Dao of Money

The [Grand Aegis Array] loomed closer and closer, and Chen Ren found himself going still for a moment just looking at it.

He had only studied arrays at a basic level, but even that was enough for him to understand that what stood before him was extraordinary. It was one of the greatest arrays he had ever seen—or ever expected to see—and for the first time, he truly understood why Princess Yanyue had been so firmly against trying anything at all against it.

It was beautiful in a way that made it feel untouchable.

As Yanyue had explained before, the array was made of three distinct layers. The outer layer shimmered with a reddish color. Beneath it sat a second layer with a silver sheen, and deeper still was the final layer, glowing faintly gold. The three colours overlapped and blended into one another, turning the barrier into something almost unreal. Through them, Chen Ren could only just make out the faint silhouettes of the city hidden behind the array.

If he was right, the master lift was in the very centre of that city.

But before he could get anywhere near it, he had to deal with the array first.

Their whole force moved through the sky, closing the distance until they were finally near enough to attack from range. Chen Ren stood on a small flying boat with Princess Yanyue and Yalan. Nearby, the twins were on another boat together with several royal guards. Li Xuan hovered a little behind them on his flying sword, and he was not the only one. A handful of Frostpeak Sect cultivators floated around the formation on their own swords as well.

Han Qingshi and a few others were gathered on a much larger vessel.

It was not quite a true ship, but it was far closer to one than the smaller boats the others were riding. In fact, it was the same one Han Qingshi had apparently used to skip across to the second city in the first place. Along its sides were several openings fitted like cannon ports, and Chen Ren could tell at a glance that the thing had been built with combat in mind.

Unfortunately, those cannons ran on spirit stones.

And Chen Ren had no real idea how many Han Qingshi actually had on hand, especially since spirit stones were not exactly common inside the pagoda.

Though Han Qingshi had already said he would use the cannons to support them, so Chen Ren could only assume the man had brought a decent number of spirit stones with him. There were also a few empty ships floating nearby, meant to carry the artifacts they would be unloading and using during the siege.

As Chen Ren looked from the array to the gathered force around him, Princess Yanyue broke the silence.

“So where is he, Sect Leader Chen? Without City Lord Shrey, we can’t begin.”

Chen Ren gave a small nod. “I know. He’ll come.”

Even as he said that, his eyes moved across the sky toward the other cities, searching for any sign of the man, but he saw nothing. A sliver of unease touched him immediately. Part of him wondered whether Shrey had simply decided to abandon the whole thing after all. The contract should have made that impossible, but then where was he?

Why was he late?

Chen Ren had told him when the siege would begin. More than that, he had given him a window of nearly twelve hours. By that logic, Shrey should have arrived long ago.

He was still thinking about that when one of the twins suddenly gasped.

Chen Ren turned sharply toward him and saw the man pointing off into the distance. He followed the direction of his hand, and the moment he saw what was approaching, his eyes widened.

A beast was flying straight toward them. It had two heads, both wolf-like, with long jaws and sharp ears, while a pair of wide wings held its body aloft with slow, powerful beats. Its frame was lean but massive, covered in dark fur that seemed to ripple strangely in the light, and there was something unnatural in the way it moved through the air.

Yalan’s voice came sharp beside him. “That’s a nyrath. At least a low meridian expansion realm beast. We need to leave.”

Chen Ren nodded immediately, and opened his mouth to tell everyone to scatter—

Then he saw someone standing on the beast’s back, and his surprise turned into outright shock.

Shrey rode on the beast’s back as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, lifting a hand and waving directly at Chen Ren while the nyrath drew closer to the ships.

The others noticed him quickly enough. Han Qingshi let out a laugh and looked at Chen Ren. “Is that City Lord Shrey from the second floor?”

“Uh… Yes. That’s him.”

By then, Shrey and the beast had come close enough to stop in front of them.

“Where did you get that beast from?” He asked immediately.

One of the wolf heads gave a low snort, sounding almost offended by the question itself.

Shrey looked mildly amused. “Did you think I walked everywhere on foot?” he said. “They’ve been my mounts for centuries.” Then his eyes passed over the gathered cultivators around the ships, and he added, “You’ve put together quite a crowd for something this foolish.”

Chen Ren answered immediately. “It can’t be that foolish if you agreed to help.”

Shrey shrugged. “I have a contract to keep.”

“That means you brought what I purchased.”

“Of course.”

The moment he heard that, Chen Ren pointed toward one of the empty boats nearby. Shrey followed the gesture without needing more explanation. He guided the beast over it, and then one of the rings on his hand lit up.

A moment later, something heavy dropped onto the boat and the entire vessel shook under the weight.

What appeared was a strange contraption made from a bright alloy that caught the light in a way no ordinary metal should have. It resembled a cannon at first glance, but only in the loosest sense. Its body was thicker and more complex, covered in layers of engraved runes so dense that they seemed to spill over one another across the surface. Three wide openings were built into the front instead of one, each ringed with smaller inscriptions, while at the back sat a heavy lever that looked as though it would need real force to move.

Most of the people around them only stared and confusion spread across the group almost immediately.

Only Princess Yanyue reacted differently. The moment she saw it, something like excitement flashed in her eyes.

Chen Ren caught that at once and turned toward her. “You know what it is?”

“Yes. I saw it once when I went to Shrey’s shop to see if there was anything worth buying and looked through his catalogue. I didn’t know what it did, but it stood out.” Her eyes remained on the contraption. “Wasn’t it somewhere around the three-hundreds position in the catalogue? It should have been expensive.”

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“It was,” Chen Ren said. “I had to spend quite a lot of tokens on it. And it’s not the only thing I bought.”

He pointed toward the boat carrying the twins and several royal guards. Shrey followed the gesture and guided the beast over without a word. The two-headed mount drifted close enough that the twins and the guards tensed visibly, but Shrey paid them no attention. He reached into his spatial ring again and drew out another artifact.

That one confused everyone even more.

Han Qingshi frowned first and said, “Why are you pulling out a mirror?”

Chen Ren glanced at the large, polished object now sitting awkwardly in front of Li Qingfeng, who was trying to keep it balanced on the boat.

“It isn’t exactly a mirror,” Chen Ren said. “It’ll be useful during the siege. It can reflect attacks back.”

After that, he looked toward the Frostpeak Sect disciples floating nearby on their swords.

“I’ll need a few of your junior disciples to carry the smaller ones. They’ll be able to use them better on their swords.”

Han Qingshi still looked unconvinced, but after a moment he gave a rough nod. Shrey then produced four more mirrors, each much smaller than the first, and handed them out to four of the disciples. They all looked unsure. The mirrors themselves seemed entirely ordinary at first glance—plain, polished, without any obvious sign of being special—and none of the disciples seemed to understand how such things were supposed to reflect anything dangerous.

Still, no one complained aloud. That was enough for Chen Ren.

Once everything had been handed out, he turned back to Princess Yanyue and said, “I think it’s time we start.”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t have anything else prepared?”

Chen Ren shook his head. “I think these two artifacts will be enough.”

Princess Yanyue looked from him to the mirrors, then to the contraption sitting on the boat.

“Are you certain, Sect Leader Chen?” she asked. “They really don’t look like enough.”

Chen Ren only smiled. “You’ll see.” Then he turned his head toward Shrey and Han Qingshi. “Are the two of you ready?”

Shrey answered with an easy nod, a faint smile already sitting on his face, while Han Qingshi only gave a grunt after glancing back at his sect disciples. He still looked unconvinced, and Chen Ren guessed the man also remained doubtful about both the mirrors and the strange siege weapon Shrey had brought. That was fine. He would understand soon enough.

As Chen Ren looked over the group one last time, he still did not see any sign of City Lord Xiangrui.

Part of him had hoped the man would show himself before the attack began. But perhaps Xiangrui was still watching from somewhere out of sight, waiting to see how things unfolded before deciding whether to involve himself. At least, that was what he chose to believe.

For now, there was nothing more to wait for.

He had to begin.

Chen Ren looked toward the contraption, pushed qi into his legs, and jumped up beside it. The boat shifted under the added weight, rocking slightly, but Chen Ren caught hold of the metal frame and steadied himself. Looking down at the runes and the triple openings in front of him, he let a small smirk touch his face, though in the back of his mind he was still hoping that the thing would work as well as he expected.

Taking a breath, he pulled the lever.

For a few seconds, nothing happened except a heavy shudder ran through the whole mechanism. The frame trembled under his hands, and Chen Ren found himself wondering whether the thing had simply broken after lying dormant for so long.

Then the three openings lit up. A heartbeat later, beams of white light burst from them.

A sudden yelp came from one of the nearby cultivators as the beams shot forward and struck the array.

But the [Grand Aegis Array] only reflected them.

The white light scattered off the barrier and bent away without leaving so much as a mark, and Chen Ren immediately pulled the lever back up. The beams vanished at once.

Li Xuan, who was hovering beside the contraption on his flying sword, looked at it, then at Chen Ren.

“I don’t think this is going to work.”

Chen Ren said nothing. He simply pulled the lever down again. This time, the weapon answered differently.

Another beam erupted, but unlike the first, this one was made from a tangled blend of three elements. Fire, ice, and wind twisted together in a single violent stream before crashing into the array. The force behind it was noticeably stronger, and those watching could tell the attack carried more weight than the last.

Still, the barrier threw it back.

Just as before, the array deflected the beam and sent the broken remnants of it scattering downward toward the ground.

Now even Yalan turned to him. “What exactly are you doing with this cannon?”

Chen Ren glanced at her and said, “I think it needs a few tries. Just keep watching.”

She opened her mouth as if to demand what that was supposed to mean, but Chen Ren had already pulled the lever back to stop the beam.

Then he forced it down again.

This time, the entire contraption shook harder than before, as if whatever was building inside it had become too much for the thing to contain cleanly. The runes across its frame flared, the alloy groaned beneath his hands, and then the third attack came.

A beam the color of void itself burst out from the weapon.

It did not shine like the others. It seemed to swallow light instead, dark enough that even the air around it looked scorched as it crossed the distance and slammed into the array.

And for the first time, the [Grand Aegis Array] trembled.

Small cracks spread across the outer layer, thin at first, then wider as the force of the attack kept pressing into it. Chen Ren’s eyes sharpened the moment he saw it happen, and at once he began turning the beam, dragging it across the barrier and striking at different points to force the damage farther outward.

As Chen Ren swept the beam across the barrier, he shouted, “Now! Move!”

Han Qingshi, who had been staring at the whole thing in open confusion until that very moment, suddenly burst into laughter.

“You heard him!” he roared. “Let’s make history!”

Then he jumped straight off his ship, chains spilling out of his spatial rings as he crossed the distance. Some movement technique kept him walking through the air itself, and by the time the others properly reacted, he was already at the array, bringing the chains down in a broad, vicious arc.

His junior disciples followed at once.

Those on flying swords shot forward immediately and began unloading every ranged attack they had into the cracked outer layer. At the same time, the cannons on Han Qingshi’s ship started firing, launching heavy spheres of flame toward the barrier one after another.

Watching it all unfold, Chen Ren felt a grin pull at his mouth.

But before he could say anything more, Yalan suddenly jumped onto the boat beside him and snapped, “What in the hell is this?”

Her eyes were fixed on the contraption. Chen Ren smiled at once.

“You like it, huh?”

Then he reached out and patted the machine, only to pull his hand back quickly when he felt how hot the surface had already become.

“It’s called the thousand attack cannon,” he said. “Cost me almost eight hundred thousand tokens. I’ve got no idea who made it, but it’s basically a random-attack cannon. Every time I pull the lever, it can fire something different. Sometimes it’s just a common fireball. Other times…” He glanced at the beam still gouging across the array. “It does something like this. I don’t know what its upper limit is, but I couldn’t find anything better.”

Yalan stared at the machine for another second before saying, “So there’s a chance it might just fire something strong enough to punch through the entire array in one shot.”

Chen Ren gave a short laugh. “That would be nice, but I really doubt I have such a good…”

He trailed off when something caught his eye. Off to one side, Shrey was moving too.

Still mounted on the back of his beast, the lord was drawing closer to the array. Chen Ren had never known much about how he fought. He had mostly assumed Shrey would stay well back and rely on strange artifacts to deal damage from a distance.

But as Chen Ren watched him now, his eyes widened.

***

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