Chapter 89: A Sudden Surge of Beasts

As she pressed onward, Ji Yao found the whole thing strangely unnatural, for on the road toward the center of the secret realm, she had not once encountered another cultivator.

If one counted carefully, she had already been inside the secret realm for half a month. Aside from the first two clashes with demonic beasts, she had not met a single other cultivator who had entered the realm.

Since joining up with Dongfang Shun, leaving the sword grave, finding the place where she met Qianxun, and all the way until now, she had not seen another soul.

Even when she had appeared in the central region, after that near-fatal ordeal, not a single figure had ever come into view.

Setting aside what had happened in the sword grave and within Qianxun’s independent space, in all the other times, over the course of several days, she had literally not run into one person. That was simply too absurd.

No sooner had she thought that no one would appear than a wave of figures suddenly burst into view. Heads surged and swayed wherever the eye could reach, likely numbering well over a hundred.

Ji Yao very much wanted to say, What in the world? This had to be a scene arranged by the plot, didn’t it?

It was simply too bizarre. Only a moment ago, her divine sense had not detected a single cultivator within range, yet in the blink of an eye, people had appeared where she could see them.

Could there be some kind of barrier ahead? Or had she only just emerged from one herself?

There was no time for Ji Yao to think further. The people ahead were fleeing at full speed toward her, as if something were chasing them from behind.

She condensed her divine sense into a line and pushed it outward as far as possible.

What she sensed first was the trembling of the earth, the thunderous pounding of countless footsteps, and the crash of trees falling one after another. Then came the roars of various demonic beasts.

At the farthest reach of her perception, she finally saw thousands upon thousands of first- and second-tier demonic beasts charging forward with howling momentum, flattening grass and wood in their path.

Ji Yao was currently at the northern grassland. From the middle of the secret realm toward the southwest lay forested territory, and she herself was now at the northern entrance to that forest.

For so many demonic beasts to appear at once, it was almost enough to form a small beast tide. Letting them surge out of the forest had both advantages and disadvantages.

The crowd could scatter and flee in all directions, avoiding the need to face so many beasts at once, which would lessen the pressure. But if the beasts kept coming without end, then even a dispersed crowd would eventually be surrounded and torn apart.

So for now, the best course was to figure out what was happening behind them.

Ji Yao roughly swept her gaze over the hundred-odd people who had fled from the forest. Most were loose cultivators, along with a very small number of solitary disciples from minor sects. As for the disciples of larger sects, not a single one was present.

That was, in fact, a good sign. It meant the situation inside the forest was not as dire as she had imagined; at the very least, as long as everyone held formation and defended together, they could still preserve themselves.

With that thought, Ji Yao decided to enter the forest and see the center as quickly as possible.

As for the people who had fled out here, even if her abilities were great, she could not save so many on her own. Once they reached the grassland, they would have to rely on themselves for survival.

After all, there were demonic beasts in the grassland as well. She only hoped they could escape this calamity in the end and not be caught in a pincer attack.

Ji Yao moved against the flow. Just as the last cultivator who had fled from the forest was about to be devoured by the beasts, she could not bring herself to turn a blind eye and ultimately stepped in to help.

A flash of golden sword light from Snow Dust Sword arrived in an instant, severing the head of a second-tier python lizard. Blood gushed forth, and the cultivator it had pounced on, about to bite through his throat, was splashed full in the face.

Seeing the python lizard slain, the man still did not move, lying there with a vacant stare, utterly bewildered, making no move to get up. Ji Yao was instantly irritated.

She flew over in a few quick steps, gathered spiritual power in her leg, and kicked the python lizard’s corpse away. Then she grabbed the back of the man’s collar and flung him unceremoniously behind her.

Only after being thrown onto the grass did the man come to his senses. He rolled once, scrambled up on all fours, and ran for his life, not even pausing to thank the one who had saved him, only head down and desperate to flee into the distance.

As for Ji Yao, the python lizard’s corpse smashed into several first-tier beasts that had been rushing up behind it. With the force of the impact, it sent them flying and tripped many of the beasts charging in from behind.

The beasts that fell could not rise in time and were trampled to death on the spot by the pack that followed. One after another, the same thing happened again and again.

In no time at all, a field of demonic beast corpses had appeared on the path before Ji Yao. Even she, the instigator herself, could not help but stare in surprise. So this could be done?

After all, low-tier beasts were still low-tier beasts. They had little intelligence and acted on instinct. With the lure of blood and flesh before them, the beasts around her slowed their pace, and some quicker ones even tentatively dragged away a corpse.

At that, the other beasts reacted as well. The previously unexpected scene before Ji Yao’s eyes transformed in an instant into a battlefield of beasts fighting for food, for predation of the weak by the strong was their nature.

Ji Yao had lines of black across her face, but she had to admit this was indeed an excellent way to disrupt the beast tide’s advance.

So she no longer hurried forward. Her steps flashed beneath her as she relied on her movement technique to evade, and she did not linger in combat. Every so often she would cut down a few beasts with her sword and hurl their corpses diagonally downward into the surging mass.

Soon, the northern edge of the forest had become a vast battlefield of demonic beasts fighting over food, bloody and cruel.

By then, blood had also splattered across Ji Yao’s hands and face, though her robe remained spotless thanks to the dust-warding formation. Snow Dust Sword gleamed coldly in the sunlight, its chill sharp and its killing intent severe.

At a glance, she looked like a female demon queen emerging from a slaughterhouse. Ji Yao knew very well that these were only first- and second-tier beasts. If they were third-tier beasts, she would be running for dear life.

Just like the few she had encountered in the forest’s central region: they possessed a certain degree of intelligence and could restrain instinct to some extent. More importantly, they had already learned to cast their basic elemental spells.

For Qi Refining cultivators, that was the truly deadly part.

First- and second-tier beasts still fought with their bodies, while cultivators could attack from a distance and naturally held the initiative.

But for third-tier beasts, against Qi Refining cultivators who could not fly through the air, ranged spells on the ground no longer held an advantage.

Third-tier beasts possessed both animal instinct and spell support. If they encountered flying third-tier beasts, Qi Refining cultivators would be utterly suppressed.

If it were just one, they might still try to fight. If it were a group, there would be nothing to do but flee.

At least for now, she had managed to stall the beast tide. The cultivators fleeing toward the grassland had gained a little more hope of survival. Ji Yao herself had not expected such an unexpected gain, and her heart was somewhat comforted.

Only at this moment had her spiritual power been nearly exhausted, but she could not stop to rest and recover here. She still had to go deeper and see what was going on.

She took a pill to restore her vital energy and then cast a cleansing spell upon herself. Taking advantage of the beasts being mostly occupied with fighting over corpses, she chose a less crowded gap and sped into the forest.

The number of beasts on the way had already grown sparse. It seemed that the beasts near the outer edge of the forest were no longer in their original territory. These must be the ones from the exit.

After advancing farther inward, she finally detected a crowd within the range of her divine sense. Around them was a ring of beasts hemming them in. The cultivators trapped in the middle were holding their formation and defending, divided into three groups that took turns on the front line, and they still seemed to be managing with ease.

Seeing this, Ji Yao felt her heart settle as well. She found a thick, leafy tree, took out her formation disk, placed it on a broad branch, and activated it. Then she sat beside the disk to regulate her breathing and recover.

At the same time, she divided off a sliver of attention to keep watch over the battlefield not far away.