The death of the Ironback Bull did not bring silence to the battlefield. It did the opposite. The sudden, violent demise of one of their kings acted as a bloody, clarion call to the other two. The colossal, eight-headed Black-Scaled Flood Serpent and the titanic Sky-Ripper Eagle let out simultaneous, earth-shaking roars of pure, unadulterated fury.
Any thought of them fighting each other for dominance was instantly incinerated. They had a common enemy, a tiny, infuriatingly resilient insect that had dared to slay one of their own. With an instinctual, terrifying coordination, they converged on Wang Jian.
He stood atop the steaming corpse of the bull, his demonic saber dripping with the beast’s thick, dark blood, not even a single breath of respite granted to him.
The Flood Serpent attacked first. All eight of its massive, serpentine heads, each with nascent, glowing draconic horns, hissed in a dissonant, horrifying unison. Their throats swelled, and they unleashed a vast, rolling, and horrifyingly swift cloud of toxic green mist. It was the serpent’s most deadly innate ability: the "Nether-Poison Miasma." It was not rely a gas; it was a visible, bubbling wave of liquid decay that surged across the battlefield. The very ground it touched sizzled, turning to a black, corrosive slurry, the corpses of lesser beasts dissolving into foul-slling puddles. It was a Fourth Grade toxic breath, powerful enough to lt spiritual energy shields and corrode the very flesh from a cultivator’s bones.
Simultaneously, the Sky-Ripper Eagle, a living shadow that blotted out the sun, dove from the heavens. With a deafening, tallic screech, it beat its colossal, steel-feathered wings, unleashing its own devastating attack: the "Thousand Bladefeather Storm." It was not a storm of wind; it was a swirling, screaming vortex of thousands of razor-sharp silver feathers, each one as long as a short sword and imbued with a terrifyingly potent cutting wind Qi. They shrieked through the air like vengeful spirits, a miniature guillotine in every feather, aid directly at Wang Jian’s position.
He was caught in a pincer attack from the earth and the sky, a two-pronged assault of corrosion and laceration.
Wang Jian was forced onto the defensive. He had no ti for subtlety, no room for complex maneuvers. He poured a massive amount of his already taxed Stellar Qi into a pure, defensive art from his demonic scripture.
"Asura’s Ebon Shield!" he roared.
A swirling, chaotic vortex of devouring darkness, flecked with the cold, distant light of a thousand dying stars, erupted around him. It was not a solid shield, but a miniature black hole, its powerful gravitational pull drawing in the hissing, corrosive miasma. The poison sizzled and fought against the dark energy, a violent chemical reaction of life-eating decay versus soul-devouring void.
At the sa ti, his demonic saber, ’Blood’s Thirst’, beca a blur of motion in his hand, a striking serpent made of starlight and shadow. He did not try to block the entire storm of feathers. He simply moved, his blade a whirlwind of perfect, economical parries, deflecting the most dangerous projectiles, the ones aid at his head and heart, while letting the lesser ones slam into his shield.
The battle instantly beca a brutal, grinding war of attrition. Wang Jian’s Qi reserves, while vast and profound for his early Foundation Establishnt level, were a re pond compared to the vast, raging oceans of the two Fourth Grade beasts combined. They were creatures that had accumulated centuries of worldly essence, their power raw, untad, and imnse.
He was constantly forced to use the "Asura’s Phantom Step," his form blurring and splitting into a dozen after-images, to evade the serpent’s snapping jaws or the eagle’s diving talons. But the sheer, overwhelming scale of their attacks ant that he was repeatedly hit.
A jet of pure, concentrated venom, spat from one of the serpent’s eight mouths, managed to punch through a weak point in his swirling shield. It struck his leg, and the pain was a white-hot, liquid fire. He roared as his robes, his flesh, and even the top layer of his muscle were instantly corroded away, revealing the stark, white gleam of his femur beneath.
Monts later, as he dodged a lunge from the serpent, a volley of bladefeathers caught him from behind, tearing through his back, slicing deep, bloody gashes that grated against his very bones.
His injuries were severe, accumulating with a horrifying rapidity. A lesser cultivator would have been dead ten tis over.
But Wang Jian was not a lesser cultivator.
Each ti he was grievously wounded, a brilliant, almost blinding pulse of erald-green light would surge from within him. It was the profound, life-giving power of his Verdant Eternal Spring Essence. It was a cool, divine balm that washed over his horrific wounds. The seared, corroded flesh on his leg writhed, knitting itself back together at a visible, shocking rate. The deep gashes on his back sealed, leaving behind only faint, silvery scars that would also soon vanish.
This unique, heaven-defying power did more than just heal his physical form. It was a source of energy entirely separate from his Qi. With each pulse, it replenished his exhausted spiritual sense, it soothed his screaming nerves, and it revitalized his flagging stamina, allowing him to continue this impossible, unwinnable fight.
His mind, even in the midst of this chaotic, life-or-death struggle, was a whirlwind of cold, frustrated calculation. ’Damn it! Their hides are too tough, their scales too resilient, and their innate recovery is too fast! Killing them would be a monuntal, perhaps even fatal, expenditure of my Qi! But capturing them in this state... it’s madness! I have to exhaust them, wear them down, find a single, solitary mont of collective weakness!’
And so, he formulated a desperate, reckless plan. He feigned weakness.
After a particularly brutal exchange, where he was slamd into the ground by the eagle’s wing, he let out a ragged, theatrical cough, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the churned earth. His movents beca a fraction of a second slower, his defensive shield flickering as if on the verge of collapse. He stumbled, his demonic saber wavering in his grip.
The two great beasts, their minds driven by a primal, arrogant instinct, saw it. They saw the tiny, infuriating insect finally beginning to falter. They let out simultaneous roars of triumph and charged in for the final, glorious kill.
The Sky-Ripper Eagle dove, its massive, razor-sharp talons extended, aid directly at his chest. The Black-Scaled Flood Serpent lunged, all eight of its heads snapping forward, their fangs, each the size of a dagger, dripping with a fatal, corrosive venom.
It was the single mont of reckless, coordinated attack he had been waiting for.
"NOW!" he roared, the feigned weakness vanishing, replaced by an aura of absolute, demonic power.
He poured a massive, suicidal burst of his remaining Qi into the ground. "Stellar Constriction Chains!"
Great, thick chains, not of tal but of solidified, shimring starlight, erupted from the earth. They were not aid at the beasts’ bodies, but at their limbs, their wings, their necks.
At the exact sa mont, he threw a small, shimring bundle into the air. It was the "Soul-Binding Frost Silk," the top-grade capture artifact that Chen Ying, in her slavish devotion, had "acquired" from her family’s treasury for him.
The bundle exploded into a vast, shimring, ethereal net. It was as fine as a spider’s web, but it humd with a soul-freezing, paralyzing power.
The chains and the silk struck at the sa instant. The eagle’s wings were ensnared by the stellar chains, its powerful dive brought to a crashing, ignominious halt. The serpent’s eight heads were caught in the frost silk, a chilling, soul-deep cold instantly seeping into them, their venomous hisses turning into weak, pathetic squeals.
The two colossal, Fourth Grade beasts were ensnared, trapped in a dual-layered net of pure power and soul-freezing energy, their imnse strength finally, completely, and utterly neutralized.
Wang Jian stood before them, panting heavily, his body a canvas of bleeding, half-healed wounds. He was victorious, but he was utterly, profoundly drained.
While Wang Jian fought his titanic, life-or-death duel, his three won were locked in their own desperate battle, a desperate, heroic, and almost beautiful defense of their small, fortified sanctuary.
Yue Lingshan had beco the undisputed master of her section of the battlefield. She was not just a fighter; she was a conductor, a creator of a symphony of control and death. She had layered her arrays with a genius that Wang Jian himself would have been proud of. The vast, spiritual quagmire of her "Azure Sea’s Grasping Current" had turned the entire western approach to their knoll into a treacherous, sucking deathtrap. And within that quagmire, she had simultaneously activated the "Verdant Willow’s Thousand Vines," the two arrays working in a terrifying synergy. Any beast that managed to struggle through the grasping, watery tendrils was imdiately ensnared and crushed by the thorny, life-sapping vines.
Chen Ying was an avatar of death. She had abandoned all defense, her entire being focused on a single, pure purpose: to kill. She had activated the second, and most terrifying, of her learned techniques: the "Second Absolute: Asura’s Gaze." A vast, invisible, and utterly soul-chilling field of pure, tangible killing intent projected out from her, a hundred-yard radius of pure, unadulterated terror. Any First or Second Grade beast that was foolish enough to enter this field would simply freeze, its bestial spirit instantly and completely crushed, its body collapsing into a lifeless heap without a single, physical mark on it. She saved her sword, her precious spiritual energy, only for the powerful, roaring Third Grade captains that tried to lead the charge, dispatching them with a single, silent, and utterly perfect strike.
And Liu Ruyan, the gentle, shy alchemist, was no longer just a support. Faced with the overwhelming, endless tide of monsters, she had been forced to unleash her secret, and most powerful, weapon: the "Blood Spirit Fla." It was a unique, terrifying, crimson-colored fla that she spewed from her palms. It was not a normal fire. It was a voracious, semi-sentient fla that did not just burn flesh, but actively feasted on spiritual energy. She sent out great, rolling waves of this fire, creating impenetrable walls of corrosive, soul-eating fla that turned the charging beasts into screaming, dissolving torches, their roars of rage turning into shrieks of agony as their very life force was eaten away.
The three won worked with a terrifying, beautiful synergy. Lingshan was the anvil, the unbreachable defense that controlled the battlefield. Chen Ying was the hamr, the precise, killing blow that eliminated the leaders. And Liu Ruyan was the scorching heat of the forge, her devastating area-of-effect damage thinning the hordes and creating chaos in their ranks.
Their efforts were focused, with a single-minded determination, on forming an impenetrable defensive periter around the knoll, ensuring that not a single beast could get through to the terrified survivors huddled within the sanctuary.
But the battle was a massive, unending drain on their spiritual energy. They were constantly popping Qi recovery pills into their mouths, the small, precious pellets the only thing sustaining their desperate defense against the endless, roaring tide.
Yet, despite the overwhelming odds, despite their aching muscles and their rapidly depleting Qi, their inner thoughts were a chorus of absolute, unwavering faith. They would glance, for a split second, towards the titanic, earth-shattering battle being waged in the distance, and they would feel not fear, but a profound, unshakable confidence. They knew their role. It was to simply hold the line. To endure. Until their master, their man, had dealt with the true threats.
And when they finally saw him, standing bloody but victorious over the two subdued, ensnared titans, a wave of pure, ecstatic relief and a renewed, triumphant vigor surged through them. They let out a collective, victorious cry and began to push back against the now leaderless, chaotic hordes.
It was in that mont of triumph, that mont of sweet, hard-won relief, that a new shadow fell over the battlefield.
Just as they were about to rout the last of the beasts, they saw them. Dozens of new figures, their auras sharp, human, and filled with a cold, predatory intent, erging like wolves from the treeline behind the beast hordes.
Wang Jian stood over his two magnificent, subdued prizes, his body screaming in protest, his Qi reserves at rock bottom. He was preparing to finalize the taming contract, to brand their souls and claim them as his own.
And then, he heard the sound.
A slow, mocking, and utterly infuriating round of applause.
He looked up, his eyes narrowing. Dozens of figures were erging from the surrounding woods, their distinctive, patchwork beast-hide armor instantly identifying them. The Hundred Beast Manor.
The leader, a smug, powerfully built, mid-stage Foundation Establishnt Deacon nad Xiong Shan, applauded slowly, a wide, contemptuous grin on his face.
"A magnificent performance, Deacon Wang," he taunted, his voice dripping with a false admiration. "Truly magnificent. To think you could solo three of our prized pets. We are most impressed. Thank you," he added, his grin widening, "for tiring them out for us."
A cold, cursing realization washed over Wang Jian. ’Fools! I am the fool! Of course it wasn’t a simple agitation! This was a planned siege! They raised these beasts, guided them here to destroy the outpost, and they were waiting, hiding, for them to finish the job!’
His spiritual sense, though weak and flickering, swept the area. Over a hundred disciples, all of them fresh and battle-ready. And at least five Foundation Establishnt Deacons, including the powerful, mid-stage Xiong Shan. They were all ard, all holding beast-taming artifacts and array flags. They were a prepared, rested, and overwhelming force.
His own Qi and spiritual energy were at rock bottom. He had almost completely exhausted the restorative power of his Verdant Essence just to survive the battle. A direct fight now, against a prepared force of this size, in his current, grievously wounded and exhausted state, was not just foolish. It was suicide.
He made the snap, pragmatic, and utterly heart-wrenching decision.
He roared, his voice a thunderclap of pure, absolute command that echoed across the entire battlefield: "LINGSHAN! CHEN YING! RUYAN! RETREAT TO THE SANCTUARY! NOW!"
The three won, seeing the new, overwhelming threat, their mont of triumph instantly turning to one of cold, dawning horror, did not hesitate for a single second. They imdiately disengaged from the now-irrelevant beast hordes and flew back towards the knoll with all the speed they could muster.
With a heart filled with a pure, black, and possessive rage, Wang Jian abandoned the two subdued, magnificent Fourth Grade beasts. He could not secure them and escape. He had to choose. And he would always choose his won.
To cover their retreat, he poured the absolute last, dregs of his spiritual and physical reserves into one final, desperate, and devastating attack.
He unleashed a massive "Stellar Annihilation Blast."
It was not a controlled technique. It was a raw, chaotic, and suicidal expenditure of his life force. A blinding sphere of pure, chaotic darkness, shot through with screaming, dying starlight, erupted from him. It vaporized hundreds of the nearest beasts, both living and dead, and forced the charging Hundred Beast Manor disciples to halt their advance and desperately erect defensive shields to withstand the blast.
The blast provided the perfect, chaotic cover.
He used the last of his strength to activate the Asura’s Phantom Step, his form blurring, appearing back at the sanctuary entrance just as his three won arrived, their faces pale with fear and exhaustion.
"INSIDE!" he roared.
They all rushed in, and with a final, desperate command, he slamd his hand against the ancient stone door, pouring the last of his will into the locking chanism. The massive stone door bood shut, sealing them in the safety of their fortified darkness as the triumphant, enraged roars of both n and beasts echoed from the world outside.
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