“Let’s retreat too…” Zhang Yan said as he moved back slowly.
The collapse was less than thirty steps away from Luo Tang’s team. If they were to lose another torch, they would be the first to bear the brunt of the succubus attack.
But Luo Tang didn’t respond. Looking lost, her eyes lingered around Luo Qingqing standing a few meters away. Apparently, she was totally clueless about what to do.
Before Zhang Yan could escape, he felt something hard poking against the back of his neck.
He turned around to see Xia Fan’s wooden sword pointing at his throat.
“Wha… What do you mean?”
“Stay here. If you dare to flee, I’ll throw you off the wall,” Xia Fan said in a low voice.
“Brother Yan!” Zhang Shi shouted. He grabbed a pickaxe and came forward to help Zhang Yan. However, Xia Fan didn’t back down. He raised his sword at Zhang Yan, forcing Zhang Shi to step back.
“Xia Fan… What are you doing?” Only then did Luo Tang recover from her shock and puzzledly looked at the three of them.
“Don’t forget why you’re here!” Xia Fan suddenly raised his voice and shouted at her.
Luo Tang jolted and finally regained her senses.
“I… No, all of us must take good care of our torches.” She clenched her fists and turned to the Zhang brothers. “If we abandon our posts now, who will receive our friends who retreat from the front line? I’m sure you don’t want to see nothing but darkness behind you, do you? Anyway, where can you possibly go? It’s the Night of Great Desolation that we’re talking about!”
“But you’ve seen it too… The backup team has fled, and it won’t be long before the town is filled with succubi!” Zhang Yan refuted.
“I will go and reignite the torches…”
“No. Your duty lies here.” Xia Fan interrupted her. “I’ll go.”
“You?” Luo Tang was puzzled. “I thought you can’t cast long-distance spells.”
During the defense earlier, Xia Fan hadn’t made any moves. He was assigned to guard the torches because he couldn’t attack the succubi from behind the walls.
Of course, it was his cheap master who was to blame. Among the seven or eight spells he had taught him, most could only be used in flight, not fight.
“And you can’t, either!” Xia Fan shot her an annoyed glance.
Luo Tang didn’t know how to respond. She had tried to use Empower with Life, the spell she was good at, to attack the evil spirits, but to little effect.
“Anyway, do as I said! I can’t cast long-distance spells, but I can handle those within a short-range,” Xia Fan said. He took back his wooden sword and spoke to Zhang Yan coldly, “Don’t forget the examiners must be paying close attention to this last battle. What do you expect them to think of you if you flee for your life and leave everyone behind? If that goes into the record, you won’t have a chance to enter the Privy Council in 30 years, let alone three years!”
“Errr…” Zhang Yan clenched his teeth. “Fine! I’m not leaving!”
“You can leave, but not before the others,” Xia Fan said. Then, he turned to Luo Tang. “Give me a backup torch. Now!”
Luo Tang looked at him with mixed feelings. Then, she fished out a paper crane and chanted, “Heaven Technique, Rooster Form, Empower with Life!”
The paper crane soared into the sky and dived toward the central square. It picked up a torch that the backup team had abandoned and flew back to its master as fast as possible.
Luo Tang’s body swayed a little immediately after receiving the torch. Apparently, it had cost her a great amount of Qi to create a crane that was able to fly with a heavy load. It seemed that she wouldn’t be able to do it again without proper rest.
“Please… be careful,” she said, panting.
“I will. You don’t have to tell me.”
Xia Fan lit up the torch and ran toward the opening in the wall while carrying the torch on his shoulder.
He knew the risk of his plan. However, standing by and watching as the situation continued to worsen would only prove to be more dangerous. Admittedly, rebuilding the town had united all candidates to face against the Night, but the plan had also cut off any other possibilities. If his plan had failed, the mistake would be his overestimation of people’s will and capabilities.
At first, Xia Fan thought that he was a poor fighter since he had only fought against weak and small succubi before with his master. However, to his surprise and dismay, most candidates were no better than him. From the conversation with Luo Tang, he understood that only the top few disciples from the established families were able to fight in a real battle. The lack of experience, coupled with their innate immaturity, many candidates would flee in fear as soon as the succubi drew near, even if they’d been fine dealing with them from afar.
As soon as the western wall had been breached, the backup team responsible for assisting the west had fled immediately. Judging from this, the defensive circle of Qing Shan Town could collapse at any moment. The only reasons the defense on the other three sides was still able to hold were the lack of communication and the bad vision at night. Although the defenders on the other three walls were able to see the situation on the western side, they didn’t experience the impact head-on. Moreover, there were no fiends on those sides. Hence, there wouldn’t be any huge issue now. Nevertheless, as the torches on the west wall went off one by one, even retards could sense that something was off. By then, Xia Fan had no idea how many people would decide to stay on the front line and defend the town.
In other words, if he failed to light up the torches as soon as possible and chase the fiend away from the opening, the situation on the west wall could only get worse. When that happened, the entire defense line would dissolve as soon as one decided to run. Without the walls as their first line of defense, everyone would find themselves in a perilous situation. When scattered, individual powers were extremely limited. By then, there would be no hope for them at all.
Therefore, he must stop that from happening!
Once Xia Fan had arrived at the site of the collapse, the fiend had raised the front half of its body again.
Crap!
As soon as the bad feeling emerged in his mind, the gigantic body of the fiend crashed into the wall…
“Boom!”
With a bang, Xia Fan felt the planks beneath him shattering into pieces. The impact even sent bricks flying into the air!
The only thing that Xia Fan could do was to grab the torch and jump as high as possible, making sure that the lit torch was always pointing upward.
…
Not good…
At the instant when the fiend crashed into the wall, Luo Qingqing’s heart sank to the bottom.
Entangled by two succubi, she was totally helpless at stopping the fiend. She could only watch as the wall below her broke into pieces. Having lost her foothold, she was about to fall off the wall.
Across the fiend which was only inches away from her, Luo Qingqing saw an approaching ball of light near the opening from the corner of her eyes. Maybe it’s the long-awaited backup team. She thought. Unfortunately, however, it was too late. A single torch was impossible to light up the newly collapsed area.
If only she could stay around just for a while longer…
At this moment, an azure wave spread through the air, shrouding the collapsed area within!
“Water Technique, Goat Form, Water Flower!”
Luo Qingqing noticed that her fall had been slowed. Not only so, but she could also see the falling stones clearly in slow-motion. It was as if everything was covered in a body of invisible water, slowing the movements.
The only thing that remained unaffected was the spell caster — Fang Xiandao.
To her surprise, Fang Xiandao walked among the hovering stones and wooden shards smoothly. He shot a talisman toward her. When the talisman touched her forehead, she was freed from the effect of the azure wave too.
Luo Qingqing understood at once. She waved her sword and pushed herself against a brick closest to her. Then, using the impact force, she adjusted her position and leaped between the hovering stones like him. Finally, she landed on the ground safely and steadily as if she was descending a flight of stairs.
“I didn’t expect you to help me.”
“Hmph. I’m not a moron. Only idiots will cling on to personal grudges and compromise the greater good,” said Fang Xiandao. He opened his fan with a crack and covered half of his face. “Since the ground defense is destined to triumph, there’s no reason to go against fate. In fact, divination does best at finding the best solution for myself no matter how the world around us changes.”
“You’ve… made another prediction?” Luo Qingqing couldn’t resist her curiosity.
“That’s right. The trigram predictions can’t be any clearer. I will be the key player in helping everyone survive the Night of Great Desolation. So long as we can live to see the Sun of tomorrow, our Fang Family will be sure to take a place among the top three!” He curled his lips in pride. “Look, the prediction is being fulfilled right in front of you. Don’t you agree?”
As soon as he closed the fan, the expanding waves disappeared at once. The debris once again fell at its usual speed, crashing before them fiercely.
“Are you alright?” Fei Nian, who had been guarding against succubi at the foot of the walls, rushed over. “Your Water Technique is indeed impressive!”
“Fortune telling is not the only thing our Fang Family can do,” Fang Xiandao said as he pointed at the fiend lying at the opening in the wall. “Now that the three families have gathered together, let’s take this monster out in one go! Come with me!”
But the other two didn’t move. They looked at Fang Xiandao expectantly.
“Hm? What are you doing?”
“The spell… Aren’t you going to cast it again?” Luo Qingqing asked, confused.
“Yeah.” Fei Nian nodded in agreement. “We’ll certainly be able to defeat it if we can freeze the fiend.”
“Well…” Fang Xiandao paused for a moment. “Do you really think the spell can be cast whenever I want? It requires extremely rare ingredients, and I only brought one set!”
“Then, what are you going to do now…”
“Moral support,” Fang Xiandao said as if that made perfect sense.
“Watch out!” Fei Nian suddenly shouted.
However, it was already too late. A black figure fell from the sky and crashed right on Fang Xiandao!
None of them was looking at the sky because succubi couldn’t fly and they were out of the collapse zone. However, they were caught off-guard, and Fang Xiandao fainted on the spot from the impact before he could react.
To Luo Qingqing’s astonishment, this uninvited visitor actually looked familiar.
“Xia… Fan?”
Xia Fan coughed a few times and struggled to stand up with support from the torch. He had a tough fall. If he hadn’t used his Qi, he would have broken at least a leg when falling from eight meters high. If he were old, he might even have died.
Luckily, the torch was still burning.
“I brought the torch. Hopefully, I’m not too late.”
Luo Qingqing was surprised. She didn’t expect that the light she had seen earlier was from him.
After the collapse of the wall, most of the teams in the vicinity fled toward any nearby light source. But Xia Fan had gone against the crowd, trying to fill the darkness with light again.
She had fought with him before. That was how she learned that Xia Fan didn’t excel physically.
Nevertheless, he had come.
Mixed feelings welled up in Luo Qingqing’s mind.
“Why… did YOU come?”
“The backup team is too occupied. I had to help them, temporarily,” Xia Fan said, pretending to be at ease. “Can we seal the opening with this torch alone?”
“I’m afraid not,” Fei Nian said, shaking his head. “If we put the torch at the bottom of the walls, the top won’t be lit up. But if we put it at the top, we’ve got to face both the fiend and the succubi.”
“Yeah. I thought so, too…”
“In other words, we can’t seal the opening without defeating the fiend.” Fei Nian paused for a while before continuing, “But this torch is of great help to us. At least, it can keep the succubi away from us. Luo Qingqing and I will handle the rest.”
“Only the two of you?” Xia Fan asked, frowning.
“There’s another one. Under you.”
Xia Fan jumped away at once. Only then did he realize the Fang guy lying on the ground. “Err, I didn’t notice…”
“I know. By accident.” Luo Qingqing interrupted. “We have too few people, but it won’t help much even if we have more. As long as you stay here and guard the place, we will have a safe retreat route. We can go back safely even if we fail to kill the fiend.”