*Chapter 19: The Siege of Thorns**
The Mistveil Mountains loomed in silent vigilance, their peaks veiled by a shroud of mist as twilight settled over Qingyun Village. The air hummed with an uneasy calm, the kind that precedes a storm. Li Tian stood atop the newly constructed watchtower, his gaze sweeping over the terraced fields now fortified with celestial-tempered stakes and trenches filled with bioluminescent moss. The villagers had transformed their home into a bastion, their fear forged into resolve. Yet beneath the surface, the weight of anticipation gnawed at Li Tian's bones.
"The traps are set," the miller said, climbing the ladder to join him. His hands, once calloused from grinding grain, now bore the marks of hasty labor—blisters from hammering ironwood spikes, burns from mixing spore-laden resins. "If those bastards come, they'll bleed before they take a single step into the square."
Li Tian nodded, though his eyes lingered on the tree line. Magistrate Heng's retreat had bought them time, but not peace. Rumors had trickled down from White Maple Town—mercenaries asking about a village guarded by a "starlit demon," rogue cultivators pooling resources to claim the mountain's secrets. The Kitsune's laughter echoed in his dreams, taunting: *"The world smells your fear. Wolves always circle the wounded."*
A child's laughter drifted up from the square, where Wen Lin distributed steamed buns glazed with honey. Her hands no longer trembled, her cheeks flushed with borrowed vitality from Li Tian's qi-infused tonics. But her eyes, when they met his, held a sorrow that no medicine could mend.
The first arrow struck at moonrise.
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**The Assault**
It came from the north, where the forest grew dense and shadows clung like cobwebs. A whistling projectile, its tip smeared with corpse-rot venom, embedded itself in the watchtower railing. The wood sizzled, black tendrils creeping outward.
"To arms!" the blacksmith bellowed, his voice echoing off the mountain's face.
Li Tian leapt from the tower, **Seven Celestial Steps** carrying him aloft as the structure exploded in a hail of splinters. Below, figures emerged from the treeline—twelve in all, their robes mismatched but their eyes sharp with predatory intent.
"The Starlit Demon!" their leader crowed, a hulking brute with a serrated dao sword. His face was a patchwork of scars, one eye milky white. "The bounty's mine!"
Chaos erupted.
Rogue cultivators fanned out, hurling talismans that detonated in bursts of acid and flame. Villagers scrambled to man the ballistae, their arms trembling as they cranked winches forged from scavenged spirit-beast tendons.
Li Tian landed amidst the fray, the **Quake-Step** rippling beneath his boots. The earth buckled, swallowing two attackers whole. A third lunged, twin daggers crackling with lightning. Li Tian pivoted, **Verdant Dragon's Coiling Serpent** redirecting the strike into a fourth assailant. The man convulsed as his companion's blades pierced his heart.
"Formation!" the scarred leader roared. "He's just one man!"
They converged, a whirlwind of steel and qi. Li Tian's breaths came sharp and controlled, his movements a dance of celestial precision and mortal desperation. A sword grazed his ribs, drawing a line of starlight instead of blood. The attacker gaped—and died with Li Tian's palm crushing his windpipe.
Yet for every cultivator felled, two more pressed forward. These were no imperial puppets; these were wolves of the wilds, honed by survival and unburdened by honor.
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**The Village's Stand**
Wen Lin stood at the granary doors, her arms spread to shield the children huddled inside. A cultivator with serpent tattoos advanced, his tongue flicking over filed teeth.
"Move, crone," he hissed, "or I'll feed your bones to my pets."
She met his gaze, unflinching. "You'll burn first."
The man laughed—until a searing light engulfed him. He screamed, batting at his robes as bioluminescent moss ignited, the spores engineered to combust on contact with hostile qi. Wen Lin stepped back, her hand gripping the lever of Old Man Heng's final gift: a network of spore canisters hidden beneath the village square.
"Now!" she cried.
The blacksmith yanked a chain, and the night erupted in phosphorescent fire.
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**Li Tian's Gambit**
The blast staggered the rogues, their formations scattering. Li Tian seized the moment, channeling the **Eternal Supreme Scripture's** most volatile technique: **Starborne Ascension**.
His meridians screamed as celestial qi flooded them, his body becoming a conduit for raw cosmic force. Light erupted from his pores, blinding and merciless. The rogues recoiled, their weapons dissolving to ash.
But the power was a double-edged sword. Blood trickled from Li Tian's nostrils, his vision blurring. The Kitsune's voice cut through the haze: *"Fool! You'll kill yourself!"*
The scarred leader, half his face melted, lunged with a guttural roar. His dao sword, now a jagged shard, aimed for Li Tian's heart.
A figure intercepted—Old Man Heng, his skeletal frame moving with unnatural speed. The herbalist's dagger met the dao in a shower of sparks.
"Go!" Heng spat, his eyes blackened with mountain qi. "The core—it's the only way!"
Li Tian hesitated, but Wen Lin's scream tore the air. A rogue had breached the granary.
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**Sacrifice and Revelation**
The children cowered as the cultivator raised his axe. Li Tian's **Seven Celestial Steps** faltered, his qi reserves spent. He lunged bare-handed—
And the mountain answered.
A tremor split the square, fissures spiraling from Li Tian's feet. From the depths rose a nine-tailed figure wrought of stone and magma—the Kitsune's true form. Its tails lashed, incinerating the rogue where he stood.
*"Tithe paid,"* the spirit boomed, its voice shaking the heavens. *"Now claim your due."*
The surviving rogues fled, their leader's curses swallowed by the earth as it devoured him.
Li Tian collapsed, his body a tapestry of light and ruin. Wen Lin cradled him, her tears sizzling against his fevered skin.
Old Man Heng approached, clutching the scroll from Bone Hollow. "The core," he rasped. "You must descend. Before the clans come. Before *she* fades."
Wen Lin's breath hitched. The starlight in her son's veins was dimming.
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**Dawn's Grim Toll**
The village stood battered but unbroken. Corpses littered the square, their qi seeping into the soil like poison. The blacksmith pried a dao sword from the granary door, his face grim.
"They'll return," he muttered. "More of them. Always more."
Li Tian stirred in Wen Lin's arms, his voice a fractured whisper. "Prepare the carts. We leave for the mountain's heart at dusk."
The villagers exchanged glances. The mountain's core was a myth, a grave for the reckless. But Li Tian's eyes, though dimmed, held a flame that brooked no argument.
As they gathered provisions, Old Man Heng pressed the scroll into Wen Lin's hands. "The path is written in blood. His... and yours."
She unrolled it, her breath catching. The map wasn't of stone and root—but of meridians. *Their* meridians.
The mountain's pact was clear: to enter its heart, kin must burn.
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