Maiden Of The Splitting Moon

There was a bitter expression on her face as she looked at the devastation she caused. Ming Yue stood by the edge and quietly thought, contemplating her place. Her counterpart said nothing, Xue Yue was silent now. Perhaps, she would let the young woman think alone, allowing her to think things through. 

There was a bit of smoke billowing out from the burnt roots, several massive craters all around the spires, biting into the plateaus. Such an attack was enough to blow a mountain to pieces. 

But all of that power had amounted to her destroying just a thousandth of these roots. 

The craters only reveal that they were far deeper and denser than she had believed. The question was how far did they go? Does it spread as far as the Savage Lands reach? Or was it less than that?

These questions slowly dug their way into her mind, adding to the hill of concerns she had. 

"I just need to cut them off from the source first. Bring the sword here and it will repair itself but I would just need to do it again."

Still standing there, Ming Yue turned to look up at the treetops, glancing at each one. 

"Hm, I guess either that wasn't enough to wake the Devouring Goose, or it's gone off somewhere."

Giving them another look, she turned back to the craters, looking around the spires. A sigh left her mouth as she did so, floating back up. 

"Stuck or not, all I can do is try. Whatever it takes..."

Soon after, more Blasting Gales and Storm Lances formed above her. Starting from where she first attacked, they began to fly off one by one in a constant stream, striking at the same place. Like a saw cutting through wood, she slowly cut the roots down to the depths, doing the same all around the plateau. 

Although it burned her energy quickly, the Eternal Heart Ring slowed it down, allowing her to stop just once to recover. Numerous mutated insects came out, threatened by this onslaught but they were all obliterated by her. 

In the meantime as all of this was happening, the Beast Tribes was met with a danger unlike they had ever seen.

Outside another set of ruins, the Zodiacs stood there, sorting through the treasures and documents they had obtained. Among them, Lao Yang and the other scholars sifted through the papers only for the goat-kin to scatter them in a huff. 

"Damn, another failure! There's nothing here about the teleportation array!" 

Grumbling at all this, he stared at the papers angrily, going through them one more time. 

As for everyone else, they were focused on resting and recovering. Several of them circled around Ao Qing, whose chest had a deep gash across his chest. The dragon-kin breathed heavily as he leaned against the tree. 

"Hah, damn, I must be getting too old, to think I was almost done in by a trap. Ack!"

He chuckled before wincing in pain as She Xing and Yu Tu applied a salve, carefully bandaging his wound. At the same time, Jin Nao took something out of her pouch, a pill for him to consume. 

"Here, take this. It should speed up your recovery and relieve the pain."

Handing over the small green pill, she waited for him to eat it before giving a pouch of water to drink. 

"Thank you."

A few gulps later, he breathed out in relief as the burning pain on his chest slowly vanished, replaced by a refreshing and cool sensation. 

"Hah, that was a rough one but we did it, the Valley Colosseum is done. That's our third one", he said. 

Although Ao Qing sustained the worst injury, none of them came out unscathed. Even the scholars had a few cuts and bruises as well. 

"Who would've thought that it was a giant death trap", Lao Yang looked at him as he spoke, "It's a colosseum, I was thinking ethereal warriors. Not... this."

"Indeed, who would've thought the moment we stepped onto it, the entire thing would collapse on itself! Even getting to it was just as bad if not worse, traps everywhere! How are they even working after so long?!" 

Zhu Xie added, showing a relieved expression. There were a few cuts on his large body, no doubt from shielding the three scholars from the falling rubble. 

"But we conquered it in the end and obtained quite a bit from this place! Not to mention, none of us died yet!" he followed, offering a happy light to their rather dim situation. 

"Mm, but this is just our third one... think about how many other ones are out there..." 

Shu Yi pointed out this fact, quickly putting the mood back down. Everyone turned quiet as none of them had anything to say at this point. Rather they were all too tired to talk anyways. Minutes of silence passed before one of them finally spoke up. 

"I think I found something."

Everyone suddenly perked up as they looked to whoever had just spoken. With a ragged paper in her hands, it was Feng Zhua, the rooster-kin, that spoke up. 

"What did you find? Tell me!" 

Lao Yang ran up to her, curious as to what she had discovered. She looked at him before giving the paper for him to see. 

"It doesn't say much about the teleportation array. In fact, it's just a receipt, one addressed to something known as the Order of the Astral Sword. They had purchased a large number of beast cores in order to power the array", she explained. 

The goat-kin quickly read through the paper, furrowing his brows in deep thought as he looked it over. 

"I see, this 'order' must've been in charge of the array so if we find where they are, we should be able to find out more! Although... Astral Sword... I seem to recall reading it somewhere... We should go back to the main city after this. All of you need rest and I need to investigate this."

As he said this, there was a trembling and a glow coming from the pockets of everyone but the scholars. All of them took out a medallion, a symbol of them being a Seeker, and a way for everyone to keep in contact with each other. 

But they weren't expecting this message to come out. 

All of their medallions trembled with even greater power before quieting to a hum as an urgent voice came out. 

"All seekers must return immediately! No matter where you are, return to defend the Tribes! The arrival of several beast hordes is imminent, each one numbering in the thousands! Injured or not, everyone must take part in defending! Under the command of all Elders, everyone is to return!"

It was quick and short but that was all it needed to be as everyone felt the urgency in that voice. 

"We must return immediately!" 

Zhu Xie took out the boat trinket and tossed it forward. In a matter of seconds, it transformed into a flying ship that he entered first.

"Come on! We can't just sit here idly, it will take us half a day to return if I go at the highest speed!"

Everyone got back up and went inside the vessel which closed its door as soon as the last of them came in. All of them sat down and rested their bodies. Qiang Rong gave a heavy sigh as he sat down, loosening up on the chair and leaning his staff against the wall. 

"Ah, there really isn't going to be any rest for us, is there?" he asked aloud. 

The others seemed to agree, feeling the exhaustion from having just gone through another life-threatening situation. 

"It is strange, isn't it? The last horde was just over a week ago.. And suddenly, several of them are arriving? Something is happening, something ominous", said Lao Yang.