The lance of fire passed between a half-dozen of the Vulture Geckos and the riders thought themselves safe. At least for an instant. They felt themselves pulled towards the flames and screams filled the air. The lances of flame didn’t just swirl like a vortex, they also drew in everyone around them like inverse tornados, pulling everything into a spire of raging flame. With only a few thrusts of his lance, the six hundred cavalry were thrown into chaos, large lines of fire making out no-man’s lands in the sky. A sudden obstacle course being erected in the air and with a violent fellow rocketing around the sky creating more of them.

Down below, Jiyao also intensified his assault. A third slash followed the first two, smashing the formation, battering their shields, and then striking them in the legs. The Jade Horde’s armor covered from the knee down, but it wasn’t as strong as their shields. A single hit caused a deep channel in the armor. The combination attacks consumed his energy quickly, but it also started to do real damage. He threw one cut to break the formation just above their heads, then another arced upwards, passing through the gap and falling down atop those in a further back position. Dozens of heads rolled while the others in the Jade Horde realized the danger and lifted their shields over their heads. Orders were yelled and the formation tightened into a turtle shell. The second row covering the heads of the first and the third lifting theirs straight up to make a roof. Jiyao repeated the tactic but his strike went low, cutting off a few dozen at the ankle by laying attacks in the same spot, piercing the leg armor and their legs with them.

The Jade Horde was slowed even more, tightening their lines with shields lowered down to the ground. The front row moved while in a crouch and presented an unbroken wall to their enemy. With the three walls of troops now presenting a turtle shell, Jiyao slowed his attack frequency, unable to break through anymore he was instead just damaging shields and forcing them to rotate out to fresh ones from the back.

The girl in black, Songji, called out to the two in action, “Tujiu, Jiyao. Switch!”

Without even acknowledging her, the two of them suddenly changed targets. Up in the air, the cavalry were flying around in elaborate patterns, moving like flocks of birds to swirl around and avoid the pillars of flame that were lancing through the sky. Giving them wide berths as their riders continued to fire bolts towards their source, the bald man with the spear. They were completely unprepared for invisible arcs of slicing force. An orderly line of Vulture Geckos was suddenly decimated when each of them lost half of their left wings, suddenly spiraling and falling to the ground like kites with their strings cut.

The man with the spear was somersaulting through the air, mounting the spear and rocketing through the sky, then hopping off and launching a fire lance. When he heard Songji’s words his flight path abruptly changed, pointing towards the ground and blasting down behind the Jade Horde’s lines. His rocketing spearhead blasted through the glowing scale shield and then he spun in mid-air, swinging his spear in wide circles like a baseball bat. Holding it from the end, flames burst from the tip and he turned himself into the center of a flaming tornado. The power wasn’t as condensed or deadly as the fire lances, but it made quite the show as he touched down and doused the surrounding fifty yards with fire.

He dodged away from a few thrown halberds and others coming down towards him with heavy force. The Horde Halberds enacted the ‘Chop Wall’ tactic, lifting, extending, and falling with full force. The rows behind the first followed up with the same chopping action, making their front face look like a giant thresher. Tujiu met them with his flaming lance strikes and with only a few stabs, one of the three Legions was thrown into chaos just like the cavalry in the sky. Jiyao had already started stepping on space and climbing into the sky, attacking them with much greater precision than Tujiu had been doing, while the spear wielding Tujiu attacked with explosive force that the Jade Horde’s shield wall couldn’t stand up against, especially when he attacked from within the center of their formation.

The Strongfist Brothers couldn’t allow this to go on, the three of them moving in perfect unison despite not saying a word. Their Vulture Geckos rolled and talismans were thrown out from them to cloud the air where Jiyao was running and leaping. He was forced back out the sky to avoid bursts of fire, ice, thunder, and poison. Each of the talisman was like a technique trapped into a piece of special paper with a litany of array symbols and exotic materials. They were just like magic tools in that any cultivator could use them, but could only be created by a Talisman Master. A pile of money fell down upon Jiyao, surrounding him in utter chaos. He was hit again and again, blood spurting from his mouth. Then he brought his saber down, ripping a black tear into the air and leaping into it.

While a firework show was going on up above, the three brothers had already leapt from the backs of their Vulture Geckos. They caught each other’s hands and formed a human chain, flinging themselves between the cavalry in the sky and crawling down to the ground like some disturbing mid-point between man, ape, and worm. The trio of superhuman acrobats used the flying cavalry as their trapeze and within a few moments they had already reached the ground. They caught Tujiu unaware, as he was too focused on rocketing around and then delivering his huge flame lances. His power was explosive, but also unwieldy. The Strongfist Brothers fell soundlessly behind him, the largest one acting as a platform to launch the other two into the air over Tujiu.

The oldest brother settled into a horse stance for a moment, bending at the knee till his thighs were parallel with the ground. His arms were thrust straight forward and his two brothers used them as launch pads. Hopping onto his shoulders and then dashing forward, they kicked off the backs of his hands and flipped through the air. The movement caught Tujiu’s gaze and he spun around, whirling his spear towards the airborne pair. As he did, only then did he notice that the oldest and largest brother was there, exploding into motion only after Tujiu made his move. With his spear already in motion, he didn’t have time to alter the course to take on the oldest brother that suddenly charged towards him. Kicking off the ground, his low stance turned into a low tackle, a big shoulder getting lowered and barreling into Tujiu’s knees.

The path of the spear was thrown off by the sudden loss of his footing, but the wide swing was still turned into a precise strike with a whip of his arm. The blade of the spear stopped in mid-air and then darted forward like a bullet, the sharp point flew towards the throat of the middle brother. The two in the air locked hands and pulled on each other, the one being targeted was spun away, rotating around the other and then getting swung down at Tujiu like a weapon. Tujiu’s lower legs were trapped and he was kicked in the chest by both feet of the incoming Strongfist Brother.

Crack!

Tujiu let out a loud scream when one of his legs snapped, cracked by the conflicting forces of the two brothers. Jiyao had disappeared in the deluge of devastating talisman, but there were still three others unaccounted for. The third Strongfist Brother, who hadn’t yet made contact with Tujiu, leapt off his brother and glanced back at their other enemies. That was when his eyes widened, since he only saw two of them. The redhead girl and the small guy with the sword. Where was the other?

He didn’t have time to finish his thought as he felt a presence behind him. Floating through the air, neither of his brothers were around for him to borrow their force. A coldness swept through his body and then he felt a sudden pressure and looked down. Pointed nails protruded from his midsection. Time seemed to slow down for him enough to count five, and he realized they were fingernails. They spread apart and the hand opened up, giving him a gory view of his punctured gut. Then the hand disappeared, pulling out of his back as he fell down to the ground.