The sound of pine trees breaking woke the most local defenders up from stupor, but this was what the organized groups of students were waiting for. The biggest threat were the high ranked beasts and fortunately their size allowed them to be easily spotted.
The moment they appeared, the three student groups charged in three different directions and like large arrows penetrated the beast wave, leaving behind a bloody path of dead bodies. The few local Nascent soul stage cultivators also began to dive down behind the treeline to take out the strongest beasts or at least to slow them down.
Leo had witnessed the formation training Musa’s group went through and immediately guessed their objective, but to local’s it seemed as if the experts from the War Academy were simply charging into the wave without an actual target.
Many raised their weapons intending to charge forth, but Leo realized that not only they would run to their deaths, there was a likely possibility the locals would get in the way of the students. The three dozens students might seem a puny amount, but their formations were incredibly effective.
For example, Musa’s squad this time was led by Lily who, with a wide, but cold smile on her face, literally froze wolves in batches allowing the younger students below act like a meat grinder. Even though she hated the rain, it made everything wet allowing her ice affinity to shine and her techniques were potent enough to effect large areas of the tide significantly slowing it down.
Finally Leo realized why he couldn’t be a part of any of those three formations. Each student there was handpicked to effectively support the rest and as the result the performance of the group increased tenfold, if not more. He, on the other hand, with his lightning element might cause more harm than good. Indeed, the academy’s elders were no fools.
But most locals in a rather disorderly fashion followed the three formations, fortunately maintaining some distance and not directly disturbing their advancement. While those groups of local cultivators were more or less fine, the ones gathered behind Leo didn’t have a strong force leading their way. If they charged into the wave of beasts most might loose their lives right away.
“HOLD!” Leo raised his fist and shouted at the people behind him.
It didn’t matter what they thought of him – he saw them for the first and last time in life anyway. What mattered was to allow Musa’s group to eliminate the two rank sevens who just appeared behind the trees and rapidly charged towards the city.
Either it was Leo’s heroic appearance, at least in the eyes of locals, or their instinctive reaction to follow orders of a stronger cultivator, the group of people behind him stopped in their tracks. They were confused, but surely their hero wasn’t going to order them to retreat, right? They watched the other city people already hacking beasts in the distance with envy and with every passing moment the earlier fear and stress transformed into anger.
Fortunately, before it was directed at him, Leo grabbed the Cleaver, verified there were no high rank beasts coming their way and charged forth, mumbling under his nose the ‘f*ck them!’ everyone shouted earlier. Strangely enough, his curse was picked up the closest guys behind him, who repeated the suit and soon the group of tens of people, shouting ‘f*ck them’ charged in the battlefield.
No matter how busy everyone was with their own fights, the shout was heard all around the battlefield and while most of the male students found it silly or even hilarious, the girls blushed and got angry. The locals though got all fired up and joined their fellow citizens and soon the whole battlefield had only one battle cry that muffled the growls, whimpers and howls of agony.
It might’ve taken a long time to describe, but from the moment the first beast appeared till Leo rushed into the beast wave only a couple of heartbeats passed. It was enough for the morale on the battlefield to change completely and he gladly joined the locals. Widely slashing the Cleaver left and right, he became a meat grinder as well, happily shouting ‘f*ck them!’ at every other swing.
The student formations expertly picked out the biggest threats and Leo was left with packs of rank threes and fours, and a rare rank five that didn’t make any difference. The biggest problem turned out to be the local crowd that quickly caught up to him. Seeing that chaotically slashing around might hurt someone besides the beasts, Leo increased his speed and, fueling large amounts of Qi to his feet, charged further in, in hopes the locals would do their own thing and he would be left alone.
It would’ve been one thing if he competed in speed with someone on an empty road, but here, while killing beasts, it was hard to gain a significant advantage over cultivators of similar stage. No matter how he tried, they always caught up to their ‘hero’ and ‘leader’, even though it wasn’t as easy.
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Pretty soon Leo became desperate and pushed his own abilities to the limits. The force he used swinging the Cleaver was the biggest he could muster and the beasts were not cleaved in halves anymore – with every weapon swing several wolves exploded raining blood and organ pieces all over, but everything was quickly washed away by the thick rain.
When the Nascent soul stage experts caught the sight of Leo’s berserk combat style, they had to pinch themselves to verify if they were dreaming or not. While one could fool around like this at their level, a regular Core formation stage cultivator would run out of Qi rather quickly. But for some reason this guy didn’t care and what baffled them the most was that he constantly kept speeding up! It didn’t make any sense at all!
The people in the crowd that followed Leo were having the time of their life. They cheered and shouted all fired up, formed simple formations themselves and charged after the weird youth. Obviously it was not like they were running on an empty field – the beasts kept coming from the sides, madly attacking any human they got close to. Everyone had their hands full and people got injured from time to time as well, but fortunately no one was wounded seriously.
It was already dark when Leo finally stopped. Only a rare beast charged from the forest now and then and the danger was finally over, at least from this side. After throwing a glance around, he noticed that the student squads had disappeared and apparently moved over to other sides of the city. It was a blessing the beast tide didn’t arrive from all directions at the same time, allowing humans to regroup.
After Leo finally paused for a break, the group that followed him all this time similarly stopped and expectantly looked at him, awaiting further instructions. The youth got confused for moment, but then realized what was going on.
He said, “You guys are the last ones here. You should go and help to clean up the city, just don’t run around alone. Form groups and don’t separate for your own safety. If a lone high ranked beast has managed to sneak in, don’t fight it thoughtlessly – call for help. There are quite a few Nascent soul stage experts around, you know?”
Many of the guys only now noticed they were the last ones left on the field covered with lifeless bodies of the beasts. The crazed fight had finally ended, although most guessed that probably there were ongoing fights somewhere else. After all before the tide the local leaders informed their citizens of the best ways to defend as well as the ways the disaster could unfold.
“Are you coming with us?” One of the locals asked Leo with a tinge of hope in his voice.
Only now the youth realized how spent he was. There was no risk of Qi deprivation yet, but he was not far from it. Of course, he had to maintain the academy’s face and couldn’t honestly say he was done.
“I’ll keep the watch here, just in case.” Leo did his best to choose the correct wording, “Don’t worry, guys. You are stronger than you think! Go, protect your city!”
He wanted to slightly encourage them, but the tired crowd suddenly got energetic again.
“Ye, f*ck them! Let’s go!” One after another the citizens shouted and charged towards the city, fortunately more or less still staying together.
Leo though, waited till the last one was gone and heavily sat on the dirty ground covered with beast remains. The rain stopped some time ago, but, truth to be said, it would’ve been better if it continued to rain – at least it would’ve washed away the disgusting stench that covered the battlefield.
He really, really wanted to pass out, but he knew some late ‘guests’ might arrive at any moment, just like those he met in Zhetikara. Thus he didn’t cultivate, but performed simple breathing exercises in order to replenish strength, at least superficially.
Leo was lucky. Until the sunrise no dangerous high ranked beasts showed up. There were few rank six bears who ‘came late to the party’, but a local Nascent soul stage expert arrived from who knows where, killed them and, after throwing a complicated glance towards the lone youth, left again.
When everyone met at the camp site, Leo saw the rest of the students were just as spent as him. Even the haughty Lily looked unnaturally pale and moved slightly sluggishly. Apparently the battle at the other sides of the city was not less taxing than the first one, but from what Leo heard, there were very few casualties although fortunately this time none of the students died. Dzharla has been defended successfully.
With the guys at the Nascent soul stage taking turns to watch over the camp, the rest recovered their strength. In the evening Leo tried to go out and find a game to roast, but quickly realized how foolish the idea was. The forests in the radius of tens of miles were deserted after the last night, thus all he could do was to catch a larger fish from the river right next to the camp and cook that.
Even though most fellow students were cultivating, Leo knew the real place for him to cultivate at was the island with the Divine tribulation trees. A day of practicing there might be equal to a month of practicing anywhere else, thus he decided to relax and not worry about anything.
A short while later Alice and her brother joined him, although still tired and slightly pale and the trio spent the night at the bonfire, chatting about unimportant stuff. As always, when the dinner was almost ready, Musa showed up, but took ‘his’ skewer with a nod and didn’t say a word till the morning.
When it was time to leave, the group of students got a surprise. A crowd that felt like half of the city had gathered, arrived at the camp site with flowers and treats as thanks to the heroes who saved their city. At first some wanted to offer the best alcohol of their households as well, but, seeing how young some of the students looked in the daylight, hesitated.
After the lord of the city exchanged few pleasantries with the squad leaders, everyone assumed the event was over. But then, suddenly, a few people, apparently from the group who followed Leo last night, showed up and without saying a word picked him up on their shoulders and loudly cheered. The blushed and confused youth didn’t manage to react despite his cultivation base and soon the whole crowd cheered at him as well. No one noticed who was the first, but following them one after another people began shout ‘speech!’, ‘speech!’, ‘Leo, give us a speech!’ and soon the whole crowd from the city demanded a speech from a guy called Leo, even though most had no clue who he was.
The city lord felt no less awkward than Leo, but he was an experienced man and reacted quickly. While thinking to himself ‘Heavens, please don’t mess anything up!’, he fought his way over to the bunch holding Leo, made an inviting gesture and the crowd instantly fell silent.