The battle unfolded much the way Liang Xiong had intended. After the junior disciples thinned the numbers of the locusts, the veteran middle and late-stage Brawlers among the disciples rapidly closed with the flightless locusts attacking with spears that struck like lightning.
Any time the Brood Mother exposed herself, she was met instantly by a powerful bolt of lightning from Liang Xiong's war bow. After the third shot, she abandoned her brood and attempted to flee, racing to leave the area of the Ground Binding formation that prevented her from flying.
Liang Xiong, however, had anticipated that the Brood Mother had grown intelligent enough to flee rather than accepting its fate as fish on the chopping block. His sister Xuanji had told him on several occasions that beasts who were transformed by celestial events became more intelligent the longer they lived after the transformation. That was part of why it was so important to hunt this Brood Mother down now before she could become a truly intelligent monster.
For this battle, most of the disciples of the Purple Thunder War Hall fought on foot. Too many of them were too young to manage war horses in a battle as chaotic as this one. A small group of mounted archers waited in reserve to chase down any locusts that escaped, and Liang Xuanji was the strongest among them.
As soon as he saw the Brood Mother attempting to flee, Liang Xuanji passed command of the disciples to his second and spurred his warhorse Baoyun into action, chasing after the fleeing Brood Mother. The next shot from his bow broke one of the powerful locust's wings, preventing it from flying away even when it left the area of the Ground Binding formation, but even then, the powerful legs of the fleeing locust propelled it across the open grasslands at incredible speed.
By the time he chased down and killed the insect responsible for unleashing this swarm, he had already ridden more than twenty li away from the battle.
"Senior Brother Bo will probably want this," he said, looking at the smoldering carcass of the powerful insect. He doubted that the insect would have any great value to the Purple Thunder War Hall, but as a beast transformed by the eclipse, the Alchemy Novice who had accompanied him from the Inner Sect would undoubtedly be curious about the beast.
"Maybe I can use this as an excuse to pay my sister a visit," he thought as he collected the carcass and turned his horse back toward the battlefield. At this point, without the Brood Mother to command them, he had every confidence in his junior brothers and sisters to conclude the battle without him. He'd already pushed Baoyun hard to catch up to the escaping insect. Now that the most serious threat was eliminated, he could make a slower return and give his partner time to recover on the way back.
When he finally reached the site of the battle, he was relieved to see that things had taken the course he expected them to. On one side of the battlefield, his Senior Brother Bo Guo had set up a temporary hospital and organized the Alchemy Initiates to care for the wounded. Thankfully, the strong armor provided by the sect prevented any of the disciples from losing their lives on this battlefield, even if several of them had come away from the battle with mild to moderate injuries.
"Senior Brother Bo," Liang Xiong greeted once he reached the hospital. "How are our junior brothers and sisters?"
"Nothing serious," Bo Guo answered with a smile. "Truthfully, things would be fine even if I wasn't here," he said, smiling at the way the Initiates under his command worked to care for the disciples who had fought on the battlefield.
While there might be some healers in the sect who would be disappointed that there was no demand for their skills after a battle, Bo Guo wasn't among them. Any battle that didn't need a more powerful healer than an Alchemy Initiate was a great victory in his mind. If injuries needed an Alchemy Novice or worse, an actual Alchemist, it likely meant that there were injuries so severe that not everyone could be saved. In his mind, it was far better to be an idle healer than a busy one.
"I brought you a prize," Liang Xiong said, retrieving the corpse of the Brood Mother from his cosmos bag. "Interested?"
Despite how badly burned the carapace was, a beast transformed by the eclipse was still a treasure that any alchemist would value. The chance to gain such treasures was precisely the reason that Bo Guo had accepted this mission from the sect in the first place. Seeing the prize before him, the young Alchemy Novice's eyes lit up with excitement.
"You're just offering it to me?" Bo Guo asked, looking at Liang Xiong with a trace of suspicion. "No catch?"
"I don't even know what it's good for," the young Soldier admitted. "But, no, it's not free. My elder sister studies the stars and things that are transformed by celestial events," he began to explain. "Consider this a treasure split between you and me, and I'm gifting my share to her. I'd like to bring you with me to present it to her at the Amber Lily Academy when we return to the city."
"Your sister Liang Xuanji?" Bo Guo asked. "A messenger arrived from Silver Sword City this morning with a letter for you from her," he said. "You'd already taken the field by then so I told him to wait for you."
"Thank the Heavens," Liang Xiong breathed. "She was on an expedition in the mountains to observe the eclipse directly. If she sent a letter then it means she got home safely."
"Go, read your letter," the Alchemy Novice said, waving his junior brother off. "I'll keep an eye on the battlefield."
"No," the young Soldier replied with a shake of his head. "I want to visit the injured, then I need to speak with the rest of the disciples and the leaders from the village. The letter must have taken a few days to arrive, it can wait a few more hours."
Several hours later, when he was finally able to retrieve the letter from his sister, he couldn't help but marvel at the harrowing tale she told. Their party had been attacked by not just one but several transformed spirit beasts! And they'd been defended by a single Brawler and even more shockingly, an Aesthete who defeated a Burning Yang Sun Bear!
"It seems like Elder Sister really wants to introduce me to this Wu Ling," he said as he read over the letter a second time. "I wonder if our mother is pressuring her to play matchmaker like this," he mused. While he appreciated the kindness, as a newly ascended member of the Inner Sect, he felt that it wasn't entirely appropriate to focus on matters of the heart when he should be establishing himself in the Inner Sect.
"Still, if she's as beautiful and talented at chess as Elder Sister says," he said softly. "Maybe there will be a spark between us. If not, it never hurts to make a friend who's skilled at chess. It doesn't have to be romantic between us just because she's a beautiful woman," he thought, tempering his expectations.
Since his ascension, there had been several attempts to find him a match from among the notable families in the Outer City. For Liang Xiong, however, he didn't care so much about a woman's background as he cared about her talents and their compatibility. A Soldier would live hundreds of years longer than an Aesthete if tragedy didn't strike. If he found love, he wanted to be able to share it with someone for his whole life. If a woman didn't have the talent to break through and keep up with his cultivation, he was doomed to sorrow at the end of her life.
Liang Xiong didn't want that and so he'd put matters of romance out of mind every time his mother brought things up. But from his sister's comments, this Wu Ling was exceptionally talented and Liang Xuanji felt certain that she'd rise to catch up with him. If that was the case….
Perhaps, this time, his family truly had discovered a worthy match for him.