The approach to the Black Peaks themselves had few straight paths, with many layers of tall spires and larger crags overlapping. What that ultimately meant was attacks could come from any direction at any point, and combined with potential traps it would make things hell for an approaching army.

John wasn’t stupid enough to approach alone, instead waiting for more of their army to begin the approach. Though the plan had been to meet up and directly siege the city, John intercepted Charlotte and explained what he had seen.

“Approaching without all of us would be tantamount to suicide,” John said. “Unless they’re significantly weaker than we anticipated, but we can’t really bet on that, can we?”

“No,” Charlotte agreed. “How troublesome. This approach will take longer than anticipated. We were hoping to reach the city before they could gather reinforcements. Do you think we could push through?”

“Depends on what sort of traps they might have set. And their total forces. But unfortunately, we don’t have that information. All we know is that they don’t have overwhelming forces or it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. They would have easily kept their positions in the Rolling Dunes. And if they truly didn’t want them, it would have been better for them to retreat without fighting.”

“What about the main road?” Charlotte asked.

“I would expect it to have the most troublesome traps and the like. Or maybe there would be nothing at all. But I doubt we’d be so lucky.”

“Too bad. The road, at least, would be less affected by the numbing effect of the terrain.”

“Unfortunately, it seems we will have to deal with it,” John shook his head.

“I came with the main body of the army,” Charlotte said. “With you, perhaps a third of our forces are here. We should at least begin pushing our way forward to see what dangers lie ahead. It’s unlikely they can cause us serious damage without bringing all of their forces out of the city together.”

John nodded. It was only a dozen kilometers or so. Such a journey would have taken an hour or two of marching at a normal pace, but it would be a bit more complicated now.

Waiting for more of their forces was an option, but beginning to figure things out would also be beneficial. John only had vague feelings of danger so far, nothing concrete. Though now that he thought about it, vague feelings of danger might be the best traps if it was possible to set that up consistently.

“I’ll go ahead with a small group.” Specifically, John intended to bring cultivators of every element with him to make use of their perceptions. He chose Ayhan, Lir, Taura, and Toma from the Six Elements Crossroads which already covered everything, then he added Helen and Presley from Firepine Palace and the Golden Tomb Guardians respectively. It was still a relatively small and compact group, and they would have different perspectives for picking out potential threats. Their numbers would also be small enough to actually sneak around.

“We’re going to scout ahead,” John explained. “Point out anything at all that stands out. I mean it. If we have to spend an hour to take a single step, it’s better than running into some sort of trap that makes certain we never move forward again.”

With that, they formed up and began walking forward slowly.

“Do we start now?” Ayhan asked. “Umm, I mean. That rock seems out of place, sect head Miller.”

John stopped, and so did everyone else. He looked at the rock. Then he extended a facsimile of energy ahead, brushing against the ground. Nothing. But he still reached out for the boulder that was indeed somewhat unnaturally placed in one of the rock faces. With a small tug, it tumbled out of the wall, a burst of spiritual energy as it rolled with speed only to crash into another wall and crumble to pieces.

John folded his arms. “I can’t tell if that was an actual trap or not. There might have been a way to trigger it… or there might not have and it was just a rock. But still worth pointing out.”

They had barely taken a few more steps when Taurai called out. “Senior! Sir. Sect Head. Um, there’s some sort of… vortex…?”

“Where?” John asked, and she pointed to the ground. So it was the one he had sensed. This one, at least, seemed more like an intentional effort on the part of the Muted Crags. It was darkness element, after all. An earth element trap might or might not be within their purview, but this one certainly was.

John chucked a rock at it. It sank into the ground, but unfortunately it didn’t drain the spiritual energy from the trap. It could consume quite a bit more. “Come close, Taurai,” John said. “We’re going to siphon away the darkness element. If you can, you want to absorb the energy you retrieve. If it’s too dangerous to absorb or you become overfull, just let it disperse anywhere vaguely in that direction,” John said.

He reached out to begin doing as he had said. As far as he could tell, there was no counterforce this trap would produce. It was what it was- an annoying sinking trap that might cause more than just discomfort to anyone entrapped, but it wasn’t going to blast explosions as they tried to pull it apart.

Then there was another trap, a few steps further and to the side. That one was just a bundle of darkness energy set to explode upon being touched or otherwise interacted with, and a tossed rock did resolve that one.

“Wait!” Ayhan called out once more. “Uh, this time it’s… all of that?” he gestured to one of the spires.

“Good,” John said. “Try to disarm it.”

“But I uh… hmm…” Ayhan furrowed his brow. “What if…?” instead of actually asking, he was planning something. John could feel him drawing upon his air element, charging up for something. Then, an arc of lightning shot from his hand to the spire. It crackled, but that was it. “Not quite enough,” Ayhan said. “Once more!”

The second time, the whole spire exploded. Needless to say, John had anticipated that possibility. Even Ayhan seemed to have known- but he perhaps didn’t think about it in the right way.

John yanked the disciple back, tossing him into the middle of the others as he raised earthen barriers to deflect the flying rocks around their group. “Ayhan,” John said, when the pillar was little more than shards of stone on the ground. “While that was a fairly energy efficient method of dismantling the trap, you seem to have forgotten about certain consequences for overcharging it.”

“I- uh- yeah,” Ayhan hung his head.

“So do better next time,” John said. “Anyway, we have our route forward,” John gestured. Suddenly, there was no longer anything blocking their path for a few dozen meters. “We can guarantee there are no traps along there.”

At this point, they were still within sight of Charlotte and her group, and they’d barely seemed to have done anything at all. Personally, John was happy with their progress. And thinking about how much effort must have gone into setting up so many traps, as long as they defeated them with any amount of efficiency he didn’t mind it.

Lir caught the next one. “There. At the top of that large cliff,” she said. Truthfully, it had been a toss up between her and Taurai for who would most likely sense it first, as both were partial water cultivators. Though someone else might have sensed it first. “It looks like… an entire lake would wash over this narrow path?”

John nodded. The terrain of the Muted Crags made it more difficult to sense anything- otherwise, these traps would be extremely obvious as they were mostly charged spiritual energy barely restrained in a single spot. Not that he would expect anything different when they had to cover a large area all at once. They certainly couldn’t have set these traps up for the long term, because then it would be impossible for them to move about in their own territory.

John continued to look at the trap for a while. “An entire lake, huh…” it really was there, barely restrained by rock walls that appeared to have been weakened just for this purpose. He had the feeling it would have been a beautiful thing- a lake that found a home in rocky crags- but now it was a weapon. Trying to discern exactly what it would do was difficult. Obviously simply dumping water on cultivators would be a bit underwhelming. Even if they were shoved into rocks it would be… barely harmful. The water element imbued into the lake, however, might cause it to freeze over them? That would certainly be much more dangerous. And give any hidden attackers a good opening.

John didn’t feel anyone, but then again they weren’t far from the main body of the army. It would be a bit risky to come after them right now. That said, it was that sense of security that would make an ambush even more effective if it happened.

So, how to disable that thing? If he climbed up the crags and made a channel out the far side… well, that would only work if he didn’t cause a disturbance to the lake. And it might not react so predictably if he did.

Vaulting a rock into the middle of the water didn’t do much, unfortunately. They were far enough back that a catastrophic failure of the trap would have been fine, but the rock basically just fell into the lake and maybe caused some fluctuations in the water element charged in it.

He could also feel the various tendrils of connected spiritual energy going down towards ground level, ready to catch anyone walking past and trigger. If they had a horse or something they were willing to sacrifice, it might be worthwhile.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” John said finally. “Lir and Taurai, prepare to hold the water in liquid form, and channel it away from us if it comes down to that. Ayhan, if it begins to spill over I want you to deepen the channel so that it can’t spray far towards us. Helen, I think it is intended to suddenly freeze, so if it makes its way towards us I would prefer if you help force it into whatever the best form for us is.”

The whole wall was intended to fall out together, but John had a plan. If he reinforced the close part with earth, then the wall should burst away from them. And they were standing out of the way as much as possible to begin with.

“Everyone ready?” John confirmed, then began his work.

As he’d feared, as soon as he actually began tampering with the trap it reacted. He was only able to solidify a small portion of the rock… and everything spiraled into disaster from there. Water began to rush over the edge of the cliff as parts of the rock face crumbled. If it was entirely random in its flow they would have been fine, but it was clearly directed to seek out sources of spiritual energy.

John was glad for Helen and Presley, as their relatively higher cultivations allowed them to fight back directly against the trap. John also did his best to stem the tide of water rushing towards them, deflecting it, turning some into steam, and trying to ‘trick’ it into going somewhere else with some darkness element.

The danger only lasted a few moments, and ultimately they got out of there with no injuries- but John had expended quite a bit of his spiritual energy, along with the others. Looking at the area they had covered, it was a rather pitiful distance. It also wasn’t nearly wide enough to properly guide an army through, so they would need more squads working at this same thing if they wanted to arrive in a reasonable time. But no offense to most of their allies, it would be difficult for them to find and deal with the traps. They mostly had fire and light cultivators, after all.

John would consult Charlotte about it. But whatever they actually did would have to happen in the morning, because he was taking the rest of the day off. It was simply too risky to continue and exhaust himself. How pathetic would it be to die to a simple trap? They might have to push harder once the whole army was around, but for the moment this would have to do.