A Broken Heart Still Beats.

Chapter XXVIII

"Get them out of here!" Liu Qingge shouted over the screams of citizens fleeing for their lives, Cang Qiong disciples all facing off against serpents nearly twenty times their size, and all while with each one killed, it only seemed to be replaced by two more. "Now!"

"We're trying!" Shang Qinghua screeched, too terrified to think clearly about screaming at Liu Qingge of all people. But he couldn't find his bro anywhere! He hadn't returned to the estate, and he was not the animal guy between the two of them! "There are too many of them! We can't safely get the citizens from their houses without risking them getting swallowed!"

Liu Qingge snarled as he surged forward, beheading the serpent coming for one of his peak brothers before flying back over to Shang Qinghua, grabbing the An Ding Head Disciple by his arm, and pulling him away from the fight.

"Do what you can! These beasts can tear through stone like sand, if people stay inside without even trying to escape, they'll either be eaten or crushed!" He flicked his wrist and Cheng Luan flew from his hand, impaling the serpent scaling the wall of the estate near the servants' quarters. "Yuan said that they are sensitive to light! Blind them if you can!"

With that, he returned to the fray, shouting as he tore through every beast in his path. Luo Binghe had given him the pieces of jewelry that they had, and it seemed that Shen Yuan's hunch had been correct; the serpents practically swarmed him. But even with the numbers against him, he fell every one of them, and despite the majority coming after him, even a single serpent was almost too much for even a group of disciples to handle together.

He knew they shouldn't have brought Ku Xing and Xian Shu; they couldn't fight!

Ku Xing was a peak of monks, they may be skilled in mediation and spiritual prowess, which meant almost nothing aside from spiritual power when it came to a fight. Even then, there was only so much that spiritual power could do for a cultivator that had not yet reached Mid-Core Formation. Xian Shu, however, was a peak of women, cultivators through the arts of craft. Clothes, jewelry, and dance, truly cultivation meant only for those of a peaceful path, and while they had their own way of fighting and skillset with weapons both crafted for beauty and deadliness, in matters of battle such as this, they were dangerously out skilled and outnumbered by the beasts.

Thankfully, out of anyone here—even the disciples of Bai Zhan—the ones most well-adept at this matter was Ling Shou. Each disciple worked together skillfully, knowledgeable of beasts great and small, weapons varying in size and effect working as one, and every serpent that came after one was dealt death's hammer by the pack.

"Liu Qingge!" One of Ling Shou's jumped onto the scaffolding against the outer wall of the estate. He was a burly young man, with two scars near his scalp, landing in a crouch and damn near on all fours, with the eyes of a beast as well as the demeanor to match. "Where is our Xiao-Shidi!?"

Liu Qingge cringed at the question, something he himself just as much wanted to know. "Luo Binghe went to retrieve him!"

The burly young man snorted at him, snapping his jaws before horns sprouted along his scalp line and a thin tail snapped from his robes. "Leave our Xiao-Shidi alone with Bai Zhan, they said, nothing will happen they said." The young man jumped off the scaffolding, ululating loudly as he bodied the head of the serpent closest to them.

Liu Qingge ignored the surge of annoyance that flooded his head at the disciple's muttering, they hadn't the time for squabbling, but he wasn't one to forget so easily.

With only one thought, Cheng Luan flew from his hand again, going through serpents as a nail went through wood. Even as beasts came after him, he was nearly impossible to catch. Jumping over the serpents, forcing them to crowd each other and get in each other's way as he beheaded each of them. The numbers were slow to dwindle, and Liu Qingge couldn't help but wonder if there was a nest somewhere where these things were coming from.