Beast Tide Subsides

The morning sun rose, and the beast tide on the mineral deposits retreated first. Elder Yu immediately rushed back to the Yang Family.

Seeing that the external situation had stabilized, he prepared to go to the deep mountains to find the Patriarch, Yang Guanfeng.

But the moment he was about to set off, his mind suddenly stirred, and his expression changed drastically.

"This is bad!"

Sensing the appearance of the fox demon, and on the cliff no less, Elder Yu's heart was in turmoil.

The two children were still up there. Even with that Exotic Stone, they were no match for a Sixth Level of Qi Gathering demonic beast. This was terrible!

He mobilized his spiritual power to its maximum speed. With a few leaps, he crossed the crowd and courtyards, arriving at the cliff.

From afar, he spotted the two children. He quickly took out his magic disk and cast a spell, pulling them behind him from a distance.

He raised his hand to examine their bodies. Discovering that the two children were merely exhausted and overdrawn, with no other serious injuries, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

When he turned around, ready to fight the fox demon, he was surprised to find that the opponent was already dead!

The powerful aura had not completely dissipated, indicating it had just been killed.

Elder Yu stepped forward and saw a blood hole as thick as a finger piercing through the fox demon's forehead, penetrating its entire body, and finally shooting out from its tail.

Other than that, the fox demon had no other injuries, indicating it was killed in a single blow.

Elder Yu could naturally recognize the work of such a powerful spiritual power impact.

But he was puzzled. The highest realm of the two children was only the second level. How could they have instantly killed this fox demon?

While he was pondering, Lingqing and Linghu walked over.

"Ancestor Yu, this demonic beast was killed by the Exotic Stone."

Yang Lingqing said, handing Chen Yang, who was a bit hot to the touch, to Elder Yu.

Then she recounted how Wang Lie had intruded into the forbidden area before, and how during this beast tide, the Exotic Stone had continuously emitted spiritual energy fluctuations, acting as a warning for them.

"Something like this actually happened!"

Elder Yu was also incredulous. He stared at Chen Yang, lost in thought for a long time. The distant legends he had heard in his sect when he first embarked on the path of cultivation surfaced in his mind.

"Could this object, so miraculous, truly have an extraordinary origin?"

After this series of events, Elder Yu increasingly felt that Chen Yang's origin was extraordinary, and he was likely more than just a rare Exotic Stone.

However, with the remnants of the beast tide still present, it was not the time to discuss this.

Elder Yu brought the two children down the cliff, incidentally dealing with a few wild beasts that had intruded into the Yang Family and were hiding.

With Elder Yu's addition, the battle on the front lines instantly became one-sided.

His magic disk emitted a dazzling light. Elder Yu drew a few strokes in the air with his fingertips, and the wild beasts in front of him were crushed into meat paste by a powerful gravitational force.

Seeing this display, the other wild beasts came to their senses and fled back into the deep mountains with their tails between their legs.

Thus, the beast tide that attacked the Yang Family completely subsided.

Although there were heavy casualties, and vast areas of houses and rice paddies were destroyed, they had ultimately held on.

The aftermath was handed over to Yang Feiyun and Yang Xiaolei to handle. Elder Yu also instructed San Ling to bring all the demonic beast corpses back to the forbidden area.

He no longer delayed, crossed Little Pine Mountain, and went to find Yang Guanfeng, who was killing demons in the deep mountains.

"Patriarch!"

After half a day's journey, he found Yang Guanfeng returning, wounded.

Yang Guanfeng looked extremely miserable at this moment. A claw mark on his chest was deep enough to see bone, and a large chunk of flesh had been bitten off his shoulder.

Elder Yu rushed forward, only to find that Yang Guanfeng's aura was not very weak; instead, it was extremely profound.

"This!"

As Elder Yu touched him, his face immediately showed unconcealed joy.

"Patriarch, you've broken through your realm!"

Yang Guanfeng's cultivation had broken through again, reaching the Sixth Level of Qi Gathering!

He smiled at Elder Yu, "Heh heh, my wretched bones are always quiet when I cultivate peacefully. I only feel comfortable after being scratched and bitten by these demonic beasts."

"Hahahaha, breaking through during battle, your talent, Patriarch, also makes this old man admire you."

Speaking of this, he returned to the old topic: "Alas, if someone had guided you in cultivation earlier, let alone Late Qi Gathering, Qi Gathering Perfection would have been easily attainable."

Yang Guanfeng heard this and shook his head self-deprecatingly.

"It's all a matter of time and fate. Now that the younger generation of the Yang Family is promising, I have no other desires."

After taking a healing pill, Yang Guanfeng and Elder Yu returned home together.

After the count, the Yang Family suffered a total of four hundred and eighty-four deaths during this catastrophe, including the main family, clan soldiers, as well as the original villagers from below the mountain and the fleeing refugees.

Upon returning home, Yang Guanfeng spent five days organizing everyone to clean up the battlefield.

At the same time, he and Elder Yu opened up a large cemetery on the western slope of Little Pine Mountain, burying all the civilians who died in this beast tide.

On the day of the burial, all the surviving civilians, along with the Yang Family, went up the mountain to pay their respects.

The people offering sacrifices lined up from the mountainside all the way down.

Yang Guanfeng stood before these four hundred and eighty-four graves, facing the crowd, and proclaimed loudly.

"This battle is the battle for my Yang Family to establish itself after becoming independent from Willow Leaf City!"

"If we lose this battle, my Yang Family will cease to exist!"

"Fortunately, we had warriors! We had heroes! We had all of you!"

"This victory is not the victory of my Yang Family, but the victory of all of you!"

"We defeated the beast tide! We defeated the hardships! We also defeated the heartless, dog-eat-dog, bastard heavens!"

He paused slightly, picking up a jar of wine from beside him.

"I, Yang Guanfeng, toast all of you!"

After draining the jar in one gulp, he raised another cup of wine, turned to face the four hundred and eighty-four graves, and shouted, "A toast to the warriors! A toast to the heroes!"

His voice was deep and clear, audible throughout Little Pine Mountain.

Behind him, everyone, regardless of gender or age, raised their cups and, along with Yang Guanfeng, sprinkled the wine in their hands onto Little Pine Mountain.

That evening, the Yang Family's courtyard gates were wide open, hosting a banquet for all the commoners who had survived this ordeal.

Some raised their cups in celebration, others embraced and wept, some were filled with heroic fervor, and some were lost in stunned silence.

The myriad expressions of all beings merged into the wine, into the tears, into the night.

The battle against the beast tide allowed the Yang Family to firmly establish their footing on Little Pine Mountain. It also meant that the fate of the mortals living below the mountain, who had experienced this calamity, would be tied to the Yang Family for generations to come.

Looking at the other forces in the eastern mountain forest.

All the villages were completely destroyed, and not a single villager survived. It was said that even their bones were chewed and swallowed, leaving nothing behind.

The army of Willow Leaf Town was almost wiped out, and one Qi Gathering cultivator died. However, the city was not breached, which could barely be considered acceptable.

But White Stone Town on the other side was not so lucky.

On the night of the beast tide, a demonic beast at the Late Qi Gathering stage appeared and attacked the town.

Even though the Town Chief broke through his cultivation realm on the spot to reach the Sixth Level of Qi Gathering, it was of no use. He ultimately became food for the demonic beast.

After the city gates were breached, the horde of beasts entered the city and slaughtered indiscriminately. The townspeople let out cries of despair. The scene was like hell, making one reluctant to look any further.

Finally, it was said that a streak of light flew from the horizon. The true form of that streak of light was an azure flying sword.

The flying sword weaved through the city a few times, slaying all the demonic beasts, including the one at the Late Qi Gathering stage.

Later, two talismans fell, and their magical light enveloped the entire city. Within a very short period, the wild beasts in the city seemed to have their blood drained, turning into brittle mummies that crumbled at a touch.

After the beast tide ended, the population of White Stone Town was less than thirty percent of its former size. Many families were wiped out, and few cultivators remained in the town.

Wang Xiong miraculously survived, but his son, Wang Weiyang, died at the hands of the Late Qi Gathering demonic beast. The Wang Family, which he had painstakingly built up, was also destroyed in this great catastrophe.