As it turned out, John didn't have to wipe out the Darkstalker clan. He was quite glad about that, because it was never pleasant to have to kill large numbers of people. Then, of course, there was always the question of where to stop. If wiping out a sect, would you leave behind those under a certain cultivation? Perhaps a certain amount of ti associated with the sect would be the limit. And as for clans… would you kill the children?
The answer for the forr questions was variable. The answer for the latter was absolutely not. John wished he could say his actions had never hard a child, but that was untrue in many ways. He'd been involved with wiping out so old clans. In large battles, collateral damage was inevitable and afterwards… he was certain not everyone went to a good ho. So were thrown into sects without real support, and others probably ended up on the streets in cities.
The world would be far easier if terrible people never had children. Even then, John knew that not everyone he had fought had been irredeemable- sotis there hadn't really been an attempt made for peace from either end.
John wandered around the ship, as if he couldn't feel where each and every part of it was. He could cut himself off from feeling spiritual energy, but that wasn't actually pleasant. Feeling the world around him felt good. Even the most dangerous regions were in so ways a beautiful sight.
Perhaps noticing the way John moved about the ship, Renato ca to find him at the stern, where John was watching the wake they left. Sailing ships wouldn't leave a terribly large wake if relying on the wind alone, but enchantnts and water elent cultivators greatly increased the speed of travel- and thus the size of the wake, unless they intentionally minimized it.
Renato placed a comforting hand on John's shoulder. "You carry the weight of a mountain, my friend. What concerns you most today?"
John had to think for a while about how honest to be. He wouldn't lie to his friend, but sotis not everything needed to be said. "Children," John said.
Renato nodded. "Given that last ti I saw one of yours, she was carrying a dozen boulders stacked vertically… I must assu you an those of others."
"That's right," John sighed. "I couldn't help but think… how many of those we killed had children? What about the Triptych?"
Renato considered for a few monts. "Having children doesn't make soone any better or worse. But as cultivators… their children should be fine. They have great status and wealth. The one pitfall would co due to actions that are not your responsibility." John appreciated the sentint, but it didn't make it feel less like he was responsible for other people's actions. "As for the Triptych?" Renato shook his head. "Based on their ages, most of them that had children would have done so quite so ti ago. So of them could be older than you."
John tilted his head. "Counting the extra…?"
"You know as well as I how insignificant a duration that portion of ti is becoming. Anyway, if the Triptych have children they probably won't be young."
John frowned. "Caelnon was young, though."
"Still older than us," Renato pointed out. "It is a possibility. So never stop… inevitably asking for intra-family conflict. But that strife would be their responsibility as well." Renato pulled John into a hug. "Just believe that the world will be far better off because of your existence. The rest of us already do."
John breathed out slowly. Then he grumbled internally. One would think that after a century or so he might get past childish notions. He hugged his friend back. This was a world that needed a bit more affection. Good friends didn't just have to stoically drink across from each other.
Such a display of emotion might be seen as a sign of weakness by so, but nobody with the expedition was foolish enough to believe either of them were weak in any sense of the word. Renato wasn't yet an Exalted Soul Phase cultivator, but he was one of the best prospects. Everyone in the alliance knew that John was an eccentric, but that only made him more powerful.
Or sothing to that effect.
-----
The Endless Swamp certainly lived up to its na. It was part of one of the larger landmasses, which ant John had left behind his ship and brought along just a smaller honor guard.
Technically, the elental balance was similar to the Viridia Wildlands. However, instead of being mainly rainforest, the earth and water elental zone was a very different ecological arrangent. The swamp truly seed Endless- though John did know where it began.
It was a good thing they could run atop water, because otherwise it would have been a horrible slog. The waterways weren't necessarily continuous, and they were winding in every direction, so swimming or boating was out of the question. Running was generally faster for cultivators anyway.
Unlike the Soulrot Bog, there weren't too many awful insects. Yes, there were leeches the size of cats but they were honestly easy to deal with. They didn't ignore spiritual energy and their size made them stand out if you could discern how their spiritual energy differed from the natural environnt.
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John cut another one in half. It hadn't even been close to him. "Do you think wiping all of these out would devastate the ecology?" John asked. He really didn't like the idea of sothing that could chomp down on his whole arm to try to suck out his blood.
"Honest answer?" Renato asked. "Sothing has to eat these. So yeah, probably."
"Sha," John said. "But I wasn't planning to visit every nook and cranny anyway. I'd rather move on from here."
"I thought you liked… vibrant places."
John turned his head towards Renato… then grabbed his friend and threw him into the mouth of a giant crocodile. Of course, both of them had sensed the creature long before- and it wasn't powerful enough to really harm Renato. In fact, the way its jaws were specialized for chomping down actually beca a detrint as the force worked against it. Teeth shattered against Renato's armor and spiritual energy. Renato forced the mouth open wide enough for him to stand, then swung his club up towards the back of its mouth. The impact rattled what brain the creature had, destroying it.
"You're right," John said. "I do like places full of life. But I'd prefer at least so of the life be cute."
Renato extricated himself from the mouth of the creature. "There are baby leeches," he suggested.
"Hmm. I'm not really feeling it."
Other mbers of the group had different opinions. So hated the insects. Taurai had been chosen by John for this particular leg of the journey even though it wasn't the sa sort of elental region. She didn't seem to think it was that bad- earth was far more pleasant than darkness in most cases.
In truth, John found the area to be a good perspective on another way elents could combine, but everything felt pretty much the sa and he was getting bored. How many hundreds of kiloters had they gone? It didn't help that they only had vague coordinates for the sect they were trying to find, so they had to take a sweeping route to try to pick them out.
Every once in a while, John would fly up into the sky to try to get a good survey of the land. Nothing much changed. He did, however, finally spot a place that looked too normal. Sothing about the way the trees spread their branches to cover the area. Perhaps the sect had so frequent trouble with flying neighbors, because there wasn't really another way to get a similar angle.
"Found them," John reported once back on the ground. "It should be the Green Stump Sect, based on the maps we have."
Even if they weren't entirely accurate, they wouldn't be so far off that they hit another sect's territory. There was so possibility it was a minor sect, but in that case they would quickly move on after obtaining necessary information.
John didn't try to hide his spiritual energy, nor did the mbers of his honor guard. They were intending to be precisely the opposite of subtle. Sneaking up on people wasn't a good way to begin negotiations.
That went both ways, of course. Frankly, John was disappointed in the Green Stump because they were far less good at hiding than Rawya and the Darkstalker Clan had been. They did kind of blend into the background of the local region, but it wouldn't fool anyone John was with.
He didn't give them any visual indication, but they would know. He made his way around the trunk of a large tree, and an axe swung to try to chop off his head. It might have been sowhat threatening if John had walked in that direction, but it was pretty trivial to appear as if he were going a different direction.
The poor tree didn't make it, though. It toppled off to the side due to the montum of being severed. anwhile, John held his sword against the throat of the woman who had taken the swing. "Are you done being foolish?" John asked.
She tried to spin around, which was a clear answer. Because her head was severed before her axe made it a quarter spin towards John. Obviously she had focused her spiritual energy defenses towards her neck, but it wasn't nearly enough.
Others attacked too. What a sha. They were dead now, whether they knew it or not.
Renato smashed people into each other. It was an unnecessary effort, as killing two cultivators in such a fashion was more costly than simply consecutively smashing heads in. However, it would be a greater factor on morale.
Taurai made the locals regret their choice of living location. She wasn't primarily trained as a controller of insects, but she still knew the theory. Leeches weren't insects, but they were simple brained, and sufficiently weak. Infused with her spiritual energy, their teeth were a threat to the locals. The first leech that successfully latched on caused a cascading effect among the cultivators as sothing they normally wouldn't fear was suddenly brought back into focus.
They cut down half of their foes in re monts. It wasn't long before John caught a man with his back to a three ter thick trunk. "I surrender!" he cried out.
John looked deep into his soul. "You knew we were coming. Which of course also ans you know we aren't in the habit of giving out second chances."
"Please, I-"
John cut him in half. He had considered sending the man back with just one arm as a warning to others, but he already knew the consequences. It was reflected in the man's eyes. It didn't require a particularly deep reading of a person's facial expressions and body to determine such a simple thing.
The rest of the sect might still survive, if they hadn't gone along with the current ambush. Simply being too weak to co along wouldn't excuse them, however.
How frustrating. They'd just been on a good chain of successful negotiations. The Endless Swamp shouldn't have even been deeply tied to the Sovereign Primacy. How long had they been connected, a decade before the war began? Two at most. But they had several prominent sects, so they needed to be brought into agreent one way or another. But they'd attacked the continent along with the rest of the Sovereign Primacy, so there was no way they were just going to be left alone without any consequences.
John wished he knew a better way, but sadly he wasn't strong enough to not kill people. Taking on half the world alone was beyond his capabilities, so he couldn't just let them stew in their anger and grow stronger. Though maybe he would deserve it if he was killed. He wasn't one to argue that he was faultless. He rely did the best he could with his strength and resources.
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