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3.17 - Relentless
🕑 Added 2024-05-21 22:00:01 +0000 UTCA fist nearly as big as he was rushed towards He Yu. Despite the risks, he activated both the Sky Dragon’s Flight and the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. He managed to get out of the way in time but slammed into a nearby tree thanks to his frantic use of techniques.
The ape picked up a log and used it like a club to swing it. Li Heng appeared before him in a flash of moonlight, catching the log on his jian. He Yu had to close his eyes to avoid the blinding light as a torrent of silver erupted from Li Heng’s blade.
With another thunderous roar, the ape charged Li Heng and He Yu. A silver formation barrier appeared before it, barely managing to stop its advance as the air shimmered with faint spiderwebbed cracks where the barrier had taken the impact. The barrier vanished, and the beast continued its assault. Then, a sharp cold blade pressed down on the world.
Across the ruined clearing created by the fight, Tan Xiaoling stood with one hand raised to the heavens. She’d formed the black spear that she’d used during the tournament. The technique blazed with fire and metal qi, gleaming with her killing intent and warping the air around it with its spiritual weight. She dropped her hand, releasing the technique.
The ape turned and answered with a technique of its own.
It opened its mouth to reveal fangs the size of swords and let out another roar. This time, the roar was accompanied by a stream of fire qi twice as thick—and many times more potent—than Tan Xiaoling’s spear.
The two techniques met in an explosion of power, and Tan Xiaoling’s spear was obliterated.
From where the ape’s arrival had bought her an instant of reprieve, Chen Fei’s hands worked an incantation gesture. A barrier shield flashed into the fire beam’s path. In an instant it failed, but an instant was enough. Tan Xiaoling dashed away before the barrier fell, her sandstorm kicking up a trail of debris in her wake. As the ape’s technique faded, it looked like it would take a moment to recover, giving them the perfect opening.
“Now’s our chance!” He Yu shouted. “Attack all at once!”
He Yu activated his techniques. A rumbling storm swirled out from him as wind churned around his blade, and tiny flickers of heaven’s lighting crawled over his skin and weapon. With the speed and strength of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering bolstering him, he blasted forward on the winds of the Sky Dragon’s Flight.
From above the creature, Yan Shirong summoned more of his shadow tendrils than He Yu had ever seen him use before. The shadows rose from the ground and erupted from the surrounding forest—or what remained of it. They coiled around the ape’s limbs, binding it in place. All around Yan Shirong, shadow surged as his presence expanded. With it came the distinct sensation of being watched by dozens of pairs of eyes. From within the shadows, He Yu caught glimpses of at least twenty throwing daggers, all from Yan Shirong’s bottomless supply.
Opposite He Yu, Li Heng appeared in a flash of moonlight. He drew back his jian. His spirit replaced the patch of forest ruined by their battle with a snow-covered field. Countless stars pinpricked the black sky above, and a brilliant full moon bathed the land in silver light. Li Heng’s blade faded from sight, but He Yu could still sense the power Li Heng poured into the building technique.
Tan Xiaoling stood off to one side and formed the beginnings of a second black spear. In addition to the sharp knife-edge shine of her killing intent, her spirit had become a desert. A relentless sun beat down on dunes of white sands. In her free hand, she held one of her dao sabers, the tiger worked into its pommel roaring its fury to the heavens.
Chen Fei had layered herself with her armor of metal-aspected qi, her presence a mountain that towered above the battle. Jagged peaks pierced the clouds, and the roots of her spirit reached deep into the earth. With an explosion of power, she leaped at the ape. She cocked back a fist that thrummed with her heavy mountain qi.
All of them struck at once.
Tan Xiaoling’s spear cut a scar across the ruined clearing, trailing metal and fire in its wake. Volley after volley of silver darts flew from Yan Shirong’s shadows. Li Heng’s jian winked out of sight, leaving three jagged black rents upon the world. Chen Fei crashed into the ape. Her fist slammed into the side of its head with the force of an avalanche in an explosion of earth and mountain. He Yu’s guandao cut a screaming gale through the air, sparking crackles of heaven trailing in its wake.
The combined assault hardly left a mark.
The ape merely flinched from Chen Fei’s punch, by far the most powerful He Yu had ever seen her throw. Li Heng’s attack left three trails of frost upon its fur, and even moments later the frost had begun to melt. Yan Shirong’s daggers appeared to have been wholly ineffective, and He Yu hadn’t even managed to penetrate the ape’s fur. Tan Xiaoling’s attack had been the most effective, but even that was barely a scratch on the massive beast.
It was exactly what He Yu had been afraid of. He’d always known that the gap between each realm was wider than those before. A peak Qi Gathering cultivator could stand against a low Foundation for a time—he knew, he’d done it himself. A trio of outer sect disciples at the peak Foundation could defeat a bandit of the Body Refining stage. Provided said bandit had a poorly formed cultivation base. It seemed that was the limit, however.
Together, they represented five of the eight best among the outer sect disciples of their year. They barely inconvenienced an awakened beast of the Fourth Realm. Calling the difference in power a mere “gap” seemed to be a drastic understatement. Regardless of how to properly think about the difference in strength, in that moment, He Yu knew one thing with absolute certainty.
“We need to flee,” he said.
There was no disagreement. They’d all seen the same thing he had. They’d been running and fighting for a better part of the day already, and all of them had poured an extraordinary amount of their remaining qi into their attacks. If they stayed and fought, they’d only wear themselves down. Eventually, they’d mistime a dodge. Or fumble a block. One of Chen Fei’s barriers would fail. He Yu had no doubt that even a single blow from the ape would be enough to seriously injure any one of them, if not outright kill.
They put the setting sun to their backs and ran. Within the trees once again, He Yu popped a medicinal pill into his mouth and bit down. Qi flooded his meridians, restoring a good portion of what he’d spent over the day. All around them, the others did the same.
“It’s free,” Yan Shirong said from somewhere close by. He hadn’t needed to. The sound of the ape barreling through the forest in its pursuit steadily gained on them.
As they ran, even with a Fourth Realm beast following, the beasts and spirits of the First through Third Realms joined the pursuit. They were beset from all sides and frequently had to lash out with strikes or techniques to avoid getting bogged down. Packs of those red-furred monkeys set ambushes for them, bursting from dense foliage to rain attacks upon the group with their crude weapons.
He Yu and Tan Xiaoling were best suited for dealing with those, both using their techniques with wider-ranging effects to buy enough time for the rest to keep moving. Other creatures Yan Shirong was more suited to deal with, tying them down with his shadows. If the pursuing ape drew too close, Chen Fei could create a barrier in its path that bought them a precious few seconds to gain some distance again. After the first ambush, Li Heng took an outrider role, flashing back to the rest of the group to shout warnings of danger ahead.
Still, the beasts came. As the sun set and darkness fell on the wild valleys, pursuit remained unrelenting. Worse still, it increased. Just as darkness fell, an awakened panther, black as midnight with fangs of starlight pounced into their midst from a rocky outcrop above. It was the second Fourth Realm beast to join the hunt. Chen Fei managed to seal it behind a barrier, but as the beast slammed itself into the shield, it was clear the formation wouldn’t last long.
So they continued to run, and as they ran, faint laughter followed. It had started around nightfall, and He Yu knew deep within his spirit that the laughter was from the same source as that voice. The same source of all of this madness.
Throughout the night more beasts and spirits joined in. Glowing globes of ghostly light followed in their wake. While having the dim light to see by made their crashing through the undergrowth marginally easier, it also acted as a beacon for anything nearby. Spirits of living shadow lunged at them from the darkness. Spiders and serpents dropped on them from above. At some point during the night, He Yu couldn’t have said when, a Fourth Realm boar charged at them from the darkness.
None of them gave voice to the thought that had been scratching at the back of He Yu’s head all day. This was not natural. What sort of a beast pursued something for the insane distances they’d been running for? Beasts that would be natural enemies of one another seemed to be working in tandem. Spirits that had no business revealing themselves in these conditions were attacking with no regard to their nature. The further they went, the more beasts and spirits joined.
Sometime before dawn, He Yu took a third medicinal pill. Vaguely he wondered how many more he could safely take before risking a backlash. What would happen if there was one? He didn’t want to dwell on it. The obvious answer was that it would kill him. If not the backlash itself, then his inability to fight or run would end him. As sunrise filled the valley with light, he got a good look at his companions for the first time since the previous day.
They all looked as exhausted as he felt. They’d run through the night, engaging in a fighting retreat. They’d been using techniques as sparingly as possible, but they were pushing up against their limits. Worse, throughout the night, the number of Fourth Realm beasts that had joined in the pursuit was now up to over a dozen. They could run until they dropped from exhaustion, or they could find somewhere to make a final stand.
“We can’t keep going,” He Yu half-gasped.
“We can’t fight,” Tan Xiaoling said. Through the fatigue on her features, He Yu could see her distaste at having to admit it.
Li Heng flashed into their midst. “There’s a spot up ahead that’s somewhat defensible. If we’re going to stand and fight, the least we can do is be smart about it.”
“Lead the way,” He Yu said.
Nobody objected. They all could tell the truth as well as he could. They were spent, and they wouldn’t be able to run for much longer.
The spot Li Heng mentioned was a wooded hollow that filled a crag in the mountains above. It wasn’t the best spot, but it would limit the directions they could be attacked from to some degree. Once they had their backs to the mountain, Chen Fei placed a formation barrier around them.
The five cultivators turned to make their stand.
