novelraw Chapter 21 – Beast Tide Subsides
Chapter 21 – Beast Tide Subsides
As the morning sun rose, the beast tide at the mines retreated first, and Elder Yu hurried back to the Yang Clan.
Seeing that the situation outside had stabilized, he prepared to venture into the deep mountains to find the clan leader, Yang Guanfeng.
But just as he was about to set off, he suddenly felt a tremor in his heart, and his expression changed dramatically.
"This is bad!"
Sensing the appearance of a fox demon, and right on the cliff, Elder Yu's heart was thrown into chaos.
The two children were still up there, and even with that strange stone, they were no match for a Qi Condensation Sixth Layer demonic beast. This was truly dire!
He pushed his spiritual power to the limit, leaping over the crowd and courtyard in a few bounds to reach the cliff.
From a distance, he spotted the two children and quickly pulled out a magic disk to cast a spell, pulling them to safety behind him.
After checking their bodies and finding that they were merely exhausted with no major injuries, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as he was about to turn and fight the fox demon, he was shocked to find that it was already dead!
The powerful aura had not yet completely dissipated, indicating it had just been killed.
Elder Yu stepped forward and saw a finger-thick blood hole piercing through the fox demon's forehead, penetrating its entire body and exiting through the tail.
Apart from this, the fox demon had no other injuries, indicating it was killed in one strike.
Such a clear display of spiritual power impact was obvious to Elder Yu.
But he was puzzled. The highest cultivation level of the two children was only the second layer. How could they have killed this fox demon in one strike?
In his confusion, Yang Lingqing and Linghu approached.
"Elder Ancestor, this demonic beast was killed by the strange stone," Yang Lingqing explained, handing the somewhat hot Chen Yang to Elder Yu.
She then recounted how Wang Lie had intruded into the Forbidden Zone and how the strange stone had continuously emitted spiritual energy fluctuations to warn them during the beast tide.
"Such a thing could happen!"
Elder Yu was also incredulous. He stared at Chen Yang for a long time, recalling distant legends he had heard in his sect when he first embarked on the path of cultivation.
"Could this item truly have a significant origin?"
After these events, Elder Yu increasingly felt that Chen Yang's origins were extraordinary, likely more than just a rare strange stone.
However, with remnants of the beast tide still present, it was not the time to discuss these matters.
Elder Yu took the two children down the cliff, dealing with a few beasts that had intruded into the Yang Clan and hidden.
With Elder Yu's addition, the frontline battle quickly turned one-sided.
The magic disk in his hand emitted a dazzling light, and with a few strokes in the air, the beasts in front of him were crushed into meat patties by a powerful gravitational force.
Seeing this, the other beasts regained their senses and fled into the deep mountains with their tails between their legs.
Thus, the beast tide attacking the Yang Clan was completely quelled.
Although there were heavy casualties and large areas of houses and rice fields were destroyed, they had ultimately endured.
The aftermath was left to Yang Feiyun and Yang Xiaolei to handle, while Elder Yu instructed the three spirits to take all the demonic beast corpses back to the Forbidden Zone.
He himself did not delay further, crossing Little Pine Mountain to find Yang Guanfeng, who was hunting demons in the deep mountains.
"Clan Leader!"
After half a day's journey, he found Yang Guanfeng returning with injuries.
Yang Guanfeng looked extremely miserable, with a deep claw wound on his chest and a large chunk of flesh bitten off his shoulder.
Elder Yu hurried forward, but found that Yang Guanfeng's aura was not weak at all, but rather extremely profound.
"This!"
Elder Yu touched him, and his face immediately showed an uncontrollable joy.
"Clan Leader, you've broken through!"
Yang Guanfeng's cultivation had broken through again, reaching the Qi Condensation Sixth Layer!
He smiled at Elder Yu, "Haha, my old bones show no movement when cultivating peacefully, but it takes a demon beast's claw and bite to feel comfortable."
"Hahahahaha, breaking through in battle, the Clan Leader's talent is truly admirable," Elder Yu said, bringing up an old topic. "Ah, if only someone had guided the Clan Leader in cultivation earlier, reaching the late stage or even Perfected Qi Condensation would have been easy."
Yang Guanfeng shook his head self-deprecatingly upon hearing this.
"Time and fate, now that the younger generation of the Yang Clan is promising, I have no other desires."
After taking a healing pill, Yang Guanfeng and Elder Yu returned home together.
After counting, the Yang Clan suffered this calamity, with a total of 484 deaths, including clan members, soldiers, villagers from the mountain, and refugees.
Yang Guanfeng returned home and spent five days organizing the people to clean up the battlefield.
He and Elder Yu also opened a large cemetery on the western mountainside of Little Pine Mountain, burying all the people who died in the beast tide.
On the day of the burial, all the surviving people followed the Yang Clan up the mountain to pay their respects.
The line of mourners stretched from the mountainside to the foot of the mountain.
Yang Guanfeng stood before the 484 graves, facing the crowd, and declared loudly.
"This battle was the Yang Clan's battle for survival since becoming independent from Willow Leaf Town!"
"If we had lost this battle, the Yang Clan would no longer exist!"
"Fortunately, we had warriors! We had heroes! We had all of you!"
"This victory is not the Yang Clan's victory, but yours!"
"We defeated the beast tide! We overcame the dangers! We also triumphed over the indifferent, heartless heavens that treat all things as straw dogs!"
He paused, picking up a jar of wine from beside him.
"I, Yang Guanfeng, toast to all of you!"
After downing it in one gulp, he raised another cup, turning to the 484 graves, and shouted, "To the warriors! To the heroes!"
His voice was deep and resonant, echoing throughout Little Pine Mountain.
Behind him, everyone, regardless of age or gender, raised their cups and poured their wine onto Little Pine Mountain alongside Yang Guanfeng.
That night, the gates of the Yang Clan were wide open, hosting a banquet for all the people who had endured this calamity.
Some raised their cups in celebration, some embraced and wept, some were filled with heroic passion, and others were left speechless and dazed.
All the myriad expressions of life were blended into the wine, into the tears, and into the night.
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The battle against the beast tide firmly established the Yang Clan's foothold on Little Pine Mountain and bound the fate of the mortals below, who had survived this disaster, to the Yang Clan for generations to come.
As for the other forces in the eastern mountain forests.
All the villages were destroyed, not a single villager survived, and it was said that even their bones were chewed and swallowed, leaving nothing behind.
The army of Willow Leaf Town was nearly wiped out, and even a Qi Condensation cultivator died, but the town was not breached, which was barely acceptable.
However, White Stone Town was not so fortunate.
On the night of the beast tide, a late Qi Condensation demonic beast attacked the town.
Even though the mayor broke through in battle to reach the Qi Condensation Sixth Layer, it was to no avail, and he ultimately became a meal for the demonic beast.
After the city gates were breached, the beast horde entered the town and slaughtered at will. The desperate cries of the townspeople were like a scene from hell, too horrifying to behold.
It was said that a streak of light flew from the sky, revealing itself to be an azure flying sword.
The flying sword weaved through the city, slaying all the demonic beasts, including the late Qi Condensation one.
Later, two talismans descended, enveloping the city in magical light. The beasts within were drained of blood in a short time, turning into mummified corpses that crumbled at a touch.
After the beast tide ended, White Stone Town's population was less than thirty percent of what it had been, many families were wiped out, and few cultivators remained.
Wang Xiong miraculously survived, but his son Wang Weiyang died at the hands of the late Qi Condensation demonic beast, and the Wang Clan he painstakingly built was destroyed in this great calamity.