Andrea Proske felt the demonic fear wash over her, a wave of sickening chi that threatened to invade her open mana gates and taint her mana, sapping her strength, filling her with fear and despair. She was a Yang stage cultivator, and her meridians were woven of the same crystal that formed her mana heart. Such a weak and dispersed field of corruption could no more infiltrate her dantain and rob her of spiritual strength than the sweat on her brow would dissolve her talisman etched masterwork armour.

No, her fear was not magical, it was very mundane. Months of intensive training had given her the abilities of a comic book superhero or video game character in her old world. She had the strength to lift a car, speed to run down a racehorse, magical techniques that allowed her to shatter a pillar of stone five feet thick with her spear, yet she was terrified.

They had sparred, they had fought the other disciples, and they had only found each other to be any challenge at all. In their pride and arrogance as summoned heroes, with every instructor telling them they were unparallelled genius, ordained by the Gods of the Celestial Palace as declared in the prophesies of the Celestial Dragons, and communicated through the Sect Leaders, the High Priests, and even through the Imperial Family. They could not lose.

Around her, the 1st Territorial Army, the elite formation of the capital, officered by the highest noble houses of the Empire, and backed by whole platoons of sword cultivators from each of the sects sworn to the Empire was dying.

William hovered in the air, his cauldron before him as he chanted and worked his arts to brew flesh dissolving acids that rained down upon the charging demon horde, mostly formed of enchanted and corrupted mortals, but with thousands of lesser demons mixed in. Their flesh dissolved under his attacks, yet they did not slow, did not stop, did not relent as their flesh sloughed off, still they tore at the Imperial soldiers in their bright silks and ornate armour, willing to drive themselves all the way onto a sword or spear as long as they could reach the poor mortal soldier holding it.

Brock raged among the demons, his sword cutting them down like a farmer scything wheat and they simply ignored him to reach the soldiers behind.

Serena sailed above, walking on air to send down slashes of sword chi enhanced by flames to cut down demons from within the ranks of mortals, but the enchanted mortals she ignored hammered the imperial lines like a sledgehammer striking glass.

Andrea swore as she screamed at the men around her to hold, that the fear wasn’t real, but she could do that. Her cultivation was higher than any of the soldiers. The troops were only mortal, the bravest of them held firm, but the weakness of the demonic chi infiltrating their one or two open mana gates and corrupting their dantain with demonic chi left them too filled with fear and despair even to raise their weapons to block, let alone strike back at the foe. Those who were less brave tossed aside their weapons and began to flee.

The great noble officers who had cultivation at least as high as the heroes, even if not as strong as those peerless geniuses, fled in fear that had nothing to do with the effect of Demon Sui’s magic, and everything to do with knowing they were the Young Masters of their respective noble Houses and unwilling to die in a battle that was clearly lost. They did not wait to call their personal elites, the only soldiers with the ability to not only hold against the demonic effect, but physically throw them back, and gather those house troops in their personal defense as they fled.

Here and there, some young officers valued their oaths more than their lives and rallied their troops. Here and there some older officers chose to use their cultivation not to cast flashy fireballs or lightning bolts, but to shield their troops from the demonic chi. These small islands of order were like stones on the beach as the tide simply washed around them.

Everywhere else, the Imperial Army shattered, its bright silks and banners trampled, its fine horses screaming in fear as they were gutted by corrupted wolves, its men throwing their spears and bows, their swords and shields aside as those that ran slowest under their arms and armour were screaming like souls in hell as the demons feasted on them while they still lived.

War in the empire was a formalized affair, a ritualized series of manoeuvres in which the loser eventually realized he had been placed in a losing position and surrendered. The great clashes were between small numbers of elite cultivators, with the bulk of the soldiers only seeing actual battle to cut down any enemy that was foolish enough not to surrender on terms when they had lost the battle of manoeuvres.

War was about profit for sects, about face and profit for nobles. It was about control of resources and status or political power, it was not about the destruction of the peasant soldiers. They were expensive to raise and equip, and as mortals, only really useful for a decade or two before they needed replacement. No one went about battling to the last man, where was the profit in that? Certainly no one killed officers. You could make your fortune ransoming back a defeated officer to his family. Nobles only died in war in the great battles of champions. They did not get run down and torn apart screaming by mobs of demons as they pleaded for their lives. They did not see mad peasants ignore offers of gold and cultivation treasures, ignoring even terrible wounds just to close enough to rip at the exalted young masters flesh, and stuff handfuls of it into their mouths even as they died from the acid rain and poison bolts they ran through to reach the lords.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Andrea tried to keep her company alive, but her example meant nothing to any save the other officer class or elite soldiers with the cultivation to resist. Every soldier they had brought who did not have at least bone refinement was nothing more than a victim. Most of the troops were unawakened, only a handful of mana gates open, no control over their chi, no defense at all against the demonic effects.

They were straw.

We brought an army of straw to the demons, so we could be caught up in the flames as it burned.

She saw men died bravely, trying to stand alone against dozens as the rest of their troops either ran away screaming or knelt in place and accepted the coming death. She saw men die badly, ripped apart and eaten while still alive as they tried to flee. She saw those with strong enough cultivation to resist the effects of the demonic chi cut down dozens or hundreds of their own men to cut their own way free, rather than staying to try to rally their men.

She had been trained to fight as a hero. She had not been trained as a soldier. She was ready to be a champion and to have the army cheer her on as she and the other four won the war.

Now she swallowed her gorge as she struggled not to puke as she had to use her movement technique to avoid a spider demon’s web of green wet silk that he cast at her and her companions.

“Phantom Step!” Andrea shouted, her image standing still in place as her real body sprinted a hundred yards back in the two heartbeats it took to shout the technique’s activation sequence. The web fell where she had been, and the five men of her bodyguard screamed as it fell on them, their weapons fouled, their skin beginning to turn black and bubble as the web touched them. The spider demon crouched upon her men and ripped into them, tearing mouthfuls of flesh and laughing at her.

She went to cast Phantom step again to ram her spear through the evil demon’s face, but a glance around her showed that she and her friends were in danger of being cut off and overwhelmed. The Imperial Army was gone, the proud parade ground elite 1st Territorial Army was gone. If as many as ten thousand made it off the field, including the sect forces, she would be surprised. Fifty Thousand common soldiers, another ten thousand sect elite, and nothing would be left but those who abandoned their honour and duty to run first and fastest.

She turned and sought out Brock who was struggling under a web that had half caught him, and fouled his sword. He used his Ten Thousand Fists technique to infuse his spirit into punches of his off hand to kill the individual demons who surrounded him, but arrows rained down, and several hell hounds were circling and spitting streams of tainted fire at him.

“Spear of Judgement!” Andrea shouted, and put half of her remaining mana into a blast wave of pure enhanced chi that shot forward like a bow wave before her charge. One Hellhound was split open as the spear of pure force projected out of her actual spear thrust split it, white another and a spider demon, along with a dozen corrupted mortals, were thrown back.

Andrea swept her spear down to cut Brock free, he was covered in wounds, his mad fighting spirt roused to almost insane levels as he tried to throw back the advancing horde through force of will alone. She knew this would be a hard sell, so slammed into him chest to chest, her spear between them as she shouted over his roaring to get through to him.

“We have to get the others and get out. If we don’t move soon, we will die here.” She shouted

Brock was almost in tears. “NO! If we leave now, we will lose!” He screamed.

Andrea threw a rear kick to hammer a demon boar charging through the formation, tearing other soldiers apart, and throwing it back stunned. Just one more beast glutting itself on the shattered Imperial forces.

“The battle is already lost. If we don’t get the other two and get out of here, the war will be lost, we will die, and the BATTLE WILL STILL BE LOST.” Andrea screamed, slapping him so hard she spun him around.

She didn’t let him recover, but shoved him with her spear to where Serena raged out of control, now killing as many of her own fleeing soldiers as enemy as she spent her last power raining dragon fire on the leading edge of the slaughter.

William’s black face was drawn tight over his cheekbones like he had lost a dozen pounds during the battle, and he made no protest as Andrea and Brock dragged the protesting Serena away from the fight. Using their different movement techniques and the sheer physical power of their enhanced bodies, they cut to the flanks of the battle, and found the sect elders already preparing their flying treasures to make their own escape.

As they sat on what looked like a flying cloud and made their way back to the sect flying on the magical cloud flying treasure, Brock pounded the cloud stuff and raged.

“This was our first battle. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be glorious. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Brock raged, the tears and sobs shook his entire body.

Serena wept silently, the rage and denial twisting her face into something inhuman. William shook, his precious elixir spilling and falling on the cloud stuff as he wasted a recovery elixir due to hands shaking too badly to hold.

Andrea just slumped to the ground and laughed softly.

“The first time always hurts, and it never lives up to its promises.”

They had all lost a virginity today, and she wondered if they would ever be okay about it.