He Yu called forth his guandao. This was not a creature they could reason with, and he wasn’t even going to try. The massive boar stood twice as tall as even Chen Fei, and its wrist was as thick around as He Yu’s chest. It was clearly advanced enough to assume a partial human form, and although he wasn’t yet certain of the great boar’s advancement, He Yu could tell this was not a foe to be taken lightly.

  As the storm of his presence billowed out from him, he called upon his techniques. The Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment showed him the shift of weight, the bunch of muscles, and the adjustment the creature made to its grip on the cleaver—when the attack came, he was ready. The Spring Rain Mirror formed to turn the boar’s cleaver away. He Yu surged into the space he’d created and called Heaven’s Descending Blade.

  A flash of moonlight marked Li Heng’s appearance. He caught the boar’s cleaver on his jian and flashed away once again. Leveling the gleaming blade at the creature, he unleashed a river of sword light with his release of the Winter Moon Reflection. Even as Li Heng’s technique washed over their opponent, the boar’s shadow churned. Dozens of tendrils formed from living shadow burst from beneath the creature, wrapping themselves around its weapon and limbs. The instant Li Heng’s technique fully faded, Chen Fei slammed into the creature like an avalanche. Her first punch sent a thunderclap echoing off the surrounding mountain slopes, and the earth beneath her cracked and cratered.

  The creature laughed. It ripped itself free from Yan Shirong’s tendrils. It caught Chen Fei’s kick, grabbing her leg. Using her like a club, it swatted He Yu away. They both crashed into a nearby tree. Wood splintered beneath them as the tree all but disintegrated.

  “Four times the feast! I, Kang Zhu, God of the Green Mountains, accept your challenge! Come fight me, or flee while you still can!”

  Kang Zhu’s presence rose to answer the challenge. A great stone boar rose from the earth. Four tusks of obsidian sprouted from its mouth on either side of its snout. Trotters, black and gleaming and razor-sharp, tore at the earth beneath it. Its snorts sounded like cracking stone, and the ridge along its back was jagged and sharp, as if hewn from living rock. The great boar tossed its head and charged.

  It was only the prescience afforded by the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment that allowed He Yu to react in time. Kang Zhu’s cleaver crashed into the Spring Rain Mirror, shattering the defensive technique as the earth-aspected attack overcame his water-aspected defense. He caught the blow on his guandao, cycling the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. The impact sent another burst of qi exploding outward, shattering the earth beneath his feet.

  Kang Zhu was fully within the Fifth Realm. Likely close to the middle stage, if not already there. Worse, he cultivated earth qi—an aspect He Yu had always felt he fared poorly against. Kang Zhu had already proved his monstrous strength, and no doubt he had durability and endurance to match. He Yu grimaced as he tried to shove the massive cleaver back and it hardly budged.

  “Beasts shouldn’t dare speak,” scoffed Yan Shirong. Shadows billowed out from him, and a thousand eyes peered out from within their depths. Dozens of gleaming points darted out from the gloom, only to bounce harmlessly off Kang Zhu’s thick hide.

  Without even looking, Kang Zhu swatted Yan Shirong away with a lazy backhand. The strike passed through nothing but air as Yan Shirong vanished to shadow, using his movement technique, the Darkwalker Shroud.

  Chen Fei was back on her feet, and she’d called forth the Titan Panoply. As the suit of spiritual armor forged itself, her presence reached to the heavens. In He Yu’s spiritual sight, she towered over the battle. The White Mountain Body Art drew from the very earth itself, feeding her strength and vitality. With the art’s first stage, the Eternal Mountain Root, she drank the power of metal and earth.

  Kang Zhu snorted as Chen Fei drew back a fist. “Do not hold back, child. This boar has endured worse than what you can call forth.”

  He Yu readied himself. Chen Fei might cultivate aspects poorly suited for dealing with a beast of earth, but she hadn’t yet revealed her family art. A single formation character laid itself over the world at the instant her fist impacted Kang Zhu’s middle dantian. Chen Fei’s qi flowed into the formation character “wood,” and wood-aspected qi flowed out.

  Kang Zhu roared as his presence faltered. Even at the peak, a Golden Core couldn’t hope to do more than temporarily disrupt the cultivation base of a Nascent Soul stage awakened beast. But a temporary disruption could turn the tide of a battle. Li Heng stepped inside Kang Zhu’s guard, the blade of his jian replaced by a frozen mist. The Darkmoon Strife opened five black scars on the world and left five frostbitten wounds across Kang Zhu’s exposed side. The great boar twisted, grabbing for Li Heng, but caught only moonlit snow.

  With his opponent’s back exposed, He Yu attacked. The storm screamed as he charged. The Rushing Wind curled around him, infused with the charged golden sheath of Heaven’s Descending Blade. His guandao pierced into Kang Zhu’s hide, wind tearing at the wound even as heaven’s lightning crawled along the beast’s skin. Blood spurted from the wound as Kang Zhu roared in pain.

  He Yu ducked a sweep of the giant cleaver. Killing intent, sharp and heavy, pressed down on the world as it caused the edge of the cleaver to gleam with murderous light. Before He Yu could adjust, Kang Zhu followed up with a swift kick. The gleaming obsidian trotter opened a painful gash in his side. He tumbled over several times and crashed through another tree before he caught himself with the Sky Dragon’s Flight.

  Kang Zhu lowered his head and charged. Shadows erupted from beneath his feet, from the surrounding undergrowth, and any other spot of darkness within several dozen feet. The charging boar ripped free of the tendrils like they weren’t even there. Wind lifted He Yu. Only a last second formation of the Spring Rain Mirror bought him enough space to dart away from Kang Zhu’s charge.

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  The great boar ripped through the trees and underbrush for another dozen yards before he stopped. Li Heng and Chen Fei both moved in behind him in an attempt to keep pressing the attack. The full moon shone down over a solitary mountain, as they both arrived at once.

  Li Heng appeared and lashed out with another strike using the Darkmoon Strife. Frost lined the sleeves and hems of his robe, creeping up almost to his elbows and waist. Each time he stepped through the White Hare Dance, a burst of frozen ground marked his passing. Jagged ice crystals littered the area, cold and sharp even under the midday sun.

  Kang Zhu lashed out blindly with his cleaver. Chen Fei caught the gleaming edge on her armored forearm, but He Yu winced as her technique’s armor cracked under the weight of the Fifth Realm’s attack. She held her own and responded with a powerful kick. An explosion of qi and another wood character imprinted itself on the world. Vines burst from the ground and wrapped around Kang Zhu’s legs.

  With another roar, Kang Zhu grabbed for Chen Fei again. This time, she called a formation barrier as she backed off. The barrier flashed, then broke, but it had done its job. Out of Kang Zhu’s reach, she made a series of incantation gestures, calling more wood-aspected formations with her Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols art.

  Yan Shirong stepped out of the shadows once more. This time, he used his Myriad Black Thorns technique to support his daggers. Aiming for the wounds the others had already opened in Kang Zhu’s hide, he found purchase this time. A handful of silver darts embedded themselves into Kang Zhu’s flesh, and the spray of shadowy thorns left an ugly, blackened mess of half-rotting flesh where they’d struck.

  “Enough!” Kang Zhu shouted. The power of his voice cracked the earth beneath his feet and triggered a rockslide on a nearby slope. “Witness the might of the Stone Jungle.” He lifted his free hand and closed his fist. Spires of jagged stone with gleaming shards of razor-sharp obsidian erupted all around him.

  The technique shredded what remained of the nearby area. Obsidian blades set in stone pillars ripped apart trees that had stood for hundreds of years. The road had long since been obliterated, and the undergrowth turned to little more than shredded mulch. Even Chen Fei’s vines fared little better than the natural plants.

  Floating above the fight, held by the Sky Dragon’s Flight, He Yu avoided the technique. His friends weren’t so fortunate.

  Chen Fei weathered the attack through sheer grit. She was already the toughest of them all, even still in the Fourth Realm. The techniques of the White Mountain Body Art all layered onto each other, providing a considerable boost to her already impressive resilience. The Eternal Mountain Root drew upon qi from the earth itself, cycling mountain qi to her limbs. The Iron Fortress Redoubt cycled metal qi to grant even more strength and durability. Then the Titan Panoply drew upon the first two techniques to form the suit of armor that now encased her. Even though the Titan Panoply cracked and fell apart under the assault of Kang Zhu’s Stone Jungle technique, Chen Fei endured.

  Li Heng flashed out of the technique’s range, but not before catching several bloody wounds from the sheer density of the attack. He still managed to deflect a portion of it with his jian, so when he stepped onto yet another field of frozen crystals, his jian shone like the full moon.

  Yan Shirong simply vanished, becoming one with the shadows before reappearing. “Trash,” he snorted as more tendrils rose from within the forest of stone spires to wind themselves around Kang Zhu’s weapon and limbs.

  With another hearty laugh, Kang Zhu ripped free from Yan Shirong’s shadows. “I’ll devour you first, little shadow,” he said. The massive boar of Kang Zhu’s presence charged, tearing up the ground beneath it and sending yet more spires of stone erupting in every direction.

  It slammed into a great solitary mountain, sending tons of rock and earth tumbling down its sides. Chen Fei staggered back, bloody and clutching her side as another layer of her defense was stripped away.

  The great boar tossed its head, gleaming tusks ripping shadow like cloth. A shout came from a particularly deep pocket of shadow as Yan Shirong stumbled out from the Darkwalker Shroud. His robes were shredded in several places, and blood glistened in the afternoon light, slick on his black and plum robes.

  Li Heng caught another charge on his jian. As he flashed away to release the Winter Moon Reflection, Kang Zhu followed. He grabbed Li Heng by the wrist and wrenched his arm back. The ancestral jian clattered to the uneven rocky ground below, and Kang Zhu kicked it into the ravine. He drew back his cleaver, still maintaining his grip on Li Heng.

  Heaven fell. He Yu slammed into the ground before Kang Zhu. Lightning reached down from the sky to dance along the length of his guandao. The wind surged around him, and rain soaked the broken jagged earth. He tucked his guandao under one arm and stepped forward, forming a fist.

  Shimmering scales crackling with heaven qi reached from his wrist to his elbow. Wind and heaven coursed along the ridge, flowing down the dragon’s back. With blazing eyes and sparking horns, the dragon roared.

  He Yu pulled himself into the air, drawing himself eye-to-eye with Kang Zhu. He slammed his fist into the great boar’s head. Heaven exploded out from the blow. Kang Zhu released his grip on Li Heng and staggered to several steps to the side. One of his tusks shattered, and the great boar spit out a mouthful of blood.

  With a formation of the Sweeping Wind, He Yu called the storm. Heaven flashed and thunder echoed off the nearby peaks. The gale-force winds whipped the downpour into stinging, freezing lashes. A mass of dark clouds swirled overhead, with heaven’s lightning flickering deep within.

  The storm broke. Stones erupted from the earth, only to shatter under a relentless barrage of lightning. Those that survived the fury of heaven cracked under the weight of the accompanying thunder. The endless rain turned the cracked ruined earth into mud. The great boar’s charge slowed as it sank and became mired. Still, the rain never ceased. The boar squealed and tore at the earth.

  Under clashing presences and by the exchange of techniques, the once-pristine mountain road had turned to ruin. Jagged spears of rock stood where there had once been ancient trees. The road was practically a river of mud. Patches of frozen ground sported delicate-looking but no less deadly shards of ice. Vines grown from nothing choked boulders and stone spikes alike.

  Amidst the wreckage and the ruin, He Yu stood with his friends. Across from them stood Kang Zhu—wounded but not defeated. No less ferocious, and no less eager for battle.

  “You put up quite the fight, man-things,” the great boar said. Blood oozed from the side of his mouth, and his speech sounded slurred now that he’d lost one of his tusks. But his cleaver still gleamed, and despite the destruction all around them, his spirit remained undimmed. Once more, the great boar charged.