"Elder Lu, be careful as well. For some reason, these Blackwind Stronghold bandits are actually able to mingle with the demon beasts."
"Clang—"
With a casual slash, Liu Wangzhou knocked aside a stray arrow. He spun and kicked the longsword at his feet, sending it stabbing into the chest of the bandit who had fired the hidden arrow. The bandit collapsed unwillingly.
"Rest assured. This old man's decades in the army were not spent in vain."
Elder Lu's hands were crimson red. With one palm strike, he swept aside an incoming arrow. It ricocheted off the edge of his arm and buried itself half an inch deep in a nearby tree trunk.
Miserable screams rang out without end all around them, while stray arrows and hidden bolts came shooting in from every direction.
Amid them came the roars of demon beasts, and the entire battlefield was locked in a fierce deadlock.
At this moment, the many martial artists of Verdant Grain County had been held back at the perimeter. At their usual speed, they should have reached the depths of Azure Radiance Mountain long ago.
Yet these demon beasts seemed to have gone mad. They felt no fear whatsoever and charged straight into the mass of martial artists, catching them utterly off guard.
The small battlefield beneath Liu Wangzhou's feet was merely a microcosm of the entire front.
From high above, the mountain forests surrounding Azure Radiance Mountain looked as though a comb had split them straight down the middle.
More than a thousand martial artists had been divided by the Beast Tide into dozens of formations of varying sizes. Some still held their lines, while others had already been scattered, fighting in groups of three or five, back to back.
Firelight flickered through the woods. Cries of battle, beastly