Chapter 366: Incoming Storm (Start of Book 6)
Ashlock left the Redclaw family to do damage control and calm down everyone while he called an emergency meeting. It hadn't even been an hour since Serena Blacktide was turned into a tree, and Celeste Starweaver announced to the thousands of people watching the tournament that the terrible storm outside wasn't a random act of nature—it was the prelude to something much more terrifying.
The Beast Tide.
An event on an eternal cycle that struck fear into the heart of every sect in the wilderness. It wasn't so much the strength of the beasts that was the problem. It was the sheer number. For months, waves upon waves of monsters would endlessly march from one spiritual spring to another. For cultivators where every bit of Qi spent set their cultivation back, to waste years of meticulously gathered Qi on defending some land against a swarm of monsters was pointless. Moving out of the way was almost alwaysthe best decision.
Unless the beast tide was predicted to be smaller, that is. In that case, it might be worth staying if the land was still rich with spirit ore for mine and had a good variety of Qi types to cultivate.
This one, however? It was forecasted to be the biggest one in the history of the nine realms, and Ashlock was rooted in place, directly in their path. He had no choice but to stay and fight, and he would selfishly have the Ashfallen Sect and the surrounding cities follow suit. There would be no airships leaving for safer pastures. A stance that seemed to have attracted the interest of some other noble families like the Starweavers, eager to take a stand against Vincent Nightrose and his tyrannical rule.
While everyone gathered to hold the meeting, Ashlock's vision blurred as he crossed vast swathes of land. His destination? The furthest reaches of his roots to the north. He had been expanding his reach in all directions for months, focusing on the north where the spiritual spring housing the beast tide was said to be.
"Elaine told me that in three years, the beast tide would move from the spiritual spring in the north and follow the giant leyline we are on all the way down to the south where the Celestial Empire is." Ashlock mused as he saw the storm get more severe the further north he went.
It made the storm over Ashfallen City look like a joke. Up in the north, even with his spiritual sight, he struggled to see that far through the hurricane blizzard and fog. All he could see was a wall of white blanketing the land and inching ever closer to the south. This helped explain why he had never noticed the rag-tag groups of monsters trudging through the madness toward the south. They hadn't yet entered the range of his roots or trees, and the storm was messing with his spiritual perception, but he estimated the monsters to be in the Soul Fire Realm.
"These monsters must be part of the first wave." Ashlock attempted to look closer, but the storm got in the way. He tried to open a portal near the monsters to kidnap them and get a better look, but the violent storm tore his portal apart before the Qi could finish stringing itself together. "That's strange. I know spatial Qi doesn't do too well when interacting with other types of Qi, but I should still be able to open one within a storm..."