72 The Nine-tailed Fox goes to battle
Lu Jiao moves quickly as soon as the blast hits Kunlun. "The protection shields will hold, but we have to act fast." She nods towards Fei Lin. "Take all the young and weak to the Dragon's Roost, and then meet me in the armory, I'm letting everyone pick as many weapons as they can use."
"Surely, you don't mean..." Yin Xian starts.
Lu Jiao cuts him off. "Yes, even the old Masters treasures! What good are they to us, if we're all dead?"
Wu Yun and Lan Tian follow Lu Jiao as she stalks out of her rooms and to the courtyard in front of the Phoenix's Perch, where a huge crowd has gathered.
Everyone is looking at the sky. There are hundreds of Immortal Mountain disciples floating on their swords, swelling up the horizon like a swarm of bees. They're organized in wedge and square formations, and at the call of the figure in the center, who can be none other than Lian Feng, release a tremendous amount of energy towards Kunlun.
They're stopped by a dome of luminous mesh, that flares up, every time the burst of energy reaches it.
The force of each blow shakes the ground, but their devastation is kept at bay by the shield dome, surrounding the entire floating expanse of Kunlun.
To Wu Yun, it seems unbelievable that those thin strands of light are capable to repelling such vicious bursts of power. "How long will that hold?"
"Hopefully, long enough," Lu Jiao says, and then turns to the gathered crowd.
"Brothers and sisters, the battle we have been preparing for is here! The enemy is cruel, and ruthless, but we will prevail by the strength of our righteousness. " Her words are met with cheers even as blasts continue to shake Kunlun.
Wu Yun doesn't think that's very inspiring, as far as epic speeches before battle go, but then again he has nothing else to compare it to.
Lu Jiao orders everyone present to follow her into the armory and take up weapons. All the gathered beasts follow after her like waves being pulled back to sea by the tide.
Wu Yun re-accesses his first thought, maybe Lu Jiao doesn't need any moving speeches, because the fire burning in her sapphire eyes speaks for itself.
---
The armory is located in a remote building, far away from the main complex of pavilions for Wu Yun to never have noticed it. It looks almost unassuming from the outside, but once Lu Jiao dispels the wards protecting it, Wu Yun can see that the exterior in no way resembles the ample metal chamber inside, covered from floor to ceiling with shelves and weapon stands.
"Take any weapon you are proficient with, our only goal is to destroy them," Lu Jiao says, handing a heavy mace to a boy with looping rabbit ears, who looks closer to dropping it on the floor than to being able to yield it.
In the middle of the flurry of activity, Wu Yun remembers something. "Where is Bai Xiaoli?"
Lu Jiao scoffs. "'As a goddess I shouldn't interfere on matters of the mortal realm', I believe were her exact words."
"Isn't that all they do?" Wu Yun asks, incredulous with Bai Xiaoli's thick face.
Lu Jiao doesn't seem inclined to dwell on Bai Xiaoli's absence and takes a sword with a purple and silver scabbard from one of the stands, and hands it to Wu Yun. "This is Severing Strike, it's a powerful sword, but very easy to handle, even if you're completely inept every 5 in 10 blows will hit their mark."
Wu Yun takes the sword from her and tries not be offended. "Uh, thanks."
"You've practiced with a whip before, no?" Lu Jiao asks, turning to Lan Tian.
She doesn't wait for him to answer before giving him a slim leather whip. "Coiling Fist, nothing fancy but it reacts well to water, which is the element you're most likely to manifest, as a dragon."
"Thank you." Lan Tian accepts the whip from her hands, and tests its flexibility between his fists.
"What about me? What element do nine-tailed foxes usually manifest?"
Lu Jiao gives him a confused look, and then seems to realize this is far from the weirdest thing Wu Yun has asked her, and her pinched features smooth over.
"Nine-tailed foxes usually have no elemental affinity. Some can have enhanced strength, or speed, but that is all. In rare cases, nine-tailed foxes can use what we call fascination, to briefly put victims under their control, its effects are limited and it only works in one target at at a time. Maybe you'll develop that."
"Not a very useful skill, in a large scale battle," he says, his shoulders slumping.
"No, not really," Lu Jiao pats his shoulder. "That's why you have the sword."
Wu Yun is perhaps more disappointed with that information than he would like to admit. He thinks he understands Zou Qiao's feelings of powerlessness, now. Remembering his death makes grief climb up his throat. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts as if they are water in his ears. He can't afford to let his guilt paralyze him.
Other Beasts take their pick of the armory as well, some are personally gifted weapons by Lu Jiao, others take the first thing they can get their hands on, running on adrenaline and fear.
A violent tremor shakes the armory's metal walls, making some of the empty weapon stands topple with its violence.
Lu Jiao scowls, her red eyes brimming with barely restrained fury. "I think it's time we make these intruders pay for attacking our home."
---
Immortal Mountain's sustained attack on Kunlun's protection shields, hasn't let up by the time they reach the landing near the wutong tree path.
Lu Jiao's red wings burst forth from her shoulder blades and she takes flight, her whip already a line of fire around her wrist.
"Break their formation! They won't be able to keep attacking the shields that way," she shouts, flying to the edge of the mesh dome, and staying just inside its perimeter.
At Wu Yun's side Yin Xian throws an inquisitive look at Lan Tian. "Brother, will you be joining us in the skies?"
Wu Yun's blood boils at Yin Xian's insinuating tone, at the way his fine, polished features remind him of the sharp edge of a blade, beautiful but merciless.
Lan Tian doesn't spare him a single look. "I'm fine on the ground."
Yin Xian. "Feel free to join us, when you are ready to soar to greater heights."
Is he implying Wu Yun is weighting Lan Tian down?
He doesn't have much time to dwell on Yin Xian's possible implications, because the next tremor hits Kunlun, stunning him for a moment.
When he next looks at his side, Yin Xian is gone, and in his place sits an enormous white dragon, with a mane of silver hair, and piercing ice chip eyes.
He opens his huge jaws in a roar and shoots towards the sky, flying without wings, in a way that more closely resembles swimming, his slithering body cutting through the air like water.
Other dragons follow after him, black, red, orange and green, and a myriad colors in between, their scales shimmering under the sun like polished mirrors.
They are joined by phoenixes, some of them in their full Beast form, others in their mixed forms, carrying weapons.
All of them remain inside Kunlun's protective barrier, facing the violent impacts from Immortal Mountain's attacks.
Lu Jiao is the first to act. She swings her whip in a wide arch, releasing a shower of a thousand flames that fall like daggers on the Immortal Mountain disciples sustaining the formation closest to her.
Some of them dispel the flames off themselves with hand seals and talismans, while others seem unaffected while their robes and skin is consumed.
"How is it possible that they don't feel pain, while their skin burns?" Wu Yun asks, shocked to see the disciples maintain the formation despite the flames licking at them.
Some of them keep their position until the very last moment, when their bodies can't stand the fire anymore and collapse like a wooden buildings.
Through it all, none of them let out a single scream of pain.
Lan Tian looks up at those stoic faces, none of them betraying a hint of fear or pain, and arrives at the only logical conclusion. "I think something must be controlling them."
In the middle of the formations attacking Kunlun, Lian Feng crosses her arms, calmly suspended on her sword's blade. "Is that all?" she shouts. Her words a clear taunt towards Lu Jiao.
But it's not Lu Jiao who answers her provocation. "I've had enough of this," Yin Xian says, his voice echoing like thunder.
He twists his slender body into a coil and opens his jaws in a roar that brings with it a powerful jet of water, directed at the formation to his left.
Behind him, a black dragon opens his jaws and lets out a freezing breath that chills Wu Yun to the bone even at a distance.
When the black dragon's chilling breath comes in contact with Yin Xian's torrent of water, it freezes instantly, turning every water droplet into a vicious projectile.
They hit the Immortal Mountain disciples like daggers, throwing some of them off their swords immediately with the violence of the impact. Others hold their position, even as stab wounds stain their robes red.
Wu Yun curses, nothing seems to have an effect on the Immortal Mountain disciples, who remain on their swords even as they bleed to death. Empty puppets determined to break through Kunlun's defenses no matter what.
Enraged, Lu Jiao lets out a roar, and flings her flaming whip at Lian Feng, who stops the flaming ball of fire headed towards her with a hand seal in front of her chest, dispelling it.
Yin Xian seems frustrated that his attack wasn't successful and charges forward through the shield, sweeping his tail towards the nearest formation of cultivators, toppling them off their swords.
"No!" Lian Feng screams.
At the same moment Wu Yun looks up and sees Lian Feng's smirk as she twists her fingers and shouts, "Now!"
Immediately the disciples in the remaining formation cease their attack, and turn towards Yin Xian flying a thousand ropes from their wrists towards his slithering body, and binding him in midair.
Yin Xian thrashes against the bindings around him, but is powerless to release himself, suspended in midair, halfway inside the shield dome.
That's when Wu Yun realizes what Lian Feng's plan is. "They're going to use him to cross the shield!"
Just as he fears, Immortal Mountain disciples climb over Yin Xian's squirming body, and run inside the protective shield surrounding Kunlun. The shield recognizes Yin Xian as a member of Kunlun and therefore doesn't repel him or the human cultivators crawling over him.
They drop to the ground once inside, falling on the Beasts below like a hailstorm of fluttering robes.
Wu Yun manages to dodge the first blow thrown his way, slashing his sword across the arm of the Immortal Mountain disciple running towards him.
Severing Strike slice his arm clean off, but the disciple doesn't seem to notice. He pries his sword free his severed fist, with his remaining hand, and charges towards Wu Yun with a blank expression.
Above, Lu Jiao and other phoenixes try to use their weapons to cut through the bindings anchoring Yin Xian in place, to stop the influx of Immortal Mountain disciples, but aren't quick enough to stop most of them from breaching Kunlun's shields.
Lian Feng is the last one to cross over. She steps over Yin Xian's head with a smirk, and looks down into his icy eyes.
She raises her sword above her head and brings it down over one of his red horns, severing it in half. Yin Xian roars with pain as blood seeps from the stump. His horn falls to the ground with the weight of tree stump, nearly crushing two beasts under its massive size.
Lian Feng takes a paper talisman out of her sleeve and holds it in front of her face. "Burn it all down," she says, addressing all her disciples.
