CHAPTER 907: FOURTH GRADE BEASTS APPEAR

The dawn that broke over the ravaged southern territories was a bloody, bruised purple. The night had been one of deep, soul-altering conquest for Wang Jian, and one of blissful, ignorant rest for Yue Lingshan and Chen Ying. When he returned to the main hall, looking for all the world like a diligent leader weary from a long night of solitary patrol, they greeted him with warmth and concern, their minds sharp and ready for the day ahead.

The relative peace of the morning, however, was a fragile, fleeting thing.

It began not with a sound, but with a feeling. The chaotic, random, and distant roar of the Beast Tide, which had become a constant, almost ignorable background noise, began to change. The chaotic symphony of a thousand different roars and screeches started to coalesce, to find a rhythm. It became a deep, resonant, and organized thunder, like the marching of a colossal, disciplined army.

Then, the earth itself began to tremble.

It was not the intermittent shaking from the previous day. This was a deep, powerful, and continuous tremor, a vibration that shook their very bones and made the stone walls of their sanctuary hum like a struck gong. Loose pebbles on the ground outside danced and skittered, and the water in their small, conjured pools sloshed violently.

"Jian, what is happening?" Yue Lingshan asked, her face paling slightly as she instinctively moved closer to him.

Chen Ying was already on her feet, her hand on the hilt of her sword, her cold, beautiful face a mask of grim alertness.

Wang Jian’s eyes, which had been feigning weariness, now blazed with a genuine, brilliant, and terrifying excitement. "It seems," he said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his lips, "the true masters of this horde have finally decided to show themselves."

He led them from the sanctuary, back to the high ridge that served as their vantage point. Liu Ruyan and the rescued disciples, their faces a mixture of newfound devotion and lingering terror, followed a safe distance behind.

As they crested the ridge, the sheer, magnificent horror of the scene below stole the breath from their lungs.

The Beast Tide was no longer a single, chaotic, stampeding sea of flesh. It was being led. It had become three distinct, organized, and utterly terrifying armies, each one a river of monstrous power flowing towards their small, isolated knoll.

From the west came a legion of swamp and water-aspected beasts, their scales a glistening, muddy green and black. At their head slithered a creature of nightmarish grandeur: a massive, eight-headed serpent, each of its heads as large as a carriage. Its scales were the color of black, polished jade, and on each of its terrifying heads, a pair of small, nascent horns, glowing with a faint, golden light, hinted at a trace of an ancient, noble dragon bloodline. It was a Fourth Grade Black-Scaled Flood Serpent, and its venomous breath, a cloud of toxic green mist, turned the very ground it passed over black and barren.

From the sky descended an aerial armada, a swirling, screeching cloud of winged horrors. They were led by a creature so colossal its wingspan blotted out the rising sun, casting a vast, moving shadow over the battlefield. It was a Fourth Grade Sky-Ripper Eagle, its feathers like blades of silver steel, its eyes like burning golden suns. Its screech was a sound that could shatter stone and rupture the eardrums of lesser cultivators.

And marching steadily from the north, the vanguard of a ground-pounding army of earth and strength-aspected beasts, was the colossal, three-horned Ironback Bull. It was a moving mountain of iron hide and pure, untamed rage, its every footstep a miniature earthquake.

Each of these colossal Fourth Grade Beast Kings, each one an alpha predator with an aura of power easily comparable to a Late Foundation Establishment expert, was leading a horde of thousands of lesser beasts of a similar elemental affinity. The chaotic tide had found its kings, and now it had a single, unified purpose.

Their target was clear. The three great hordes were converging, their inexorable advance aimed directly at the small, isolated knoll where Wang Jian and his small band of followers stood.

This was no longer a simple cleanup mission. This was a true, high-level threat, a force that could overwhelm and annihilate them all if they made a single mistake.

Yue Lingshan’s hand gripped her Verdant Willow Blade, her expression grim and determined. Liu Ruyan let out a small, terrified whimper, her face paling to the color of bleached bone. Chen Ying’s eyes, however, held a cold, challenging fire.

But while his women looked on with varying degrees of grim resolve, Wang Jian’s eyes blazed with an even greater, more fervent excitement than before. He looked upon the three advancing armies of monsters not as a threat, but as a magnificent, personal treasure trove, laid out for his taking.

"Finally," he murmured, his voice a low, hungry growl that was filled with pure, unadulterated joy. "The real treasures have shown themselves."

Wang Jian turned from the magnificent, terrifying spectacle, his mind already a whirlwind of cold, precise calculation. He was not a general leading an army; he was a master strategist deploying his elite, perfectly understood assets.

"Listen carefully," he commanded, his voice cutting cleanly through the growing roar of the approaching hordes. "I will engage the Beast Kings, one by one. Your job, your only job, is to keep their hordes occupied. Do not let the lesser beasts interfere with my battles. Is that understood?"

The three women nodded in unison, their expressions a mixture of awe and absolute, unwavering faith.

He pointed to Yue Lingshan. "Lingshan, your arrays will be the key to crowd control. The Flood Serpent’s army is numerous and their poison is a threat. Use your water-aspected arrays to create a quagmire. Entangle them. Slow them down. Create a domain where you are the master."

He then turned to Chen Ying. "Ying’er," he said, his use of the intimate address a subtle, powerful reward for her loyalty, "you are the blade. The Ironback Bull’s horde is a pure, brute-force charge. They have no subtlety. Your ’Seven Absolutes Sword Art’ is the perfect counter. Do not waste your energy on the rabble. Your task is to eliminate any Third Grade beasts that try to lead the charge. Cut the heads off the lesser snakes."

Finally, he looked at Liu Ruyan, his expression softening slightly. "Ruyan, you are our support. You will stay within the protective radius of Lingshan’s primary array. Your alchemy is your weapon. Use your Qi Disruption Mists, your Debilitating Spore Powders, anything you have that can weaken and disorient the hordes. You will not engage in direct combat. Your purpose is to make their jobs easier."

With the battle plan laid out, clear and concise, they moved.

Yue Lingshan was the first to act. She stepped forward to the very edge of the ridge, her beautiful face a mask of serene concentration. A dozen shimmering, intricate array plates flew from her storage pouch, arranging themselves in a complex, hexagonal pattern in the air before her.

"Azure Sea’s Grasping Current!" she cried, pouring her spiritual energy into the formation.

The very air in the valley below, in the path of the advancing Flood Serpent’s army, began to shimmer and distort. The muddy, blood-soaked ground suddenly became a churning, spiritual quagmire. Massive, spectral watery tendrils, as thick as pythons, erupted from the earth, whipping through the air. They wrapped around the charging swamp beasts, their movements becoming slow, sluggish, and labored. The great array did not kill; it controlled, turning a vast swath of the battlefield into her personal domain.

Chen Ying attacked the Ironback Bull’s horde. She did not use flashy, large-scale techniques. She was an assassin. She descended into the chaos, a specter of death. Her "Seven Absolutes Sword Art" was not a technique of ice or fire; it was a technique of pure, unadulterated killing intent.

"First Absolute: Crimson River’s Scythe!" she whispered, her sword, ’Winter’s Sorrow’, humming with a malevolent, blood-red light.

She did not swing her sword in a wide arc. She simply unleashed her will. A vast, invisible wave of pure, soul-chilling killing intent, honed to a razor’s edge, washed over the front lines of the charging earth-beasts. The lesser First and Second Grade beasts simply froze, their bestial minds overwhelmed, their eyes glazing over as they collapsed, dead from pure soul-shock. A massive, Third Grade Earth-Shaker Boar, leading a charge, faltered, its eyes widening in a moment of pure, intelligent terror, giving Chen Ying the split second she needed to appear beside it and sever its spinal cord with a single, silent, perfect strike.

Liu Ruyan, protected by the shimmering edge of Yue Lingshan’s great array, became a whirlwind of alchemical warfare. She threw out dozens of small, innocuous-looking alchemical pellets, her movements precise and practiced. They exploded in the midst of the hordes, releasing clouds of thick, swirling purple "Qi Disruption Mist" that made the beasts’ innate spiritual attacks sputter and fail. Puffs of fine, brown "Debilitating Spore Powder" settled on the charging monsters, causing their powerful muscles to cramp and seize up, turning a thunderous charge into a clumsy, stumbling mess.

The three women, two fighters and one support, worked in perfect, deadly concert. They were a testament to Wang Jian’s training, their individual talents woven together to form an impenetrable wall of steel, magic, and poison. Their goal was not to defeat the tens of thousands of beasts; it was to stall them, to isolate their kings, to buy their master the time he needed. And they did so with an absolute, unwavering faith that he, and he alone, would handle the true threats.

With his flanks secure, Wang Jian turned his full, undivided attention to the three colossal Beast Kings. He ignored the venomous Hydra and the screeching Eagle for now. His gaze was fixed, with a cold, predatory hunger, on the three-horned Ironback Bull. It was the most physically powerful, the most direct of the three. A perfect first test.

He did not strategize. He did not look for a weakness. This was a challenge. A declaration of dominance.

He leaped from the ridge. He was a dark meteor, his black robes whipping around him, streaking across the battlefield and landing with a ground-shaking thud directly in the path of the charging, mountain-sized Bull.

The Bull, its mind a simple engine of pure, unadulterated rage, did not slow. It saw him as a tiny, insignificant insect in its path, an insult to its royal authority. It lowered its three great horns, which crackled with a raw, untamed lightning energy, and charged.

Wang Jian stood his ground, a slow, bloodthirsty grin spreading across his handsome face. He unleashed the full, untamed pressure of his Foundation Establishment aura, an aura infused with the dark, heavy, and ancient power of his Stellar Qi. It was not the bright, expansive aura of a normal righteous cultivator. It was a condensed, crushing weight, a personal gravity well that seemed to warp the very air around him. It was an aura far more powerful, far more profound, than any normal early-stage expert should possess.

The monstrous duel began. It was a brutal, ground-shaking ballet of violence.

The Bull attacked with charges that could shatter hills, its every footstep an earthquake. It blasted arcs of raw, chaotic lightning from its three horns, each bolt powerful enough to turn a lesser Foundation Establishment cultivator to ash.

But Wang Jian did not fight like a righteous cultivator. He fought like a demon.

He used the profound, heretical techniques of his Stellar Demonic Meridian Scripture. When the Bull charged, he did not retreat. He used the "Asura’s Phantom Step," his form blurring, becoming a series of after-images that the Bull charged through harmlessly. When the Bull’s massive, house-sized hooves came crashing down, he would use the "Tyrant’s Crushing Fist," his own small, human fist glowing with a dark, star-flecked light, to meet the blow head-on. The resulting shockwaves would send dirt and rock flying for a hundred yards in every direction.

He was faster, more agile, and infinitely more cunning than the beast. But the Bull’s raw power was immense. It was a true Fourth Grade beast, its reserves of Qi and its physical strength far surpassing Wang Jian’s own. The battle was a dangerous, desperate dance on a razor’s edge.

He was not untouchable.

In a furious exchange, after evading a sweeping arc of lightning, he misjudged the Bull’s speed. The beast twisted its massive head, and one of its smaller, side horns, still as thick as a tree trunk, caught him in the shoulder.

The pain was a white-hot explosion. He felt the horn tear through his defensive Qi, through his robes, through his flesh and muscle, grating against his very bones. He was thrown back like a broken doll, a deep, bleeding, and grievous wound torn in his shoulder.

The Bull roared in triumph, sensing victory.

But Wang Jian, as he flew through the air, simply smiled, his teeth stained red with his own blood.

A brilliant, emerald-green light, the light of pure, unadulterated life, flashed from within him. The Verdant Eternal Spring Essence flooded the horrific wound. The torn flesh and muscle writhed, knitting itself back together at a visible, shocking rate. By the time he landed on his feet, the deep, gushing wound was nothing more than a shallow, healing scar. His resilience was as monstrous as his power.

After a long, brutal exchange that had turned the entire section of the valley into a cratered wasteland, he finally saw his opening. He deliberately put himself in the path of another of the Bull’s lightning blasts. At the last possible second, he used the Asura’s Phantom Step, not to evade, but to appear directly above the Bull’s massive, lowered head, the beast’s own attack providing the perfect cover for his movement.

"It ends now," he growled.

He brought his demonic saber, ’Blood’s Thirst’, down in a devastating, two-handed strike. He did not just use his own strength. He channeled every available wisp of his dark, star-flecked Stellar Qi, condensing it, compressing it, until the cruel, curved blade of the saber was screaming with a dark, reality-warping energy.

The saber descended.

The Bull’s iron hide, a defense that could repel the attacks of a dozen normal Foundation Establishment cultivators, shattered like glass. The saber, screaming with the fury of a dying star, cleaved through its thick, iron-plated hide, through its impossibly dense skull, and deep into its brain.

The mighty Fourth Grade Beast King’s triumphant roar was cut short, turning into a choked, gargling squeal. Its massive body shuddered violently, then crashed to the ground with a final, earth-shaking thud that was felt for miles.

It’s groans ended with Wang Jian standing atop the colossal, steaming corpse of the Ironback Bull. His robes were tattered and soaked in his own blood. The gash on his shoulder was still healing. He was breathing heavily, his body aching. But his eyes... his eyes were blazing with a triumphant, demonic light as he looked towards the two remaining, and now roaring with a renewed fury, Beast Kings.

A hungry, predatory grin spread across his blood-stained face.

The hunt had just begun.