The shift in the expedition's hierarchy was as stark and immediate as the ironwood spikes that now littered the clearing. Elder Ma, feeling shame from almost leading the group into a trap had no choice but to cede the authority that Elder Feng had so publicly granted.
Li Yu and his three friends now walked at the head of the formation, just behind Elder Feng herself. The disciples of Elder Jin's faction, who had once been the proud vanguard, were now relegated to the middle ranks, their earlier arrogance replaced by a sullen, resentful silence.
"Walk beside me, Disciple Li," Elder Feng commanded, her voice crisp. "Lend us your unique senses."
"Yes, Elder," Li Yu replied, his expression humble. As they began to move, he discreetly released not one, but a dozen of his Scout Shrimp into the soft earth. They scattered outward, an invisible, multi-pronged sensory network that spread out ahead and to the flanks of the group, feeding him information from their senses.
The disciples now moved with a new, heightened sense of caution. The near-disaster had sharpened everyone's senses. After about half an hour, it was Su Ling who raised a hand, her voice a sharp, cold whisper. "Halt. Look to the trees on the right."
Everyone froze. Following her gaze, they saw them: nearly invisible, web-like strands, no thicker than a hair, strung between the black-barked trees. Each strand was coated in a glistening, dew-like substance.
"Shadow-Weaver Spider silk," a disciple with expertise in demonic beasts whispered in horror. "The dew is a potent neurotoxin. If we had walked through that, we'd have been paralyzed or at least sluggish."
Elder Feng nodded, a look of approval on her face. "Well spotted, Disciple Su." She glanced at Li Yu.
"Senior Sister Su is correct," Li Yu affirmed quietly. "My own instincts were warning me of a silent predator in that direction." His swarm had already detected it a while ago but he was waiting until he had to share that information if no one else noticed. Sharing the credit around was a far safer path.
They carefully altered their course, their respect for the forest's hidden dangers deepening. A short while later, the formation expert who had been humiliated earlier suddenly stopped, his face pale. "Elder Feng! The spiritual energy of the earth ahead… there is something there."
Elder Feng had a look like she knew what was up ahead, was she perhaps using this as an opportunity to test the disciples? She looked at Li Yu. "Disciple Li, what do you feel?"
Li Yu closed his eyes, feigning deep concentration. "The expert is right," Li Yu said, his voice grave. "The earth feels dead. There are no earthworms, no burrowing insects. It is a sign of a powerful, dormant array designed for a large group. I believe he has found a major trap."
This time, no one questioned him. Elder Feng ordered Hu Jian to once again hurl a massive boulder. The moment it struck, a complex, blood-red array flared to life, and the ground erupted in a forest of poison-laced ironwood spikes once again.
The disciples stared, a cold sweat breaking out on many of their brows. They had now been saved twice, once by Su Ling's sharp eyes and once by a combination of their formation expert's sensitivity and Li Yu's uncanny instincts. They were beginning to operate less like a group of individuals and more like a true, elite team.
There were many thoughts going through the disciples' minds. Many of them did not detect any of the traps so far. They were thinking how they would be dead if they were on their own. This fear turned into drive, drive to train their senses better and to gain more information on traps and formations to prevent this from happening again. They were learning and growing, exactly what the sect had hoped for when sending them out.
Their newfound caution was put to the test moments later. The forest's unnatural silence was finally broken by a series of soft, almost inaudible thwips from the canopy above.
"Ambush!" Elder Feng's voice was a thunderclap. The moment she spoke, a rain of small, black, needle-like projectiles fell from the treetops, aimed at the center of their formation.
The disciples reacted instantly, their protective Qi flaring to life, deflecting the needles with a series of sharp pings. But the needles were just a distraction. From the deepest shadows of the canopy, a dozen figures in tight-fitting black leather dropped from the trees like spiders on a thread, their movements silent, their short swords coated in a glistening black poison.
They were the assassins of the Blackwood Syndicate.
Their attack was a masterpiece of lethal coordination. They did not attack the powerful elders at the front. They did not attack the well-defended vanguard. They struck at the weakest point: the middle of the formation, where the disciples were most relaxed and not as focused.
A cry of pain erupted as one of Elder Ma's followers, a disciple at the Fourth Stage, was too slow to react. A black-robed assassin appeared behind him, his poisoned short sword slicing through the disciple's protective Qi and embedding itself in his back. The disciple collapsed, his face turning a sickly purple, his life extinguished before he even hit the ground.
The disciplined formation of the sect disciples immediately dissolved into a chaotic, swirling melee.
Elder Ma roared in fury, his fists glowing with a powerful earthen light as he pulverized an assassin who got too close. But his rage made him reckless. He charged into the forest after a fleeing shadow leaving his own disciples exposed.
"Defensive perimeter! Now!" Li Yu's voice cut through the chaos, not with the authority of an elder, but with the practiced calm of a leader from practicing with his friends.
His three friends, drilled for this exact scenario, reacted instantly. Brother Kai stomped his foot and with a low growl, a thick solid wall of earth erupted from the ground. The wall formed a perfect, semi-circular barrier that protected their small group from the initial assault. Hu Jian stood before it, his flaming saber a roaring deterrent while Lin Tao's water whips shot out like striking serpents, pulling back a disciple who had been separated from the main group.
Their small, four-man cell was an island of perfect, unshakable order in a sea of chaos.
Li Yu stood in the center, his black staff a blur. He did not engage in flashy, powerful attacks. He became the group's anchor, his role purely defensive. An assassin, seeing him as the weakest link, slipped past Hu Jian's fiery assault and lunged, his poisoned blade aimed at Li Yu's throat.
Li Yu's expression did not change. He did not dodge. He simply moved his staff in a slow, graceful arc. «Flowing Water, Enduring Mountain». The staff met the assassin's blade not with a clash but with a soft yielding touch. The immense force of the lunge was not blocked; it was redirected guided harmlessly into the empty air. The assassin lost his balance and stumbled forward.
In that moment of weakness, Li Yu's grip on the staff shifted. «The Serpent's Coil». The black staff became a living thing, coiling around the assassin's sword arm, trapping it in an unbreakable lock.
With a sharp precise twist, Li Yu disarmed the man, sending his poisoned blade flying. Then, with a final fluid shove, sent him stumbling directly into the path of Hu Jian's roaring, fiery saber.
The battle raged around them. The sect disciples were powerful but the assassins were masters of their environment. They used the trees, the shadows, and their own silent, deadly techniques to devastating effect. Another two disciples fell, their lives claimed by a poisoned blade from an unseen foe.
It was Elder Feng who finally turned the tide. She stood in the center of the chaos, her expression a mask of cold fury. She raised a single, slender finger. "Law of the Sect: a debt of blood must be repaid in kind. Blade Prison of a Thousand Judgments!"
She brought her finger down. The very air around them seemed to solidify. A thousand shimmering, ethereal blades, each one humming with the infused energy of a Foundation Establishment expert, materialized from nothing. They formed a swirling inescapable vortex of death that swept through the forest.
The black-robed assassins, for all their skill and stealth, could not escape a power that targeted not just their bodies but their very existence. Screams of terror and pain echoed for a single, brief moment before being silenced forever.
When the light faded, the forest was silent once more. The battle was over.
The disciples gathered, their faces slightly pale and their numbers now reduced by three. Elder Ma returned from his reckless charge, his face a mask of grim frustration. His faction had suffered the most, losing two of its members due to his momentary lapse in leadership.
Elder Feng's cold, hard gaze swept over the survivors. It lingered for a moment on Su Ling, whose elegant ice arts had protected her and her two teammates perfectly. It lingered longer on Li Yu's group, the only other unit to have survived the ambush without any injuries.
She walked over to them, her eyes examining the perfect, earthen wall that Brother Kai had created, the scorch marks from Hu Jian's saber and the lingering, humid presence of Lin Tao's water arts. Finally, her gaze fell upon Li Yu, who stood, his staff held loosely in his hand, his breathing the calmest of anyone present.
"You fought well, Disciple Li," she said, her voice a simple statement of fact. "Your team's coordination was good. You have saved the lives of several of your fellow disciples today as well during the fighting."
It was the highest praise she could give.
Li Yu simply bowed. "We only did our duty, Elder." He was very impressed with the technique she had used to bring the fight to an end. It was an incredibly beautiful and lethal technique. He had never seen the sight of so many energy blades attacking through the air like that before.