In the video projected on the wall, was the view of Goliath screaming “Incoming!” at the top of his lungs and Fatty firing an Arc Cannon as 30 huge black rhinos charged towards them through a field. One by one they fell, but some of them still reached the pair. As the few who had escaped Goliath and Fatty’s cannon fire hurdled out of the grain field, Fatty roared loudly and launched forward to meet one.

It was like smashing into an immovable object as the massive horn collided with Fatty’s huge gut, and the rhino was knocked back. Fatty then dove forwards like a mad man taking a huge bite out of the rhino’s neck. James just shook his head and let out a sigh. ‘Perhaps that hungry bastard wasn’t the best choice. He’s losing the Guild’s face, running around trying to eat living spirit beasts.’

Meanwhile, Goliath’s eyes had turned a glowing blood red as he smashed his hands down onto the head of a rhino while it roared out in pain on the ground. While they were distracted, two more black rhinos charged out from the grain field and closed in to smash the duo. Before they got the chance, two booms rang out over the fields and two Guild Members in black robes flew past on Air Boards firing off a shot each from Arc Cannons.

After a few moments when the battlefield seemed to still, James spoke into the Black-Pad. “Oi, Goliath!”

Goliath got up from his rage induced smashing of the rhino’s head and looked around. The moment he saw the drone floating nearby he jumped to his feet. After flicking the blood and gore from his hands, he began to approach with a strict solemn face.

“James, it’s worse than we thought. I’ve already lost one of our teams. The Cannons can’t hold fire anymore. We’ve only got a handful left. I’m going to have to pull everyone back for today.”

James cupped his chin. “What’s the situation, how many have you managed to kite out, and what’s the word on the main horde?”

Goliath wiped some blood and sweat from his brow as he looked off at the sound of Arc Cannons firing in the distance. “We’ve pulled at least 200 out. We’ve tried to keep the Cannons as a last resort, but they only move in herds of at least 20. We’ve done enough damage that the main horde has started moving. If we can keep this up, there may only be a few hundred left by the time they reach the city. I’m just worried there won’t be any of ‘us’ left by then.”

James then nodded gravely and sighed. “Pull them back Goliath. Don’t kite the horde anymore and get everyone back to the guild. You’ve done well mate.”

After he had said as much, he nudged Skay again and the image changed to the lab. Everyone’s eyes widened somewhat when they saw robotic arms whirling about in the background building an Arc Cannon and Lackey 1 bandaging up a new laceration on his remaining arm with his teeth.

James pinched his eyebrows as he watched the most competent and simultaneously incompetent lab assistant they had. “Lackey 1.”

After he’d spoken, Lackey 1 looked up from his arm and peered around. Then after he saw James’s face on the computer screen, he jumped from shock. “Guildmaster, I swear I’ll clean the blood up. It’s just that the big cutting part on the making things part moved and accidentally sliced my arm.”

James’ eyebrow twitched slightly when he heard that. ‘Can this guy not tell the big cutting part is going to cut him if he goes near it?’

After a moment of considering if he should just cut his losses with 1, he finally asked some questions. “1, how many Cannons came out of the factory today?”

1 scratched his head in thought for a moment. “Well, it was about 14. That one over there is the last one we have materials for. I’m afraid were out of lightning ... Err, of the LS3 materials Guildmaster.”

James gave a nod of the head. “Fine, go tell Norman to get some... ‘flower power’ ready, you’ve got wounded coming in soon. Oh, and 1, how much longer on the Berta’s.”

1 just looked confused for a moment then looked back into the factory at something. “Well, shouldn’t be more than 12 hours. You made a lot more parts for these ones Guildmaster.”

James just gave another nod. “That’s fine. Keep everything running till we get back.”

The connection closed and then Skay switched it over to a screen from a drone that had a bird’s eye view of the horde moving out of the forest. It looked like it was still close to a thousand beasts, despite Goliaths hard work today.

Everyone sat silently at the table trying to process this. For starters, they could project distant places and have face to face conversations with people tens of kilometres away.

Then there were the strange powers that the two guild members had been using when battling the rhinos.

Finally that short glimpse of the lab. That was the most confusing, it looked like artefacts that were making artefacts. How the hell did that work?

James turned back to the assembly. “Well, that’s the situation. We sent out some people at noon to harass the horde before it grew too big to contain. Looks like they’ve had a rough time of it but made a sizeable dent, which will make our job easier. We probably won’t be seeing too many beasts near the city until tomorrow noon time, but as you could see ... There’s a lot.”

Once he finished, Lucas sat up a little straighter. “What was that artefact that was making an Arc Cannon?”

James just gave a wry smile. “Oh I’m sure you’d love to know, but for now, that will remain a secret. Perhaps one day, you will be invited to the lab for a look around. Right now, I have other problems to worry about.”

Lucas looked like he suddenly became tired again then hummed and hawed for a moment. “I will call for some assistance and have the horde eradicated. They probably won’t get here until tomorrow though.”

James just smiled. “Many thanks for that. However, if you move out to eliminate the horde, it creates dependency. If our city can’t defend itself, how do you expect it to survive another attack? Some duties can’t be shirked. Tell you what. If you send some troops to back us up, just in case we can’t hold the tide, then I’m sure in a few months when we’re both free, you can come for a look at the lab.”

Everyone sitting at the table thought on that for a moment. Finally, the new girl heading the Tailor’s Guild chimed in. “I agree, we can’t afford to rely on someone that we may not be able to count on every time. You’re helping us out now, but what about next time? Now that the beasts are moving, that shows they know the monolith is damaged. If we can’t defend ourselves, we may as well pack up our shit and leave now.”

Toller gave a firm nod. “I agree as well. It would be good to have some backup in the city to protect the people, but this city needs to stand by itself, or it will eventually fall. How we react to this crisis now will determine how we respond in the future.”

Finally Song, who was having a rather shit week and was upset the beasts had ruined his birthday plans made himself heard. “How do you suggest we react? We’ve never needed to wall our city, which means we’re open to attack from the hordes. If we can’t defend on a wall, that many beasts will rip us to shreds.”

James gave a nod of the head. “I agree. For now, it’s almost impossible to defend against a horde. That’s why, in my opinion, we should attack it instead.”

The Explorers guild that had mostly remained silent till now shot to their feet. “What?! You want us to go out there and attack that horde like suicidal idiots? A throng that size will tear us to pieces. Even if every Palace Realm in the city went out we’d be massacred!”

James smile became a little darker. “I agree, blindly rushing at them will only get us killed. That’s why we’re going to use hit and run tactics instead. We’ll have the Builder’s Guild laying traps in the direct path of the horde. I want the Explorer’s Guild up in the air. I’ll have my boys give you a lift, we need terrain maps. I want to know every hill, ditch, crevice and creek within 3 kilometres of their direct line of travel.

“The three clans are about to have an intake. We have so many able-bodied barrier realms running around this city right now it’s not funny. We are going to have to inform the city eventually, after all, a whisper travels faster than the horse. If we can keep the citizens controlled and rile them up to join the cause, then we can have them out there taking some punishment and dealing it out.

“Tailor’s, you may not be strong in battle, but I’ve heard you have some array that you call clothe enchantment? You use it to make cloth so strong it can resist a sword strike, right? Well, we’re going to need armour, so that’s on you. We’ve also recently acquired a lot of scales from tests on the ‘dragon scales’ liquid. You can probably get about 20 decent armours out of it. I want everyone leading units on the front lines to be wearing it.

“Tiny and Kelsy, your sect’s will be on the front lines this time. For every beast your disciples kill, is a freebie at the school. Hao, Song, I know you don’t like the idea, but you’re going to have to kick your Hall of Forging up a gear to equip the city’s troops. If you like, we can probably pump out some of your artefacts as well if you give us the designs, but then, that’s up to you.

“The Imperial Branch ... well, I guess you guys just sit back and enjoy yourselves. From what I understand you’re useless at everything and don’t even really deserve to be living in the city.

“Merchant’s guild, we need every resource in the city. Tools, fabrics, metals ... everything. You’re in charge of supplying these at a reasonable price to each guild. If you fucking screw anyone, then so help me god, the Kantsu branch will be sending a new Guildmaster to Gau City.

“Farmers guild, you’re going to have an important job. You have the most manpower in the city, I want you to try and divide up some extra hands to whoever needs it. You may not specialise in anything we can use in war, but you do specialise in hard work. Which is something everyone needs a little bit more of right now.

“Finally the other three clans. You’re about to break the bank. We’re going to create a joint armed forces. You’re going to be paying out the ass for every member of this army to be properly equipped, and then you’re going to lead it. Before you have any strange thoughts, I have a little gift for each of you.”

Saying all the way up to this point, he tossed out 13 little necklaces with a pendant the size of a thumbnail and a few millimetres thick. “This is a timed explosive. In case you’re not sure what that means allow me to demonstrate.”

James then placed a spare necklace around a support column in the main hall. After the clasp was fixed, the pendant gave a little glow. James then tied some string to the end and walked a good 10 metres away before giving a tug.

‘BOOM!’

The support column was blown to dust and a wave of heated air swept over the room.

James then sat back down calmly. “That thing will blow your head off in 48 hours unless I, or the old madman, disarms it.” Saying that he pointed at Skay who was recording the results of the explosion. “Much stronger than the original stuff I put in it.” He mumbled to himself.

The 13 people from the clans turned somewhat pale after that little deminstration. “We can’t trust you!”

“This is a slap in the face of our clan!”

“That’s right, we haven’t even discussed your plans yet! You think everyone is just going to fall in line and agree to this nonsense.”

“You’re basically trying to take over control of the city! We won’t stand for it!”

As they all blustered and refuted, everyone else shared a look. Basically, James did run this city now. If they wanted to live in this city, they needed James’ approval.

None of them had powerful backers, with only a few acceptations, and those that did have backers, well ... a chance to gain some favour with the guy building weapons that could disintegrate palace realm cultivators or the pathetic bloke they stranded in this shity little city to run a branch clan or guild. Who are they going to fawn over in the end?

With a similar thought running through their heads, everyone basically agreed to the proposed plan so far and unanimously said nothing to defend the three clans that were trying to get out of having to have any involvement that might lose them some power in the city.

Once they realised the predicament they were in and that no one was about to step out and assist them they tried to bargain.

Afro-face, who still had fresh blood dripping from his messy beard jumped out to offer support in a different way. “Our clan has powerful master alchemists. We can assist the war effort by donating assistive remedies. We even have strong spirit pills that replenish spirit energy. We can help the war effort in other ways.”

James cocked his head to the side. “Well, I’m sure that’s all well and good, but just how many of these things can you make? Enough for an entire army? And just how good are they? As good as our 616? Or perhaps better than our clotting paste?”

“Ahh ... well, it probably wouldn’t be as powerful as your 616, I’m afraid we just don’t have the spirit ingredients. But we could definitely finish at least 500 pills that are half as good. We could also complete something close to the same standard as your paste. Maybe 200 of that.”

James gave a sagely nod with chin cupped in hand. “Oh I see, you don’t have enough ingredients? Did you perhaps use them all recently trying to flood the market with your crappy products to reduce the price of our products? Only a few weeks ago, we all sat here and everyone was warned that the monolith was damaged and the city was in danger.

“You didn’t think it strange that all our sales dropped in quantity suddenly? We’ve been stockpiling 616 to the brink of excess. We’ve got so much of the stuff, I could fill a lake with it and go fucking swimming! You think your pissant fuckin pills can match up to that? You think that would be more useful than going out there and fuckin killing the god damn spirit beasts? Is your head made entirely of fucking hair!? Harvy, shoot this man!”

Harvy raised up the Arc Cannon and his death aura cascaded off him like a thick black mist. Afro-face started to panic the moment he heard the order for his death. “Wait! Wait! I’ll do it, I’ll wear the necklace. We’ll lead the armies.”

James raised his hand to halt Harvy and smiled. “Good to hear it. I don’t particularly like these methods, but they are efficient. To give you all some ease of heart, I swear to the heavens that should the city survive this disaster, I will ask my subordinates to remove the necklaces.”

Once the heavenly laws descended, and he finished handing out orders he stood up. “Toller, come meet me at the guild once your crews are ready, we’ve got a lot of work to do. Everyone is to get started. If we don’t have at least ten thousand people ready to march out that gate at dawn, then this city is going to fall.”

He then spun on his heel and walked out. As they moved back towards the Guildhall, Skay couldn’t help but let out a sigh. “I’m fucking glad this is your job and not mine haha. If that were me, I’d have killed them all and fucking left the city, even if it meant I’d be losing half our stuff here.”

James just gave a bitter smile. “Old madman. Let’s just hope this works. That may be the first time in my life I’ve been so assertive. If things were different, and if I’d never been stupid enough to pick up this burden you dropped on me, perhaps I would have done the same thing you would have.

“The only reason I’m not doing it now is that I’ve come to learn, although it’s slightly troublesome, using other people to get your shit done is much easier than trying to get it done yourself. Also, it took me a lot of effort to get this far, I’m not about to throw away everything we built because some fuckin animals crawled out of the forest.”

-South end of the City at dawn-

You would be surprised just how much shit cultivators with spirit energy can get done in about 18 hours. Standing at the south end of the city were 23,000 armed and equipped ... peasants. Leading every thousand men was a member of the war council.

Each thousand-man unit was filled with cultivators from every faction. No unit had only one faction’s cultivators filling it. This was to prevent anyone from doing naughty things. The only exception to this was James’ group that numbered just over a hundred.

Within it was 16 people on Air Boards each holding an Arc Cannon. On the ground, every member was covered in strange black armour and carrying black swords or lances or some other weapon ... that was black.

Standing at the front of this group was James and his core members, who were dressed in exactly the same garb as everyone else with the only exception being a large, coloured seal on their armour. Each member of the core group had a different colour and every 10 or so people from the guild shared that colour on a small shield on their chest. The only missing members of the guild were Fatty, Skay and Harvy.

James was staring off into the distance as if waiting for something.

Seeing this action, Hao couldn’t help asking. “James, if we don’t march out soon then the beasts are only going to approach us faster. We need to start moving, don’t we?”

James just grinned then before he had the chance to comment, a strange humming sound spread out over the fields. Everyone was a little panicked when they saw 3 huge light blue boxes descending from over the city. James gave a broad grin.

“Fuck they’re finally here.” After that, he tapped an ear piece. “‘Bout fuckin time. Get your fat ass down here!”

Fatty’s voice came back through the little earpiece in James’ ear. “Hey hey hey! I’m doing the best I can okay. Flying this thing is like driving a fucking dump truck.”

As James and Fatty started swapping some choice words, the three Big Berta’s settled onto the grain field crushing a good deal of grain underneath. James then spun around to the forces assembled behind him. “I’m not sure what you’ve been told, but I’m sure you at least know where you’re about to go. For now, each unit will be resting here until further notice. Units 1 to 3, load up. You’re going in first.”

As he yelled that out, using spirit energy to amplify his voice, the loading ramps from the back of the three Berta’s dropped down. Everyone was slightly more panicked now. Flight? They were flying into battle? And with only three units? What about the rest?

As these thoughts flashed through their minds, James gave his guild members a look. They all nodded and started herding the units into the flying death traps.

After a slow 15 minutes, the Berta’s took flight again and started moving out towards the horde. The best part about hordes was they moved slowly. They liked to eat everyone and thing on their way to somewhere. This herd was still about six hours out which meant they had to be moving close to one kilometre and hour. Which was really slow.

James was aware that once they started to get it riled up ... well, they would probably get to the city within an hour at most. As their three troop ships flew overhead, the Brotherhood guild members briefed everyone on their jobs. Each unit would set up behind the horde then send out small units to start luring some back.

Everyone thought these guys were out of their minds, but after they touched down they found themselves set up with odd bunker hills and trenches everywhere. After a few minutes of familiarisation, the troops started sending out kiting teams.

At first, they were a little timid and only pulled back as few as they could, which was usually only about 15 or 20. After a unit found that they could decimate that many easily, they started getting a little bolder.

As those rear groups started kiting beasts from the back of the horde, James had the next 6 units arranged along the path of the beasts in different areas. Their job was simple. To distract and slow the horde.

Once the horde approached their position, they were to engage the edge of it and make a fighting retreat into the next group that would be waiting. By the time all three groups had engaged and withdrawn twice, then the horde would probably already be near the city.

James then dropped off more troops at the rear, so there were 6,000 men. They continued to slowly move forwards to different outpost and traps set up by the Builder’s Guild and kite beasts back.

By the time this had gone on for nearly an hour, the beast horde was so confused it had started splitting apart. Being the simple animals that they were, some started moving backwards, and some started moving towards the sides while others kept moving forwards. Once this happened, the horde quickly started running into traps. Huge ditches filled with quicksand and ledges that would suddenly collapse rocks onto them.

By the time the first beast arrived within sight of the city, they had been whittled down to only a few hundred. The problem was that every unit in the field had also taken quite a bit of damage, with casualties in the thousands.

Once these units had reached a set number of casualties, James airlifted them back to the city border to rest while replacing them with a fresh unit. This meant that along with the units still out in the field surrounding the horde they had 12,000 men left in total.

They started to become a little disorderly but for the most part were kept in rank by the more experienced cultivators. As the beasts continued to advance, the Big Berta’s flew back overhead, and massive huge boulders were rolled out the back.

By the time what was left of the horde had reached the troops at the city’s edge, they’d been reduced down to about 200 in total. James gave the order and the units from every direction advanced on what remained of the horde. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought up any more tricks, and this was the last gambit. If even one of the beasts broke through the defence line here, then thousands would die in the city.

For a city that only had a bit over a hundred thousand residents, even finding 10,000 people willing to march out and protect it from spirit beasts would be difficult. The fact they had double that could only be attested to the Brotherhoods cheap as fuck meditation techniques giving some power and confidence to the commoners.

As the defence forces moved in from every direction, James sat inside a Big Berta looking down. He then turned and looked at Goliath standing behind him readying the troops. “You ready big guy?”

Goliath turned back and gave a nod. “We’re ready. Are you sure this is wise James?”

James gave a sick grin and chuckled. “Wise? Of course it’s not wise, but if I can’t train in an actual life or death situation, what’s the point in cultivating. The fastest way to gain an understanding of something is to make use of it. I’ve never actually had to fight another battle since Calso. It’s time to see how far I’ve come.”

Having said as much, he suddenly threw himself out of the back of Big Berta. His body whistled through the air, and he rapidly approached the ground. About 10 metres before he became a paste, he cycled his wind energy and his speed suddenly dropped. By the time he touched down, he was no faster than if he had just jumped up and down on the spot.

The only problem with his perfect landing ... was that it was right in the middle of the beast horde. The moment he touched down he shot towards some kind of chimaera with a bird’s head and lizard’s body. Before it could cry out its alarm, James’ hand stabbed into its body and it suddenly began to shake and twitch.

After a moment of this James pulled his bloodied hand out. Then turned to see about 10 different beasts moving towards him. As they advanced on James with bloodied maws and savage growling, Goliath and a few more members dropped onto them from the sky like missiles.

All of the Brotherhood members were covered in dragon scales, and the moment they climbed out of the gory mess they’d just made, they started swinging their black weapons around killing beasts left, right and centre.

Their black armour and weaponry began to glow with strange lights and then after a few swings someone’s weapon spit out a massive wave of fire roasting three beasts in a row. Then one that collected a swing from some two-headed panther had his armour release a whirlwind that generated on his body for an instant and blew the monster back.

That’s right. They were spirit artefacts imbued with array patterns. Unfortunately, the generator array wasn’t powerful enough at these sizes to feed enough energy into these weapons and armour. It also seemed to limit the level of control a person could exert over their spirit energy release.

This meant they had to settle for array designs that could boost your own spirit energy and multiply your control level. These weapons were the best weapons for barrier realms because, although they weren’t as powerful as higher class weapon artefacts, they were cheap and they assisted and boosted spirit energy power and control.

It made it possible for people who’d never learnt or developed proper martial techniques to manifest spirit energy just by swinging it around and pumping their energy into it.

As the Guild members in the centre of the horde battled outwards, the remaining 12,000 troops on the outside charged inwards. Cultivators were throwing martial techniques or just ganging up together to club a beast to death. The battlefield became chaotic as people died in the hundreds and the beast horde slowly diminished.

As James fought his way out from the mass of creatures, the 16 Air Boards flew past overhead picking off any creatures that seemed a little stronger than the rest. At one point, James was about to be mauled to death by a Lionfish when Exsue flew overhead laughing madly firing off lightning bolts from her palms like throwing snowballs in winter.

If she looked about 60 years older and had a pointy hat, she’d be the striking resemblance of a witch. Particularly with the mad cackling.

Goliath brought up the rear, smashing a Minotaur to death with its own horn and roaring into the sky. Fatty appeared to just be waddling along as everything under the sun bounced off his fat gut. The only time he looked even slightly panicked was when they had sharp claws or tried to bite his head off. Usually that situation quickly reversed and the one being eaten would swap. Fatty seemed to have eaten more beasts than he’d killed.

Overhead the Big Berta Skay was operating would occasionally swoop low and crush a few Beasts. The problem was that every time it was down for too long, the steel like talons of the beasts would start ripping away at the bottom of the ship. Amusingly, that just made it all the more dangerous, as the sharp edges helped to slice through beasts on the next pass over.

After half an hour of battle the fields grew calm just as quickly as they’d become chaotic. Apart from injured soldiers sprawled on the ground or last dying wishes being uttered, everyone was looking around solemnly at their fallen comrades.

James released a long breath and collapsed to his knees. If you think it sounded easy to wade through what was left of the beast horde, you would be incredibly mistaken. His entire body was dyed with fresh blood. Some of it his own, as it dribbled out of fresh wounds. His breaths came in sharp bursts and his eyes stung from sweat and exertion.

The entire field was pervaded by a bloody mist, and the suns seemed dimmer than usual. Overhead the previously clear blue sky had at some point turned dark with clouds.

James forced himself up to his feet and started organising treatment and sending people back to the city.

Of the 23,000 people that stood in the fields of golden grain at dawn. 9,000 marched back into the city. Of the 36 leaders that had marched out to battle, only 21 returned.

The Gau Clan lost Anvil during one of the first waves. He’d kept at the back of the retreat to fight for a chance for the rest of the unit but lost his life instead.

The other three clans had lost even more elders. Some of them had even tried to order retreats or run from the field of battle. Whenever this happened, a nearby Brotherhood member would whisper something while holding their ear and that person would suddenly have their head explode. Each clan lost nearly three Elders, and one lost its Clan Head.

Although this often created chaos for the troops, someone else would be ‘encouraged’ to take up the mantle of command by a Brotherhood member. After that, they could generally settle down the troops and keep fighting for a while till they got swapped out.

Toller and his wife were killed as they fought to secure the escape of some of their younger guild members. Toller was shredded to pieces by a manticore and his wife threw herself head first into the horde from her grief killing dozens of beasts before succumbing to injuries.

The leader of the Explorer’s Guild and his Vice Guildmaster were swarmed by some type of flightless little bird. Except it had massive talons, and its beak could bite through damn near anything. To make it worse, the creatures always travelled in packs of 30 or 40 and were as fast as darts.

The last leader to die was the vice sect head of the Sword Masters who sacrificed himself diving in front of a poisonous barb shot from a giant echidna. It’s wasn’t even for his own Sect Head, but rather for the vice head of the Shield Maidens.

Song had lost an arm in the battle, and Hao’s body now carried a permanent scar from his neck to his waist. The Afro-face Head of the Housue Clan lost both of his legs because he was almost eaten by a giant snake while trying to run away, leaving his companions for dead.

When James heard about this, he just chuckled sinisterly and chose not to blow the man’s head off. He could live with his sins forever this way.

All in all, the battle had cost a lot of people a lot of things. After everyone had returned to the city, James had Jessy assemble any able-bodied men and women to start loading beast corpses into the Berta’s and burying the dead. For a full day, men and women searched the field for the dead. Or what was left of them at least.

As the Sun’s fell onto the horizon, the city felt the grief of loss and death, but at the same time felt some hope and gratitude for having survived.

-Guild Hall-

The next day, James awoke from meditation to a raucous coming from outside in the plaza. When he opened the window, he witnessed something that nearly made his eyes roll out of his head. People from all over the city were marching into the plaza and placing down flowers or letters to the loved ones they had lost. Then they were all standing nearby the Guildhall like they were waiting for something.

He then came to the realisation that even people who didn’t live in this part of the city had come here to mourn. “Why the fuck are all these people crying outside my fucking guild hall?”

James was a little chuffed. After he closed the window to his office, he marched downstairs to find out what the fuck was going on.

When he got to the front door, he found Jessy having a quiet discussion with some gentlemen. Once she had finished talking, they gave a polite bow and walked back outside. James marched up to Jessy looking rather irked. “Jessy, why the fuck are all those people out there crying and sobbing? It’s fucking bringing my mood down. I just fuckin saved this city. Last thing I need is to fuckin put up with that shit.”

Jessy turned to James and quirked her eyebrow. “Those people are the survivors of your little beast hunt yesterday. To make it worse, every single one of them wants to partition the guild for training. From what I understand, someone has been encouraging them to do this because apparently, you’re now in charge of city security.”

James looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Wut? City security? Since fuckin when? That’s the fuckin Clan’s job!”

James marched out of the Guildhall and walked off in a huff towards the Gau Clans Mansion. When he arrived, he saw injured disciples slowly packing away furniture and cleaning things up. James only grew more puzzled. As he stormed into the main hall, he saw the heavily bandaged and sorry looking Elder Song and Grace talking with the equally damaged looking Hao.

“Just what the fuck is going on?!” He raged.

Hao looked up with a bitter wry smile. Song too had a bitter smile on his face. Grace looked somewhat regretful about something but apart from that made no other emotions clear.

Hao gave out a long sigh then began to speak. “Little Junior James. The City is now in a time of crisis and needs someone to protect it properly. It’s become painfully clear to me that our clan simply isn’t strong enough to hold the city together anymore. As such. We’ve renounced our claim to the city and its land. By right, everything here is now under your jurisdiction. Our clan will vacate the Town Lord’s Mansion for the first time in 800 hundred years. As the strongest faction in the city, you will then be taking up that burden.”

“Like fuckin hell I will! I can’t even run my own fuckin guild, and now you expect me to fuckin run your city?! Get fucked you old freak! For starters, we’re still the weakest fucking guild in the whole city! To add to that, I don’t plan on staying here. Eventually, I’m going to fuckin leave this place! You can’t just fuckin pack it in whenever shit gets tough and expect some other poor bastard to do your job for you!”

Song’s smile just grew more bitter. “Young James, don’t think wrongly of us, but we can’t unify the city like we once could. Our Clan is old, true. But we are now far weaker than ever before. Even before you came, our Clan was the weakest it has been since its founding days. If this city is going to survive, it needs someone that has the power and backbone to take control of it.

“Besides, you’re doing revolutionary work. The citizens love you because you give out cheap cultivation techniques and for anyone with the gold you also provide extensive education that our world has never even fathomed of. On top of that, you were the key to our victory over the beast horde. Whether you like it or not, everyone knows this city would have fallen if you hadn’t pulled everyone together. If it’s you, I’m sure you can achieve great things.”

“Fuck your great things old man! I want no part of this shit. If you hand this city over to me, I’ll burn the fucking thing to the ground and spit on its ashes! How do you like them apples?!”

Song just gave a rueful smile then helped Hao up. The three Gau Clan leaders clapped James on the shoulder as they walked out and parted with a “good luck”.

James was absolutely furious. The whole idea of leaving the clan was to eventually be able to leave this city. He refused to fucking stay here and be tied down by some fucking rock. “I’m going to fucking slaughter everyone you old fucks! I’ll fucking tie the children to horses and watch them get dragged away into the dark forest! GOD DAMNIT! YOU SLY MOTHERFUCKERS! I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD!!!”

As he blew his top and screamed and yelled to the heavens in the now empty Main Hall, the rest of the Gau Clan members vacated the premises and returned to a subsidiary mansion, that in all honesty, was actually better than this one. The price they had to pay by handing over the city wasn’t as much as you’d think it was. With the monolith now damaged, maintaining the grain fields will become incredibly taxing and arduous.

The loss of the Endless Forest was no great deal because in the last few years they’d hardly pulled much out of it. Unless some palace realm cultivators entered to tackle the beasts, there wasn’t much else they’d been able to find. Apparently, Anvil hadn’t told them about the founder’s cave his disciples had found before his death.

After James had released all his frustrations by yelling at everything and screaming at everyone, he returned to the Guild. When he got back, even more people were mulling around outside the Hall. Seeing the mood James was in and the almost visible dissatisfaction rolling off his body like Harvy’s death aura, everybody wisely chose not to try and speak with him just yet.

The moment James walked into the Hall, he called a meeting. The Core members of the Brotherhood assembled in the Guildmasters office. They all sat down quietly, seeing the visibly pissed off James, and waited a moment for him to speak. “We now own the city.” He finally managed to mumble.

Everyone had some shock and surprise in their eyes. Skay was the first to react. “Haha! That’s great. With an entire city as our base of operation, that will make everything easier.”

James’ bloodshot eyes gave Skay a furious look. “What the fuck are you talking about you old fuck?! This means we have to fucking protect this place now. People are a resource, and there’s no fuckin point in having a city if everybody gets eaten by fuckin spirit beasts! On top of that, being the controller of a city comes with all those other perks, like fuckin having to worry about feeding the bastards and making sure the guilds play nicely. Then there’s taxes, infrastructure, development, FUCK! THERE’S FUCKING EVERYTHING!!”

Skay just smiled broadly. “So?”

James’ eyebrow started twitching, and he was about ready to get up and strangle this old bastard to death. Skay’s grin grew sinister. “You said it yourself boy. People are a resource. You now have an entire city of them, why not put some to work? All you have to do is point them in the direction you want to go, and they row the oars. It’s how any good city gets built.”

Jessy then interrupted. “It’s also how corruption starts. The last thing we want is to start managing this city and having individuals doing their own thing on the side.”

Goliath gave a nod. “This is true. It also limits us. If we grow too invested in the city, then we lose the privilege of being cultivators. You can’t become stronger sitting in the same place. True cultivators travel and seek advancement.”

Exsue just moved over to James then sat down in his lap. “Why don’t you just do it for now JayJay? I know you better than anyone. You’ll never get attached. But if you can put in a little work now, having a city at your disposal would benefit you greatly in the short term future. Eventually, you’ll need to expand your guild. Having an entire city behind your guild would be a powerful backer. When you’re stronger, you won’t need it. But for now, having a safe place to cultivate would be the best, and it would give you more control over certain things. Say for example ... you can enter the Endless Forest whenever you want now.”

James suddenly sat up straight and grabbed Exsue’s face. “The Endless Forest. Exsue don’t take this the wrong way.” James then gave her a wet kiss, and she moaned into him as she tried to squeeze further into his embrace.

After that, he suddenly stood up, and Exsue fell onto the ground rubbing her now sore ass.

“Fine! Everyone start preparing. You’re now my city council. Fatty, you’re in charge of feeding everyone and pulling in whatever grain is still in the fields. Skay I want you to get in contact with the Builder’s Guild. You’ve got four weeks, new infrastructure, roads, electricity and most importantly a wall, oh, and a new lab right next to the forest. This one is getting a little cramped. Jessy, you’re now in full control of the guild hall and the city budget.

“You have 2 weeks to groom a new guild overseer. Goliath, you’re now my First General. You’re in charge of city security and armed forces. You can start out there. For the next month, we have one job. I want the security in this city to be so god damn tight that if a dog farts we’ll have men their observing the smell and I want the entire town torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. I don’t care how you get it done.”

After he’d finished, James marched out.

Everybody was a little stunned at this sudden strange turn of events. Before he got far, he suddenly returned. “I also want everyone ready to breakthrough at the end of the month. If you’re not working on the city, you’re cultivating. Skay ... I know you’ll probably go mad if you can’t go to your lab for an entire month, but I’m not making exceptions. If we’re going to be in control of a city. We need the power to keep it.”

He then spun and disappeared again.