The wind had died down a bit. With the Grand Formation slowly coming back online, the chaotic energies that usually whipped through the Jagged Peaks were being smoothed out. This was leaving the air still and surprisingly crisp.
Li Yu walked back toward the center of the cavern. Tekton had remained on the high balcony and looked like a gargoyle made of nightmares. It almost seed like he was keeping watch over the valley entrance but he was actually sleeping. Si Luo and Bai Ruo had retreated back into their small forms on Li Yu’s necklace.
Grandmaster Pan was standing near the primary node of the array, a massive pillar of white stone that was currently pulsing with a soft rhythmic light. He was shouting orders at a group of junior Array Masters who were ticulously carving runes into the floor.
"Not that angle!" Pan barked while waving a jade tablet. "If you misalign the Qi flow by even a degree, the feedback loop will fry us all! Do you want to be fried? No? Then asure twice!"
Li Yu approached and stepped over a bundle of cables made from spirit-vines. "How’s it looking, Grandmaster?"
Pan jumped slightly at the surprise voice. He didn’t detect Li Yu at all. Li Yu could have stabbed him with a knife and he wouldn’t have known he was there until contact. When he saw Li Yu, his frazzled expression softened into one of exhaustion.
"Commander Li," Pan wiped his forehead with a sleeve that was already stained with ink. "We are on schedule. The primary node is accepting the charge. We are currently syncing it with the ley lines that were cleared for us."
"My team is motivated. This isn’t the only place where we are needed. There are several teams like ours but eventually every single place will need a team to fix their portion of the array. There is a lot of work ahead but also quite a bit of rewards as well. That is putting a fire under everyone."
"That’s good. Carry on."
Li Yu left the Array Masters to their work and wandered over to the edge of the encampnt. The harvesting was winding down. The mountains of carcasses had been reduced to neat stacks of bones, hides and crates filled with cores.
The ground had been scrubbed clean by water-elent cultivators. They were washing away the gore until the cavern looked less like a slaughterhouse and more like a warehouse.
Sect Master Zhou, Matriarch Su and Commander Lei were overseeing the final tally. They looked exhausted but deeply satisfied. The full clean up work took longer and was more tiring than the actual combat itself. A nice change of pace but still one that was tiring.
"Commander," Zhou greeted him while looking up from a ledger. "We are at ninety percent completion. The remaining materials are being crated now."
"Take your ti," Li Yu said. "The array isn't up yet and I'm not leaving until the lights are officially green."
He looked around the cavern. Two thousand cultivators were milling about. The adrenaline of the battle had faded, replaced by the heavy but pleasant weight of fatigue. They were sitting in groups. They were either cleaning weapons, patching robes or just leaning against the walls with their eyes closed.
"You know," Li Yu said, "it’s dinner ti."
The three commanders were taken back. They were cultivators; they could go forever without eating if necessary, sustaining themselves on pills and ambient Qi. But Li Yu didn't operate the sa way. When he could, he would rather eat and relax.
He walked to a clear space near the cavern entrance. It was well-ventilated by the fresh breeze. He waved his hand and a pile of dry spirit-wood appeared from his storage ring. A flick of his finger ignited it, the flas crackling rrily.
He pulled out a massive iron pot, a ladle and enough ingredients to feed a village. ats, herbs and spices that were stored away from his travels.
"What is he doing?" a disciple from the Iron Blood Sect whispered, nudging his friend.
"He... he’s cooking," the friend replied as he stared. "The man who dragged a monster into the Void is making soup. It also looks like he’s making enough for us to eat as well."
Li Yu ignored the stares at him while he worked. He humd a tune off-key as he chopped vegetables with a knife that could be an heirloom weapon for a smaller clan. It was sothing he had found in his pile of loot.
It ca from the Crimson Fang but he couldn’t tell if it was from the vault or belonged to one of the elders. He threw at, herbs and spices into the pot, stirring it with a rhythmic motion.
After a while the sll—rich, savory, and laced with the scent of spirit herbs—began to drift through the cavern. It was a sll that cut through the lingering tallic tang of blood. It slled like ho.
Slowly and hesitantly the army began to move.
It started with Commander Lei. The giant rcenary sniffed the air, his stomach letting out a growl that echoed like thunder.
"Well," Lei grunted, hefting his hamr. "The Commander has the right idea."
He walked over to his own sector, gathered his n and started his own fire.
Within twenty minutes, the central cavern had transford. Hundreds of small campfires dotted the floor. The eerie bioluminescence of the cave moss was overpowered by the warm flickering orange of the flas. The tension of the war zone evaporated, replaced by the atmosphere of a massive communal picnic.
Li Yu sat by his pot, ladling out bowls of stew for anyone who walked by.
"Hot," Li Yu warned a young female disciple from the Violet Silk Pavilion. "Blow on it first."
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"Thank you, Commander," she managed to respond. She took the bowl as if it were a sacred chalice. She scurried back to her friends with her face flushed.
"He's so... normal," she whispered to her group. "He reminds
of my older brother. You know, before he joined the sect and got all serious."
"Your brother can't do what he does," her friend pointed out while blowing on her own soup. "But I know what you an. It’s weird. Usually experts at his level look at us like we’re bugs. Not even bothering with people like us. He looks at us like we’re... neighbors."
Around the fires, the conversations began to flow. The shared experience of fighting in a strange battle, the near death experience in the middle and massive profit had loosened tongues. At a fire near the center, a group of Thunderclap rcenaries were roasting strips of beast at on skewers.
"So, what's the plan, Wei?" a younger rcenary asked with his mouth full. "With your share of this haul, you could finally settle down. Buy a nice estate in the capital or similiar. Get fat."
Captain Wei laughed, wiping grease from his chin. "Retire? I'm getting old but I'm not dead yet. If I retire now, I'll die of boredom. No, I'm going to use the cores for resources to push my cultivation forward. I've been stuck here for years because I couldn't afford the resources. Now? I can buy enough pills to choke a dragon."
He gestured with a skewer. "What about you, kid? You gonna buy that sword you’ve been drooling over?"
The young rcenary shook his head while looking down at the fire. "No. I'm sending it back ho. My little sister... she has the talent. Better than . But our family is poor. We couldn't afford the entrance fee for the Cloud-Rain Academy. With this? I can pay her tuition and have extra for my parents to live in comfort in their older years. Of course I will save so for my own cultivation. I have to be strong to continue to send money back ho."
Wei clapped him on the shoulder and chuckled. "Good man. She'll be a monster in a few years and then she can carry you."
At another fire, disciples from the Iron Blood Sect were engaged in a more serious discussion. They were cleaning their heavy armor and polishing out the scratches from the Pangolin claws.
"I'm going into seclusion," a burly disciple stated. "This battle showed
my weakness. My defense is strong but my speed is trash. If the Sentry hadn't put up that ice wall, the Shadow-Stalkers would have gutted ."
"You're an Iron Blood disciple," his companion scoffed. "We don't do speed. We take things head one and punch it in the first."
"The Commander does both," the burly disciple countered. "Did you see him? He moved like smoke but hit like a falling star. I want to learn that. I'm going to buy wind-attribute cultivation manuals. I don't care if the Sect Master yells at ."
Nearby, Sect Master Zhou overheard this conversation. In fact, every cultivator here could hear the conversation in each group. No one was trying to hide anything and their senses were much too good. He didn't yell at the burly disciple. He just smiled into his cup of tea.
"Let them dream," Zhou murmured to Matriarch Su who was sitting elegantly on a silk cushion she had produced from her ring. "New ideas are bought with new resources. This wealth... it will change our sects."
"It will," Su agreed. She was sipping wine from a silver goblet. "I plan to expand our intelligence network. The war is shifting. Information will be important moving forward. And I want to know where Li Yu goes next."
"Why?" Commander Lei asked, joining them with a massive beast leg of so kind in his hand. "So you can follow him?"
"So I can bet on him," Su corrected with a smirk.
Li Yu sat alone for a mont and was watching the fires. The sound of two thousand people laughing, eating and boasting was a stark contrast to the silence of the Void. He preferred this. It made all the extra effort he used to keep everyone safe worth it.
"Commander."
Li Yu looked up. It was the young cultivator. He was holding a bowl of Li Yu’s stew but was looking nervous.
"Sit," Li Yu said as he patted the rock next to him. "How's the soup? Too salty? I think I overdid it on the sea-salt."
"It's perfect, Commander," the disciple said quickly. He sat down but his legs were stiff. "I... I just wanted to ask. What will you do now?"
"?" Li Yu stirred the pot. "I'm going to wait for the array to turn on. Then I'm going to take my share of the loot. Then I'm going to contact the Alliance Headquarters to see if they need anything else from . I have fulfilled my duty to them in replacing the Crimson Fang to take back this region. Of course, I have to trade in my rit points too."
"And after that?" the disciple pressed. "Will you lead us again? The army... we would follow you anywhere in this war. We’d go where you go… even into the Beast Territories."
Li Yu looked at the young man. He saw the hero worship in his eyes. It was heavy. He didn't like it.
"I'm not here to fight deep into beast territories. At least that’s not what I ca here for originally." Li Yu said softly. "I'm just a guy who wants to fix the problem so I can go back to my own thing. Leading armies... it's exhausting. You have to worry about everyone dying. It’s tough to lead, you get weighed down with responsibilities."
The disciple looked disappointed but he nodded. "I understand." Li Yu smiled. "Now eat your soup before it gets cold."
A few hours passed. The fires burned down to embers. The conversation lulled as the exhaustion finally won out and cultivators began to sleep or ditate.
Suddenly, a hum vibrated through the floor. Everyone sat up.
At the far end of the cavern, the white stone pillar flared with blinding light. The runes carved into the floor ignited. A chain reaction of blue light racing across the cavern, up the walls and spreading out through the tunnels like a nervous system coming online.
Grandmaster Pan stepped back from the pillar with his hands raised in triumph.
"It is done!" Pan shouted, his voice cracking with fatigue and joy. "The Southern Jagged Peaks Node is active!"
A pulse of energy swept through the cavern. It wasn't a shockwave; it was a cleansing breath. The heavy oppressive atmosphere of the beast lands vanished instantly. The Grand Formation had reclaid the land.
Cheers erupted. Tired n and won jumped to their feet, hugging each other and raising weapons in the air. Li Yu stood up, kicking dirt over his campfire. He walked over to the three commanders.
"Showti," Li Yu said.
Sect Master Zhou handed him a spatial ring.
"Your share, Commander," Zhou said formally. "Fifty percent of all cores, materials, ores and dicinal herbs harvested."
Li Yu took the ring. He didn't check it at all, trusting them. It disappeared into his Koi Sanctuary for later use.
"I trust you," Li Yu said.
He turned to the entrance where the night sky was visible. Tekton was already awake, sensing the change in energy. The massive centipede crawled down from his perch, landing in the valley with a thud that shook the ground.
"Alright," Li Yu said. "You guys hold the fort. The Alliance will send a permanent garrison soon. Until then... try not to break anything."
"We will guard it with our lives," Commander Lei promised while saluting.
Li Yu leaped up and landed on Tekton's head.
"Let’s go."
The Dreadnought launched himself into the sky, the wind roaring around them. As they ascended, Li Yu looked back. The cavern was a glowing beacon of blue light in the dark mountains.
"One down," he muttered. "Too many to go. I hope the other locations were able to get their mission accomplished."
Tekton banked left and they vanished into the clouds, leaving the Jagged Peaks behind.
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