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Chapter 149 – Alert!
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 04:53:40 +0000 UTCBenton grew concerned as he continued his search for the eighth wave. His disciples should have long since been able to dispatch the two rank six beasts that attacked the village and followed that fight up with consolidating their gains. So far, though, he hadn’t received a single notification about any of his disciples advancing due to that battle.
Of course, it was possible that none of them had gained enough to move any of their techniques or cultivation forward.
He frowned. Surviving a life-threatening situation typically led to gains, and a bunch of cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm or barely into Foundation Establishment facing the equivalent of a peak Foundation Establishment opponent should be life threatening. Even if they’d simply bombarded the creatures with the arrows he’d left them, he’d have expected at least someone to improve something.
The lack did not necessarily indicate a disaster, however. Maybe the defenders had decided to simply depend on the walls to keep the beasts at bay instead of killing them. That result would be a lackluster one as he hoped that he was teaching his sect members to be more self sufficient than that, but he’d listen to their explanation were that the case.
Besides, that decision being reached didn’t sound right if for no other reason than that he doubted Yang Xiu would go along with such a plan. Of course, she could have been outvoted?
Either way, he couldn’t help but find the result worrisome, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to find the next wave and the next and the next until he finally reached the Big Boss. Returning to the village to check up on his disciples simply wasn’t an option.
Besides providing an unwanted distraction, his worries about how his disciples were faring also made him want to skip quickly ahead in order to end the tide as quickly as possible. Which was, of course, the worst thing he could possibly do. He had to trust his sect members to survive a mere rank six beast as a defense against that level of threat was well within their capabilities.
His job was to protect them from the dangers they couldn’t face.
In fact, he’d list that goal as one of his top three objectives as a sect leader. He wasn’t sure about the exact order, but his priorities were well defined. One, he needed to mentor his sect members to help them grow stronger. Two, he was to serve as the nuclear deterrent so that any foe thought twice about incurring his wrath when facing one of his sect members. And three was the aforementioned protection from greater threats.
Yes. He liked that list of job responsibilities.
And he really should be getting on with that third objective instead of letting his mind wander.
Maybe advancing Mind Cultivation could help him with that.
Doh! He was doing it again.
Benton Quickstepped about a quarter mile ahead, stopped, and extended his spiritual sense.
Still nothing.
He sighed and Quickstepped again.
###
The badger sensed a nice amount of shadow above him and carefully and quietly tunneled upward. As it neared the surface, it slowed, barely creeping along at all. It extended its spiritual sense and listened intently but didn’t detect anything in the area above it.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, its claw broke the ground. It tensed, waiting, but there was no cry. Nothing appeared.
It finished digging itself out of the hole and crawled into an alley between two buildings, cloaking itself in Shadow. The qi element hid all of it, including its smell and sounds and spiritual presence.
None of the humans gave any indication that they knew it was there.
Exactly as planned. Back at the mountain, even many of the rank sevens and even some eights failed to find it when it truly hid.
The humans didn’t stand a chance.
Positive that it had not been detected, it focused on its quarry. The consumable qi was simply laying on the ground next to the wall, guarded by a human female. She was small and weak, barely into the first step of the first major realm. Two older, slightly stronger humans stood nearby. They, too, were not nearly strong enough to stand against the badger, and they seemed distracted, looking up at the humans on the wall.
The badger would have laughed if it wasn’t so focused on remaining absolutely still. The silly humans still thought that no threat could reach inside their gathering.
Granted the barrier was strong, but it wasn’t smart. Not like the badger.
It studied the obstacles to it gaining the prize and advancing. The three near the consumable qi source were pathetic. Killing all of them would take only seconds and could be accomplished making almost no sound.
The real threats were on the wall. Three of the humans had reached the beginning of the second major realm and had combined strength enough to be dangerous. The archers also had access to weapons that could hurt the badger.
Until it advanced, that was.
Once it ascended to the next major realm, the humans would be hard pressed to get a weapon near it. It would be able to tear the throats out of all of them before they could even react.
Fast, silent, and hard to detect was a dangerous combination.
Its priority, then, was to first kill the three on the ground without attracting the notice of the other humans. Next, consume the qi and advance. Finally, kill the rest of the humans.
The plan was good.
A big question remained—approach at full speed or creep quietly? Both methods held advantages. Both methods held disadvantages.
The badger deliberated for a moment before deciding on speed. Tactically, it wasn’t sure the decision was the correct one, but it wanted the qi. It wanted to advance. The faster that happened, the better.
###
Zou Tian was frustrated. Something was wrong. There was a beast nearby, but he couldn’t detect it. Neither could Senior Sister. But it was there. He knew it.
Staring at the edge of the forest did no good. Whatever had drawn his attention to the shadows there was gone. There was no longer anything off about them. They were just regular shadows.
The beast could have retreated deeper into the forest, and if he couldn’t see it even in relatively plain sight, he’d never find it there.
On the other hand, the village was separated from the trees by dozens of yards of clear, sunlit open ground for the entire perimeter of the wall. The Shadow aspect couldn’t conceal a cultivator—or a beast—unless there were shadows to hide in. At best, the creature would be able to minimize its presence, making it indistinct to sight, but in the open, it would still be visible, especially to someone as good with Perception as Senior Sister.
Zou Tian really had no reason to fear the beast attacking from the forest. It wasn’t like any of them were going to suddenly go for a picnic or something. Until Master returned to tell them the tide was over, only authorized sect members would leave the wall and, even then, would stay within a distance where they could be supported by the archers.
Something nagged at his mind, though, telling him that he and his fellow sect members were in danger. Try as he might, he could not get rid of the feeling.
“There is no danger,” he told himself. “Even an invisible beast can’t get through the barrier.”
What if it somehow found a way, though? Like Yang Xiu had said, Master did not believe the shield to be infallible.
The more Zou Tian thought about it, the more positive he became. He had no way to justify his conclusion, but he became absolutely sure that the beast had made it inside the shield. He didn’t know how or where it was exactly, but they were all in danger.
A rank six beast was inside the village.
Zou Tian turned to look at the plaza but saw nothing. Which proved nothing. A Shadow aspected beast would hide and attack from ambush. No one would see it coming.
There was absolutely no way to prove his suspicion, though.
He needed to warn the others, but if he were wrong, it would be a huge loss of face. After gaining so much respect, he could blow it all on one wrong opinion. How could anyone ever trust him again?
Why would they trust him now after he’d been so wrong about accusing Master of being a demonic cultivator?
The most likely result of him voicing his opinion was laughter. They’d all make fun of him.
Zou Tian closed his eyes tight. If he were right, though, and someone died… What if the beast went after Wan Ai?
“Ye Zan, Yang Xiu!” he yelled. “It’s inside. The beast got through the shield!”
“You see it?” the guard captain said. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Ye Zan’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know it’s inside?”
“Quiet,” Yang Xiu yelled.
From the tenseness in her posture, she was clearly concentrating intently. After a moment, she relaxed. “I don’t sense anything. Are you sure?”
“I am, Senior Sister. My gut tells me it somehow breeched the shield.”
Yang Xiu nodded but hesitated for a moment before finally speaking. “Sound the alarm.”
Ye Zan looked doubtful, but an order was an order. He blew the whistle in the pattern indicating an incursion and rang each of the gong’s four quadrants to tell everyone that they didn’t know where the beast was.
###
The loud noises followed by the humans beginning to look inside the gathering instead of outside told the badger that its presence had somehow been discovered. No one seemed to know exactly where it was, however, leaving it with a choice.
Should it retreat or should it attack?
Both the command it had been given, which was so difficult to disobey that it bordered on impossible, and its greed made it want to attack. Only its sense of caution and self preservation leaned the opposite direction.
In the end, there was no choice at all. Cloaking itself as much as it could, it dashed out into the open toward the consumable qi.
###
Ye Zan didn’t know if he believed Zou Tian’s instincts or not. On one hand, the boy was both competent and not prone to flights of fancy. On the other, he was unable to offer any defense for his warning other than that his gut told him there was danger.
No matter how high in the sect hierarchy the boy was, trusting someone else’s intuition was a hard sell.
The matter was quickly taken out of Ye Zan’s hand, however, when Yang Xiu made it an order. If there was a line that he would not cross, it was disobeying a direct command.
Besides, there would be only a small amount of harm if the alert turned out to be false. If nothing else, it would be a good drill for the sect members and villagers alike.
Whether Zou Tian was right or wrong quickly became a moot point as a badger darted out from between two houses on the opposite side of the plaza. It sprinted directly toward Jin LiJuan.
Master had said that the spirit coins would be a target if any beast breeched the shield, and he was right. He had also said that a beast reaching those spirit coins and consuming them would be a disaster of epic proportions. There was enough qi contained in them to propel a beast a rank or two or three or more.
If the badger reached that bag, it would probably end up killing every person in the village.
Only Huang Yimun and Pan Jiang stood between the badger and its target. The two of them were only in the middle realm of Qi Gathering, just like Ye Zan. None of them were any match for a rank six beast. All any of the three could do was delay it until the others could mount a more effective defense.
Yang Xiu shot an arrow at the fast-moving creature. It dodged, barely breaking its stride.
Yang Ru and Kang Lin were out of position. Ye Zan was the only one who could intercede.
Barely giving his action a thought, he jumped down, landing between the badger and the spirit coins.
Comments
joshua adkins
Benton might realize that if he checked his disciple count he would know immediately if someone had died.
richard bond
"somehow breeched the shield" - should be breached. Turns out that a breech is a part of a cannon, so I learned something new. :)
RedFaux
Good old Ye Zan
BelligerentGnu
Welp, that's a fairly brutal cliff.
