Blood stained the mountains; killing intent blotted out the sun.
Before the gates of the Azure Water Pavilion, the grounds had become a brutal battlefield of slaughter.
Blood soaked the once jade-white stone path. Shattered armor and broken weapons floated in streams that had once run clear and gentle. The bodies of Azure Water Pavilion disciples lay everywhere. Most had fought until their qi ran dry and strength failed. Not one had knelt to beg for mercy; not one had betrayed the sect to drive the enemy away.
Ever since the Mahayana Evil Cult had lured the defenders away and thrown the full strength of its Southern Region Sub-Altar against the Azure Water Pavilion, this gentlest and purest water-aligned sect on the Qingchuan Southern Border had held fast for a full three hours.
No Vajra Realm expert guarded it. Its foundations were thin, and the attack had caught it utterly unprepared.
Every disciple in the pavilion was a woman devoted to quiet water-aligned cultivation. Their arts favored defense, healing, and a tranquil mind, not fierce assaults or killing. Yet with the unbending resolve of the righteous path, they had endured the frenzied onslaught of more than a thousand cult marauders.
But human strength had its limits, and even a last stand could not last forever.
All three layers of the mountain-protection array had shattered. The pavilion's three elders at the Elixir-Embracing Peak were gravely wounded, their vitality failing and more than half their qi spent. Countless inner and core disciples fought on, bloodied and wounded. Their formation had long since broken; only clusters of three or five remained, using halls and corridors to hold back the advancing tide of cultists with their lives.
The cultists feared death no more than they feared killing. Each eruption of black qi devoured the