Bring it On

Zhao Wei and Wu Jie saw the explosion near the second core of the city formation and immediately knew what happened.

Their previous speculations, which they both hoped was wrong, appeared to be correct. There was a traitor to Water Cloud City!

Although they wanted to find the traitor and rip him to shreds, they had much bigger problems to worry about.

The beast wave had arrived. The demonic beasts seemingly went insane as they pounced on all of the cultivators and hunters that were guarding the front entrance to the city. The ferociousness of the monsters made it difficult for most of these people, who were inexperienced to war, to react properly.

Immediately upon the first charge their casualties numbered in the dozens! But that didn't mean they were defeated yet.

The city defenders regrouped and immediately began the counter attack. Zhou Wei stood at the very front charging ahead before anyone else.

Wherever he passed, a corpse would appear.

Blood flooded the streets as piles upon piles of demonic beasts corpses began to build up in front of the city gates.

But he wasn't the only one who was giving it his all.

Wu Jie stood nearby without a drop of blood on his clothing and his palms pressed together as if in prayer.

If one did not know better, they'd say he was a monk solemnly giving funeral rites.

Suddenly, a level 6 demonic beast shot out from the wave and pounced at the seemingly inattentive brother of Zhou Wei.

Yet what met the monster was a hole suddenly appearing in its chest.

Without even missing a beat, Wu Jie gave out a furious shout. Shocking the nearby surrounding warriors, but even more so causing the beasts who met the roar first hand pause as if paralyzed.

This killed their original momentum as Wu Jie shot forward. Using his bare hands to rip and tear any enemy that fell into his grasp.

Wu Jie was a physician that was well known in the city. He was patient, kind, and thoughtful to all of the people he met.

Seeing his brutal act made them realize that you really couldn't judge a book by its cover.

The two cultivators charged through the beast wave rapidly as if they were killing a bunch of baby ducklings.

The other warriors raised their weapons up and cheered as their morale, which had fallen after the initial death of numerous comrades, suddenly skyrocketed as they all charged forth to battle.

Wu Jie tore his way through several dozen monsters as he swiftly caught up to Zhou Wei who had cleanly cut down all of the beasts in front of him.

"What do we do now? More than likely one of the formation cores is destroyed."

Zhao Wei grimaced as he said, "All we can do is try to activate the formation with only one core. This might greatly reduce the strength of the protective barrier but it is all we have. Let's hope Wang Mu and Yong Heng can defend that core to the best of their ability, it is up to them now."

Wu Jie sighed while piercing his fingers into a bear's chest and ripping out its heart.

But in his mind, he silently prayed, "Xue Chang, please stay safe."

________

Xue Chang felt all the blood in his face drain away as he saw the explosion at the other formation core.

"Wang Mu!"

"I know." Wang Mu didn't need Xue Chang to tell him what to do next. He too was once a leader of the city. As such he quickly calculated what had to be done and began to form symbols using his hands.

Wang Mu's cultivation base shot out, the full force of his level 8 qi refinement cultivation erupted from his body and slowly condense all in one place.

He brought out the converter given by the guild and placed it onto the core before injecting his power into the treasure.

A burning sensation occurred as he felt his cultivation foundations begin to crumble and fall.

If his body was once fertile farmland that had been consistently watered by spiritual force, then what he felt now was like if that farmland went through a ten year drought.

His base shriveled and dried up, slowly causing his body to become a wasteland.

But the effects of his actions were immediate.

Immediately a silver light began to shine around the perimeter of the city. Rising to the sky, the light began to converge above the center of the city, slowly forming a barrier.

But this process was slow, and would take several minutes before it was completed.

Breathing in slowly, Xue Chang took a fighting stance as he slowly turned in a circle.

The corner of his irises were covered in a golden glow. Glancing around himself, he could see the makeup of the entire land around him. All of the terrain was viewed as some sort of puzzle in his eyes.

Yet this puzzle was shifting quickly and suddenly, signaling that something was fast approaching.

Something that drastically affected the terrain as it passed by.

Without wasting a second, Xue Chang stomped onto the ground beneath him, shattering the floor and causing debris to fly up.

He swiftly spun around and kicked the rubble over toward the area where the landscape was being messed with.

Right afterwards, several demonic beasts popped out of the shrubbery, snarling and roaring at Wang Mu and Xue Chang. But luckily most of them were met with several large chunks of dirt slamming into their faces.

The others that didn't get hit instead faced off against Xue Chang and his fists.

While many beasts were coming out of the underbrush, they were all low level creatures. None of them were even in the middle stages of qi refinement yet. Because of this, even just one of his punches would completely shatter their skeletal structures, killing them instantaneously.

Just as he was finishing off another beast, Xue Chang quickly jumped up into the air. Right after, a mole type demonic beast erupted from the ground beneath him.

As he landed back onto the ground, he used the full force of his momentum to shove his foot deep into the mole's head.

Another creature pounced at him while his foot was stuck in the mole corpse, so Xue Chang threw his leg up and launched the mole corpse toward the creature, knocking it back.

Squatting down toward the ground, the muscles in his legs began to tense up and wriggle. He gathered all of his strength into his lower body before swiftly shooting forward into the enemy encampment.

Holding his hands out like claws, Xue Chang forcibly latched onto two wolf-like demonic beasts' legs and lifted them up.

While this would be difficult even for average cultivators, Xue Chang was someone who's body was trained in a unique way.

He was currently secretly unleashing 'thousand armed asura' and using his own self created martial arts at the same time.

Plus, with the fact that his own natural body could lift several hundred kilos, the current him did not find lifting these large demonic beasts to be a challenge whatsoever.

With both monsters in his grasps, he started to spin around and use them like bats.

He would smack away any creature that approached him. This would generally cause those beasts severe injuries that would take them out of battle. Of course this was not something that the wolves could handle.

After a few rounds of spinning, the wolves had already become limp and mushy, seemingly having their insides become paste.

Xue Chang quickly threw them away, not because they were unusable but because in the corner of his eyes he spotted a few beasts approaching Wang Mu.

The current situation made it so that Wang Mu could not be disturbed. While usually it would be okay since he wouldn't be putting all of his focus into forming the formation, because one of the cores were destroyed he had to put his full attention onto his current assignment.

This left Xue Chang as the only capable fighter left.

The wolf corpses crashed into the demonic beasts moving toward Wang Mu.

But this didn't stop them.

Xue Chang was immediately able to identify the markings on their body showing that they were stronger than the others. Two level 5 demonic beasts, one that was a panther and the other was crocodile, and one level 6 armadillo.

Clearly these were the leaders of the current group.

The beasts recovered from the initial strike and glared at him menacingly.

Xue Chang knew that demonic beasts were more intelligent than commons creatures. So these were opponents he had to take seriously.

"Bring it!"

The panther roared as it lunged forward with shocking speeds, while the crocodile crawled forward with its long jaw and bit at him.

Xue Chang used his foot to kick the crocodiles lower jaw closed as he bent back avoiding the panther's claws striking at his head.

Flipping around, he pushed himself away from the two beasts creating some distance between them.

While moving, he grabbed some dirt from the ground beneath him. Tossing it forward, it flew into the eyes of the panther blinding it for a split second. In this split second Xue Chang stepped forward pulling his fist back.

Giving off a fighting cry, he threw his fist forward and struck the panther square in its chest.

The panther flew back crashing into the crocodile, only to be swatted aside by the other beasts scaly tail.

Despite all working under the same group, there was no camaraderie between the demonic beasts.

The crocodile hissed at him as it stared at him menacingly.

The panther slowly struggled to get up on its four paws, and stepped behind the crocodile.

Both beasts had apparently realized just how strong Xue Chang was from their short interaction and knew they weren't his match.

But that was just the two of them.

Xue Chang slowly turned his head until the level six beast of the group entered into his periphery.

It had been watching from the side, observing his skills and movement.

There was a scheming glint reflected in its dark beast eyes. Xue Chang already knew it was intelligent, but it seemed far smarter than even he predicted.

An awful expression, that could only be described as a deformed grin, emerged on the armadillo's face.

And suddenly without warning it just rolled up into a ball.

This was unexpected for Xue Chang as he knew that ball form of the creature was it's main source of defense, so what was the point of rolling up now?

The answer soon made itself clear however.

There was no opportunity to react or think. Before Xue Chang could even figure out what was happening, he felt a heavy object suddenly beat against his chest.

Looking down, the armadillo which had been stationary before had somehow made its way over and crashed into him.

Xue Chang quickly reached down and tried to get it off but it instantaneously unfurled itself and brought its claw over, scratching at his neck.

Instinctively he stepped back, narrowly avoiding the claws from slicing his neck open.

The armadillo continued to charge at Xue Chang. Xue Chang placed his full attention onto the opponent before him. As such he was able to finally figured out what had happened.

When the armadillo rolled up, it actually used its initial momentum to start rolling in place. Then once enough speed was gathered it would launch itself forward with so much force even Xue Chang could barely react to it.

However, the armadillo didn't let up. Every time Xue Chang avoided its attack, it would roll up and quickly follow after him. This forced Xue Chang to be put on the defensive.

The two ended up in an odd dance of attacking and dodging, with Xue Chang being the latter. But it wasn't only the armadillo that Xue Chang had to worry about. While his main focus was on the level six beast, there was also the crocodile and panther he had to keep an eye on.

As if on cue, Xue Chang quickly bent his head to the side as the gaping maw of the crocodile beast flew by him. And soon after he could feel a sharp pain in his side as the panther gave him a deep cut with its razor sharps claws.

With all of this set up, it was clear that the tide had changed and Xue Chang was placed on the losing side.

The armadillo was far more crafty than he had ever expected. Unlike the crocodile and panther who solely depended only on their strength, the armadillo was strategic.

It didn't just attack him randomly. It timed its attacks to strike at him whenever there was a gap in his defenses. It held back whenever the crocodile and panther were on the offensive, and when Xue Chang found an opportunity to counterattack and lowered his defenses, he was immediately met with the resistance of the armadillo.

As time passed, the number of injuries and wounds surrounding his body began to increase by a frightening extent.

His body was drenched in blood that poured out like sweat on a hot day.

And although Xue Chang could heal from these injuries with ease, it still took a lot of energy out of him. Eventually he might collapse from tiredness.

But this predicament wasn't what caused Xue Chang the most panic. What caused him the most grief was the very few low level beasts that were left alive.

Thanks to the demonic beasts leaders act of holding him back, the low level beasts began to make their way toward the formation core.

Grinding his teeth together, Xue Chang stared menacingly at the armadillo that showed off how intelligent it was once more.

It brought out its short front leg and waved a single claw to and from its body constantly.

Although it's action may have seemed odd and ridiculous, Xue Chang fully understood what was happening.

It was returning his words right back at him, the level six beast was telling him to "Bring it on."