Sun Heng, the late City Lord of Sanshan City, had launched the first purge of fierce beasts. At the moment of his death upon Standing Brush Peak, the last thing he thought of was the second purge. He had peeled off his own skin and wrapped Kun Skin Drum over his son solely so that this day would come.
And his wife, Dou Yuemei, carrying on his last wish, took up his seat as City Lord and bore the ten-thousand-jun burden. At the summit of Standing Brush Peak, could his eyes close in peace?
The Killer Rock Bees, which had stumped generations of cultivators at the foot of Jade Scales Peak, would become history this very day. And everyone before the peak was a witness.
Sun Xiaoman had already sobbed herself beyond all shape. She had always felt her brother was beyond redemption, thinking only that after their father's death, her mother had spoiled him into a hopeless state. But precisely because of that, she knew how much he feared pain, how timid he was. And yet, he was so obedient.
The Killer Rock Bees' tail stingers were toxic and fierce; a single sting was agony. What torment would such a dense volley be?
"Your father favored you too much, so I had to give a little more affection to Xiaoyan." Dou Yuemei paused, her voice catching with a sob. "You always say your mother plays favorites. And yet, did your mother ever want to?"
"Mother! Let me go back! Let me go back... waaah waaah... I'm going to be in such pain I'll die!"
Wave after wave of Killer Rock Bees was wiped out; wave after wave of tail-stinger attacks came. Sun Xiaoyan wept until his voice went hoarse. After all, he was only a thirteen-year-old child.
"Mother! Sister!" he sobbed.
Dou Yuemei suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs, "Sun Xiaoyan, you turn around now and charge forward!"
"Don't forget whose skin you're wearing!"
"Your father never once stepped backward!"
It seemed she had used all her strength, so much so that after shouting she wobbled a little.
What no one had expected — was that Sun Xiaoyan really did turn around. Weeping loudly, he went forward, crying. He was strong even as he was afraid. He hurt and he cried, he shouted and he ran. Everyone watched this scene in silence, watched this little fatty charge alone at the Killer Rock Bees.
Before this, though he had witnessed the life-risking courage of the Sanshan cultivators, Jiang Wang had truly found it hard to understand what the rampant beasts meant for this city. Now he vaguely understood.
"I want to figure out, where do these fierce beasts come from?" Only by knowing where they came from, how they bred, where their source lay, could they be exterminated cleanly.
"Who knows?" said Li Jianqiu.
Scanning one rock cave after another, Sun Xiaoyan lurched and stumbled, enduring a full five hours, from daylight to dusk, while the cultivators clearing the Killer Rock Bees changed shifts over a dozen times.
The Killer Rock Bees that had once been dense enough to inspire terror at last grew sparse and scattered. And Sun Xiaoyan could no longer cry out. His plump body slumped down like a heap of mud.
Dou Yuemei rushed over and scooped her son into her arms. Feeling his warmth, touching the pulse at his heart. Kissing his brow, brushing away his tears.
"Charge forward for me! Sweep Jade Scales Peak!" she ground out her teeth and gave the order.
The entire Sanshan City Dao Academy — from instructors to students, headmaster to freshmen — all its cultivators had joined, two hundred and eighty-seven in total. Add the near hundred of Sanshan's garrison, all volunteering, refusing any reward. And the cultivators drawn by generous rewards from all around numbered over a hundred as well.
Together, over five hundred cultivators, under unified command, pressed onward up Jade Scales Peak in batches. All manner of Dao arts hurled colorful flames of light; wherever they passed, mountain stones shattered, trees snapped, fierce beasts fell dead, and mountain paths took shape. And Sun Xiaoyan was already fast asleep in Dou Yuemei's arms, exhausted.
...
Jiang Wang was amid the charging ranks of cultivators. Their little team had been scattered, each now fighting on their own.
Over a dozen Suspended Bright Lamps crafted by the Mohist school floated in the air, throwing off strong light, illuminating all of Jade Scales Peak as though it were broad daylight.
By now Dou Yuemei had taken command. Taking the Sanshan cultivators as the main body, she divided everyone into five teams that took turns casting Dao arts in rotation, pressing the line steadily upward. Some experts were granted autonomy: Li Jianqiu, whose sword swept a tide of red; Sun Xiaoman, who swung a pair of Mountain-Shaking Hammers and left a mash of flesh wherever she passed; that mysterious woman from the Yun Kingdom, who with a casual gesture tore black clouds down from the sky, turning them into cloud beasts that fought the fierce beasts. Jiang Wang had never seen such arcane means. She alone was worth an entire team.
The purge's progress looked deeply gratifying. But Jiang Wang could not shake the unease in his heart.
If the beast nests were merely of this degree, how could Sun Heng have died in battle? And how could the team Wu Shan had once led have been wiped out to the last man, leaving only Li Jianqiu?
Speaking only of ruggedness, Jade Scales Peak was not the equal of Standing Brush Peak. But it was greater in body, and correspondingly harbored more fierce beasts. As they pressed quickly near the mountainside, Dou Yuemei too became visibly more cautious.
"Team B, fall back and rest. Teams C and D, move up. Teams E and A, form your seals and be ready!"
This was the first time two teams were moved up to the front at once, and she had also shortened the other two teams' rest. Soon everyone knew why.
"Skreee skreee!"
"Krroo krroo..."
One sharp, one low — two entirely different cries rang through the night sky at the same moment.
A two-headed fierce eagle shot forward with a cry like a flash of lightning. A pair of wings, each a full zhang long, spread wide, and it seemed as though an entire swath of night was on the move.
The Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Eagle!
Almost the moment it appeared, every fierce beast near the mountainside burst into madness, their eyes flushed crimson, roused to savagery. The two hundred cultivators of Teams C and D felt enormous pressure the instant they moved up. And once the eagle's cry began, it would last until the fighting ended.
Back then, Sun Heng, carving his way through the beast tide and up to the summit of Standing Brush Peak, had slain precisely one such beast — yet in killing the Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Eagle, he too burned out the last of his strength. And now, on Jade Scales Peak, barely at the mountainside, such a beast had already appeared.
Dou Yuemei's heart sank. But before all these people, she could not let it show. She raised both hands, and a towering wall of stone stretched into being, almost ringing the entire Jade Scales Peak! Such was the Dao art might of a peak Dragon-Rising realm master.
The towering stone wall held back the horde, buying the unprepared cultivators time to regroup. But those fierce beasts had gone mad.
A fierce beast like a one-horned ox galloped hard and slammed its head into the stone wall. The horn broke clean off; its head dripped blood. Yet it paid no mind and used the broken horn to smash again!
Such was their madness!
Back on Standing Brush Peak, it was precisely this sudden, frenzied eruption that had collapsed the line of defense. Would the scene be replayed now?
"Miss Ye, I need more cloud beasts to buy us a buffer!" Dou Yuemei shouted. The cloud beast secret art of that Yun Kingdom cultivator was the most fitting at this moment; otherwise, there would be nothing left but to pile in human lives.
The mysterious cultivator behind her gauze veil sent her ten fingers flying — tiger, leopard, bear, ox... close to a hundred burst forth, cloud beast after another racing down from the sky to kill the fierce beasts.
Yet the fierce beasts were too many! A sustained, dense, frantic run of ramming reached a critical point at just this moment, and the stone wall that had ringed this stretch of Jade Scales Peak crashed apart with a roar. The fierce beasts surged in like a tide, flooding forward.
And that Yun Kingdom cultivator, though powerful, was clearly short on experience — perhaps she had trusted the stone wall's defense too much and misjudged how long it could hold. She had given her all in that last wave, and now her strength had run out!