Chapter X: Beast Lures I
Demonic Wildlands Near the Great Plateau
Month of the Pangolin 4, 172 ,328 DE
After storing the bag of Aoi's portion in my Core Realm, I head for the Silver Princess . While I make my way to the airship, Brigette grabs what she probably sees as her chance and races for the airship. With her Foundation Establishment level of Cultivation, she easily shoves past Hoshi and disappears from sight. With a chuckle, Vorn climbs into the airship behind Brigitte, and Hoshi's head snaps back and forth between the interior of the airship and me.
*That girl could potentially become a Trinary, but she can never become a Triune. She could possible Transcend one day. You should purge her Cultivation and set her the right Path.* The Great Tree's thought resonate through the link between our threads.
I do not know what I will do about Brigitte, but I feel myself frown. *Take care of Aoi, Old Tree.*
*The crazy girl is my apprentice, and she has the blood of Elemental Plants deep in her past. I will raise her right.* The Great Tree's projection disappears.
"What's going on?"
Hopping into the hatchway, I shove Hoshi deeper into the airship. "Let go, might Qi Condensation Cultivator. You can brag to your father."
Hoshi glare at me. "Damn it, Beast! I've been suppressing a breakthrough for over six months. I don't want to be taking the College entrance exams as a full Cultivator. My father will force me to go to a Cultivation College this way. I wanted to go to the Sengoku Institute of Engineering. They train the best Engineers that make normal military technology. I don't want to build tools for Cultivators; I want to make things like steamer tanks or the airships like the Shinobiyoru Tora ."
I scoff. "The Shinobiyoru Tora should be more like an Iron Giant than any normal airship. The shitty old man said that class shouldn't be able to fly with the sigils known to Cultivators. You would better off thinking of it as a Cultivation artifact than an airship. There's no way you'll learn to make something like that in a common Engineering schools. Aren't the best Engineers strong Cultivators to begin with?"
Hoshi frowns at me. "Are you on my father's side?"
I snort. "I've never met him. Why would I be on his side?"
"Do you think I should go to a Cultivation College too?"
"The Okama and his pack of mangy cats were in Shizukana Gake to cripple or kill you so you wouldn't be an obstacle to the prospective Engineers form the Sengoku Empire. They thought you had enough skill to stand in the way of someone from the Sengoku Empire getting into one of the Cultivation Colleges. It has to be one of the twelve. I can't imagine a Sengoku Clan sending out an assassination team for anything less."
"Me? In the way of someone getting into a Cultivation College?" Hoshi's mumbled musings to not seem to be meant for me. As I head for the bridge, Hoshi remains near the hatch staring at the floor.
"Brigitte, head for Shizukana Gake."
Already preparing the Silver Princess for launch, Brigitte nod. "Aye, Master. The faster we get away from that insane tree, the better."
I snort. "Old Tree is not insane. She only told you a truth you don't want to accept."
Without replying, Brigitte finishes her preparations and lets the anchor chain spin out. Once the Silver Princess reaches an altitude of about fifty meters, higher than all the nearby trees, she engages the propellers, and after disabling the gravity effects on the anchor, she hauls it up. Taking the airship through a tighter turn than it should be able to make, she sets course for the Great Plateau.
Outside the Great Tree's wards, flock of avian Beasts dot the sky from horizon to horizon, and land Beasts swarm through the forests. A pulse from one of the Beast lures sends all the Beasts, land and avian, into frenzies. Some of the flocks of avian Beasts attack other flocks, and the enrages calls of tens of thousands of Beasts rise from the forest below. When some of the nearer avian Bests notice the Silver Princess , they charge in our direction. In case we are attacked, I activate the reinforcement sigils etched into the armor covering the gas bag superstructure.
Without transforming into my true form, I drawing on the ball of Trinity sitting in my Core Realm and circulate it through my Body, Mind, and Soul. Pull back the inherent wards that hide my true nature in my human form, I let my Power fill my awareness and radiate into the surrounding environment. From the feel of the Beasts within the range of my awareness, the majority are no higher than Second Circle of Coalescence. They have not begun to Coalesce or have reached the First or Second Circle, at most. Some have reached the Third Circle of Coalescence, which non-Triunes is the first huge roadblock in Coalescence. A few seem to have reached the Fourth Circle of Coalescence. Those are Ferocious Beasts that do not normally come near this part of the Demonic Wildlands.
The way that Cultivators determine Rank for Beasts, they seem to have trouble differentiating between Circles of Coalescence, and they scale Beasts according to how they estimate the strength in relations to their Cultivation realms. Because Ferocious Beasts and humans have very different base strengths and Beast use Power in a completely different manner from Cultivators, the Ranks of Beasts can very arbitrary and overly broad. In the eyes of the Cultivator, the strongest Beasts I sense in the area should be considered Rank 3, which for the Cultivators means they would need a team of Martial Warriors to deal with them.
As the Ferocious Beast feel my aura encompass them, the majority of them start to turn away from the Silver Princess . Unfortunately, there are three Lord class Beasts among the avian Beasts, and despite their inborn fear of me, they take my presence as a challenge. Surprisingly, they do not attack the Silver Princess , but as Lords, they are the rulers or their flocks. Their cries cause the lesser avian Beasts slink back into line and continue toward Shizukana Gake.
A hostile frown twists my face into an angry mask. "To stop the Beasts from forming into a Beast Wave or a Beast Tide, we will have to destroy the Beast lures."
"Will that work?" With a fearful expression, Hoshi stares at me. He came onto the bridge a few minutes after I did and has been staring intently out the front window ever since. He has a large clan in Shizukana Gake, and despite his complaining about them, he is not on bad terms with most of them. As an Engineering prodigy among Shizukana Gake's younger generation, he is the pride of his clan. He just hates to Cultivate and fights with the older generation over it.
I shrug. "I don't know. There are Lords among these Beasts. Even without the Beast lures, with the numbers heading for Shizukana Gake it could still turn into a Beast Wave."
From the other side of Hoshi, Vorn stares at me and raises his eyebrows. His scent carries traces of confusion.
Forming the Telepathy thread, I reach out to Vorn's Mind. *The Lords are aware of me, but they are not leaving. It has been too long since a Great Wolf has walked this world. They fear me, but they do not understand why they do.*
With Vorn's eyebrows still raised, his eyes open slightly wider. *I don't think I'll ever get used to you shoving your thoughts into my Mind. What if you transformed?*
I push an image of a shrug through the Telepathy thread. *It probably wouldn't matter. I could easily kill all but one of the Lords I sense, but they do know what a Great Wolf is. They have no reason to flee.*
With my entire conversation with Vorn taking only a fraction of a second, Hoshi does not notice. He turns back to the front window of the bridge, and his shoulders slump.
While we race toward the Great Plateau, just within the range of my awareness, I sense tens of thousands of Ferocious Beast moving through the forest below us. The total number of Ferocious Beasts coming from the Demonic Wildlands should be in the hundreds of thousands, at a minimum, and there is no telling how many might have been drawn from the wildlands of the Great Plateau itself. The largest Beast Tide ever recorded to hit Shizukana Gake was estimated to be just over a million Beasts, and that nearly destroyed the city. It happened less than a century in the past, and the Beasts originated from on the Great Plateau to the south of the Heian Kingdom.
When the tail leading up the Eastern Escarpment comes into sight, thousands more Ferocious Beasts cover it from bottom to top. Thousands more mill around on the mostly grass and weed covered stretch of ground between the edge and the forest. Most of those their eyes focused on the Watch Tower. Beast have bestial natures, but they are not necessarily stupid. Countless human are less intelligent than Beasts that have stepped into the Circles of Coalescence. These Beast seem to have an inherent sense of the danger that a Watch Tower can pose.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The thunder of cannons firing and explosions rises over the noise of the wind and the Silver Princess' steam engines and propellers. Hoshi cocks his head, trying to listen to the sounds of the battle that the rest of us easily hear..
"Shizukana Gake is under attack!" With a fearful expression, Hoshi turns to stare at me.
"Looks that way."
"Beast, we have to help! We have an airship with a cannon."
Another pulse from a Beast Lure washes over my Soul. In the open area at the top of the Eastern Escarpment, the Beasts, which had been eyeballing the Watch Toward, turn toward Shizukana and charge forward en masse.
"Brigette, how many rounds did you make for the cannon?"
"With what you already made, we have almost a thousand."
I laugh. "We won't make a dent in a Beast Wave. We need to take out the Beast lures.
As we clear the woods between the Eastern Escarpment and Shizukana Gake, a carpet of Ferocious Beasts covers the cleared fields outside of the city. The late crops that once filled them lay trampled beneath the Beast's paws and hooves. As far as can be seen to the north and south, enraged Beast seek to climb or tear down the city's walls. Cannon and Jones guns lay waste to hundreds and thousands of the Beast every minute, but more Beast pour into the gaps in their ranks.
Circling around the city, we find more Ferocious Beasts attacking from all directions, except the south. The river canyon serves as a natural defense that the Beasts have to find a way to cross. A bridge to the west of the city allows them to cross and attack the west walls.
While the Silver Princess hovers over the river, another pulse of from a Beast lure brushes across my Soul, but this time I clearly sense it coming from the north.
