Ah Hua's face turned icy cold, and she spoke in a frigid voice: "If you can't prove it, then jump off this wall yourself!"
As the words left her lips, she released an arrow. The tremendous force instantly blasted the charging beast out of the air. Those cold, disdainful eyes remained locked on Yang Kai's face without wavering, never looking away for even a moment.
"Useless, am I…" Yang Kai murmured, glancing down at his own build, then comparing it to the other villagers on the fence wall…
Well, in this era, this kind of physique was indeed considered useless.
The stooped elder, on the other hand, turned out to be the village chief — something that caught Yang Kai off guard.
He had no idea what sorcery the chief had used to make all those giant beasts ignore him, but it certainly wasn't sheer luck. As for a "Wu disciple" — judging by the name, that had to be the lowest rank there was, right?
It seemed that in this primordial era, Wu practitioners really were exceedingly rare.
On the fence wall, Yang Kai and Ah Hua worked together seamlessly. After the initial adjustment, Yang Kai had settled down and shed his earlier helplessness.
No matter what, he needed to get through this first. Perhaps this was some kind of trial within this secret realm.
Arrow after arrow was passed from Yang Kai to Ah Hua. The pile of arrows at their feet shrank at an alarming rate, though before long a barbarian youth came running over with fresh supplies to replenish them.
The youth looked about thirteen or fourteen, clearly underage and unable to join the fight against the beasts, so he was relegated to logistics. But even a youth of thirteen or fourteen was far more brawny and muscular than most of the people Yang Kai had encountered — those bulging knots of muscle were simply impossible for someone his age.
In the village below, many other underage barbarians were bustling about just the same.
Time trickled by. With the chief's Bloodlust Technique in effect, the beast tide's assault had been suppressed considerably. The villagers were inflicting devastating casualties on the beasts at minimal cost, sending them tumbling in disarray.
Every villager was thrilled with excitement, as though they could already see the prospect of victory. Ah Hua's bowstring sang again and again, loosing arrow after arrow into the air with piercing whistles.
But Yang Kai's brow furrowed.
Unlike these oblivious villagers and their optimism, Yang Kai felt the situation was dire for the village.
On the surface, the beasts appeared to have been suppressed and had suffered heavy losses. In truth, however, the villagers were burning through their reserves at an unsustainable pace. The prolonged, high-intensity combat was wearing every last one of them down.
One need only look at Ah Hua.
In the beginning, she had fired like the wind, releasing one arrow after another without pause, each one felling a beast with a single shot.
But now, she could barely draw her bowstring to full extension anymore. Her arms trembled visibly, and more than once it took two arrows to bring down a single beast. The interval between each shot was growing longer and longer.
Ah Hua was in this state, and so were the other archers.
The villagers fighting outside the walls were in an even worse predicament.
Empowered by the chief's Bloodlust Technique, they had overdrafted their innate vital blood. Once the technique's effects wore off and the backlash hit, the hundred-odd villagers battling outside would instantly become helpless prey for the beasts, utterly incapable of putting up any resistance.
And the beast tide — though its assault still seemed fierce, Yang Kai could clearly sense that the tide was stalling. As if some cunning intelligence was directing those countless beasts, lying in patient wait, biding its time for the perfect moment to turn the tables in one devastating counterstrike.
It was time to make his move!
Yang Kai had refrained from acting rashly at first because he didn't fully understand his own situation, nor did he know what consequences an impulsive action might trigger. But after observing for so long, he had been swept up by the burning resolve of these barbarian villagers.
The identity of "A Niu" he had somehow acquired now felt a little more real, and for this unfamiliar village, he felt a faint stirring of belonging.
These barbarians were worthy of respect and admiration. It was they who had struggled to survive in the primordial age, resisting natural disasters and calamities, allowing the human race to endure and multiply until it became the dominant force of the world. It was they who had passed down their strength generation after generation, enabling humanity to stand firm between heaven and earth.
To protect this land. To protect this village!
My name is A Niu!
A surge of blood and fire roared to life inside him in an instant.
Yang Kai bent down and picked up a massive warbow from nearby.
It had belonged to another villager — one who had been decapitated by a panther-like beast that had lunged up onto the wall.
He hooked a finger around the bowstring and plucked it. It rang out with a sharp *zheng*, like war drums pounding in his chest, filling him with an almost irresistible urge to charge.
"Arrows!" Ah Hua thrust her hand out, her crimson eyes fixed ahead, blazing with the light of hatred.
But no arrows came from Yang Kai.
She whirled her head around, about to let loose an angry shout, but the words caught in her throat. She stared, wide-eyed and dumbfounded, at Yang Kai and the enormous warbow in his hands. "What are you doing?!"
Yang Kai flashed a grin, showing a row of bright white teeth. "Take a break. You're exhausted."
Ah Hua's outstretched hand was trembling uncontrollably. Her fingers were covered in lacerations from the bowstring, dripping with blood — a sight that was frankly ghastly.
Their eyes met, and Ah Hua erupted: "Rest?! Where is there time to rest?! Do you have any idea what will happen to the brothers and sisters down there without our archers covering them?!"