Row-by-row cleansing was, as its name implied, a methodical advance. The Brigade would kill every Void Spawn in a row, then the next, and so on. It was useful against enemies defending a position.

The Battalion moved slowly this time. There was no rush. In fact, it would be better if the Void Spawn rushed at them first.

That wasn't to be. The seemingly endless mass of creatures just waited. They stood just after the first gigantic cornstalk. The crop marked the farm's inner region.

The Void Spawn weren't organized. The huge C-rank Warriors were primarily concentrated in the middle of the pack, but hundreds were amid the weaker and smaller specimens not too far from the edge, seemingly at random. Their massive 300-foot-tall bodies made them hard to miss. Then came the E-D Scouts, never bigger than 30 feet, evidencing the difference in power. Lastly were the G-E Seedlings, all human-sized.

Shen itched to fight the Warriors. They would take more than a single attack to kill, and the fight would be perfect to prove his worth to Abbav, ensuring he didn't "suffer an accident" in this deployment.

Uya and Xun reached the first Void Spawn—and the creatures didn't react.

The Staff Lieutenants killed one, two, three, fifty, one hundred, one thousand Void Spawn. The enemy died without fighting back. The phenomenon was rare, but it happened enough that it had been explained to the trainees. The Void's Static Sacrifice happened seemingly at random for no apparent reason, but it was no boon. It was a trap because you might grow too comfortable with it and lower your guard. However, the Void Spawn would also randomly start attacking again, and when they did, they would–

The hundreds of thousands of creatures screeched, and they rushed at the Brigade with an uncontrolled vengeance.

Every single creature rushed at the Brigade like frenzied animals.

Void Spawn were created with little experience and limited intellect. The weaker variants were dumb and clumsy. That wasn't true after a Static Sacrifice because it was always followed by a Void Stampede.

During a Stampede, the Void Spawn cared less about their "lives" but became faster, stronger, and attacked more intelligently. At least their attacks were smarter in the short moment between reaching the enemy and being pushed into the enemy's weapon by those behind.

"Hold!" Zyn shouted. "Remember the default fallback formation!" Abbav went around forwarding the command.

The original order was to do a row-by-row cleansing, but it was rare for your foes to stay put while you massacred them unless there was no room for maneuvers. Thus, during the cleansing, the arrow formation became more pointy and would revert to a rotating circle if the enemy tried to surround the Brigade. Rotating meant moving clockwise so no singular Battalion had to remain positioned where the enemy was more plentiful. Only the Brigade Commander and his Staff would stay in place, spearheading the defenses.

Countless Void Spawn pushed past Uya and Xun.

The troops carrying the unconscious D-rank Guardians piled them behind Shen's Battalion so everyone could fight.

The creatures reached and went past Zyn, who also started killing.

Finally, they got to Shen's Staff Lieutenants.

The rules for energy conservation during a Stampede were simple: kill everything in sight using as much power as you believe will let you reach the end of the enemies visible in the Stampede. There was no checking every enemy and calmly filtering Void Spawn when they came like that. Moving too much was also unadvised because you might find yourself stranded. Rotating with the formation was dangerous but a necessity.

Shen didn't think even Zyn and his Staff could kill every creature without running out of stamina or qi. This was a real danger. Only Abbav might save the Brigade if something happened.

If Abbav wanted, of course; Shen wouldn't count on that.

The first Void Spawn reached Shen, who had just finished putting his helmet back on. He swung his spear, meeting the kicking foot coming his way. The medium-sized Scout exploded into black smoke.

Shen didn't use his stamina for that. He controlled his body using his natural Law control. Moving that way was slower than using stamina, but he had to save it for emergencies—like the C-rank Warrior approaching from the right. The group of enemies was too numerous and spread sideways. They didn't need to go through the Brigade's leader and Staff to reach the Battalions, which were already reverting to the rotating circle formation.

Sadly, that Warrior wasn't fated to fall by Shen's hands. Fu Wenqian was in its way. The hundred-yard-tall massive creature was a rolling ball that suddenly produced countless lightning-fast thin tentacles. To its dismay, the red-robed woman was Lightning and Light incarnate. Her Sword met every incoming attack, cutting the tentacles off. Instants after the battle started, she found an opening and approached the Spawn, dodging all tentacles with impressive ability. Upon reaching its massive body, she threw herself at it like a needle in a balloon.

She only managed to pierce a yard before she was stopped, but even while going in, she kept using qi and her Path in quick swings of her blade. A few hundred dozen cuts later—which happened almost instantly—the Warrior exploded into smoke.

It was fortunate that some Warriors were among the first Void Spawn to approach. Their vast bodies acted as natural obstacles, and the Brigade gained a brief respite when they were disposed of.

It wasn't as fortunate that the Void Spawn on the back started flying to advance unimpeded. Every other Staff Lieutenant and Battalion Commander jumped to turn the circle into a half-sphere, turning the C-rank defensive wall into a thin and considerably less reliable membrane.

Zyn ordered Uya, Xun, and even Abbav to form a rotating triangle around the battalions and took to the skies himself. The Staff Lieutenants and even Abbav started killing faster. That further displayed how dangerous the situation was.

The D-ranks were faring as well as expected of them. They would die when they ran out of energy or if a C-rank small Void Spawn slipped through the C-rank defenses. They kept fighting because, as hopeless as the situation was, they could do nothing but their best.

Well, most of them kept fighting. Shen had also taken to the skies to better oversee the situation and saw a few stupid D-ranks get overwhelmed by the crisis and stop fighting. Their souls weren't being pressured by Abbav at all. They were just weak-willed idiots.

Shen killed with abandon. He swung his spear freely in wide arcs. He kept some attention on Alicia, who was faring well. In fact, she seemed to have increased her mastery of her Concepts of Fire and Healing.

Every D-rank still fighting showed improvements. Most C-ranks did, too. This trial by fire was as effective as Zyn had claimed it to be, maybe more.

Once, Zyn interfered more than he was supposed to. Warriors were coming from all directions, and the C-ranks couldn't kill them all before they got to the D-ranks. One Warrior would slip through, so the Brigade Commander shot himself against it. He extended his saber's blade with qi and swiftly cut the humanoid giant into four. That was enough for the Void Spawn to dissipate.

Going by the books, Zyn should be saving energy like everyone else, but he was this mission's Commander. He called the shots. He was supposed to weigh risks and gains and determine when losing more energy now would pay off in the future.

His absence from the spot he had occupied in the skies created an opening, allowing Shen to finally fight a Warrior himself. He had been growing worried about the lack of a strong foe, but his desire to stay close to Alicia kept him from using his "paranoia" as an excuse to get out of position.

The Warrior was a giant black hawk. It shot through the skies faster than Shen himself could move. It aimed at getting to the D-ranks, but while Shen couldn't race it, he was fast enough to get in its way.

He stood there, unmoving, and the creature didn't change its trajectory. They would clash. Shen filled his weapon with qi and his Path and swung it upward.

The spearhead struck the Warrior's beak. The shock threw Shen a dozen yards back, but the Void Spawn fared worse. Its head bent almost 180 degrees as its body was thrown higher into the skies.

Both Shen and the Warrior quickly got their bearings back. The cultivator returned to his place in the defensive membrane while the creature ignored the rules of momentum to simply and instantly reverse its path while keeping its speed.

It was midway through reaching Shen again when it exploded into smoke, and Shen smiled.

It worked!

He had infused the Spawn with Path-strengthened energy when his spear's blade cut it. The Law of the Shaft gave his qi a solid foundation to resist the creature's Void-substance for a little while. Conductivity and Stream moved his qi toward the Warrior's body opposite Extremity. Killing Weapon insisted on trying to kill it while he used Gentle Breeze in a novel way: to provide stealth. The Law muted the internal attack, making it harder to perceive and counter. And True Boundlessness fought with everything it had against the being that represented the end of all things.

The attack had cost Shen more qi than he would've spent by repeatedly striking it with his spear, but it was an outstanding display of skill if he said so himself.

All troops had been briefed on how hard it was to infiltrate a Void Spawn's body because it was the repulsion of existence itself. It was possible, of course, but prohibitively costly. Well, he hadn't used up that much energy. He also displayed a new way of using his Path. It would help show how he had progressed.

The Brigade's fight for survival continued, and Shen had other opportunities to demonstrate his power and skill. He once moved his spear with such outstanding usage of his Conductivity, Stream, and Extremity that it became almost half as fast as Fu Wenqian's jian. Another time, he skewered a Warrior with his spear, the tip extended by qi, then pushed the qi outwards into a wide tube. That was even harder and theoretically more wasteful than his infiltration trick, yet he didn't use that much qi.

But Shen's most impressive display was when he used his Shaft in a unique manner.

He grabbed his spear with both hands and held it horizontally in front of himself. He filled it with qi and waited for a Warrior, which looked like an impossibly thin disc, to attack.

Then, Shen fought the Void juridically.

The Law of Shaft demanded stability and supported the very space it filled. Its physical representation in the spear acted as a bastion of Reality itself. Shen's Law refused the Void Spawn unlawful rejection of existence.

He held his spear firmly, filled with qi and intent, as the rotating disc tried cutting it in half. The shaft shook with power and resisted the enemy, which started growing smaller as its edges were ground down.

Something Shen had never seen before happened. The friction produced a creak that one might expect from an unoiled hinge, but it didn't occur as a sound. He felt it with his Law senses. It was disturbing, and he decided not to attempt it again before understanding what was going on.

It didn't even make sense. Sure, Shen was using his Law a little differently, but it wasn't that far from what naturally happened when killing Void Spawn. You pushed qi-fueled Laws into them, and they died. The most significant distinction was in the intent and form, so he guessed a direct challenge like that had more implications than a straight attack.

The Brigade kept fighting.

Void Spawn and Guardians kept dying.

Eventually, only a hundred thousand Void Spawn and twelve thousand Guardians remained—and of the latter, only half the C-ranks could still fight.