Elder Wu's voice was a bastion of stern control, transmitted across leagues to the anxious faces of the Elder Council and their esteemed guests. He stood in the center of his command tent, his back straight, reporting the grim reality from the front line. The map of the southern territories lay before him, an operation he intended to control with logic and meticulous preparation.
"...at which point we will plan our next–"
A frantic shout from outside the tent cut him off mid-sentence, a raw sound of pure panic that had no place in his ordered camp. "To the eastern perimeter! They're coming from the trees!"
The image of the Council Chamber, projected by the jade array, flickered violently. He saw Elder Lin lean forward, his serene expression shattering into alarm. Before Wu could even process the security breach, the transmission overloaded from a surge of chaotic spiritual energy. The image of the elders dissolved into a shower of angry, azure sparks, leaving him in the stunning, absolute silence of his command tent. For a single, frozen heartbeat, there was only the sound of his own controlled breathing.
Then, the world outside erupted.
It started not with a scream, but with a low, guttural roar that was so powerful it made the very ground tremble and the maps on his table flutter. It was followed instantly by a chorus of panicked shouts from the camp perimeter, the sharp clang of the alarm gong, and the unmistakable, wet crunch of bone and flesh being torn asunder.
Wu was moving before a conscious thought had even formed, his body a blur of motion. He burst from the command tent, his usual stern composure now a mask of cold, concentrated fury. The sight that greeted him was a logistical impossibility, a strategic nightmare made manifest.
The camp was surrounded.
They were under attack. A tide of shambling, moaning sea of thousands of bodies that stretched as far as his spiritual sense could reach, pouring from the treeline on all sides. He saw the blank, milky-eyed faces of the villagers, their limbs twitching at unnatural angles, their simple farmer's clothes caked with grave dirt. Mingled among them were beasts of the southern woods, hulking bears with patches of rotting fur, packs of wolves whose jaws hung slack, their eyes burning with the same sickly green light. It was a chaotic, unholy fusion of every living thing the blight had touched.
"Amateurs," Wu snarled to himself, his mind a whirlwind of tactical fury. "They let themselves be surrounded. Incompetence."
He didn't waste another second on blame. His voice boomed over the confusion, infused with the unshakeable authority of a Nascent Soul expert. "Combatants, to the perimeter! Form a defensive line! Formation apprentices, reinforce the central tent, Craftsmen, to the central tent! Do not break rank!"
The orders brought a sliver of cohesion to the chaos. A handful of the contingent's guards, Golden Core disciples tasked with security, rushed to meet the first wave. But Wu's heart sank as he saw the truth of their situation laid bare. His contingent was composed of the sect's finest minds, alchemists, formation masters, architects, and artisans. They were brilliant, but they were not warriors. For every one Golden Core combatant, there were fifty craftsmen who had never faced anything more dangerous than a stubborn ingot of spirit-steel.
The perimeter was a glass wall against a tsunami. It would not hold.
"No time," Wu growled. He shot into the sky, a streak of dark azure light. High above the besieged camp, he swept his sleeve, and sixteen small, intricately embroidered blue flags shot from his storage ring, arranging themselves in a perfect, equidistant circle around the entire perimeter.
"Grand Azure Ward, activate!" he commanded, pouring his immense Qi into the flags. They pulsed with light, thin, shimmering lines of energy connecting each one to the next, slowly weaving the framework of a massive defensive barrier. But it was slow. The intricate array needed precious seconds to stabilize and fully manifest.
Seconds his disciples on the ground did not have.
From his vantage, Wu watched with cold fury as the battle raged below. Brother Wei, a burly Fire cultivator, was a whirlwind of crimson flame. He wielded a massive double-headed axe coated in condensed fire Qi. He roared, swinging the blazing weapon in a devastating arc. A vortex of fire erupted from the axe, incinerating a dozen of the shambling villagers, their bodies turning to ash in an instant. For a moment, he carved out a space of clear ground. But the horde felt no fear. They simply shuffled over the charred remains of their kin. A massive, corrupted bear, its hide blackened and its eyes burning green, charged through the last of the flames and brought a claw the size of a short sword down on Wei's head. The Golden Core expert's defensive Qi shattered like glass.
Sister Lan, a water cultivator, moved with a desperate grace. Twin serpents of condensed water, shimmering like quicksilver, danced around her, freezing the undead in their tracks before shattering their brittle forms. She was a point of elegant control in the chaos until her Qi began to visibly thin. She shattered a charging undead wolf but didn't see the small, shambling form of a rotted farmer until it was too late. It latched onto her leg, its teeth sinking deep into her calf. She screamed, not in pain, but in horrified surprise, as she saw black veins of corruption instantly begin to crawl up her leg from the bite.
But the most horrifying sight was what happened to Brother Wei.
Wu watched as the fire cultivator's crumpled body, discarded by the bear, began to twitch. The deep wounds knitted together with a sickening, wet squelch, sealed not by healing Qi, but by the same foul, black sludge they'd seen in the village. The corpse spasmed, its head snapping up. The dead eyes, once full of a warrior's fire, now flared to life with the same malevolent green light.
It lurched to its feet. It was no longer Brother Wei. It was a puppet, another soldier for the undead army. Without hesitation, it turned and charged towards a terrified formation apprentice who had been its comrade just moments before.
"A self-replenishing army…" Wu whispered, the tactical implications chilling him to the bone. "Blasphemy."
He poured more of his Qi into the formation, pushing it to its absolute limit. Just as the first wave of the horde crashed through the last of the defenders and began to swarm the central tents, the barrier finalized.
THRRUUUMMM!
A dome of pure, translucent azure energy erupted from the flag-posts, expanding outwards in a silent, unstoppable wave. It slammed into the tide of undeath, not with concussive force, but with an absolute, purifying pressure. Hundreds of the reanimated corpses at the front of the wave were disintegrated instantly, their corrupt forms unable to withstand the righteous power of the array. The rest were thrown back, their endless, shambling march halted for the first time.
Silence fell over the camp, broken only by the panicked gasps of the survivors within and the low, collective moan of the tens of thousands of undead now pressing against the outside of the shimmering azure dome.
Elder Wu descended slowly, landing in the center of the now-secure camp. He was safe, for now. But he was trapped. Looking out through the translucent barrier, he saw his two fallen disciples lurch to their feet, their eyes burning green, and join the silent, patient horde waiting outside.
The enemy wasn't just at the gates. They were wearing the faces of his own fallen disciples.
He gripped the communication talisman, his knuckles white. 'Come quickly, vanguards,' he thought, a cold, desperate urgency coiling in his gut. 'Come quickly, or there will be nothing left to save.'
---------------------------
The world below rushed up to meet them. For a few frantic moments, there was only the roaring wind in Alex's ears and the solid grip of his hands on Kai Jin's shoulders. Then, they saw it just over the tree line. Hell.
The main contingent's camp was a tiny island of defiant azure light in a roiling, moaning sea of undead. Tens of thousands of them. The entire population of the dead village and the corrupted beasts of the surrounding forest pressed against Elder Wu's shimmering barrier, a relentless tide of rot and malice. Their collective groan was a physical pressure, a sound of a thousand cracking bones and a million whispering sorrows that clawed at the soul. They slammed against the dome, their nails scraping uselessly. They threw their bodies against it, the impacts making the barrier shudder, their forms leaving wet, black smears on the pure light.
From their vantage high in the air, Alex and his friends could only stare, a cold, stomach-churning horror gripping them. Elara's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with a pain that was more than fear. Jay's knuckles were white where he gripped Talia's robes, his face pale.
But as Alex watched the shambling tide, another, colder thought cut through the shock. Zombies, he realized, the word felt absurdly mundane for the supernatural nightmare below. Actual, straight-out-of-a-bad-movie zombies. He had spent weeks pushing himself, searching for an opponent who could truly test the limits of his Ironbone body and the instincts of his martial art. This wasn't a sparring match. This was an endless wave of targets. A small, dark, and utterly exhilarated part of him, the part that had survived a Nascent Soul's punch, grinned, looked down at the endless river of enemies. 'Well,' he thought, a thrill cutting through the horror like a razor's edge, 'this might be fun.'
Master Feng didn't hesitate. He saw the urgency of the situation and took command of the unit. "Silver-Wings, engage!" he roared. "We thin the herd! Huo Twins, east flank! Jin Wei, Mu Chen, west! Lin Xiao, provide aerial support! Do not let them breach that barrier!"
Like a silver comet breaking apart, his team dove. Two streaks of brilliant crimson flame, the Fire Twins, slammed into the eastern edge of the horde, erupting into massive firestorms that turned hundreds of the shambling corpses to ash. On the western side, emerald thorns the size of spears erupted from the ground, impaling and trapping dozens of undead beasts, while a storm of razor-sharp metal shards shredded through their ranks. They were a whirlwind of destruction, their Golden Core power a terrifying and beautiful sight.
But Kai Jin hesitated. He held his team back, his flying sword hovering just at the edge of the clearing, his face a grim mask as he surveyed the chaos below. He looked at the four Foundation Establishment disciples clinging to his veterans' backs.
"This is a meat grinder," he said, his voice a low, heavy rumble. "A battle of attrition against an endless foe. I will not send you into that."
The words were meant to protect them, but they landed like an insult. Alex sensed his commander's conflict. He let go of Kai Jin's shoulder, leaned forward, and put a firm hand on his back. The gesture was surprisingly steady.
"Senior Brother," Alex said, his voice cutting through the roaring wind. "You tested us. You chose us. You said if we were worthy, you'd bring us." He met Kai Jin's gaze in the reflection of the sword's polished steel. "Why did you bring us along just to hesitate now?"
"He's right," Elara's voice, though strained, was unyielding. "With respect, Senior Brother, we cannot hover up here while our fellow disciples die down there. We are members of the Azure Plum Blossom Sect."
"I thought a warrior's worth was proven in blood and mud," Lily's voice was a sharp, cutting challenge that threw Kai Jin's own words back at him. "There's plenty of both down there for everyone."
Jay's voice was the final stone, simple, direct, and unbreakable. "We are part of the team. We fight with the team."
Kai Jin looked from Alex's resolute expression to the fierce determination in the eyes of the others. A slow, deep chuckle rumbled in his chest, breaking into a hearty laugh of pure, unadulterated pride. He thought he was protecting children, when he was actually holding back warriors.
He turned his gaze to his Golden Core disciples. Talia met his look and gave a single, sharp nod. Kira's dangerous smile returned. Ren just grinned. Their answer was clear.
"Alright then," Kai Jin roared, his excitement returning in a thunderous wave. "Let's show them how Azure Plum Blossom disciples do it!"
He urged his sword downwards, not into the heart of the chaotic fray, but towards a small, rocky outcropping a solid five hundred meters back from the main battle. The others followed, landing with practiced grace.
"What's the big idea, landing us in the next valley over?" Lily demanded the moment her feet hit the ground. "The fight's that way!"
"That isn't a normal enemy," Talia grunted, her gaze fixed in the direction of the horde, her voice blunt and heavy with experience. "We saw what their corruption does. Get bitten, you turn. Get scratched, you might turn. We don't engage them up close unless we have no other choice. We thin their numbers from a distance. That's how we survive."
"She's right, Lily," Alex said, stopping her before she could protest further. He looked at the endless, shambling tide. Talia's strategy wasn't cautious; it was the only sane option.
Kai Jin turned to him, his expression now all business. "Alchemist. You have enough to keep these four from slowing us down? The strain of ranged attacks will drain their Qi quickly."
Alex didn't hesitate. "Yes, Senior Brother." He reached into his storage ring and produced four identical pills. They were an azure hue, with a faint, cool mist swirling within their translucent surface. He tossed one to each of his friends.
Kai Jin's eyes narrowed with curiosity. "What is that? I don't recognize it."
"Think of it as an all-purpose antidote, Senior Brother," Alex said, not quite lying. "It should handle most of what this swamp can throw at us so if you encounter anything life threatening pop one of these and you should be fine."
Kai Jin stared at the pill in Elara's hand for a long moment, then looked at Alex's confident, unwavering expression. He gave a single, trusting nod. Alex had earned that much.
"Good." He turned to his united team, his voice booming over the distant roar of battle. "Find your positions. It's time we started thinning the crop."
"Hold up." Alex shouted before they could take off and tossed the same pills to them before they headed off.
Kai jin caught his and held it tight. "Thank you."
And then they were gone off to take out as much of the horde as possible leaving Alex and his friends behind to handle any stragglers.