Jess finally stood up. Now that Grace had let her feelings out, she'd somehow felt lighter.

She also felt like she'd weighed lighter and she tested it out by hopping.

"What happened to me?" She said.

"You took one of Fa Za's special cultivator potions."

"If so, I should thank him. I feel like a million bucks?"

"I fail to see what deer have to do with your current situation, but go on."

Jess scanned the area, and her nascent soul snapped to her attention. She was nearly overloaded with how much she could see at once.

Two lines, her cultivators and the rock beasts formed in a half-circle around the western part of the town. Behind her, villagers were boarding ships to sail away. Their egress had been cut short in any other direction.

There was only one boat remaining, and Jess could feel the shifting crowd of people that was boarding.

The rest of the town would be silent if it weren't for the constant rock demolition.

"We can draw these away, but I have a better idea. Blue is making quick work of anyone that attacks the chokepoint entrance," Grace said.

"Draw them back to the choke point then? Or sweep them towards Blue?" Jess asked as she limbered up. She never skipped the warmups in jiu-jitsu. It wasn’t that she looked down on the old guys and gals that did, she just needed that time.

"Sweep them from right to left?" Grace ventured.

"Yes, elder."

Jessica Kim, Sect Leader of the Cold Steel Sect, knelt and then jumped hundreds of meters from the town center to the right flank of her battle lines.

Right into a punch to the face. The beasts had all been watching her.

Jess rocked back, braking in midair. She’d never attempted to do that particular maneuver and the rock beasts didn't seem to know what to do about it. Far ahead of her Blue and Fa Za traded blows with the invaders.

"Pardon me, rock guys, but do you mind if I roll on through?" Jess yelled.

And then she accelerated from her flying standstill.

She pushed and connected with the first of two rock beasts, buffeting them back. She found one core and faster than she'd ever done, pulled the qi into her core.

Her core and dantian were working double-time as she realized that it had expanded further while she was knocked out.

If she'd reached the sixth realm, she didn’t have the time to celebrate her victory.

She needed to fill up fast.

Jess readied a pulse of cold energy, removing the heat from around her.

Pleasantly surprised at herself, the much smaller amount of qi required jumped into action. A cone of absolute zero sprung up in a circle around her.

Jess went to work. within the cone, time slowed. Five beasts ran into it unaware. They slowed to a crawl.

She weaved past a savage punch, hitting the beast with an uppercut.

Then, just as quickly she was on top of the rocky protuberance.

Jess smashed the rocky beast with her fist.

Icy shards flew away from her, pelting others in her path.

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Her core pulled the beasts' qi into her own as she ground through her cycle. She could feel her core pushing to expand even further.

Two beasts closed in on her and she nimbly moved around them.

Her mouth was cold and dry as she punched down one, then the other.

One of the rock beasts slammed into her side, knocking her off her feet, and she rolled to a stop.

Her head rang, as she saw double. The beast appeared to dust its hands as it launched into another attack. Just as soon as the double image disappeared, it was upon her, trading blows impossibly fast.

No stones about it, Jess was feeling threatened for the first time in a long time.

She relished it.

The monster rushed her and she dove left.

She rolled up and went into her basic fighting stance. From behind her, another one of the lower realm monsters tried to attack her. She backhanded it as she watched the faster beast turn. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blue standing over a pile of cracked rocks, pounding on his chest.

The fifth realm or higher beast bellowed as she drained the backhanded rock beast behind her. Quickly searching with her nascent soul, she recognized that the closest five were slowing almost to a stop.

The beast heaved itself forward, not bothering to run anymore as it flew towards her. For the briefest moment, Jess thought about playing airplane with her little cousins whenever they would come over.

Then she grinned, rolling onto her aching back as she kicked the rock beast as hard as she could. It tried to ineffectively do the scooby doo run in the air, but its trajectory was already clear to Jess.

Blue hit it with everything he had, and Jess refocused on the remaining spiritual beasts.

Around her, the air was suddenly alive as aunties came out from behind cover and concealment and let loose.

The air was filled with explosions around her and Jess turned to see Blue once again, doing his best impression of a frat boy at a college rager. She might have to fix that one day, but today was not the day. She silently thanked the aunties for developing the explosive sandal technique, second only to the infinite tea technique.

She waved for the aunties to follow from the ridge as she traced a path back to the chokepoint and Blue.

She came into the clearing and saw Fa Za trying ineffectively to do the same thing that she had been doing but from the opposite side. Grace floated down next to her.

“Shall we help the poor elder?” Jess said.

“Gladly,” Grace nodded.

Grace and Blue jumped straight into it.

Both of them crackled with power and Jess could feel that both were hungry.

Unfortunately for them, she was hungrier and faster.

Jess leaped over her disciple and knocked a rock beast forward as they skidded. For a second she saw double as they screeched to a halt.

Then she was back in it, pushing her hand through the beast's chest. The more she stole qi, the more she felt like it was right. Who were these beasts, to steal the natural qi of the land and then use it to kill people and destroy their way of life?

The qi wanted to be at peace with nature, and as she ground her energy through her core, so did she.

Off to her right, a line of beasts was approaching. The reinforcements, perhaps or the second wave, were nearly upon her people.

Jess jumped to the top of the nearby ridge and searched out with her spiritual sense.

The boats were all loaded, and they were moving. She hoped beyond hope that she had done enough for these people, and now, they needed to draw the attention and ire of not only Rahelish but this legion of spiritual beasts.

There were far more people to save at Heaven’s Mountain school anyway.

“Follow me!” Jess yelled over the muffled sound of rocks breaking and slamming.

“Follow me!” One of the aunties' voices rose about the din, and Jess realized that it was Mary. She was making a beeline for Jess, and a line of cultivators echoed the command behind her.

Mary was bleeding from a head wound and her right eye was red and swollen shut, but she had a resolve that Jess could only hope to match.

Ahead of her, Blue was tossed through the wall of a house, and she peeked in. He was lying in a heap, and his hair was full of mortar and bricks, but he was alive.

“Is that all you have?” She asked.

“No, master! This one has more!”

“STUDENTS!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, “WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION!”

She’d prepared them for this, and they’d trained a few times just for the effect.

“JUSTICE!” They yelled, but a lot of it was garbled. Aunties started to crowd the ridge around Jess.

She paused to look around.

“AND HOW DO WE SERVE IT?”

“ICE COLD!”

Blue zipped out of the house, his entire body covered in electric blue qi as he smashed into two rock monsters, one after another, then drained both.

“AWOOOOOO!”

Blue howled.

Jess had hoped that some form of intimidation would work against these spiritual beasts, but it wasn’t for them. This was for her students.

This was for the people of Stone Fish.

Jess’s eyes blazed with the calm blue qi as she summoned all of the aurae of ice and cold in the area, pooling it around the assembled group. She drew the heat out of the air to increase the density of the cold aura and formed several piles of ice around her. It was a fraction of her qi, and its loss made her hungry, but she saw her next meal ahead of her.

As one, the group began to cycle as Grace, Blue, and Fa Za all mopped up the last of the first wave. A quiet silence passed over them.

Jess felt the boat far enough off to see that she could risk redirecting the beasts ahead of them.

“To the Heavens mountain School!”

She would give them another minute to cycle before the battle was met again. They deserved that much at least.