Benton was not encouraged with the way the beast tide was progressing. The first three waves had been great. Better than great. Awesome. Perfect.
His sect members had dispatched the creatures with barely any assistance from him and had advanced as a result. When it came down to brass tacks, however, meaning the performance of the three Foundation Establishment cultivators, the acceleration of the waves signaled disaster.
Still, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the supremely talented twins could have gained something from the most recent fight. Getting any of their techniques from Small Success to Large Success would be enough to give them an all important advantage for what was to come.
Alas, it was not to be. Time passed as the twins and Kang Lin meditated, and soon, the rank fives appeared within range of Benton’s spiritual sense. He gave the three until the last possible second, but when he had Ye Zan blow the whistle to call them back into action, none of them had yet advanced.
At least with the numbers decreasing with each wave, Benton could finally get an accurate count.
Sixty-three.
That was how many rank five spirit beasts assaulted the wall. One by one and in groups, they slammed against the Orange Vigor Spirit Wood, and unlike with the previous assaults, the wall trembled.
Benton didn’t waste any time. There was no cause to prolong matters by waiting to see how the defenders performed against the latest threat. His disciples simply weren’t strong enough to deal with so many beasts of such a high rank.
He destroyed most of the waver, leaving five for his disciples to kill.
Yang Ru had shown the ability to solo beasts of an even higher rank. The two girls could take foes of that caliber out by tag teaming. With support from the archers on the wall, Benton had no doubt that they’d be able to eventually win out.
Victory would take time, though. A half hour. Maybe more.
The battle would challenge them to their utmost, but he had confidence they’d prevail. And it was the very nature of that trial, the requirement to truly push themselves, that would give them the opportunity to advance.
As their mentor, their master, it was incumbent upon him to give them that chance.
Which meant leaving them behind.
The waves had all come from the same general direction, southeast toward the mountain, but the exact location each appeared varied by up to a half mile either side of a center point. To optimize the village’s prospects of survival, he’d need to find and completely obliterate the sixth wave.
He’d go to that midpoint and remain on constant alert. If too much time passed and he hadn’t sensed the rank six beasts, he’d assume he missed the wave and head back. That was the best he could do.
As Yang Xiu began peppering the beasts with arrows, Yang Ru sprinted far into the village to prepare his charge. Kang Lin waited anxiously to enter the fray in concert with him.
“I’m going now,” Benton said to Ye Zan. “Use the special munitions as you see fit, but it would be better if you can handle those five beasts without them. Best of luck with the rest of the tide.”
Benton Quickstepped far from the village, hoping that his sect members could handle the challenge he left for them and even more hoping that they’d gain from the experience.
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Yang Xiu stared after Master as he disappeared. With her enhanced senses, it hadn’t been hard to hear what he’d told Ye Zan even as she concentrated on shooting arrows at the beasts below her.
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Master was leaving.
She knew it had to happen at some point. He’d explained to all of them multiple times that his job was away from them, but it was still a shock to see him go.
There were slightly over a thousand people in the village, and without him there, it fell to her, her brother, and Kang Lin to keep everyone safe.
If anyone died, it would be on the three of them. She’d never felt such a heavy burden in her life, especially after their clear failure with the previous wave. Their task felt enormous.
Even the longest journey began with that single first tiny step. Concentrate on making the best first move she could and then the next. And the next.
That was what Master would advise.
She returned her focus to the beasts.
A hyena, a dog, a turtle, a zebra, and a salamander were the five creatures Master had left for them to fight.
Briefly, she wondered if the choices were intentional before realizing that they had to be. Master never did anything on a whim. Each must provide either some important lesson or represent some specific challenge he wanted his disciples to face.
She had enough on her mind just trying to figure out which beast to kill first to determine what those lessons might be, though.
The turtle stood over four feet tall and was more than six feet long. Its shell would be nearly impenetrable. Surely, it would be the most difficult of the five to kill. Likewise, the giant salamander’s scales would armor it against their strikes.
Killing the three softer targets would allow the defenders to focus their efforts on the tanks, as Master would call them.
Obviously, she and Kang Lin should focus on one of the beasts and leave one for Yang Ru to solo, but which one should they attack versus which one should she direct him to take?
Yang Xiu’s spiritual senses weren’t nearly adept enough to determine qi aspect, and she didn’t know enough about the creatures to match their weaknesses to the sect members’ strengths.
The hyena looked at her and laughed. It was a rude, arrogant sound, as if it knew it would kill every being inside the wall and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
She instantly grew to hate it with a fiery passion, which settled the one she’d be focusing on. Her brother should probably engage the soft target farthest from the others.
“Yang Ru, left,” Yang Xiu yelled. “Kang Lin, focus on the hyena.”
Before the other girl could even reply, Yang Xiu loosed an arrow, striking the jerk creature in the eye.
That shut it up.
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Yang Ru ran toward the wall. He moved slowly and ponderously at first, but each step built momentum. Each step made him faster. Each step charged his technique.
His spiritual sense told him that there were five beasts of the fifth rank outside the wall, but he didn’t know what type they were or which would be the most advantageous for him to attack first.
That was okay, though. He trusted his fellow sect members. Either Ye Zan or Yang Xiu would—
“Yang Ru, left,” his sister yelled.
There. He had his target.
Nearing the wall, he leaped, using his incredible leg muscles strengthened by both Spiritual and Body Cultivator to propel himself upward. At the apex of his jump, he cleared the palisade, and his quarry came into view.
A zebra.
Yang Ru mentally shrugged. He had little knowledge of and no experience with such a creature.
Not that the type of beast mattered. Soon, it would just be a corpse.
Seeing him flying toward it, the zebra reared up on its hind legs, striking out at him with its forward hooves.
Yang Ru was falling on a determined trajectory right at the beast. There was no changing course.
He had reached Small Success with his shield. Barely. But he was far from proficient with its use. There was no way he would be able to use it to protect himself in the tiny fraction of a second he had before the hooves hit.
Yang Ru didn’t even try.
In contrast, using Stone Skin was like flexing a muscle, an almost automatic response that barely required thought. Between the technique, his enhanced fortitude from advancing to the first minor realm of Foundation Establishment, and, even more so, the extreme toughness provided by being a peak Bronze body cultivator, he felt confident that he could survive the attack.
That didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.
Both blows landed.
It felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.
Oh wait. He had.
Heavens, that hurt!
If there was anything that becoming a cultivator had prepared him for, however, it was dealing with pain. His very first experience was taking pills to improve his spiritual roots. That process had felt like someone had poured fire into his stomach.
In comparison, the attack from the zebra was nothing. He pushed past the momentary sting and concentrated on simultaneously triggering his two primary techniques.
All the momentum he’d accumulated by running and jumping and falling was converted to force and concentrated on the tip of his spear.
The zebra, its instincts surely telling it that its shield would protect against the tiny human’s weapon, didn’t even try to dodge.
The spear tip struck the beast’s forehead. An enormous burst of Momentum qi erupted from the metal, blowing past the zebra’s qi shield and into its body.
Its head burst into a shower of blood, muscle, and bone.
One down, four to go.