Our rush to the control room started more with a gentle stroll. The construct had taken out any of the cultivators that might have been an issue. So it was smooth sailing for most of the journey.
The Wraith I kept far away from the Towering Mountain cultivators, they had enough questions with me defeating Shen, I didn't want to explain a Wraith obeying my every command as well.
So I kept them both well away from each other, thus making our trip pretty smooth.
Halfway down the stairs to the construct bay, I lost the connection to the Wraith, its rage of violence and death had come to an end.
It had reached the main construct room and had gotten promptly killed off by a wave of foundation building Hair monstrosities. It was quite an entertaining battle. The Wraith was far more potent than any group of the Hair constructs. Only the core formation constructs holding its own. It managed to take out quite a few enemies before its demise.
It had been handy, it had gotten us a clear path down, but the Hair constructs forming battle lines in front of the entranceway to the cavern was a little disconcerting.
We reached the final level soon after.
"I will set off the traps now, are you ready? We have very little time to take advantage of the confusion before the base returns to normal."
The strike team nodded in agreement, all looking very serious. As cute as ever.
With that, I activated the traps I laid down, the spiritual explosions that resounded throughout the facility would knock out the use of the array formation for the next two minutes. Giving me a small window of opportunity to be even more heroic and take the control room by force, even when it was being defended by someone so much stronger than I was.
We quickly rushed down the rest of the stairs into the caverns below. It was deathly quiet as we came in. We had to activate some light spells as the arrays had dimmed entirely. The sight of masses of unmoving mounds of hair was unnerving for anyone. They did have strange tastes in this sect. A cold breeze spread throughout the caverns, without the arrays to work with, all the summoners were ready to fight. Luckily enough, they were so high on karmic imbalance that they figured fighting each other was a far better idea than fighting whoever caused the crash.
So we managed to get past them with minor issues, a fierce attack stopped our approach to the Core Formation constructs. A wave of soul energy emanating from the control room stopped us in our tracks.
Using my energy, I managed to push my teammates to the side and took the full brunt of the soul attack. Washing over me harmlessly, despites its power. I redirected much of it into my energy, allowing several more tendrils to flare out from my aura. Those tendrils grabbed onto the various constructs catapulting me towards the control room. I also flared them quite a bit to light up the surrounding area. I was immediately getting both the attention of my team, but also the attention of Prot, who shouted out a challenge in response.
"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you, Byren. You will face your death here."
He seemed confident in his chances. Which I would be too if I were a peak core formation practitioner facing off against several cultivators far weaker than you. Unfortunately, one of the weaker cultivators he was facing was me.
He came bounding out of the control room, soul energy curling around him. He hadn't any constructs of his own surrounding him. With his mastery of formations, I had no doubt he had quite a few immensely strong constructs on his side. I just had to defeat him before he saw the need to use them.
With what happened to Shen, I would have thought he would have come out all power blazing from the onset. It seems our Ghost devouring sect was still making our disciples a little too overconfident.
So once again, hubris led to the downfall of a Ghost Devouring Sect cultivator. I made the fight look tough on my part. Prot was not suited for one on one combat. His ghostly fists lacked the lethality of Shens, despite their power difference. So it wasn't a hard fight to turn into a pantomime.
I made sure to make some suitable dodges, get hit a few times, barely come back in time to save the others from his wrath as the clock was ticking into its final seconds before the array system would go back online.
I used a precious treasure that let loose an attack that equaled a nascent soul cultivator, at great expense to my body. Knocking him into the constructs, he cared for so much. In the time it took for him to recover from such a massive blow.
I managed to get into the control room as the arrays lit back up. I was putting on a show for Bin Ji and the rest of the strike team, who joined me soon after. I got through the defenses of the formations extremely quickly; one of the strike team member's face lit up seeing my skill.
"How did you do that? I have never seen such an advanced technique."
The kid joined me at the terminal, looking over all of my work to get into the system he was very impressed.
"You might want to hurry, that cultivator looks like he's getting up."
That was brilliant timing on Prots part. I would have to thank him mentally for that.
I activated the shield around the control room just as Prot sent out an attack of his own. It splashed harmlessly against the shield. It would take a lot more to break through that shield.
With that, I also started back up all the constructs in the cavern. The core formation constructs came to life first. Quickly responding to my commands, they started their slow, heavy walk towards Prot.
I wonder how long he would last against them.