Chapter 111: Dangerous threat to the Red Talon Hall

The sunlight lingered across the outer disciples’ courtyard, warming the floor. The rich aroma of steamed rice, roasted boar meat, and fresh fruits drifted through the mountain air.

For the new disciples, breakfast was changed into another battlefield. Chen Ming was stuffing a roasted leg into his mouth with both hands.

"Slow down," Lian Nichang said, staring at him in disbelief. "Nobody is going to steal your food, you pig."

Chen Ming swallowed with difficulty, his cheeks bulging.

"’Yuh don’t undershtand, Nichang," he mumbled slowly. "Ouh cul-tivashion demandsh intensth nutritio-nal replen-ish-ment!"

"You’ve literally eaten five bowls of rice already," Lian Nichang sneered, nodding slightly.

"Exactly!" Chen Ming gulped the meat before speaking. "My Wind-Falcon requires high nutrients to maintain its speed."

Lin Yuan calmly placed his teacup on the table. "You’ve been in the sect for less than a week and you’ve already created your own cultivation technique."

Chen Ming raised a greasy eyebrow, chewing vigorously. "What technique?"

"The thousand bowl swallowing technique."

Lian Nichang immediately laughed, clutching his stomach. "Hahaha! It’s true, Lin Yuan!!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Chen Ming pouted, pointing a chopstick at Lin Yuan. "You’re getting more annoying day by day, Lin Yuan."

Lin Yuan let out a faint, unbothered smile. "I’ve been told that before."

Nearby, a few other new disciples laughed along with their banter.

Even Bai Ning, who sat apart in silence, slightly covered her mouth as a faint smile appeared on her lips.

"Those three guys never take a break," she murmured, nodding slightly. Across the sprawling courtyard, breakfast continued under the peaceful sky.

Nobody noticed the two armored Red Talon Hall guards rushing frantically toward the medical hall. And they also didn’t notice the blood-soaked body between their shoulders.

"Clear the way! Move aside!"

Two guards kicked open the wooden doors of the medical pavilion, carrying and carefully dragging a man drenched in dirt, sweat, and blood.

His robes were torn to ragged strands, his face was pale, and lethal paw scratches tore across his arms, shoulders, and exposed chest.

"What the hell happened to him?!" a senior alchemy disciple frowned, rushing toward them with bandages.

"Don’t know," one of the guards panted, his armor covered in slight dirt. "We just found him collapsed on the ground along the main forest road. His horse frantically ran away. We thought he had been ambushed by a wild beast."

The second guard smeared sweat from his forehead, his voice low. "He’s lucky his heart is still beating."

The alchemy disciples quickly lifted the scout onto a soft bed. Within a few moments, a senior Alchemy Master hurried into the treatment room. He leaned over, examining the scratches. His expression changed instantly. The senior alchemy master’s name is Lu Cang, a Core Beast Realm Peak stage cultivator and a five-tailed fox holder.

"These injuries aren’t normal."

"What do you mean, Master Lu Cang?" one of the senior alchemy disciples asked.

"These wounds..." Lu Cang lightly traced the edge of a scar. "They’re claws of wild beasts, but I guess they are claws of different beasts. The patterns of scars and the traces seemed to be different. He was attacked by multiple beasts!"

A word had already been sent up the mountain to the Sect Master’s hall. They thought it was just the minor border reports, so sect master Xue Hongzhao did not bother about it much.

At least... that was what everyone initially believed.

Lu Cang started to work to stabilize the scout. The crushed medicinal herbs were placed into the bleeding wounds. An alchemy student carefully fed a high-tier vitality pill to the injured scout to calm his heartbeat and core.

After nearly half an hour of intense treatment, the scout’s frenzy breathing became balanced. His bloody fingers suddenly moved against the bed. His eyes fluttered frantically.

"Wa... water..." the scout whispered slowly.

"Easy!" Lu Cang immediately leaned toward him, supporting the back of his neck. "Wake up slowly. You’re safe inside Red Talon Hall."

The scout’s red eyes snapped open. For a few seconds, he stared blankly at the ceiling above.

Then, his eyes widened in sheer horror.

"The village..." the scout yelled, his chest heaving frantically as he choked slightly. "The village...!"

"Calm down! What happened out there?" Lu Cang asked politely, gripping the man’s trembling shoulder.

The scout’s mouth shook vehemently as tears crawled down through the dried blood on his cheeks.

"They..." He gulped, his voice cracking into a desperate sob. "They’re all dead. Everyone is dead."

****

High on the central peak, in the main hall, Sect Master Xue Hongzhao was in the middle of reviewing the resource distribution scrolls with a few senior elders and then the hurried footsteps echoed through the grand hall.

"Sect Master!" Lu Cang burst through the double doors, his stoic and calm face was now pale with urgency.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" Xue Hongzhao looked up, his eyes squinting slightly.

Lu Cang gasped, bowing slowly. "You need to come down to the Medical Hall immediately."

"For just a wounded scout?"

"The scout has regained consciousness," Lu Cang elucidated, his voice quivering. "He had some information that requires your immediate, personal attention."

The temperature in the main hall plummeted instantly.

"Okay, I hope it would be some serious, useful information," Xue Hongzhao stood up from his chair, his crimson robes flapping against it.

A few senior elders followed right behind him.

Lin Yuan happened to be walking along the stone pathway near the central area when he spotted the group of high-ranking elders rushing toward the medical hall, along with the sect master.

His footsteps slowed to a halt.

’That’s quite a gathering,’ Lin Yuan thought, widening his eyes. ’The Sect Master, four sect elders, and a senior alchemy master...’

Lin Yuan felt something was wrong.

Chen Ming was standing near the training grounds a short distance away. Lin Yuan turned his head, calling out casually, "I’ll be back in a bit."

"Where are you running off to now?" Chen Ming asked.

"The Medical Hall," Lin Yuan replied, walking toward the medical hall.

"Why the hell are you going there? You aren’t hurt right?"

Lin Yuan let out a small sigh, his eyes locked on the disappearing elders. "Just checking on something."

He walked quietly through the side courtyard, following the elders. The Medical Hall was filled with tense senior alchemy disciples and guards within minutes.

Xue Hongzhao walked to the side of the bed, looking down at the bruised scout.

"Speak," Hongzhao asked, folding his hands at back. "What happened on the southern border?"

"Sect Master..." The scout struggled desperately to sit himself up, his body shaking under the blankets.

"Easy, brat, it’s fine," Xue Hongzhao commanded in a low, steady voice. "Be calm and tell me clearly."

The scout took three trembling breaths. "I went on routine patrol to inspect the southern village farming settlements."

"Which village?"

"Stonebrook Village."

Xue Hongzhao nodded slightly. "Continue."

The scout clenched his blood-stained hands, his voice trembling with terror. "When I reached the village... there were monkeys."

A few elders in the room looked at each other with confused glances. "Monkeys?"

The scout nodded frantically, his eyes wild. "Hundreds of them. No.. Noo.. they were thousands!"

An eerie silence fell over the room.

"At first, I thought a wild group had simply wandered out of the forests," the scout choked out, his face turning pale. "Then... they rushed out from the trees immensely. They attacked everyone in the village."

"Men... women... elders... children..." the scout desperately muttered, gripping the blanket hard. "They butchered them all. Nobody was spared."

Lin Yuan stood near the doorway, his eyes narrowing. ’The massive groups of primates slaughtered a human village coming from nowhere?

The scout continued, his voice rising in panic: "I tried to draw my blade to intervene, but the numbers were immense! Rank One... Rank Two... Rank Three..."

He looked up into Xue Hongzhao’s eyes, his voice breaking into a terrified whisper. "And standing among them... I saw Rank four beasts."

The elders frowned, taking a step back.

"Rank Four?!" an elder asked, his voice high. "How many?!"

The scout shook his head slowly. "I couldn’t count them all in the chaos... Twenty... maybe thirty strong Rank Four beasts!"

Even Xue Hongzhao’s face filled with disdain.

"Twenty to thirty Rank Four primate beasts were moving along with the lower rank beasts?" Xue Hongzhao muttered.

The scout nodded and continued speaking. "And they weren’t just roaming wildly in the group. They were commanding the lower ranks like formations and movements!"

A chilling realization lingered across the faces of the senior elders.

"It was a beast tide..." one elder whispered, his breath quivering.

"It’s worse than a normal beast tide!" the scout screamed, tears crawling down his face. "They wiped out Stonebrook Village! And when I fled toward the west to escape from them... the Red leaf village was already in ruins!"

"Redleaf as well?!" Xue Hongzhao grunted, his hands shaking slightly as if he knew something.

"Yes!" The scout slammed a fist weakly into the bed. "I rode along with my horse until its strength was completely gone! I didn’t stop. I didn’t dare look back. I only wanted to warn the sect!"

Xue Hongzhao stared down at the scout. "Where is the horde now?"

The scout froze, petrified, his hand trembling rapidly.

"They’re moving... straight toward us."

The room grew so quiet that only the sound of wind could be heard.

Xue Hongzhao’s voice turned cold. ""They’re marching toward... Red Talon Hall?"

"Yes, master!"

Lin Yuan stood silently in the corner of the room, his brain storming with thoughts. ’Why would a primate horde suddenly starting an all-out assault on a major cultivation sect?

This defied natural wilderness. A rogue beast attacking a farm out of hunger was normal, but a horde of thousands of beasts, guided by dozens of Rank Four commanders, annihilating multiple border villages and marching straight toward a major sect is not at all normal.

’Something was driving them or more worse... someone was commanding them from behind the scenes.’

Xue Hongzhao slowly turned back.

"Sound the emergency bell," Xue Hongzhao ordered, his voice echoing across the room.

The senior elder beside him straightened. "Sect Master?"

"Assemble the sect right now!" Xue Hongzhao’s voice boomed through the corridors. "All outer disciples, inner disciples, sect elders, instructors, and all medical and alchemy units."

He paused for a second. "Every single individual capable of wielding a will to fight should be in the main hall right now!"

"Seal the southern mountain gates!" He yelled, turning toward the sect guards standing by the entrance. "Activate all three layers of the outer defensive barrier! Deploy our elite aerial scouts toward the southern ridge. And find out the scale of this horde before they reach our valley!"

The guards bowed at a time, their armor clattering. "Understood, Sect Master!"

They sprinted out into the courtyard. Within a few seconds, the bell began to rumble.

DONG!

The first rumble of the bronze bell reverberated across the mountain.

DONG!

All chatter across the pavilions, training fields, and dining halls ceased immediately. Thousands of disciples looked up toward the central peak.

Lin Yuan stepped outside onto the courtyard, his gaze locked on the southern pathway. An eerie chill crawled down his spine.

Deep within his sea of consciousness, the turtle beast murmured, its sleepy eyes snapping open. "Lin Yuan..."

Lin Yuan’s voice turned serious. ’What happened, turtle?’

The turtle remained silent for a few movements before muttering in a low voice. "There’s a rotten stench drifting from that southern ridge. Something about this horde is wrong."

Lin Yuan stared toward the southern horizon.