It took longer than Sen would have liked to get to the battle because he had to keep dodging around panicked townspeople. Granted, it only added a few seconds to his journey, but he knew as well as any warrior that seconds could cost lives. However, when he arrived at the scene of the fight by the simple expedient of jumping over the town wall, he couldn’t help but pause. He wondered, what in the hells are they doing? Some of the men from the town were out… Sen thought the right phrase was probably defending their homes, but it only applied in the loosest sense. They weren’t working together, except for one or two pairs of men. It was just a loose collection of people armed with shovels and pitchforks. Plus, they weren’t even putting those farm implements to good use. They were just waving them at the spirit beasts, or occasionally thrusting them at the creatures. This had all the makings of a slaughter and not one that favored the humans.
Sen turned his attention to the spirit beasts. He didn’t recognize them, but the wilds always seemed to be throwing some new thing at humanity. They were long and thin, slung low to the ground, but they moved fast. They had the kind of liquid black eyes that were more common to rodents than other beasts. Their bodies were covered in soft brown fur. It was also clear that their teeth and claws were as sharp as one might expect from the number of bleeding wounds that Sen could see on the men. He also saw two limp, lifeless bodies that had been dragged back. It was yet another reminder, not that Sen particularly needed one, that life was precarious for the mortals. He eyed the spirit beasts. If the men out here fell, those things could probably go right over the wall. Once they got into the town, it would get very ugly, very fast.
For all the threat that the spirit beasts posed to the townspeople, Sen was pretty sure he could wipe them out with one volley of wind blades. That would solve his problem, but it wouldn’t do much to help the townspeople the next time something came looking to eat them all. He considered whether that was his problem. He had only agreed to help deal with the problem. He hadn’t agreed to teach the people here basic group tactics. Of course, these people were also his neighbors for all intents and purposes. He got things here for Ai, and Falling Leaf had even bought some furniture here. Helping these people learn to defend themselves a little better was probably the neighborly thing to do. Sighing to himself a little, Sen strode forward and sent a half dozen small fireballs to drop between the humans and the spirit beasts. It was enough to make the spirit beasts back off a little but not enough to send them running. Sen took advantage of the pause in the fight to start barking orders the way he’d seen some older city guards do when dealing with younger guards.
“Get into groups of three!” he bellowed. “Two pitchforks, one shovel.”
The men all stared at him in bewilderment. It wasn’t until Dai Bao got involved that anything useful happened. The man glared around for a moment before he started bellowing.
“You heard the cultivator! Do it now!”
Sen sent out another wave of small fireballs to keep the spirit beasts wary while the men shuffled and bumbled their way into small groups. He strode up to the group with Dai Bao and gave the man a nod. Then, he addressed the group.
“Use the pitchforks to harass and distract. Spirit beasts are living creatures. They don’t like pain any more than you do,” he said holding out a hand toward a young man with a pitchfork.
The young man, practically still a boy, stared at Sen until Dai Bao rolled his eyes.
“Give him the pitchfork, idiot.”
The young man flushed in embarrassment but promptly handed over the pitchfork. Sen swiftly showed them how to hold it.
“One hand high up. You use this for force. The other hand lower down to guide the blow. Stab, don’t shake,” he said demonstrating the motion. “You’re there to keep the keep the beasts off balance. Stab, then back off a step or two. Let the other people take their turns.”
Sen handed the pitchfork back, sent a few more fireballs, and then held a hand out toward a man holding a shovel. The man handed it over without any prompting. Sen simply swung the shovel in a short arc.
“Blunt force. Hit them in the head. Nothing fancy. Wait until they're distracted, then make your move. Work together!”
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Sen knew he was taking a risk with these men’s lives by not simply killing the spirit beasts, but he wouldn’t always be there to protect them. They had to learn or this town wouldn’t survive. The groups moved forward, spaced a little too loosely, but it was the best Sen could do on short notice. The spirit beasts seemed to sense that Sen wasn’t planning on taking an active hand, and they charged forward. The strategy almost fell apart immediately. The groups had no experience working together, so the men with the pitchforks frequently tried to distract the spirit beasts at the same time. Sen would surreptitiously send small wind blades as distractions when it looked like someone was about to get themselves killed. After a few back-and-forth exchanges with the huge rodent creatures, though, the townspeople started to figure out their timing. There was the metallic smell of blood in the air. Some of it human, some of it from the beasts, and all of it unpleasant.
Sen heard a mild cheer from one group and focused there for a moment. The creature was lying still on the ground, but Sen’s spiritual sense told him it was still alive. He flashed over with his qinggong technique. He glared at the men, who shrank back from that look.
“It’s not over until you take off its head,” he growled. “That thing is still alive.”
The stunned men turned back to the creature that was starting to stir. They looked scared and wholly uncertain about what they should do. Sen decided that this was a teaching moment. He held out a hand to a bearded man with a shovel. The man gave it to him. Sen walked over to the beast, raised the shovel up over the beast’s neck, and drove the sharpened edge of the shovel straight down. The creature’s head flopped free in a spray of blood. One of the men with a pitchfork stumbled away and retched. The bearded man’s lips thinned into a line, but he nodded in understanding. Sen gave him back the shovel. He hung back after that. In part, he wanted the townspeople to get some experience. In part, he was scanning the nearby forest with his spiritual sense. These creatures weren’t acting the way he’d expect experienced spirit beasts to act. They were more like, well, like that young man who hadn’t realized he should give Sen the pitchfork.
Sen was waiting for whatever had sent them this way to make an appearance. He didn’t have to wait long before an ear-splitting roar shook the air and a similar spirit beast that was three times the size of the rest crashed out of the trees. The humans and the younger rodent creatures were all stunned motionless by the power of that roar. But Sen charged at it while sending red-tinged wind blades, the vermilion blades he’d seen Li Yi Nuo use, flying out before him. The massive rodent beast roared again in anger and pain as those blades tore deep gouges into its long body. There was a swell of qi from the beast and vines shot out of the ground. Sen dodged, but three of the vines managed to bury themselves in his left leg. The sheer power of his momentum ripped the vines free from the ground, but he was stunned that they had managed to pierce his skin. He’d caught blades swung by cultivators without getting a scratch.
Worse, he could feel the vines still wriggling in his flesh, trying to find purchase. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be a problem. However, there was still a massive rodent bearing down on him. He was shocked that anything this powerful had come near both civilization and Fu Ruolan’s domain. He did his best to ignore the injured leg, although the vines were making it difficult to run. He hadn’t planned on meeting the creature’s charge head-on, but he’d had an idea for a new blade technique in the back of his head for a while now. He supposed this was as good an opportunity as any to test it. If it failed, he could always just fall back on Heavens’ Rebuke. Sen grasped the hilt of his jian and began channeling for earth qi, swiftly infusing the blade with it. He took a breath, focused, and drew the blade in a smooth motion. The blade followed an arc up toward the sky. As it went, the earth qi he’d gathered was unleashed. A wall of stone as thin and sharp as a jian blade shot out of the ground. The massive spirit beast was split cleanly down the middle.
The vines still embedded in Sen’s leg stopped writhing, which was a relief because it was painful and more than a little creepy to have something alive moving inside of him. He formed a qi platform beneath his feet and used it to lift himself out of the way of the two pieces of the spirit beast that were sliding toward him. The two parts fell away to each side, exposing the interior of the beast. It was a bit much even for Sen’s hardened stomach to see the organs and blood spilling out onto the ground. Instead, he turned back to the men who had been fighting the smaller beasts. The bearded man he’d been with before had a stoic look on his face as he decapitated the last of the smaller beasts. Satisfied that the threat was over for now, Sen reached down and started ripping the vines out of his leg. He grimaced and told himself that he needed to change before Ai saw him again. He wasn’t as covered in blood as he had been on many prior occasions, but there was more than enough on him to scare a small child.
While he had the platform carry him back toward the men, he summoned a healing elixir and drank it. He let the platform drop to the ground and dismissed it before he looked around at the exhausted and injured men. He nodded at them.
“You did well,” he said. “You should collect the beast cores and sell them. I’d recommend investing some of that money in spears and halberds. They’ll be more effective than farm implements the next time spirit beasts attack. Now, bring the wounded to me, and I’ll see what I can do about speeding along your recoveries.”