United We Stand

King Zeng was observing the defenses of their capital. They had finished the evacuation of all noncombatants, and were awaiting the arrival of the Draco representatives. He advisors were close discussing with the final preparations and contingencies. A loud voice rang out and Zeng sighed, stood up, and swam towards the defensive line. In the distance, three large creatures swam towards his position before shifting into humanoid form and approaching, "King Zeng, we the envoy of Draco Serpentus, accuse you of conspiracy to weaken our national strength by leading our troops into a battle resulting in a ninety percent loss. Surrender yourself to us and face trial for your crime."

"Envoy Nyzinth, while I grief for the loss of your warriors, I did not conspire against you. I will have to decline your invitation", Zeng responded.

"King Zeng, or should I say Traitor King Zeng, we have received your reply", Nyzinth replied, "We officially declare war on the merfolk nation until the traitor is capture or killed."

The three morphed back to their flood dragon forms and swam out of sight.

"Soldiers, I thank you for your courage to step forward and defend the motherland", he began to speak, "Just know that your family is safe, and if we are unable to hold, I will deliver catastrophe onto their army. If your superiors order a retreat, do so. If it's impossible, find a way to Sun God island and reunite with your families. Don't throw away your lives in meaningless sacrifice and prepare to hide, build up strength, and triumphantly return."

The merfolk soldiers internalized the king's speech and bolstered themselves while their took their positions. King Zeng sat at the command center with artifacts his agents had purchased over the last week. On the table was this world's version of a handheld transmitter/transceiver, powered by jade spirit batteries, Zeng could send messages to his army in an instant. A loud bellow could be heard in the distance, and Zeng walked to the front window where smaller and then larger dark outlines began to emerge.

He keyed his handheld, "All generals, the enemy is here, prepare to fight."

In a small valley in the center of the Xian, Fu, and Zhuo regions of Nanying, the cultivators of the White Tiger alliance had landed. All the sect leaders and disciples disembarked from their aerial mounts, and were guided to their courtyards, with the exception of Kong Chun of the White Tiger sect.

He made us way towards the palace built into the valley with a Taiji diagram embedded in the courtyard floor. Banners whipped as the wind swept through the valley, one marked Boundless Yang Sect and Immortal Yin Sect. As he walked through the entrance, he saw two other men and a woman sitting in chairs having a discussion.

"Sect Master Kong, nice to see you again", the first man greeted him.

"Yes, it's been five years already, how time flies", the woman added.

"It seems something important happened to Sect Master Kong to delay his arrival", the second man quipped.

Kong returned the greetings before sitting down and ignoring the comment by the second man, "So many things happened this year that I lost track of time. Luckily we made it in time."

The door in the back open and a servant came out, "Sect Masters, please follow me inside."

The four stood, and walked through the door, bowing once inside the next room and continuing towards the two people sitting inside.

The sea was churning as the Draco soldiers advanced towards the merfolk. Eels and snakes were stealthily advancing, Naga swam in formation, flood dragons stayed in the back awaiting orders, certain fish and seahorses were charging towards the front lines.

Large shield array formations were deployed and merfolk manned cannons awaiting the order to fire. The merfolk were holding different spears, and artifacts that could fire beams of light.

As the first wave neared the merfolk's position, the generals gave their orders, "Soldiers, ready your weapons."

The front line lifted their long range light infantry weapons and aimed. The commander waited a few more seconds before bellowing, "Fire!"

Beams of light filled the battlefield field as most of the attackers were stopped. The few that made it were engaged by spear wielding soldiers and killed quickly.

The attacking force commander simply waved his hand and sent the next wave. As the soldiers defended their position against the next incoming wave, a few eels and snakes were successfully able to infiltrate a position, attack, and kill a soldier or two before dying. Several waves later, the advancing troops stopped, confusing the defending army.

Five large flood dragons suddenly began accelerating towards the defender's position.

"All cannons focus on one target and fire!", the commander ordered.

A larger beam fired from the first cannon closest to the command center, only to joined by the others. Naga spell casters did their best to shield the flood dragon's head from incoming attacks, but the multiple cannons focused on it produced cavitation bubbles and quickly broke the shield. The beams hit the charging flood dragon its face, several beams hitting specifically the mouth, nose, and eyes. When cannons adjusted and all of them targeted the eyes, the caused fatal damage as the flood dragon's head was punctured by beam cannon fire. The gunners moved to the next target and by the time they had taken the third one down, the other two were closing in fast. The last two reached the defensive line before they could target and rammed into the barrier, creating a hole that attacking forces exploited and enemy soldiers flooded into the space.

As the four sect master neared the two individuals, they stopped and bowed, "Greetings to Sect Master Liang Wen of the Boundless Yang Sect, Greetings to Sect Master Han Zemin of the Immortal Yin Sect."

Wen spoke first, "Sect masters Kong Chun of the White Tiger, Lu Yang of Crimson Phoenix, Zheng Shi of Black turtle, and Yuan Long of Azure Dragon, welcome back to another competition."

"We looked forward to the disciples challenging themselves against each other and hope to invite the best and brightest to join us", Han said in a melodious voice, "That aside, does anyone have anything to report from the last five years?"

Zheng, "We have had a series of disappearances in the last five years. Approximately twenty-eight thousand men and women have disappeared in the region. It's always the same, the poverty stricken commoners and slaves."

Everyone had weird looks on their faces at this news, except for Kong Chun, who was rubbing his forehead, "Sect Master Zheng, I have the answer for your report. If everyone else can finished their report first, I'll explain."

Zheng continued, "Also a large portion of land disappeared near Ice River city in a perfect circle. We think the demonic cultivators possibly could be involved."

Kong Chun looked shocked as he remembered getting the same report except it was a large portion of a mountain and then recently another plot of land in the plains went missing.

Liang nodded at Zheng's suggestion, "Very odd indeed, I'll send an elder to your city to investigate."

Zheng bowed his head, "Thank you Sect Master Liang."

Lu Yang and Yuan Long made quick comments about some resources or magical beasts attacks before concluding their report.

Everyone turned towards Kong Chun with curious and expectant eyes.

"Sect masters, a few months after the last meeting we had like this, a change happened at the island in the sea where the Senior was cultivating in seclusion", Kong explained.

The others sect masters had a slight frown thinking about the cultivator that stayed on that island, since he was too powerful for them and his purpose was unknown.

Kong continued, "He has taken a disciple, and the disciple is currently a golden core cultivator. But more importantly, the disciple oversees the island and has created a society there that creates wondrous things."

All the leaders were shocked by the revelations of Kong Chun, and where starting to think about the situation.

Kong produced his Qphone from his ring and laid it on the table, "This is one such product, the Qphone or Qi phone, it is an artifact that perform multiple functions. When on the island, cultivators can use this to speak with each other over long distances. It also records images and 'videos', but it's not currently recording, that's something you have to activate. There are many other functions as well but I don't want to drag this meeting out to long."

Kong activated his Qphone and opened his media app in holographic mode, images projected from the artifact, causing the others to widen their eyes and stand up. Kong isolated images based on location and displayed the first image of the island.

As he scrolled the images, he explained their contents, "This is Market Square, one of two cities on the island, it has some the usual places you would expect. It also does not have any brothels or slave trading, and the disciple will leave the island from time to time to recruit new citizens to the island from the poor or buy slaves from our regions to free them on the island. Now this here is a QR pod, it is an artifact that simulates a secret realm and provides the purest Qi to the user I've ever experienced in my lifetime."

The other sect masters were enraptured as Kong Chun described the QR pod cafe, theater, cultivation center, hot springs, restaurants, hotels, and aquarium, as well as displaying images of the various places.

"So Brother Zheng", Kong conveyed, "I believe the people that are missing from your cities are the new citizens of the island and I can assure you they are not being mistreated. In fact, the quality and quantity of resources they have access to is better than what is available to the members of my sect. As far as the missing land, I also to two areas that have disappeared in a similar manner and if the disciple was responsible, which I cannot prove, I could foresee the possibility."

Sect masters Liang and Han hadn't said anything the whole report, but Liang spoke up now, "How secure is this island?"

"It is quite capable of defending against internal and external threats fairly quickly", Kong replied, "All public areas are under watch by flying invisible artifacts that can report misconduct and incapacitate lower level cultivators. For external enemies, the grand array formation has powerful offensive and defensive capabilities. Let me play a video of an incident that happened the other day when pirates and the Draco empire came to close to injuring an invited guest to the island."

Everyone watched as attacks from the grand array sunk ships and killed flood dragons in horror, especially Sect masters Liang and Han. They knew even their own protection arrays could only accomplish about seventy percent of that feat and it would collapse afterwards.

"Perhaps after we complete this event, we should prepare to travel to this island", Han proposed.

"If you go", Kong interrupted, "Take as many people as possible without compromising your sect, no matter what level they are. They carry a range of goods that can be used by commoners to possibly Void Refinement stage cultivators. They use their own spiritual currency called spirit coins and will exchange a wide range of materials from common herbs to the most precious metals for them. Lastly, they have a very unique payment system called a bank that stores your coins in an account that you can access at anytime but by using my Qphone I can pay for my expenses with a quick swipe."

Sect master Liang stopped Kong, "Understood, let's refocus on the competition and we can discuss the island afterwards."

Everyone nodded and discussion went on for a few more hours as they planned the events of the next few days.