《Refining the Heavens》Chapter 16: Gammadion Cross
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Calculus smirked gleefully at the draw of their victims’ blood and the shock on their faces. Then, he sent his team to overwhelm their foes.
There are five teams under his command, with his own group naturally being the strongest and except for his slave guards, all of them are blue-blooded nobility. Using their families’ greater pool of training resources, they have a definite advantage over the commoners and are elites among their year; each of them has reached Peak F rank, while Calculus’ Maths team have already reached the illustrious E rank.
He had originally sent out the weakest five to test their opponent, but surprisingly their targets were able to fight back despite the sudden attack coupled with a blinding flash.
Calculus' slave guards strode into battle, the four of them proud and confident with their abilities but by the time they started attacking, the people that were blinded are already coming out of their daze.
Kairos and Alan happen to be closest to the Maths Team, but tied down in battle, they are unable to help.
With their superior cultivation and an aggressiveness honed by the Devilheart family, every person that crossed blades with them received multiple lacerations. Calculus’ aim is to cut down all their foes, and in a blink of an eye, three commoners were already grievously wounded.
Looking helplessly at this, Kairos shouted a command, "Take your places in the Bagua Formation (八卦陣)!" his voice calm and steady like a reliable mountain, but his furrowed eyebrows betrayed the worry he has for his men.
Immediately his subordinate teams that just barely recovered took up their position to form a beautiful and intricate array. This is one of the more difficult astrology arrays that Kairos saw with his soul during his self-less cultivation.
The ones that were severely wounded had been moved closer to the centre of the group where it is the safest, and while the strongest fluidly took their place at the outer-most of the formation against their foes.
"Faster! This speed is not enough! Do you want to die?" Kairos shouted word by word, his voice strong, powerful and slow. His tone sounded more like a military instructor during practice than a captain leading men in a life or death battle.
However, the guys remembered their training after hearing this, and they gained a sense of security and their confidence even against the bare blades.
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This is all due to Kairos' attitude at this moment being like a strong pillar supporting everyone. As if they are merely in another of his formation practice, and in fact, his voice carried an air of being unconcerned, but yet when they looked at Kairos' face they saw his eyebrows creased with worry for them.
Surprisingly, when they saw Kairos' facial expression, the boys did not feel demoralised, but instead, a sense of tremendous respect for him.
They are all people who came from poor backgrounds, which is why they did not have any noteworthy martial arts techniques. In this day and age, where talented men are all about, people like them with no background nor money are treated like disposable trash, yet they found value in Kairos’ eyes. This boy who has risen above the rest and achieves a score of merit did not cast them away when facing danger.
He unwittingly became a model for them.
Most peasants have already taken on an attitude of defeat regarding their situation, instead of feeling anger and trying to fight their fate. Yet, when the young commoners look at Kairos, they saw a fire within his eyes, and they felt the steel in his voice. They know, within their hearts that Kairos will not bow down to adversaries, and it resonated deeply in their souls.
"Well done!
Snowdrifts! Direct your blades at your enemies!" Kairos yelled with his fingers gripping tightly around his swallow as he slowly raised his weapon into the air.
Although they are not yet given the rights to have an official team name, they had long decided on one.
The Snowdrifts.
The origin of this name is because the five of them have never seen any snow in their lives. Poor and rooted to this small city in the south of Saint Empire, they crave for the freedom they were not born into.
The Nobles and the rich are able to freely travel across vast distances after paying an expensive toll at the teleportation arrays. Those arrays are set up with inscriptions of time and space and are the culmination of masterworks from the greatest Rune Masters in history.
As such, those arrays are exceptionally costly to activate, and each use will cost thousands of spirit stones, utilising the powerful Heavenly Energy sealed within them.
Being unable to buy a single of those stones, they have only heard stories of how beautiful and pure the white fluffy snow are when raining down from the sky, but they had known nothing of the biting cold the Everfrost brings.
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It created a divine image in their imagination, and it's their team's dream to one day have enough money to travel across the vast world and see all sort of places as they wanted, and visit the frost plains and the snowdrifts on the north. It was this wish that made them decide to call their team, Snowdrifts.
Following his command, Alan, Edward, Jim and Tommy pulled out their weapons and pointed at their enemies facing them at the very front. Each of them stood at one of the cardinal directions in the formation at the North, South, East and West direction.
As they took up their position and directed their weapons, they shouted in response to Kairos who took control of their battle array at the formation’s heart.
"Snowdrifts' Alan, ready to do battle!"
"Snowdrifts' Edward, ready to pierce my enemies."
"Snowdrifts' Jim, as you command all in my path will be cut down!"
"SNOWDRIFTS' TOMMY, ALL MY ENEMIES SHALL FALL AT MY FEET"
Along with each shout from them, the guys standing in formation roared with ferocity.
With large grins spreading on their faces at the rising morale of the boys, and a fierce glint in their eyes, they stood their grounds.
Calculus’ men threw themselves aggressively against Kairos' formation, yet not a single one is able to penetrate into the array even though they are superior in their timing of assault and power.
"Gather into the Gammadion Cross Formation (萬字陣法)!" with another shout from Kairos, the boys moved into a formation that looked like a swastika.
This spiral-like array they created seems as if there are small openings in all directions. Those small openings looked like a mouth or pincers and aimed to pull the opponents into the openings.
Calculus took a glance as his targets shuffle positions fluidly before his eyes, “Ridiculous. Do you think playing around in a formation would help you against absolute power?
Surround them!”
If the two teams are equal fighting forces, Calculus won't dare to spread out their forces, but since their group far out ranks Kairos’, he arrogantly had his men rush at Kairos' star formation from all directions.
But, as the young nobles reached them with their sharp blades raised and keen to draw blood, the nearest unsuspecting attackers were suddenly dragged into their midst.
They had four openings in their formation, making their group look like a monster with multiple mouths. Each of those mouths appeared to take a bite from their enemies, and four young nobles found themselves pulled into a monster’s stomach, suddenly separated from their friends.
Then, the people from Kairos' side promptly proceeded to beat up the unfortunate ones who were captured.
It was a beat down most unfitting for practitioners; since the commoners have subpar martial art techniques and limited space, they had resorted to give their victims a bashing that is not much different from how angry drunks fight in an inn.
It was an uncouth method. However, the beat down most satisfying brutal.
In fact, knowing that the gel coatings on their weapons will only decrease the power of impacts, they turn to their knuckles and feet.
For twelve year olds, their bodies are still far from fully maturing, and teachers would advise them from attack using their bare fists. The rebound of punching someone could cause more damage to themselves than their targets.
It is humiliating for the nobles to be beaten that way, and worse for Calculus, who underestimated things and gave the command to attack.
The instructors who saw this on their screens were all shocked!
Some of them even cheered, rooting for the underdogs, but there were also some who face darkened at the scene.
The short and round Head of Logistics is the first to celebrate their victory. He exclaims to his friend, "Ho ho ho!! They are children with bright potential ahead indeed! How wonderful, they are able to keep their calm in battle."
“San Du Hou, you're indeed right on this. But do you not see how those other students have removed the gels on their edges?" the instructor with long white beard said as he clutched his beard in his fist in anger
"Yi De, you are right to say so, but don’t you find it interesting? Ho ho ho. They don't seem to be in any immediate danger right now. “He gestured at Kairos' teams, “Besides, in the future, they will be fighting beasts as well as men to victory or death. I believe it is not too early for them to experience this."
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