Chapter 60: Battle on the Bridge

A/N: Hey, everyone! Here's another chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 60:

Four of the five fighters I’d helped quickly moved on from the ogre-like man’s corpse to go help with other fights. The last one, the older man with a saber—Xiang Dong, if I was remembering correctly—stopped for just a moment to nod in our direction. Then he was off as well.

“Looks like the plan is working,” I said, grinning before aiming at another beast man that was within range. I blasted him with Crystalizing Beam as well, absolutely abusing just how much Qi I had at my disposal. The discomfort I was feeling from my core seemed to be getting stronger, but I felt like I could handle it a bit more. Hopefully long enough to finish this side of the battle anyway. “Slowly, we can turn the tide.”

“So far so good. Though things might change if one of the enemies decides to try and take out the source of our attacks,” Pan Song said, using hand seals to bring out his Myriad Hand formation. The phantom hand, as big as a person, with symbols on each of its fingers, appeared by his side. It didn’t have the range to really help with how far we were from the fighting. But it would be useful if any of the beast men got too close. 

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” I said, trying to sound confident. It wasn’t impossible for that never to happen with how fierce the fighting was. If our allies were smart, they wouldn’t let any of the enemy disengage to attack us. 

“Do you need us to get closer?” Pan Song asked after a moment as I continued to blast one of the beast men. “That doesn’t look like a very easily aimed technique.”

“Can you do it without exposing us?” I asked as another of the beast-like men went down when he was distracted by my attacks.

“Yes…” Pan Song said before he walked over to the hole we’d come out of. “It won’t be quick, but I can. If I had more materials, I would just be able to set up another one, but…  Well, I suppose that is something to consider another time.“

“Alright,” I said, putting more focus on aiming my beams. Each fight I intervened in was closer to the center of the bridge and further away. There were also more of our allies around, forcing me to be more selective with my attacks. Still, I managed, and another group of our allies was freed up to reinforce the rest. “I think we might already have this, but move us up ahead anyway. Just in case.”

Pan Song nodded and got to work, slowly creeping us forward, allowing me to continue to stay within range. 

Xing Yaling moved to follow along, standing by my side as I attacked. “Don’t assume our victory just yet,” she muttered.

A glance at her showed that despite her clear fatigue, she was standing upright and alert. Her spear was gripped firmly at her side, with the butt planted against the ground. From what little I could see of her face, she looked concerned.

It put a damper on my previous elation, and I turned my focus back to the fighting. Even as we continued to creep forward, and I continued to attack—occasionally refocusing on my fox to move foxfire from corpses to live spirit beasts—I tried to see what she might have seen that made her nervous. 

But I couldn’t see anything. We were winning. Each group I freed up to help the rest of our allies continued to push the fight in our favour. Maybe she was just being overly cautious? I didn’t really believe that, but it was something I really hoped for.

Just as I was starting to really believe my attempts at optimism, a shout echoed out from further down the bridge. It was loud and guttural, filled with animalistic hatred, and sent a shiver through my body. I couldn’t see the source, as it was further down the bridge, and the crowd of fighters was in the way. But even then, it was loud enough that it caused me to freeze.

The effects on our allies closer to the shout were even worse. Some of them I could see clutching their ears, while others flinched in the midst of combat. It could have cost lives on our side if the shout hadn’t affected the enemy the same as well. Instead, it just put a short pause to the fighting, causing an unnatural silence to fall on this side of the bridge.

The fighting with the spirit beast further ahead could still be heard, along with the distant booming of high-tier combat. But here, on our side, there was a lot less noise. Then that silence was broken by the sound of something wet tearing and something breaking and popping.

I didn’t know what it was, but it gave me a terrible feeling. Like this was what Xing Yaling had warned about. The feeling only got worse as another shout echoed out, even louder than before. It was so loud that I winced and covered my ears as the hate-filled shout turned into a full-on roar. A roar that made me think of a massive, vicious beast.

Hands still on my ears, I looked up to see that my assessment was not far from the truth. Rising above the crowd, I could see a large form that seemed to be growing. It was humanoid, looking like it was one of the ogre-like men, with an explosive aura of Qi radiating out of it. One so strong I could feel and gauge it despite being so far away.

It had to be at least late-stage Qi-Gathering. Shit!

The thing must have been 10 feet tall and was still growing. Though growing might have been the wrong word to describe it. Maybe more like mutating. Because watching it, I realized just what those sounds had been before. It was its flesh ripping and its bones popping.

The sight was both terrifying and disgusting. The ogre giant stopped at over 12 feet tall, blood covering it entirely from the way its body had torn and twisted itself. Part of its muscles could be seen underneath torn skin. One arm of the former man was larger than the other, looking grotesque and misshapen, while the other looked small and twisted. One of its eyes popped out of its head, only for the other eye to grow large as if to take its place. But its skull shape remained the same, making it look lopsided.

Everyone seemed to stare at the cyclops monster for a long moment in horror. 

Then it bellowed once more and raised both its hands into the air. Its shout was so powerful that it actually pushed away the people near it. At the same time, its raging Qi coalesced in its two hands, forming two glowing red hammers.

The cyclops roared one more time before it started swinging. Each swing of its hammers seemed filled with terrifying power. An unlucky person—someone from our side—couldn’t move out of the way fast enough and was hit. His mangled corpse was sent flying off the bridge.

That finally broke everyone out of their stupors, and they all moved at once. People screamed and tried to get out of the way. Even the cyclops’ allies seemed afraid and tried to move away. That didn’t stop them from attacking our people, however, restarting the battle into half fight half disorganized retreat.

One headed in our direction.

“What is that?” Pan Song said from beside me, horrified.

“No clue… But looks like someone else is gonna deal with it,” I said as I saw an explosion of red light appear and slam into the cyclops’ face. It screamed in anger and pain, and was drawn in the other direction to attack whatever had hit it. 

But I couldn’t pay too much attention to that, as I realized I’d completely stopped fighting and my reserves were now full of Qi. Almost too full, and that uncomfortable feeling in my core was worse, even if my foxfire had stopped absorbing once I was full. 

“We need to keep fighting,” I said, pointing my hand at the nearest enemy that was getting far too close for my comfort. They’d run the moment the cyclops had killed someone, but were turning now to attack one of our allies running slightly ahead of him.  “And get ready, they are coming our way.”

I unleashed my Crystalizing Beam once more. The purple light stabbed forward, catching the wolf-like man in the face as he tried to leap towards the man ahead of him. The wolf-like man’s Qi must have been low, as his chest started to crystallize the moment my beam hit. He let out a horrified scream and clawed at his chest before his head was sent flying by the man he’d just been trying to take out.

I wasn’t able to celebrate that, however, as the wave of people—enemy and allies alike—finally reached us. 

The first to get close enough froze for a moment. He must have just seen the mist of the formation. That moment almost cost him his life, as a nearby beast man moved to attack. I thankfully managed to stop it with a Crystallizing Beam to the face. But I realized that the time to hide in the formation was long over.

“Pan Song. Take the formation down!” I shouted as I relentlessly blasted the tiger-like man who’d almost managed to take advantage of our surprised ally. Pan Song must have already had the same thought, because the formation disappeared a moment later.

We got more than a couple of looks, but for the most part, people were too caught up in their own battles to do anything about the people who just appeared in their path. It helped that we were clearly not the enemy to our allies, as all of the enemies had animalistic features. So instead, most of the wave of retreating people diverted around us, while our enemies were distracted by our allies they’d already been fighting.

The tiger-like man snarled as I continued to blast him, holding up one glowing, clawed hand to block my attack from hitting his face. Unlike the last guy, he must have still had plenty of Qi. Crystal was building up around his limb, and he was struggling, but his higher cultivation kept him from being overwhelmed for the moment.

I gritted my teeth at the sight, forcing more Qi into the Skill. My beam grew in intensity and size, parts of it moving past his hand and hitting his body. He snarled as crystal started to form on his chest. His Qi flared hard, and, for a moment, he was able to push my attack back and retreat. But he forgot that there was still a battle around us, and about the man he’d tried to attack from behind.

The man I’d saved stabbed out with a straight sword, catching the distracted and constrained tiger-man in the eye. The blade kept going, piercing through his brain before turning a metallic color. With a grunt, he pulled and slashed his blade at once, cutting a large piece of the tiger-man's head.

Even with the high regeneration of these beast men, it was clear he was dead, so I moved on to look for any other danger or fights to intervene in. The swordsmen nodded to me before doing the same and rushing off.

Pan Song and Xing Yaling were still nearby, but they had also gotten into their own fights. Pan Song was keeping his Myriad Hand formation close to guard himself, while flinging whips of flames at the two beast people attacking them. These ones looked like they’d already been through fierce battles, their clothes ripped and bloody, and parts of their arms and legs bulging with regenerating flesh.

Xing Yaling used her spear to ward the two off, but was mainly stationary and only kept them at bay. She must’ve been worse off than I thought.

I rushed over to help, raising my left hand and blasting another beam out. As I did, I also noticed that my Qi wasn’t recovering as fast as it was before. I still had enough to use Crystalizing Beam a lot, but more of the spirit beasts I’d tagged before must have died. The strain in my core was really starting to hurt as well. But I didn’t have time to fix that, however, as my attack drew the ire of the two.

The two attackers—one with a bird head and female, while the other was male and had cat-like features—split up. The cat-man continued to try and attack Xing Yaling and Pan Song, while the bird-headed one went straight for me.

I turned my beam directly at her, as she charged me with talon-like hands splayed and wind flowing all around her. The attack slowed her down, but didn’t stop her as she let out a bird-like screech or rage. The wind around her picked up, and she juked to the right. I followed her, the beam coating her in crystal. But then she kicked off the ground and became a blur.

A surge of danger filled me, and I burst stepped on instinct to the side. Pain came from my right arm a moment later as razor-sharp talons cut through my flesh. I grunted in pain, but spun to bring my left arm to bear and blasted the bird woman right in the face as she came for me once more.

Her screeching was cut off as crystals covered her mouth and pushed her back. Still, she lashed out with her talons, sending a blade of wind soaring right at me. I activated Iron Shell at the last moment, using my abundance of Qi to bolster it. Even then, the blades ripped into the shelled construct protecting me and cut gouges into each arm as the blades were sent to either side of me.

“Gah, fuck off!” I said, raising my hand at the off-balance bird woman once more and firing my Crystalizing Beam with as much Qi as I could.

The beam of purple grew so large that it covered her whole body for a moment. Then what Qi she was using to defend herself seemed to pop, and the beam surged through her. I cut off the beam when that happened to avoid any accidental friendly fire. Also because the pain in my core was getting unbearable. 

It was so bad that I had to cut off what Qi was still coming in from my foxfire. Even then, I felt burning pain near my stomach. It made me want to curl up into a ball. 

But the fighting around me prevented me from doing that. So instead, I quickly glanced around for anyone coming after me. As I did that, I saw Xing Yaling had dispatched her attacker, and Pan Song was holding defensively around her. I moved in their direction, not intervening in any more fights to conserve my Qi just in case. I used up almost my entire extra reserve in that attack, and I needed to be a lot more cautious now.

Once I reached them, I hunkered down with them, safer together than apart.

Around us, the battle continued to rage, though thankfully it seemed to be going in our favour. We already had the advantage in numbers before, and the tide of battle had been going in our favour. Many of our allies still died in the melee, but each loss on the enemy’s side meant a much more considerable loss of firepower than on our side.

The cyclops had almost changed things, but whoever had attacked it had managed to keep it busy. It was still near the center of the bridge and hadn’t chased the fleeing crowd. I took a moment to look in that direction to see what was happening, but all I could see was the cyclops bellowing in rage and swinging its hammers against some kind of red dome. A barrage of Qi constructs came out of that same dome, cutting into the cyclop’s flesh in massive gouges.

I wasn’t sure who was winning that fight, but I was just glad we didn’t have to get involved.

Before I could get too comfortable, however, another beast man turned his attention onto us. He just abruptly finished his fight, sinking his fangs into the throat of someone from the Zhu clan. Tearing flesh out, he tossed the body of the man he’d killed aside and turned a fang-filled grin towards us.

I grimaced and raised a hand to attack. This man looked particularly tough, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to fight him off. Xing Yaling’s haggard breathing from beside me, and Pan Song's low cursing as the man approached us, also didn’t help my confidence. 

But I wasn’t going to just lie down and die, so I blasted out with a Crystalizing Beam. I didn’t have an almost unlimited source of Qi now, but I had enough reserves to use it for one more fight. And against one of these beast men, who were all at minimum Mid-Stage Qi-Gatherers, I could not use anything less.

The beam hit the man dead on, but he blocked it with one clawed hand. Pan Song’s fire whips sailed overhead and coiled around him. But despite his skin—and fur?—burning up, the beast man only chuckled as he approached.

Shit. Just what else could I—

A loud crash echoed out in the distance. It was so intense that the bridge below us seemed to sway. Even still, I didn’t take my eyes off the tiger man as he approached. Not even when he turned towards the source of the sound and his eyes widened in shock while still blocking my attack.

It was only when he snarled and turned to run—and only after the rest of the beast men did the same—did I finally chance a look towards the sound of the crash.

I only had a moment to recognize the figure in the distance, floating over what must have been the corpse of the cyclops on top of a flying sword. Then she—Zhao Wei—blurred in our direction. Wind whipped around us overhead, and the scream of men made me turn back to look in the direction the beast men had run.

My eyes widened at the sight of Zhao Wei hopping off her sword before it zipped forward and cut a bloody toll through the remaining beast men. They tried to resist with elemental techniques and animalistic Qi constructs. But her sword cut through most of those attacks with ease. It was only a combined attack from three of the beast-men—one being the tiger man from before—that managed to stop one of her attacks.

Even then, that was only a temporary setback for Zhao Wei. Her sword started to glow a fierce burning red before rushing ahead once more. She stabbed two of the remaining beast men straight through, and they burst into flames. The same thing almost happened to the last, but he pulled out what looked like a golden talisman.

A golden shield appeared around him just in time to save his life. The sword hit it, and instead of piercing through, it sent the golden ball flying away. No, in reality, it flew away, and the sword only gave it an extra boost of speed. It flew up into the air before blurring into the distance.

Zhao Wei stood watching the distant golden light for a long moment before she turned around. Her sword returned to her, flying near her feet before she jumped on. Then, she was a blur again, rushing back towards the other side of the bridge.

And just like that, the battle on this side of the bridge was over. 

I felt like I should have been relieved. But another part of me couldn’t help but still worry. Because, despite how strong Zhao Wei likely was, she still wasn’t anything compared to Foundation Establishment Masters. And with this part of the bridge going silent once more, I could once again clearly hear the audible booming of high-tier combat in the distance.

That more than anything else made me think that we weren’t out of danger just yet.