Dao of Money

One moment, everything was unfolding almost exactly as Chen Ren had hoped.

A large section of the first layer had already been torn apart. The foundation establishment realm cultivators, the artifacts, and even the contraption were doing enough to keep it from sealing itself back together, and every time the array answered with one of its beams, the mirrors turned that force against it and widened the damage further. The rhythm of it had started to settle—attack, beam, reflection, more cracks—and Chen Ren had already begun thinking they might be able to keep that pressure up for quite a while. He had enough pills on hand to keep everyone going, and slowly, bit by bit, they were even beginning to wear down the second layer.

Then Shrey moved in again.

He drove another punch toward the small crack he had opened in the silver barrier, with Han Qingshi striking alongside him, and that was when the array changed.

The whole thing suddenly lit up.

Not in the way it had before, not like another beam was preparing to fire. For a second Chen Ren thought that was all it would be—a stronger retaliation, perhaps—but then he saw the silver sheen of the second layer begin to peel.

It was a strange, almost ugly sight.

Light seemed to lift from the surface in thin, curved strips, like skin coming away from something alive beneath it.

Besides him, Li Xuan’s eyes widened. “What is happening?”

Chen Ren had no answer.

He could only watch as the peeling light pulled farther and farther away from the barrier until it started taking the shape of wings, bodies and beaks. The next second, a sharp cry rang through the air as what looked like silver eagles burst out of the array itself and shot straight toward Han Qingshi.

Even the big brute looked caught off guard.

Still, he reacted fast enough. Before the first eagle could properly slam into him, Han Qingshi snapped his chains out, caught it by the beak, and smashed it hard back against the array.

But that only bought him a breath.

Two more came immediately after.

They hit him with enough force to actually drive him backward and slam the massive man down onto the damaged first layer below.

Every second, more silver eagles peeled out of the second layer.

At first they went for Han Qingshi and Shrey, probably because the two of them were closest and hitting the array hardest. Han Qingshi struggled against them, chains snapping out again and again just to keep them off him. Shrey, on the other hand, handled them differently. He simply let them come close enough, then punched them straight back into the silver wall hard enough to widen the cracks a little more.

But as Chen Ren watched, he noticed something that made his stomach tighten.

The array was pulling the damaged eagles back in.

The silver light would flare, the birds would slam against it or skim close enough, and then parts of them would get absorbed into the barrier again like water sinking into stone. Was this what Shrey had meant earlier when he warned him that the array would start reacting to their attacks?

If it was, then this was bad.

Fighting a wall that answered with beams was one thing. It was still a fixed target in the end. Its attacks could be seen, predicted, and avoided. But fighting a flock of qi-formed eagles was something else entirely, especially when that flock was being created by an array this large.

They were only attacking one section of it. But the [Grand Aegis Array] wrapped around the entire city.

If it wanted to, it could produce hundreds of these things.

And as Chen Ren watched, that was exactly what happened.

More and more eagles tore themselves free from the second layer. They flocked first toward Shrey and Han Qingshi, but not all of them stayed there. Some curved around the front and slipped through the damaged first layer, diving toward the nearest cultivators on flying swords. A few of those cultivators fought back at once, weapons flashing as they tried to cut the birds down. Others chose the other option and pulled away, only for the eagles to chase after them through the air.

Three of the silver birds even turned toward the contraption.

Before they could reach it, the machine answered on its own. This time it spat out a red beam that caught the eagles head-on and disintegrated them in the air.

But Chen Ren took no comfort in that. More would come. That much was obvious already.

The only comfort he could take from the sight—if it could even be called comfort—was that the second layer seemed slightly dimmer than before. If the array was creating these eagles, then it was probably spending part of its own power to do it.

Chen Ren had no idea how much that dimming would truly matter.

The array was simply too large. Even if creating the eagles drained it, there was no telling how much power it still held in reserve. That uncertainty sat badly in him, but before he could think any farther, Li Xuan suddenly shouted,

“Look up!”

Chen Ren’s head snapped back.

One of the silver eagles was already above them, diving fast with its beak open wide enough to tear into both of them if it landed cleanly. Chen Ren reacted on instinct. Qi burst from his hand, and a lightning strike snapped upward into the eagle. The impact knocked it just off line, enough that it rushed past them instead and smashed into the surface of the array.

Chen Ren let out a short breath, but the relief did not last.

The eagles were spreading everywhere now, diving after cultivators, harassing the flying swords, and even turning toward the puppets still bombarding the barrier. None of them were overwhelming on their own, but together they had become exactly what the array needed—a constant distraction, something that pulled attention away from the siege and forced everyone to waste effort surviving instead of attacking.

If they were left alone, Chen Ren knew they would ruin everything.

His mind turned quickly, looking for a way to deal with them before the situation got fully out of hand. In the end, only one answer came to him.

He immediately slapped a hand onto Li Xuan’s shoulder.

“Move through them,” he said. “All of them.”

Li Xuan stiffened and looked at him as though Chen Ren had finally lost his mind. “Are you serious?”

Chen Ren nodded once. “Yes. The sword is fast enough. Just make sure none of them touch you, or I’m dead.”

Li Xuan nodded back, but there was no real confidence on his face. That worried Chen Ren, but there was no time to say more. In the next instant, the flying sword surged forward, lightning beginning to flash more fiercely around it as they cut toward the flock.

The speed of the flying sword was enough that the other sword-riding cultivators immediately veered aside when Li Xuan cut past them, heading straight for the first flock of eagles moving toward the contraption.

Chen Ren struck the moment they were in range.

Lightning burst from his hands in a rapid, scattered frenzy, catching the silver birds and lighting them up in sharp flashes. Their cries rang out at once, but Li Xuan did not slow enough to let Chen Ren see what damage he had done. They were already past them and cutting across the sky toward the next cluster.

Soon, they fell into a rhythm.

Li Xuan kept the sword darting through the air in hard turns and sudden rises, taking them from one flock to the next while Chen Ren rained lightning into every opening he saw. Sometimes he caught whole groups at once. Other times he only had time to strike one eagle before Li Xuan was already forcing the sword in another direction.

At one point, an eagle came close enough that Chen Ren thought it had them.

Li Xuan reacted before he could.

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The man turned his body, swung his new sword, and cut the bird apart in one clean motion before bending the flying sword into a tight curve and driving them straight toward another flock that had started pressuring the twins and their mirror.

For a little while, it worked.

Then Chen Ren heard the cries behind them. When he glanced back, his chest tightened.

Most of the eagles were following them now.

They had become the obvious target. More and more of the silver birds were falling in behind the sword, beaks open, wings flashing, all of them focused on the two of them with the kind of clear intent that needed no explanation.

Chen Ren immediately fired another bolt behind them, but the eagles were already wary now. The moment the lightning flashed out, they broke apart and scattered, only to fold back into formation again once it passed.

Chen Ren swore under his breath.

Beside him, Li Xuan shouted over the rush of air, “What’s your plan for killing all of them? They’re going to close the distance sooner or later. I can’t keep pushing the sword like this forever.”

Chen Ren had not fully thought that part through yet, though he couldn’t say that out loud.

But just as they curved across the battlefield again, his eyes caught Princess Yanyue and Yalan standing on the boat below, both of them intently watching the flying sword.

And just like that, an idea came to him.

“Li Xuan, move toward Princess Yanyue!”

The man shot him a sharp look, turning back a little. “Are you trying to get the flock to crash into their boat?”

“It won’t happen,” Chen Ren said. “Just do it.”

Li Xuan grunted, but the flying sword still obeyed. It shot down so sharply that Chen Ren had no choice but to grab tighter onto the man’s shoulder. A second later the sword cut into a hard turn, and behind them the flock shifted too, changing direction in one sweep to stay on them.

Then Li Xuan pushed the sword even faster.

Princess Yanyue and Yalan’s boat rushed closer and closer through the air. Both of them clearly saw what was happening. Chen Ren met Yalan’s eyes from a distance, and that was enough. The beast had been with him too long not to understand the shape of his thinking. When he saw her let out a tired-looking sigh, he almost smiled.

He tightened his hold on Li Xuan’s shoulder.

They closed the distance.

Then, right before they would have crashed into the boat, Chen Ren shouted, “Up!”

Li Xuan jerked the flying sword into another brutal turn. For a second Chen Ren almost lost his grip, but he held on. Beneath them, heat bloomed.

That was all he needed to feel.

When Li Xuan finally steadied the sword again—looking a little like he might vomit from the movement—Chen Ren looked down and saw the result. The silver eagles were shrieking as Yalan’s flames swallowed through them, while Princess Yanyue’s elemental arrows ripped through the ones trying to break away. A few birds did manage to scatter out of the fire, but the cultivators on flying swords caught them almost immediately and cut them down before they could regroup.

Chen Ren let out a breath.

When he looked around again, only a few eagles remained.

The array was also no longer producing them in the same numbers. Shrey and Han Qingshi had kept attacking the silver layer, and weakening it clearly made creating more eagles too costly, and that worked in their favor.

His attention was taken back when Yalan shouted up from the boat. “Next time, warn us first!”

Chen Ren looked down at her. “Sorry. There wasn’t time. Let’s hope we don’t need to do that again.”

The words had barely left him when a sharp buzzing sound cut through the air.

Chen Ren turned at once and saw huge spheres of darkness streaking toward the array from the contraption. The moment they hit the first layer, the barrier reacted differently than before. Instead of merely cracking, parts of it seemed to come apart outright. Light broke into falling motes, and sections of the layer opened where the dark spheres struck.

Li Xuan gasped in front of him as more of the disintegration spheres followed.

The other cultivators immediately moved out of their path, not wanting to be caught anywhere near them, and Chen Ren turned toward the contraption with a grin spreading across his face.

It was finally firing something useful again.

“Looks like the second layer won’t last much longer,” he muttered. Then he raised his voice. “Everyone! Keep pressing it! Just a little more and we’ll make history!”

This time, more cultivators answered than he had expected. A cheer spread through the formation, and Chen Ren smiled.

After that, time passed in a blur.

The whole assault seemed to sharpen again. Breaking the first layer had already given everyone confidence, but now that the eagles had been dealt with and more cracks were beginning to spread through the second layer, the feeling among the cultivators was changing. Chen Ren could see it in their faces, in the way they attacked, in the way hesitation had started to disappear.

They were beginning to believe.

Part of Chen Ren was almost surprised by how quickly the layers were giving way.

But he knew there were two clear reasons for that. The first reason was obvious enough.

Shrey.

He kept hammering at the second layer with fists thick with qi, his mount circling the array while he watched the first layer from the corner of his eye in case it started closing again. So far, it hadn’t managed it, mostly because the contraption kept enough pressure on that outer barrier to stop it from properly repairing itself.

And that contraption itself was the second reason.

Chen Ren still had no real sense of how wide its range of power actually was. One attack might barely trouble a qi refinement realm cultivator, while the next looked capable of making even a domain manifestation realm expert think twice before taking it head-on. That unpredictability was exactly what made it so useful here.

Still, Chen Ren had never intended to rely on it alone.

That was why the mirrors mattered.

Every time the array answered with another beam, one of the mirrors caught it and turned the force back on the barrier, shaking it even more. With the second layer already weakened from producing the silver eagles, Shrey and Han Qingshi were also finding it easier to leave damage behind. Shrey would open a crack, then move. Han Qingshi would follow and drive his chains into the same place, widening it further. Around them, the ranged support from the cultivators and the puppets kept the pressure constant, never letting the array settle.

And eventually, one of the cracks stopped looking like a crack.

It became a real opening.

A hole large enough for a person to pass through, and throughs it they could finally see the third and final layer glowing beyond in gold.

When Chen Ren saw that human-sized break and shouted for everyone to keep pressing, to tear away more of the second layer so they could bring down the last one too, he still had no idea that he was about to see the full might of the [Grand Aegis Array].

***

A/N - You can read 30 chapters (15 Magus Reborn and 15 Dao of money) on my patreon. Annual subscription is now on too. Also this is Volume 2 last chapter.

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