Coming Undone

While the Merfolk fought Commander Proudmaw, and the wolfpack chased Ramson, Wei Huoran had grappled Void eyes and was separating the rat from the other two Stone holders. He quickly covered some distance when he saw a piece of land that jutted a few hundred feet in the air. Making a decision, Huoran diverted towards cliff created by this elevated land with the intention to slam Void eyes into it. Huoran lowered his altitude in preparation, and just as he readied himself to quickly stop, His passenger made a move that reversed their positions. Void eyes kicked away from Huoran, and watched as the battle puppet accelerated towards a collision with the solid rock.

Huoran's eyes widen as he realized he barely had time to react, and there wasn't enough time to use an earth escape talisman, so he he performed a martial technique, Double Sand palm. As his hands reached the stone, one hundred diameter circles formed in the stone with his hands as the center point. Huoran hit the wall, but instead of solid stone, sand appeared and cushioned his impact. Even with the sand softening the landing, Huoran's body was reeling from the crash.

'I know you don't feel well, but get up Xiao Ran', Quanliyuan shouted at him, 'She is coming right for you with daggers ready.'

Huoran opened his eyes, and quickly calculated he had seconds before Void eyes thrust her bone daggers towards him. He raised his right hand to his right side, and fired the thruster, rocketing away from the hole he made. Unfortunately, the impact he expected to hear from her slamming into cliff didn't happened. Remembering what he witnessed before they involved themselves with this conflict, Huoran was aware that Void eyes had the ability to walk through shadows, so he flew back into the sky to avoid touching shadows on the ground.

Huoran sent a quick mental command to the battle suit, and it responded by changing the talismans loaded in the wrist mounted launchers. He raised both arms, and shot talismans out one hundred meters before repeatedly rotating forty-five degrees and firing talismans each time. When the talismans reached their destination, they activated and changed into extremely bright light orbs that hung in the air. Once he finished one rotation, he spun around again, firing more talismans at the range of fifty meters.

Void eyes appeared when Huoran finished his second rotation, as she sprinted towards the floating iron suit. She threw an object towards him, but he disregarded it while changing the talismans in his arms. The item was a dark purple orb, and when it was close, it exploded and a large smoke cloud expanded. As soon as she reached the cloud, her speed increase and her appearance had become more shadowy as she headed towards him. He activated the thrusters of both his hands and feet to quickly leave the cloud, but he felt impacts on his torso, back, neck and, head before leaving the smoke screen.

Unfortunately for him, Void eyes didn't allow him to sit still as she launched more smoke screen orbs to counter his light talismans. Huoran used Quanliyuan's power to keep Void eyes in his sight, and dodge her attacks. A few times he had to replace used Qi rods which ended up in her landing an attack, but each time he was able to recover. After ten minutes, Huoran received a signal he had been waiting for when Commander Proudmaw was trapped by the array formation, and the merfolk started the suppression effort. It took another ten minutes for him to get the signal for the capture of Ramson, and he knew he just needed to hang on a bit longer before they could surround Void eyes.

Void eyes was frustrated, but as she keep attacking, she realized that this metal puppet could sense her location. She couldn't tell the condition of the other two beastkin, but the longer she stayed, the more paranoid she became. Suddenly, she felt something familiar, it was the severing of her connection to the Stone of the Dog, and she knew it was time to go. She remembered feeling this three times in the past with the Stones of the Rooster, Rabbit, and Bull, and now she knew these newcomers were th ones responsible for it. She threw three more dark orbs towards the edge of the brightly lit area, and she sprinted away from the metal puppet.

Huoran watched as Void eyes made a run for it, and took off after her. The rat's shadow walk was very quick, but Huoran could simply fly at a higher level to keep her from escaping his sight. He followed her for another twenty minutes before he finally got some relief, the Swift Wind had caught up to him.

"Boss Wei, sorry to keep you waiting", Captain Zhuo said over the intercoms.

"It's better that you made now then never, Captain", Huoran said as he enter the frigate. Huoran made his way to the bridge without removing the battle suit, which now displayed a few scratch marks.

As he entered the bridge, he asked Captain Zhuo, "Do you have a light screen I can use?"

"Of course, Boss Wei", the captain replied as she pointed to her right, "Feel free to use this one."

'Quanliyuan, please connect to that screen', Huoran requested of the spirit.

A second layer, the screen shifted to the same view as Huoran's, and he informed Captain Zhuo, "This is our target Void eyes, go into passive mode and follow. We can't let her get away."

It was about this time when he felt the disruption from the Stone of the Ram, so he sent a message for the Wolves and Merfolk. He updated them on the situation, reminded them to use the special artifacts to safely carry the Stones, and sent them their signal so they knew where the flying ship was. Soon, the flying ship faded from sight, stopped producing sounds, and no longer emitted any Qi to be sensed.

Void eyes knew she had broken one of her rules, don't obsess about revenge, the opportunity will present itself someday. She knew she been followed by that metallic puppet, but something odd happened. She could no longer sense anyone following her even though she could no longer sense the Ram and Dog stones. Her mind raced the several possibilities as she continued to shadow walk through the land, unable to shake the feeling that she was being watch.

For the next several hours, Void eyes couldn't stop as she journeyed through several fake underground bases in an attempt to throw her pursuers off her trail. When she arrived at the sixth destination which was a secret lair underneath a town used to welcome dignitaries from other tribes. Once she was safely inside, she changed her clothes and burned them, ran through several formations built to remove all foreign debris and remove tracking marks, and finally settled down with a glass of wine and some spiritual fruits. While Void eyes laid low in this safe house, a different scene emerged high above the city she hid in. The Merfolk and Bloodclaw teams had finished their tasks, and chased after the flying ship, so Huoran ordered the captain to wait to retrieve the teams before pursuing Void eyes again. When they arrived at her current location, they discovered she was hiding underneath an unremarkable building in the market area bordering the residential area. This was one of the few towns where beastkin of all kinds lived and worked, and several higher profile clans were responsible for the protection of the city. Huoran, Elder Tidehunter, Chief Bloodclaw, and Captain Zhuo were looking at a small scale map of the city that was produced using sound waves.

"This will be difficult to capture her without affect the other residents of the city", Huoran remarked with a frown as he glanced over the miniature map.

"Would it possible to bait her out of the city?", Captain Zhuo asked.

"Not likely", Jaeger Bloodclaw snorted, "It sounds as she has already been heavily influenced by the ancient inside the stone. Considering her earlier actions, she must suffer from major paranoia."

The room grew quiet as they couldn't see any easy solutions for the current problem.

Elder Tidehunter broke the silence a few minutes later, "If only we could trick her senses, and make her believe her surroundings were normal while we set up a trap."

Huoran looked at Elder Tidehunter, "How hard is it to fool the senses of a beastkin?"

"Depends", Chief Bloodclaw spoke up, "While generally a beastkin's senses are more advanced than a human's, you can further separate it by clan. Wolves and dogs are known for the sense of smell, Eagles, crows, and hawks have excellent eye sight, and bats have amazing hearing."

"What if everything around feels the same as normal?", Huoran inquired.

The two beastkin contemplated Huoran's words before Elder Tidehunter replied with a question, "How would you accomplish such a thing?"

"Let's say I create an array formation that records the environment around it", Huoran suggested, "Just like how the camera on your Qphone visually records the environment around it, this array would go a step further. It would record sights, smells, sounds, and auras only to reproduce the environment it captured."

"It sounds like an illusion array", Chief Bloodclaw stated, "Except that instead of making the victim believe in some auspicious or suspicious event, you want to make them feel at ease."

Huoran stood up, and bowed to everyone before saying, "It shouldn't take a long time to refine this array, I will start immediately." Over the next two days, Huoran worked in his room refining the array formation before meeting with everyone again.

"How are the results?", Chief Bloodclaw asked.

"I'm sorry to make everyone wait", Huoran responded, "Normally, an array formation of this simplicity wouldn't take this long to create. During the process, I had some inspiration and this is what was created."

Houran held an array disk and a set rods in his hands, much to the confusion of the his friends.

"Daoist Wei", Elder Tidehunter, "I'm not afraid to confess that I have limited knowledge of the dao of formations, but I believe I seen refiners and array masters use flags in the past."

"You are correct, Elder", Huoran remarked, "But there is no rule that states that flags must used for formations. If that was true, it would be impossible for natural formations to exist. I believe everyone will understand more if I demonstrate this design."

Everyone sat up a bit straighter as Huoran activated the holographic image projector in the room.

"Since our target is paranoid and skittish, if we were to set up flags around her location, she would quickly become aware", Huoran explained, "This would lead to an outcome in which she attempts to escape, we battle in the city and attached attention, and nullify all our efforts to accomplish her capture undetected."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and Huoran continued his explanation, "This rod is actually several hollow rods fitted inside each other. Obviously, you can see what I hold in my hand right, but when I activate it…"

Huoran sent a mental command to the holographic image, and the audience watched as several smaller rods, each one smaller than the first, raised from the top. As the surface of the smaller rods became visible, everyone recognized that array formations were inscribed on each one.

Huoran rotated the image to display the hollow hole in the center of the rod, "The purpose of this hole is simple, it's where the spirit stone batteries will be placed to power the array. Whoever is responsible for guarding this rod well simple insert new batteries as required."

Huoran performed a quick demonstration on the process of inserting batteries before moving on to the next portion of his lecture.

"I will place the rods into place", Huoran said, "Before anyone says different, I'm the only one with the capability to move undetected with my suit. Once in place, I will activate the formation and then we wait for three days. The formation will record everything within the city limits, and save it to memory. Then when I activate the second function of the array, the formation will start displaying the saved information with the recording from outside the formation being sent to the inside and vice versa. Finally, everyone will guard a formation rod and activate the third portion of this array, the suppression and capture array."

"Won't she be aware once you do this?", Captain Zhuo inquired.

"Yes, but it won't matter anymore", Huoran answered, "To the outside world, everything will appear as normal, and inside the formation, she will be resisting capture so her detecting the capture array will be irrelevant. Are there any more questions or concerns?"

No one spoke up, so Huoran thanked everyone for attending.

"I'll be going now", Huoran informed them, "I'll send a message if something happens, but otherwise, don't try to contact me. That could alert her of our presence."

Huoran exited the flying ship, and at a deliberately steady pace, traveled to each location required for the formation and placed the rod. Once everything was in place, Huoran activated the array and returned to the frigate.

For the next three days, Huoran worked on his 'Manhattan Project' when he received some good news. The inscription artisans and artifact refiners back on the island were able to successfully create the array formations to allow beastkin to purify their bloodline without side effects. Everything had test perfectly in the virtual workshop, and the Sages were going to create a real life room for purification. Presently, they had only succeeded in creating rooms for Bull, Rooster, and Rabbit beastkin, but Sage Vigol believed that they would successfully alter the array to be compatible with deer soon. Quanliyuan had already scanned the Dog and Sheep stone, and even though Huoran was surprised at the speed the artifact spirit accomplished this, Quanliyuan had a simple explanation. The spirit said that certain sections of the stone's inscription were same no matter which beastkin it was intended for. All Quanliyuan had to do was analyze the sections that were different. Satisfied by this, Huoran sent the Sages back home the scans for the two stones.

When the three days of waiting were done, Huoran used the array disk to activate the second phase of the array formation, and the Bloodclaws, merfolk, and him left the flying ship in preparation of the final phase. Once everyone was in place, Huoran activated the array and stood by to add spirit stones to the formation.

Void eyes had been vigilantly observing everything that happened in the city for the last seven days, and slowly began to believe that she had evaded her pursuers. She had decided to stay another three days before leaving this safe house and traveling to another. She knew she had to lay low because if she started gathering her army too soon, the enemy would find be alerted. In the room around her, several corpses of rat beastkin were found as she took another corpse out of her storage to refine its bloodline. As she was in the process of refining the blood essence, her surroundings changed, and she felt a heavy suppression bearing down on her. The stone reacted to this, and Void eyes was trapped as an ancient soul feed on her rich bloodline. With the pressure of the formation, and the ancient rat stripping her power away, it didn't take long before her consciousness started to fade. Void eyes finally understood the dangers out the stone , but it was too late as she died, and the ancient beast changed her body. This new being had several tail, dagger like claws and teeth, and course grey fur as it tried desperately to make an escape by clawing through the formation. In the end after several days of expending all its energy trying every trick to get away, the rat stone appeared. It no longer emitted a powerful aura, or glowed with radiance. Huoran entered the room, stored the stone in the special storage space, and went back to the ship ready to find the next target.