Sovereign of the Karmic System

Later in the night, the square was empty.

Most participants had gone to rest in their respective rooms, and prepare for the last day of the event, leaving the entire area as quiet as a cemetery.

By the time Nilo and the others had retired to their rooms, the group of a hundred cultivators that was part of the Charmer’s group had raised to a hundred and twenty. Twenty of which seemed to have willingly joined their group after just after exchanging a few words with the original members.

In the middle of the night, no sound could be heard except for a few feeble stepping noises in the hallways of the buildings, right outside a few of the rooms. After many hours, the complete silence was interrupted by an ever so slight creak of doors, each of them leading into the rooms of Nilo’s group members, or Romah’s students.

As the doors slowly opened, around five dark silhouettes creeped into the rooms without making a single noise, finding themselves, in a matter of moments, around the bulging beds.

In each room, similar scenes took place. Two of the five silhouettes slowly leaned over the beds, and while one of them whispered a few words to the sleeping cultivators, the other placed a stick of incense on the bedside drawer. At the same time, in each room, three shiny gleams of tempered metal appeared from within the remaining three cultivators, revealing sharp knives.

After roughly twenty seconds, in Nilo’s room, the cultivator who was whispering to him felt that something was wrong, and without waiting, he grabbed the sheet that covered Nilo’s body, and pulled it away, revealing his sleeping, half naked body.

Immediately after his body was uncovered, the three cultivators did not hesitate to sink their knives into it, but right when they were expecting to feel the resistance of a peak immortal cultivator’s skin, they instead felt an oddly resistant bubble pop, before hitting the solid surface of metal.

This bubble was made out of spatial essence, and was only slightly more resistant that a typical bubble made out of soap and water. However, when faced against the power of a peak immortal, such a barrier did not offer any more protection than the latter.

Nevertheless, it was not the presence of the bubble that should have worried the cultivators, but what was inside it. Vast amounts of flammable gas, condensed to a point were the popping of the bubble forced it to flush through the entire room.. but before it was able to fill it, the clashing of the knives against the metallic bars hidden in the bubble, produced a few small sparks, which were all was needed for the highly flammable gases to be lit ablaze.

From within a large bubble of spatial essence in the middle of the square, Nilo’s group and Romah’s students observed as just as many explosions completely destroyed the buildings, and kept expanding until they found a thick layer of spatial and sound essences, which stopped their advancement.

"As I thought. The Charmer must not trust her followers to do the dirty work, so she must have messed with their minds. They act as a dumb group, instead of like a team of infatuated individuals." said the female student to Nilo, whose face was brightened up by the lights of the explosions.

Right after the explosions, the remaining cultivators who had not been subjugated by the Charmer’s team yet, appeared one by one in the roofs of their buildings, from which they quietly observed the events unfold.

"We both know that that probably did not do a lot of damage, right?" Asked Nilo.

"Of course. I was hoping that they would give up, knowing that we are prepared for them." Responded the young woman before turning to look at the burning remains of the buildings, and adding, "However, it does not seem like they would care."

Almost as if on command, the more than hundred cultivators caught in the explosion began to emerge from the rubble of the buildings. Each of them uncaring about their small injuries, or the state of their clothes.

After emerging from the rubble, they immediately turned to look towards the middle of the square, right where Nilo and the others were hiding. For as robotic and unnatural these cultivator’s behaviour appeared, they were not dumb. After all, it was only due to their leader’s orders that they were compelled to act as a team, instead of playing on their strongest attributes.

Once separated by the massive explosions, it did not take long for them to act as individuals once again, and realize that there was only one place where Nilo and the others could be. That place was, of course, the most spacious one in the whole area. The middle of the square, protected by a spatial barrier that made them invisible to the eyes of the other cultivators.

"How do you want to play it? Their powers are not as enhanced as ours, so we should be able to deal with them through the rest of the night." Asked Nilo with curiosity.

The young woman immediately noticed how there wasn’t a single trace of worry in Nilo’s tone, nor in the expressions of his companions, which seemed to be unfazed about the idea of fighting for an extremely long period of time.

That was not the same for the students, as the power that the Teacher had given them, was the ability to improve their skills at an abnormally fast pace, better their perception, and be able to memorize most of what they read as long as it was of interest to them. What they, along with their teacher, lacked, was any form of boost in power that elevated them above any other type of cultivator at the same level.

Nilo’s words made the students extremely curious about his and his team’s powers, but they were not convinced that their immortal essence would last all night. So instead of facing them directly, the young woman turned to look at one of her companions, and said, "Enlarge the affected area, and start the defensive illusions."

The young man to which she spoke to simply nodded, before letting out as much immortal essence as he could. All of which was focused on making spatial barrier bigger, while also keeping them hidden.

As the barrier became big enough, the student sat on the ground, and focused on recovering immortal essence, while at the same time, nine more began to move. Each of them stood in a specific point within the barrier, and formed their own illusory area within their companion’s.

All of this took about a minute, and was completed right before the first one of the Charmer’s minions barged into the large illusory spatial sphere.

After entering the barrier, the first cultivator found himself within a maiden’s bedroom.

Sitting on the bed, but giving her back to the cultivator, was a young woman. The two were alone, and outside of the room’s window, came the chilly breeze of the rainy night.

"Lady Kreah?" muttered the young cultivator.

Suddenly, the head of the woman that was sitting on the bed leaned forward and onto her own hand, and she started to cry. The sound of her voice was distorted by the noise of the heavy rain, making it impossible for the young man to know for sure if she was the woman that had charmed him, or not.

Unfortunately for him, the deep love she felt towards the Charmer was enough to make his desires get a hold of his reason, and make him believe that he was finally alone with the woman of his life.

The woman’s actions had a deep impact on the young man, who worriedly approached her while saying calming words. However, as he got to roughly two meters from the bed, the flash that came from outside of the bedroom blinded his sight for just a moment.

After this moment passed, the young man noticed the woman he loved, lay lifeless on the bed.

A feeling of desperation immediately kicked in, but before he could act on it, he felt the presence of another individual in the room. He suddenly turned around, and standing next to the bed, he saw another young man. In the second man’s hand was a bloody knife, and on his barely visible face, was a smile.

As the two notice each other’s presence, on their faces seemed to appear an expression of sheer hate which caused them to pounce at one another, without even caring to unsheathe the weapons they were carrying.

"Redirect their obsession and make them fight themselves. Impressive." Said Nilo as he looked at one of the Charmer’s followers after the other enter the student’s illusion, and after a few moments, engage each other in a furious battle. However, while he was impressed by the quick thinking of the students, he was certain that this was not enough. After all, even if each illusion could hold three cultivators, only twenty students were present.

"We will help out from the other side." Nilo added as Cynna, Zack, Fyro, and Finn stood up from the ground, and prepared to teleport outside of the spatial formation.

At this point, only half of the hundred and twenty cultivators had been captured into the illusion, and while the young students were confident, they knew that their tactic would only work if the charmed ones injured themselves before engaging them in battle.

"Can you really take care of that many?" Asked the female student with doubt.

"Taking care of them is not the problem. Subduing them without killing them, is." Responded Nilo before teleporting out with his four companions, leaving the twenty students with confused expressions.

Logically speaking, there was no reason why someone who was attacked should have spared their attacker in the cultivation world. An attacker would not attack for nothing, and an unresolved matter would only cause a deeper grudge between two cultivators. However, after listening to Nilo’s words, the students suddenly remembered one of the many lessons that their teacher had imparted to them.

-----

"The rules of survival of the cultivation world were never established by someone. They were notions carried down by the survivors. After tens of thousands of years, if you survive by abiding to your rules, those rules will become one of the most threaded paths. People will talk about them, they will impart them to their children, and even challenge them at some point."

"Never underestimate those who don’t play by the general rules. They are either crazy, or powerful enough to establish new ones."

-----

From the way Nilo and the others had reacted towards the charmed ones, as well as from what he had just said, the students were able to roughly understand their motivations. The charmed ones had been brainwashed by the Charmer’s power, and if there was a possibility of subduing them without killing them, they were going to try.

Unfortunately, they did not have that luxury, as their production of immortal cultivation was nowhere near as high as the members of Nilo’s team and could not drag the fight on for too long.

After teleporting out of the spatial formation, Nilo and the others reappeared within the square, where more than sixty injured cultivators were walking towards its center, right where the students were hiding.

As soon as they appeared, however, these sixty students changed their target, from the spatial formation, to them. They immediately unsheathed their swords and began charging towards them at full speed.

"A little help?" Said Nilo to the observing cultivators, who looked at them as if they were idiots. In their mind, the more they tired each other out, the less they would have to worry about them the next day.

"You don’t need help. You’ve got this. Haha!" Said one of the humanoid beasts with elation.

Nilo did not really expect for these cultivators to help, so after their refusal, he turned towards his companions, and said, "No weapons."