Li Yu's charge was not the reckless act of a lone hero; it was the calculated, decisive strike of a king leading his invincible royal guard. The third wave, a force that should have swept away the exhausted allied army like a storm, was being held.
However, behind them a new, dark sea of hundreds of thousands of powerful Rank 3 and Rank 4 beasts surged forward once more, their roars a deafening chorus that drowned out all other sound. This was the true third wave, an army led by powerful beasts. The exhausted disciples of the allied sects, seeing this new, seemingly endless tide, felt their hearts sink into a pit of absolute despair.
The front line of his army was a wall of absolute, unbreachable defense. Aegis and Bastion, his Iron-Shell Guardian Turtles, slammed their shells together, forming a mountain of black iron. Beside them, the two Coral-Fortress Crabs materialized their living coral shells glowing with a soft, multi-colored light.
An Ice-Fang Tiger, its claws capable of shattering steel, slammed into Aegis's shell. The sound was a deep, sonorous gong and the powerful Tyrant was sent staggering back. A torrent of corrosive acid from a Stone-Shelled Salamander washed over one of the Coral-Fortress Crabs; the living coral pulsed with a gentle light, absorbing the elemental attack completely, leaving the crab unharmed.
This unshakeable defensive line became the anvil, holding back the kings. The rest of Li Yu's army was the hammer.
The two colossal Stygian Maw-Lurkers, his Rank 6 Hegemon Beasts were the agents of chaos. Their hypnotic lures pulsed with an irresistible, mind-bending light. The charging Tyrant Beasts, their minds simple and instinct-driven, were immediately captivated.
Their charge faltered, their formations dissolving into a confused, mesmerized mob. They stared blankly at the beautiful, deadly lights, their predatory instincts completely suppressed.
Into this chaos, the vanguard struck. Crimson, Fury, and Rage were a three-pronged storm of draconic fury. Crimson was a battering ram of jade-green scales and furious power. The two Azure-Clawed Hydras were a whirlwind of six snapping, venom-dripping heads. They tore through the confused ranks of the Tyrants, their attacks brutal and overwhelming.
The true killers, however, were the specialists. Volt and Jolt, the twin Rank 5 Three-Tailed Spirit Eels, moved through the battle like streaks of golden lightning. They were too fast for the lumbering Tyrants to track. They would appear, unleash a devastating chain-lightning attack that stunned and scorched a beast and then vanish before it could retaliate.
And then there was Lirael. The Rank 5 Naga. She moved through the water-logged, bloody ground as if it were her personal domain, her midnight-blue scales a perfect camouflage in the chaos. She did not engage in direct combat. She would appear behind a beast, her silver horn glowing with a piercing light and strike a single precise blow at a crucial joint or a weak point in its armor, crippling it and leaving it vulnerable to the rampaging hydras.
Li Yu did not stand at the heart of this storm as a distant conductor. He charged in alongside his beasts, his Star-Iron Rod held in a two-handed grip. He was fighting on the front lines, a force of destruction that was even more powerful than his most powerful companions.
While his monsters engaged the beast commanders in a battle of equals, he became a meat grinder for everything that followed in his wake. His every thought was still a silent command, a web of strategy that coordinated his entire army but he issued these commands from the heart of the battle, his own body a whirlwind of black iron and silent death.
He had to reduce the numbers of beasts, to help the other fronts where their energy was nearly tapped. He was still filled with power thanks to his Koi and was doing his best to destroy as many beasts as he could. Once again he regretted not having some grander technique that could wipe out more beasts.
He swung the Star-Iron Rod and a charging Rank 4 Saber-Toothed Tiger was simply erased, its body pulverized into a red mist. He spun and a group of three Armored-Shell Crocodiles were shattered, their defensive hides like paper before the conceptual weight of his weapon. He was a force of pure, overwhelming power, his every blow a simple, brutal, and final statement of his strength.
While his personal army engaged the beast commanders, his friends were executing the grander strategy. On the Central Front, Brother Kai and his contingent of beast tamers, their defensive beasts had formed a new anchor. They were holding their ground against the new swarm of lesser beasts, providing a crucial buffer for the exhausted Iron Fist and Jade Spring disciples.
On the flanks, Hu Jian and Lin Tao, leading the rest of the battalion, were a godsend to the beleaguered disciples. Hu Jian's fiery, explosive assaults broke up the charging beast packs, while Lin Tao's cunning, control-oriented arts ensnared and separated the most powerful threats, allowing the swordsmen and warriors of the other sects to pick them off one by one. The entire allied army, inspired by the continued fighting of everyone roared with a new ferocious morale and began to push the new tide back.
The battle raged for another hour. Li Yu's army was an engine of death, a perfectly coordinated killing machine that was systematically dismantling the wave. As the last of the beast commanders were finally pulled down by the combined assault of Crimson and Lirael, a silence began to fall over the battlefield.
The disciples, their bodies battered, their spiritual energy reserves scraped dry, could only stare in a state of disbelieving awe. A few weak, ragged cheers started to rise from the lines. They had done it. They had survived. They had won.
But their celebration died in their throats, strangled by a new, far more terrifying pressure that descended from the heavens. High in the sky, where the seven Core Formation experts had been locked in a desperate battle with the first Beast King, the very fabric of space seemed to tear open. Three new shadows, each one a vortex of black malevolent Qi, emerged from the void. Three new Beast Kings had arrived.
It was not a reinforcement. It was an execution.
The seven brilliant suns in the sky, which had been holding their own against a single opponent, were suddenly overwhelmed by this new power.
Li Yu saw it happen with his own heightened senses. The golden aura of his Sect Master, which had been a defiant sun, was violently thrown back as if struck by a celestial hammer. The Sect Master stumbled in the air, a torrent of blood erupting from his lips, his aura dimming to a faint flicker. The other Core Formation experts were in a similar or worse state, their powerful domains shattering like glass under the combined assault of four Rank 10 Abyssal Beasts.
From the west, a new dark sea began to pour into the pass. It was not a tide of lesser beasts. It was an army of powerful beasts. Hundreds of Rank 6 Hegemon Beasts, creatures like the Mud-Titan that Li Yu had fought, now marched as common foot soldiers. And among them, dozens of even more powerful auras, beings at the Rank 7 Overlord level, moved with a terrifying, regal purpose.
They must have come with the three additional beast kings. Whether or not this was planned was unknown but it completely sunk the morale of the cultivators present.
The war was not over. The true enemy, its army now reinforced with a legion of true hegemons, had finally revealed its four crowned heads. The disciples, who had just spent the last of their strength, could only stare in a state of absolute, soul-crushing despair. The battle they had just fought and won was not the main event. It was merely the opening act.