Wu Long stood in the wreckage of the gates under the astonished eyes of the people around. He deliberately was moving at not high speeds so they could clearly see him as it gave them the sense that they could take him on, thus not completely despairing.
He also made only two large moves to break the gates, and to shatter the barrier. Both were symbols of their sect’s safety and stability.
His feet turned, and as the rain of arrows resumed his figure moved to the walls he passed earlier, as he leaped while the arrows were shattering around him with sparks flowing into the dancing snowflakes around. His foot landed on the flat surface of the wall and Spiritual Qi enveloped it as his torso moved a little further as if he stepped and then his second foot landed, after which he ran vertically up on the wall. .𝒐𝙧𝒈
When he was close to the top of the wall Wu Long leaped forward with a seemingly normal step, launching his body into the air above the wall. He then landed among the people on the wall and made a whirl with his spear as crimson color rushed into this mostly white world of snow along with screams of agony as well as the war cries of the people further away.
He then started running along the wall as his spear and Spear Qi were painting this white world in red with every movement. His spear soon completely broke and he randomly picked up a saber from the arms of one of the fallen enemies, as Saber Qi appeared on the blade and he continued without dropping his pace.
His movements were made at mostly the same speed as his opponents and he only utilized skill in slaying them, not overpowering them with speed or strength. From the side it looked like he was almost caught by some of the weapons brandished at him, giving an impression that his advantage would be gone with only a slight nudge. He also continuously moved in one direction of the wall as if stopping him would be breaking his momentum, thus putting him into a passive position.
Meanwhile, various body parts were flowing into the air as arcs of crimson were drawn. The saber he picked up was not of good quality and soon broke upon repeated contact with other weapons, while he utilized his bare hand to tear a hole into the chest of a sect protector and steal his halbert, and continued forward. Occasionally, amongst the chaotic battle an arrow would be launched at him from the air bridges up above as some marksmen would try to hit him when he was preoccupied but it would still only release sparks as it bounced off at the perimeter of 3 meters around him, or he would throw one of his opponents into the way of the arrow.
As he reached the place near which the wall was connecting to a rocky peak and the way forward was leading into the cave entrance, he leaped, bounced off the wall of the rocky peak a lot higher than the cave entrance, and then leaped further up to one of the air bridges, continuing his onslaught there. The Revolving Qi Realm sect elders on the walls that were approaching him from behind loudly cursed as more of them appeared from the cave entrance in a failed pincer movement.
Most of the people on the bridges held bows so he plowed through them with relative ease compared to the wall. As sect elders appeared on the bridge, he simply switched the bridge to another one, making it clear that he was avoiding them and targeting the archers.
This cat and mouse continued as he was leaping from one bridge to another, sometimes breaking the bridge to move around. There were people falling from broke bridges, and elders who fell down trying to keep up with him and mimic the trajectories of his movements which looked graceful and effortless as if they would be easy to repeat.
There were also those who kept an eye and an ear to the outside as he made quite a diversion, that could potentially be very deadly if accompanied by a thunderous large-scale attack of an army.
But even then nothing happened outside while Wu Long continued to slaughter the people around. The two large attacks he made previously were still in the minds of his enemies so they did not press him too much, instead sacrificing the sect protectors to exhaust him. There appeared from time to time moments where he was dangerously close to being in a predicament where one more push from them would have seriously wounded him, which he always escaped with his opponents either making mistakes or the allies’ moves interfering at the last moment.
He was traveling through the caves to other sections of the sect’s outer perimeter from time to time, and then switching bridges there when the way was free of sect elders as they could not make him stop anywhere.
Wu Long soon saw sect disciples being brought in large numbers into the cave entrances into the rocky peaks on the ground below the wall. It seemed that they wanted to increase the number of people on the bridges to entrap him in place once he slowed down and add to his exhaustion.
The cannon fodder they brought soon started filling the walls and then all of the caves and bridges.
The sect elders also started to move in many groups of three from different rocky peaks and then slowly center in on Wu Long from both sides through multiple segments of the outer perimeter.
Wu Long’s eyes started flickering with profound patterns again as he looked at the disciples that appeared before him along with the sect protectors he already fought but not very surprisingly he did not find even one worth sparing as the last disciple recruitment was eight years ago, so even the freshest batch have lust cultivated at least two furnaces to complete waste.
Contrary to their expectations his speed did not drop, the only thing changing was that now there were crimson color streams running down from the wooden bridges when he passed, as the floor could not hold it.
He was still changing weapons to the ones his fallen enemies were holding as the damage and wear accumulated very fast. He also restricted his usage of Spiritual Qi, mostly making physical attacks with weapons.
No matter what weapon he picked from their hands, his fighting style would change to match the optimal use of the weapon, and his skill was miles above the people who held the weapon before. The weapons he was holding were slightly trembling as if in excitement and made very clear and resounding sounds when they shattered as if exploding like a firework.
The sect elders completed their encirclement, not leaving even one bridge unmanned, with two teams on each end of the bridge. But at this moment Wu Long simply jumped a few times between bridges, rocky peak walls, and eventually the wall down below to land on the ground and plowed through the crowd of disciples still pouring there. He headed to the buildings of the sect, as loud curses and shouts were resounding on the walls behind him.
There was essentially a city here, so he went through the streets, sometimes going straight through the buildings by shredding the walls into pieces, sometimes jumping through the roofs. The sect protectors were in hot pursuit and maneuvering to the roofs while the disciples were more passive as Wu Long only slaughtered them when they were in the way. He used the city terrain to avoid the sect elders, as the majority of the people that were brought to the walls were now called back to encircle him in the inner city.
There were also sect retainers in the city amongst whom he did not notice anyone he would spare as well. He caught glimpses of the cultivation furnaces, which soured his mood upon seeing their conditions and the way they were ‘kept’. He could not tend to them now but the wounds of his enemies started to become more elaborate, fatal but not immediate, as they writhed in pain trying to gather their innards and limbs in a desperate attempt to be saved.
His enemies, though, saw it as a sign of him weakening and running out of Spiritual Qi, as his opponents now survived after encountering him.
But two hours later, they finally started to notice that no matter how close they seemed to be to trapping him with elders, or simply pressing with sheer numbers, no matter how close he was to being cleaved by a blade or pierced by a spearpoint, they were still that single small but very crucial step away from succeeding, and as they worried about an army coming in from the outside, and hoping to exhaust him, they now were carrying such heavy losses that the rapid progress their sect made in the last 50 years in lower ranks was already mostly lost.
And although it could not be accurately gauged, it seemed that he was still not as exhausted as he should be. What they began to understand, was that rather than worrying about an army attacking them from the outside and preserving their main high-level fighters for that, they needed to solve the army that was already inside their sect. An army of one.