*BKANGPLONG*

The entire sect barrier shimmered as another meteor struck. Cracks and gaps could now be seen everywhere in the hemisphere, and it was amazing that the entire barrier formation was still holding on together despite all of the damage that it had taken.

Outside of the sect, countless masked demonic cultists could be seen, all getting ready for battle in one form or another and yelling intimidating and demoralizing shouts back at the Orthodox Cultivators and Templars on the other side of the barrier.

Within the confines a few runic of the circles that had been drawn in human blood on the ground near the exterior of the barrier, a few robed priests were conducting live sacrifices, as more and more of the peasants were being brought before them by force and carved up to appease the Demonic Overlords.

To the demoniacs it did not matter whether the sacrifice was a man, woman, child or elderly, they all went under the blades of the sacrificial daggers all the same. Hearts would get pulled out of the chests even as the victims still cried in agony under the torture of the ritual priests.

Blood was flowing freely, and the life essence released by the sacrifices was being converted into the evil magics of the demoniacs.

For each person sacrificed, another molten boulder of rather large dimensions would come hurtling down from the sky and hit the barrier that was surrounding the entire Blue Mountain of Books with a deafening blast.

Some of the lesser demons that the Overlords had summoned as cannon-fodder were even frenziedly gnawing on the corpses of the leftover sacrifices with much delight, including some of the children.

Unable to remain passive and watch all of those people die anymore, the Templars that had been recently summoned from the top of the mountain had sent out an entire platoon composed out of the “holy” undead of the Eternal Army which they had brought along with them, in an attempt to disrupt the rituals and save some of the villagers.

Each garbed in a standardized plate armour that was affixed directly to the glowing bones and wielding a large bastard sword, huge tower shield, spear and longbow, every single member of the Eternal Army was an imposing figure by itself. Apparently, the Empire of the Sun was not skimming on the gear expenses for its army at all, and when an entire platoon of the Eternals was being put together, it made up for quite an intimidating sight, especially since all of their faces have been left exposed on purpose, displaying the runed skulls of the skeletons in a death-defying manner.

The initial charge of the undead had been quite successful, as they had managed to damage at least two of the ritual circles and kill three of the dagger-wielding priests while rescuing a bunch of villagers, before one of the level 100+ Demon Overlords that looked like a mix between a Centaur and a Dragon had intervened and had smashed the Eternal Army into pieces with simple brute force.

Still, besides the few rescued victims that the Eternal Army had managed to save, the assault had proven to be a failure, because as soon as all of the skeletons had been smashed, another bunch of demoniacs had just rushed to the fallen priests and had picked up their masks while immediately resuming the sacrificial rituals in their stead with the same manic fervor.

Just as the last batch of the rescued villagers was coming inside of the healing tent, Gravitas Johnson, the leader of the freshly summoned batch of Templars also saw Senior Knight Fall rush in through the flaps of the tent while carrying an unconscious Lady Yao in the company of two other rather ruffled up Flame Templars.

"Is that Lady Yao? And what the hell happened to you two blokes?"

"Johnson, I'm glad you are still here. Quickly, come and see to the well-being of Lady Yao. You have always been a much better healer than myself, and she seems to have been hurt in a scuffle at the Hall of Medicine. One of these two fucking morons that the Captain of the Flame templars had left to watch over the Jin boy, the new Hero of the Flame that is, got coaxed by the little idiot to stab Lady Yao through the chest with a sword because they thought she was running a Plague Lab within the Hall of Medicine."

"How the hell did anyone manage to hurt her? She is one of the strongest Barrier practitioners in the world!"

"Apparently she had linked her spiritual channels to the protective formation of the entire building when it got struck by one of those flaming boulders that just keep on falling from the sky, and she got temporarily stunned for long enough that one of these idiots got to her. I did not think that she would take her duty of guarding the Dungeon Entrance that seriously."

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"What about the children then?"

"Yes, they were together with Elder Lingfeng, just as you had previously oracled. Except that now there's a small big problem you did not foresee. Half of the entire Hall of Medicine has collapsed beneath the Earth because of one of the meteor strikes. It's absolutely pointless to send anyone to guard the entrance to the Dungeon anymore, because it is totally blocked off by the remains of the sunken building."

"I…did not see that one coming. Something, or someone, is messing up my divinations. The future is in constant Flux, always shifting at an alarming rate in this place. I can barely tell what will happen 5 minutes from now. Did the kids make it out alive?"

"I can only hope so. When the building went down, it did not break apart or anything, it just collapsed in its entirety beneath the Earth. I think that all of the children and Elder Lingfeng are still trapped within that half-section of the building. I just hope that they will have enough air to survive while being stuck underground like that, but we simply do not have the manpower to go and rescue them right now."

"It is alright, Elder Lingfeng is a Wind mage, he should be able to summon clean air if he needs to."

"You are right. We should focus on the bigger problems that are in front of us. Those three Overlords are nothing to scoff at. Whatever is driving these demoniacs to attack has a very powerful allure. Did you get any concrete information about what they’re after?"

"No, but I have my own suspicion. One of the kids might be a Blessed Child. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for her, she was inside the collapsed half of the building when the Hall of Medicine went under. She’s either trapped in there, or somewhere inside the Dungeon beneath it right now. I just hope that Elder Lingfeng has enough brains to keep them in one place if they somehow wind up in the Dungeon instead. That place is not something they would be able to handle, even with Lingfeng in their group."

"Right...then all we can do is fight these bastards off before they can get inside."

"Who are these new people then? They look terrible."

"A few of the villagers that we managed to rescue before they got sacrificed. All of them are mentally traumatised to a very serious degree, so I have no idea what to do with them. Whatever the demoniacs did to them, it must have been something truly soul-breaking."

"How many Eternals did we lose in the exchange? "

"40."

"That is a pretty bad cost for just a few villagers. How many do we have left?"

"Each of the Templars brought as many as they could store inside of their Spatial Rings or Bags of Holding before we got teleported, so I reckon a few hundred, don’t have an exact headcount right now."

"Won't Mortdecai get pissed off at you for stealing so many of his toys?"

"I don't care, let him be pissed off all he wants. It's better than wasting the lives of our young recruits instead. Considering how many of those demonic bastards have gathered outside of the barrier, I'm not sure that we will be able to pull this off even with all of our current forces, Eternal Army included. They have some really fucking strong-ass Demon Ovelords summoned out there. We’ll probably have to pick up the slack ourselves soon."

Just as Johnson said that, Lew also walked into the tent sporting an entire set of shinly lamellar plate armor, and looking very upset.

"Ah, Senior Lew, glad to see you have decided to join us."

"It’s only normal that I would do so. This attack threatens the whole Sect as well as what lies beneath the mountain. I also sense that the Dungeon perimeter has been breached. There are living people down there. What the hell happened? I thought we all agreed to never let anybody down into that place ever again after that whole archaeological disaster 20 years ago!"

"It was not intentional, the building just sank into the Dungeon itself.

If I am not mistaken, the people you have detected are Elder Lingfeng, his niece, the Hero of the Flame and the Blessed Child, plus Clan Tai's Young Master Fung and that Xibei musician fellow that you seemed to enjoy torturing every day near the bridge."

"Even him, eh? The threads of Fate work in strange ways."

"You can say that again. My divinations have been absolutely crap during these last few hours. Whatever happens here might have ramifications that will affect the entire world. We CANNOT be allowed to fail, Brothers."

*BOOOOONG*

*LOUD SHATTER NOISE*’

"S...SENIOR KNIGHT! A METEOR JUST BROKE THE BARRIER NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF THE SECT! THE DEMONS ARE FLOODING IN!" One of the Templar scouts came screaming into the tent.

"You hear that? Guess it’s our turn then. Alright you bag of bones!" Yelled Johnson at the mass of skeletons that were waiting for orders. "Time to show those fuckers how the Eternals truly fight! Form Up [Testudophalanx]! Lew, you coming as well?"

"I swore that I would protect this place with all of my being, so I'm not about to let any of these demonic meatballs anywhere near the mountain. I am the Oathbound Guardian of the Sacred Knowledge, and they will not take even one more step inside of this sect!" Lew yelled as his entire being became bathed in light, then charged towards the screaming demonic horde on the other side of the barrier gap.