Li Yu turned his head as Sovereign Morven, Sovereign Ignis and Malos walked out to join him. They were dressed in their ultimate battle regalia. Ignis wore her molten armor that radiated a terrifying heat while Morven held his massive trident that carried the crushing weight of the deep ocean.
"The vanguard is moving out," Morven announced in his voice a deep rumble that vibrated against the stone walls. "We will establish a forward camp near the border of the ruined domain and then begin our push directly toward the rift."
"I wish you all the absolute best in this battle." Li Yu said sincerely while offering a respectful bow to the group. "I know the alliance decided to sideline
from the main army but I will also be fighting today. I will just be doing it on my own."
Ignis looked at the young human wanderer and her expression softened slightly beneath her fiery crown. "You are incredibly brave, Li Yu. But you must be careful out there. The foreign demons pouring through that rift are completely unknown to us. Do not take unnecessary risks."
"I will be careful," Li Yu nodded with a confident smile. "You all need to do the exact sa thing."
Malos stepped forward and rested his pale hands on the balcony railing. The usually cheerful and dramatic man looked incredibly exhausted. The dark circles under his eyes were prominent and his gaze was fixed on the distant horizon where the sky had turned a bruised ugly purple.
"Careful might not be enough this ti," Malos warned, his voice dropping to a serious whisper. "I tried to look ahead, Li Yu. I tried to pull the threads of destiny to see the outco of this war but I am entirely blind."
Morven frowned deeply. "You cannot predict anything?"
"There is a heavy fog covering the future." Malos explained while rubbing his temples. "A being of great strength on the other side of that rift is clearly there to disrupt my sight. The foundational laws of ti and space around the human domain are scrambled by his re presence. I can only see vague and blurry images of death and destruction. I will do my best to guide our armies through this war but you must all prepare for the unpredictable."
"We will adapt" Morven stated firmly while gripping his trident. "May the heavens favor us all."
The three Demon Lords leaped from the balcony and joined the front lines of the marching army. Li Yu watched them disappear into the sea of troops before turning his attention to the figure standing quietly in the corner of the balcony.
"Did you find him?" Li Yu asked.
Garrick leaned against the stone pillar and crossed his muscular arms. He had spent the last several hours across the realm while the demonic armies prepared for deploynt.
"I found him," Garrick replied. "The old man is moving erratically through the western sector of the human domain. His energy signature is an absolute ss.”
"Take
to him," Li Yu told Garrick.
Garrick did not argue. He simply grabbed Li Yu by the shoulder and bent his knees. He launched himself directly into the red sky. Garrick tore through the sky and was carrying Li Yu away from the Capital and straight toward the devastated territories.
As they crossed the border into the human domain the environnt changed drastically. The ground was scorched black and covered in a thick layer of grey ash. The massive cities that once housed mortals and cultivators were reduced to silent, empty tombs.
There were no bodies. Lucien's apocalyptic blood ritual had consud ninety five percent of the population. Leaving nothing but empty clothes and the lingering echo of billions of dying screams. The sheer emptiness was terrifying.
Garrick began his descent and was aiming for a ruined valley surrounded by shattered mountain peaks. They landed softly in the grey ash. The silence in the valley was oppressive. A few hundred yards away a single figure sat on a broken boulder.
Li Yu walked forward slowly, his boots crunching loudly in the ash. As he got closer the true extent of the tragedy beca visible.
It was Sovereign Thorne. But it was clear that the old man was a broken hollow shell of what he once was. His farr-like clothes were torn to shreds and soaked in dark demon blood. His hair was wild and matted with gore. He sat hunched over and staring blankly at the ash covered ground while his hands trembled violently.
Despite his exhausted posture, Thorne radiated a thick and suffocating aura of killing intent. It was not the controlled emptiness that Li Yu felt when he first t him. It was the chaotic and mindless bloodlust of a rabid animal. He was indeed acting like a crazy person, completely disconnected from reality.
"Sovereign Thorne." Li Yu called out softly and stopped a few paces away.
Thorne did not look up. He did not acknowledge the greeting. He simply continued to stare at the dirt, his chest heaving with ragged and uneven breaths. He tightened his grip on a broken sword resting across his knees.
Li Yu felt a heavy sadness wash over his heart. He looked at the ruined old man and he truly understood that pain. But Li Yu knew that Thorne’s pain went much deeper than his own.
Li Yu had also gone crazy when his own sect was destroyed. He rembered the blinding red rage and the desperate need to kill everything responsible. He rembered the feeling of losing his new family of friends and his new ho in an instant.
But Li Yu had only lost a small sect that he was a part of for several years. While that didn’t take anything away from the loss, Li Yu could only imagine what Thorne was feeling now. Thorne had been building this entire domain up over thousands of years. Fighting tooth and nail for every single inch of safety for his people. He had endured wars just to give humanity a chance.
He recently just lost two of his closest friends to betrayal as well. Now, in one single day, his own disciple had wiped everything away.
There was absolutely no reasoning with him now. Li Yu could see it in the erratic pulse of his Qi. Thorne just wanted to fight and then rest for a few minutes and then fight again. Repeated over and over until his body finally gave out and he could join his people in the void.
Since Li Yu was not allowed to fight with the main demon armies due to their paranoia, he had made a simple decision. He would fight with the humans. And in this desolate ash covered graveyard, humanity currently consisted of just one broken old man. All of Thorne's other disciples were dead or presud dead since none of them had answered the call to battle.
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A high pitched chittering sound echoed across the ruined valley. Thorne's head snapped up. His eyes were completely bloodshot and devoid of all sanity. The only thing he could tell now was who his enemies were.
Over the shattered mountain ridges, a massive swarm of foreign demons poured into the valley. They were the vanguard forces of the Hive Empire. They had a horrifying insect-like appearance mixed with terrifying demonic traits. So were the size of wild dogs with sleek black carapaces and razor sharp mandibles dripping with green acid. Others were massive, lumbering monstrosities with thick chitinous armor and multiple sets of scythe like arms. They crawled, flew and scurried over the rocks emitting a collective screech that hurt the ears.
Thorne did not hesitate. He did not issue a battle cry or assu a defensive stance. He simply launched himself directly at the center of the massive swarm.
"Let us go to work as well." Li Yu said as his staff appeared in his hands..
So began their brutal hit and run tactics. The run part of this tactic was only when Thorne got too hurt or tired to continue fighting. The unified demon army was pushing directly toward the central rift to seal it. Li Yu, Thorne and Garrick would act as an independent chaotic variable. They would help to distract and kill off the roaming enemy forces, thinning the numbers for the main demonic vanguard.
Thorne crashed into the insect swarm like a dark teor.
He was a master of Shadow and tal laws and he unleashed his power with absolutely zero restraint. He slamd his hands onto the ash covered ground. The shadows cast by the thousands of screeching insects suddenly solidified. The darkness twisted and hardened, turning into hundreds of razor sharp tallic spikes that shot straight up from the ground.
Hundreds of Hive demons were instantly impaled, their dark blood raining down on the battlefield.
Thorne did not stop. He charged forward as he was swinging his broken sword. He coated the jagged blade in tal Qi to extend its reach and sharpness. He moved like a ghost, slipping through the shadows of the larger monstrosities and erging behind them to sever their heads with brutal efficiency. He fought without any regard for his own safety. He was allowing minor cuts and acid burns to strike his body so he could land lethal killing blows.
Li Yu joined the fight but he did not charge blindly into the center of the swarm. He fought on the edges of the battlefield and handled what he could. Making sure he wasn’t overwheld.
He channeled his Qi and summoned a flowing river of ice shards to attack. He moved gracefully through the periphery of the chaotic lee. He was isolating small groups of the insect like demons. When a massive beetle demon charged at him, Li Yu casually stepped into the void, bypassing the creature's thick armor completely and driving his staff directly into the soft and unprotected joint behind its neck. He killed thodically and was ensuring no stragglers could flank the insane Sovereign.
Garrick stayed close to Li Yu.
The Great Sage had summoned his weapon from his internal storage. It was a thick tal mace covered in large blunted spikes. The weapon was clearly ant to be wielded with strength and Garrick swung it around with one hand as if it were a wooden stick.
Garrick had been told to slaughter demons and he did so happily. He was desperate to unleash his boiling rage. He was furious about his five hundred year sentence and his defeat that led him here. He was furious that he had been blasted into a forest by Ignis and Morven.
He took all of that imnse frustration out on the Hive Empire.
A group of flying winged insects swooped down toward them. Garrick let out a booming laugh and swung his heavy mace upward. The kinetic force of the swing compressed the air and created a localized shockwave that crushed the flying demons into a fine paste before the tal even touched them.
He waded into the fray and was smashing thick chitinous armor into splinters and crushing skulls with casual but brutal swings. But despite his wild joyous slaughter, Garrick always kept so of his divine senses firmly locked onto Li Yu.
He knew the terms of the golden seal etched into his soul. If the young human died, the Great Sage died instantly. Garrick made absolutely sure that no stray acid blast or hidden subterranean insect got anywhere near what he thought was his fragile master.
The battle didn’t last long. The combination of a suicidal Sovereign, an elusive but deadly young and rage of Garrick was too much for the roaming swarm to handle.
Thorne ripped his sword out of the chest of the final scythe ard monstrosity. The creature collapsed into the grey ash and was twitching violently before going still.
The valley was quiet once again filled only with the sound of hissing acid and dripping blood. Li Yu wiped his staff clean and looked at Thorne. He expected the old man to sit down and rest or perhaps finally acknowledge their presence and coordinate their next move.
Instead, Thorne turned his head. His hollow eyes locked onto a distant column of black smoke rising several miles away. Without a single word or a mont of hesitation the broken Sovereign launched himself into the sky flying erratically toward the next battle.
He was not charging toward the rift. He was not following any grand tactical strategy. He was just wantonly killing anything that possessed a foreign demonic aura.
"Well, he certainly has plenty of stamina." Garrick muttered while resting his massive spiked mace on his broad shoulder. "Are we really just going to follow a crazy man around this dead continent all day?"
"Yes," Li Yu answered as he took to the sky to follow the bloody trail. "We are going to make sure he does not die alone needlessly. It is the least I can do for soone that has protected humanity for so long."
For the next several hours they engaged in a relentless brutal cycle of slaughter. Thorne would find a roaming swarm of Hive demons, crash into them like a suicidal weapon of mass destruction and butcher them using his terrifying mastery of shadows and tal. Li Yu and Garrick would secure his flanks, wipe out the edges of the swarm and prevent the old man from getting entirely overwheld by sheer numbers.
They bounced from ruined city to ruined valley and left nothing in their wake. Li Yu vacuud up the bodies of the fallen once they were completely defeated. They would act as food for those in his Koi Sanctuary and he would be able to absorb the cores later.
Their highly aggressive hit and run tactics were creating ripples across the Hive Empire's forces. Thorne's wanton killing was drawing a large amount of attention from the higher ranking commanders that were trying to secure the periter of the rift. The foreign invaders could not simply ignore a threat of this magnitude completely.
The group was finishing wiping out a group of subterranean insects near a dried up riverbed. Thorne stood amidst the carnage and was breathing heavily. He was bleeding from a dozen minor wounds.
The sky above them suddenly darkened.
The temperature plumted and a suffocating pressure descended upon the dry riverbed. The grey ash on the ground began to swirl violently as it was caught in the downdraft of an powerful arrival.
Li Yu looked up and tightened his grip on his staff. Garrick stopped laughing and stepped directly in front of Li Yu to protect him. He raised his heavy spiked mace and was ready to attack.
A tear in the clouds opened up and a figure slowly descended.
It was a Demon Lord level commander from the Hive Empire. The creature was terrifying to behold. It stood roughly twenty feet tall and possessed the torso of a heavily muscled demon fused with the lower body of a massive armored centipede. Its skin was a sickly bruised purple and its head was crowned with six glowing red eyes. The head also has a pair of jagged and dripping mandibles.
The commander held a pair of curved scimitars that were forged from a dark tal. The weapons humd with a highly toxic and destructive energy.
The centipede demon landed on the opposite side of the dried riverbed, crushing the rocks beneath its many segnted legs. It ignored Li Yu and Garrick completely. Its six glowing red eyes locked directly onto Sovereign Thorne.
The commander raised one of its massive scimitars and pointed the jagged blade at the blood soaked old man letting out a deep clicking hiss that echoed with the promise of absolute death.
Thorne did not flinch. The broken Sovereign tightened his grip on his tal sword and let out a raw scream of grief and charged directly at the towering monster.
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