Chapter 136 - Bad Hands And Hidden Aces
*ROAAAAAAAAAAR* *SQUEEEEEEEAL* *AHHOOOOOOO* *GROWL* *SWOOOSH*
*CRASHHHHH* *Swiiiiing* *Fwooh*
-----
In the wasteland world, a new river had been created.
The liquid of which it was composed wasn't clear, nor was its motion fast.. Inside it, uncountabled pieces of dark flesh formed the river bed, and the pitch black blood flowed in between them.
At the head of this river, Was Daniel, which was currently cleaning his sword, and breathing large amounts of spiritual essence in.
All around him, hundreds of thousands of monsters lied in pieces. The rest, were already filling a small pile of spatial rings.
"Damn it.. I knew this would happen." Said Daniel with disappointment.
From within his mind, Sewah said "What the hell are you even taking all these monster meat for.. It's not like it will do anything to increase your power."
"Resources for my group, exchangeable goods, a boost of morale for the army.. A bit of fun.. Your apathetic behaviour makes you a terrible interlocutor." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.
"I just don't care about these things frivolous things." Sewah rebutted, slightly irritated by Daniel's harsh but true words.
Daniel slightly bent forward and picked a common pebble from the ground while saying "Yeah, you don't have to prove my point." He then put his focus into it.
Bit by bit he injected large amounts of immortal essence into this simple looking rock. He then shaped it into a large and empty room with grey walls, floor, and ceiling.
The immortal essence was so powerful, that he did not even need to refine the large amount of essence in order to turn it into a solid spatial construct. The most basic form was already more than enough to do the job.
In a matter of moments, a room with a volume of two hundred cubic meters had been created within the common-looking rock.
This space rapidly started to fill in as Daniel started to sweep away the remaining hundreds of thousands of corpses.
Unfortunately, before he could finish, he felt a familiar call for help.
This call was in the feeling of what was once his ki, being slowly erased from within the ki flag Roley was in possession of.
Daniel immediately turned to look at the direction where the call for help had been sent. He then waved his hand and forced a door-sized portal to appear in front of him.
Through this portal, one would be able to see a change of scenery. It was the middle of a forest, and various darkened trees covered the light almost entirely.
The most shocking detail was that, in front of the first portal, a second portal had been opened. A portal which lead to a rocky path, and in front of this portal, a third portal showed a fourth scenery.
Daniel had to travel tens of thousands to kilometers to reach the shore, so, he directly opened a portal within a portal within a portal.
On the other side of this third and last portal, was the back of the army of monsters, and in the distance, an enormous grey platform could be seen flying in the air, with millions of people on it.
The platform seemed to be unstable, and was about to lose power and fall apart.
-----
Ten minutes earlier.
Edmund, Roley, and the rest of the spiritual cultivators had already spent five hours waiting. Their spiritual cultivation was running thin, and they had started to take turns to rest while Edmund and Roley overexerted themselves to compensate.
The leaders of the various tribes had already engaged the ten army commanders in various attempts of negotiation, but every proposition made by any of the two parts, ended up being rejected right away.
During the past five hours, various groups of warriors arrived one after the other, and joined the army of monsters. They were the tribe warriors that had decided to ally with the side of the King of Monsters' side instead of Daniel's.
Thanks to the reinforcements, the army's numbers increased drastically.
Underneath the spatial platform, an uncountable amount of sea monsters had amassed, and were eagerly waiting for the platform to disappear. They were so many, that the water hat turned from murky and hard to see through, to black.
"How much longer can he hold on?" Asked the Strongest of Warriors with a slightly worried tone.
A few drops of sweat were running down the sides of Edmunds head. From his face, people could assume that he was really trying his best to keep everyone out of the monster's range.
Roley opened his eyes, and said in response "Two hours.. That's our limit." He and the rest of the cultivators were doing seventy percent of the job by pushing numerous currents of air and water under the platform, and keeping it elevated.
The Strongest of Warrior walked towards his wife, his sister, and the rest of the leaders, which were now trying to find a solution to this predicament. As he approached the group of mid and late chief-level warriors, they all turned toward him.
The Chief Scholar then asked "What did he say?"
"Two hours at best.." Responded the Strongest of warriors with a grim expression.
With Daniel disappearance, and his friends down to their last leg, the various leaders of the tribes had made a few considerations.
They wanted to get back on lad before Edmund and the rest of the spiritual cultivators lost their powers, because in that case, they would at least have a fighting chance.
Since when they had been picked up one by one from their respective territories, they had been given high quality weapons to use in the incoming battle, so now, they believed to have an advantage to the still unarmed monsters and warriors.
Unfortunately, hope was quickly take away from them as they saw a shadow approach from the distance.
This shadow moved at an extremely high speed. A shadow which only after it got close enough they were able to made out the shape of.
It was an extremely large rhino-like monster, above which, a black-cloaked large man was sitting quietly.
This black-cloaked man, was the King of Monsters.
The moment the King of Monsters arrived, the Strongest of Warriors quickly approached Edmund and said "The king is here.. Will Daniel be able to take us into the ring with him present?" His tone worried.
Edmund suddenly opened his eyes, and rapidly stood up, somehow still keeping his focus on maintaining the spatial platform.
He glanced at the King of Monsters that approached from the distance, and after a few moments of consideration, he turned to look at Roley, which was already standing behind him, and said "Call him."
After nodding lightly, Roley made a ki flag appear in his hand. From which he quickly erased Daniel's ki.
In a matter of seconds, a portal opened in the distance.
When this portal opened, almost every one of the spiritual cultivators that had been struggling until now, felt their power double, and their ki regeneration speed increase by two hundred percent..
The King of monsters and Daniel appeared on site almost at the same time.
The moment the two appeared, Daniel teleported right onto the platform, and right in front of the group of tribe leaders.
Immediately, the few of them felt the increase in Daniel's power, which appeared to be just below theirs.
Not worried about controlling the platform anymore, Edmund casually stood up and approached Daniel along with Roley and a few of the other spiritual cultivators.
"What is going on here? Has a month passed already since I've been gone?" Asked Daniel in confusion.
"No, it has only been a day and a half. The king brought members of their races to his side, which he used to instigate a reaction." Responded Edmund calmly, almost as if already aware of what Daniel was going to ask to him.
"Why haven't you taken everybody in the pocket dimension? This doesn't seem like a good solution overall.." Asked Daniel with a bit of confusion. From his prospective, they had chosen to play the a game of endurance against someone that wasn't spending his energy.
"It appears that our spiritual essence is not enough to move people in the pocket dimension anymore.. I think it has something to do with the change in the spiritual essence inside.." Said Roley, interjecting in the conversation between the two.
The Chief Scholar took a step forward and said to Daniel "Edmund said that you have a way to take us all away from here. We have to go before the rest of the army arrives.. We can hold on against them, but we can't both fight and protect our people from the weaker monsters.
Daniel looked back at her with a plain expression, and said "I wouldn't worry about th-" but he was quickly interrupted by an extremely powerful voice which came from the shore.
"You have no way to run, kid. Come down here, and let's get this over with." Said the King of Monsters.
"What stops me from teleporting all of us to the other side of the world?" Responded Daniel with a voice noticeably weaker than the king's, while slowly stepping out of the platform and in the air.
Despite Daniel's voice being weaker, the King of Monsters was extremely surprised by his sudden increase in power. Of one thing he was certain.. He could not allow Daniel to keep growing.. He had to finish it now.
He slowly slid a hand in his robe, and from it, he took out a small purple pearl.
This pearl, was the token granted by the Herald of Corruption.
Both factions possessed many different types of tokens, but of course, the Herald of Corruption hadn't given to him any useless kind. In fact, the token he had given to the king was the most appropriate to win this war.
The moment the king took out the pearl, a strong pulling force started to form around it. The only thing that this pulling force absorbed, was spiritual essence.
The spiritual essence of the entire area was quickly absorbed by the small pearl, which rapidly filled with it.
Daniel immediately noticed this, and quickly reinforced the platform built by Edmund, which was quickly falling apart. He then slowly moved it back on the shore, while saying "A cheap trick.. The warriors of this world don't use spiritual essence, this gives you no advantage in a fight."
The king looked back at him, and rebated "How many warriors do you have? Two thousand out of two millions? I LEAD MILLIONS OF SOLDIER! You've put your nose in a place you didn't belong, and now your people will suffer for it."
After a moment of silence..
"HAHAHAHAHAHA! What army?! You mean this one?" Asked Daniel right before throwing hundreds of rings in the air right above the three thousand strong army of monsters and warriors. Then, he let out the carcasses of the millions of monsters he had slaughtered.
The carcasses started to rain from the sky like thick and gruesome rain.
The monsters which, when not at war ruled over large groups of monsters, had no choice but to allow the leader and warrior level monsters they ruled over, to fall on them.
At the same time, the purple token kept absorbing every bit of spiritual essence in the air. It was no different that the vortex Daniel created when breaking through a major stage of cultivation. The only difference, was that it was specifically targeted the spiritual essence.
The king looked at the bloody show, but had no reaction. Instead, he said "Astonishing. It appears we don't have the advantage I imagined we had, but it does not matter. Your group does not hold the same amount of power mine possesses."
"That's definitely true.. You are a thousand more than us.. But that's not something I can't solve." Responded Daniel as the large number of the civilians, and warrior level, and leader level warriors were teleported into the pocket dimension, and every cultivator at the ninth rank of martial cultivation appeared in their stead.
The power of these martial cultivators, previously at the late, or peak ninth rank, was immediately doubled, and entered the ranks of chief level warriors.
Daniel looked back at the king, and said "A little fairer, isn't it?.."