Chapter 1,393 – Nine Suns and Six Paths

The good days were over.

The five-element domain faltered, and the surge of flesh pressed closer. At least a hundred Beast Kings had been attracted by the spiritual spring appearing right by the base, and there were too many descendants to count. The basin was filled to the point that a layer of trampled beasts had become the new surface.

The scene normally wouldn’t have fazed Carl in the slightest. He wasn’t sure if “dependable” was the word he’d use for Iz Tayn, but more beasts generally meant a larger pyre while she was around. This time, Carl was forced to face the beast tide by himself. It wasn’t going great. There were no armies to hide behind, and the arrows he’d released had already marked him for retribution the moment the elemental barrier collapsed.

“Guess I have no choice,” Carl said through grit teeth and brought out a set of arrows made from Spiritual Gold.

Each was covered in runes that, while crude, perfectly matched the pathways of his class. He’d only managed to make twenty-six such arrows during their brief windows of downtime. That wasn’t a lot, especially when [Empyrean Suns of Yi] needed at least eight arrows to be activated. The expenditure wasn’t nearly as worrying as the backlash.

Carl took a steadying breath as he inserted the arrows into the ground before him, lining them up in a neat row. The shafts began vibrating as Carl drew on the flames of his path, and the distant calls of divine crows echoed in his mind. For a minute, there was only stillness. Then, Carl became one with the sun.

Arrows were drawn and released according to a mysterious cadence that Carl still didn’t fully understand, though his Earthly Dao guided him through the motions. The released arrows turned into streaks of scorching flames surrounded by golden-red feathers of pure fire. Carl didn’t aim at any particular beast, instead targeting the sky above the beast tide.

The energy arrows Carl usually used could travel a dozen miles before running out of steam. These physical arrows should have been able to go even further, but they exploded into intense conflagrations shortly after emerging from the barrier. The beasts only looked up in confusion before continuing their assault on the five-element barrier.

Carl didn’t have time to worry about their reaction. He was only three arrows in, and smoke was already coming out of his nostrils. Terrifying flames were eating his organs, with each added arrow worsening the punishment. By the fifth arrow, the pain was so overwhelming that he couldn’t think straight. By the seventh, his whole existence was consumed by flames.

By some miracle, Carl managed to find the eighth arrow among the flames, and his smoldering bowstring didn’t snap when drawn. He released the arrow, and the relief made tears pour down his cheeks as he fell to the ground. The fires that dragged him toward oblivion had stabilized before he was pushed to the point of no return, though he’d need weeks of bed rest to get back on his feet. Not to mention that every inch of his pathways was scorched.

His emptied Cosmic Core trembled with hunger, and Carl glanced at the spiritual spring like he was dying of thirst. Maybe just a—Carl shook his head and focused on the matter at hand. The fires inside his body had gathered into eight miniature suns hovering around his heart. Their appearance was perfectly mimicked on the battlefield.

The unstable explosions were unstable no longer. They’d turned into actual suns holding the entirety of Carl’s cultivation along with the power infused into the arrows over months. Dozens of three-legged crows orbited each one, emitting even greater heat than the suns themselves. By the time beasts realized there was a problem, it was already too late.

The crows dove toward the ground with suicidal fervor, and their shapes morphed as they picked up speed. They looked mostly like arrows made from fire by the time they crashed into the beasts below. Deafening explosions shook the valley as thousands of beasts were reduced to ash. The arrows didn’t wink out after tearing apart their targets either.

The flames attached themselves to furs and hides, growing and spreading beyond Carl’s control. Even the environment was working in his favor. A massive, fire-attuned Spirit Vein was hidden beneath the basin. The five-element Spiritual Spring appearing out of nowhere had thrown the focused ambient energy out of balance, but there was still ample fuel for the flames.

New crows emerged from the suns as soon as the first generation had perished. It was Carl who controlled the process through the miniatures in his chest. There was enough fuel for two more batches, but Carl knew he didn’t have the time. A dozen Beast Kings had perished under the first barrage, and just as many were busy putting out flames on their bodies. That meant there was still plenty to go around, and they wouldn’t just watch Carl turn the whole basin into a furnace.

Better to detonate what was left as an attack than see the suns be torn apart. Of course, there was a second option that had some chance of forcing the tide to back down. Heart as kindling, soul as arrow—a sacrificial art that turned oneself into the ninth sun in a bid for mutual annihilation. Even the Late D-grade Beast King towering at the back would have to watch out for that blast.

Not that Carl ever planned on using that feature unless it was to protect his wife and daughter. He wasn’t a lunatic who lived for the battlefield and glorified the idea of becoming a martyr. Carl squished the suns with his mind, and the real ones turned into infernal fireworks that rained down on the suffering tide.

The streaks weren’t as potent as the arrowcrows, but there were thousands and thousands of them. The flames fused with the environment, turning into a true wildfire. Carl wryly smiled at the scene. What a shame. That would have been a decent chunk of Kill Energy. He unsteadily got to his feet, popped a few healing pills into his mouth as he stumbled toward the spiritual spring.

Carl was aware that he wasn’t a one-man army like Emperor Atwood. There were at least seventy Beast Kings left, and it was mostly the weaker ones who’d fallen. However, the flames held a trace of the true aura of the three-legged crow—courtesy of Iz, of course—and most beasts would think twice before approaching.

The attacks on the barrier had stopped, and they were already recovering some of their lost energy. By the time the beasts outside figured out it was a ruse, the barrier would have grown even stronger. Carl figured he’d bought at least twenty minutes of safety with his little stunt.

Extraordinarily dense but mixed spiritual ripples rose from the crystal-clear waters. Carl didn’t get it. He would have thought that a spring appearing in one’s backyard was a blessing. Its nature was even somewhat aligned with the five-elements defenses keeping the frontier base safe. It was related to the blasted road.

The Imperial Workshop had deemed that this stretch needed a fire-attuned node stabilized by the five elements, and having the five elements naturally emerge would destabilize the road network. So he and Iz were tasked with resolving the issue while the defenders kept the thirsty beasts at bay. So much for that plan.

Carl did his part by putting his whole head into the pond, greedily gulping mouthfuls of spring water. It temporarily soothed his aching pathways and replenished his lost energy faster than any Cosmic Crystal could. Since the spring had appeared right atop the Imperial Road, it also lacked any of the nasty impurities that permeated most of the Left Imperial Expanse.

How he wished he had the boss’s proclivity for ingestion. Zachary Atwood could gobble up half a mountain while he was still an E-grade cultivator. This little spring was child’s play. He could swallow it in one sitting, removing the reason for the beast tide to stick around. Carl barely managed to make a dent in the spring before he was filled to the point of bursting. He burped and patted his protruding belly as he sat on the shore, his immediate lack of energy somewhat resolved.

What now?

Carl glanced at the burning base. There were still signs of an intense battle going on inside. Carl had run to the frontlines as much to escape her flames as to stall the tide. The girl had suddenly gone mad, turning on the people they’d been sent to assist. Now, the stench of burning flesh wafting over from the fortress was even stronger than the one coming from outside the barrier.

Some messes were too great to clean up. What the hell was he supposed to say when they returned to the Farsee Court?

“It’s my fault for expecting smooth sailing while running the Emperor’s errands,” Carl muttered.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

With Iz Tayn clearing the path, they’d successfully explored three Memory Domains on the way and another two after reaching the inner region. The results spoke for themselves. Iz had erected a halo based on her flames, and they’d been working on bringing forth a second since successfully entering the Farsee Court.

The Farsee Court was connected to three Dao Peaks: Elements, Nature, and Order. It was the court responsible for taming the wilds and subduing the elements to construct the mind-boggling, continent-spanning formation. The other courts had helped out in various ways, but it was the Farsee Court that imposed Order on the Left Imperial Expanse—the Empire’s flavor of order, anyway.

Such a monumental task could never have too many helping hands, and they’d been put to work the moment they joined the court. The Sealbearers were sent through the Earthgate—essentially a backdoor that could teleport the Imperial Workshop anywhere on the road—to random problem areas on the continent to deal with whatever prevented the road from functioning properly.

In this case, it was the emergence of the spring that disrupted the area’s energy flow. The previous two tasks were different, with one being an issue of an incompetent Array Master and the other the theft of critical resources. Carl had eagerly solved each one, feeling that each completed task took him closer to the Farsee Court’s true seat of power. That was where he would advance Emperor Atwood’s plans.

Carl thought Iz was on the same page. Had he been deluding himself?

Until today, Iz had never given him reason to think their goals were incompatible, and traveling with a golden spoon undeniably had its perks. Carl’s pockets were bursting at the seams with Natural Treasures that failed to attract the lady’s eyes. [Empyrean Suns of Yi] was also something she brought to reciprocate his ongoing assistance, and the force that gave the arrows their kick came from her own blood.

Iz Tayn wasn’t interested in the treasures left in the memories, nor did she appear too keen on exploring the meaning behind the threads of fate they encountered. She mostly seemed interested in setting things on fire and spouting nonsense about fate. The girl had the face of an angel but the mind of those fire-starting imps back home.

The way she barreled through challenges like a meteor made the mad emperors of Earth appear measured in comparison. It was Carl who performed all the investigations, and he dealt with all social issues after Iz nearly tested the fates of a group of engineers from the Imperial Workshop. Carl should have known then that it was only a matter of time before disaster struck.

Killing the workers of the Imperial Workshop was a big no-no, and the only way back was through the Earthgate in the middle of the burning fortress. If they left through the domain’s border, they’d emerge at some random spot on the continent, undoing months of travel in one go.

Carl tried to make sense of the situation as the flames outside began fading. Iz Tayn was crazy, but not crazy crazy. There had to be more to it. But it was impossible that she’d uncovered traitors among the locals. They barely had time to step out of the Earthgate before she began launching fireballs left and right.

Was it a play to approach the Clan of Pomul?

The Imperial Workshop controlled the Farsee Court, but the design behind the Imperial Road wasn’t solely their work. The Clan of Pomul was an ancient race thought extinct long before the Limitless Empire’s time. Iz only knew of them because their ruins still stood to this day. They were a popular target for cultivators hoping to excavate treasures from the beginnings of the Era.