Wind screaming in his ears, he arrived in front of the young woman before she could clear his trajectory, her face twisting into a final expression of horror as he hacked her head off with a rough-handed slash of his sword. Summoning a small platform of spiritual energy, he kicked off of it just in time to avoid the attack of a summoned serpent that would have swallowed him whole had he not moved in the nick of time, though he had been sure to wrap a net of spiritual energy around the girl’s headless corpse so as to ferry it along in his wake.

Landing atop the ground, he stored his sword away and began to weave his way through the screaming, writhing youths that stained the open fields immediately outside of Alleybrook, which was covered with gruesome, sodden soil where large pools of blood had leaked from the stumps of their severed limbs. These injured youths went completely still whenever he passed by them, avoiding his gaze as they caught sight of the blurred afterimages that he left in his wake. With his sword hand free, he summoned the corpse that he had been carrying along and plunged his right hand into its chest, avoiding the bites of countless serpents with perfectly precise movements as if he were sneaking into a vault that was shrouded in moving infrared lasers.

Making sure to maintain constant motion, he followed the necessary inner essence circulation patterns and activated the Blood Burning Heart Technique, replenishing all of the energy that he had spent thus far into the fighting. Making sure not to harvest all of the body’s blood, he leapt skyward just in time to avoid a summoned serpent, rocketing upwards for over a kilometre due to the strength of his jump. A pair of giant snakes followed him upward, each around four hundred metres long and thus covering nearly half of the distance between him and the ground. Floating in place as he stared into their glowing red eyes with an undisturbed expression, he activating the Scarlet Serpent Summoning Technique and infused a great deal of his energy into it.

The remaining Genesis-staged youths turned tail in fright after they laid eyes on the massive monster that he had just brought into the world, a calamitous serpent that was so large that its body could easily clear the distance between Jason and the ground below. Intent on protecting those within the town, he drew out the diagram for a profound defensive arrayment and then activated it as he hopped atop the serpent’s back, which created an invisible, dome-like barrier around Alleybrook. Willing the beast downward as it let out an earth-shaking, artificial hiss that crushed the eardrums of everyone outside of the town, the snake soared downwards and swallowed the two that had just been launched at Jason as if they were little worms that had happened upon a ravenous viper.

By this point, all disciples that hadn’t been incapacitated had made the easy decision to flee. As the few hundred that remained scattered in all directions like baby spiders accidently freed from the silken sack on their mother’s back, Jason absorbed the last of the energy within the young woman’s corpse that he had been carrying around, which he then hurled at one of the war band’s fleeing leaders. The body burst into a mist of blood and minced meat as it was struck by an instantaneously-conjured spear of deadly energy, which continued on into the back of the young man that he was targeting. The youth was engulfed by a bright flash of crimson light that nullified the attack—the effects of some life-saving treasure, no doubt—but Jason wasn’t about to let the young man escape.

Leaping from his summon’s back and willing it to go after the last remaining Genesis-staged disciple, Jason chased after the young man from below, his eyes never leaving the disciple’s flying figure. Conjuring a horse-sized hand of well-structured inner essence, he tracked his target’s trajectory and kicked off of the ground with enough strength to leave a sizeable impression in the earth and so shot forth to intercept him.

He quickly snatched the man out of the air like a ball into a baseball glove, making sure not to kill him as the demonic hand clenched around him in a firm, bone-breaking grip.

“P—please, let me go!”

Jason snickered, but otherwise ignored his captive as his summon returned just in time for him to land atop its back. From within its gut came the last wisps of his other enemy’s aura, the youth’s body having been completely melted away by the acidic properties of the energy that composed the summoned serpent.

Realizing what had happened to his companion, the young man in his grasp called out in a shaky, desperate voice. “I—I can tell you things! Please! Please spare me!”

Jason willed his serpent to climb about two kilometres above the earth, at which point he infused his voice with inner essence and called out to the land at large.

“People of Alleybrook. I’m sure you guys are running low on supplies at this point, so I’ll be leaving the spatial bags of all of these disciples behind. Also, the barrier I’ve set up around your town should last for a few years so long as it’s not attacked by one of the sect’s great elders, so you can consider yourselves safe for the time being. Good luck!”

Taking note of all of the agonizing disciples in the fields outside of the town, he reluctantly summoned over eight hundred spears of grey light with a reliable attack arrayment and then fired them all off at once. His projectiles slammed into the ground after leaving behind hundreds of beautiful streaks of light, the disciples below all dying to sudden impalements as if they had been caught up in a meteor shower that had slipped into Venara’s orbit.

Willing the serpent to fly off into the night like a great, glowing dragon, Jason caught sight of the other nearby towns that he had been too distracted to keep tabs on during the heat of battle. Taken aback, he narrowed his eyes when he saw that they were completely undisturbed.

Havel said that there were two more war bands heading for these towns. Where are they? Jason knew that the young man hadn’t been lying, as he’d confirmed the enemy movements himself just before he’d set off for Alleybrook. Expanding his spiritual sense, he confirmed that around six thousand disciples were still heading towards the city of Calmer at a steady pace, and most of the war band’s leaders were still in their midst.

He glanced at the young man that was still trapped in the large hand of energy that branched off from his left side like a sickly, hellish wing, giving the youth a sharp stare.

“I was under the impression that Talenshire and Summertide were about to be attacked. For your sake, I hope you know why they’re not.”

“If I tell you, will you spare me?”

He stared at the young man for a short time, both of them growing wet as they momentarily passed through a low-hanging cloud. When they emerged back out into the open night, a trail of urine was trickling along in the wake of his captive’s shaking body.

“Sure. But only if you tell me something good.”

“We were trying to lure you away.”

“Why?”

“The great el—our leader noticed that you usually act alone, a—always targeting the smaller war bands. So she sent us out to distract you.”

“Where are the other war bands, then?” He could sense everything within a substantial radius, and yet he couldn’t sense the two groups in question. “You’d better tell the truth, else…” The hand clenched around the young man, cracking some of his ribs.

“They’re also bait!” he cried, squealing in anguish before the devious grip around him was slackened by just a bit. “They’ve gone north…to split your group.”

“For what purpose?” He abruptly noticed something strange about the war band that was heading towards Calmer, specifically something off about the auras of its Genesis-staged cultivators. “So that’s it.”

Jason crushed the young man to death with a chorus of sickly sounds, trapping all of his blood in a globe of energy which he quickly used to absorb the vitality that still swirled within it.

Now that he was no longer feeling the heat of battle, he was far more aware of the euphoric feeling that engulfed him as he took in the last of the young man’s energies. Limbs shaking and breath unsteady, his mount became slightly unstable as a momentary erection attempted to fight its way free from his robes. Feeling the same sort of disgust that usually accompanied such developments, he focused with all his might to regain control of both his mind and body, at which point the giant serpent beneath his feet grew stable once more.

While it was true that the great host of disciples was still making its way toward Calmer, the auras of its more powerful members were merely well-placed imprints, meaning that the cultivators themselves weren’t actually present amongst their ranks. The fact that he couldn’t sense them meant that they were, at the very least, eleven kilometres away from his current location.