The Clan's End (5)

Nate was tied up on the ground like a caterpillar. He had lost both ears and had several gruesome wounds all over his body, but he gritted his teeth and endured this pain. The elder left behind to watch him didn't like this. Kran had taken the Blue Breeze Spear and left this elder here to watch over Nate. They didn't think Nalos would really surrender for his son's life, but they needed him to reveal the location of the secret treasury that the clan had. Normally, only the Patriarch and High Elder would know of this, but in order to keep Nate who wanted to become a mercenary from leaving, Nalos had given him a hint to its location and Nate worked out the rest by himself.

The elder stayed to torture the location out of Nate, but it was proving fruitless. Nate was as tight lipped as a mute, not even screaming despite having several of his fingernails plucked. Inwardly, the elder was starting to admire his toughness but that wouldn't stop him from continuing his role. He had already become a traitor so he could save his own skin; there was no longer a point to thinking about honour.

Meanwhile, near the ruins of Sky-wind Pavilion, Bartos was being dominated. It wasn't surprising, he was barely able to stay firm against Eclos so with the addition of Lus and Kran, as seriously injured as they were, his loss was guaranteed. Furthermore, since he couldn't expend too much energy, he had to focus the increased gravity field on Eclos so the other two weren't affected by it too much.

The main controller was in the space expansion bag at his side, so he placed a large effort into protecting that location, but his defense wouldn't last for long. Bartos was furious when he saw his prided Blue Breeze Spear in Kran's hands but there was nothing he could do about it. Fortunately, he couldn't use it nearly as well as Nate.

At one point, when he was off-balance after deflecting a thrust from Kran, he was blown into the air by a swing of Lus' axe. It was only with one arm, but Bartos was exhausted enough for it to overpower him. Once he was in the air, Bartos was caught by one of Eclos' wind claws and had his body constantly sliced by the gale. Bartos was able to endure this torturous pain without screaming despite the sharp winds quickly reaching his bones, but it wasn't his body that needed defending. When the bag that was at his side was torn open by the wind and the orb that had dropped from it was shattered by the powerful current, Kran and Lus had wide smiles on their faces. Sensing the weakening of the hold on him, Bartos used his full strength to break out of the claw, but it appeared to be too late.

"Hahaha!!"

However, it was Bartos who laughed and Nalos also had a smirk on his face that irritated Corin who was facing him.

"What, why is the barrier still up!?" Iris screeched.

Except for Bartos and Nalos, everyone else was wondering how the barrier was still up despite the main controller being broken.

"Was it a fake?"

To this question from Lus, the smirks on Nalos' and Bartos' became more prominent. Bartos knew from Shui and told Nalos that the main controller was just that, a controller. Even without it, the array would still run with its default settings. The only problem was that they would no longer be able to do anything to the array. Bartos had purposefully shown himself with it so that the traitors would gather at Sky-wind Pavilion instead of disrupting the battlefield or whatever devious plans they might have come up with.

The traitors only had a very limited knowledge of arrays so they assumed that the main controller was the core of the protection array, and that if it broke, so would the barrier. Witnessing that their assumption was mistaken, Kran and Lus looked dazed but Corin, as the most experienced one, was able to quickly redefine his objective.

"Hurry up and kill Bartos. Since that didn't take down the barrier, we'll have to take over the clan and wait until it runs out of power or search for the real core."

Once more, Corin ordered Kran and Lus and this time they obediently listened to him. There may have been other traitors, but by now all of the major ones were revealed. Without the main controller, the protection array would use energy at its default rate so it would take at most two weeks before it came down. However, their battle wouldn't take that long. By the end of the day, either the traitors would take over the clan and wait for the Black Dog Bandits to enter, or those still loyal to the clan would stay firm and wait for the last hopeless battle against the bandits.

Now that the battle was the only thing on their minds, Nalos and Bartos both swallowed a pill made by Shui. These were the only two he gave them, but it would be enough. During his four years, Shui dabbled in alchemy, but his dabbling gave him the confidence to declare that his knowledge of alchemy was comparable to Kings who practiced it. Unfortunately, due to lack of experience and materials, he could only confidently make pills for those below Sky Realm.

After taking the pills, Nalos' and Bartos' auras explosively increased. Bartos seemed to get infinitely close to Earth Realm while Nalos' control over nature energy became more and more refined. The pills they ate boosted the aspect(s) that their cultivation realm focused on. Soul Realm focused on energy accumulation and control so Bartos became much better at both of these aspects, but since Earth Realm was focused on only control, the increase in control for Nalos was even more despite the fact that his base level of control over nature energy was far greater than Bartos'.

This powered-up state that Nalos and Bartos entered, spooked the traitor group. Bartos was one thing since he was still up against two late Soul Realm warriors and an early Earth Realm expert, but Nalos was already a tad stronger than Corin so this boost would likely break the balance that had been made.

Without giving anyone time to react, Bartos allowed his gravity domain to pressure Lus and Kran as well. With this sudden weight added to him, Lus was unable to even flinch when Bartos' hammer swung at him. With no barrier or even an arm to block, Bartos' hammer smashed Lus' head into bloody bits. Before the headless corpse fell to the ground, Bartos swung at Kran as well but this time he only managed to knock him to Eclos since he had put up a barrier in time.

Despite the fact that he was a traitor, Nalos couldn't stop himself from feeling a prick in his heart when Lus' head was crushed, but he didn't look at the scene. After taking care of the rest of the traitors there would be time for a funeral. It wouldn't be a very proper or formal one, but it was the most Nalos could allow.

Corin considered using Lus' gruesome death to shake Nalos, but those determined eyes told him that would only be a waste of time.