Gong Shen quickly came back.
"It's a normal village; it's a bit small, and everyone appears to have no cultivation at all, and they are all anxious and scared about something."
"Then let's go; we don't have to fear them, and we might learn something from them," Gang Jian said as he began walking forward.
Everyone made their way out of the woods and entered the clearing where they saw many small huts made of wood and a small well in the middle of the small village.
As soon as the group made themselves known, everyone stopped what they were doing to look at them.
"Oh no, children, please, come with us; you have to take the trail towards the safe camp; it's not safe here." An older woman stepped forward with a worried look on her face as she spoke; it was already bad that they had to evacuate their own children and elders, and another group showed up.
"What? What's going on? Why do we need to evacuate?" Yi Yan asked, confused.
The older woman sighed, "It's the end of the hibernation; the beasts are about to wake up. It won't be safe here for long; you all have to go towards the safe camp; the local villages are all sending their young and old there for protection; we have to use everything we can to protect our homes."
"What do you mean, hibernation? Is that why we did not see any beasts around?" Guo Juan asked; everyone was still a bit confused.
The old woman sighed, "Yes, once every ten to twenty years, all beasts enter a hibernation period for a whole month, and then they all wake up and ravage the entire island. We can do nothing but send all our vulnerable population towards the center of the island, where the strong will protect them, and everyone capable stays behind to protect our own villages so we have something to come back to after the rampage."
Everyone began piecing things together, such as the lack of beasts or even regions that are more or less without food.
"How strong would you say the strongest beast is?" Li Huang asked, causing the group to get serious.
The elder woman began thinking for a bit before shaking her head, "We would need about ten warriors with spears to deal with one alpha beast."
"Alright, we will protect this village in exchange for information." Li Huang said decisively.
She then turned to her group.
"Go protect a direction; I will be northwest." Li Huang said, and everyone nodded, understanding how they would divide themselves.
The older woman was even more anxious, just as she was about to try and stop them. Li Huang smiled at her, "Don't worry, Grandma, nothing bad will happen to us or your village."
Maybe it was the way Li Huang appeared so carefree, or the confidence in her voice, but the elder nodded and began continuing helping the village evacuate everyone from the young and old; only she and a small group of adults with spears remained.
As the sun approached midday, everyone began hearing the marching of beasts in the distance.
"Failure is death; don't let a single beast get past you. They are just beasts, and the strongest of them are only early spiritual beasts. We have nothing to fear." Min Ying spoke in a cold voice as he drew his sword.
"How about this swordsman? Let's bet who takes out the most beasts." Gang Jian grinned as he laughed.
"This is not a competition, you muscle-bound idiot, but sure, I will take you on." Min Ying responded with his own grin.
As the marching approached, everyone stayed in their posts.
They all knew that they would not advance nor retreat.
Finally everyone began seeing the first beasts.
Li Huang got in a boxing stance.
She did not know a lot about fighting, but she knew how to throw a punch, and a half-ton punch was more than enough to deal with those beasts.
A boar rushed out of the woods after her, but Li Huang matched him with a front kick to his head, shattering its skull, and she quickly kicked him aside.
After that, a lion that Li Huang held its paws to knee its stomach and used its body as a weapon against another pig and a tiger before tossing the dead body of the lion aside
Gang Jian held the north.
each punch filled with brutality, his sweat turning into steam
he never punched a beast twice
Min Ying swung his sword only once as well, cutting off a beast's head or throat, not giving it a single chance to approach him.
Gong Shen was acting in a similar way to Min Ying by only plunging his dagger once inside a beast before killing it with terrifying efficiency.
and using throwing knives, he dealt with approaching threats as they all fell to his deadly precision.
Yang Chang fought in a way similar to Gang Jian by swinging his halberd with immense brutality.
each swing taking out at least two beasts.
Guo Juan took a more passive approach, and so did Jun Lan and Yi Yan.
The three worked together to deal with the entire southern portion of the village.
Guo Juan created an illusion causing the beasts to fight themselves; Yi Yan used her insects to irritate the beasts and inject them with venoms and poisons she borrowed from Gong Shen, causing more infighting; and Jun Lan took out a few plants from his pouch and tossed them among the beasts, causing them to become even more violent and more susceptible to the illusion and Yi Yan's tactics.
They all held off even as the number of beasts increased, and with the help of the villagers, they did not have to worry too much about their flank or even a beast slipping by as the warriors of the village quickly dealt with the sneaky and weaker beasts.
The wave lasted for about fifteen minutes, but it was a long time, as there was a wave of nonstop beasts, one after another.
everyone was huffing and taking deep breaths
Li Huang and Gang Jian also had some marks on their bodies as they had used their bodies to fight.
Li Huang was better than Gang Jian, though.
It was then that everyone got a serious look on their face, and they separated themselves into two groups.
Yi Yan, Guo Lan, Jun Lan, and Li Huang were face to face with an elephant with steel-like tusks.
Gang Jian, Min Ying, Yang Chang, and Gong Shen were face to face with a gorilla with four arms.
Li Huang took the front as her team prepared to support her in any way they could.
Meanwhile, the group of boys was surrounding the gorilla, preparing to fight it.
Those two were spiritual beasts; they could be considered cultivators even.
"Iron tusk elephants and four-armed gorillas, they are low-level spiritual beasts but still stronger than your average cultivator." Yang Chang commented as he sized up the gorrila in front of him.
"Anything we might need to know, prince boy?" Li Huang asked as she sized up the elephant.
"The elephant can elongate its tusks to use as swords or other weapons, while the gorilla is just plain strong."
Yang Chang answered while watching the beast carefully.
"Not even an initial but an early spiritual beast." Yang Chang sighed.
Normally, beasts remain beasts their whole life.
If they are lucky, they can be born with either a special bloodline or a beast core.
If they are born with the beast core, that is a guaranteed shot at success, as they are able to forge their own path.
meanwhile, beasts born with bloodlines have to awaken them to create a beast core based on the bloodline
and those two were bloodline spiritual beasts due to their strength as early spiritual beasts.
As the groups watched each other closely, they suddenly moved all at once.
Gang Jian went for the gorilla headfirst while Gong Shen went for the backstab while Min Ying and Yang Chang swung their swords and halberds at the gorilla's two sides.
Meanwhile, Li Huang ran under the elephant and began attacking all the fleshy parts of it, using her smaller size and greater speed to dodge all of its attacks, while Yi Yan used a swarm of insects to confuse and poison the elephant, Jun Lan used the plants he had in his pouch to try and affect the elephant's thinking capacity, and Guo Juan used her illusions to make a few remaining beasts attack the elephant.
The gorilla roared as he tried to use his four arms to each catch one attack while the elephant swung its trunk and tusks around in a mad desire to kill Li Huang and everything around it.
Unfortunately, the gorilla could not catch Gong Shen's sneak backstab, and neither could it handle Gang Jian's overwhelming strength and momentum while its two remaining hands began bleeding from being slashed almost in half by Min Ying and Yang Chang.
The elephant was in no better condition as it tried everything from sitting down at Li Huang to stomping the ground with all its might.
but as time passed, the two beasts eventually fell down at the overwhelming strength of the group.
They all stopped to hear and look around for a bit to guarantee that no other beasts would appear, so they sighed and took the best corpses back into the village to cook and make clothes and other things.
The elder and the warriors were filled with gratitude.
They had all survived!
and their village was completely fine!
"Protectors, thank you so much! Please, sleep and restore your energy; there won't be a second wave, and we will prepare a feast using the beasts you all have slain!" The elder woman almost prostrated herself to Li Huang and her group, but she was stopped by the same
Li Huang only smiled with sweat dripping down her face.
"We will take a nap; don't worry, we were also protecting ourselves. Make a feast for everyone to eat; there is enough meat to share and still store for another day."
The group was tired and made their way to a tent to sleep, but Li Huang stopped them and made sure to inspect their bodies before going to take a nap. She frowned, looking at their bodies.
"You are all too tense; lie down on the bed and take off your shirts; I will give you all a massage."
Li Huang spoke in a normal way, but everyone looked at her wide-eyed.
She raised an eyebrow.
"What? You are all too tense to sleep comfortably. Don't worry; I also have training doing this, born in a brothel, remember?" Li Huang chuckled a bit.
Guo Juan was the first to go, "Don't you dare look at me." She glared at the man before lying down at the table and taking off her shirt; all the men walked out of the tent, leaving only Li Huang Yi Yan and Guo Juan, who were lying down.
As Li Huang began, Guo Juan almost couldn't suppress a moan.
It was like Li Huang knew exactly where to press to give her pleasure and comfort.
each point her finger touched and dug into in her back caused her to relax and experience pleasure and comfort she never felt before in her life.
After ten minutes, Li Huang was done, and Guo Juan immediately fell asleep like a baby.
"You are next, Yi Yan; just relax." Li Huang smiled, and Yi Yan nodded with a slight blush on her face.
She lay down on the bed and took her own shirt off.
and as soon as Li Huang began working, she understood what Guo Juan was going through.
If she didn't know any better, she would think that Li Huang had drugged her.
After Li Huang finished with Yi Yan and helped the two girls get their shirts back on and laid them down to sleep, she called the boys in to help them relax a bit before going to sleep.
The five had red faces as they heard both Yi Yan and Guo Juan moaning in pleasure.
Li Huang just giggled and called for anyone of them to go first.