She barely had time to catch her breath, as the speed that her and her friends were moving at assured that it wouldn’t be long before they encountered the second group of disciples that had been approaching from behind the one that she had just decimated.

“You’re so cool, Nyla,” breathed Esteban from in front of her. “You can make two diagrams at the same time, and even charge them up with all those stones without getting hurt!”

“You can praise me later,” she said, a grim line forming between her pursed lips in lieu of the light smile that she’d intended to show.

A great crashing sound echoed throughout the land that sent a subtle tremor throughout the region. This was quickly followed by a series of similar sounds, though she had no time to wonder about their origins as thousands of azure blades began to descend upon them from all directions. Not only had the second group of disciples stopped to target them from a distance, but so too did most of the other enemies in the area. Nyla had no choice but to activate the barrier arrayment that she had been maintaining for the past several minutes, at which point Alicia and Aine followed suit without hesitation.

A great dome of golden light appeared around the group as they continued to run toward their northeastern-most attackers, which deflected or dispersed dozens of energy blades with every passing moment. She was both surprised and relieved to see that the barrier held without much trouble, and silently thanked Uncle Grey for all of his guidance. The techniques that he’d taught them were far superior to any of those used by their opponents, in that the energy that composed them was denser and more corporeal, which made them more durable and less tiring to maintain. Even so, under the current bombardment the barrier would only last for a minute at most, and that was only if nobody else joined in on the attack.

If only Sean and Esteban bothered to learn this arrayment… Aside from studying a couple of other diagrams, the two had mainly focused on raising their cultivations in recent months. Nyla had tried to convince them of the importance of learning the group-oriented arrayments that Uncle Grey had volunteered to teach them, but they had been too focused on raising their speed and strength, too eager to smash things apart to give any thought to collaborative defence.

Despite their speed, they couldn’t avoid all of the projectiles that flew toward them, as there were simply too many. By the time she’d counted to ten, they had been hit by at least a hundred blades of energy, and small cracks were beginning to appear here and there throughout the resplendent surface of their dome-like shield. As if that wasn’t enough, an alarming amount of life forms suddenly appeared to the west, where she quickly identified at least three hundred figures flying through the sky atop the enchanted swords that seemed trademark in the Falling Rain Sect, which quickly caused her heart to sink. All of these newcomers were in the middle-to-late levels of the Integration stage, and they were currently in the midst of drawing out attack arrayments.

I can’t let them finish those!

She didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the hidden function of the arrayment that she and the girls were currently maintaining—the fact that objects from within its borders could pass through the barrier, while those outside couldn’t enter. Clearing her mind in the same manner that cultivation required, she withdrew the other treasure that she’d obtained in the Vespasian tomb that she had entered with Lyra, a golden ring that was embedded with three black gemstones. This was a priceless essence fusion object that she treated as her trump card, for it was a remarkable piece of jewelry that stored vast amounts of inner essence and spiritual energy. It had already contained an immense amount to begin with—likely left behind by its previous owner, the warrior whose sarcophagus she had looted—and since then she had made a habit of filling it with as much energy as possible.

With a deep breath and nimble fingers, she quickly drew out the symbols, characters and schematics necessary to create the attack arrayment that she had recently used. Throwing her hand westward, she activated the diagram with a grunt of effort and gave life to thousands of brightly shining balls of energy that hovered about a hundred paces above their group. Some of these were disturbed by oncoming projectiles, but not enough to prevent an immense volley of arrows from flying out to meet the oncoming disciples and elders of the sect’s inner court. Unlike before, when the arrows had been conjured directly, this time they were continuously produced by the small globes of golden light, which shot off one after the other in a blur of blinding motion.

Though they were numerous, the arrows weren’t something to scoff at. The approaching disciples learned this the hard way, as the small swarm that was approaching from the west was nearly wiped out of existence. They had been flying too close to one another, and their flying swords couldn’t move faster than the arrows of golden energy, so it came as no surprise when bodies began dropping out of the sky like flies in a cloud of poisonous smoke.

“Holy…”

“Oh my!”

“I—incredible!”

Sean, Alicia, and Aine couldn’t help but exclaim in awe, though the latter two were forced to return their focus back to maintaining the barrier around them as the last of the enemy projectiles created a few dozen more cracks throughout the golden dome.

“Why’d they stop?” said Esteban. “They’re…they’re leaving?”

“I don’t know,” came Lyra’s sarcastic remark. “Maybe because all those disciples just died in like ten seconds?” One of her pale eyebrows jumped up as she regarded Nyla with a gilded gaze. “Was that you, or the ring?”

“Both.”

The black stones on the ring in question had abruptly turned white, which signalled that all of their energy stores had been depleted. Now that her trump card had been used, Nyla would have nothing to fall back on in the face of a dire development.

She wasted no time in guzzling down as much Divine Spirit Fountain water as her stomach would allow, taking advantage of the brief period of respite to replenish all of her energy stores.

Even though they had been tied up several times along the way, Nyla and the others had still covered countless leagues since they had first left the Desolate Spirit Tower. They likely weren’t too far from the coastline, at which point they planned to have Ian fly the group across the expansive lake before they would leave the Grand Isle of Weston and the Falling Rain Sect far behind for the rest of their days. Now that they were actually executing their escape, however, Nyla was very anxious over whether or not they would actually make it off of the island.

Somebody was keeping tabs on their movements, and whoever it was, that Nyla couldn’t detect them despite the fact that she herself was being tracked by someone’s spiritual sense told her that this person was at least at the third level of Genesis. The prospect of having to confront someone like this was daunting, for even though she had increased her capabilities as an arrayment practitioner by leaps and bounds during her last visit to Nia, she was only at the eighth level of the Integration stage, so her body couldn’t afford to take a hit from this person.

Another cause for worry was the fact that there were likely many others with similar strength within the Falling Rain Sect, and it was only a matter of time before they were attacked by somebody that they couldn’t fend off.

“What’s happening, guys?” said Lyra. “Where are they gathering now?”

“Everywhere,” said her brother. “I sense a few thousand of them now. No matter what direction we head in, we’ll run into some of them.”

He was right. Even so, Ian didn’t even begin to understand how dire their current situation was. About eight thousand auras had closed in on the general region, many of which were at the peak of Integration. What was worse, she sensed at least four people at the Genesis stage, two at the first level and two at the second.

Is there anybody that I can’t sense? Horrified into a harried heartbeat, Nyla informed her friends of the current situation. Nobody spoke for a time, not until Sean began to curse.