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Chapter 138 – Waxing Tide
🕑 Added 2024-11-17 03:18:58 +0000 UTCBenton felt pretty good about himself. His barrier worked perfectly, and the morale of all the villagers and the sect members defending the wall seemed to be high.
Pan Jiang, in particular, was grinning like the proverbial cat who’d ate the canary. Though Benton had chosen the kid as the one to draw first blood on a whim, it was a good call. The boy had volunteered for a tough job that wasn’t likely to lead to as much personal glory as the defenders who were designated for cleanup duty outside the wall.
He was really shaping up to be a fine young man and deserved the honor.
Benton patted Jin LiJuan on the head. “I’m proud of you, Li’er. If you stay as brave in the hours and perhaps days ahead as you were just now, we’ll come through this just fine.”
“Yes, Master.”
Though the girl gave no exterior reaction other than her words, he got the sense that she appreciated his praise. The girl really was intense.
He reached out with his spiritual sense. The beasts were growing closer.
“Ye Zan,” Benton said, “we’ve got less than a quarter hour before the fight starts. Might want to send word.”
“Yes, Master.”
Ten minutes passed both very slowly and extremely quickly as everyone grew tense waiting for the beasts to come into view. Eventually, though, the first ones appeared.
A large herd, mostly composed of small animals like squirrels and rabbits and rats, emerged from the forest. Per Benton’s spiritual sense, they were all rank ones, and there were literally too many of them to count. Definitely more than a thousand but probably less than five thousand.
They sprinted full speed toward the village wall. Even with all his enhancements and power, seeing the mass of fur and claws was more than a little disconcerting. He couldn’t imagine how the newly inducted sect members or especially the mortal villagers must feel.
Contrary to Benton’s expectations, arrows didn’t immediately begin to fly. Instead, archers waited for the horde to draw within twenty to thirty yards. At that range and given the concentration of targets, it was impossible for them to miss.
With how spread out the defenders were, there was no massed volley of arrows, but the rate of fire was quick and consistent. All hit something, and many led to kills.
There were a lot more beasts than arrows, though.
The tide reached the wall, and the frenzied beasts didn’t even slow. Life was snuffed out by the dozens at the bottom of the pile as the churning mass scrambled to find purchase to penetrate or climb the wall.
Alas for them, the alchemically treated Orange Vigor Spirit Wood was simply too strong for a mere rank one beast to gain even a toehold. Many a squirrel leaped up only to slide right back down, landing on the creatures below it.
Some of the presumably smarter beasts avoided the scrum and circled to the left or to the right, trying to find another way in. Given the low numbers, Benton suspected that those would soon find their end at the point of an arrow as the defenders far from the gate did not have the plethora of targets their fellows did.
“Ye Zan,” Benton said, “I don’t think we’re going to get many leakers.”
“Yes, Master.”
The guard pulled out a whistle and the gong. He blew one really long blast from the whistle, paused, and blew one long, one short, one long, five shorts, and then rang the gong’s tone for the gate.
Benton mentally translated the message. The first blow signaled for everyone to listen, and the long-short-long indicated that the subject of the directive was melee-oriented fighters. Five shorts indicated for half, fifty percent, of those melee fighters to reposition themselves, and the gong gave the location.
Ye Zan paused for a moment before again blowing a really long blast, followed by one long, two shorts, one long, and three shorts. Again, the action was followed by ringing the gong’s tone for the gate.
That sequence ordered thirty percent of the archers to head to the gate.
While the defenders already near the scrum at the bottom of the wall kept pouring arrows into it and reinforcements were on their way, the beasts weren’t having much luck. Their strategy, if one could call it that, was to make the pile higher and higher, attempting, presumably, to top the wall.
The good thing was that, since they were thus far only trying to penetrate the wall, they weren’t even drawing any qi from the barrier yet. That would change once they got to the top.
Sure enough, eventually, the heap of animals grew tall enough that some of the beasts could jump and reach the top of the wood. It didn’t do them any good, of course, since the shield simply repelled them. Even worse for them, spear wielders were ready and waiting, and their weapons had no problems penetrating the barrier. Almost every beast that rose above the top of the battlements ended up dying.
The battle went on like that for a while. The tower of creatures crested the wall, but the shield held. More and more of the reinforcements got into position, and scores of beasts died.
Considering that there were thousands of them, though, it would take a long time at that rate to finish off all the invaders.
Benton jumped down to check the draw on the barrier. “How are we doing, Jin LiJuan?”
“We’ve used about half a coin so far, Master.”
That was a very reasonable rate of absorption. He’d been a little afraid that the early waves might use up enough qi to make them run low for the later ones, but so far, that fear wasn’t coming to pass.
He leaped back up to his position on the allure.
“Ye Zan, you have permission to trigger phase two when ready.”
The guard captain blew a long whistle blast to get everyone’s attention before blowing three long, three short, and three long.
The sect had forty members, not counting Zou Tian and the twins, who had reached the peak of Bronze Body Cultivation. Forty more had reached minor realm seven. Of those, half were on duty, and just under half of those were archers, meaning that about twenty-five defenders were spear wielders who were judged to have high enough toughness that rank one spirit beasts would be highly unlikely to be able to hurt them.
All the drills Ye Zan conducted over the last couple of weeks apparently worked because those twenty-five sect members leaped over the wall before the last blast from the whistle fully finished sounding.
For the ones nearest the gate, the huge scrum of beasts turned their attention to them, and each of the spear wielders quickly became overwhelmed with rats and squirrels and all manner of small beasts climbing their robes and trying to bite and claw them.
There was a reason that only those with high Body Cultivation were chosen, though. Their skin was simply too tough for such small, low rank creatures to do much damage.
Sure, they’d end up with cuts and scratches, but most wouldn’t even need a minor Healing Pill—or Benton’s Healing technique—and no one’s life should be in danger.
Still, it was frustrating for Benton to watch. He could have ended the entire first wave with a couple of well-placed void spheres. But that would have taught his sect members nothing.
As the System had recently reminded him, he was meant to lean into the role of sect leader, not that of an almighty overpowered cultivator. Sure, he would fight when he had to, but his primary goal was to advance his disciples, not to accomplish all the jobs himself. And the fight should be a big benefit to all who participated. There was nothing like facing real danger to spur advancement.
Besides, the only way to end the tide was for him to face the Boss monster, which meant leaving his sect members to their own devices. Every advancement and every bit of experience they gained under his watchful eyes made it that much more unlikely they’d be seriously hurt once he left to complete his mission.
Benton chuckled to himself. If he was having such a hard time not intervening, how much more frustrating must it be for his three Foundation Establishment cultivators who he’d forbidden from engaging until the rank fours arrived?
He was pretty sure he knew what was going through the minds of the twins at the moment, but Kang Lin was a bit more of a mystery.
###
Yang Xiu’s spiritual sense detected a huge mass of spirit beasts near the gate. A huge mass. More at one time than she’d seen combined in all the hunting she’d done.
In contrast, she’d seen less than a dozen arrive at her position, and all those had been killed by people other than her.
Because she wasn’t even allowed to pull her bow out of her spatial ring unless someone’s life was in danger. So frustrating.
Twang.
Another beast killed and not by her.
Twang.
She gritted her teeth.
###
Yang Ru watched as the archers shot the lowly rank one spirit beasts. He kept his eyes open just in case any of the creatures somehow presented a danger to the defenders but, otherwise, rested and kept calm.
All was as it should be. Those who had only the ability to attack low ranked spirit beasts were doing their job.
Later, it would be his time to shine.
###
Kang Lin bounced between eagerness and nervousness. On one hand, it was exciting to be a part of a beast tide. Such events were the topics of legends. More than one cultivator had made their name during a beast tide.
She felt fortunate to be included.
On the other hand, the ability to stand out came from facing extreme danger, and she knew her limits. She could solo a rank four. Well, maybe a five if the matchup were favorable. Against multiple of rank four or against a higher rank, she had no chance.
Sure, she and Yang Xiu together could fight a few, and Yang Ru could solo a single rank six. But they were likely to face much greater quantities.
Master had his own fight, and without him guarding the three of them, it was possible, even probable, that one or more would die this day.
Comments
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
richard C bond
Like... Do we need the Mayor around when we have this adorable child with a backstory?
richard C bond
Nominating Jin LiJuan as best supporting character.
