Purely defensive formations had the weakness that any barrier they created could be bombarded into nothing with sufficient determination and time. Those that had counterattacks tried to mitigate the problem, but had a greater expenditure of energy so if they didn’t kill people they were strictly worse.

Hundreds of blades moved in sync, slicing and stabbing and spinning to decimate anyone within their reach. It was intended to kill or force back anyone making their way into the area, but instead a squad of cultivators had taken it as an invitation. As blades came for their necks they ducked. Thrusts towards their vitals were parried. Spinning blades had their handles caught before they were tossed away from the formation’s control.

Every members of the Million Sword Vault who had come on this raid was confident, but some had lower cultivations that required them to be more cautious, lingering at the edges. Others dove deep into the field of blades, brushing up against death as they were accustomed.

They weren’t just able to clear out the formation without hindrance. At the signs of their arrival, defenders came to fight. Even if they hadn’t been expecting an attack, high ranking cultivators would never be completely unprepared. They came to add their own attacks into the mix, cutting down some members of the Million Sword Vault. But only some.

The formation had been made with the assumption that a dozen swords would be sufficient to hold back even the strongest cultivators. The formation was dynamic in its ability to target the priorities, and with the rapidly decreasing number of swords available a few individuals were dominating its efforts- one of which was deflecting the swords with an equivalent number of her own blades, while keeping her hands free to grab any available hilt. Or the blade itself, where there was one.

“Are these technically swords?” Chikere commented as she pinched blades between her fingers before tearing them away from the control of the formation and tossing them into a miniature forest of upright blades that was her collection. “Without hilts and crossguards I’m not sure if they count.”

“They can be,” Vasu shrugged. “Their individual quality might replace your fiftieth and below.”

“Actually, forty and down are pretty lacking, it could go that high.”

For some reason, the woman attacking Chikere seemed to take issue with her talking. “You’re fighting me! Not having a day off!”

Chikere’s eyes focused on her for a moment. “We’re fighting? I thought you were waiting for me to be done with this,” she gestured to the cloud of blades around her which was lessening in size with every moment.

Despite that being Chikere’s true feelings, it was amazingly successful as a taunt. The woman’s swings became wilder and less precise, losing synergy with the formation. A slash toward’s Chikere’s neck curved down and then back up to turn into a thrust towards her gut, but instead of retreating she dodged forward before the stab had speed, stepping just enough to the side that it barely cut through her armor and into her side. Chikere caught the woman’s hands with her own, preventing either of them from moving- but she didn’t need to move to use the rest of her attacks. One sword stabbed from armpit to armpit while two more went through the woman’s thighs, surrounded by another dozen that would have struck if she had moved in any other manner. With a quick swipe, the woman turned into a lifeless body.

The battle ended shortly thereafter. By the time the weaker and slower cultivators arrived, there were no Life Transformation cultivators to support, and the formation no longer had any of its blades present. Huge gouges on the floors and walls were the result of preventing the formation from doing anything else in the most straightforward way.

This was only an outlying base of the Void Blades, but the Million Sword Vault only took a small number of casualties. They were confident that they could attack something more important, more precious.

After the battle, Chikere opened a technique scroll she found. It burned up immediately, and Chikere clicked her tongue. “Wow, these guys are sure stingy.” She picked up another one, but instead of opening it normally she flicked it with all her might, unfurling the whole thing at once. It was only visible for a moment, but she got a good look at it. “Huh.”

“What?” Vasu asked.

“I’m pretty sure they followed these stances and attack patterns. Exclusively. I need to talk to our prisoners.” It felt a bit excessive to slaughter the trainees, and they could be useful for information so they had kept alive anyone who had surrendered. Now they had a lot of people they had to deal with somehow, but they’d figure it out. Chikere went to find the nearest group. “I want to know about your techniques. Styles, stances, everything.”

“W-we won’t betray the secrets of the sect!” one woman said with false bravado.

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t tell you any secrets,” Chikere shook her head. “Not with your cultivation at that age… unless the Exalted Archipelago has realized it’s worthwhile to try to teach everyone?” The woman hung her head, and Chikere continued. “Anyway, I know the basic gist of everything. You’ve got a few thrusts,” Chikere began to demonstrate as she spoke. “Some slashes, high and low guards, the basics. You also focus on making use of your enemy’s blind spot,” Chikere’s sword disappeared from the woman’s vision, until it was suddenly visible in front of her nose. “Maybe you’ve got some other techniques for concealing the flow of your energy, but I don’t care about that. Do you guys just… use these forms?”

“Of course we do! These are optimal forms given to us by powerful ancestors. They are perfect.”

“Okay but… how can I explain this?” Chikere shook her head, swiping her sword to cut apart the ropes binding the woman. Then she tossed her a sword. “Hold onto that. I’m going to attack you, okay?”

The woman didn’t hesitate to try to drive her blade through Chikere’s heart. Not that she could have, with the difference in cultivation. Making up for a few ranks was trivial, but the difference between late Life Transformation and the peak of Spirit Building was a nearly insurmountable gap. Not that Chikere let the blade touch her anyway. She avoided it and kicked the woman back, swinging her sword.

The woman’s training pulled through and she instinctually parried low to deal with Chikere’s attack, but Chikere simply flicked her sword up and drew a line of blood on the woman’s wrist.

“See I’ll admit that was the perfect counter to my move… up until I saw you do it. You needed to anticipate my follow up for that to stand a chance.”

Chikere made a few more strikes, then sighed. “You… have you ever fought anyone?”

“I have sparred every day for the last five decades.”

Chikere made a face. “When’s the last time someone tried to kill you?”

“Before today…?”

“Yeah. Like a serious brawl with a master or a death match. Or even a wild beast.”

The woman held her back high, “We join forces to fight wild beasts every five years, and I have participated in six bandit subjugations.”

“Six… ever? Not like this year?”

“We are not a lawless land unlike the continents.”

Chikere’s sword crept slightly closer to piercing into the woman’s side. “You realize your Exalted bunch of islands is literally acting like bandits right now?”

“The strong naturally deserve to rule the weak.”

“Great. Then all of you deserve this.”

“You don’t have true strength. If Swordmaster Netta was here she would-”

“Die.” Chikere said the word with utmost conviction. “Like this one here.” She gestured to one of the men on the floor.

“Swordmaster Netta is incomparably stronger than Swordmaster Sakir was,” the disciple said defensively.

“This man… was a swordmaster?” Chikere looked around, reading the expressions of those around them. “You need to raise your standards. He was maybe in a dozen real fights, tops. Hopefully this Netta is the real deal. Now then, what should we do with all of you?”

“I would rather die than serve you.”

“You don’t really have a choice,” Chikere shook her head. “But also we don’t need slaves or anything. So we’ll just leave you here.”

-----

One skyship was felled, and the rest of the enemy forces had to retreat when they could not overcome the other defenses. Their weaker cultivators were culled quickly, leaving only the strongest to face off against the best from the continent. There was a particular swordmaster as well as a few other notables who did more than hold their own, but ultimately the defensive position and formations tipped the balance enough.

As information was shared with the counterattacking groups, some details began to be revealed. The average cultivator of the Exalted Archipelago had little practical experience. Their most powerful cultivators certainly had experience in real combat, but even with the structures in place to raise many Life Transformation cultivators, not all of them were as good as the others. Likewise, it seemed that those with experience didn’t pass on their practical learning to others as well as they might have.

The continental forces couldn’t say that defeating groups from the Exalted Archipelago was easy. Only madmen and battle maniacs like the Million Sword Vault would make claims like that. However, for the quality of techniques available and overall cultivation levels of the attackers, they were… unimpressive.

Then again, there was a generation of cultivators who had gone through the full brutality of the invasion from the upper realm. Everyone who survived had been strong before, and only developed even further afterwards. All of their Life Transformation cultivators had been involved in the war, or at least present for it. The same could not be said for the Exalted Archipelago who had been basically at peace for… forever, possibly. Though it was likely there were internal conflicts that the covered up, beyond bandits like had plagued the area near the Worthy Shore Society. Though Anton could have been convinced those ‘bandits’ had the backing of other sects.

After the battle had settled, Anton considered how future battles might go. Though they had been underestimated at various points during the last months, it was unlikely that would continue. It was simply a question of whether the Exalted Archipelago wanted to keep fighting. Would they become more serious, angered by the counterattacks… or would they decide it was not worthwhile to keep fighting? Maybe if they had been able to kill more of the leading figures, they would be more inclined to give up.

Anton also thought about his own actions in battle. Though a portion of his focus had been on the skyship and critical matters there, before that point he had split his attacks between as many targets as possible. He could have quite a number of energy bows attacking people at once. He didn’t particularly like targeting the weak, but it was tactically sound… and for the purposes of defending those on his side. It was still uncomfortable, but he would rather not be entirely comfortable with killing people. It was necessary to survive, and he couldn’t say he actually regretted it, but he was reminded that nobody would have died if the war had simply been averted. The Exalted Archipelago didn’t seem to really give them the option, but the sooner they could achieve a resolution the better. After all, they had to live in this world together. The Exalted Archipelago hadn’t been so resolute about wiping them out as the invaders seemed to be.

-----

“Skyship, skyship, I have a skyship~” Catarina sang as she walked around the impressive construction. She’d only begun to inspect it, but she was impressed.

“I don’t know that everyone would agree that it’s ‘yours’,” Timothy commented. “Though I have no doubt you could build one.”

“I could set up the formations,” Catarina corrected. “But it requires a great craftsman to create the body. This isn’t the sort of thing that you can skimp on any part of the construction either. It needs to be strong and light and compact. It’s interesting though. It’s a different style of formations than Golden Star Island, and the other ships are different as well.”

“Isn’t that normal?” Timothy asked. “I thought every sect sort of had their own styles.”

“Well, that’s true to an extent but… on the continents, everything sort of stems from one place.”

“Which is?”

“Everheart. Nothing I’ve seen from the Exalted Archipelago has those signs though, except for one thing. Remember that puzzle box that the Worthy Shore Society had?”

“You talked about it quite a bit. I remember.”

“It had his signs. Which mean someone from there aped Everheart’s style for some reason or… he left that there.”

“You said there was always another larger box inside… do you think he was just screwing with people?”

“Everheart is always just screwing with people,” Catarina commented.

“Fair enough. So about Everheart’s style… does that mean their styles are better?”

“Not really. In fact, it seems like Everheart stole all of the best stuff from them. It’s kind of about what someone can actually use… though I’ll admit that the Exalted Archipelago has a much more steady and consistent style. Everheart is fond of using something once and then never again.”

“So, do you have any insights into how to break their formations?”

“Lots,” Catarina nodded. “The other formation masters and I have come up with various options. Some will require our presence, but others can increase the efficiency of taking them out the old fashioned way. Grandpa will be quite pleased, though I don’t think he’ll be taking down skyships alone any time soon. He might be able to drive one off though, if they feel it’s risky.”