kingdom falling | gyuricky

thirty five.

Gyuvin jumped up from the ground where the explosion had thrown him, his heart beating fast with excitement. So the willows had been the ones supporting the spiritual suppression array. Relief overcame him; with everyone's spiritual power restored, the infernal rift would be dealt with in no time. The training camp was, after all, just a gathering of the top youth cultivators of their generation. He'd trained with them for months now. At full strength, supported by the strongest senior cultivators of the five greatest sects in the cultivation world, they were indeed a force to be reckoned with. As he sped through the corridors and re-entered the main courtyard, he was heartened to know that he was right.

The destruction of the suppression array had turned the tide against the demonic invasion. Zhanghao and Ricky emerged from the little alcove they'd been cornered into earlier, Yujin, Jiwoong and Gunwook right behind them.

"Xuanhua!" Zhanghao called, abandoning his jinghu temporarily for a deadlier weapon, and his chain whip materialized in his hand, glowing blue, its links glinting with deadly power. "Ghost Blade!"

He swung the chain whip out in front of him and the whip sliced through the air faster than the eye could follow, turning translucent and ghosting harmlessly through the body of every cultivator it passed by, but savagely tearing through and disintegrating every demonic being in its path. This was Zhanghao's holy weapon's special technique, the equivalent of Yuexi's Rain, and clearly equally as powerful; Xuanhua's Ghost Blade had cleared the field in a single move. Its mechanics were fascinating, Gyuvin thought, and insanely practical. Weapons like Xuanhua were often inconvenient to wield in close combat battle because of how easy it was to hit someone unintentionally, but a killing technique like Ghost Blade sidestepped that concern entirely.

The barrier above them flickered just then, wavering and wearing through in some places. The Mushan Temple monks couldn't possibly hold the barrier forever; it'd already been almost a half hour since it was first put up. Screeching, crazed winged demons poured in through the weak spots, filling the temporary calm once again with chaos.

All around him, Gyuvin watched holy weapons light up, Yuexi's gold aura shining bright, Jiwoong's Xingci a resplendent silver, Yujin's Xuehui a steady sky blue. The seniors stepped in too just then, their own weapons summoned to their hand; Han Seungho and Lee Eunyoung's identical longbows lighting up in bright crimson, Jung Aerin's jade-green spirit pet dragon coiling around her feet, her shining green longsword between its deadly teeth.

"Everyone with a holy weapon, direct your heavenly power towards the eye of the infernal rift," the head monk commanded, landing soundlessly on the ground. "We need as much firepower as possible to seal the rift before it gets too wide. Aim now!"

Gyuvin lifted Yuexi, its jade-lined blade gleaming in the reflection of the red sky. In unison, the holy weapons around lit up in a myriad of colors, greens and reds and purples and blues, and pure heavenly power beamed from every direction at once, soaring straight into the eye of the infernal rift. Almost immediately, Gyuvin could see the edges of the rift begin to seal up.

The cultivators without holy weapons were busy cleaning up the last wave of demons that had escaped from the rift. Gyuvin could hear the sharp whistle of Shanqing's blade behind him, the heavy, pungent smell of demonic ash permeating the air with every breath he took.

"I've got your back," Minwoo said quietly, his back pressed to Gyuvin's. "Are you okay?"

Gyuvin tried to focus everything he had on directing as much power towards sealing the rift as possible. "I'm fine, hyung! Something's different today. I feel different..."

"Different how?"

"I don't know," he gritted out. The rift was almost completely sealed now, like stitches of thread weaving two pieces of fabric together. They were just seconds away from clearing it entirely. "Like I'm stronger than I usually am..."