The gauntleted left hand of the Ascending Soul Phase cultivator Rezso caught John’s sword. Earth clashed with darkness, the clash in momentum greatly favoring the more powerful cultivator. Only small ripples of power actually affected the man himself.

Those ripple spread throughout his body, from his arm to his shoulder, then his torso, then his head and remaining limbs. John would have liked to say that was the point that his body crumbled, his bones shaking to dust or something like that. But it truly wasn’t very much power. It was only just enough to resonate with the small portion of John’s spiritual energy that already remained within Rezso’s body.

His right arm stretched out towards Charlotte, the dagger clutched tightly in his fist wreathed in powerful spiritual energy. A dozen tendrils of fire grew out of the ground, wrapping around his arm to try to stop it. The moment he was about to reach full extension of his arm, something cracked in his elbow. The power of his spiritual energy didn’t suddenly go away, and his attack still pierced into the side of the Firepine Palace sect head.

The counterforce of John’s attack sent him flying backwards, but he gladly accepted that. He slid back among allies, while Rezso was held in place surrounded by his foes. It would likely only take him a short moment to slip away, but a half dozen cultivators attacked simultaneously. Having just split his spiritual energy for offense and defense, he was left to defend with only what he could summon in that moment. Flames wrapped his body, some bursting from inside him. And yet, the man was at least worthy of the power he had achieved. He survived, tearing himself away enshrouding himself among the darkness of his companions. Then he turned and ran.

John was the one best equipped to notice, so he pointed it out at the highest volume possible. “There goes your fearless leader Rezso, fleeing into the city in hopes that you will save him.” The man’s glare of darkness over his shoulder could have actually killed John, if the man were at full power and John in his current battered state. “Remember. For the low price of his head, the rest of you can live.”

It took a moment for any sort of comprehensible response to permeate through the enemy ranks. First, they sought out their leader with their spiritual energy. There wasn’t too much of the inhibiting natural spires around them, so they were able to pick out the man’s movements as he hid among them. Rezso’s motion stopped for an instant, perhaps attempting to hide his flight.

All it took was one brave soul turning on him to begin the avalanche of assaults. Members of the Swirling Shadow Sect jumped to his aid, but the vice-head of the Black Blood Cult was watching, and perhaps waiting for such an opportunity. She flicked a wicked whip covered along its length in thorns towards him. She barely pierced his spiritual energy, but that was enough for her to make contact with one of his many wounds. From there, his blood began to flow along the whip. One small portion. And then another, as she twisted the whip around his already bad arm.

At that point, Rezso was already dead. He just refused to accept it. “You fools! You’ll hand our city over to-”

“Our city was already doomed when you chose to provoke a war instead of being patient a few more years while we finished pooling our resources,” the woman said. Each of her attacks grew sharper, while at the same time Reszo’s spiritual energy was dwindling. Then finally, her whip wrapped around his neck, squeezing tight… until it met in the middle. She took his head and tossed it towards Charlotte. “Call back your forces. We will settle the rest ourselves.”

John was glad that he’d cultivated friendships around himself more than rivalries. He knew there were still likely some number of people who would like to take his head, but at least there were none that shared walls with him.

-----

Nobody was happy at the conclusion of the battle, which was unfortunately how things went all too often. Actually, John could hardly recall a single battle after which he had been happy. Defeating the Society of Midnight was a relief, but they’d never wanted to have to go there to begin with.

Charlotte handled all of the remaining negotiations, which resulted in a number of storage bags being tossed at them from the walls. The contents of the Swirling Shadow Sect’s cracked vaults, such as they were. Well, whatever wasn’t still buried.

It was nowhere near enough to pay back the Phoenix Forest for the damage in the Rolling Dunes, and certainly not enough to make up for their losses in sieging the city. But that was never the point to begin with. The point was that was most of the wealth the Black Peaks had left, and that they paid the price. Though the true price was the trail of toppled spires along the final part of the route to their city. And most importantly, the clearly mangled peak that sat in the middle of their three.

John didn’t feel good about any of that, but he felt it had been necessary. They didn’t have the power with them to simply crush the enemy. They had to destroy the spires and crags outside the city to protect themselves from ambush. And the peak itself… John didn’t know if it was truly necessary. But it had certainly hastened the end of the war. No further worries about incoming reinforcements.

The lessons learned…? John wasn’t quite certain. That they should respond with overwhelming force wasn’t necessarily a good lesson to learn. Perhaps a more moderate version of that, that they simply needed to be stronger. The Six Elements Crossroads, and all the allies of them and John and the various clans now entangled together in all directions.

More importantly, they needed a wider reaching defensive pact. If the Phoenix Forest had been able to rely on the entire Stone Conglomerate or the Shimmering Islands, rather than just a few sects from outside their borders, then there likely wouldn’t have been any attacks on their assets in the Rolling Dunes to begin with.

It was something worth considering. John wondered how they would incorporate various adjacent territories. But that was something for himself and various allies to think about later.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

For the moment, the Phoenix Forest and their allies had a long trek back home. Their losses hadn’t been as terrible as they could have been, but each death still hurt.

-----

John held a ceremony to honor the deaths of each member of the Six Elements Crossroads in battle. Of course, they were not there to see it, so it didn’t mean anything to them. It was the living who needed it. And it was also the living who received financial assistance, family and those who were close to family. Many of them had been supporting others with their stipends.

None of them had needed to die. It wasn’t just about the war in general, but his disciples specifically weren’t needed. He should have sought out someone else to take their place. Battle experience? What good was it to those who were dead?

Except… John knew that coddling his disciples also wouldn’t be good for them. He just needed to find a better balance. It was true that those who had come with him and returned home would likely find great gains in terms of cultivation because of their practical experience, but that was also possible with lower risk activities.

Not aiding Charlotte in the war, however, was also unacceptable. Firepine Palace had been good to John, and they hadn’t provoked the attacks. Instead, John felt they’d simply overestimated their own capabilities. And yet they won- where the enemy had a proper Ascending Soul Phase cultivator. So they had not been entirely wrong, either.

-----

Far to the east, and a little bit south, two cultivators stood atop the peak of Zolvolj, looking down into its caldera. Yustina wasn’t entirely certain why they were there, but her husband had requested her presence. There were gains to be had from cultivating upon the volcano, of course, but as their cultivations advanced they were less and less during times where the volcano rested.

Lucanus just looked down into the caldera, at the bubbling lava below.

“What is it that you seek, my love?” Yustina asked.

“My cultivation has reached a plateau,” he commented. “I came here to get some insights.”

“At a time like this?” Yustina shook her head. “Better to wait a few years.”

“I really think there’s something to learn,” he said, looking pointedly downward.

Yustina frowned. “You should really think carefully about-” and then he jumped into the caldera. Yustina sighed. “Again?” Then she jumped after him. She knew what she’d signed up for when she married the man. And so even if she wasn’t necessarily going to be able to stabilize Zolvolj, she was at least going to be with him.

At least Zolvolj wasn’t at its peak. That thought comforted her, until she realized that the same power resided within it at all points- it just wasn’t always releasing that power to the outside world.

-----

Upon hearing that one of his best friends in the whole world was missing for over a month along with his wife who was also a dear friend, John… did exactly nothing. He didn’t see what he could or should do. If they could not handle whatever trouble had befallen them, then his presence would likely be of little use. It would be something else entirely if they asked for his help, but as far as he could tell they had left the Milanovic clan one day and simply never come back- without informing anyone. Which would be typical for Steve, but not for Yustina.

Still, he had to assume they would manage whatever was happening. Obviously it worried him, but the time frame was not yet enough for him to be truly concerned.

What he needed more was to figure out what to do with himself, now that he had settled back into life at the Six Elements Crossroads. He wished to grow stronger. Obviously that meant cultivating, but simply sitting in one place and absorbing spiritual energy was insufficient. Certainly, he would grow with time, but there was something more he needed.

He intended to take a page out of his foolish daughter’s playbook. No, not the one who went off and got attached to a cultivator of a completely opposite element, forming one of the most dangerous dual cultivation relationships possible. His other foolish daughter. The one who sought out monsters the size of a small city and bashed them in the head so that she could empower her body beyond all sensible limits.

Obviously John wasn’t going to incorporate all of Ursel’s body cultivations methods into himself. It was both unnecessary… and too focused. John had two things he could reasonably consider fit into the same category. First was Diamond Defense, the very technique that had gotten Ursel interested in the subject so long before. And the second was the blessing of Ciaritzal. Though it didn’t make his body tougher or more agile, it did increase his physical affinity for darkness and altered his eyesight permanently. So he could consider himself as having something from Darkness and Earth both.

If he was to continue along that line, something related to air would be next. Obviously, he couldn’t transform his body into air. Not permanently, at least. There might be some possibility of a decent defensive technique where he somehow allowed attack to pass through him, but that wasn’t possible as a foundational increase. So what could he accomplish?

He didn’t have the answer for that. He wasn’t sure if anyone did. But there were some who were most likely to possess that knowledge if available, and it would serve a double purpose if he were to visit.

The Blustering Peaks had never really been an enemy or friend of the greater alliance, not as a whole entity. There were some moderate conflicts with the Kartal clan, but the others were uninvolved. As it stood, they were on passable terms with the surrounding areas but still quite disconnected.

John was aware of one group rising to prominence in the area, and thought it reasonable to visit them. Obviously he would have to arrange for that ahead of time, because even if they accepted his presence should he suddenly show up that wouldn’t actually mean they were willing to have him. It was just difficult to refuse someone with influence.

Rising Storm Palace seemed to be a decent place, by his understanding. At the bare minimum, they had joined the efforts to repel the Molten Sea from the region. And he’d been at a few social events where they had members present. So not exactly a close connection, but that was part of the point. And if he ultimately didn’t find them worthwhile, he could at least make use of his time to pick another clan or sect in the area.