The lull in the fighting was a cruel, fleeting illusion. A new, unified roar shook the heavens. The second half of the second wave of the Beast Tide crashed into the exhausted lines of the allied sects with the force of a falling mountain.
The disciples, who had just felt a surge of hope, were immediately thrown back into a desperate, grinding war of survival. The elders were now reinforcing the disciples more and more often, splitting the elder resources thin. They had been like Li Yu, coming and going from different battle fronts to make sure they didn't collapse.
Wolf-like beasts with fur of sharpened stone would harry a disciple's flank, while massive ape-like creatures with four arms would engage them from the front, a brutally effective pincer movement. Li Yu, standing amidst the carnage felt the shift immediately.
He saw Feng Xuan barely avoid being gored by a Rank 4 Iron-Horned Bull, his elegant sword arts now a desperate defense. He saw Tie Gang, the warrior from the Iron Fist Peak, standing like an unshakeable reef, his body a canvas of bloody wounds, a dozen lesser disciples huddled behind him for protection.
His first thought was for his own forces, still largely concentrated on the Right Flank. The river gorge was stable, but to leave his main strength there was a strategic blunder he could not afford.
"Commander Li!" a disciple from his battalion, a young woman with a messenger-type swallow beast, flew to his side, her face pale but her eyes shining with a fervent, hero-worshipping light. "What are your orders?"
Li Yu's mind, now operating as fast as it could, assessed the situation. "Marshal Hu and Marshal Lin are still reinforcing the Right Flank. The gorge is secure for now, but the true battle is here. Go to them. Tell them to leave a quarter of their units to assist the Myriad Graves Sect. The rest of the battalion is to return to the Central Front reserve immediately. We need to be ready to plug any gaps that appear. Go now."
"Yes, Commander!" the disciple said, bowing before her swallow beast shot away like a black arrow, carrying his orders.
With his own house in order, he turned his attention to the wider battlefield. His gaze swept over the fronts, looking for the point of greatest weakness, the place where the tide was about to break through. As he scanned he regretted not having some kind of massive area attack.
Like that move he saw from Elder Feng in the woods. If he had something like that he could wipe out even more beasts and save even more lives. It would be a weakness he would need to correct for the future. He had to push such thoughts behind now, regret would do nothing now.
He continued to scan to find where he was needed next and he eventually spotted as he continued his battle. He found it on the Left Flank.
He shot into the sky on his Silver-Winged Flying Swordfish. He arrived at the Left Flank to a scene of quiet, desperate horror. This front was held by the White Bone Sect, their army of skeletal puppets, a tireless, unfeeling wall against the tide. But the beasts here were different.
They were massive, Rank 5 Earth-Burrowing Wyrms and colossal Stone-Shelled Beetles, creatures of immense defensive power. They were not trying to break the line; they were grinding it down, their powerful bodies slowly, inexorably, crushing the skeletal puppets into bone dust.
In the center of the beleaguered formation stood a young man, his face as pale and emotionless as the bones he commanded. This was Bai Mo, the chief disciple of the White Bone Sect. His martial spirit was magnificent. It had become a hundred-foot-tall Bone Titan, a colossal golem of spiritual bone that fought with a slow, devastating power. But even it was being pushed back, its massive form covered in cracks from the relentless assault.
Li Yu saw the problem instantly. The White Bone Sect was a defensive force but they lacked the explosive, offensive power needed to break the stalemate. They were being slowly, inevitably, crushed.
He did not announce his arrival. He simply acted. He dove from the sky, landing in a protected area behind the Bone Titan. With a single, silent thought, he opened the portal to his Koi's Sanctuary.
"Aegis! Bastion!" he commanded. "Form a new wall!"
The two Rank 4 Iron-Shell Guardian Turtles materialized, their massive forms a bulwark of black iron. They moved to the front line, their shells forming a new living fortress that immediately took the pressure off the cracking Bone Titan.
"Fury! Rage! Volt! Jolt!"
The two Azure-Clawed Hydras and the two Three-Tailed Spirit Eels shot out from the portal, a wave of unrestrained offensive power. The hydras were a storm of venom and draconic fury, their six heads a whirlwind of snapping jaws. Volt and Jolt were a tempest of golden lightning, their every strike a chain of arcing electricity that stunned and scorched the heavily armored beasts.
Bai Mo, the grim-faced necromancer, turned his head, his empty-looking eyes widening in surprise as he saw Li Yu, surrounded by a legion of powerful beasts that started to turn the tide of his collapsing front.
With the defensive line somewhat stabilized, the battle raged on through the long, bloody night. The disciples, human and demonic alike, fought with a courage born of desperation. The first wave was gone. The second wave was a grinding, endless sea of death. Li Yu and his battalion became true firefighters, moving from one collapsing front to the next, his army of beasts a beacon of hope in the darkness.
Each front saw his reckless charging to the front and only in the heaviest and densest fighting. The title of Maniac and Lunatic followed him to each front. With each sect giving him a title that matched his craziness. The title wasn't one of mocking but one of honor. When they saw him charging ahead, bringing about destruction their spirits would lift that little bit.
As the first, grey light of dawn broke over the pass, a new, far more terrifying tremor shook the earth. The second wave, for all its power and force, began to pull back.
An exhausted silence fell over the battlefield. The disciples, their bodies battered, their spiritual energy beyond drained, could only stare at the mountain of corpses before them. They had somehow survived the night.
But their relief was short-lived. On the western horizon, a new wave appeared. It was not a chaotic swarm or a disciplined army. The third wave had unfortunately arrived.