Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

The land adjacent to the tombstone-shaped mausoleum was largely flat, with the living and dead trees on either side of the plateau fading to stone, completely absent of life or death.

A deep crevice ran diagonally across a rocky battlefield, complete with three bridges on either side of the mausoleum. A shield surrounded the sacred place of repose, forcing both sides to fight a battle on two fronts.

The placement of the crevice is made from an uneven battleground, with one battlefield smaller and another larger for each side. The flamekin army was massive compared to the smaller Pandoran army, making it difficult for their vast numbers to push across the stone bridges connecting both sides. Heroes and normal cultivators stood guard on these bridges and held the flamekin back, only calling for support from the seven God Seeds belonging to humanity when their defenses failed.

Despite the relatively straightforward nature of the battlefield, both sides were active in scouting and probing. Flight was something everyone at their level was capable of, though in general, one’s flight speed was much slower than one’s ground speed. Flesh-sanctification cultivators preferred to fight on the ground if weaker allies weren’t present.

Sorin wasn’t trained in warfare, but his karmic vision could make out a tangled mess of potential battlefields and traps, along with the general flow of battle. Benjamin is right. Those flamekin are up to something. Why else would they mobilize in larger numbers instead of sending elites of their species to fight us head-on.

Despite his reservations against Benjamin due to their first encounters, Sorin followed the God of War’s assignment to sneak across the river with two of his companions. His entry point was a small sliver of land closer to the mausoleum. Here, their side was dominant, and the flamekin were having trouble maintaining their defensive formations.

“A squad just peeled off not far away,” said Lawrence. “Should we pick it off?”

“Negative, it’s too close to a supporting squad,” said Gareth. “Let’s pick that one deeper in. Can you get us in and out before we’re surrounded?”

“Not a problem,” said Lawrence. “Thoughts, Sorin?”

“Let’s do this,” said Sorin, his heartbeat quickening as he followed the rogue into a shadow string portal.

Without Stephan, Astley, and Daphne to slow them down, their teleportation range was much higher than usual. The trio landed in the middle of a group of twenty surprised Flamekin. Sorin immediately released a spray of poisoned needles geared towards debilitating the flamekin while Lawrence wrapped up the group with threads of shadow for forceful transportation.

“I’m going to need ten full seconds,” said Lawrence. “Eight. Seven. Six.”

A nearby flamekin captain issued a guttural command. The five closest squads burned with blistering flames that burned away at their mana. Arrows infused with alchemical compounds rained down on their position, heedless of whether their companions were living or dead.

“Winds of the Warden.” A white mist blew out from Gareth’s back, pushing a wave of arrows and causing the projectiles to fall short. Explosions rocked a hundred-foot by hundred-foot square no more than twenty feet away from Sorin, blasting him with rock and shrapnel that was easily deflected by his tough skin and high-quality leather armor.

Another arrow came raining down. Sorin summoned a poisonous python to intercept it and followed up with a spray of needles that clashed with a second, hidden wave. He then tossed a sphere containing a corrosive cocktail and detonated it above their group. A third wave of arrows pierced through the inefficient shield, but by the time they made it all the way through, the munitions were corroded, dull, and lacking in effectiveness. Even Lawrence, the frailest member of their team, was able to easily dodge and block the arrows that remained.

“Are you about done?” Sorin snapped to Lawrence. “It’s been fifteen seconds already.”

“Relax, it’s just some interference from one of their generals,” said Lawrence. “Shadow Backtrack.” The landscape unraveled like a ball of yarn. The trio and their captives backtracked across five separate locations where Lawrence had set foot.

This was a new ability that Lawrence had gained since accepting Ariadne’s inheritance. Though it could only be used to travel to places Lawrence had already been, its range was five times greater than a standard Shadow Traversal.

The ability wasn’t easy to activate. Transporting their group back into their main base left Lawrence completely drained of mana.

“Kill us, human scum!” growled one of their flamekin captives.

“In due time,” said Sorin coldly. He stuck a needle inside the speaker and noted his condition. “Flamekin optimization test A001: metabolism reduction via the introduction of Dousing Clear Root. Patient physiology is responding abnormally. Symptoms inconsistent with target effect. Retrieving poisons.”

“Wh-what in Hatred’s name was that?” screamed the Flamekin. “You maniac! You’re experimenting on us?!”

“A necessary evil for survival,” muttered Sorin, partly to justify his actions and partly to convince himself. He proceeded to conduct a battery of tests to form a model of the flamekin anatomy, then used Ophiuchan Simulation to perform hundreds of virtual trials to complement his initial results.

The end result spoke for itself. Sorin produced a vial of violet poison using his own blood.

“Is this it?” asked Charles, who’d been observing the entire process with sadistic glee. “I can’t help but admire your passion for your work. You didn’t seem like the type.”

“Drop dead,” said Sorin distastefully. While he had no compunctions experimenting on senseless demons, sentient myths were another matter. Unfortunately, this was a battlefield, and numbers were on the enemy’s side. Even with Benjamin Riss’s efforts and the zombies he was controlling, Flesh-Sanctification cultivators were falling like flies. Each minute wasted might just mean another human cultivator’s death.

Sorin injected a dose of poison inside the flamekin captain and monitored his condition as it worked its way through his system. At first, there was nothing wrong, but soon, gray splotches appeared on the flame-kin’s black skin, dousing the natural flames that accumulated on his head, shoulders, elbows, and knees.

“What sorcery is this?” exclaimed the flamekin captain. “My sacred flames! What have you done with them?!”

“Try it now,” said Sorin. Charles was only too happy to try out his magic on a helpless victim. He cast a simple acid spray spell on the poor creature and watched with interest as he collapsed to the ground with twitching muscles and pitted bones.

“At least show some basic decency,” said Sorin, sending a golden needle to crack open the creature’s skull. “Well? How was the effect?”

“My spell encountered none of the usual resistances,” said Charles. I believe we can call this poison a temporary success.”

“Can you imprint it?” asked Sorin.

“Of course, I can imprint it,” said Charles. “I’m the God Seed of Achlys. No poisons short of divine poisons are beyond my reach.”

Sorin stepped to the side and watched on grimly as Charles joined up with seven mages powering a magic circle. Each of the mages was powerful in their own right, yet here, they merely served as batteries and assistant controllers to the much more powerful God Seed.

Charles entered the center of the circle and traced out a few hundred complex lines before chanting in the ancient language of magic. Storm clouds rolled and bathed the battlefield in a light purple liquid, dousing the natural flames protecting an important group of flamekin about to start a push towards a bridge. Hundreds of myths were left without their trademark field of flames to protect them.

Benjamin hastily shouted out commands as the spell took effect. “First and second undead armies push through! Celine, take the bridge! Messa, use your divine ability!” Celine and her team broke through the weakened forces and rained starlight down on the routed army. A single maneuver had broken through their defenses and pushed them backward.

Messa Payne was a God Seed in Ares’s faction, and her abilities were those of persuasion. An almost invisible force worked its way across the battlefield, subtly affecting the arrangements of the agent of Strife manipulating the battlefield.

The Agent of Strife was far from helpless against such maneuvers. Now that the Pandoran army had committed to a battlefront, the agent was able to finally act. His first order of business was sacrificing an army under the influence of Messa. The army lost all rationality and exploded with power and frightening flames. They burned through an unfortunate team of adventurers and threw themselves at the next team in line, forcing them to pull back and throwing their already chaotic battle lines into disarray.

“I’ll need your help soon if you’re still willing,” said Benjamin to Sorin. “As you can see, your companions are fine for the time being, but that can change if we don’t take out a flamekin general.”

“My poisons aren’t optimized for a flamekin general,” said Sorin. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Benjamin. “I’ll send your team the coordinates in five minutes. Make sure Lawrence is able to teleport by then.”

Sorin walked up to Lawrence, who was pretending to sleep and placed a hand on his back. “Ow ow ow! Have a bit of decency. I’m practically on death’s bed, Sorin!”

“Your stores are at twenty percent,” said Sorin. “Can you recover enough to bring us to the back of the battlefield in short order?”

“The back of the battlefield?” cried Lawrence. “Are you kidding me? At most, I can get us halfway if I get back up to 80 percent. But there’ll be no coming back.”

“I understand,” said Sorin, pulling a flask out of his robes. “Drink this.”

Lawrence took a sip of the purple liquid. “Hm. Tingly. Tangy. You know what, this would make a great drink at a bar. I… I think I’m drunk.”

Gareth looked over from where he was resting. “Poisonous mana potion?”

“It’s in the experimental phases,” said Sorin. “But it’ll get the job done with my direct assistance.” He worked the poison through Lawrence’s system to facilitate the delivery of high-speed mana recovery agents. “He’ll be a bit drained for the rest of the day, though. Cell exhaustion won’t allow him to use any recovery medicines for 24 hours regardless of what I do.”

“Ready whenever you are, Benjamin,” said Sorin as he finished up his work with Lawrence.

“Warn me next time, will you?” said Lawrence. “You know, consent and all?”

“Consent is overrated,” said Sorin. He frowned as he looked at the bridge they’d just taken. “It looks like Celine’s in trouble. That whip-wielding flamekin isn’t just a grunt.” The bow-wielding warrior was slowly retreating due to the elite’s harassment. With backup troops on the way, the situation would only get worse.

“Charles is trying to help her,” said Gareth. “But he seems low on mana and is trying to recover. Maybe you could feed him a poison.”

Sorin shook his head. “Won’t work. He needs much more mana than Lawrence did, and he has 7 helpers to boot. Normal top-tier mana potions and a bit of time is the best way to go in his case since they might need to pull off a few more big spells before this is over.”

It was truly a battle that revolved around God Seeds. There were seven God Seeds in total, including Sorin, Michael, Celine, and Charles in Sorin’s faction. Ares’s team lacked hard power but excelled at coordination. Ares and Phobos were natural strategists and were empowered by the armies they directly controlled. Messa, God Seed of Peitho, was an expert in manipulation and often distorted the enemy general’s instructions, creating flaws in their battle arrangements.

But this was just a small part of the ongoing battle. Thanks to his connection to Strife and the constellation Ophiuchus, Sorin could sense another battlefront being waged in the space adjacent to the Life and Death Dungeon. The battle exceeded Sorin’s imagination, but a few glimpses here and there confirmed that it wasn’t just demigods that were fighting but deities as well.

Included in that number were five Flesh-Sanctification cultivators who were fighting with strength that exceeded their realm. A white and gold glow radiated from each of these fighters, confirming that all five were God Seeds, just like he was.

So that’s what the five Divine Clans are up to, thought Sorin. He’d found it curious that the divine clans hadn’t shown their faces to lay a claim to the many ruins in the advanced dungeon. They didn’t come early for resources or a leg up on the competition. Instead, they’re fighting tooth and nail to tilt the odds on the high-level battlefield.

“Don’t be bothered by details that exceed your sphere of influence,” came Benjamin’s voice, dragging Sorin back to the dungeon and the battle raging not far away. “The battle in the void has reached a stalemate, which is why we’re fighting it out on the ground. As long as we win this battle, the enemy demi-immortals will have no choice but to retreat.”

“Is it time?” asked Sorin.

“It’s time,” answered Benjamin. “Here are the coordinates. We’ll provide what support we can. Your first order of business will be locking down the area and killing the enemy general. We’ll cut a path straight to your location once the operation begins.”

Sorin took one last look at the battlefield and the baleful aura building up overhead with every death. “The enemy is up to something. I can smell it.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” said Benjamin. “Whatever they’re planning isn’t something we can disrupt without additional information. Hopefully, your attack will force them to play their hand early and give us the time we need to respond to their strategy.”