Three rock beasts drew up close to the outer walls of the Sect. Large stone and brick walls that went on for miles in either direction, jutting out in between fields of grain and evergreen forest. The golden trim glinted in the midafternoon light.

The first beast drew back, hitting a pine tree and knocking it off the ground. Punching forward it cracked the outer exposed wall, tiny fragments falling off its extended protuberance.

Behind it, a second beast rushed the wall, crumpling the first five feet of it.

Above and away a cultivator balancing on a broom tisked.

“Yet another mess to clean up,” he said, dryly.

He spent a minute inspecting his nails before snatching the broom off of his vantage point and flying off.

***

Three cultivators arrived to fight the beasts from the heaven’s mountain school. None of them were as afraid as Fa Za felt. His spiritual sense was stretched to the limit as Grace tried desperately to wake up Jessica.

“They’re attacking Heaven's Mountain School.”

“Now?” Grace asked.

“Can we evacuate these people away, and carve a path towards these beasts?”

Grace knelt, hovering over Jessica. Fa Za felt her qi surging as she tried to cycle through her entire meridian.

Two of the scouts jogged up. One held Sa Kon. Fa Za smiled as the demon spear came into view. It was the siblings.

He didn't know if he was more glad to see them or the spear.

"Elder Fa Za….what's happened to elder Jessica? Ki No, do you have any pills on you?"

"She should be fine. I think that she was attacked," Grace said, narrowing her eyes,"Fa Za would your mother…?"

"No. She would never… well there was that one time and well the other time…"

"The village is about to be attacked. We need to rout these rock monsters," Ah Le said.

"Oooooo! Will there be stabbing? You know I love to have a good reason to pierce through your problems!"

The scouts all looked at the spear.

Fa Za had a momentary lapse as he reached out for it, but he felt the spear trying to shrink back. Ki No for his part hadn’t moved it.

"If we cannot beat it back, we can try to steer its path and limit the destruction," He said.

"Follow me," he said waving for the siblings

And when he looked behind himself, seeing the two spear cultivators moving with him, he shed a single tear.

***

Blue stared down a row of rock monsters. One before had brought him near to a completely full core and he relished the chance.

These were not rushing the town, instead leveling the evergreen trees around it like a knife through water.

It was too bad that he would have to get up close to the monsters in order to drain their qi.

Too bad for them at least.

The only thing between him and the fourth realm- as he saw it- was a mountain of power.

Ahead of him, pieces of a mountain started to look suspiciously like a meal.

And Blue was hungry.

He nodded to the scouts on his left and right as he rushed in.

In two steps he cleared more than four hundred meters. Then he picked one of the monsters at random as he extended his budding spiritual sense. It felt a lot more solid than the last time he had used it, probably as a result of absorbing so much.

A savage rock arm shot at him, missing him by inches. None of the meridians he’d expected ran along the arm and he sighed.

The arm detached, and another one passed through where he just was as he jumped up and over the beast. Then he ran as the beast's head rotated. He’d wondered why the beast with no eyes needed to turn its head, but he wasn’t going to question it.

Three other monsters diverted their paths and blue found what he was looking for. He punched up, reaching a foot into the rocky torso of the beast.

He deflected one of the three rock beasts' attacks, but was crushed between the other two. He held on with his arm, draining the first. Around him, scouts joined the battle.

Three ribs cracked, but he held on. He couldn’t breathe.

Then he crackled with a core overflowing with qi and the dull lines of the meridians around him glowed in his vision.

The cores bathed him in light, and he knew that he was going to need to spend the energy as fast as he used it. He cycled through his core, even as he pushed to draw a breath.

The two rock beasts tried to grind him between them, crunching another rib. He healed the break from the first two as the third snapped.

Around him, the air slowed. Rather than vent the qi, he shaped it into a focused movement, keeping it with him. Four lines of cold ran out from him along the meridians of the two rock beasts that were now picking him up.

Electric blue energy lines crackled from him as one of the two tried to punch his head clean off.

He raised a bruise arm, wincing as the pain from his rib announced itself.

And he caught the rock fist.

The beast registered surprise, then horror as its fist began to turn into small cold pebbles.

It was still looking as Blue pulled himself free, pain racking his body. He cycled, extending the overfull core as he landed behind his next victim.

The beast stared at the place its fist had been.

Blue stared at his next snack.

And he smiled.

***

Grace held Jessica over her shoulder as she and Hu directed the battle.

In the center, waves of qi emanated from Blue as he took on three beasts at once. Fa Za was leading rock beasts one at a time past an ambush of exploding sandals.

The aunties hid behind a ridge as he let them on a merry chase.

Ah Le was trying to do the same thing, but Ki No was spending his time defending their clutch of aunties.

Grace looked to the nearest group of reserve cultivators and motioned for three to help Ah Le’s group. She’d had ten in reserve but with that last group, she’d need to rout the beasts to give the village more time.

The large group of about one hundred beasts were trying to encircle Stone Fish and Grace was glad that the town had ridges on two sides of it. She was trying to direct the beasts away from her flanks, but they were many, and she had fewer cultivators.

Fewer in number but she at least had stronger support and unity of effort.

The rock monsters fought side by side but with no regard for each other. As she looked, one rock beast smushed another with no regard. The aunties, seeing an opening, made short work of the two.

She saw one beast attempting to move around the flank and nodded to Hu. He launched himself head first at it, knocking the beast away. They needed to keep the beasts moving to the center, rather than around the town.

She watched as Blue tossed one rock beast into a row of about ten, knocking them all down. Her Jess probably would have made some joke about how it looked like something from her homeworld, and then have to explain it to Grace at length.

That was what Grace missed the most. But as Hu joined the fray, she felt Jessica’s qi finally settle.

Her eyes fluttered open and Grace wiped the tears off her face. Really, it was just the pollen, right?

“What’s going on?” Jessica said, looking up at her.

“Wait. Before I tell you what is going on, I need to tell you something,” Grace said, as the pollen kept acting up.

Jessica brushed her hand against Grace's cheek, not daring to look away.

“I know.”

Grace sobbed, and really the pollen was super bad this season.

Jessica pulled her in and kissed her. And for the longest second in eternity, time seemed to stop around the two of them.

Then Jessica reluctantly released Grace.

“You’re supposed to say, I love you,” Jessica said when Grace finally pulled back, “Or something equally romantic.”

Grace sniffed.

“You know what Jessica, sometimes you’re kind of an asshole.”

They both laughed.

Jessica brushed the tears off Grace’s face, and Grace cursed the cruel spring season.

“And I love you too, Grace,” Jessica replied, “Now what the heck is going on?”

“Oh, girl, you're not going to believe this.”

***

Ling Za could not believe it.

Another guard splattered across her formerly immaculate wall, his entrails leaking out as he gasped his last breath. Next to him, five more formerly second or third realm cultivators lay dead.

“I guess if you want something right,” she said, flaring her qi, “You have to do it yourself.”

Ling Za set her teacup down from where she had been observing her Sect losing badly to a group of spiritual beasts.

The last thing that she needed was to mess up her hair or her makeup, and as she cycled her qi, she drew her sword.

Ten cultivators in the valley below fought ineffectively against hundreds of rock monsters. She’d asked her retinue to wait until the moment was upon them and indeed her stoic husband still sat in the lotus pose in front of his spear, gathering aura.

He would hate it, but she needed to start without him. He always took more time to limber up anyway, she thought with a smile.

The fifty meter drop from the base of the inner sect was nothing for a sixth realm cultivator and as she landed, she pushed the closest ten beasts away with a breath of her qi. A lady had standards after all.

Immediately, she was in it. The slow hulking creatures locked on to her and a good amount launched themselves at her. She smiled.

She launches into the cultivator learns his path, an old favorite- her first- sword form. Designed for a balanced offense and defense, she alternately advanced towards and away from the beasts as she assessed their strengths.

A lady needed a warmup after all.

She blocked one with an overhead strike, then slashed horizontally turning three beasts into rubble. Then, she returned to the starting position and quickly executed a middle block to the left and right.

Around her, rock dust coated the air as she moved into a flurry of activity, her next form.

The cultivator tries to impress his master, was one of those very flashy moves that was all offense.

Lina Za picked a direction and carved a path through three beasts, rushing forward. Behind her, a mess of rock beasts all stumbled about in the cloud of debris she’d left in her wake. Three cultivators in front of her stared slack jawed.

Lina Za never fought fair. Her husband had asked her once why she never fought someone at her level. She’d laughed and told him that she never wanted to hear such a stupid question out of his mouth again.