Chapter 321: Bosses

Sage had ended the Timeless Eye technique earlier when he sat down, needing all of his energy to support the Sovereign Stone. Instead, he was relying upon his Spiritual Sense to guide him. The few rank 4s outside were distracted and he carefully controlled his Spirit Sense to keep it from being damaged. At least until the three rank 5s rushed in. They immediately assaulted his Spirit Sense to harm him in any way possible, but unfortunately for them it only served to warn him of their approach. He leapt back to his feet and quickly pulled everyone in the tank into the Universe Ring, interrupting Ruanfu and Wanqian Lei as they were about to fire a few more bolts off. King was just having his wounds tended to, so he barely even noticed the change of scenery.

Then he dove onto the floor, just in time for a beam of energy to lance across over his head. A moment later there was a huge impact against the side of the tank and another smashing down from the top. The two big hits crumpled the inner compartment and Sage could only wonder how much damage they inflicted to the outer shell. He thought about reactivating the Timeless Eyes, but he couldn’t watch in every direction at the same time, and with his vision limited by being inside the tank he couldn’t see anything coming in advance. He chose to lay on the ground and continue with his earlier actions, pushing all of his strength into the Sovereign Stone.

The building began to shake again, disrupting the attacks of the lead Slavers. The oiled and hairy leader took out a large sword and hopped onto it, floating in mid-air to avoid the unstable ground. He already had a large crossbow like object in his hands, aiming it towards the tank and releasing a violent lance of light that seared a tiny hole clear through both sides of the tank. The second rank 5 had no method to keep his balance, he was just making up for the loss of control with volume. The man was tossing out basketball sized orbs of fire. Each orb detonated in mid-air causing a flaming shockwave, the fire washing over the side of the tank and making it shake and shift. The third of the leaders carried a large two-handed hammer, with a head as large as a wine barrel. The man laid the head onto the ground and then used it like a vaulting pole, hurling himself towards the tank. Then he spun his body in the air and somehow controlled his mass to lift the hammer head like it was a feather. A moment later it swung around and smashed onto the top of the tank, semi-flattening the top area where the firing ports were.

The three of them kept attacking even as the noise from the trembling building grew louder and louder. Loud crashes and bumps were heard from the upper and lower floors. Everything on the walls and tables were thrown off and only the furniture being held onto by groups of terrified Slavers didn’t shift around wildly. The three leaders had already struck the tank a half-dozen times and nearly halved its original size when they finally realized it was too late. They heard a loud cracking and the groans of shifting movement all around them. The three locked eyes for a moment and then took off at full speed. One of them smashed a wall panel and revealed a metal pole in an empty shaft. Another ran and lifted a floor panel to reveal a chute that he jumped into. The leader on his flying sword shot towards the wall and smashed through it, the section he’d targeted seemed to be much thinner and weaker than the other parts around it. He flew directly out the window and caught a couple crossbow bolts on his body while avoiding incoming volleys of them.

Seeing their leaders escaping, the rest of the Slavers followed their example and started uncovering other hidden escape hatches all over the room. Some of them seemed stuck or broken and they attacked them violently, while others turned into chaos when the number of people trying to funnel into the exit were greater than it could handle. One stabbing another in the back so he could go before him. A rank 4 cultivator used a terrifying poison cloud to clear a doorway so he could be the first one to use it.

Many escaped, but most didn’t have enough time. The building rumbled louder and louder until a single moment when it seemed like there was no more sound. The ceiling above and the floor below were no longer at a uniform distance from each other, and those Slavers knew it was too late. They could only utter their last words and their final prayers as the building came down atop them.

Inside the tank, when Sage felt the final shifting of the ground beneath the building, he knew it was finally coming down. He apologized to the few still in cages that he couldn’t save, and then disappeared into the Universe Ring himself. The small golden ring fell to the floor with a clink and then the tank did its impression of a crushed tin can.

Sage had planned this outcome after surveilling and studying the compound for a few days. It was the solution he came up with that could save the most people with the least number of friendly casualties. If the Jade Horde pushed in with force, there was no telling how many of them would die to the absurd number of traps, even when they knew about them. At the same time, there was no guarantee they could save any of the people in the cages, let alone most of them. The Slavers might kill them all before leaving with poison or even fire, then escape through their underground maze. If they were too slow, the Slavers might even bring along all their merchandise when they left.

He’d also thought of just releasing the whole army in the underground area and blocking all routes of escape for the Slavers. They’d likely wipe them all out without suffering too harsh of casualties, but the slaves would become human shields and hostages. The Jade Horde wouldn’t suffer, but the prisoners would. Any other rescue operations he thought of would have similar results, disastrous losses for either the Jade Horde or the slaves. Only this plan, gathering the prisoners in the fastest and most direct method would save most of them. The downside was it put him into a terribly dangerous position and also meant some Slavers might escape.

That brought him to leaving teams in the maze and bringing the building down. If he could buy enough time the collapsing building would likely stop most of the enemies and the teams in the maze should be able to stop the rest.

The three storied building was quite large and strong, with a stone frame and outer shell. Those stones as well as the basis of the building’s foundation were targeted by the Sovereign Stone and manipulated to bring the place down. The force of it smashing to the ground was immense and the shock of that fall even partially triggered the neighboring deadfall. The buildings close to the center had all been rigged to fall thirty feet into the ground, creating a huge moat-like pit and likely killing the majority of the people in them. The collapsing central building inadvertently triggered half of the pitfall and a portion of the houses fell, forming many large pits and craters in the large compound.

The waves of crossbow bolts stopped falling and the wrecked buildings became quite quiet. There was only the sounds of shifting and settling as the mass of stone and wood pressed together into a big pile just how it liked. After about ten minutes, a black worm appeared inside that wreckage, swallowing a golden ring and crawling its way through a large hole and into a pile of debris. A small ghostly spirit also flew out into the debris into a different direction.

Sage was of course using a Warp Worm to carry the Universe Ring out, and his Twin Soul to search through the rubble for the few cages he wasn’t able to save. It took some time, but a few hours later the Warp Worm had dug through the wreckage and used the Universe Ring to collect the last few people out of their cages, dead or alive.

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