspire confidence. Built upon the frame of the fabled Soviet AK rifles which had been upsized and retooled, the Dragunov was less of a sniper rifle and more of a marksman rifle, a semi-automatic, magazine fed weapon with a gas piston and recoil enough to require a mounted bipod fixed into the frame of the rifle in place of a bayonet spike.

Not that you would want to use such an expensive rifle as a spear, seeing how a bent barrel could set a round packed with 135 Grain of Aether to explode right in front of your face.

So 180 metres or 10 metres, those were the best ranges for Ao Tian's team to engage the traitor at. One or the other, and anywhere greater or in between was a danger zone for them all. While the Dragunov's could shoot repeatedly at long ranges, if the first shot missed on an unsuspecting target, then the next would be that much harder to hit. Especially after having seen how quickly the traitor could move about on his Floating Disc, at speeds comparable to a galloping horse with the maneuverability of a flitting fly. Add in all the tricks he kept in his Spellbook and the various pouches slung about his frame, and Ao Tian did not like his team's chances of victory in a direct confrontation against the traitor.

Which in and of itself was infuriating to admit. It was essentially conceding Ao Tian's place as the Rising Dragon of their generation to foreign-raised traitor who stood against the Republic and all that it symbolized. The traitor was not simply an opponent standing on the other side of fence, a proponent of the old ways like his uncle the General and others like him, but an expatriate who would side with the same vultures and scavengers who banded together to plunder what should belong to the Qin and the Qin alone. It was foreign inaction which led to the death of the Venerable Tian Zi, and foreign interference which forced the Republic to delay their plans to send the First Wave of settlers in 1980, approximately a decade after they discovered the Gate inside the Forbidden City.

That's how deeply the Venerable One had hidden his plans, for this Frontier was set to be the last bastion of the Middle Realms in the war against the Great Devourer. It took the Republic 25 years to uncover it, and the secret was almost immediately leaked by traitors among them. Only those in power knew of course, while the rest of the old world learned about the Frontier in the early 80s when the call for 'volunteers' went out. Without the Venerable One's knowledge and understanding, the Republic Arcanists were only confident of Stabilizing the Gate a single time before it would collapse, and as such, they had no choice but to delay the Advent until the rest of the world was ready.

A delay which might well have sounded the death knell for all of the Middle Realms, for in the interim, this Frontier, this last bastion of humanity had been discovered by the Great Devourer's minions. Had the Republic settlers arrived in 1980 as opposed to almost a decade later, then they might have all banded together to purge these lands of Yao Guai before they grew strong enough to take root. Unfortunately, with enemies on all sides, the Republic settlers had to guard against their fellow humans and allow the Yao Guai threat to continue to spread for almost a full decade longer, which might in time spell doom for this world. The Old World was unsalvageable, that much was clear, and while there might still be many decades or even centuries yet before the Yao Guai overran the planet, the Venerable One was farsighted and had seen the bleak future that was still yet to come.

And so he found the Frontier and prepared it for his people and his people alone, only for all his plans to fall apart because the Foreign Devils could not be trusted and left him to fend for himself against the Nazi Archmagi Kill Teams sent against him. No man was an island, not even a Heavenly Being sent down from above, and those highly trained Prussian killers threated to unleash massed murder in Chong Qing if their demands were not met. When the Venerable Immortal acceded to their demands, they unleashed hell all the same, rendering the once illustrious border city to molten ash with a Collaborative Spell that even an Immortal Monarch could not stand against. Wounded and exhausted by his valiant efforts to defend the doomed city, the Venerable One was then ambushed by the cowardly Nipponese Dog Emperor and dealt a deathblow, but not before doing the same to his historic foe.

It was mercy which doomed the Venerable One, proving the old idiom true. Had he killed the Dog Emperor before his meteoric rise, then the Nipponese barbarian warlord would have never reached such heights as to prove a threat to the Venerable One later on. It could have been done and easily so, as the Dog Emperor's tiny island nation was less than 4% of the landmass of the Qinese mainland, and even less of the Empire itself, and yet he believed his people had successfully resisted the Qinese 'invaders', when the truth was that mercy had stayed the Venerable One's hand. Well, mercy and the fact that the Nipponese Islands held little to no value in the war against the Great Devourer's minions, a nation fated to be destroyed in the aquatic uprising that would inevitably destroy the old world in the years to come.

This world too in time, thus dooming humanity as a whole unless they could find another Gate to another world, or at the very least an Immortal Monarch to lead them in the war against the Great Enemy. The Heavens had sent their representative, and the Middle Realms had largely rejected him, so there was no reason for the upper realms to care any more. As such, this was a doom of their own making, and there would be no Devas sent down from above to save them from themselves. This was all a matter for greater minds to debate however, as Ao Tian was merely a soldier serving his role in the war against the Great Enemy. Unfortunately, the Yao Guai could not be dealt with so long as they had foreign enemies to contend with, because putting forth your full efforts against the Great Enemy was all but inviting the Foreign Devils to attack.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As such, unity was the greatest strength the Republic had, presenting an undivided front against the foreign nations so as to show no weakness lest they all band together to bully the Republic once more. That was why Hao Wei's betrayal could never be forgiven, why the traitor Ming had to be killed so that others would see how the foreigners truly saw the Qin people. Some thought Ming was hailed as a hero in American lands, but now all knew he was little more than a tool the Federation happily used and tossed aside the moment it became inconvenient to claim him.

Even then, the traitor's son refused to change his spots and return to the fold as he should. A good thing too, and Ao Tian hated that this was his first thought, because again, it was placing himself beneath his foe. He was the most promising future Sword Saint of his generation, a warrior with unlimited potential standing at the forefront of his peers in skill and age, so why should he feel inferior to man born only a few days earlier?

A question to which Ao Tian did not really want to know the answer to, because it would only reinforce his feelings of inferiority. The comparison was not entirely fair given the difference in their skillsets. Ao Tian was training to be a Sword Saint, a title most never achieved until their thirties, meaning he still had a decade and a half to achieve it before he would be considered average. Hao Wei on the other hand? He was a gunslinger plain and simple, reliant on the power of his weapons and utterly useless without them. Give him a Rolling Block Rifle and a Mao Box Cannon and he would be far less impressive than he currently appeared, while Ao Tian could pick up any melee weapon and only be a little less imposing for it, and even put up a good fight without any weapon at all.

Out of all his peers, Jinfeng was the only one he was never able to defeat in spars, armed or otherwise. He maintained an even record against the slippery and evasive Hu Die and dominated all other opponents their age, taking only technical losses and rarely ever making the same mistake twice. Intimidating as Hao Wei might be, Ao Tian could not imagine the traitor was all that well versed in close combat, not with his focus in Spells, Scouting, and marksmanship. The traitor had his strengths and Ao Tian had his, so there was no need to admit inferiority just yet.

That said, the traitor's current equipment meant he was at full strength, so Ao Tian had to play to his. Killing with a borrowed blade was too optimistic a stratagem when the traitor could not be pinned down, so he gathered his team save for the two Scouts subordinate to Qian so that they would all be ready to strike as soon as the opportunity presented itself while the traitor did battle with the Yao Guai. The wagon was not far and on a collision course with the Ferals who were able to track them by the stench of death which lingered upon their persons. A Pass Without Trace Spell might be able to do away with those markings, but that task fell upon the Yellow Devil who was separated from the group. Or at least he was last time Qian checked in, but that had been almost two hours ago, so they could have reunited by now.

Even then, the Ferals would have locked onto their last position and would move unerringly towards them, and while Pass Without Trace was a powerful Spell that erased all marks of passage, out here on the badlands, a lone traveller could be seen from many kilometres away and the Spell could do nothing about that. Even more so when it was Yao Guai eyes doing the looking, as some like the mantids had highly specialized eyes to do just that, while others were near blind and wholly dependant on the support of their fellow Yao Guai. That was the level of unity the Venerable One had aspired to, the cooperation humanity needed to throw back the Great Devourer's minions, but even Heaven's Chosen Son was unable to achieve such a momentous feat.

Or rather better to say that his greatest weakness prevented him from doing so, namely his unwillingness to stomach the widespread bloodshed that would have been required to unify all men under one flag. It was more than possible, as evidenced by the Mongol Temujin's bloody conquest which cut a swathe through the Asian and European continents, thwarted only by the Great Wall the Venerable One had placed some centuries in advance. At that time, twelve hundred years had passed since Heaven's Chosen Son had united the Qin Empire beneath him, twelve hundred years to show just how much he had changed. From conquering all lands to building walls to keep their enemies out, an enemy he'd seen coming several hundreds of years in advance, and yet he did nothing to pluck the weeds out by the roots and bring all under one banner because he could not bear to harden his heart and chose to show mercy instead.

A failing, and a very human one at that, a lesson all soldiers of the Vanguard studied well so as to learn from the Venerable One's mistake. Mercy to one's enemies was cruelty to one's self, so there would be none given. To do so would be to doom themselves, their friends, siblings, parents, and future generations too, for though the Great Devourer was aware of these lands, the Frontier could still yet be saved. And save it the Republic would, but they could not devote their full efforts to dealing with the Enemy while there were so many foreign interlopers and home-grown traitors lurking about.

Perhaps somewhere, the Great Devourer was watching these events unfold and laughing at humanity's foolish ways. It was regrettable really, for the Firstborn Son, born of an illustrious house and bearing one of only a handful of family names that made it onto the Frontier, to turn against his own kin. Perhaps he wasn't even the true Firstborn, and the traitor Ming had falsified his son's age to steal valour and glory from the true Firstborn Son, Ao Tian. He born on the first of January, after the sun had risen but not long after, so it was possible that he was not only the eldest true Son of the Republic, but also the eldest son full stop. Even if Ming might not think of doing such a thing, it was perfectly plausible for the Americans to do so, for Federation propaganda was their greatest weapon as strove to tell any and all that they were the best and strongest country of the old world. Which again, might well be true from a certain perspective, but take away their sizeable Aetheric Bomb stockpile and what did they have left?

…The greatest military-industrial complex in the old world and largest land, sea, and air force by a sizable margin, but the other nations only allowed things to get so out of control because of said stockpile of Aetheric Bombs.

Either way, the Frontier was a fresh slate with little to nothing to do with the old world, and it was here their roles would all be rewritten. Today, Ao Tian would kill the traitorous Yellow Devil whether by hook or by crook, and bring his corpse home to Fuyuan to show all what happened to traitors. So what if the General's rage would be unmatched? Ao Tian would brave those fires with head held high and accept all responsibilities for his actions, as history would prove him right. If he showed courage and determination enough, then perhaps the people would speak out on his behalf and even condemn the General for his rage, as the fabled 'Firstborn' had made it clear with his own words that he would never serve the Republic's interests. A live dragon was better than a dead one, so even the General might well be swayed enough to put aside his thoughts of vengeance, or at least delay them until the people forgot about how he lauded his traitorous nephew as the hero of a generation.

Yet for any of this to come to pass, Ao Tian must first achieve his goal here tonight and kill the traitor Hao Wei. A task easier said than done even with all this groundwork laid out before them, and as he crept across the badlands under the cover of Settle Into Shadows cast by one of his comrades, he watched with bated breath as the horde moved ever onwards towards the wagon off in the dark distance. The Darkvision Spell was not without limit, allowing him to see at most up to 200 meters away even with the help of Eagle Eye. Were it daylight, he would be able to see much farther, as Eight-Eyed Sifu stressed the importance of dynamic vision and how Eagle Eye did more than allow you to see things at range. It was a Transmutation Spell which quite literally allowed you to see as well as a far-sighted bird of prey, though it was difficult to say if the Progenitor who first modeled the Spell had used an eagle as the baseline.

Regardless of the specifics, birds of prey relied on more than just telescopic vision to pick out prey from several kilometres away, but most made little use of the Spell for anything else. More important was the ability to focus on an object moving at speed and accurately gauge its movements without losing track of it. The human eye was quite poor at this, especially in the vertical plane, but with Eagle Eye, you could track the fastest bird in flight or a tiny insect flitting about. Very useful for a Swordsman, especially when used in conjunction with Gift of Alacrity to allow you mind to parse through all the information in a usable timeframe.

Which was yet another Spell Ao Tian often made use of, and one he would cast when the time was appropriate. It was akin to a Ritual Spell however, in that it took time and preparation to cast, almost a full minute in fact, without actually being a Ritual. This was because it affected the mind, and in order to insulate the caster and prevent them from causing any self harm, the Spell was designed to slowly take effect. A minor drawback that, but Ao Tian could fight just as well without it as it only enhanced speed of thought and cognition, not his bodily reflexes or movements in any way. It also would tend to make time feel like it moved in agonizing lethargy, and spending the full hour duration under the Spell's influence felt like a whole day had passed in terms of mental strain.

Even without the Spell, it still felt like time was dragging on slowly as he followed the horde across the badlands in pursuit of the traitor's wagon. The seconds ticked by like minutes, and minutes felt like hours as they made their way ever eastward under the cover of shadow and night. The other Scouts had also gone silent so as not to alert the Yao Guai of their presence, so it came as some surprise when the Dreadmaws, Silverfish, and smattering of other bugs all surged forward with renewed vigour in complete and utter silence. Even the Swarmlings and Spitters, which typically carried on at all times when their blood was hot, showing that this was not only a strike force of Yao Guai, but groups of elites who might well have done battle before and knew well the value of stealth and surprise.

All the better for Ao Tian, and so much worse for the traitor and his so-called family, those round-eyed women he no doubt cavorted with all the livelong nights. That slut Jinfeng had also fallen for the traitor's supposed charms, though Ao Tian could not see why. The traitor was neither tall nor short, nor was he particularly strapping or domineering in physique. Broad of shoulder perhaps, but he often slouched and wore an expression that could only be described as sour when not outright murderous. Even his smiles were cutting, and his eyes comically small when flashing those big grins he favoured, so much so that they all but disappeared into his sharp, gaunt cheeks.

Handsome? Not in the least, or not in any way that made him stand out. Nor could he be called ugly, but that was hardly an advantage in any real sense of the word. All told, it was clear Jinfeng had spread her legs for him in hopes of continuing his bloodline, or perhaps simply because she wanted to seek favour with the fabled General she so admired by bringing him back another Zhu. Whatever the reason, she would know true regret once she learned of tonight's events, a thought Ao Tian savoured as he settled in to prepare for the battle ahead.

Aside from Darkvision and Eagle Eye, he also had Mage Armour, Hearing Protection, and Longstrider already cast upon him. To this list, he added the aforementioned Gift of Alacrity followed by False Brawn to add a layer of Ectoplasmic muscle overtop his skin. It would do nothing to add to his strength, but it would protect him from surface wounds and offer some small protection against gunshots even, though probably not enough to matter if hit in a critical location. Two First Order Spells, which was still a significant expenditure for Ao Tian who considered himself a purist of the Sword, though he was talented enough to have learned his first Third Order Spell under his Sifu's tutelage.

Former Sifu. There would be no more lessons with Eight-Eyed Sifu, not after Ao Tian openly acted against the General's interests. There would be no lessons from Major Mu Bai either, or at least no promise of them, but Ao Tian was confident he could attract the attention of another Sword Saint so long as he survived long enough to show his skills.

That would have to wait, as would his Third Order Spell, because it was more of a situational Spell to be used in the moment rather than one you threw on before a fight. The rest of his team finished casting their Spells soon after. Not all for their own benefit either, as one cast Aid upon him while another added Barkskin, and still yet a third cast Cat's Grace to bolster Ao Tian's agility. There would still be more Spells to come, but those were merely the longest lasting ones suitable for casting in advance, meaning he now had a whole slew of Spells protecting and augmenting his abilities for the battle ahead.

Once they were all ready, they moved out to shadow the Yao Guai as they stalked their prey, and soon made their way up a ridge to watch events unfold. There in the distance, he spotted the wagon, with the blonde girl riding point while the milk mother and silver-haired twin sat in the driver's seat like always. They were alone, without the traitor in their midst, and appeared wholly unaware of the horde of Yao Guai descending upon them. With Gift of Alacrity to speed his thoughts along, he recognized the flaw in their plan, for if the women all died here and now before the traitor returned, then there would be nothing keeping him here in the badlands or burdens slowing him down. He would be free to run 'home' to the Federation, leaving Ao Tian and the Republic both no way to catch up until he emerged from their borders again.

So he turned to one of the marksmen who was still setting up his Dragunov and asked, "Is your weapon Silenced?"

"Mechanically," came the whispered reply, alongside an expression that shouted 'and not well'.

There was no helping it however, so Ao Tian gave his orders anyways. "Before the horde completely encircles the wagon, fire off a warning shot to give the women a fighting chance. We cannot have them dying before the traitor returns." Glancing about, he tried to spot the other two Scouts to no avail, which made him question if they had all defected to the traitor's side. No, not possible. One faithless traitor like Qian was possible, but how could three staunch veterans of the Republic bear to support someone like the Yellow Devil who had declared war on his own people? What's more, Elder Chang Sang would have gone to great lengths to ensure the soldiers entrusted with his son's life were less than sympathetic to the General's views, or at the very least neutral like Qian had supposedly been. The last thing the Elder would want was for his son's life to be used as a bargaining chip against him, though to be fair, the Prince was far from an only child, just the heir and successor.

His worries were put on hold, all of them in fact, as the marksman put a Bolt somewhere between the horde and the wagon and sent both sides into high alert. The horde let loose with a wailing screech, and a call of alarm went out at the wagon as the blonde girl opened fire with gun blazing in the nighttime. The shots struck true as she fired off round after round with her lever-action rifle, one which was likely more accurate than the Dragunovs and almost as powerful. This only went to show how dominant the Federation's technological prowess truly was, with short but storied history wherein they chose Aetherarms over magical prowess time and time again over the last two hundred years. Where they fell short in Arcana, they made up for it with their shameless behaviour, such as with Operation Paperclip, wherein they relocated all manner of Prussian Arcanists, Engineers, and other brilliant minds to American soil following the Second World War, even going so far as to cover up the horrific crimes those men and women committed under the orders of the sway of the Third Reich.

Hypocrisy at its finest that, holding themselves aloft as the champions of justice while aiding some of the worst criminals of the Nazi regime escape it. There were even rumours that the fabled Magier der ersten Stunde, or the 'Mage of the First Hour', had been relocated to American soil after the war's end, and Ao Tian believed it. Leave it to the Federation to shelter one of the worst criminals of them all, the Archmagus who headed the Thule Society and published the Liber Necris, a collection of mundane texts detailing some of the most twisted, inhumane, and abominable experiments carried out under his orders. Using Spells to rip the moisture out of a living human being, inducing Contagion upon a subject to study how the body naturally resisted it, and harvesting the life force from an otherwise healthy subject to infuse into another through manipulation of the Spirit itself, tests like these and so much worse were conducted on a wide scale under Archmagus Stunde's orders.

All in the name of uncovering the secrets of Necromancy, a school of magic that didn't actually exist, since all of the above Spells fell under the purview of Transmutation. The Venerable One had said so himself, and he was the foremost expert on the subject of all things magical, so there was no point arguing otherwise. Regardless of the fruitless pursuit, the Mage of the First Hour's 'disappearance' despite the world clamouring for him to be brought to justice showed how the Federation were far from content with what they already possessed, and what lengths they would go to in order to obtain even more. Perhaps that's why they claimed the traitor as their own, because they coveted the secrets his mother once held, and perhaps even thought to use Hao Wei as leverage against his uncle the General.

An intriguing line of thought, one Ao Tian mulled over between the flash of gunfire as the battle heated up before him. To his surprise, none of the Yao Guai had died yet, which only went to show how durable their chitinous hides truly were. The wagon of course turned to retreat, but the Silverfish were far too fast to simply outrun. Not in a short dash such as this, but the blond girl once again demonstrated her prowess as she drew her pistols and fired into the group of writhing, snakelike Yao Guai. Again, their armour protected them from the girl's barrage of semi-automatic pistol fire, her weapons all shining silver in the moonlight.

Impressive though they might appear, they seemed less powerful than a Mao Box Cannon as she unleashed a salvo of Bolts into the horde without killing so much as a single one. What's more, there were limits to how much ammunition each magazine housed within, one which was higher than expected, but still finite in the end. Then the girl reloaded almost too quickly for his enhanced eyesight and thought process to follow, and he gave her a second look. Perhaps she wasn't just the traitor's chosen Aberrant, one destined to bear his children and combine the strengths of their bloodlines. She had her own skills, and while they paled in comparison to the traitor's and Ao Tian's both, she was capable of putting a lot of Bolts downrange albeit seemingly without all that much effect.

Due to her inaccuracy, or because her guns were not up to task? Ao Tian was only familiar with the Aetherarms he had personally handled, because there was little point in learning about all the various different weapons out there. Better to focus on individuals instead, like the silver-haired twin who was a far more powerful Spellcaster that her sister. She'd come into a devastating Third Order Spell in the form of Psychic Scream, which was why two of Ao Tian's comrades had been tasked with keeping her under control using Silence, and if they both fell in combat, then she would simply have to die. Originally, they'd planned on taking her hostage while leaving the other two up to fate, as she seemed like the ideal candidate, simple minded and no threat whatsoever. The Scouts had reported back of her prowess just before they went silent however, so Ao Tian switched the capture target over to the blond girl, but now he was having second thoughts once more.

No matter though. Aberrants would always make for difficult prisoners, so they only had to ensure at least one survived to be used as a hostage. Best to keep all three, but the milk mother was a powerful former soldier capable of killing Yao Guai in droves with her powerful Spells, so she would likely have to die since they could not conceivably keep her Silenced for the entire trip home. The silver haired girl would have to die too, for she was poorly trained and impossible to reason with, leaving only the blonde to use as a hostage, which was far from ideal.

It would all be for naught however, if they should die to the Yao Guai here and now. The dark, mottled green Ferals surged ever closer as the three women fought for all their worth, with the young blonde even splitting into 5 Mirror Images with only one being real as they all rode off in different directions to confuse and confound the Yao Guai. Ao Tian picked out the real one almost immediately, as the girl would be a fool to move away from the wagon since there were Yao Guai converging on them from almost all directions save for the east.

Peering off into the darkness, Ao Tian squinted in hopes of spotting the traitor so that he could order his men to move out, but there was nothing he could make out in his limited range of vision. Even then, he couldn't let their quarry move too far away or die to quickly, so he was about to give the order to move out when he spotted something that made his stomach drop. The foremost Silverfish cared not for the blond girl's mirror images or her attempts to shoot it dead, and having pursued the wagon and horses trailing behind it with single-minded focus, had just caught up. It threw itself forward as Silverfish were wont to do, seeking to entangle its barbed body around the rearmost horse's legs and bring it down even at the cost of its own life.

Only to pass through the creature's thundering hooves like it wasn't even there.

Because it wasn't, and Ao Tian felt his heart skip a beat, a lengthy and pain-filled absence that seemed to stretch into eternity thanks to his Gift of Alacrity. His mind raced to put all the pieces together, and arrived at the only possible conclusion before his heart had yet to resume, that the wagon and everything around it was merely an Illusion, one which had fooled him, his team, and the horde of Yao Guai pursing them down below.

And their gunshot, the warning they'd given the illusion down there, had also given his own position away.

"Ready for battle," he shouted, turning this way and that in search of danger, for one did not lay bait without a trap ready to spring. "Take cover and keep your eyes open for the traitor!" Levelling his rifle to point out into the darkness, he scanned his surroundings and waited for the Yellow Devil's arrival to kick off this first and perhaps final battle.

If it was battle the traitor wanted, then a battle he would get. All the better for Ao Tian to kill him and prove once and for all that he was the true rising dragon of their generation.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.