Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Just as the eastern continent is known as the Land of Sand and Fire, the southern continent is referred to as the Land of Autumn Rain.

The south has two primary environmental patterns: the west part of the land of autumn rain has low temperature just above freezing point to make things uncomfortable while the further one goes into the east, rain would be the normal weather.

While the freezing-side of the southern continent is filled with mountainous and hilly tundra, the wet-part has more forest and lakes. Of course, this isn’t an absolute rule as there are still mountains and hilly tundras even on the east corner of the land of autumn rain, but if one only sees the statistics, then that would sufficiently define the southern continent.

While Hartina Kingdom is on the ‘bottom’ part of the southern continent, it is also located within the lower-middle section. With Fuyuhiro permafrost mountain range as a natural obstacle between the south continent and the Extreme South, Hartina Kingdom effectively shares a border with Galatreon.

That’s right, Galatreon and Hartina Kingdom are actually neighbors, if seen through a map alone.

However, the sheer size of Morgen World translated the close distance between the two locations into years by foot. The lands are not only plagued by endless environmental hazards, it is also filled with dangerous beasts and foreign races. Simply deciding to travel towards Galatreon from the most southern city of Hartina Kingdom would eventually result in death if one does not possess at least rank 2 cultivation base. 

Even so, it was merely the barest minimum requirement. There are some areas that couldn’t be crossed without rank 3 Legendary cultivation foundation.

Yes, Morgen world is simply that dangerous.

Mortals usually never get the chance to leave their birthplace. Perhaps, changing one’s village, town, or cities might be possible, but moving to another kingdom or empire usually only happens when they are war trophies or desperate refugees whose living spaces are pillaged by beasts or foreign races.   

That being said, Azaria forest is located on the southeast part of Hartina Kingdom, the distance from Elestra city is roughly 8 day of distance through land (by mounts or carriages). To reach the forest, Twin Helix planned to travel together.

Thanks to the non-interference policy, Shion faction and Sumire faction do not mingle in one carriage. This wasn’t because they are secretly in conflict, but it’s merely common strategic insight to not put all the eggs in one basket. In case of ambushes, they would be able to react accordingly.

Members of Sumire’s faction use several strength-path beasts called Brute Lupine as mounts to travel. Each of these wolves are almost 2-meter tall with silky black fur tinged with metallic sheen. In fact, the metallic sheen is truly caused by the high metal content of their fur. Although the beast’s strength is at late-stage rank 0 on average, its defense rating is as high as peak-stage rank 0.

Brute Lupine is a popular mount in the southern continent because they possessed a small organ in their skull that generated a water repulsive force field, allowing them to stay dry under heavy downpour. For Kenji, he knew that this was a type of atmospheric strength method that repels water. 

With its advantages combined, it would be hard for goblins to deal notable damage to these Brute Lupines.

In tandem with the group of black wolves, there’s a vehicle which ferries three people. This hunk of metal is an armored 6-wheeled all-terrain military jeep with thin alloy plating. The camouflage paint on its surface was reactive, allowing it to have limited amount of stealth capability and the tires are specifically treated to deal with the rough environment.

This military vehicle is the ‘mount’ of Shion faction.

Inside, Murasaki Ayame is driving the jeep while Shion is playing with her omni-gear. On the back seat, Arakawa Kenji’s upper body is exposed to the air as he manned the turret where the vehicle-mounted machine gun should be. His focused eyes were as sharp as hawk’s, his left hand held the multi-string compound bow while his right held a wooden spear.

As soon as he noticed a beast in the vehicle’s path, he launched the consumable wooden spear through his bow. The sound of whistle caused by the sheer wind pressure from the wooden spear could be heard from his attack. A few moments later, the military vehicle passed through a beast impaled to the ground by a splintered wooden spear.

“Superb marksmanship, for a newbie.” Murasaki Ayame complimented while driving.

“Heheh.” Kenji foolishly scratched his head, “I’m not as good as yours, young missy.” 

Ayame rolled her eyes but did not say anything, her attention soon returned to the road. His words held some truth, but Ayame wouldn’t want to waste breath talking to this country bumpkin because he lacks sophistication. People like Kenji are an insult to the archer class.

“Boss, how was that?” Kenji lowered his head to the jeep’s interior as he felt the noticeable increase in humidity. It's about to rain soon.

“There’s nothing wrong with your power or investigative method, but archery is not only about hitting your target.” Shion raised her gaze from her Omni-gear and turned around, “Which type of archer do you want to be, the one who supports the melee combatants, or the one who took advantage of the melee combatants to deal a lethal attack? The combat style is wholly different.”    

Kenji stepped down from the turret and closed the hatch. “Do I have a choice? We have no melee specialist anymore since we all use ranged weapons. It would be hard to deal damage since we have no one taking the tank role.”

“Your understanding of the tank role is too narrow.” Shion fastened her seatbelt and rotated her seat to face Kenji. 

“Tanks are those who drew the aggro of the enemy for as long as you can. That role means you have to survive under heavy assault. However, the perfect tank is not the one who can passively endure damage and survive, but the one who can draw all the attention away until your teammates fulfil their roles. That being said, it doesn’t matter if you’re a mage or an archer as long as you can raise aggro and survive.”

“But…” Kenji pondered for a moment, “My compound bow has limited attack speed because of my poor archery skills, I can’t trade it with my strength.”

“Perfectly understandable, you just had it for… 7 or 8 days, correct? As you get more familiar with the bow, your skills will improve.”

“Well, it’s weird for a tank to carry a bow…” Kenji muttered.

Shion touched her chin as she recalled all the publicly known and unknown rank 6 Sovereigns of Morgen World. 

When cultivators reach that stage, it would be extremely difficult to kill them since they have so many tricks up their sleeves. If two or more sovereigns worked together, it would be hard to guess who’s the tank and who’s the core damage dealer. The separation of roles would be vague since Sovereigns are usually without weakness. Of course, specialties still exist, but roles could be reversed as long as they could achieve their goals.

Thankfully, they are the cream of the crop of a civilization, they are not cabbages that can be found easily. Otherwise, it would be hard to infiltrate this world.

“It’s not about the weapon you’re holding or whether you are a mage or a martial artist. Anyone can take the role of a tank, even me. When I stepped on the battlefield, all eyes would be on me because they couldn’t detect me other than through sight. Then, isn’t that already a method of taking all the agro on me? Of course, my survival would be questioned because I lack the obscene defensive and regeneration ability of yours, but I can make that up with my evasion skills.” Shion explained.

“If you put it that way… that’s true…” Kenji understood his captain’s points. However, despite Shion’s ability to be a tank, she’ll be far more effective at being the core damage dealer. That being said, she can actually do both roles due to her competency. If Kenji wanted to do the same… it would be easier said than done.

“The Undying Juggernaut, Yurnero…” Shion suddenly muttered the name of one of the 4th generation Braves, “In a standard party, he is the quintessence of tanks. However, he can only fulfil that role because of his lethality. I heard each of his greatswords weighed 2.000 metric tons. Furthermore, they were +29 Soul Artifact. Do you know what that means?”

Kenji released a wry smile. As a strength-path cultivator himself, how can he not be aware of the Undying Juggernaut. He was the peak of strength-path of this era, a quintessence that should be looked upon with respect. “His swords are laced with 29 enchantments, augmentations or curses.”

“That’s correct. Up until now, the best Soul Armament had an upper limit of +15 before imploding, but his weapons can accept almost twice that. If you dare touch it with your mortal hands, you’ll explode into blood and gore, and that’s not because of the ego of the blade rejecting you but because you are simply too weak. With two of those greatswords as weapons, how can anyone who fought against his team dared to ignore him? If not for his weapons… a brute like him can be ignored by delaying tactics.”

“I get it…” Kenji imagined himself in a battlefield where he was forced to be occupied with cannon fodders while the main characters of the fight were ignoring him despite his overwhelming presence… That would absolutely leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth, his ego would take critical damage.

“That’s a unique way of thinking.” Ayame entered their conversation while her attention was on the road ahead.

“Kenji will eventually understand this as he fights more people. Beast will only fight what’s in front of them while humans are smart, they can prioritize targets and optimize strategies. After all, Kenji is a Hunter, not a Hunter-Killer. Our specialization is simply different.” Shion explained.

“Then, do we have special tactics or the sorts for later? We haven’t trained our cooperation yet.” Kenji asked. “A chaotic war will be different compared to small-scale battles.”

While Kenji was training with his new weapon, Shion and Ayame were ‘familiarizing’ with each other by discussing lightning-path cultivation insight. Thus, they actually never spent time together to train their teamwork.

“There’s no need.” Shion answered. “You need to trust Ayame that she’ll take care of your back. Also, I will be assassinating high-value targets in a chaotic battle, that’s why you have to make yourself known and attract the attention of the enemy by being a tank.”

“But, we have no melee combatants other than you.” Kenji eyed Shion skeptically.

“What do you mean? We have Sumire faction.” Shion’s luscious pink lips smirked.

Kenji is super familiar with that evil smile. He was a victim, after all.

…

“It’s raining again.” Sakuya muttered with an annoyed expression.

Elestra City is the city that housed Hartina Southeast Hunter Academy. It has friendly weather most of the time. Although not as great as eternal spring, it isn’t cold or covered in rain all year round. Whether this was caused by the city-wide defensive formation, or was because the city was built specifically for the good location is irrelevant at this point because both played a role.

That being said, as one travels further away from Elestra city, it is common to encounter heavy downpours. Dirt roads would be filled with mud and puddles; it is extremely difficult to travel with a normal carriage in that situation. Thus, the cheapest solution was to use flexible mounts such as Brute Lupines or Muscle Warhorses.

Still, that does not fix the fundamental problem. The rain here is extremely heavy to the point of often causing flash floods or flash mud lakes. If a path was blocked by a sudden mud lake, even the lightest and fastest mount couldn’t travel through it unless it was by flight. Even so, flight would be difficult as heavy downpour limits visibility and would often be accompanied by thunderstorms.

“We’ll wait.” Sumire muttered behind her, “This place is better than most, we can take a break.” The temporary tent is located on a slightly elevated rocky hill, it protects the whole team from the uncomfortable rain and accumulated muds.

“If only we have a water-path mage among us…” Sakuya complained as her gaze swept over the mud-lake.

Due to the heavy rain, the width of the mud lake is extremely vast, it would’ve wasted more time if they decided to take an alternative path. A water-path or earth-path mage would be able to carve through the lake by freezing or hardening the mud, but none within Twin Helix can do this. The only way other than waiting is by flying, but flight methods are typically reserved for rank 2 or rank 1 for certain paths such as lightning-path or wind-path.    

“At this rate, we might be delayed by 2 to 4 days. Is this okay?” Sakuya asked Sumire.

“It’s fine. She’ll understand.” Sumire’s gaze traveled from the mud lake towards the all-terrain military jeep parked on the side. <We need to talk. > A telepathic thought wave was sent towards the vehicle. Soon, a reply went through. <Sure. >

Since the telepathic thought wasn’t transmitted on [Group Chat], everyone in the area-of-effect can hear that. This was the most primitive usage of spiritual force for communication. That being the case, the one who replied wasn’t Shion but Ayame.

Soon, a blue-hue repulsive force field was erected on the military jeep. Anti-rain artifacts are pretty common in the southern continent; it isn’t strange for Ayame to have one. A moment later, three figures disembarked from the vehicle as they approached the temporary tents.

Murasaki Ayame’s blue-camo pattern military outfit automatically turned into a rocky brown-camo pattern the moment she took a step on the wet rocky ground.

Kenji was amazed at the automatic camouflage clothing that Ayame wore, while Shion wordlessly entered Sumire’s tent under the cover of the water repulsion force field.

“Is it about the mud lake?” Shion asked.

Sumire nodded, “Yes. I deduct that this Minor Elemental Wave will delay our progress for at least 2 days.”   

“It’s okay, we’ll wait.” Shion nodded in acknowledgment. “However, we’ll have to take turns defending the camp from the mud beasts.”

“That’s fair.” Sumire answered. “We’ll have a few hours before the first mud beasts see our…” Before she finished her sentence, everyone sensed Murasaki Ayame hurriedly materialize a large waist-mounted assault railgun and shoot it towards somewhere near her military jeep.

A bright purple lightning-encased projectile was discharged, followed by a flower of blood blooming for a brief second before the heavy downpour washed it away.

“I see.” Shion closed her eyes as he quickly deducted what happened. “We’re standing on the location where Six-legged Crocodile hides from the mud beasts.”

There’s a magical phenomena known as Minor Elemental Wave, it’s a rather common event in Morgen World just like clouds or rains. In simple terms, it is a moment where the elemental particles in the environment spiked beyond the standard level, thus manifesting in various forms.

In the southern continent, due to the relatively richer water, earth and lightning elemental particles in the environment, Minor Elemental Waves took the form of heavy downpour. This rain would often be accompanied by thunderstorms and the lightning strikes would often give life to mud beasts.

Mud beasts are minor elemental lifeforms; they have no weakness: they are literally living mud. For earth-path cultivators, these muds are excellent materials for spell catalyst or cultivation resources. However, it is a hassle for other paths.  

As for the other creature, Six-legged Crocodiles, they are amphibious earth-path beasts; they would often hide in underground caves. That being the case, Six-legged crocodiles could thrive even in land-locked locations. Due to the common occurrence of Minor Elemental Wave, it is common for the Southern Continent to have heavy downpour, so this beast can live almost any location with the potential of becoming mud-lakes.

However, they are also the enemy of mud beasts.

Do not think of them as prey, in fact, Six-legged Crocodiles are the predator of mud beasts. The ‘corpse’ of mud beasts are rich in nutrients for this earth-path beast. Adult Six-legged Crocodiles who have extracted large amounts of earth elemental particles from the mud beasts might evolve into rank 1 Eight-legged Rock Crocodile, a larger and more dangerous beasts compared to its predecessor.

The only problem is that mud beasts have almost limitless numbers. Until the Minor Elemental Waves subsides, there won’t be an end to the mud beast waves.

This causes the Six-legged Crocodiles to find refuge in non-mud ground, because mud beasts could endlessly replenish themselves as long as there’s mud.

It just happened that Twin Helix stayed on top of a thick rock layer. No mud beast would emerge from the ground, but there’s no rule for mud beasts to not find some prey. The naturally spawned mud beast will have to fight on top of rocks even if it weakens them considerably due to the lack of connection to earth for nourishing their mud selves, thus it was the perfect hunting ground for Six-legged Crocodiles to feast mud beast corpses. 

“Unfortunate.” Sumire shook her head in annoyance. She suddenly heard the sound of fabrics rubbed against each other. She turned back to see the source only to see Shion who slowly removed her clothing. “Wh- What are you doing?” She tried to suppress the shock in her voice.

“I don’t want my clothes to get wet.” She answered casually as she continued undressing herself.  

Sumire stared at Shion’s body blankly. Since she was a lesbian herself, it would be a lie if she’s not attracted at Shion’s petite body. She got the feeling that Shion has a different taste than her lover, Shirogane. However, the situation does not allow her to enjoy it. She burns the sight into her memory, never allowing her brain to forget every inch of detail.

At this moment, a blue-silver metal slime entered Sumire’s tent. Shion’s ‘Soul Armament’, Kasumi, has undergone a great change. Kasumi no longer has a small amount of slime mass, therefore she cannot hide within Shion’s hollow abdomen. She was staying quietly in Ayame’s car but now summoned through Shion’s telepathic link. 

As soon as it reached Shion, Kasumi covered her body with a modern silver-blue camo pattern military outfit-shape, complete with a modern gas mask and impact-proof vest. The leftover slime mass slowly coagulates into a pair of combat boots and gloves.

“Prepare for combat, it will be hard for us to survive if we don’t pool our resources together. Sumire, please come up with defensive countermeasures for fighting against the mud beasts while my faction takes care of the early waves.”