Jie cycled lightning step and qi armor, thankful that she'd had time to more than replenish after her fight with the mummies as the cloud of noctilith that'd been chasing them boiled through the entrance. Their massive mandibles snapped eagerly at the air as they lit up with black qi.
Jie lashed out with chain finger of light attacks, incinerating them like she had those in the corridor as the crackling flash of dragon lightning qi jumped from one to the other. But there were far more of them here and more shoved the dead out of the way in a rush to get at Jie and her friends, their enormous eyes reflecting the glow of their various energies.
Jie sent out attacks one after another as fast as she could while Pan Tian sliced at the air, unleashing great sweeping arcs of her resplendent white qi and Ithilix threw out green darts of her poisonous qi. Xue stepped forward as his chest swelled and he exhaled a bright blue beam of dragon lightning qi, turning his head and washing it over the cloud of noctilith.
The creatures shrieked as they died agonizing deaths but that did nothing to dissuade the swarm.
The building shuddered and pieces of stone broke off from the doorway as noctilith forced their way through. Dragon lightning qi arced almost continuously from Jie's fingers as she sent out attacks as fast as she could. But, even with her incredible speed and power killing countless numbers of them, they still forced their way forward. Jie heard the furious hum of wings like the howl of a storm surrounding the building. What's more, the echoing buzz of wings and scrabble of chitinous legs echoed from the three passageways around them.
And it was getting closer.
Jie cycled more qi into her qi armor, making it glow brightly and crackle and snap over her. She hoped it'd attract the noctilith into attacking her and ignoring her friends when they reached them. Many of the noctilith were weak enough for the others to deal with, but she sensed at least two at the ninth star expert rank somewhere within the swarm.
Jie found herself wishing she had a more impressive area attack and a better way to protect her friends than this.
Still, the bottleneck of the main entrance, large though it was, allowed Jie and her friends to make the noctilith pay a high price in blood for every foot of ground they gained.
At least until yet more noctilith rushed into the room from the three other passageways like a rising tide of black chitin flooding the building. The noctilith pouring in from the passageways forced the four of them to direct their attacks in every direction and allowed the noctilith to surge through the front entrance.
Some rushed directly at Jie and her friends and were sliced, incinerated, or shot full of poisonous qi while others circled, creating a swirling vortex of flying noctilith that drew ever closer.
A noctilith reached Ithilix, opening its jaws wide, its mandibles pulsing with deadly, poisonous qi. Ithilix speared it in the side of its head, sending its snapping mandibles away from her as she stabbed another with the stinger on her tail. She drove the point of her stinger through its head and pinned it, scrambling and screeching to the floor as she decapitated a third with her serrated arm.
Pan Tian sliced apart anything that reached her with arcs of her brilliant qi as a cluster of noctilith surrounded her. One attacked her from behind. Pan Tian turned on the toe of her hoof to face it and charged straight into it with her moon step. She smashed into it like a blazing white comet and left a trail of energy behind her.
She knocked it across the room where it crashed into one of the walls, splattering its yellow blood everywhere and bringing more dust and sand raining down upon them all. Another noctilith went for Xue who leaped onto one and ripped it to pieces with crackling claws while breathing a stream of dragon lightning qi over the swarm flying around them.
Jie unleashed her chain lightning into the vortex of chitin around them, reducing clusters of noctilith to ash and ruin in an instant. But it was like trying to drain a river with a bucket as two noctilith flooded in to replace each one she killed.
"We can handle ourselves, Jie! Take out the stronger ones!" Pan Tian cried.
"I'm trying!" Jie yelled over the noise around them, "I can't keep track of them with so many auras around!"
Her spirit sense brushed against one of the ninth star Expert noctilith for a moment, but she lost it again just as quickly. She gritted her teeth as she focused as best she could on her spirit sense even as she fired chain finger of light attacks at the swarm around them.
From the brief glimpses she caught of the stronger noctilith, she was relieved to note that their qi didn't feel anywhere near the same quality level as the mummies had been. But their presence still sent a spike of fear through her as her friends were in the room this time.
A weak sixth star Adept noctilith tried to bite Jie's face and she smacked it with the back of her hand. She allowed her qi armor to react to it, causing it to explode in a shower of gore. In that instant, she sensed one of the ninth star Experts again. Behind her, in the process of diving at Ithilix with fangs that dripped necrotic qi.
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Jie spun and leaped at it, using the speed granted her by lightning step to move impossibly quickly as she grabbed its mandibles when they were but inches from biting into Ithilix's neck.
Jie continued with the motion of her jump, pulling the noctilith away from Ithilix by its jaws and forcing its two front legs to leave the ground as it reared back.
But the rest of its legs remained firmly stuck to the ground and it wrestled against Jie, trying to dive forward at Ithilix once more.
Jie squeezed its mandibles so hard the chitin cracked beneath her grip, its pulsing, necrotic, poisonous qi hissing against her radiant blue armor.
Jie formed a lightning step platform in the air and pushed off it with all her strength. She pried the rest of the noctilith's legs off the floor and rocketed across the room away from Ithilix, through several other noctilith, splattering them apart and shattering their chitinous exoskeletons on impact.
She flipped and spun through the air with the noctilith and finally slammed it back first into the ground. She crushed another noctilith beneath it and broke the ninth star's chitin open as the ancient stone floor cracked from the force of the impact. Just to be safe, Jie formed a dragonfist and punched it directly into one of its enormous eyes.
It felt like punching a large egg. At first, it resisted but then suddenly gave, sending her arm elbow deep into its gooey insides which exploded on contact with her dragonfist.
"Ugh!" Jie exclaimed as part of her wondered why her qi armor was so incredibly useful at blocking attacks but failed utterly to spare her from the disgusting feeling of blood, guts, and other assorted muck.
Still, she didn't pull her hand back and instead kept it inside the creature and cycled a full power finger of light attack directly inside it. The attack was excessive, but after seeing undead noctilith so recently, she had no wish to allow one of the more powerful specimens a chance to come back and attack her friends.
Lightning dragon qi pulsed from her fingers, lighting up the creature from inside like a bomb going off shortly before it exploded everywhere, showering her in smoking gore that her armor only partially blocked.
Jie sensed the other ninth star Expert then and turned her gaze up at its perch on the ceiling on Pan Tian's side of the room.
Its soulless eyes reflected the battle around them as its mandibles quivered and glistened with drool and black qi as its tail pulsed with blue light. The swarm flittered, crawled, and attacked all around Jie, but she focused on it alone as it was by far the biggest threat.
Jie unleashed a full power finger of light attack at the ninth star Expert noctilith. The bright blue arc of dragon lightning qi scorched the air and burned its way through three weaker noctilith on its path to the ninth star Expert.
The ninth star Expert noctilith sprang off the ceiling with surprising speed, opening its wings and using some kind of movement skill that left a trail of deadly black qi behind it. Jie's lightning bolt grazed one of its back legs and incinerated it at the knee. It screeched and its flight faltered for a moment as its black qi oozed over its body. The noctilith shimmered and turned invisible as its aura faded into nothingness.
Jie fired another finger of light attack, guessing at where it might be but hit only weaker noctilith, incinerating them in an instant. They fell out of the air in burning fragments of chitin and ash as what was left of their wings spiraled slowly to the floor.
Jie spun and pushed her spirit sense to scan the room as hard as she could. She felt the auras of her friends. The countless swarming, hungry auras of the noctilith around them... attacks from both sides... but she couldn't sense the one thing that mattered most.
She frantically looked at her friends, searching for something. Any sign of where it might strike. If it attacked them, their only hope of surviving was entirely in her hands. She looked at Xue, then Pan Tian, and Ithilix. She tried to find some disturbance in the swarm around them. Some indication of where it was. Something...
Anything...
Mandibles snapped shut around Jie's neck from behind as the ninth star Expert noctilith bit down hard on her, breaking its invisibility as it did so. The serrations of its mandibles were covered in black necrotic qi and pressed into her qi armor like needles as the force of the sudden attack sent Jie to her knees. Her qi armor crackled and snarled in thunderous protest. Yet, relief that it'd chosen to attack her washed over her with such force that she let out a shuddering sigh even with the insect's jaws around her neck.
Jie reinforced her qi armor and her muscles as she pried open its mandibles with her hands. She kept an iron grip on its mandibles as she lifted them above her head, unwilling to allow it to escape and threaten her friends.
The noctilith shrieked and writhed as Jie forced its jaws wider and wider then ripped them apart in a spray of yellow blood that rained on Jie's head. Her revulsion only fueled her aggression as she whirled on the creature and stabbed it in the head with its own mandibles. She used the pair of them like serrated daggers and drove them deep into where she thought its brain ought to be.
Weaker noctilith attacked Jie while she was busy but a single thought caused her qi armor to react and annihilate the weaker noctilith while knocking those strong enough to survive the blast away from her.
The ninth star Expert still moved, shrieked, and writhed. Its wings fluttered as it spasmed with agony. Jie formed a dragonfist above her knee and yanked the creature's face into it even as she drove her knee upward. Dragon lightning qi exploded on contact, blasting huge chunks of the ninth star Expert noctilith's head away as lightning arced over its body.
It spasmed violently and Jie dropped her hold, allowing the noctilith to collapse upon the floor. She followed it up with a full-powered finger of light attack that burned a path through the noctilith, cutting it into two smoldering pieces. Just to be sure.
Satisfied that it no longer presented a threat, Jie returned her attention to the uncountable noctilith surrounding them. Lightning raced through the cloud of noctilith in a storm of fury and death as Jie killed as many noctilith as she could.
Ithilix, Pan Tian, and Xue started getting overrun despite Jie's best efforts, however.