Soulbound: Dual Cultivation

Chapter 413: New plans

The tent had grown quiet again after everyone left.

Lucas remained standing beside the table, one hand resting on the rough wooden edge as he stared at the map beneath the candlelight. Outside, the camp was still moving. Soldiers were rotating watch shifts, wounded men were being tended to, and commanders were reorganizing their lines for whatever came next. The low murmur of thousands of voices drifted faintly through the canvas walls.

But inside the tent, it was just him.

And his thoughts.

He replayed the conversation in his mind slowly.

The Ice Belle’s calm expression.

The way she had spoken about meeting Celestial Ken as if it were something she was curious about rather than something that could wipe an entire army from existence.

Lucas exhaled quietly.

"She can stall him," he murmured.

That much he believed.

Her domain control was frighteningly powerful. Once she fully spread her atmospheric influence across a battlefield, even a Celestial would need to take her seriously. She could slow him down, force him to focus on her, maybe even push him to expend real effort.

But defeat him?

Lucas shook his head.

"That’s impossible."

Not because she was weak.

But because Celestial realm cultivators simply existed on another level. Their control over the laws of Qi, their comprehension of the world itself, their ability to crush lower realms with overwhelming force. The gap was not something brute strength alone could close.

At best, she could stall him.

A few moments.

Maybe longer if she risked everything.

Lucas leaned forward over the table and rested both hands on the map.

"So if she stalls him..." he muttered slowly.

His mind began moving again.

That was the key.

Not victory.

Time.

If Ken descended and the Ice Belle engaged him, the battlefield would explode into chaos. Every cultivator present would feel the pressure of their clash. The skies themselves might crack open from the force of their techniques.

In that chaos, there would be a window.

A small one.

Lucas’ finger moved across the map.

"The army retreats?" he whispered to himself.

No.

Too slow.

Retreating thousands of soldiers while a Celestial watched would become a massacre. Ken could cut through them faster than they could run.

Lucas frowned.

"Evacuate the King?" he tried again.

Better.

But even that felt fragile.

If Ken realized what was happening, he could simply bypass the Ice Belle and strike the command structure directly.

Lucas ran a hand through his hair slowly.

He kept thinking.

Possibility after possibility rose and collapsed.

Until another thought slipped into his mind.

"If he’s stalled..." he said quietly.

"Then he’s focused."

A Celestial cultivator in battle would concentrate on the opponent directly challenging him. Especially one powerful enough to slow him down.

That meant his attention would not be on the army.

Not immediately.

Lucas looked down at the map again, but this time he was not studying troop movements.

He was thinking about something else entirely.

Something he had not personally used yet.

The Core of Dominion...It would not defeat Ken.

Lucas knew that.

But defeating Ken was never the goal anymore.

Surviving him was.

And if the Ice Belle could buy even a little time...

Then maybe, just maybe, Lucas could turn that moment into something the Celestial would never expect.

Lucas’ eyes lingered on the map for only a moment longer before something sharper crossed his mind.

Without hesitation he turned toward the small chest at the side of the tent.

Inside it lay the object that had changed the tide of the battle earlier that day.

The Core of Dominion.

He opened the lid carefully and lifted the artifact out with both hands. Even now, it hummed faintly with restrained power, its surface etched with ancient lines that glowed dimly whenever Qi flowed near it. The air around it always felt slightly heavier, as if the world itself acknowledged its authority.

Lucas held it up to the candlelight and studied it closely.

There could be no mistakes now.

If what he was about to attempt failed, the backlash alone could cripple half the army wearing the bracelets.

He rotated the core slowly between his fingers, inspecting every channel and every rune. The structure remained stable. No fractures in the inner circulation lines. The energy pathways were still smooth, still perfectly aligned.

"Good," he murmured under his breath.

He set the core carefully on the table and reached into the chest again.

Two Dominion bracelets rested inside.

Unlike the others already distributed among the officers and squads, these two had not been assigned yet. Lucas had deliberately kept them aside earlier, uncertain if he would need them for something more specific.

Now he knew.

He picked them up and placed them beside the core.

For a moment he simply looked at them.

Normally the bracelets drew Qi from the Core of Dominion through a shared network, distributing power across every connected wearer. The system worked like a wide river branching into smaller streams, each soldier receiving a portion of the flow.

What Lucas was about to do was different.

Very different.

He sat down slowly and pulled the core closer.

His fingers began moving across the surface, guiding small threads of Qi into the engraved channels. The runes responded immediately, glowing brighter as he activated the internal pathways one by one.

The tent grew noticeably colder as the artifact woke fully.

Lucas’ focus narrowed completely.

He lifted the first bracelet and pressed it gently against the surface of the core.

Qi flowed from his palm into both objects at once.

Normally the bracelets were only loosely synchronized with the core, allowing power to circulate evenly across all connected users. But Lucas began altering that arrangement now, carefully redirecting the energy lines so that these two bracelets would not simply receive Qi from the shared pool.

They would be directly bound to the core itself.

Not just connected.

Anchored.

He worked slowly, guiding the flow with the precision of someone who had studied the artifact far longer than anyone else here. The glowing lines on the core shifted as he adjusted them, creating two distinct pathways that linked directly into the heart of the artifact.

When he finished the first binding, the bracelet pulsed once in his hand.

Stronger.

Hungrier.

Lucas set it aside and repeated the process with the second one.

This time the reaction was stronger. The bracelet trembled slightly as it absorbed the connection, the runes along its surface glowing far brighter than the others distributed among the army.

When he finally withdrew his hands, both bracelets were no longer ordinary extensions of the Dominion network.

They were personal conduits.

Directly signed to the Core of Dominion.

Lucas leaned back slightly and studied them.

Anyone wearing these would draw far more power than the others. Not just from the core itself, but also from the surrounding Qi in the atmosphere, which the artifact constantly pulled inward.

In effect, the wearer would become a focal point of the entire Dominion system.

A spearhead.

Or a shield.

Depending on how it was used.

Lucas exhaled slowly.

He already knew who would receive them.

One of them had to go to the Ice Belle.

If she was going to stall Celestial Ken, she would need every possible advantage. With this connection feeding her domain, the amount of Qi she could draw would increase dramatically. The battlefield itself would begin responding to her influence.

The second bracelet...

Lucas’ eyes lingered on it for a moment.

That one would remain with him.

Because whatever plan he was forming would place him directly in the center of it.

He closed the chest and lifted the Core of Dominion again, feeling its steady pulse beneath his fingers.

"Let’s see," he muttered quietly.

Then he spoke toward the tent entrance.

"Tom."

Tom’s voice came immediately from outside. "I’m here."

"Find the Ice Belle for me," Lucas said. "Tell her I need to speak with her."

There was a short pause, then Tom answered, "She’s not far. I’ll bring her."

Lucas returned to the table and placed the two newly bound bracelets beside the map. Their faint glow pulsed softly under the candlelight.

He did not have to wait long.

The tent flap opened and the Ice Belle stepped inside as calmly as ever. Tom lingered outside and quietly closed the entrance behind her.

She walked toward the table without ceremony.

"You called for me," she said.

Lucas nodded and pushed one of the bracelets toward her.

"This one is different from the others."

She picked it up and examined it, turning it slowly in her fingers. Her expression did not change much, but Lucas could tell she immediately noticed the difference in the internal Qi flow.

"This is directly connected," she said after a moment.

Lucas allowed himself a faint smile. "You noticed quickly."

"It draws deeper," she continued calmly. "Not just from the artifact. It draws directly from the air too."

"That’s the point," Lucas replied.

She slid the bracelet onto her tiny wrist...it adjusted and shrunk to fit her perfectly.

The moment it settled, a faint ripple passed through the air around her. The artifact had accepted her immediately, linking her to the Core of Dominion far more strongly than the others in the army.