37th of Season of Earth, 58th year of the 32nd cycle

  Newt fought with a dead man’s spear. At some point, someone had ordered the outer disciples below the third realm to retreat. Their efforts and sacrifices served nothing save to empower their enemies with their blood.

  The battlefield grew less cluttered, but the damage was already done. The madmen moved in whirlwinds of blood, striking down even the majority of third-realmers with their demonic power. Pockets of resistance remained. Core disciples in groups of three to five annihilated whatever came at them, but they were forced to defend, the Blood Cult outnumbering them ten to one.

  “Found him!” A cultist roared pointing his blazing scarlet saber at Newt. “He’s here!”

  The battlefield quivered as the information spread. Newt fought together with Emeraldstreak and Blaze, forming a triangle, slaughtering their attackers as they came. Two fourth realm combatants and a peak third realm one endured when pitted against the waves of empowered third-realmers, equivalent to early fourth-realmers. But as the tide turned, the enemies changed.

  The ones surging towards Newt were at the fourth realm. Newt’s breath caught. Where did they come from? Were they hiding behind their allies, draining the blood of the dead and the dying to empower themselves to decide the battle in one catastrophic attack?

  “It’s him!” a fourth-realmer shouted. “His head is mine!”

  “It’s mine!”

  “Mine!”

  A frenzy of demons surged towards Newt’s trio. A red haze surrounded the first one to reach him. The man swept his disgusting saber, which throbbed with blood and power, and Newt knew he could not block. The weapon would shatter his spear like a twig.

  A blast of fire exploded in the sky blinding Newt and his enemy. The man faltered, but relying on his third eye, Newt saw him, despite the momentary damage to his eyes. His spear bit into the demon’s neck, and a surge of flame ended his life.

  Newt used the blindness spell to annihilate three more fourth-realmers and retreated into the formation as his eyesight recovered into a blurry image. Others also took the chance. Some demons continued their slaughter, finding their enemies without error, while Explorer’s Gate disciples struck with clever tricks of their own.

  “Take his head or the cult leader will have our blood!” Someone shouted, leading a fresh charge towards Newt’s trio.

  Fellow core disciples noticed them and made their way towards Newt’s position, cutting their way through the enemies, but there was no stopping the tide. With no opportunity to stop them, each death, each drop of blood shed fed the demons’ champions.

  Newt batted away an enemy’s attack, but the saber cleaved through his borrowed spear. The effort bought him a split second and a spike of earth formed, piercing the cultist’s leg. The man stumbled and a sharp, burning stick found his eye. To Newt’s left, Blaze groaned and fell, Emerald moving, her back against Newt’s.

  Newt frantically scanned the ground for a weapon. Save for demonic blades, he found none. A fourth-realmer cultist raced towards him, swinging his saber when a burning chain whipped itself around his neck. Twochains pulled, but a realm weaker than the opponent, his effort amounted to a mere distraction.

  Distraction was all Newt needed. As the demon glanced to the side, Newt pounced inside his reach. He immolated himself, and the cultist’s blood armor hissed and sizzled. Newt’s back ached with sudden phantom pain. He rolled over, and a serrated, hooked saber sank into the cultist’s chest.

  Newt grasped the upper portion of his sundered spear and stabbed it into the surprised woman’s neck. Another lifted their demonic weapon at him, but Emeraldstreak smashed her fist into her head. The demon stumbled, and Newt finished her off with his improvised weapon.

  Suddenly, someone grabbed Newt’s shoulder. He spun and almost stabbed a woman wearing their sect’s colors. It was the airship captain, her burned face impossible to forget.

  “Retreat to the airships,” the fourth realm outer elder said, rushing the incoming demon with a rapier and a short-sword.

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  Newt looked around, and saw outer elders surging to join the battle, forcing the surviving disciples back. He saw his instructor, Twinflower, whose spear weaved and danced, bringing death.

  The outer elder, whose name Newt did not know, died to the left of the spearmaster. Twinflower turned, parrying the followup attack from the left, keeping his other enemy at bay with the butt end of his spear.

  “Watch out!” Newt screamed, but the screams and sounds of battle drowned his shout.

  A saber struck his instructor’s back. The old man shifted, reducing the damage, but another saber landed on him, and three madmen hacked at him.

  “Run!” the captain screamed, and Emeraldstreak dragged him away.

  He turned around to call her, but a wicked saber struck her chest just as her rapier found the cultist’s throat. They fell, killing each other, and Newt ran, holding Emeraldstreak’s hand.

  The cultists hollered and raced after them, with outer elders forming a wall to stop the wave. Newt looked back once more, watching familiar faces fall, their blood trailing through the air to feed demons and their weapons.

  A score of core disciples ran after Newt.

  “The disciplinary venerable fell,” Stegorock muttered, running beside Greenbow. “That was the giant explosion of fire.”

  Newt’s vision swam. He could see the ancient granny’s tired face and droopy eyes.

  He’s wrong. His heart skipped a beat, his throat clenched. She was a monster. There’s no way they got her.

  Newt glanced back again and saw the cultists break through. Fifty demonic cultivators abandoned the battle and pursued. The airship was docked close to the inner elders’ residential district. Newt looked up and saw a massive triceratops charge through the air, a familiar figure riding atop it.

  The group passed the inner disciple residences, and Newt thought to run to his home to arm himself, but the demons were gaining on them. There was no time.

  Could they even make it to the airship?

  Newt glanced back, a hundred yards’ advantage and shrinking. If he stopped, all fifty of them would be upon him in a second. Most of his fellow disciples were just as unarmed as he was, while others wielded inferior weapons.

  They were equipped well enough to deal with the third realm cultists, but not with the madmen chasing them. Worse, five of the twenty were bodily carrying third realmer core disciples too slow to make it.

  Twelve against fifty, and they were unarmed. But they would have to stop once they reached the ship.

  Even if I had my glaive, I could stop two or three at most. Wait!

  Newt slowed a fraction, falling behind his brothers and disciples in three strides. Emeraldstreak looked back, and Newt muttered a silent curse, sending a surge of spiritual energy into his palm.

  An explosion of sound and light blinded and deafened the cultists. They tripped and fell, only five of them continuing their run, following some unnatural sense to keep their balance, but even their speed dropped significantly.

  Emeraldstreak also fell, but Newt ran for her and scooped her off the ground before continuing his run.

  “I bought us about five seconds,” he shouted, but nobody acknowledged him.

  The group dashed through the jungle, and turned right, following a path towards the airship dock. Explorer’s Gate had four airships.

  Will we split or stay together? Newt had no idea what they should do. Run together or split in four directions, ensuring that at least some of them would survive and spread the news of what had happened. The Blood Cult attacked in broad daylight, an unprecedented event as far as Newt was aware.

  They reached the meadow with only three airships docked. One was missing.

  Maybe someone already got away?

  The doors to the airships were open, spell formations keeping the insects and elements out.

  “First eight left, second seven right, the slowest ones take the central airship,” Rexheart, the number one core disciple ordered, leading his group left.

  Newt ran into the central one, still carrying Emeraldstreak like a princess. He knew nothing about airships, but there should be some spare weapons aboard. Even if they failed to fly away, they could at least arm themselves with decent weapons.

  His worry was unfounded, Stegorock rushed towards the commands and slammed the largest rune with a wide-open palm. The ship shuddered and stormed straight ahead without rising into the air. It smashed into the jungle, sending the cultivators tumbling. Stegorock hung to the captain’s chair, muttering curses and looking at the complex network of runic patterns.

  Newt rose to his feet and rushed to help his senior brother. The sudden jolt threw them off balance, but everyone present had reached at least the third realm.

  Newt reached the command tablet and examined it. Dozens of glowing golden runes, all of which were familiar, were inscribed onto the black rock. Up, down, left, right, forward, backward, sun, rain, shield…

  Newt first hit the shield rune to turn on the shield, but the ship shuddered more violently and Newt pressed the rune again. The shields were already on.

  Why doesn’t it say that anywhere?

  Newt pressed the ‘up’ rune, and the airship climbed, escaping the jungle.