A hundred presences of the Fourth Realm released at once. The aspects were all jumbled together, such that He Yu could only pick out hints of individuals within the riot of unleashed power. All the unrestrained qi made it difficult to concentrate, and it wasn’t helped by the additional weight of one hundred cultivators’ killing intent.

Dozens of techniques were released at once. Arrows, boulders, spikes, and more all screamed down the valley at the advancing horde. Next to He Yu, a black spear limned in flame formed. Tan Xiaoling released the Mark of the Dark Sun. A black blaze erupted from where her technique struck. Hundreds of beasts died, leaving a seared scar along the length of the valley.

He Yu thrust his guandao. Heaven’s Descending Blade, supported by the Rushing Wind, sent a torrent of golden sparking forks of heaven’s wrath down along the valley. Beasts and spirits died by the dozen. Like He Yu and Tan Xiaoling, each cultivator with any sort of ranged technique killed dozens or hundreds of the mostly First and Second Realm spirits and beasts.

It was far from enough. The horde continued to advance, driven by the empress’s will and heedless of their own losses. Inch by inch, foot by foot, they drew ever closer to the disciples at the top of the valley. The closer the beasts drew, the more died. The more that died, the closer they drew. When they finally drew close enough, Wei Hua ordered the counterattack.

With Li Heng and Tan Xiaoling on either side, He Yu rushed forward. Dozens of disciples joined them. In the three hundreds, everyone had formed their Golden Core. The melee oriented fighters waded into a field of death while techniques arced over their heads to thin the oncoming ranks still surging up the mountain from the west.

Heaven crackled through He Yu’s meridians and over his skin. His cultivation base cycled through the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, and each of his movements was little more than a flicker. The edge of his guandao bit into beast and spirit, and heaven poured down around him as he brought the storm to bear. He hardly had to think anymore. He simply fought. Countless hours of training, reinforced by the easy of being granted by his Wayborn Seed, all came together into the effortless execution of form and technique alike.

To one side, Li Heng spread winter. Frost lined his robe, his sword. It crept across the ground. Moonlight flashed each time he called upon the White Hare Dance. A silver river of qi streamed from his jian each time he released the Winter Moon Reflection. The frostbitten scars of the Darkmoon Strife turned beast flesh black. His touch was the cold, quiet death of a winter’s night.

Tan Xiaoling called forth her sandstorm. She became an eddying cyclone of grit and scouring shards. The heat from her sun burned and dessicated all it touched. She moved with the strength and grace of a tiger. Her paired dao flashed, and beasts fell. The sharp weight of her killing intent infused every one of her movements and techniques. She fought, and she did not hold back.

First and Second Realm beasts and spirits fell by the dozens. By the hundreds. The disciples held firm, slaughtering all who came. A single technique could fell dozens of Qi Gathering opponents, after all. At the Foundation stage, the beasts fared little better. Among the horde were a few opponents at Body Refining. But they were scattered and rare. They still fell quickly, but the strongest among them could survive one or two techniques from the early stage Golden Cores.

For the first hour or so, things remained more or less the same. First and Second Realms broke themselves upon a wall of Fourth Realm defenders. Beyond the passing thought that it seemed an awful waste, He Yu could only focus on the next swing, the next technique. He supposed that given enough time, enough bodies, the defenders would run out of qi, eventually. But it seemed an awful waste.

However, as the fight dragged on, those few at the Body Refining stage gradually became more frequent. At first, it might have been one in about two or three hundred. Then one in a hundred. One in fifty. One in ten.

By the time He Yu realized what had happened, over half the opponents he fought were equivalent to the Third Realm. Now, he had to actually try. Those around him had to try as well. Instead of felling dozens of opponents at once, it took two, three, sometimes four attacks to kill a single attacker. As the tide continued, and the Third Realm beasts only grew in number, more and more cultivators took wounds.

At first, it was fairly mild. A scrape here, a bruise there. But increasingly, He Yu found himself relying on the Spring Rain Mirror. Next to him, Li Heng took more and more attacks on his jian and the space between releasing his silver sword light lengthened beat by beat. Tan Xiaoling retreated more frequently into her sandstorm. By now, she couldn’t even spare the several breaths it took to for the Mark of the Dark Sun, and she had to fall back on the sandstorm itself and her raw martial prowess.

Step by step, the inner disciples of the Shrouded Peaks Sect ceded ground. They extracted a heavy price, paid in blood, for every scrap of dirt and stone they gave up, but they gave it up, regardless. The enemy who paid cared not for the cost. By now, First and Second Realms were all but absent. And while Golden Core stage cultivators had tremendous qi reserves, they weren’t limitless. He Yu could feel the drain, the ache in his dantian.

Stepping back from the front ranks, he took a restorative pill. In the brief respite, he looked over what the disciples had wrought. Corpses of beasts and the fading remains of spirits filled the valley below. His stomach turned at the idea that the Sunset Empress would simply throw away so many lives. Sure, spirits and beasts weren’t human, but both became more like humans the stronger they grew. Higher realm spirits and beasts could even take human forms. But these opponents were little better than mortal animals. It still bothered him, though. That Jin Xifeng would so callously throw away creatures that had, as far as He Yu could tell, fallen under her influence.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

In the endless twilight that had lasted now for hours, He Yu saw the first Golden Core stage spirit tearing its way through the tide before it. Heedless of its fellows, it ripped apart anything in its way with its wicked claws. It was of the same type He Yu had seen back at the town—a gaunt humanoid figure with long black hair, a gaping jaw filled with jagged teeth, and a long lolling tongue.

It lasted for a few moments when it reached the defenders. Being of the Fourth Realm, the disciples immediately recognized the threat it could pose and focused their attacks. Dozens of weapons and dozens of techniques fell upon the spirit. It didn’t even have a chance to form a proper technique of its own. It died almost as quickly as the First and Second Realms had. But it had taken the combined efforts of multiple defenders.

In the space, the distraction, caused by the Fourth Realm spirit, dozens of Body Refining beasts struck. Although nobody was injured seriously, there were injuries still. Several disciples had to fall back to take medicine from their own stores, or to seek treatment from the supporting disciples in reserve. If only for a few moments, the front line had thinned. He Yu felt the extra pressure instantly. Almost as if by some unseen and unheard signal, a dozen more Fourth Realm beasts appeared at the base of the valley.

“Do not let them close on the lines! Ranged techniques now!” ordered Wei Hua. The third-ranked core disciple stood above the fray, atop a pillar of stone. He’d been directing the defense, issuing down orders but not stepping in. As the Fourth Realms drew ever closer, He Yu wished he would.

Although it seemed a terrible waste, the strategy—if one could even call it that—had become apparent by this point. The sect’s disciples had been fighting for hours. They’d spent a good deal of their qi reserves on the beasts in the initial wave. On chaff. They’s been slaughtering ants, and while it hadn’t cost them much, it had still cost them.

They still maintained their dominating advantage, but with each additional Third Realm, the advantage grew smaller.

Now came the Fourth Realms. Fresh, with full cultivation, and ready to sacrifice themselves for their empress.

“It’s only a matter of time before they overwhelm us,” He Yu said, cutting down a Fourth Realm wolf with black fur and flames erupting from its eyes.

“Then we die on our feet,” Tan Xiaoling said. Her voice was strained with fatigue and effort. She’d taken several injuries—all minor, but they were starting to add up.

Li Heng caught a massive swipe from a red-furred bear with his jian. The Winter Moon Reflection flared, and a river of silver light poured forth. The bear screamed. He Yu slammed down his guandao. Metal bit into flesh, and a column of heaven fell on the beast. Li Heng gave He Yu a brief nod of thanks.

“I’d rather not die, if it’s just the same,” Li Heng said.

“Same,” He Yu echoed.

“We may not have a choice in the matter,” Tan Xiaoling said, pointing down the length of the valley with one of her sabers.

The first of the Fifth Realm beasts had arrived. Deep down, He Yu knew it had only been a matter of time. The lands to the west were wild, and rich in natural qi. The further west one went, the more powerful the spirits and beasts grew. According to everything he’d learned, Seventh Realms weren’t uncommon around the area of the Dawn Palace array. Or rather, the former Dawn Palace.

The grim reality of their situation settled in. As the battle dragged on, and the defenders grew weaker, the attackers would only grow stronger. Progressively, higher realm foes would throw themselves at the sect. By the end, they would have to contend with beasts and spirits that had reached as profound a level as the Seventh Realm—Divine Body Attainment.

Perhaps a half a dozen Golden Cores could wear down a beast of the Nascent Soul. Maybe two dozen could hold back—not defeat—a beast of the Soul Refining stage. But the defenders as they were, even those ranked above one hundred and under the command of Yi Xiurong couldn’t hold back what was surely coming.

Not even the core disciples could hold back beasts of the Seventh Realm. Among them, only Yi Xiurong had advanced past Nascent Soul. And she was only of the low Sixth Realm.

But with the first Fifth Realm beast, He Yu finally glimpsed the sect’s strategy as Wei Hua released his presence.

Wei Hua—the third-ranked core disciple—was of the late Fifth Realm. His presence fell over the assembled defenders like an avalanche. He was a monument of stone, a mountain capped by eternal snow, with a glacier carving out the surrounding land. He was all weight and strength. His frozen spirit couldn’t have been more different from Li Heng’s—rather than a quiet creeping cold, it was the feeling of an eternal glacier. Season didn’t matter, the ice never melted, never retreated. It was more like stone than an aspect of water.

The weight of his spirit crashed down on the approaching beast—a silver-furred stag with horns of amber crystals. Wei Hua stepped forward and made an incantation gesture. Spires of stone erupted from the earth all around the stag. Wei Hua made another incantation gesture, and a blast of frigid air froze the stag in place. A third incantation gesture, and the stage turned to stone. Wei Hua tapped it on the nose with his fan, and it crumbled to dust and snow.

The third-ranked disciple called over his shoulder, “Hold the pass. I shall deal with any Fifth Realms foolish enough to test the strength of the Shrouded Peaks Sect.”

From nearby, but out of sight, the other core disciples finally entered the battle. Their presences expanded to eclipse even the hundreds of gathered Golden Cores defending the valley entryways. Zhang Lifen’s churning black sea crashed over her foes, more violent than He Yu had ever felt it. The deep, life-giving forest of Su Meifeng expanded to protect the disciples under her watch, even as ancient trees lifted their roots to choke the life from the horde. A presence He Yu didn’t recognize, formed of a thousand swords wielded with the experience of a thousand experts emanated from what could only be the fourth-ranked disciple. Ren Huang, the blazing black wolf with embers for eyes, trotted forward and burned all before him. The brilliant radiance of Yi Xiurong simply erased everything that it touched, leaving only stark purity in its wake.

Even as he struggled shoulder-to-shoulder with Li Heng and Tan Xiaoling, He Yu allowed himself to feel a tiny glimmer of hope.