Treasury

Severing the head of a late 2nd stage Cinderheart disciple, Lucian turned to shoot off in the direction of the blazing buildings.

As he ran, he again extended his lifesense wide and tracked down a disciple weak in will and cultivation. He was fresh to the 2nd stage of body refinement and currently within the burning treasury.

A unique wisp of spirituality bearing vibrant lifeforce and creeping deathfog appeared in the man's body and swiftly multiplied. Like a virus it spread, taking over the baseline of the man's life, devouring his will, and disrupting his spirituality.

A new set of senses appeared in Lucian's mind, all belonging to the now dying man that had been made a puppet.

He saw eight others moving through the treasury of the Cinderheart sect, taking what they could and destroying the rest. He had control of the man's body, but that did not give him access to his cultivation or abilities. Instead, the puppet drew two sabres and without turning his head, decapitated the man to his right and removed the arm of another before him.

The group of disciples yelled and roared in anger at the 'traitor' and attacked him to find the man far more skilled with those sabres than he had ever been before. The puppet utilized the many mundane fighting styles in the Unhindered Motion technique, though he lacked the capability for the accompanying thought processes.

Like a graceful dancer with a serpent's body, the man slipped through the great number of disciples, all stronger than he by far, and cut down half of them before losing his head to a crescent battle axe.

As his puppet fell to the ground, a heavy wave of exhaustion assaulted Lucian, and his mind felt slow, thoughts taxing.

That was not a technique he'd come up with himself, but rather something the Grand Life Tome had illustrated for the Soulbody realm. With one anchor formed, one part of Lucian's bodily cultivation and spirituality had been bridged, allowing the use of such techniques.

It was imperfect, lasting only a short time as the puppet gradually died from instability of body and spirit. And even with his swordplay and martial skill, a weaker body and mind with only a hint of his own spirituality can achieve little in the grand scheme of things.

But as he formed more spiritual anchors, he would be capable of possessing those of greater strength. He'd never be able to control an equal, not without great mastery over the spiritual fields, which was something augmenters never excelled at, but it certainly had its uses.

The brick wall of the treasury broke with his entrance, and before the rubble had hit the floor, Lucian's bloodplate gauntlet had already grasped a woman by the throat and squeezed to a fist.

'Three more. Two are already gone.' He noted.

The other man in the room threw something at him, and Lucian's eyes went wide before a river of blood formed a dome-like shield around him.

The shield rocked and blew apart as Lucian felt his body flying backwards. His plate armor had lost it's glamour, showing its true, blood red colors, and was fragmented at the front. His body was torn and his internals burnt.

The sound of demolition rang as Lucian found himself in a pile of rubble belonging to a building adjacent to the treasury.

He let out a long groan as he tried to sit up, placing his right hand near his wound. Even now, his body was repairing itself at incredible speeds, bones realigning and his bloodplate armor reforming.

*Cough cough* He wheezed as he coughed.

"What the fuck?"

It took a few seconds to pull himself to his feet once more, and another few before his wounds had healed enough to walk.

It always shocked him how quickly he recovered from injuries. As he was now, he imagined it would be a mission to kill him even after he could no longer lift a finger. He thought back to the deadwood serpent he had killed oh so long ago. They had exhausted the creature until it could not move, and still spent minutes stabbing at its body trying to end its life.

'I really hope I die a cleaner death than that.' he shivered.

Lifesense exploding forth once more, he tried to locate the man that had done this to him, and found the disciple burnt to ashes where he had stood, along with a great deal of the treasury.

'Bloody hell'

Shifting his attention to find those final two who had fled, he saw a man and woman attempting to flee while pursued by cavalry outside the sect's gates. The man was holding a box as he ran, and the woman spewed forth a flame that burnt the body and soul of anyone who approached.

Gathering strength in his legs, he shot after them.

**

When he returned to the sect, the battle was over. In his hand was a spatial storage item shaped like a box, the same one the fleeing man had been carrying. Walls crumbled and rubble fell within the Cinderheart sect, and those wise enough to surrender had been gathered on their knees, hands behind heads, by the King's Guard.

Takis had returned without any visible injuries, and while David seemed exhausted, Captain Stone and Sir Hunt stood stoic despite marks and injuries on their bodies.

"Lucian, good job with that. Come, we'll see what remains in the treasury."

He nodded and passed off the storage box as he reached Takis, before leading him to the burnt treasury.

Takis' eyes went wide when he saw the state of the place, especially the broken walls.

"Your fight with Rafiel did not spill into here did it?"

"No, of course not. It was this thing." He said as he reached down for a glass ball on the ground.

It was coarse and rough, and quite murky. Lucian was sure it had been a fiery orange when it was thrown at him, but now it lay colorless.

Takis held his hand out after Lucian had inspected it and received the glass sphere, no larger than the segment of a finger.

"Odd." He said faintly. "I was not aware they had anything like this."

His eyes took in the surrounding destruction, just as a piece of the wall happened to collapse, and frowned deeply.

"Let us hope, the Cinderheart found this, and did not make it themselves."

Lucian needed only a second to understand why Takis' voice had taken a dire turn.

"Count Glaider" He murmured, his own expression becoming serious.

"Well, I'm sure we'll learn something from this," Takis said as he lifted the storage box slightly. "It won't take too long for our artificers to get the thing open."

With a glance to Lucian, Takis continued to speak. "You did not tell me you could do that."

"Do what?"

"The falcon. I realized only after the fact why it felt familiar. It had your presence on it."

'It's detectable?' That came as a larger shock than Takis' recognition of what he'd seen. 'I had thought it was hidden unless under scrutiny.'

"Right. I'd not tried it on anything more than common animals yet, and did not know much about the technique yet. I didn't mean to keep it secret."

"I'm not admonishing you. But you understand the significance of that technique, don't you? The uses we could have for it in the future?"

"Of course Your Highness." It was the first time in a while he'd called Takis by his title and it gave the man a brief moment of pause.

"Come, we'll wrap things up here and get this box in the hands of an artificer as soon as possible."

Following Prince Takis out of the Cinderheart treasury, Lucian thought back to the flaming explosion released by the glass ball. He was an early 4th stage cultivator with incredible defense. Between his dense blood, body cultivation, steel body, bloodplate armor, and the river of–

'Idiot.'

With a call of his will, the scattered river of blood he had forgotten collected once more and followed in his wake, gradually reducing in size as any dirt and unwanted materials were expelled, the blood cleansed. He would still need to refine it as his own before absorbing it into himself, and so for now, he held a hand out as the river of blood condensed to form a sword, fitting perfectly in the empty sheath at his waist.

Glancing back at the broken treasury, he finished his prior thought.

'If that was a natural treasure then fine. But if they could make those things… war will have to change once again.'

"I would ask you to keep both the glass ball and what the falcon saw secret for now." Takis broke the silence. "I had thought Rafiel would stick to Liza's side and together we could best them in a group fight, but High Elder Liza proved a tougher foe than I'd expected. I needed to pull her aside to ensure victory."

Lucian looked at Takis for a second before responding:

"Of course. I will speak of it to noone."

Takis smiled. "You will speak of it with me, later. For now, we must deal with those surrendered."