The first wave hit the Xue Clan's eastern compound like a hammer striking stone.
Wang Ben's eyes tracked the attack from the ridge, his late-stage body refinement sharpening distant details that would have been blurs to mortal vision. Foundation establishment cultivators crashed against defensive formations below, techniques blooming in bursts of fire and force. The sound reached them a heartbeat later, a distant thunder of clashing qi that made the air itself feel heavy.
Beside him, the formation array glowed with activity. Position markers pulsed across the formation-etched stone, each point of light representing a team leader's talisman. The Wang Clan's formation specialty, turned to the art of war.
"Outer wall breached," the team leader reported, voice terse and steady. "Second group moving to flank."
Wang Ben tracked the attack with focus that surprised even him. The chaos below resolved into patterns, threads of movement and response that his mind processed faster than conscious thought. He saw the Wang Clan cultivators pour through the gap in the defensive array, saw the Xue defenders scrambling to reinforce.
[BATTLE ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS]
[Defensive formation: Standard barrier array, Grade 8]
[Current breach: Northwestern section, approximately eight paces]
[Xue response time: 34 seconds. Faster than projected.]
[Assessment: Initial resistance lighter than expected. Caution advised.]
"Their core formation cultivator isn't here," Wang Ben said, looking up from the array. "The defenses are too light. Either they pulled him to the western compound, or..."
"Or they're holding him in reserve." The team leader, a weathered qi condensation cultivator named Zhou Wei, nodded slowly. "Good eye. Signal the battle commander. They should expect a counter-push."
Wang Ben watched as one of the other scouts activated a signal talisman, a brief flash of light that would be invisible to anyone not watching for it. Below, the attack continued.
The second wave moved in, qi condensation cultivators reinforcing the advance as the foundation establishment fighters pressed deeper into the compound. Storage buildings loomed in the pre-dawn shadows, the Xue Clan's hidden stockpile of Crimson Bastion resources that they'd worked so hard to locate.
For a moment, Wang Ben let himself believe it would be this easy.
Then the counter-attack came.
The Xue cultivator emerged from the largest storage building like a wave of killing intent given human form.
Late-stage foundation establishment, Wang Ben's mind supplied instantly. The System confirmed a heartbeat later, but he'd known before the text appeared. Something about the way the man moved, the casual economy of motion that spoke of absolute confidence.
[THREAT DETECTED]
[Subject: Unknown Xue Clan cultivator]
[Estimated cultivation: Foundation Establishment Stage 8]
[Threat level: EXTREME for Host]
[Note: Subject was not identified in pre-attack intelligence]
The cultivator's first technique carved through a Wang Clan formation like a blade through silk. Three cultivators went down, their defensive qi shattered. One didn't get up.
"They had someone hiding in the storage vault," Zhou Wei hissed. "Damn it. Signal for reinforcement, now."
The battle shifted. What had been a controlled attack became a desperate defense as the Xue cultivator pressed the advantage. Foundation establishment cultivators from both sides clashed in the courtyard, techniques painting the air with fire and blood.
Wang Ben watched it all, his hands gripping the edge of the tactical array until his knuckles went white. The patterns were still there, both on the glowing formation plate and in the distant chaos his enhanced eyes could track. He could see the flow of battle, see where the Wang Clan forces were being pushed back, see the gaps forming in their lines.
"The eastern corridor," he said. "They're leaving it undefended. If someone could get through..."
"Noticed." Zhou Wei's voice was grim. "But our people are pinned. They can't disengage to exploit it."
More signals flashed. More cultivators fell. The toll rose with each passing moment.
And then one of the position markers on the array began to flicker rapidly. Distress signal. Wang Ben's eyes snapped to the corresponding position on the battlefield below, and his blood went cold.
A familiar figure.
Zhao Yu was fighting for his life.
From this distance, even with his enhanced vision, the details should have been difficult to discern. But Wang Ben's eyes found his friend with terrible clarity, as if his body refinement had sharpened itself in response to desperation. Zhao Daniu's group had been tasked with seizing the secondary storage building, a straightforward goal that should have been well within their capabilities. But the counter-attack had cut them off from the main force, and now they were trapped between the building and a squad of Xue retainers.
Wang Ben watched his friend duck beneath a blade, watched him counter with a strike that sent his opponent staggering. Peak body refinement against peak body refinement. An even match, normally.
But there were six of them. And only four of Zhao Daniu's team still standing.
"Zhao team is pinned," Wang Ben said, his voice strange in his own ears. "Secondary storage, eastern face. They need support."
Zhou Wei glanced at him, something flickering in his eyes. "We've signaled for reinforcement. Nothing else we can do from here."
"Reinforcement won't reach them in time."
"Then they'll hold or they won't." The team leader's voice was not unkind, but it was final. "Our duty is to observe. The battle commanders make the decisions."
Wang Ben's gaze locked onto the distant fight, his enhanced eyes refusing to look away. He watched Zhao Yu take a cut across his arm, watched his friend stumble, watched two Xue retainers press the advantage.
His father's words echoed in his memory. Whatever you become, Ben. Whatever you have to do to survive. Don't forget where you started.
Zhao Yu. They'd known each other for only a few months, but those months had been forged in blood and fire. The wolf attack that should have killed them both. The training sessions where Zhao Yu never asked how Wang Ben saw things others missed. The quiet trust that had grown between them, unspoken but unshakeable.
Wang Ben turned from the formation array.
"I can reach them."
Zhou Wei's head snapped toward him. "What?"
"The eastern corridor is still open. The Xue forces are focused on the main engagement. If I move now, I can reach Zhao team's position and guide them out."
"You're body refinement." The words were flat. "Late-stage, yes, impressive for your age. But you'd be walking into a battlefield full of cultivators who could kill you without effort."
"I won't fight them. I'll navigate around them." Wang Ben was already moving toward the ridge's edge. "I can see the patterns. I know where the gaps are."
"Your duty is to observe."
"And I have. Now I'm going to do something with what I've observed."
For a long moment, Zhou Wei just stared at him. Then the team leader shook his head.
"If you die down there, I'm telling the Grand Elder you disobeyed direct orders."
"Fair enough."
Wang Ben descended into chaos.
The battlefield was nothing like watching from above.
From the ridge, the combat had been patterns and movements, abstract shapes flowing across a battle map in his mind. Down here, it was noise and heat and the copper smell of blood. Techniques screamed past him, near misses that left his ears ringing. Cultivators clashed in blurs of motion too fast for his eyes to track.
But the patterns were still there.
Wang Ben moved through the chaos like water through cracks in stone. He didn't try to fight, didn't draw attention, just followed the paths his mind showed him. Here, a gap between two dueling pairs. There, a moment when both forces pulled back to reassess. Through this courtyard while that group was focused on the western approach.
[NAVIGATION ASSISTANCE: Active]
[Current route: Two-thirds complete]
[Threat proximity: Multiple. Maintaining safe distance.]
[Note: Several subjects have noticed Host's presence. No pursuit initiated.]
[Assessment: Continue current approach. Speed recommended.]
His legs burned. His lungs ached. Late-stage body refinement was stronger than any mortal, but it was still just flesh and bone, still subject to exhaustion and limits. Wang Ben pushed through it, drawing on reserves he hadn't known he possessed.
Instincts whispered from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. Turn here. Pause. Move now. He didn't question them, didn't have time to wonder why his body knew how to navigate a battlefield it had never seen. He just moved.
The secondary storage building loomed ahead.
"Wang Ben?" Zhao Yu's voice cracked with disbelief. "What are you doing here?"
"Getting you out." Wang Ben pressed himself against the building's wall, gasping for breath. "How many wounded?"
"Two down, two still fighting." Zhao Daniu appeared beside his son, blood streaking his face from a cut above his eye. The forger's usual calm was frayed at the edges. "We're pinned. Every time we try to withdraw, they cut us off."
Wang Ben closed his eyes, letting the patterns resolve in his mind. The Xue retainers were body refinement, all of them. Dangerous to him, certainly. But not the qi condensation cultivators that would have made this impossible.
"There's an alley between this building and the next," he said. "The Xue forces haven't covered it because it leads deeper into their compound, not toward the exit. But if we go through and cut east, it connects to the corridor the main force already cleared."
"That's a fifty-meter run through enemy territory."
"It's a fifty-meter run through a gap in their attention." Wang Ben opened his eyes. "The core formation fighter has their best people focused on the main engagement. These retainers are fighting without coordination. They're reacting, not planning."
Zhao Daniu studied him for a long moment. The same assessing look that Wang Ben remembered from the forge, from training sessions, from every moment the forger had watched him and seen something others missed.
"You're certain?"
"I'm certain of what I see. The choice is yours."
Another blade rang against the building's corner. One of Zhao Daniu's people cursed, falling back from a probing attack.
"We go." Zhao Daniu's voice was steel. "Zhao Yu, help Wei Liang. I'll carry Huang. Wang Ben, you lead."
They moved.
The alley was narrow, barely wide enough for two people abreast. Wang Ben led them through it at a dead run, his mind tracking the sounds of combat, the movements of shadows, the thousand small details that told him when to speed up and when to freeze.
Twice, Xue retainers crossed the alley's ends, close enough that Wang Ben could hear their breathing. Both times, his raised hand brought the group to a halt moments before they would have been seen.
Zhao Yu's arm was bleeding freely now, the cut deeper than it had looked. He ran anyway, jaw clenched against pain that must have been considerable.
"Left here," Wang Ben breathed. "Then straight through to the cleared corridor."
They emerged into a wider street just as a Wang Clan group swept past, pursuing retreating Xue defenders. The foundation establishment cultivator at their head gave Zhao Daniu a sharp look, took in the wounded team members, and jerked his head toward the rear.
"The physicians are two streets back. Get your people treated."
"Thank you, Elder."
And just like that, they were through.
Wang Ben let himself sag against a wall, his legs threatening to give out beneath him. His heart hammered against his ribs. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
But they were alive. All of them.
"Wang Ben." Zhao Yu's voice was rough. "You came down. You left your post."
"I did."
"You could have died."
"So could you."
Zhao Yu stared at him for a long moment. Then, despite the blood and the pain and the chaos still raging around them, he laughed.
"You're insane. Absolutely insane." His good hand gripped Wang Ben's shoulder. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I'm fairly certain Grand Elder Wang Feng is going to have me scrubbing training hall floors for the next month."
"Worth it." Zhao Yu's grip tightened. "For me, it's worth it."
It was only later, as Wang Ben helped support Zhao Yu toward where the physicians worked, that he saw it.
A figure on a distant rooftop. Not fighting. Not fleeing. Simply standing there, watching the battle unfold below.
For a single heartbeat, the figure's attention shifted. Wang Ben felt it like a physical weight, a pressure that had nothing to do with spiritual sense, just the primitive certainty of being observed by something far beyond his understanding.
Then the figure was gone, vanished as if it had never been.
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
[Subject: Unknown observer, rooftop position]
[Duration of observation: Momentary]
[Cultivation assessment: Unable to determine. Subject departed before analysis.]
[Note: Subject displayed no hostile intent. Observation only.]
[Assessment: Correlates with previously reported "unknown watchers"]
[Recommendation: Log incident. Continue mission.]
Shen Ruoxi had been right. They were watching. But whatever they were waiting for, it wasn't this battle.
Wang Ben filed the observation away and kept moving. There would be time to worry about mysterious watchers later.
Right now, people needed help.
The sun was fully risen by the time the fighting ended.
The Xue Clan's eastern compound had been secured. Their storage buildings had been seized, their defenders either killed or driven back to the main compound. The first goal of the war had been achieved.
But the cost.
Wang Ben stood in the treatment pavilion, watching his father work. Wang Tian moved between the wounded with the focused efficiency of a man who had trained his entire life for moments like this. His hands were steady as he applied medicines, set bones, closed wounds that would have killed lesser cultivators.
Eighteen wounded. Three dead. Names that Wang Ben recognized from training sessions, from meals in the compound, from the thousand small interactions that made up life in a clan at war.
Chen Bao. Liu Ping. Wei Ming.
Gone.
"Wang Ben."
He turned to find Grand Elder Wang Feng standing behind him. The scarred elder's expression was unreadable.
"Walk with me."
They left the treatment pavilion, stepping out into a courtyard that still smelled of smoke and blood. Somewhere in the distance, cultivators were gathering the last of the seized supplies. The war continued, even as the first battle wound down.
"Zhou Wei reported that you abandoned your observation post."
"Yes, Grand Elder."
"Against direct orders."
"Yes, Grand Elder."
Wang Feng was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was measured.
"You guided Zhao Daniu's team to safety. Four cultivators who would otherwise have died, based on Zhou Wei's assessment of their situation."
"I saw a path. I took it."
"You're body refinement. One mistake, one qi condensation cultivator noticing you, and you'd be dead." Wang Feng stopped walking, turning to face him directly. "That was reckless. Foolish. The kind of decision that gets promising young cultivators killed before they can become anything."
Wang Ben met the elder's eyes. "With respect, Grand Elder, I'd rather be a fool who saves his friends than a wise man who watches them die."
The silence stretched. Then, unexpectedly, Wang Feng's scarred face shifted into something that might have been approval.
"Your father said something similar once. Before he learned caution." The elder resumed walking. "I'm not going to punish you. This time. But understand this, Wang Ben. You are valuable. Your mind, your observations, your impossible ability to see patterns that others miss. The clan needs that. And dead cultivators aren't valuable to anyone."
"I understand."
"Do you?" Wang Feng glanced back at him. "We'll see. For now, return to your post. The Xue Clan will respond to today's loss. We need eyes on their movements."
"Yes, Grand Elder."
Wang Ben watched the elder walk away, then turned back toward the ridge. The war's first day was ending. The first blood had been spilled.
But as he climbed, as his legs burned and his lungs ached and the weight of everything pressed down on him, he couldn't stop thinking about the figure on the rooftop.
Watching.
Waiting.
For what?
END OF CHAPTER 40