Chapter 88 - Clash of Shattering Roars
Blood dripped from Second Elder Mu Bairong’s palms onto the ancient stone altar in the central camp.
Even after pouring his Nascent Soul cultivation power into the barrier, it kept cracking anyway. The gold runic dome shuddered under another blow, fracturing like ice on a frozen lake near one of the nodes.
A thousand yards away, the beast was still roaring violently. Its wings unleashed gales of violet wind, tearing and chipping stones and nearby trees and hurling them against the golden barrier. The violent tempest rolled across the valley with the weight of a collapsing mountain, crushing the cultivators and slamming mortal soldiers onto the ground alike.
Mu Bairong spat blood and held the line anyway.
’I can’t hold this much longer.’
Then, his spiritual sense flared.
Disciples started appearing from the low-hanging gray clouds. They emerged in a grand, steady sequence, descending toward the valley. Su Ming led the flight, his white robes snapping in the wind, his expression calm. A half-step behind, Han Chen followed, guiding the swords of the core formation elders. Behind them came the personal disciples and inner disciples, arriving swiftly.
They had flown swiftly from almost three miles away as soon as possible after receiving the communication, with their Qi reserves deep enough that they landed on the left walls in excellent condition. Their breathing was steady, and their minds energetic after a clean victory.
As soon as their boots touched the stone, Su Ming and Han Chen began commanding the reinforcements. They immediately coordinated with Second Elder Mu Bairong and the main camp’s defense to synchronize their efforts.
"Elder Feng, lead your squad to the left gate node!" Han Chen barked, his voice cutting through the tempest. "Disciples of the Frost River Peak, anchor the third eye! Keep the alignment within three inches!"
Su Ming pointed toward a fractured ridge. "Wang Tian and Lin Yao, take the fifth node of the defensive formation. Reinforce the grounding array and cover the secondary node with the others."
"Yes, Master!!" Both of them quickly moved away.
A dozen Core Formation elders and squads of disciples rushed to their assigned positions. They drove their Qi into the failing arrays, channeling raw spiritual energy directly into the spiritual conduits.
The gold runic dome reacted instantly. A hum vibrated through the stone platform as the defensive formation began to repair itself. Runic lines that had warped and dimmed flared back to a bright gold, and the jagged, spiderweb cracks across the surface began to stitch back together. While the barrier was still under heavy strain from the Behemoth King’s attack, the reinforcement stabilized the structure, making the defenses far more secure than they had been for hours.
Guan Feng’s grip nearly slipped off his notched sword. Xiao Ran said nothing but only stared, the way a dying man stares at water.
Down the line, mortal soldiers straightened their spears without being told to.
’Reinforcements. Real reinforcements.’ Loud cheers gradually arose from the disciples.
---
From the opposite side of the valley, the Chu front arrived. They did not look like they’d had a leisurely flight.
Ji Han dragged the bound Crimson Blood Hound behind him, its heavy runic chains throwing sparks off the broken stone. The Demon Lord had been captured, but to travel the distance quickly, they had attached their carriage inscribed with wind and flying runes directly to the beast’s chains. They had forced the beast to tow their entire vanguard through the mountain passes at extreme speed.
It worked, but it had nearly broken them.
Furthermore, subduing the ferocious beast had required immense effort on the fly. Several experienced elders from the Spirit Beast Peak had to apply their specialized sealing techniques repeatedly during the transit to suppress the Hound’s chaotic, disoriented state.
Although it was a ferocious Demon Lord, it appeared subdued and quieted now under their command. Yet, a dark thread of void energy still lingered deep inside its core. As they neared the command pavilion, the massive hound shivered, humming with an uneasy frequency under the Behemoth King’s massive pressure.
Ji Han’s armor was scorched black across the chest. Elder Lie’s hands had visible wounds. Behind them, Zhao Kang, Zhang Yuexin, and Lin Yuying supported their wounded juniors, their breathing ragged and eyes bloodshot.
Zhang Yuexin and Lin Yuying sank to the stone floor, their robes torn at the shoulders and their Qi lines strained to a thin hum.
Zhang Yuexin looked up.
Across the platform stood Wang Tian and Lin Yao. Their white and blue robes flowed in the wind as if the battle had not touched them at all.
Zhang Yuexin’s gaze locked onto Wang Tian, her former fiancé, upright, steady, and completely transformed. She stared in silent shock at the sheer difference in their physical conditions. She said nothing.
---
Mu Bairong finally stepped back from the command altar, the crushing strain on his chest easing at last. His face was pale, his heaving chest dragging in shallow breaths as his spiritual Qi flickered.
"The reinforcement has arrived," he announced, coughing up a small trace of dark blood. He looked toward the Behemoth King still hammering the pass.
"All forces — transition to offense. We must bind it or slay it before the secondary wall is completely compromised."
Hearing the command, several combat elders and disciples leapt forward, striking in unison. Elder Lie channeled his fire Qi, unleashing a pillar of flames from above, while Han Chen summoned massive earth spikes that lanced upward from the valley floor. Alongside them, the other core formation cultivators released columns of fire and thunder Qi that cut through the thick ash, slamming directly into the beast’s massive shoulder in a deafening explosion of elemental light.
The dust cleared instantly, revealing the Behemoth King’s armour with barely any scratches. The combined strikes had simply skidded off its dark crystalline armour like water off glass, leaving behind nothing but faint gray marks. The giant beast did not even flinch.
Instead, the Behemoth King roared. Its dark wings released a violent tempest, unleashing a wave of space-warping wind that shattered three golden barriers on the right flank on contact. The blast threw the cultivators off their feet, cracking the stone wall and nearly sweeping a group of retreating disciples clean off the ledge into the canyon below.
The pressurized storm did not stop, heading straight for the command pavilion to crush the altar.
Su Ming didn’t hesitate. He unleashed his Dragon Will, drawing the Dragon Emperor Sword from its sheath and channeling his Yin-Yang Qi to release the True Dragon’s Roar without any restraint.
The two roars collided in mid-air, a deafening boom echoing across the valley as the space-warping shockwave clashed head-on with Su Ming’s cold, indomitable draconic pressure. The sound was so loud it rattled the lower-ranked disciples and shook dust from the stone walls.
The incoming shockwave broke apart and dispersed before it ever touched the main defense.