Thunderweb Sweeps Away the Beast Tide

No sooner had Mo Chen hidden himself than another chilling rush of wingbeats sounded behind him.

Countless Gu Diao poured into Flowing Cloud Immortal City from every direction.

The Gu Diao flock circled above shops and towers, rising and falling erratically like a black sea heaving up towering waves, each one crashing against the immortal city.

There were too many to count.

Simply too many.

The market district had become a hell on earth.

Cultivators raised barriers of spiritual light, Flying Swords danced wildly, and fireballs and Talismans flew as though they cost nothing.

But kill one, and three came. Kill three, and ten came.

Some had barely finished forming their hand seals when sharp claws tore through their barriers, splashing blood across the spot.

Many cultivators who found themselves outmatched tried to flee with escape techniques, but there were too many beasts. After a few attempts, they ran straight into another Gu Diao.

Sharp claws seized them, and after a few bites, their screams fell silent.

The mortals fared even worse. Running figures filled every street and alley.

Those who ran fast enough ducked into cellars and escaped death for the moment. The slower ones were knocked down by Gu Diao, their skulls pried open with talons and their entrails dragged across the ground in a scene of utter carnage.

Before long, blood in the market district had gathered into little streams that flowed into the moat.

At the foot of the mountain, Flowing Cloud City's streets formed a grid, ten running lengthwise and ten crosswise, with a Teleportation Array at its very center.

But it was already packed beyond capacity, and people kept squeezing toward the city center.

Everyone wanted to live.

Sunward Street, which led to the Teleportation Array, was so clogged with fleeing people that not even water could have seeped through.

Cultivators and mortals were jumbled together like a pot of porridge, all desperate to rush into the formation.

"Immortal master, please take us with you when you fly! Just once! Once is all we ask!"

The cultivator did not even look at them. His brow creased, and a Flying Sword shot from his sleeve.

Swordlight swept across them, severing several mortals at chest height and splashing blood over the faces of those behind them.

The crowd screamed and scattered to either side. The cultivator stepped through blood and flesh into the Teleportation Array, then flashed into its center in a burst of white light.

He left only corpses strewn across the street and cries that no one heeded.

Just as the cultivator guarding the city was about to activate the Array Formation, a powerful streak of light descended from the sky, accompanied by an arrogant shout: "Wait! Make room for an officer of the City Guard!"

Huang Yi landed heavily at the edge of the Array Formation. He unleashed the full pressure of his Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation, instantly cowing everyone present.

Overwhelmed by his aura, they fell silent as cicadas in winter, not daring to make a sound.

"S-senior," the city defender said, enduring the pressure as he bowed respectfully. "The Array Formation... is already full! We truly cannot take any more..."

"Full?" Huang Yi's eyes shifted toward the edge of the Teleportation Array, and he flicked his hand without hesitation.

Without even forming a hand seal, Huang Yi sent several pale green Wind Blades slashing across the people inside.

"Not full now, is it?"

Where the Wind Blades passed, more than a dozen Qi Refining cultivators became a heap of mangled flesh. No one could even tell whose severed limbs were whose.

"Senior! This..." The city defender blanched in horror.

"What are you hesitating for?! Activate the Array Formation now!"

"Y-yes... yes..."

Terrified out of his wits, the city defender hurriedly raised the control token to activate the Array Formation.

But at that very moment, disaster struck!

A figure as swift as black Lightning suddenly shot out of the ruins to one side!

It was a Gu Diao. Moving faster than thunder could reach the ear, it bit off the city defender's head with unerring precision!

Then it lashed out with a claw, bursting his body apart and smashing the Teleportation Token to pieces along with it.

Huang Yi was about to strike down the beast when he noticed the metallic black gleam of its wings and its terrifying aura.

"This... this is... a Demon Beast equivalent to a cultivator at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm? How is that possible!"

Feeling the terrifying demonic power surging toward him, Huang Yi desperately forced seven or eight streaks of swordlight from his body, sending them spinning wildly around him.

At the same time, Huang Yi frantically brought out two Jade Pendants brimming with spiritual light and an unidentified golden talisman.

In an instant, three layers of light enclosed Huang Yi, shielding him completely!

Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators truly were extraordinary. He could deploy offensive and defensive measures together while still finding time to erect layer upon layer of protection.

But greater despair lay ahead. Eight more Gu Diao at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage descended from the sky.

Before long, after one brief scream, Huang Yi was gone. Only the sounds of Gu Diao tearing and chewing, and blood covering the ground, remained...

This selfish, despicable City Guard officer ultimately met his end by being torn apart and devoured.

Having disposed of Huang Yi, the strongest cultivator present, the Foundation Establishment Realm Gu Diao turned toward the low-level cultivators around them, who were too frightened to move. Saliva streamed from their mouths.

The Twin Crane Sect up on the mountain was no better off.

The Mountain-Guarding Grand Formation had fallen. Smaller Array Formations within the sect were operating at full power, and the cultivators struggled to hold on behind their restrictive wards.

But there were too many Gu Diao. The Array Formations had barely killed one swath before more lunged in from behind.

Cultivators stood back-to-back in groups of three or five. Their Flying Swords wove curtains of blades around them, while spells continually blasted out from within the Array Formations.

They could hold out for a while, but not forever.

Some unlucky cultivators were just about to cast their next spell when a Gu Diao seized the opening, bit off an arm, and dragged them outside the formation.

Screams rose and fell throughout the Twin Crane Sect.

While Mo Chen was still looking toward the Twin Crane Sect, something unexpected suddenly happened.

Frightened, Mo Chen sank his entire body into the rock, not daring to breathe.

Seventy or eighty Gu Diao had been drawn to the rear mountain by the firelight and the smell of blood.

Intent on eating, these Gu Diao seemed utterly unafraid of the burning mountain. They pounced straight onto the bodies of Jiang Jiuyao and her companion and began tearing into them.

Mo Chen could clearly hear bones cracking from where he hid. Even the dozen or so dead Gu Diao were devoured completely by their own kind.

What madness!

They even eat their own kind.

Mo Chen kept his Earth-Escape Technique active, merged into the rock without daring to move.

Fortunately, they left once they had eaten their fill.

Only after the Gu Diao had flown far away did Mo Chen exhale, realizing that his back was soaked.

Thank goodness they were all at the Qi Refining stage!

If even one at the Foundation Establishment Realm had come, these two spells would have been useless.

Mo Chen suddenly recalled something Steward Zhou had casually said when bringing him into the sect ninety years ago: "Our sect master is in the Pseudo-Golden Core Realm. With the two immortal cranes at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage under him, no one within five hundred li dares provoke us."

Mo Chen had only just entered the sect then and had no idea what the Pseudo-Golden Core Realm meant. He had merely thought it sounded impressive.

Only after reading various Classics in the Scripture Pavilion had he understood that the Pseudo-Golden Core Realm was just one step away from forming a Golden Core.

In terms of cultivation, the sect master could indeed swagger unchallenged across this region. Even either one of those two immortal cranes at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage could slaughter its way through the entire servant compound.

But so what?

How many people could he protect?

Against a demon beast tide of this magnitude, simply saving himself would be good enough.

Mo Chen gazed at the boundless flocks of Gu Diao below the mountain, silently weighing the situation.

The beasts likely outnumbered all the Twin Crane Sect's cultivators a hundred to one.

However powerful the Pseudo-Golden Core Realm might be, could he kill a thousand? Ten thousand?

Flowing Cloud Immortal City was finished. His life as a servant in the Twin Crane Sect was finished too.

Mo Chen sighed inwardly and began planning his escape route.

Still, he had already lived a full hundred and seventy years. Fleeing to the ends of the earth was something one grew used to after enough running.

As he pondered this, a chill flooded him from head to toe, as though someone had seen through him inside and out. None of his secrets could hide from that divine sense.

This was what it felt like to be scanned by the Divine Sense of someone with profound cultivation!

Then an absurdly powerful pressure swept across all of Flowing Cloud Immortal City, making it almost impossible to breathe.

Cultivators and Demon Beasts alike froze beneath that pressure, their hearts skipping a beat.

Everyone looked up into the distance and saw a white speck the size of a sesame seed appear out of nowhere on the horizon. Wreathed in lightning, it flew through the dense beast tide toward Flowing Cloud City.

In just a few breaths, it swept in from the horizon with the force of wind and thunder, appearing over Flowing Cloud Immortal City.

The newcomer hovered high in the sky, forming hand seals with both hands while chanting.

In an instant, the heavens changed color, and streaks of Lightning lit up the night sky.

The beast tide, vast as a black sea, seemed to sense that something was wrong. The creatures immediately fled Flowing Cloud Immortal City, scattering in every direction.

Within another few moments, rolling thunderclouds had gathered overhead. Thunderclap boomed with deafening force.

Several dazzling bolts of heavenly lightning, as thick as wagon wheels, tore through the sky and crashed down.

After striking a Gu Diao, the Lightning did not dissipate. Instead, as though alive, it leaped wildly through the beasts filling the sky, linking them together!

In the blink of an eye, an immense, brilliant Thunderweb formed, covering all of Flowing Cloud Immortal City and the airspace around it.

Countless electric serpents raced across the web, crackling and exploding, bathing heaven and earth in blazing white.

Even Mo Chen, hunkered down inside the earth, saw a flash of brightness and instinctively shut his eyes.

When Mo Chen opened them again, he saw that the tens of thousands of Gu Diao that had blotted out the sky were now utterly rigid, wisps of smoke rising from their bodies. They plummeted in dense masses like dumplings dropped into a pot!

Mo Chen could not believe it. There had been tens of thousands of Gu Diao at the very least, yet this cultivator had killed them all in an instant with a single Thunder Art.

Most astonishing of all, the lightning could distinguish friend from foe. Not a single low-level cultivator still resisting the Gu Diao tide within Flowing Cloud City or its outskirts had been injured by the Thunder Art.

The cultivators in the city stood dumbfounded, exchanging horrified looks, scarcely able to believe their eyes.

"This... this is a Golden Core Realm cultivator!"