What was the purpose of this? I had my suspicions that this entire was a diversion. What it could be diverting me from, I did not know.

  The demonic sect would get nothing out of a ruined city. Whether it was short-sightedness, they had made a terrible mistake. For you see, I lived in western jewel. All the people I cared about in this world lived here, also my ex wife did too.

  There was a brief pause in the action at the formation caused by a loud, irritating sound. The opening closed.

  The beast that once had an outlet now began to frenzy with activity as they realized we were not in there with them, they were in here with me.

  It was just so easy for me to go after the Lord of creatures as a fifth round cultivator. I made a game out of it. I would push out my aura, sweeping out an area as the beer beast got caught up in the movement. Then the surrounding ladies saw fit to dispatch those readily. Be at this for a bit and then they were more beasts close to the city than they were nearby us, and it was time for us to make our way back in.

  Follow me, I yelled. To Western Jewel!

  There was some conservation in the crowd, but most of them seemed happy to follow. Wherever the heck I was. They probably realize how little sense it meant it made for them to hunker down in this situation. When your enemy could level your building, you had to get out. So many people would die just from diseases and from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I wanted to stop the worst of it. I could only do so much. But every living soul behind me was another one that was saved from the tide of spirit beasts and the demonic cultivators that had arranged this. More and more in my mind. I was thinking about how much I was going to throttle anyone I met with an ultraviolet tattoo on their face.

  If it’s kept up, I would be dead on my feet. By the end of the day. I kept packing energy into my muscles and bones and ligaments, trying to strengthen them. The weapon I formed gave me the opportunity to not punch everything.

  In fact, as I tapped another two-Story tall Beastie out of the way, I realized how necessary it was.

  For cultivators, they would have to form their own weapon in time or have one made because the alternative was to just punch or kick things. The level of raw power that I was exuding if I wasn’t focusing on things, would inevitably lead to people around me dying, whether from lack of aura or just the oppressive presence. That was why lower tier cultivators had to learn how to veil themselves efficiently and effectively.

  Lee had told me how to Vail myself and she was dancing around me even as I pushed my Nascent Soul around to rearrange the beasts into the best configuration for them to dispatch them. She, too, was looking worse for where. She, however, had the good sense to not allow her Rose to get ripped up or turn on fire throughout all this. They might be soaked in sweat and blood, but since she had chosen black robes for that day’s activities, you couldn’t see it. It. She did squelch when she attacked, though. Between her and Xueyies danceones moves, I could really appreciate what they brought to the table. Right behind me, Egiya was hard at work on some formation that she kept asking to borrow energy from. I kept overloading my car and passing energy back to her and she kept taking it and absorbing it into something she was working on. She had started out with Somewhere item that I had only seen once in her shop before it looked like an orb for pondering.

  But in her hands, it was more akin to a computer terminal with a blue line stretching out all around us. In fact, the more I turn back to check out our sides, the more her lights turned into an interlaced web surrounding all the refugees. I was hoping that this was some sort of protective shell and the fact that I couldn’t stop fighting long enough to ask was disappointing, to be honest. Oh well. There was always later for me to figure out what the heck my proteges were doing. One was fighting, one was pulling light out of a thing, and my girlfriend was watching my flank yet again.

  We got close to the city fight block by block and that’s when I realized my other error.

  We had come in thinking that this would be the simple part. But the streets were nearly barren, now full of some of the smarter Spirit beasts. Beasts. These beasts were not mindless. And as I pulled off to the first one, several of them Rome equivalent or higher. Thankfully, all the third realm one’s look to be hanging out as if they were in command.

  Lee, can you guard my flank real quick I yelled?

  Got it. She yelled back.

  I took off, using the formed bow staff to activate my tactile telekinesis and fly straight into the middle of five third realm Spirit beasts.

  I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called you here today, I said, whacking the first one in the head. Do you see the thing is guys? When I asked for a party, I was talking about the shindig where not only are kids welcome but they are accepted. I’m talking about the party where there’s a theme.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I whacked another one into the ground, bearing it neck deep. Then I kicked its neck, popping its head off into the air.

  Have you ever been to a kid’s party? You understand it. It’s not about you. Today It’s not about me.

  I halt one of them into the other one causing when they contacted to extend my tactile telekinesis field. Now I had two third round cultivators attached bit by bit and the last one there was looking at me like I had eight heads.

  You see, when you come to me on this the day of my new daughter’s transfer to my ex-wife it’s custody, I’m not in the best state of mind. So I’m not likely to..

  I slammed the two third realm spare beasts into the last remaining one. It felt like using a giant club.

  With the more intelligence therapists crushing each other repeatedly into the ground doing no small part to the hokey man. Slamming them repeatedly into it, be more intelligence. Therapists turned tail and fled. I would say that they were. They were brave but we both know that their only instinct was for survival and that exact moment. Honestly, I couldn’t blame them. If I saw me coming, I would probably run the other way as well. Just being able to beat a mother f***** with another mother. F***** was a pleasure. All of its own. That I can freeze one in place just by extending my influence over them and then they were held up?

  It was just oh chef kiss.

  I couldn’t have gotten a better deal if I had spent all day trying to design a better cultivation power. It was then that I was glad that Maxine had shown up with her Iron man-esque flight powers. I would have never built this cultivation path except out of spite to try to look cooler than her. Sure, she might look cool, but I don’t think she would. What to do? What the heck I just did unless she spent the time to develop the technique.

  At that moment, I can feel a wave of energy emanating from the center of the city. All eyes around me looked up and joined mine as I saw the Mandarin or what had to be a sixth film. Cultivator duking it out with the Mandarin way above the center north of City. They were so far up in the air that they were flying near the top of the dome.

  A little about the dome that I might not have mentioned. It wasn’t like a glass house. It was more like, Well, whatever the opposite of a greenhouse is. It didn’t make the inside. Any warmer than it normally would be, though it should. Something about the thermodynamics of the geothermal energy around keeping Western Jewel at a nice constant temperature for most of the year. It was nothing to complain about, but it was always interesting to me how the atmosphere right outside was far more akin to an early Canadian winter. Maybe it was because the air and oral outside were thin. Or maybe it was thicker out there because of all the spirit bees. But either way, stepping between inside and outside was always a big shift in temperature and pressure and aura. You could always feel it. And you always had to take a second to re-acclimatize.

  If the manner can go, take care of the enormous threats and we had plugged up the hole, then maybe if this thing would all be over with. It might be a pipe clean, but it was my dream, and I was going to live up to it.

  ---

  “Hey do you have enough water?” I asked Xueyie.

  She placed her dirty hands on her hips. “If you add any more, we will serve hot water instead of soup. Get me more potatoes and salt.”

  The soup kitchen was in shambles. It was a haven in the middle of the city. It ran nearly as long as the compound did. Several large pots had been moved into a large coolie area, with fires fed by some artisan fire cultivators.

  Xueyie was serving looks and soup. Next to her, Egiya was trying to give everyone a clean bowl and spoon. Of course, this required that we have a space for them to be washed. Two bathtub sized basins stood out front where volunteers with water-based cultivation paths helped her continually clean bowls for the line of hungry people.

  The work was needed.

  The work was tired.

  I didn’t see an end coming soon to the work.

  That was fine. So long as the Mandarin kept supplying me with the food I had requisitioned, I wouldn’t raise a fuss.

  Volunteers cleared out rubble where they could. They moved bodies where they were found.

  They couldn’t do that? They helped in the kitchen. With so many in need, it was our civic duty to disrupt the local fast casual cuisine scene.

  The hip new store that sold tea directly to customers has been razed to the ground.

  Moon Xiru would have loved it.

  If he had lived to join us.

  I lugged another barrel of water to the washing station.

  It was something that kept me off recovery duty. I spent an hour resting that evening before heading back out. This is after the Mandarin secured the city.

  Whoever he fought, I hadn’t the faintest idea. I assumed I would get a briefing later. Actually, the thing that would probably happen is that I would hear absolutely nothing from the government and then be asked for my thoughts by someone who I was passing soup to.

  They might be downtrodden, but the people of Western Jewel were resolute.

  If there was some official agency keeping track of the deaths, then I would have deferred to them. Instead, I had Egiya and her mother informally ask the camp followers if they had lost anyone and take names.

  Lee surprised me with a hug.

  “You got tunnel vision again. Sit and eat.”

  I wanted to tell her no, but that was definitely not going to work out. I was swiftly pummeled into sitting down among the displaced people of Western Jewel and given a heaping load of soup against my objections. Some of my impatience must have run off on her. I feel like there was always something I had to be doing.

  With my cultivation level, I could clear buildings faster and remove rubble, but there was only so much that I could do.

  Still, it was the most delicious thing that had ever hit my nostrils in a long time. The taste was divine.

  Just one hit of the soup that my girlfriend plopped in front of me made me love her all over again. I wanted to eat all day. I saw the people around me eating many with slow hand movements and, in many cases, vacant stares.

  They didn’t look hungry. They didn’t eat like they were hungry. But the people that I had saved from the red Fang sect weaved in and out, every so often nudging someone to continue their lunch.

  Lee return and I could feel her pressing herself against me. That hug from behind gave me life, even more than the food that had to be the first thing I’d eaten since before all this happened.