Chapter 70: Suppressed strength

Chapter 70: Suppressed strengthThey kept on with the barrage, the rain of arrows never ceasing for more than a breath. The air above the field was thick with the sharp whistle of projectiles and the howling roars of the oncoming horde. Though their relentless efforts had managed to slow the beasts down considerably, there was no denying what was becoming painfully clear to every soldier on the wall...the swarm was endless. For every creature brought down by an arrow, two more took its place, charging across the open fields like a flood of claws and muscle. They fell, bled, and died, but never stopped moving. They pushed on like waves against stone.

Lucas stood near the edge of the wall, eyes narrowed and breathing calm despite the chaos. He fired another arrow, its energy infused with that same pulse of kinetic force, watching as it exploded upon contact and blasted apart a cluster of beasts. And still they came.

He looked to his side and saw Nyx. Her focus was unbroken, her aim sharper than before thanks to his earlier pointers. She loosed another arrow and took down a beast mid-leap. Yet Lucas could feel the strain setting in. Around them, the soldiers’ arms were tiring, and some had even run out of Qi to form arrows. The archers who had picked up his technique were firing with more accuracy, but not everyone had the stamina or Qi control to sustain the effort for long.

A sudden shout from one of the scouts snapped everyone’s attention. Then came the call from Commander Alexander...his voice carried across the wall like a whip cracking through fog. He barked orders, calling for the rear archers to reposition. Lucas turned to look.

The beasts had begun scaling the wall.

Not just one or two strays either. A wave of them, hundreds in motion, using their claws and limbs to claw their way up. Some leapt from the backs of others, launching themselves higher, their bodies scraping and skidding across the stone. Some had already reached midway. The sound of their claws scraping against the stone walls was bone-chilling, like the rattling of dry bones against metal.

Alexander’s command echoed again, targeting the wall-scaling ones, but Lucas could already tell...this wouldn’t be enough. The archers had little angle, and many of the beasts were too fast, darting back and forth across the wall face to avoid the line of fire. One or two had already managed to grip the lower ramparts with inhuman strength.

Lucas’s gut clenched. He knew what would happen if even a dozen of them got over. These weren’t ordinary beasts. They weren’t mindless animals. They were vicious, coordinated, and utterly relentless. If they got into the city proper, it would be a massacre.

His thoughts sharpened. Time was slipping from their hands like sand through a sieve. He didn’t hesitate. As his eyes scanned the rising tide of monstrosities scaling the fortress wall, Lucas knew he had to act now. Whatever he did next would make the difference between containing this assault... and watching the city fall.



Lucas turned away from the chaos without uttering a word to the commander or even Nyx, who was too focused on the incoming wall-scalers to notice his sudden withdrawal. He headed toward the shadowed corridor of the east tower. It was quieter there...less movement, fewer eyes.

He didn’t have the luxury of hesitation. As soon as he entered the narrow space beneath the battlement’s stone arch, he found the most grounded part of the floor, lowered himself cross-legged, and closed his eyes. His back straightened. His palms turned upward. The muffled shouts of soldiers and the distant roar of beasts still reached his ears, but he tuned them out with the discipline he had trained for in silence and desperation.

There was no time to explain. No time to make people understand. It was insanity, what he was about to do. To sit in the midst of a battle and draw inward, not a sword, not a bow, but his breath and his soul.

His Qi core responded almost instantly. The sealed reservoir within him, the pool of raw spiritual force that he had stubbornly kept untouched, trembled at his call. He drew in a sharp, slow breath, and the inner chambers of his body pulsed with a low, humming intensity. It was like unlocking a gate that had been dammed for too long....one that now threatened to tear open and drown him.

Sweat dotted his brow almost immediately. His teeth clenched, and he bore the pressure as his dantian contracted under the strain. The Qi flooded outward from the center of his core, racing through the meridians that lined his body like rivers carved through earth. His muscles stiffened. His bones groaned in silent protest. Still, he did not stop.

He could feel the strain...this was no ordinary surge. He was ripping open the inner walls he had erected within himself, tapping into a current that could easily tear apart a less disciplined man. The pain was sharp, like glass dragged through his bloodstream, but he endured it.

If he didn’t do this now, the beasts would scale the wall. They would pour into the city, into the homes and lives of people.

He exhaled slowly. The veins on his arms pulsed dark and swollen. The stones beneath him began to quiver faintly with the pressure he was channeling. His robes stirred as if in wind, though no breeze entered the corridor.

As soon as the current of Qi finally fell under his shaky control, Lucas forced himself to his feet. His knees nearly buckled beneath him, the surge of energy making his limbs tremble as though his own body was rejecting the power he had so stubbornly pulled into himself. His breath came in short, strained pulls, each one weighted with the pressure of what he had just done. The veins in his arms still pulsed faintly with the remnants of wild energy, and his temples throbbed with the effort to keep it from spiraling out.

He had succeeded in drawing out the suppressed strength but he had overestimated his ability to contain it. He was still within the confines of the Expert Rank, still climbing slowly through its demanding levels. That much Qi, drawn in so forcefully, now churned restlessly inside him like a storm in a sealed chamber. If he didn’t release it soon, his body would begin to suffer real consequences. His muscles were already beginning to ache from the tension of suppressing it, his meridians heated like metal under flame.

He didn’t waste any more seconds.

With uneven, dragging steps, Lucas left the stone corridor, clutching the wall briefly for support as he found his way back toward the western battlements. His vision blurred slightly from the residual pressure burning through his meridians, but he gritted his teeth and kept moving.



Soon, he reached the edge of the wall again.

The sound of war hit him like a wave. Screams, shouts, the twang of bowstrings, and the unnatural screeches of the beasts below all tangled into a chaotic roar. But he heard none of it clearly. All he could think of now was the need to ground the energy, to put it to use before it turned on him.

Princess Nyx stood a short distance away from Commander Alexander, both of them near the main stretch of wall where archers and cultivators were rapidly firing and striking in desperation. They didn’t notice his arrival at first...Nyx’s bow was raised again and again, and the commander’s voice barked orders to his soldiers, urging them to keep pressure on the horde trying to swarm the wall.

Lucas staggered up beside them.

He did not speak. He only leaned forward against the battlement and looked over the edge. What he saw below made the urgency in his blood spike tenfold.

The beasts were climbing in terrifying numbers now.

The initial waves had slowed thanks to the cultivators who had arrived, their sword auras and spiritual attacks thinning the horde slightly. But it wasn’t enough. There were still too many. The tide of flesh and claw and hunger surged like a dark tide, and those that had already begun to climb were nearly halfway up the inner stone of the city’s outer wall.

Soldiers on the lower floors had formed another defensive formation beneath, preparing for the inevitability that some would make it over. They shouted commands to one another and braced for impact.

But from the look of it, even they were barely holding. It was clear to Lucas now, they were running out of time. The city’s wall would be breached if nothing drastic was done.

He placed one trembling palm on the stone ledge in front of him. His breath came out in a low hiss. He had drawn the power he needed, but it was only half the battle. Now, he had to use it before it ate him alive.