The disciples wasted no words. Tan Xiaoling struck first, her paired dao sabers flashing in Chen Fei’s formation light. Her sandstorm moved with her, and for a moment both she and the creature were obscured. When she broke off her attack, twin wounds scored the thing’s shell, and ichor oozed from within. The creature’s chittering clicks increased in volume and pitch, and a pungent scent filled the cavern.
“It calls for aid!” Yan Shirong shouted. He’d pulled himself up and away from the cavern floor with his shadow tendrils, well out of the creature’s reach. A volley of throwing knives flashed out from the darkness around him, thunking into the chitinous shell.
Li Heng stepped into the creature’s advance, charging the Winter Moon Reflection. He Yu activated the Sky Dragon’s Flight to get above the beast, and brought his guandao down upon it, forming the Crashing Wind.
The creature reared and thrashed, its momentum halted by the twinned assault. Chen Fei stepped into the opening. She slammed a fist into its shell, and a formation character bloomed at the point of the impact, sending a series of cracks spiderwebbing outward.
He Yu shot her a grin. It seemed she’d come a long way during his time away from the sect. Or maybe it was the insectoid nature of the beast. Regardless, she’d stepped up to the fight in a way he wouldn’t have expected at the start of winter.
She beamed at him in return—and nearly paid for it.
A chitin blade sythed towards her. She let out a startled yelp and threw her hands up over her head. A circle of formation characters bloomed into being around her, glowing with faint silver light. The creature’s forelimb slammed into her barrier. It briefly flickered at the impact, but the formation held.
“You two can flirt later,” Tan Xiaoling yelled.
He Yu felt the heat rise in his neck, and it wasn’t due to battle. She was right though, this was no time to get distracted.
The sharp sense of danger that normally clung to Tan Xiaoling spiked. During his time away from the sect He Yu had grown more familiar with the feeling of another cultivator’s killing intent, and he couldn’t help but wonder about hers. How could her killing intent be so strong already? As he recalled the face of the first bandit in King Hao’s camp, he decided it was probably best not to think about it right now.
Tan Xiaoling stepped into another swing of the beast’s claw. She caught the blow on one of her sabers, while she struck with the other. Her sandstorm surged, driving hundreds of tiny razor shards into the cracks in the creature’s shell. It began to flail wildly as it backed away from its attackers and resumed its chittering once again. The scent that had filled the cavern at the beginning of the fight only became more overbearing.
A second creature came barreling out from one of the darkened side passages. It charged into the center of the group, scattering the disciples with its wild swings. The first creature, now clear of the fight, surged with an upwelling of earth qi. The cracks in its shell began to slowly, but steadily, seal back together.
“Don’t let it heal!” He Yu called, using the Sky Dragon’s flight to dart around the enraged newcomer in the center of the cavern.
Li Heng flashed over to where the first creature had retreated. The two of them attacked together, while the sounds of battle rang out from behind them.
With only the two of them to deal with, the creature fared much better. It was intelligent enough to position itself in a way that made it impossible for them to flank it. Wedged as it was between the cavern wall and one of the large pillars that buttressed the chamber, He Yu and Li Heng had no choice other than to attack from the front. All fine and good, except the bladed forelimbs had considerably more reach than either of their weapons.
Li Heng fared a bit better than He Yu did in this regard. He could move in, catch a strike from the creature, and then release the gathered qi along his blade to attack from a distance. He Yu at least had the strength and speed granted by the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, but that wasn’t enough to break through the creature’s flurry of bladed forelimbs. It was all he could do to push it as best he could, even as the cracks in its carapace sealed themselves shut.
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Taking a moment to break off from the foe before him, He Yu cast a glance over his shoulder. In the center of the cavern, the second creature seemed to have identified Tan Xiaoling as the most dangerous foe and focused much of its attention on her. Chen Fei fought alongside her housemate, but the two girls were in a similar predicament to He Yu and Li Heng.
Tan Xiaoling’s paired dao had a similar reach to Li Heng’s jian—which was to say far too short. Chen Fei was in an even worse position, fighting with just her fists. Yan Shirong was still well above the fight thanks to his techniques, but his daggers were almost wholly ineffective.
He Yu grimaced. The fight had turned to a stalemate. Although he had plenty of qi left still, and was confident the others did too, he couldn’t gauge if the creatures were close to their limits. The things were probably third-grade beasts, but aside from their ability to repair their shells, they hadn’t exhibited any techniques.
That made it tough to pinpoint their advancement. The disciples could have prevailed if it hadn’t been for the appearance second creature. As it stood, they weren’t strong enough to quickly deal with one of them while their attention was split, and He Yu didn’t want to think about what would happen if they tried to focus on one. The creatures were obviously intelligent enough to coordinate, given the way the second had barreled into the middle of the group while the first had backed off. If they focused on one, the other was likely to capitalize on that and strike from behind.
The fight continued for another few minutes. Razor-sharp sand blasted against chitin. Moonlight flashed. Formation characters cracked carapace and stone alike. Shadows surged and daggers flew. All around He Yu the winds howled, while flickers of lightning crawled along his blade and over his skin. Still, the creatures stood their ground.
Then, a third creature emerged from the darkness. It rushed to join the fight in the center of the chamber, forcing Tan Xiaoling and Chen Fei apart. Tan Xiaoling managed to meet the creature attacking her blow-for-blow, her dao flashing in the pale light. Chen Fei wasn’t faring nearly as well. Barrier formations flared to life, protecting her from the creature’s onslaught, but Chen Fei was pushed back regardless. Amid its relentless strikes, she wasn’t able to mount any attacks of her own.
He Yu activated all his techniques at once. The Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering filled him with speed and added heavenly sparks to the winds that curled along his blade. The Sky Dragon’s Flight carried him across the cavern in only a handful of steps, and the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment showed him the opening he needed. The Rushing Wind wreathed his guandao as he struck the creature square in the back, the blade sinking into the seam that separated the two halves of its shell.
Ichor spurted from where he’d struck. The pungent scent of the creature’s distress redoubled again.
Yan Shirong dropped from the cave wall and wound strands of shadow around the creature’s limbs. Almost immediately it began to break free.
“We can’t stay,” he said.
He Yu couldn’t agree more. “To the crevice!” he shouted.
Li Heng flashed over in an instant, finally freeing up the creature he’d barely been holding back on his own. It rushed to aid the one fighting Tan Xiaoling and she broke off her fight as well, using her sandstorm to cover her retreat.
Within moments all five of the disciples were rushing up the tunnel leading to the crevice. Chen Fei had created a barrier formation behind them, blocking pursuit, but the creatures were already beating against it, and with each flash of the barrier at their strikes, the characters dimmed.
He Yu and Li Heng were the last in the tunnel when the barrier fell. The creatures surged up the passage, now seven in total. Li Heng shoved He Yu into the crack.
“Go,” he said.
Before he’d even made it halfway through the narrow crevice, he could hear the grinding of chitin against stone. The creatures were far too large to fit through the narrow gap, but they were intent on making it through anyway.
He Yu emerged from the gap to find the others waiting for him. Both Tan Xiaoling and Chen Fei looked more than a little roughed up. Yan Shirong disdainfully brushed off his robe but thankfully didn’t seem keen to comment on what had happened. A moment later, Li Heng emerged as well, a gash on his arm visible through his torn robe dripping blood. From the other side of the passage, the creatures still seemed intent on carving their way through.
“Outside,” Tan Xiaoling ordered. “I doubt they’ll venture far outside the cave, at least not during the day.”
“We can’t just let them loose onto the outer mountain,” He Yu said, even as he moved towards the entrance.
“Sure we can,” Yan Shirong said. “The sect will likely put up a bounty for them if they start causing trouble. If the elders deem it too dangerous, they’ll just send a squad of inner disciples to deal with them. I couldn’t get a sense of their advancement, but I’d wager that once they’re on the surface, they won’t be so tough. Without the strong qi from down there to draw upon, they’ll be unable to mend their shells as easily. A squad of Third Realms could likely take one down if it remained alone.”
He Yu wasn’t so sure he agreed with the assessment, but there was little he could do about it now. There was no way they could deal with seven of them, regardless of how much weaker they might become on the surface. They were all tired from the fight and had nothing to show for it. If there was anything he could take away from today, it was simply that he needed to train more.