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Chapter 189: Through Eyes of Poison

Despite everything, she had a feeling they were the ones. Some barbarian from a Deadwaste backwater and a cultivator still in the early stages of a sect path. Many of her old rivals would have laughed at her, but they\'d have been wrong. She needed to find people who had stumbled and gotten back to their feet to climb the mountain, not warriors who had drifted on winds of privilege and fortune.

"Give them a chance," Kai said as they walked up the staircase to the Crystallier Headquarters. "I admit it\'s not likely, but we should at least try to talk."

"What are you going to do," Zae Zin Nim asked, "give them a lecture on economics and hope they decide to throw away everything and become peasants?"

"Don\'t insult the idea of negotiation with the most ridiculous version of it. They\'re not villains, just superficial people who bought more power than they can handle."

"Then we should treat them that way: sweep them aside and get on with everything."

Kai, Kai, Kai... Omilaena smiled from her position behind them. Idealistic and a bit naive, but she liked that he didn\'t let his guard down. He would absolutely give his opponents chances that he shouldn\'t have, but he would be ready when the inevitable happened. It was that open-mindedness that had made him reconsider her, after all, so she couldn\'t be too critical.

They reached the top of the staircase and immediately saw one of their targets. Norgoan, the number one ranked crystallier in the city and no one of particular consequence. Unlike the absolute fools, he began building up crystal armor around his body the instant he saw them.

"What are you doing back here?" he demanded. "You\'re not welcome in Romastir."

"The situation has changed," Kai told him, speaking to everyone in the plaza as if he could sway them. "Have you seen the way cities in the east are falling? You won\'t be ready for the next monster incursion unless you get ready..."

It might have worked, if there wasn\'t another crystallier moving in the trees beside them. Omilaena didn\'t turn her head, wondering if the others saw her. A young woman hovering on crystals, preparing a knife for a lethal blow. Naellia, the fourth ranked crystallier in the city - Omilaena\'s research suggested she was basically a dilettante, but she\'d purchased a much more powerful knife than records indicated. Or had someone buy it for her.

Omilaena watched with mild interest as the woman burst from her hiding position. Kai\'s reaction time was good, so even if he was taken off guard, he could twist and attack. He shifted immediately, not surprised at the attack, just disappointed.

His companion was faster. "Hanelay" was clearly a sect-born cultivator with excellent training, refined by her new experiences on Deadwaste. She had not only been expecting an attack, she eagerly anticipated it and reacted with lethal intent. At the very last moment she shifted her palm strike to a non-lethal target and then flipped the crystallier to the ground to pin her in place.

Generally Omilaena didn\'t care for cultivators, but this one had grown on her. In her experience cultivators had no morals whatsoever except the law of power, which she could respect - what made them irritating was that so many of them would preach about their virtue while displaying a complete double standard. Hanelay didn\'t pretend to be anything except self-interested, and she begrudgingly accepted that the usual "qi blast everyone in their family" strategy wasn\'t always best.

For a moment things hung on the edge. Norgoan was still finishing his armor, while Naellia was pinned to the ground. Kai turned back to them and sighed.

"Alright, do what you\'ve been wanting to do from the beginning."

While Kai\'s back was turned, Norgoan unleashed a beam of concentrated qi from his armor. But the thing about double-crossers was that they could be painfully predictable, and Kai had learned that lesson at least. He anticipated the attack completely and spun under it, nearing his opponent and then rising in an uppercut that knocked him into the air, crystal armor and all.

Two other crystalliers - ranked sixth and eighth - had closed on the location and joined the battle. Technically Omilaena should have been helping, since this was all supposed to be her doing, but she found herself watching the pair instead.

They really did work together beautifully. Always aware of the other\'s position, shielding the other\'s blind spots without relying on them, even coordinating attacks at times. Amateurs would try to stay back to back all the time or run around in unison, which simply couldn\'t work in a high level battle, but they parted and returned smoothly as they fought.

It was actually a shame they weren\'t a couple. Omilaena licked her lips as she imagined what they would look like together. Just one of Kai\'s hands could probably wrap around half the cultivator\'s thigh, despite the short woman having a lot more curves than it looked like. She would be absolutely adorable, too, probably very vulnerable if someone could just get through her shell...

"Die, Maneater!" A crystallier ran at her, swinging massive crystalline gauntlets.

"Nah." Omilaena hit him in the neck with a needle and stepped aside as he slumped to the ground.

Now that her little fantasy had been interrupted, Omilaena decided to actually contribute something. There was a young man standing on the highest level of the Crystallier Headquarters, holding a crystal bow. Ailag, the third ranked crystallier in the city, though she hadn\'t known he used a bow. Maybe a new toy. He was gathering a lot of qi into a single arrow, and his attempt at a surprise attack would probably not be effective, but she might as well take care of it.

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Omilaena leapt up to the top floor, just in front of his position. Startled, he let go of his arrow, but she snatched it out of the air and tossed it aside. "Hi there."

"You\'re th-the one from New Laeneria." Ailag should have been running or getting another arrow, but instead he stared at her. Very predictably, too: lips, tits, hips, legs.

"And your city will be mine next." Omilaena lunged forward, sweeping his bow aside and pinning him to the wall with her body. "But I need a toy to warm my bed, and that old man is so boring... whoops, looks like Kai took care of him. Can you keep me entertained?"

"You won\'t kill me?"

"Not if you - mmm - perform well enough. What do you say?"

"I..." Ailag\'s gaze shifted exactly where she expected. "I\'ll show you what I\'m made of. You won\'t-"

His lust turned into a stupor as she stabbed his neck with a needle. Omilaena turned away, absentmindedly letting his body fall. She\'d lost her taste for those sorts of games, especially after finding the pair below. It just left her more frustrated, but she could find relief after they wrapped things up.

"If we started this, we need to take them all out," Kai was saying in the plaza.

"I sense the others nearby or in the arena," his companion said. "We can take them all out."

"Be alert for Ailag. He has some sort of vendetta against me, so-"

"I got him!" Omilaena jumped down at the perfect moment and gave them a little wave. "He had a bow or something, but not anymore. Are we ready to finish this?"

They advanced into the Crystallier Headquarters, where everyone remaining either surrendered or was very swiftly put down. That was easier for the cultivator than Kai, who seemed to specialize in raw destructive power, but Omilaena was there to put everyone to sleep. They basically strolled through until they reached the private arena, where their last opponents waited.

"So it\'s come to this." Uarania, the second ranked crystallier in the city, stood ready for them. She might have looked like a sad old woman, but she had remarkably powerful crystal bangles on her arms.

"You didn\'t think you could beat me before," Hanelay said, "do you think that\'s changed?"

"You\'re powerful, girl, but you don\'t understand the strength of Krysal."

Several fighters leapt from the sides and Omilaena wondered if they were metaphorically the strength of Krysal. If so, it definitely wouldn\'t be enough. She decided to stay back and just admire their fighting a little longer.

Too many powerful warriors she\'d known performed poorly in easy fights, at least by her judgment. They took pleasure in slapping down weaker opponents, as if real strength was shown in annihilating someone who never had a chance against you. But her new favorite duo always fought efficiently, as if even this battle was a chance to refine their skills.

Only Uarania was able to stand against them briefly, since her bangles emitted great bursts of power. Eventually Kai got closer and swept his hands together, extending energy that consumed her attack wholesale. What was interesting was that he didn\'t need to move his hands like that, and she thought it was a feint, not a physical tic. Like he was hiding something, though she wasn\'t sure what.

In her time, Omilaena had seen many powers and she\'d been able to match them all to the seven-pointed pattern she\'d seen in the alien ship. Kai\'s abilities could have been functionally imitated by other arts, but the source was different, the first time in her entire life that she\'d seen something she couldn\'t categorize.

Oh, she was going to figure him out one day.

Eventually they had all nine crystalliers defeated and sedated, completing their capture of the city. If only it was so easy to take out Yulthens, they could have swept through all of Krysal. That was exactly the reason that people from Rosemount and Cloudspire didn\'t take this continent seriously... and, if her theory was correct, there were forces in the world that could do the same to all of them.

The thought ruined her mood, as it always did. Omilaena behaved purely professionally as they dealt with all the other matters and officially seized the Crystallier Headquarters. She made sure to spend some time on the roof, laughing and yelling about how she was going to have fun with her new toys. You know, the usual, get the nobles riled up and the men all hot and bothered. Her heart wasn\'t in it anymore.

When she returned to their hiding spot lower in the city, the others were meeting with that little man, Krainuun. He actually seemed like one of the sharpest people she\'d met in Krysal and she wished she\'d figured out his identity earlier. Instead of trying to step away from her, as if it would do any good, he remained calm.

"We\'ll officially surrender to you," he said, "but then you\'ll leave with your captives. I won\'t have any information and we\'ll let the merchants funding the Crystallier Headquarters make an official statement."

"Works for me." Omilaena spun a needle around her fingers even though she wasn\'t sure who she was trying to impress. Just looking for the old spark, probably.

"What happens to the mines and pits now?" Kai asked. Of course he did.

"Defenses will be increased," Krainuun said, "but without crystalliers, that will mean soldiers. I will lead that effort, and we\'ll begin easing the suffering of the workers. We can justify it as a precaution given the recent attack. With enough time, we should be able to take control of them."

"Wouldn\'t everyone in the city notice?"

"Of course we can\'t equal the minimum prices of slave labor, but the merchants will be causing massive inflation trying to replace their crystalliers anyway. No one should notice, hopefully until it\'s too late."

Omilaena stepped in with a smile. "If they get too suspicious, I can always cause some more trouble and throw them off the trail."

Kai smiled, his little cultivator frowned, and Krainuun cast her a cool glance. Regardless, she thought the plan would work smoothly enough. Everyone would be desperately grateful that Romastir had managed to survive the attack. Some might look toward her as a threat, but more would wonder if they couldn\'t take over the undefended city and all its juicy trade.

"The two of you need to leave as soon as possible to avoid revealing the lie," Krainuun said. "I did my best to fulfill your request - for the sake of the war this time, not as a service. Kai, these papers are everything I could gather on the most powerful known monsters in Krysal."

While Kai looked over the papers with a gleam in his eyes, Krainuun turned to the other woman and handed her a wooden box. Omilaena caught just a glimpse of his false servility in the motion, the well-worn pattern of a subservient bow.

"Hanelay, these are one of the most powerful defenses that the crystalliers had purchased in preparation for a war. I hope that they will be compatible with your cultivation. In theory, they are supposed to resist the power of weapons with external qi. You may have little need for them, but if Suortril or anyone else has purchased artifacts, they may be of use."

"They will do." Hanelay opened the box to reveal a crystal bracelet, which she experimentally wrapped around her wrist. Not really her style, Omilaena thought, but you couldn\'t always find powerful magical artifacts in your color.

"What about me?" she asked with a fake simper. "Don\'t I get a gift too?"

Krainuun displayed absolutely no reaction, not even when she gave a flirty wink. Kai just stepped in between them and waved her off. "You get all nine crystalliers from Romastir. At market rates, that\'s a lot more than anything we got. I suppose you\'re going to torture them?"

"Oh, they\'re mostly redundant, so there\'s no need for that. I can\'t promise it will be particularly comfortable, though."

And just like that, it was done. Not so different from how she had taken over New Laeneria, except that it had been faster and she\'d had eye candy to watch. Omilaena was going to be disappointed when they split up, but the other two were still suspicious of her, especially when it came to the locations of their precious workers. If they followed the plan, she\'d return home with the crystalliers and eventually meet up with them outside Yulthens.

They were already leaving, on to their next challenge. She watched them go... Kai\'s pants seemed to have tightened in the battle, revealing his nice butt, and when his companion was in a good mood she swayed her hips a little more than intended.

Oh, she was definitely going to catch up with them.