"Demon beasts attacking!"
"Tether the horned horses where they stand! Form ranks on the spot!"
"Ready bows and crossbows!"
A man's booming commands immediately rang out through the caravan.
The panicked mortal guards immediately obeyed, taking bows and crossbows from the enormous wagons and forming ranks on the side facing the attack.
Several men and women in assorted clothing emerged from one wagon, took out talismans, and tore them apart. White clouds formed beneath their feet, carrying them into the air. They were all Qi Refining immortal cultivators.
Judging by their spiritual energy fluctuations and nervous expressions, however, they were only at around the third or fourth layer of Qi Refining.
Amid rustling from the nearby woods, a dense swarm of apes came hurtling out.
Each stood only about a meter tall, but had extraordinarily long arms and an enormous nose. Wielding stones, branches, and other weapons, they surged toward the caravan in a chaotic mob, apparently numbering no fewer than a thousand.
"Fire!"
At the furious command, the mortal guards loosed their bows and crossbows in unison. Amid flashes of cold light, dozens of apes in the front rank fell in swathes, throwing those behind into confusion. They slowed in fear, and some at the very rear even turned and fled.
Just then, a dozen or so piercing cries sounded from the mountain. Amid a dull rumbling, over a dozen giant apes with gray-white fur, each roughly three meters tall, charged out.
Boom! Boom!
The gray-white giant apes leaped high, then stomped heavily upon the fleeing black apes, crushing more than a dozen of them into puddles of mangled flesh.
Humanlike fear appeared on the black apes' faces. Driven on by the giant apes' cries, they could only charge the caravan again, waving their stones and branches. Those closer