Fa Za led the column of cultivators back through the evergreen forest. Every so often they would stop and exchange blows with a spiritual beast, and behind them a line of crushing rocks was looming.

All of the third realm students had been ushered to the front.

Grace and Jess had been alternating covering their exit, and then turned into the rearguard.

The Heaven’s Mountain school finally came into view as they exited the forest. Ahead of them, clutches of spiritual beasts attempted to grind the walls into dust, not to mention his Sect.

Three dead cultivators leaned against a wall. Fa Za recited a silent prayer for their dead souls.

Then they were noticed, and Fa Za felt the third realm cultivators begin their group cycling attack as they all worked to power up blue.

He was battered and beaten, black and blue all over, but he didn’t act hurt.

“I do believe that now is a *great* time for stabbing,” an all too familiar voice said.

Fa Za turned to see Sa Kon being held but Ah Le. She extended her arm out, offering his old spear back to him.

“You’re sure?” he said.

“Honestly, no, but Elder Jessica said that she wants to see what you can do with it.”

Fa Za accepted the spear.

“Sa Kon, I do believe you’re correct about one thing,” he said, “I really feel a need to stab something.”

In his hands, he felt the spear undulating with pleasure.

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He grabbed it, moving the demon spear to second position.

With his right arm bent, his left hand grasped the spear lightly. He tested a lunge, and in feeling the heft, he nodded appreciatively.

Fa Za, elder of the Heaven’s Mountain branch school, was back.

“Take your people around and flank to the left,” he said, “This part is personal.”

Ah Le barked some commands, driving them around off to the side as Fa Za walked to the waiting rock beasts.

He did not hurry because that was not his lot in life. He merely took his time and he would arrive when he was good and ready.

The poor beasts didn’t know what was about to hit them, but Sa Kon purred with delight. Fa Za tried to recall the last time he’d heard the spear purr.

He couldn’t recall such a time.

There was always a first time for everything.

Fa Za sighed, looking around for a mesh of qi or shadow he could exploit.

Seeing none, he sighed.

He would have to do this the hard way.

“Let the Sect see how a pure spear cultivator slays his enemies,” he breathed.

“Yasss, king! SLAY!” The spear said.

The first of three giant rock beasts closed the distance with him. They were fast for two tons of rocks hastily put together, but the fact that they were wielding trees gave him pause.

He’d known the beasts to throw the trees, but these three treated their trees like spears.

Or swords. One lunged at him in a classic fencing pose, trying to skewer him with the tip of his “sword”.

Fa Za jumped up, landing deftly onto the tree as it retracted.

He extended his own spear.

To his right, another tree ‘spear’ caught him off guard, pushing him away. He flew, steadying himself with Sa-Kon as he maneuvered back the way he’d come.

This time, he just went for it, diving directly on top of the closest rock beast.

“Ahhhhh!” Sakon pulsed irritably, and Fa Za could feel his core filling up. It had been too long.

Around him, his body pulsed with the shadow and he felt his qi mesh area drop into place. Two rock beasts had tripped the thin line of unbreakable qi he’d been leaking as he moved around.

Fa za tightened his grip on the small web of qi.

He pulled with all of his might, straining his dantian as qi flushed his meridians.

First one, then a second confused beast flew at him.

He ignored the first, dodging low. That one would go to the backup behind him.

The second one was his intended.

He raised Sa Kon like a pike, impaling the moving beast. As he did so, he extended his nascent soul to its fullest extent.

The force behind the rock beast bent but didn’t break the demon spear.

An old trick, he used the incoming qi to supercharge his spiritual senses as well as to cut the harshness of seeing a kilometer around himself in detail.

“Sluuurp!” Sa Kon said, and it sounded like a rock concert in Fa Za’s ears. He pushed that feeling aside as he tried to feel every single being around him.

One was almost upon him, and he pulled out his second trick. Being in the shadow of the beast, he melted into the darkness.

He reappeared one hundred meters away in the shade of a large evergreen tree.

His hands shook.

Next to him, Jessica, his other intended, looked at him expectantly.

“We need to run,” he said, his voice wavering, “too many of the incoming beasts are going to flatten us. I sensed several sixth realm equivalent beasts.”

He saw her raise a hand, pulling the students back. Even as they did, he returned to his route back home. Many of them looked sick and a few had puked next to him.

"Lead the way," Jessica said.