Bruised And Battered

Liang Mei formed her golden core and she felt great. It is time for REVENGE. She made her way to the Northen lands which are almost always frozen with ice everywhere.

She saw the first city under that evil man's control. She hadn't seen the place before but now that she is close like this, she can see a raw of factories. Surprisingly they are not for food or weapons factory but they are clothes, and alcohol factories.

They produce warm blankets, winter clothes and many other things. What she doesn't know is that Qing Xuan's army had been responsible for these in their territory and now they built it here making jobs for the locals.

The alcohol strong whiskey, brandy and other drinks are sold to the rest of the world through online platforms. As a result the North is self sustaining and can provide for themselves. Children are playing in the snow and the adults are going to work.

She went over a forest which seems to be a hunting grounds for the locals. What she saw astonished her. A teenager waved around a heavy axe. He is not very skilled in using it but it is not too unsightly to watch him fight with it.

The boy is fighting a group of wolves and the axe crackles with thick lightning bolts everytime he brandish it. So even though the wolves are fast, the thunder will make them paralyzed for a while and the boy will then cut them down.

The other surprising thing is the ease with which his axe cut through a mature wolf with thick fur and hard skin. Liang Mei finally saw it. That axe has runes on it that shine with a golden light.

When the boy is done fighting, Liang Mei approached him slowly. She is not dressed for the cold the dress she is wearing is showing the two shoulders on the sides. Her feet do not seem to touch the ground as she walked in the young man's direction.

She is the beauty in the snow painting. Her skin clean and fair. Those pair of cold eyes make people want to conquer her. Men want to be treasured and treated differently by her. She is the cold beauty that men want to possess and control for themselves.

"H..hi..." The boy is tongue tied but before anything else he waved his hand and all the loot entered his storage ring and ran away.

The boy is thinking about the story in the internet where someone was about to take a spirit herb after fighting the beast guarding it to the death but a beautiful woman came and distracted him, she took the herb and left him injured and alone in the middle of a virgin forest.

Liang Mei raised her eyebrows in surprise. She now knows where the boy got his axe. She is about to fly away when three powerhouses few her way.

The men are clearly Japanese, they look at her with apprehension but there is no sign of backing down in their movements. She knows if she stays there will be a great fight. She is not certain of her victory since these men put together are slightly more powerful than her. L

"I only want your leader." She said with caution, she just realized even if she formed her golden core, she is just one person but these guys have all built spirit bodies. How the hell did they do that in such a short period of time?

The answer will probably have her spit out blood in anger. Amelia and these people are having a good partnership. She gave them a copy of the manual recording the resources she will like to have and they provide her with these resources including the location of unclaimed mines that have what she wants.

Seeing no other way, she flew into the direction of Jiangkang base so she can see what Amelia has been upto while she was in seclusion.

In the past year, tens of thousands of war ships have been built. Hundreds of thousands of regular ships. Millions of mechas. There is even an elite mechas that is under Blake's direct control that is controlled by infusing mental power into the runes on the mecha. These are called rune mechas and only those with S+ mental power may attempt to use it.

When he finished the design, Amelia gave him her full support to create as much as he wants. They made th special metal ore, after making the parts, they are then soaked into the immortality tree juice even the small wires and screws just to avoid rusting.

When the first rune mecha came out it was beautiful. Black as knight with golden runes on its body that light up when the pilot is sending instructions through their mental/ spirit power.

This is a state of the art machanical miracle that follows the direct thought of the operator. Regular armors have a few seconds buffering between the time when the pilot thinks about attacking and when the attack actually happens.

But the runes mecha do not have this problem. When Blake finished making it he was overwhelmed by happiness. He as a soldier has always wanted a mecha that will mimic his thoughts.

This plus the rune weapon equipment, this mecha is a disaster level weapon. Currently Blake is trying to have 65 made because he had enough material for this much.

In a distance Island where Blake and Amelia usually receive their heavenly punishment, Amelia is having a picnic with Linruo who asked her to accompany her when she finally finishes training with a platoon of her own and reached nascent soul realm.

The little girl who was too short for her age is now one of the goddesses of Dragons Bane school.

"I still don't know why you only asked for this when I clearly gave you a window to ask for anything for successfully forming your nascent soul." Amelia sat on a blanket and ate grapes grown from her space so they are sumptuous and delicious.

"I already have everything. What I don't have...you can't give me. This is what I want." Linruo said with obvious sadness.

"Okay. Can we gossip? I hear you're getting love letters in your door from a mysterious admirer." Amelia said with a conspiratorial voice.

"It's not mysterious. I already know who it is. I used the aura finder incense you taught me to make and found my admire. It's a girl." They shared a good laugh at that.

"Wow...really? Do you like her back?" Amelia asked her.

"If I did, would you treat me differently?" Linruo ask but Amelia thinks she is joking. Upon seeing she is serious, she gives her a question in return.

"Do you find me attractive?"

"That doesn't count. Everyone finds you attractive."

"You're right. To answer your question, I wouldn't treat or see you differently if you like women. Infact I don't think I have a judgmental bone in my body unless you hurt children. In which case you deserve to be judged harshly." Amelia says a long speech which makes Linruo laugh.

"You're a treasure Amelia. You should feel appreciated. I appreciate you and all that you have do and that you are still doing." Linruo said hoarsely on the verg of tears.

"You gave me the carrot, give me the stick." Amelia said feeling like Linruo is buttering her up for something bad later.

"Someone approached me with a proposal. They asked me to poison you or they will kill my family. I am sorry Amelia I had no choice." Linruo starts crying just as Amelia's eyes starts bleeding.

Amelia enters her library space medical room before passing out. Her insides are being liquified at a very fast pace. She has buzzing in her ears and can't stop puking blood and her internal organs.

Shortly she dies a horrible death and her nascent soul is roughly ejected from her body and falls in front of her slowly liquefying body.

In the Island Linruo is panicked because she was supposed to bring the body back with her to the kidnappers so that she can get her family released.

She flies away from the scene and forgets to clean up their picnic blanket and supplies because she wants to rush to the meeting place.

Blake is suddenly hit by a horrible feeling, his heart started acting up and his eyes turned purple. This cold and empty feeling like a gaping whole has been carved out of his chest is similar to what happened when his mother died. A note with yellow paper burns up in the bedroom where Amelia used to sleep.

Blake rushes there and finds it. It is in Amelia's hand writing with only one word. "LOCKDOWN"

This is a pact the two of them signed with each other as cultivators who may separate for centuries at times. If one of them dies this paper would show up and draw them to it.

Blake then goes to the library and chased everyone out before burning all the books there, he logged into Amelia's smart computer and putting up a code that will wipe everything clean without any chance to retrieve it.

In one night everything from formulas, medical herbs and ingredients everything the school system needed uploaded to properly grade the students has been wiped clean. That is also only the beginning.

The password is also a key that will open a software application that will enter every computer, every system and every smart bracelet in the planet to eraze Amelia's contributions even the free cultivation is deleted from the school website. It will not have any records of any book that Amelia had scanned from her library.

This will stay and scawer the net until the only thing that will remain are the hard copies of the recipes and notes that the students took when they were learning but that will also be confiscated.

With immediate effect, the school is under Marshall law and all the space artifacts are to searched. This was done after all the students were called back. They all complied except for Linruo but Blake doesn't mind this.

The hard copies of all information recorded are then burned, students and soldiers space artifacts are then returned. Blake holds a memorial service telling everyone that Amelia has been killed and her only wish was to erase everything from her secret stash of knowledge before it gets into the wrong hands.

He continues to tell them that the only gift they get to keep from her generosity is that intangible knowledge they have already obtained. He revealed that Amelia had hastened to obtain an army because their planet is growing and gaining more resources which will draw greedy alien civilizations that can track valuable resources using their technology.

Her last hope was for the planet to stand a fighting chance. If she is dead then she can not guarantee her information not falling into the wrong hands.

He then assured them that she had made sure anyone who had access to the library can not be brainwashed, their minds will not be read and that only they have access to their acquired knowledge.

Blake takes a video conference with the team because he can not trust any of these people since any of them could have been responsible for Amelia's death. Maybe not Old mo but still.

"What do we do now?" Zhu Li seems visibly upset.

"Amelia had recorded a video incase of something like this." Blake tries to hold back his tears.

"Everyone. If you're watching this then I'm gone. You have two options. Find the one responsible for my death and then combine your strengths to continue our work. Or...and I recommend this one because it is easier...split everything and leave."

"I know it sounds like running but bigger problems are coming and you can't work with people you don't trust."

The crisis comes, call on every student and soldier in the Dragons Baen school to defend earth and they will come if you contact the 15 base leaders. Their personal armor can be kept with them and the lot of you can keep everything else.

"Look, humans are horrible and I will not ask you to sacrifice your share of the resources to save them, it is ultimately up to you but please take a share of the approximately millions of mechas, war shops and space ships. You have all worked hard and deserve some insurance."

If you decide to take over..good luck." The video ended and they were all very surprised. She was really unfeeling to the end.

Blake however knows that Amelia is not completely dead but probably won't be able to see her because her ascent soul will probably have a new body and she won't have her memories. He doesn't mind the challenge, but he will find her.

Amelia once told him that she didn't call Lu Feng because she wanted to be with someone who is made just for her and the only way to know that is through the test of faith and destiny. That kind of thing you don't go looking for it, it just happens.

He knows that if he was standing in front of Amelia fucken Bold, he would know it. Maybe not immediately but he will figure it out.

Thousands of people's phones deleted their saved photos of notes, recipes and other things from DB and no one knew the reason but people who are not cultivators were not supposed to have these things anyways as the result, they can't complain.

The next day all 15 Jiangkang base leaders were give a will. It perfectly separated each person's inheritance. They all had the share of the army in the DB school. But rather than the army they received serial numbers of each mecha. Anyone driving the corresponding mecha is under that leadership.

The soldiers already had the instructions upon taking up the armor and they already knew who was their commanding officer a long time ago. Amelia was not planning on leading the army to battle aliens in the first place.

That is why she had all the leaders under go grueling training wearing the armor before assigning them a legion.

That is not all they have been assigned, the overall city has eight thousand guardians and they have also been assigned to each of them with their names this time since it is for guarding the city instead of the planet.

Old Mo is free to do whatever he likes and he can keep managing the inner base like he used to or just the hospital like old times. The hospital has all kinds of new hospital related machines now. Doctors are no longer under somuch pressure and stress like before.

The schools cultivation disciples are allowed to leave and explore, or stay and help run the city but under their initial oaths in the blood contracts which will still be effective even in the event of her death, they can not take control of the Jiangkang base from its chosen leaders.

They can stay in school and train others if they wish. The school, they can run it themselves alongside the warriors department in harmony. If they decide ro do it ths way, they must quickly chose a leader so establishment peace as soon as possible.

"It seems she had thought of everything." Old Mo said with tears.

"Not everything. She knew one of the people close to her will one day betray her but she didn't know who. You know, this is why she never accepted my feelings. Her eyes were always guarded. Never vulnerable not for a second. Even after her father disappointed her she expected it. She never had faith in people because of whatever the hell she went through." Blake squeezed the bottle of beer in his hand and it shattered into small bottle shards not even leaving a scratch on his hand.

"I was her bodyguard and I failed at my job. The woman gave me my life back, even cured me of my curse and I couldn't do the one job she had hired me for." Blake drank, for the first time in a long time he drank alcohol bought from the frozen lands of the North on the roof of the old hospital. Perhaps he shouldn't try to find her.

The artifact finds Amelia's noq liquid body ans her snoozing nascent soul. As a space artifact it can not leave the space but it can use the space teiring properties of the artifact with a will to find a dying body to staff the nascent soul into.

The artifact doesn't stop to think that doing this will send them into another world altogether it does the first logical option. Luckily the nascent soul has been a glutton so it is pretty strong and proves to be able to survive the jump.

The End

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