Destiny in Cinders

”A fey attack?” Huo Qing wasn’t too surprised about it as a local of the region, though he did seem rather thankful about discovering it early. He recognized the fey immediately. ”Whew, that was close. Those are ember ravens. Thankfully, we didn’t drive too far ahead or we’ll be discovered. These feys come from the Sunset Ocean in the northwest. They’re quite savage and intelligent, often attacking convoys to steal their resources. But still, why would they do something as suicidal as attack Hilltwixt?”

Huo Qing wasn’t surprised about the fey attack itself. Mortality Plains was considered to be part of the safe zone, but safety was a relative metric. The current fallen state of Skysource meant that feys and fiends outnumbered humans. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to attack human settlements once in a while, yet even the most foolish of feys wouldn’t attempt to attack heavily fortified towns within the safe zone.

”Maybe their old lair was so overpopulated that they couldn’t afford to keep so many of them alive,” An Jing said, recalling what Metalhead brought up once. The expedition bureau had a bounty of fifty merits for each three-legged flamecrow, visible among the flock of ember ravens as the few brighter tufts of flame. Deepnight City’s administration probably foresaw situations like these and set the incentive to get rid of these creatures in advance.

”Are we still able to make it to Hilltwixt because of the fey attack?” You Ruhui was quite worried, knowing that they could only remain in Skysource for three days. They already spent a good part of one day sleeping. If An Jing’s objective would be delayed, she would be affected by this as well, considering that they were now close allies.

”Don’t worry,” Huo Qing confidently said as he pointed at the glowing patterns on the town walls. ”I called it heavily fortified for a reason.”

Right after he finished, the patterns on the walls reached full charge. A powerful salvo ensued! Even from tens of li away, An Jing could feel the sudden rumbling from the terrestrial veins beneath him, quickly followed by a rush of abyss-deep spirit energy toward Hilltwixt.

Thunderclaps followed as lightning arcs circled by crimson flame shot out from the town, instantly vaporizing the dark clouds where the flamecrows and ember ravens gathered. The avian fey near the periphery tried to flee but were turned into charred corpses all the same, falling to the ground like rain.

One Foundation Realm flamecrow that hid among the other feys shrieked in pain and burned up in a tuft of bright, purple-red flame that scattered into countless demonic embers as it fell to the ground, forming a blood crystal of fey flame. With the raven king dead, the rest of the birds were zapped and burned nonstop and reduced to ash in an instant.

”Behold the Purple Mansion formation that defends this town: Magnefire Abyss! It’s the most powerful one across the seventeen towns of Mortality Plains!” A look of adoration surfaced on Huo Qing’s face. ”My interest in formations developed after witnessing Pilljungle Town’s defensive formation, Grandhill Divine Tree, easily slay three Foundation feys. Formations can be used for crafting, defense, cultivation and terrestrial-vein regulation. If they weren’t that difficult to use, they would be the solution to everything!”

”Formations are mighty indeed,” An Jing said with a nod. Though his lifearc that was associated with the Evenstar and Pyrestar, he was quite sensitive to the flow of spirit qi of matching aspects. During the formation’s activation, he had felt the energy from the surroundings being pulled toward it to generate the purest form of magma neon.

An Jing would at most be able to retain a few streams of spirit qi for his own use with his lifearc. People without lifearcs or defensive abilities would find themselves completely drained of spirit qi by an advanced formation like that with arcane-domain properties.

If his guess was right, Hilltwixt’s formation would actually be able to form an abyss of magnetic neon and magma at full power, turning the entire area around it into part of its arcane domain. He even felt very faint traces of the nether; it wasn’t just the corporeal world.

”It’s the nether realm indeed,” Yvelbane said. ”This formation is linked to the other formations in the other towns on Mortality Plains through the nether realm, forming a large network. That’s probably what they call the spirit net!”

One could only access the spirit net through a chip. Only then could one be considered a member of the safe zone and be identified by formations. It appeared that formationists in Skysource also doubled as programmers of sorts. Perhaps Huo Qing’s study of formations was a good investment for the future. He didn’t need to excel at it; merely achieving average competency was already incredibly helpful in Skysource.

”Not bad,” Yvelbane said while An Jing was deep in thought. ”The terrestrial veins around here are of the metal and flame aspects. It also appears to be a place where battles happen often, so it’s filled with blood lethal qi. It’s a great place for you to cultivate!”

You Ruhui inched closer and said, ”This place is great for you! An Jing, the terrestrial vein here has mutually reinforcing metal and fire aspects! Fire helps melt metal to forge it, and metal conducts and retains the heat of fire. It’s the perfect place for forging thanks to how potent the metal and fire aspects are!”

”Indeed,” An Jing said, looking at Hilltwixt with high expectations. ”Looks like this is my promised land indeed. Not only does it have metal and fire, it’s also dense with blood lethal qi. I’m definitely buying that property!”

By then, the remnants of the avian fey in the sky scattered in all directions. Most of them had been eliminated by the formation, though not all. Among the escaping fey, one group flew toward An Jing and the rest!

”Just our luck... Straggler ravens are no joke. Let’s go!” Huo Qing said, wanting to leave right away. Little did he know that he was traveling with a bearer of a celestial arc and one who had imperial blood. It was no wonder that the fey came flying toward them.

”One flamecrow is worth fifty merits, right?” An Jing took out the Iceburst rifle and aimed it at the dozen Spirit Awakening flamecrows. ”If I can take them all down, I’d get a few hundred merits at least. I can’t let this chance go to waste.”

You Ruhui raised her hand and began to gather spirit qi from the surroundings too.

”Are you really going to fight?” Huo Qing was stunned, though he had no choice but to get ready as well. This former clerk and self-taught apprentice formationist had neither a deployable formation nor talismans on him. He had no choice but to bring out his own Iceburst rifle. ”Sigh... You two, be ready to run if we can’t take them down!”