Reverend insanity: Rotten to the core

A month passed since Malenia had left her home village in search of an inheritance or spirit spring to awaken her aperture, but were Gu master inheritances or spirit springs so easy to find?

Throughout their entire lives, most Gu masters would never find a single Gu master inheritance, as for spirit springs, not even one in a hundred mountains would have one hidden at their deepest parts, searching for spirit springs? that was a difficult task for even medium sized clans to achieve, not to mention the lone force of Malenia.

After a month of travel through the wilderness, constantly forced to battle or escape day and night, eating only raw meat and drinking blood like a beast while sleeping only for a few short intervals each night, Malenia felt her body reaching a breaking point.

Finally, after a month of travel, Malenia found something promising, hiding in some bushes, Malenia observed a destroyed small village from afar, the village was empty with no signs of life while the small bamboo houses in it seemed heavily damaged with scattered human bones littering the streets, Malenia guessed that it was the work of a beast tide.

This was most likely a mortal village destroyed by the beast tide, mortal villages could only exist with the protection of Gu master clans, this village being destroyed meant that the beast tide was especially fierce meaning that with some luck Malenia could just walk in and use their spirit spring to awaken.

Thinking of this possibility, Malenia made her way to the nearby mountains in search of traces from the mysterious Gu master clan.

*****

Ding Hao, the battle hall elder of the Ding clan stroked his long white beard as he watched the people from his clan working hard to repair the recently damaged buildings from the latest attack from the wolf tide.

"This seems to be the twilight of the Ding clan." Ding Hao murmured softly.

Most of the lower echelons still held out a frail hope for survival that drove them to stand up and bury the mountains of corpses of their loved ones that piled up each day while ignoring the possibility that they would be the ones being buried the next day.

Ding Hao however had no more hope for himself or his clan. As an elder of the clan he knew the things kept secret by the upper echelons and had a much more comprehensive view of the picture.

Not only were all the mortal villages under the Ding clan destroyed, more and more rank 1 and 2 Gu masters fell in battle with each round of attack by the beast tide.

If it was only this, Ding Hao wouldn't despair but what made him lose hope was the secret being kept by him and the other elders, the clan leader, the only rank 4 Gu master and the largest pillar of support for the clan had died.

He had died suddenly with no prior warnings, one day he walked the earth, the next day he didn't, it was simple as that.

Caught in the middle of the largest beast tide in the clan's history with no clan leader, the Ding clan surely stood no chance and all the elders knew it.

The mountain was swarming with hungry beasts and Ding Hao could hear the walls of the clan begin to give under the pressure, Ding Hao tried to find hope or look at the bright side yet wherever he looked he only saw darkness.

****

After exploring a bit more around the base of the mountain, Malenia found a couple more destroyed villages, not a single person could be found and all the buildings had either partially or completely collapsed.

Not having found a single trace of life, neither beast nor man, Malenia came to the conclusion that the beasts had most likely ascended the mountain and were attacking the Gu master clan that inhabited it.

That Gu master clan was surely in quite the difficult situation if it wasn't destroyed already then it was probably close to being destroyed.

Malenia felt confident of her conclusion, after all if that wasn't the case and that clan was in a good position then they wouldn't have allowed all the mortal villages to be destroyed.

Although mortals were of low value individually, they were still important as a whole. They supplied the clans with servants, farmers, fisherman, and even spouses and concubines for some Gu masters.

Realising the Gu master clan's situation, Malenia weighed her options, as her goal was to gain access to the Gu master clan's primeval spring she could wait for the beast tide to exterminate the clan before sneaking into the primeval spring, the problem with that plan would be dealing with the danger of the beast tide by herself without the distraction of the Gu masters.

If the Gu masters won, Malenia would have to sneak past an alert and focused Gu master clan with all sorts of detection methods to find anyone who would try to sneak into the most important part of their clan.

The third option and the one Malenia leaned more towards was to play the role of fisherman and use the beast tide to distract the Gu masters and sneak into their primeval spring.

The forth option was that of retreating and continuing her journey, there were definitely other opportunities out there although her chances of finding them were slim, this was most likely her final chance.