On Earth

  While Lao and Jeffrey recovered from the lengths they had been forced to go to in order to defeat the E Rank invader, the rest of the faction did not rest. More E Rankers were sure to be coming, and with Sam and the Overlord stuck in the Tower of Transcendence, the faction needed a more reliable way of dealing with them. The floodgates had opened in terms of Enlightened cultivators being allowed into the universe, or at least to Earth.

  Most of the captains took their mission even more seriously than before, and set to training at a rate that would put all but the most dedicated of faction champions to shame. On the edge of Death’s razor, trapped in a frontier universe with assailants on all sides, one’s skills tended to evolve in response. If not, then oblivion was all that would await.

  Those of the captains who were at the peak of F Rank grew closer and closer to E Rank, but one was even further ahead than the others. Bolstered by his rebuttal of an E Ranker’s attacks, Lao had gained such insight into the power of his Dao that his body was holding him back more than anything. While it was possible to have a Dao more powerful than your Rank, achieving that rapidly would put a strain on one’s cultivation. Generally, such a process was gradually achieved, and only at bottlenecks in cultivation.

  Every day, the captains cycled in and out of the defenses, prioritizing cultivation over all else. The one thing that would safeguard the faction, above all else, was increasing the strength of its defenders. While E Rank was still too far away for any of them to achieve before Sam returned, most likely, getting as many people as possible to the peak of F Rank was the best possible option.

  “My turn now?” Pyotr asked, as he heard the door of his cultivation room open.

  The man had grown in ways both great and small since his fight with the E Ranked Athari Sect member, and his ascension to level 149. He was hardly a genius at cultivation, but he was moderately talented. Most of the captains were the cream of the crop of the fighters of Earth, and he was no different. Out of all of them, though, Lao, Eduardo, Jeffrey and Talnor were at the top, loosely followed by him, and then some of the aliens. After them came the rest of the human captains, as many of them were either non combat classers, or hadn’t reached the peak of their ranks yet.

  “It is,” Graxus, one of the aliens who had come with Talnor, replied. The man was slight, a stick of corded muscle and bone, with four arms. Despite his rather severe appearance, he had made friends with Pyotr over the last few weeks, and now the two aided each other in battle. “You are needed in the fourth orbital city.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Pyotr nodded, and stood up, neatly folding the small mat he had been sitting on. According to Talnor, such mats were invaluable for the later stages of Mortal cultivation, as they were enchanted to increase focus and reduce anything that would inhibit proper cultivation. They became useless after F Rank though, as such things could be naturally achieved.

  Graxus headed into the room and sat down, crossing his legs. His eyes were already closed, and Pyotr closed the door quietly behind himself, drawing his ax from his back. His Dao Seed hummed within him as he strode, feeling a deep connection to the ground beneath him. His power was far beyond anything he could have expected, a demigod lifted from the pages of ancient myth. Only, he was surrounded by people just like him.

  He headed down the long hallway that contained all of the various cultivation rooms of the faction’s higher ups, and ran into some of the other captains. He didn’t really know any of them well, so he simply gave them a nod. At this point, there were dozens of captains, each fulfilling a different role.

  He broke into a run as he exited the city hall complex which, at this point, was larger than a small town. The higher ups had decided that unifying all of the governing bodies of the city, and those within them, into one cohesive whole had been the best plan for security, so the captains now dwelt and worked in the city hall. The only exceptions were George and Thomas Aquinas, who had their own responsibilities further afield.

  Pyotr cast a glance over towards the burgeoning spaceport as he ran, which had eventually been subsumed within the force field, once the physical walls disappeared. The city was massive, even to an F Ranker, but it vanished before Pyotr’s hungry gait as he lumbered towards the tunnel that led to the fourth orbital city. He was hardly the quickest of F Rankers, and indeed, there were many of a lower level whose speed eclipsed him, but what he possessed was raw power.

  He joined a group of city guards heading into the tunnel, running alongside them as they hurtled through the well lit expanse of concrete towards the battlefields. No words were spoken, but they marched in sync. Hundreds of thousands of warriors made up the core defence forces of the city, with over a million in reserve. Most were low to mid F Rank in strength, which was quite impressive for how long they had been given to cultivate. Hundreds of high F Rankers filled important roles in the city, but at this point, there were too many to fold into one ruling structure, so they were allowed to govern themselves to some extent, with labor being delegated to them.

  Within the span of a few minutes, the group had reached the end of the tunnel, emerging into the sunlight. The orbital city was besieged by a large force of mid to high F Rank invaders, but luckily, there were no E Rankers there, which would have necessitated the strongest captains banding together to defeat them. So far, there had been no E Rank threats since the one that had sent Lao and Jeffrey to their sickbeds, but if there was one, it would only end with great bloodshed.