44 Beast Horde (1/2)
The youngsters were not the only ones dropping in this battle, but the guards were also losing more and more of their members.
These guards were all exceptionally skilled in combat and were used to fighting against Fierce Beasts. All of them had gone through a decade in the army, and as a result, they did not panic when the beast horde enveloped them.
These veteran soldiers now turned guards knew that their lives were on the line the moment they had accepted the mission to lead the youngsters to the recruitment camp, but many of them had done it multiple times, and none of them had ever experienced as bloody a trip as this one.
Each guard was in a life-and-death battle with at least one Fierce Beast each, and some of them even took on two at a time. Because of this and how the younger experts sacrificed themselves, the number of beasts slowly dwindled, but more and more human cultivators appeared on the ground with large wounds that had caused them to lose their lives.
Xue Wei was starting to feel beads of sweat appear on his forehead. He was urging the Qi within his body to hold on until the battle finished, but he also knew that he could not continue for much longer.
He had by now, single-handedly, killed more beasts than any other of the youngsters, and rivers of blood flowed like a stream on the ground where he sat, yet no beast dared advance towards him.
A 'weng' sound sounded out from the zither. With the last amount of Qi that Xue Wei could muster, he conjured a large-scale wall to knock down every other beast again while killing the lower-ranked beasts that dared to enter his area of effect.
Letting out the final note, the zither in Xue Wei's hands vanished, and he was left with only an ounce of Qi that had returned to his body when the zither vanished.
”I can't fight barehanded against Fierce Beasts,” Xue Wei muttered to himself, feeling incredibly feeble. ”I do not have enough Qi to use Shattering Mountain Palm or Azure Light Finger more than just once.”
”What I could do is create another Qi weapon and use it to fight!” Xue Wei had decided.
”If I go too close to the beasts, then I will be scaring them away. That is rather a peculiar situation. But I cannot use the zither to attack any longer, and a bow and arrow would also require me to have more Qi so that I can create arrows.”
Contemplating what to do, Xue Wei stood up and observed the battle that was going on in front of him.
There were now less than half of the youngsters still standing, and the guards had been reduced to two-thirds of their original numbers.
Although this was the case, the beasts were not in a much better situation. Corpses of beasts were everywhere. Especially around Xue Wei and the experts close to him. There was a whole circle of beast carcasses stacked on top of one another.
Just as Xue Wei started to feel that he had done a great job, he felt a sudden chill running down his spine. As he raised his head and looked into the distance, he saw the Black Horned Mammoth standing behind them on the road with the black-cloaked woman seated on top.
A shiver ran through Xue Wei's body. He did not know why, but he had a feeling that this woman was looking at him, and he could feel the sheer pressure a single glance from her gave him.
”Could she be the Primordial Beast?” Xue Wei questioned himself. ”Her hand looked pretty human at the auction house,” he mused, once again completely ignoring the battles that were ongoing around him. ”But Primordial Beasts can take on human shape after reaching a certain point in their cultivation.”
”If she is a Primordial Beast, I would also bet that she was the entity that broke into the Li Mansion and was unsuccessful in tempting Li Fang that old bugger, but who knows whether or not she succeeded in tempting Li Jian.”
”Knowing Li Jian's hate for me, he would approve right away. He most likely did not know anything about the woman in question.”
Xue Wei continued to deduct what he could from what he had seen so far, and the battle raged around him, but no beasts moved close to him.
”If it is indeed her, then Li Jian should have realized it by now,” Xue Wei reached a conclusion.
”This trip has been way more dangerous than usual trips to the recruitment camp. The only excuse can be that someone is targeting us, or some of our group.”
”It would make sense for it to be a Primordial Beast who has made some deal with Li Jian, but then it does not make sense that the beasts are not even glancing at me. It is as if they fear that I will kill them with a single glare.”
”I do not know if this is because there is something in me that scares them,” Xue Wei continued to muse, ”or if that woman has ordered them to leave me be.”
”There was something with the Black Horned Mammoth back then. That time when I first met it, but something like that should not be enough to deter a full beast horde.”
”Since this is the case, then I assume that the woman is not done playing with us just yet. She is playing with us like a cat with a mouse, toying with our lives. This is truly a terrible feeling.”
”At least we are more than halfway now. However, if she sends another beast horde after us, I fear it will be the end of us.”