Aegis flew with incredible speed until he was nothing but a golden Blur to the Golden Core beasts. His trident-like horn struck 3 beasts at once, impaling all of them directly to death.
He shook his horn so that the corpses slid off of it, and returned to the position of protecting Ning.
He opened his wings wide and sent out a massive gust of wind that deterred the other beasts from coming up. However, that was not going to last very long. The beasts wanted to come up to get Ning and they weren't going to stop with a few of them dead.
'Why are they so hell-bent on getting master?' Aegis wondered.
He looked down towards the bottom of the mountain and saw that Blue was currently fighting all that he could. It looked impossible for him to stop all of them, and some were eventually passing through his blockade to run up the mountain.
Aegis had to fight those that escaped from him.
He then looked up and frowned as he saw Night and another bird in a standstill. Night, who should have been one of the two main defenses of the three, and had a higher cultivation base than him was only fighting a single beast.
Aegis got a little angry but soon forgot about it as he sensed that the bird had a cultivation base of the 5th Nascent Soul realm. Comparing that to the 4th Nascent Soul realm cultivation base of Night, it was certain that he would have such a hard time fighting it.
Aegis thought that he might have already died if he were the one who fought the bird with his 3rd Nascent Soul realm cultivation base.
Ning's steady intake of the Qi suddenly increased, nearly doubling in the suction speed. He was very well about to clear the entire Qi in the island to power his breakthrough.
The Golden Core of his had more and more cracks in it and was starting to flake away at parts. Considering the speed at which he was using the Qi to break the core open, it would only take about 10 to 15 more minutes until he reached the point of no return.
At that point, if he successfully cracked open everything, he would become a Nascent Soul cultivator. However, if he failed to crack it all the way open, he would forever remain in the Golden Core realm as a False Nascent Soul Cultivator.
Aegis realized that things were getting serious and he too got serious. Suddenly, golden light shined from him and he suddenly started flapping his wings at a speed that made them invisible.
He suddenly flew and went up to Ning. However, he didn't get very close and instead tilted his body as one of his arms touched the ground.
While continuing with touching the ground, he took multiple laps around Ning at a very fast speed. Once he was done, there was a circle carved onto the ground where Ning was breaking through.
Aegis returned to his initial position and suddenly brought all of his hands together.
"Come Forth and protect that which I wish."
A golden light suddenly sprang up from the dept of the earth as a circular barrier appeared around Ning. The golden barrier was one of the barrier techniques that a Golden Shelled beetle learned on its own as it got stronger. The barrier could fully protect Ning from the attack of anything below the Nascent Soul realm, and maybe even a little into the Nascent Soul realm itself.
The barrier did nothing to stifle the flow of Qi, however, so he could continue with his breakthrough.
Once the protection was set, Aegis could fight to his heart's content.
The beasts once again gathered around to fight the beetle at once. Aegis looked back and frowned; there were just too many. Even a part True Dragon would get overwhelmed with so many beasts attacking at once.
'What is enticing them so much?' the beetle wondered but could find nothing on his own. Whatever the reason was, it was starting to get annoying.
Aegis shined with golden light and he became more sturdy. With a burst of Qi, he flew forward to fight the monsters that had ascended the mountain.
"Kill him, then we can kill that human," one of the monsters shouted, riling up the entire group that was there.
Aegis fought the monsters and beat quite a few of them. He was actively using his cultivation aura to suppress the monsters that weren't strong enough, but there was another equally strong aura coming from the group that he couldn't pinpoint.
'Dammit! That damned Flood Dragon let past a Nascent Soul cultivator,' Aegis frowned.
***
Blue himself was having quite a hard time as well. He was fighting with all he could muster, but the damned turtle in front of him took no damage at all.
The turtle in front of him had a massive body with a greenish-brown arm and a reddish-brown shell. The shells seemed to be made up of clear crystals that gave a scent of the sea.
Its head was tucked inside its shell and thus Blue couldn't even attack him directly.
"Give up! Your measly water sprouts won't hurt me at all," the Turtle said.
Blue frowned as he knew that was true. The Turtle seemed to have a similar skill to his Become like Water that allowed him to take no damage from the water that Blue shot out.
Whether it was Water Burst or Water Scythe, all of the attacks were effortlessly being blocked by the turtle. Not only that, it had a similar Cultivation base as him at the 4th realm of Nascent Soul. This meant that he couldn't overpower him with Qi alone either.
Waves of attack flew towards him from behind the turtle. With the large turtle protecting them, the beasts freely sent out attacks at Blue without him being able to attack them back.
'God Dammit!'
Blue was getting annoyed. The attacks weren't strong enough to deal any sort of damage to him, but they sure were annoying.
"Goddamit Bird! Come and help!" he shouted out loud.
***
Night couldn't hear Blue at the moment. Even if he could, he didn't have the luxury to divert his attention. The bird in front of him was stronger than him and faster at times too.
If he wasn't alert, it would attack Ning at any time.
The Sparrow sent out hurricanes with its wings, which Night countered with his own. Taking the opportunity, the sparrow flew towards Ning. It wasn't worried about the golden barrier as it was sure that it could break through it easily.
However, feathers shot at the sparrow at a very fast speed making it fly elsewhere again. By that time, Night was back in place between the sparrow and Ning.
"Tsk. You leave me no choice," the Sparrow said and suddenly, a green aura rose from it like steam. Night got cautious; he didn't like where this was going.
***
A massive bear punched at Aegis. Aegis had already turned his back to the bear, so the damage he took didn't hurt at all. However, getting sent away from Ning was a bad consequence as a result of getting hurt.
As soon as he got up, he flew directly back to the many beasts that were trying to make it to Ning during his absence. The bear, however, jumped in once more and punched him away.
Aegis once more had to fly back in. The bear tried attacking once more, but Aegis sped up a little move and escaped his claws.
Instead, Aegis managed to claw apart 3 beasts and impale 3 more with his horn. Then, he suddenly waved his hands creating a barrier in front of the beasts, which they directly hit and were thus stopped.
They tried to break the barrier or get around it. Aegis came back to attack them once again.
The bear too arrived at the same time, and the two of them clashed. They were both sent back, however, Aegis who had less attacking power wasn't able to send the bear back as much.
The barrier opened up and the beasts made their way to Ning. Aegis was a step away from losing his attention to the barrier he set up on Ning and if the bear attacked him once more, he was sure the barrier would fail.
It had no more choice but to use his strongest attack. This attack took a lot out of him, so he could only use it once.
Golden light shined from all over Aegis. He opened up his wings and flew up once again. This time, however, he didn't attack the beasts or anything.
He instead clawed the ground and went around the bear and the beasts. The bear was surprised and wondered what it was doing. However, given it was its opportunity to kill the human, the bear ignored Aegis and went towards Ning.
At the same time, Aegis circled them until he was back in the original place. The was a large drag mark on the ground that was circular, and the bear finally realized what had just happened.
"Run!" it shouted.
However, that was too late.
Aegis clasped his hands together and shouted.
"Come forth and destroy that which I wish."
The barrier around Ning suddenly faded away, and instead, another barrier appeared around the many beasts that were inside the circle. The barrier was red, instead of the usual golden and went up until it closed at the top.
Aegis was still shining with Golden light, but it had a hint of red in it now, making his shine closer to orange.
"Aargh!" he grunted. This ability took a lot out of him, and this was just the beginning.
Suddenly, the spherical barrier started reducing in size.
"Break it open!" the bear shouted and everyone attacked, but the barrier was simply too strong for them. They sent out hundreds of attacks at the red barrier, but they couldn't stop the barrier at all.
Aegis's face strained as he put everything he could into this one attack. The orange light from his body started getting brighter and brighter and got closer and closer to becoming red.
The monsters were starting to get cramped inside the barrier and were getting crushed without any way out. Slowly but surely, their bones started breaking and their cries were being voiced loudly.
Aegis could feel the strain on his face as his entire face had turned red and was shaking to the extreme. He even started bleeding through the mouth, but he did not let the barrier go.
"AAAAAAAAAAA"
The sounds of terror spread through the entire island as Aegis was crushing them all to death. Event the turtle and the sparrow were looking in horror seeing so many life getting snuffed out at once.
Aegis didn't stop. Some of the beasts inside the barrier had already died, while the rest were still being crushed. The bear was attacking left and right, trying to break the barrier, even going so far as to burn its essence to empower himself, but nothing worked.
The cries of the monsters weren't nearly as loud as the bones that were crushed in the barrier. One after another, all the beasts inside the barrier died.
The only one that remained was the bear. The bear was also getting crushed, but at the same time, it was also making Aegis put more strain on himself to power the barrier.
Aegis's face was still shaking, trembling from the pain as it slowly spoke its mouth to speak.
"You are not the only one with essence to burn."
Suddenly, the red light coming off of him and the barrier increased to the point where nothing else was visible. The bear cried out loud as both its arms got crushed instantaneously, and it's body started to get crushed too.
Seeing that it was going to die and had no other choice, it suddenly opened it's mouth and let its Nascent Soul fly out. However that too was caught inside the barrier, without anywhere to go to.
The barrier kept on getting smaller and smaller.
"No! NO!!!" it screamed, until it didn't.
The barrier crushed the body and the Nascent soul altogether. Once everything inside was dead, Aegis dropped the barrier, letting go of the gory mess that was inside of it.
Seeing that the task was done, Aegis let go of his hands and the red light around him died down.
The beasts looking at the scene were shocked. Silence was the only thing that reigned land and air right now.
'Damn, I thought he was weak. Turns out Master didn't discriminate against us and gave us all equal amount of attention,' Blue thought.
"Good Job, You can rest for now," Night said from the sky. "I will be done with this in just a moment as well."
Aegis looked at the two and nodded. He then coughed up a little more blood and fell down to the ground. He was unconscious.
Both Night and Blue turned towards their respective opponent as they said.
"I can't have someone weaker than me show off. Time for you to die too."
