Battle in the Briar Patch

The Dragon Squad returned from the new universe and Kal took them to the previous space quadrant where he killed his first Fiend. Utilizing Benton's new technology, Kal and the Dragon Squad began their Fiend extermination program. The two dragon twins joined Kal and aided in routing the Fiends. Under Kal's direction, in three weeks the Dragon Squad had an unprecedented killing spree and the group killed half of the three thousand Fiends in his area.

General Long and the Dragon Emperor immediately commissioned their engineers to construct the Fiend devices and install them on every ship and fighter and issue a miniature device to every soldier. As these orders were carried out, the Grand Dragon Imperial Army was dispatched throughout the universe.

Their orders: Kill all Fiends. Collect all Fiend Stone. Collect all Harmony Stones.

The Harmony Stones suddenly became the most precious resource in the Dragon Empire. Planets were discovered which contained huge loads of the stones.

This was both exciting and unsettling. It was exciting because the weapon and shield systems that could be developed from this resource would increase the power of the Dragon Empire by many folds. It was unsettling as stopping the Fiends from getting their hands on the harmony stones might be impossible because there were so many stones. Their truest advantage was detecting and killing Fiends.

Kal's Dragon Squad continued to rampage through the universe as they killed every Fiend they could find. The ease of finding the Fiends and killing them put immense psychological pressure on the Fiend army.

The Fiend army had grown at an alarming rate and the Great Fiend estimated within a year his army would have the strength to destroy the Dragon army.

The Great Fiend listened to his Generals report on his army losses. The Great Fiend was seated aboard a mammoth destroyer of his own design. The power of this fortress was far greater than Kal's attack frigate. The destroyer measured three thousand meters long and twelve hundred meters wide at its widest point.

The ship was like a dagger attached to a sphere. It carried more than four hundred fighters, six large attack ships, armored ground attack vehicles, and numerous Fiend Soldiers outfitted in unparalleled fighting armors. Their weapons consisted of laser guns, swords, and shields.

The destroyer was located next to a space base in the Meguria solar system. Meguria was a life-planet that died a little over a million years ago. The planet was once heavily populated, but when it was learned the planet had some of the rarest metals in the universe in abundance, the planet was quickly killed by over mining.

Even after all of these years, Meguria was still capable of enormous outputs of metallic loads. It was for this reason the Great Fiend chose this place. He turned the local space base into a shipyard. He was producing all the war materials he needed to destroy the Dragon Empire.

"How many Fiend Stones have we collected?" The Great Fiend asked.

"Our procurement of Fiend Stones dropped to a third of what it was. The loss of our current forces is quickly depleting our warriors. If we do not reverse this trend, we will have no hope of developing an army large enough to eradicate the Dragon Empire any time soon." said General Pr'th Vee.

"Harmony Stones?" asked the Great Fiend.

"We have gathered seventy percent of the stones needed to create one Harmonization Platform array," answered General Pah Nee.

It was clear the Great Fiend was upset, mad even, but he didn't explode into a tirade. Many thought because of the evil energies Fiends cultivated they would fly off the handle and murder without reason being controlled by the bloodlust constantly flowing through them. This wasn't always the case. In fact, the higher level a Fiend was the more control they had over their emotions. They almost seemed stoic. This stoicism only focused their killing intent like a laser beam. Fiends were dangerous foes. The more desperate they became, the calmer they became. 'Face a raging Fiend and victory was almost certain., Face a calm desperate Fiend, victory was nearly impossible.' This was an old saying about Fiends that usually proved true.

The Great Fiend's quiet contemplation sent a shiver down the back of his generals.

"I did not wish to reveal my strength so soon. However, it would seem I am forced to do so. General Pr'th Vee and General Pah Nee, you will take four attack ships, two hundred fighters, and two legions to engage this Dragon Squad. After you crush them return to me and I will assign additional troops to you to route the Dragon Empire's forces," commanded the Great Fiend.

"Yes my Lord," responded the two generals.

"General Ha Va I must add onto your responsibilities the collection of Fiend and Harmony Stones. I appreciate the extra effort and your success will be greatly rewarded." said the Great Fiend.

"Thank you, my lord," said General Ha Va.

"I trust there is no need to remind everyone the reward for failure?" asked the Great Fiend.

"No, my lord!" replied the generals.

"Dismissed," commanded the Great Fiend.

The generals left the Great Fiend who turned to look at a map of the Dragon Empire. 'A minor matter, this should be resolved soon. Once I have regained my strength, this little Empire will be nothing before my power!' thought the Great Fiend.

***

Kal was aboard the Raging Immortal contemplating the next targets Master Rel suggested. Suddenly, Kal lifted his head and looked in a certain direction. In an unhurried movement, Kal pressed a communication button.

"Lieutenant, activate the briar patch," commanded Kal.

"Yes, Captain!" responded the Lieutenant.

Until now, Master Rel was able to show his strength in the Dao of the Hunt. It was finally Kal's turn to play. Kal sensed the approach of the Fiends' forces and activated the countermeasures he long ago put in place.

Generals Pr'th Vee and Pah Nee were feeling extremely confident as they approached the Dragon Squad. They had the most advanced ships and armors in this little Empire. Who could stop them? They didn't even bother masking their approach.

At first, they didn't think it was strange no one came out to attack them. It was clear whoever they were fighting would sense their strength. They believed such a person would only cower in fear at their overwhelming power. They were expecting a good chase.

Even though they knew the Great Fiend wanted them to finish as soon as possible, they couldn't help but indulge in a game of cat and mouse. They were confident they would quickly dispatch this problem.

As they continued to fly they suddenly sensed a presence no weaker than their own up ahead. It was a man, casually floating in space. The fighters and three of the attack ships flew forward to eradicate the man. The floating man did something very surprising, he snapped his fingers.

Who snaps their fingers in space? No one could hear the sound it made.

Once he snapped his fingers, everyone was shocked as large lightning strings shot out and attacked the fighters. The lighting was multi-colored. The strongest lightning bolts were the red ones which seemed to carry the strength of heavens' tribulations.

Several fighters were destroyed, and the attack ships took on some damage. Another snap of his fingers and more lightning shot out from the void further creating chaos and casualties. The man hovered there with a smirk.

General Pr'th Vee suddenly realized they must be in some kind of an array. An array was the most logical explanation for why they were being attacked from seemingly nowhere.

"All forces, pull back to the following coordinates." General Pr'th Vee sent coordinates to his ships. He ordered his ship to be sent to the same coordinates. However, as they tried to leave Generals Pr'th Vee and General Pah Nee realized they were also caught in the array as streams of tribulations lightning blocked their path.

They had been tricked. Still, not all was lost.

"All ships orient yourselves to my position and fall back," commanded General Pr'th Vee.

However, instead of seeing his ships turn to join him, he witnessed his forces turning on themselves. The Fighters were treating each other as mortal enemies! The forces he brought with him were quickly dwindling. General Pr'th Vee was shocked. How could this happen?

"It's an illusion array," realized General Pah Nee

"This can't be an illusion array, our ships are protected from illusion arrays and the helmets our pilots wear carry additional protection," said Pr'th Vee.

"That's assuming the power of the illusion array is average and the array itself is weaker than the arrays inscribed on the ships and the helmets," argued General Pah Nee.

"But, that would imply whoever made this array was a greater array master than our Great Fiend. This should be impossible in a weak Empire such as this!" said General Pr'th Vee.

"You tell me what is going on then? Hmm? Don't know? I'll explain it to you so even a clod head like you can understand." mocked General Pah Nee. "When we first started attacking the Dragon Empire we faced zero resistance. Suddenly, three weeks ago never before seen ships with more powerful weapons and shields appeared and started killing our forces. They can find Fiend and Harmony Stones quickly. They even seem to have the ability to locate our forces without much effort.

Clearly, this Dragon Universe is benefitting from the past experience of someone who previously crossed our paths. They have an advantage. They know what we're after and they have fully developed countermeasures. It's impossible for that to happen this early in our war. Therefore, we're facing someone who is either a veteran of one of our wars or is the student of such a person. Does it seem so impossible now?" asked General Pah Nee.

"No, what you're saying makes a lot of sense," said General Pr'th Vee

As they continued their discussion, both generals suddenly noticed their remaining forces were turning back towards them. It was likely they were mistaken as the true bad guy here.

"What should we do?!" cried General Pah Nee in alarm.

"I'll break the array. You lead our forces out of the array and then come find me. We'll take on this Dragon Empire Warrior together and then we'll destroy the rest of his forces," said General Pr'th Vee.

General Pr'th Vee exited the attack ship and found the array energy node. He struck it with all of his might. The energy shield flickered but remained intact. This just ticked off General Pr'th Vee who felt completely embarrassed by how this whole thing played out. He was in charge of these forces and he would face the consequences of this failure. All he saw was red. He wanted to kill the man who still casually floated in space.

Finally, after another twenty hits, he managed to break the array node. He saw the ship fly off to safety. The General turned around to face the man hovering in space. He wanted to kill him. With that thought, the general rushed forward.

Lighting shot out from the void at the general. Sometimes he would get struck by the energy and other times it would miss him completely. The one constant was General Pr'th Vee continued forward without slowing down. The faster he flew the angrier he got. Nothing would stop him until he killed that man!

General Pah Nee took her remaining forces to an area unaffected by the illusion formation. At first, her forces followed her trying to destroy her ship. They still thought she was the enemy. Finally, they were able to regain their senses. They had exited the area of the illusion array effect. General Pah Nee commanded the forces to stay here and defend their position until she summoned them.

General Pr'th Vee drew closer and closer to Kal. He could see the enemy hadn't expected him to make it through all of those lightning attacks. Finally, he was close enough to obliterate the floating man with a single punch. General Pr'th Veen punched out with all of his might. Surprisingly, his fist went right through Kal. The image slowly faded.

The hairs on the back of the general's neck stood up. "Speed mirage." This man dodged his punch so fast, he left an after image. The man moved so fast that even the general couldn't see him move.

"You'll have to do better than that if you want to kill me." He laughed and mocked the general.

He was so mad. When had General Pr'th Vee been humiliated before? Only feared! Even in his past life as a Fiend, he was only feared! General Pr'th Vee turned in the direction of the voice transmission and saw the clown a much further distance from him than he expected. He didn't care. He was going to kill him.

Summoning all of his power and his secret movement technique, General Pr'th Vee shot towards Kall so fast anyone would lose focus due to fright.

Not long after General Pah Nee left, the Fiend Fighters suddenly were attacked by a small force of enemy fighters. This was exactly what these fighters wanted. They felt utterly foolish killing their own teammates. It was time for some payback. The ships went all out in their attack this time. Dragon Squad fighters were getting destroyed left and right, but the battle only seemed to intensify.

Several hours later, General Pr'th Vee stood victorious on the battlefield. Kal's broken body lay at his feet. It had been a hard battle. The General's condition was pretty poor, he was mortally wounded. However, with his recovery rate, he would soon be fine.

General Pr'th Vee looked at the body of his enemy with pride. Strangely, the body waved silently and morphed from Kal's body to the body of General Pah Nee. The general didn't understand what was going on. Another shimmer happened and he saw not too far away the broken remains of the forces he brought with him.

Aboard the Raging Immortal, Kal sat in his Captain's chair and flipped a switch. As soon as he did so, he witnessed the confused body of General Pr'th Vee struck by lightning attacks and collapsed.

"Hey, little dragon boy, get the body of that Fiend. Don't let him sneak up on you and kill you." Kal mocked with his smirk.

The Dragon kid took off to carry out his orders. He didn't like being called a dragon boy, but Kal was awesome. He could call him whatever he wanted.

"And that my friends, is how you destroy your enemies from the comfort of your own homes." Kal laughed as he turned his chair to face his wife and friend Master Rel. Master Rel was mesmerized. He had learned so much, he could feel his Dao of the Hunt increasing. Kals' wife, Zhihui, stood enamored with her husband. "What a catch," she thought.