Frantic bell tolls began to ring out into the empty air, surely sending chills of terror through all of those that were awoken by them. The sentries in the towers had spotted the oncoming group, dozens of arrows flying into the approaching mass of dark-robed youths while many of the town’s defenders scrambled down from their towers and fled off into the city.

Hundreds of giant serpents suddenly sprang to life overhead the war band, the foremost of which were hundreds of metres long and more corporeal than any of those behind them. These quickly began to consume the closest watch towers as if they were hapless field mice, the structures bursting into pieces and burning up within the monsters’ mouths as those that had manned them were crushed within crunching maws.

Jason steeled his resolve as he took in the awesome sight of hundreds of serpents slithering through the air like water snakes within shallow seas, the energy-composed creatures ranging from a few dozen metres in length to one that was nearly half a kilometre long. The hoard of sprinting disciples was illuminated by dark scarlet light from the martial skills that they had manifested, with many youths activating the Scarlet Serrated Hand Technique and cloaking their fists in deadly, heat-bending energy in preparation for storming the town.

As the mass of moving lights bore down upon the outskirts of Alleybrook, Jason made his move. Most of those ahead had long since sensed his aura, but evidently they had assumed that he was one of their own and thus he was able to proceed unhindered.

He slowed as the screams began, dozens of people fleeing from their homes along the fringes of town as walls, doors and windows were smashed in by the disciples at the head of the pillaging force. Knowing what sort of fate would befall the townsfolk if he didn’t act quickly, Jason assured himself that the excessive violence he was about to initiate was entirely justified and then prepared himself for what was to come.

As he did before every battle, he adopted the level-headed coldness that had preserved his sanity during the time he’d spent within the nightmarish independent space where Actius and his fellows had sealed away the chained woman that had nearly destroyed the world of antiquity alongside her unknown companions. Relying on Actius’s memories to draw out an attack arrayment as he closed in on the rear of the invading force, Jason focused on the disciples that were closest to him and calmly tracked their movements. Once the diagram was ready, he held off on activating it and instead leapt high up into the air with a hair-whipping rush of wind that set his robes aflutter in a wild way.

Allowing his aura to explode outward so as to lock the weaker disciples in place, he suddenly became the focus of attention for everyone in and around Alleybrook despite the fact that many couldn’t see or sense him. He was sure to shield the townsfolk from the pressure that he was giving off as he relied on Actius’s childhood trick of allowing one to fly within a cloud of their own spiritual energy—a less-effective method than the genuine flight capabilities of a Genesis-staged cultivator—and then activated his attack arrayment.

Although the night was doused in suffocating darkness, his eyes had developed enough sensitivity that he could see quite well despite this fact. They felt no irritation when his arrayment gave life to thousands of paper-thin disks with sharp, serrated edges, all of them steely-grey and composed of such dense energies that it seemed as if he had just summoned an army of freshly-made, circular saw blades.

“I—it’s him!”

“W—why is he here?”

All sorts of screams erupted at the onset of his suppressive aura and the pervasive flash of golden light that had preceded the creation of his countless projectiles. Just a small number of the war band’s ranks—which had slowed its advance so that only a hundred or so of them had actually made it into the town—were able to see the serrated disks within the night’s dense darkness, most of which made hurried attempts at warning the others of their oncoming plight.

“He’s about to attack!”

“Use whatever means you can to break free of his aura and run!”

The sea of serpents vanished in a matter of moments, only to be replaced by all-encompassing cloaks of red energy that suddenly flared up around each of the disciples below as every enemy present stressed their inner energies to try to break his hold on them. Many pulled out all sorts of treasures and activated them in vain as he unleashed his deadly volley upon their ranks, the disks moving instantaneously and in utter silence.

A great barrier of transparent, dimly-glowing light suddenly arose to intercept the attack, fueled by the combined might of the few Genesis-staged cultivators that were leading the group. This barrier managed to stop a few of the disks, but was shattered by the greater body of them after forestalling the eventual massacre by a fraction of a second.

A chorus of thundering impacts echoed throughout the land, which shook as if at the whims of a sudden earthquake. Earth and grasses flew skyward amidst a multitude of rising dust clouds, hundreds of agonized screams almost immediately adding to the din. Jason was quite proud of his aim as he counted only 82 dead among the eight hundred or so that had suffered his attack, almost all of the others writhing on the ground as they frantically made to stem the bleeding of whatever remained of the limbs that he’d taken from them. Momentarily releasing his hold on the disciples that had made it into town, he snickered as they all fled into the countryside without exception.

The enemy leaders didn’t give him any time to relax as six gigantic serpents suddenly emerged from the smoke with great gusts of wind—two from each cultivator—their maws open and their glowing eyes fixed on the exact spot where Jason was floating within the air.

A spear of deadly energy appeared in each of his hands, the first one expanding to about two hundred metres in size as he raised his right arm and released his hold on it. Hurtling it outward, it shot off with so much force that a devastating gale tore through the surrounding countryside, most trees in the area bending like fishing rods that had hooked large catches.

The foremost serpent burst into a mist of dispersing energies without putting up any sort of resistance, which told him that he didn’t need to invest as much energy into his next strike. The second spear that he threw was only about fifty metres long—still substantial, but no longer excessively so—and tore the second-closest serpent into two long pieces from mouth to tail before it disappeared into nothingness alongside its companion.

While it was much easier to simply rely on his strongest attack to take care of the remaining enemies, such a method would take up too much energy. Since this was the case, he pulled out the curved azure blade that he had looted from Aelia’s corpse—the protector of the Crescent Moon Sect that had kidnapped him and the American girl, Amy, from Greenwall—and then dispersed the spiritual energy that he’d been relying on to float in place. Plummeting to the ground feet first, he crashed into the unseen soil with a heavy thud and a rush of wind.

He wasted no time in dashing forward with such strength that he kicked up a large amount of dust and dirt, covering the area between him and one of the stronger disciples with a few accurate jumps. The disciple in question—a black-robed member of the sect’s Core Domain—threw out his arms as he tracked Jason’s movements with wide, anxious eyes. Devious-eyed snakes slipped out of each of the young man’s sleeves, immediately elongating to a length of over two hundred metres despite maintaining the width of an adult man’s arm. These shot towards Jason in the blink of an eye, like two giant, scaly whips, though he had no trouble avoiding them as he leapt skyward to meet his floating foe. Ignoring the sounds of impact left behind by the summoned serpents, he rocketed forward only to adjust his positioning at the last moment in order to avoid several more whip-like serpents that closed in on him from all sides.

Tch, if only I could fly faster. As all of his current adversaries were at the Genesis stage, they were able to attack him from several hundred metres in the air from perfect vantage points. Because of this, he was forced to guide his body downward with spiritual energy and dash sideways as soon as he touched down on the ground, where he barely avoided six high-quality renditions of the Scarlet Serpent Strike technique. As the earth shook from the combined attacks of his opponents, he activated the movement skill that he had learned from Actius’s memories and jumped directly toward the nearest of his foes at nearly triple his fastest, unaided speed.