The ferocious roars dragged Lin Yun back to reality. At the moment, it didn’t matter if the geniuses of the Dragoncloud Ranking came or if there was an opportunity for him to grow. The utmost important thing right now was to escort these villagers to the nearby city safely. Lin Yun did not have the heart of a buddha, but he would do this since it was within his ability. So he didn’t hesitate to draw his sword.
“Luo Han, escort these villagers to Inkwater City. We’ll be right behind you,” said the old man with his eyebrows furrowed.
“Understood.” Luo Han nodded his head before he raised his voice, “Everyone, follow me!”
It didn’t take long for the first wave of demonic beasts to arrive. Lin Yun drew his sword and unleashed eighteen sword rays that intertwined into a net, killing all the aerial demonic beasts who came in contact with it, “Luminous Moon!”
This shocked the few that had stayed behind. If it wasn’t for Lin Yun, it would be impossible for them to stop the aerial demonic beasts. When the earthbound demonic beasts came over, everyone else made their moves.
There were simply too many demonic beasts who had lost their minds. So the slaughtering lasted for a long time. Four hours later, those who were left behind started to suffer small injuries. Getting injured was troublesome as one could lose their life.
With a flash, Lin Yun left behind nine afterimages. Each afterimage stabbed a sword out and unleashed a terrifying chill. Right now, Lin Yun was pushing the Profound Seven Steps to the limit as patches of demonic beasts were being frozen from nine different directions.
“Die!” Lin Yun flicked his wrist and hundreds of demonic beasts were killed just like that. He then glanced at those who stayed behind and said, “Those who are injured leave first. We’ll retreat as we fight.”
There were too many demonic beasts, so they could only retreat as they fought. After all, it was impossible for them to deal with all these demonic beasts by themselves.
“Thank you, Young Master Lin.” Those who were injured wanted to leave, so they felt relieved upon hearing Lin Yun’s words.
“Those who remain can come with me and kill the demonic beasts!” Lin Yun yelled seeing that the demonic beasts were clustering up.
“Hehe, alright.”
“There will be many overlord demonic beasts every beast tide and their beast cores are absolutely priceless. We might not be able to get those, but it’s not bad being together with Young Master Lin.”
“Let’s go!” The dozen who stayed behind yelled with excitement and killing intent filled their eyes. The beast tide was a disaster to commoners, but it was a harvest for cultivators. After all, it was simply impossible to kill so many demonic beasts on a normal day. After all, demonic beasts weren’t stupid and they would run if they couldn’t win.
But if they were lucky, they could take advantage of this opportunity by obtaining an overlord or monarch beast core. Everyone here was a wandering cultivator and it wasn’t strange for them to have such thoughts. The beast core of those beneath the quasi-Heavenly Soul Realm couldn’t catch Lin Yun’s attention, so it didn’t matter to him if these people took them.
Golden light exploded as Lin Yun swung his sword out at the demonic beasts that were gathered together. He used Heavenly Shatter Cloud to swing his sword in nine different directions.
His swords unleashed a violent storm, crushing all the demonic beasts into fragments. When the storm calmed down, only a few powerful demonic beasts retained a complete corpse while the rest were turned into bloody rain.
There was no way Lin Yun could execute such moves so often in the past, but Lin Yun was managing it well now. If he disregarded his origin energy’s exhaustion, he could go even more insane. The remaining demonic beasts were killed by the wandering cultivators, but the number of demonic beasts killed by them wasn’t even one-tenth of what Lin Yun killed.
“Let's go!” Lin Yun rested briefly before heading towards Inkwater City. He could only defend from one direction and Luo Han’s party would surely encounter demonic beasts along the way. Although the pressure wouldn’t be high, Lin Yun was still worried.
Lin Yun was even more worried if Inkwater City could resist the beast tide. After all, the old man said that the scale of this beast tide was something that happened only once in a millennium. Along the way, they saw many corpses on the ground. None of the wandering cultivators had a happy face when they saw this scene.
Fortunately, they caught up with Luo Han’s party when nightfall hit. Out of tens of thousands of villagers, nearly a thousand had died. However, it was great that they were able to protect most of the villagers.
“Young Master Lin, we ran into demonic beasts along the way and many people died,” said Luo Han in a dejected manner as many people died in front of him.
Lin Yun nodded his head and said nothing else. He had a feeling that things weren’t that optimistic in Inkwater City.
“We’ve reached Inkwater City! Everyone hurry inside.” A large city appeared before everyone at sunset.
The city gate opened and a group of people came out. When the leader sensed their aura, he rejoiced, “A few more Violet Palace Realm experts. Not bad. We should be able to last through the night.”
Everyone entered the city as the commoners needed some rest since they spent the entire day running for their lives. Even many cultivators were exhausted. The voice that was speaking was familiar to Lin Yun and his eyes lit up when he got close.
“Lin Yun!” The leader of the party that came from the city had a robust figure. He was Warbeast Feng Ye from the Great Qin Empire. He rejoiced when he saw Lin Yun and ran over before he patted Lin Yun’s shoulder, “Haha, I never imagined to see you here.”
His pat was powerful, which made the faces of several wandering cultivators change. Was he trying to kill Lin Yun? But Lin Yun glanced at Feng Ye before turning to those around him. They didn’t seem to be local forces, so he asked, “Why are you guys guarding the city? Where are the local clans?”
“Don’t mention them. They ran when the beast tide came. Most of the cultivators in the city were those who were nearby. Come in, we have to close the gate,” said Feng Ye. The two chatted as they walked. So Feng Ye also left the Great Qin Empire after the Dragon Gate Competition like him and began to roam around in the Ancient Southern Domain.
But unlike Lin Yun, Feng Ye left with Zuo Yun. The two left the Great Qin Empire not too long ago and were headed towards the Thunder Prefecture. After all, there were many opportunities and geniuses here. The two of them have several encounters and intended on returning to the Great Qin Empire, but they never expected that they would run into a beast tide.
Zuo Yun is also here? Lin Yun was briefly stunned. He had a deep impression of this person and he wondered how much Zuo Yun had improved in his saber technique. Lin Yun knew that Zuo Yun would definitely grow swiftly after leaving the Great Qin Empire.
“If you are in the Violet Palace Realm, follow me.” Feng Ye led everyone towards the City Lord Mansion. It was empty when the beast tide came and was now being occupied by them as their base.
Inkwater City was insignificant in the Thunder Prefecture as it was only a small city. Aside from the City Lord Mansion, there weren't any spiritual arrays around in the city that could withstand the beast tide’s impact.
The local forces knew about this, which is why they packed up and left for Swordmire City. After all, that was one of the seven main cities in the Thunder Prefecture.
Hundreds of Violet Palace Realm experts were gathered in the City Lord Mansion and there were even those in the Yin-Yang stage. When Lin Yun entered the mansion, he saw Zuo Yun and greeted him with a nod. There was a quasi-Heavenly Soul Realm expert here who was currently in charge.
“I’ll be straightforward since everyone’s here. If we’re able to last through the night, there will be Heavenly Soul Realm experts tomorrow to help us. If we fail, we can only run for our lives. The scale of this beast tide is unprecedented and nowhere is safe aside from the Swordmire City,” said the quasi-Heavenly Soul Realm expert with a grave expression.
Usually, when there were this many wandering cultivators and sects’ disciples gathered together, conflict would arise. But at the moment, they couldn’t be bothered with each other because all of them more or less had a benevolent heart since they wanted to stay here.
Resting for an hour in the city, they then head to the city walls with the old man. Sun had set, which made the forest around the city look even eerier than normal. It would be a long night for many people.
Standing on the city wall, Lin Yun looked at the darkness and fell into silence. He had long heard of the beast tides, but he was truly shocked after coming in contact with one. In this world, the strong preyed on the weak and the commoners had to leave their lives in the hands of the cultivators.
If the city couldn’t be protected, the cultivators would protect their lives first. They might have a benevolent heart that made them stay, but they weren’t saints. None of them were willing to sacrifice their life for others.
At this moment, Lin Yun finally knew why he wanted to become strong. He didn’t want to depend on someone else. At this moment, Lin Yun’s comprehension in the sword path increased greatly.
Roars echoed out as countless eyes glowed in the darkness and glared at the city. This made everyone nervous as the quasi-Heavenly Soul Realm old man said, “They’re here.”