The rescue operation proceeded with the swift, practiced efficiency of a well-oiled machine. For the next two hours, the pattern repeated itself with a grim and hopeful rhythm. Jian Xuan and Kui, a comet of white light, would rocket ahead to the next town on their list.
With a single, silent pulse of his power, Jian Xuan would neutralize the occupying guards and enemy soldiers. Kui would then enter the local Guild branch, confirm the safety of their people, and give the order to evacuate.
Moments later, the massive Golden Shell Guild transport ship, with Li Yu and Cyra at the helm, would descend from the clouds to retrieve the grateful workers and their families. The scene on board the ship was a mixture of tearful reunions, hushed, fearful stories of the lockdown, and a growing, profound sense of pride and loyalty to the Guild that had torn through a warzone to save them.
They were in transit between the remote Stone-river Outpost and the northern capital, the final and largest concentration of their people, when it happened. Li Yu was standing on the deck, his gaze fixed on the northern horizon, his mind focused on the complex logistics of the final, most dangerous rescue. He had been extending his spiritual sense, a constant, sweeping wave of awareness, to its absolute limit.
Suddenly, he felt it. It was not a sound or a sight, but a sharp, hostile ripple in the fabric of the world's spiritual energy, far to the south, behind them. It was a group of cultivators, moving with incredible speed and a singular, focused killing intent. And their trajectory was a perfect, unwavering line aimed directly at the ship.
He turned, his expression instantly hardening. "Cyra," he said, his voicelaced with a cold urgency. "They're here."
Cyra rushed to his side, her own senses probing the horizon. "Who?"
"Those reinforcements, I assume," Li Yu said. "A force of about thirty, moving fast. One of them is very strong." He did a quick, mental calculation. The enemy force was much faster than their transport ship. Jian Xuan and Kui were already far ahead, preparing for the most difficult extraction at the capital. The enemy would intercept the ship long before they could be recalled.
The ship was full of hundreds of people—merchants, artisans, mercenaries, and their families. Their cultivation levels were, for the most part, low. They would be helpless in a battle between experts. He could not risk the ship being caught.
"Keep going," Li Yu commanded, his decision made in an instant. "Do not slow down. Do not deviate from the course. Get our people to the capital."
"What are you going to do?" Cyra asked, a note of fear in her voice. "You can't face them alone! We should call Jian Xuan and Kui back. We can fight them together."
"There's no time," he said, his voice gentle but firm, leaving no room for argument. "They are too fast; they will intercept the ship before Jian Xuan can return. I have to stop them here, we can't risk these people getting caught up in a battle. It will be fine, I am strong after all." What shone out from Li Yu was confidence, he felt it, no he knew it, they couldn't beat him.
Before she could even say anything, he leaped from the deck, a lone figure descending into the vast, empty sky. He watched the ship continue on its path, a lumbering, precious ark of life, until it was a small speck in the distance. Then, he turned and waited.
He did not have to wait long. A few minutes later, they appeared. Thirty dark specks on the southern horizon, growing larger with every passing second. Their combined aura, a wave of malice and bloodlust, washed over him. They came to a halt a few hundred feet away, a squadron of elite warriors arrayed against a single, solitary boy.
They were surprised. The figure waiting for them was a young man, almost a boy, with an aura that felt to be in the early-to-mid Core Formation level. Li Yu was not hiding his cultivation, it was out and exposed for them to see. From the traditional cultivation stages, his aura was still that of an early-to-mid Core Formation expert. But his calm demeanor in the face of their overwhelming numbers and power was deeply unsettling to the approaching group.
The force was led by a woman with long, crimson hair and cold, calculating eyes. Her armor was a work of dark, brutalist art, and the great, serrated halberd on her back pulsed with a thirsty, violent energy. Her cultivation was a deep, churning sea of power at the 8th stage of the Core Formation realm.
She was flanked by three other men, all of them in the mid-to-early stages of Core Formation, the rest of their force a disciplined squadron of peak Foundation Establishment experts. They did not treat him lightly. Clearly, this boy was either a fool or a monster, and they had not survived this long by assuming their opponents were fools.
"State your purpose," Li Yu's voice cut through the cold, howling wind, his tone that of a man asking for directions, not one facing down an army. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
The crimson-haired woman's eyes narrowed. "I am here for the rats who killed our people at the border city and who now scurry through our empire, stealing what is not theirs," she said, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "You are clearly a part of that group of rats."
"We are not stealing anything," Li Yu replied, his voice still maddeningly calm. "We are here for our people, and our people only. We have no interest in your war, your politics, or your empire. As we have been saying, we will leave peacefully once our evacuation is complete." He gave her a final, genuine chance to de-escalate. "Let us get our people and go. Then, we will be out of your way. This battle, here and now, is pointless, we never wanted any involvement in this."
The woman did not respond. Her mind was a raging battlefield, a war between cold, hard logic and a screaming, primal instinct.
Her logical mind analyzed the situation with ruthless clarity. The boy was, at best, a mid-level Core Formation expert. She was at the 8th stage, a hair's breadth from the peak. She had three other Core Formation experts with her, and two dozen elite Foundation Establishment disciples. The odds were not just in her favor; they were absolute.
They could overwhelm him in an instant, turn him to dust, and continue on to intercept the ship full of their true targets. To retreat from a single, weaker opponent would be foolish, she should have just attacked him already.
But her cultivator's instinct, the profound, spiritual intuition she had honed over centuries of life-and-death battles, was screaming at her. It was a frantic, terrifying alarm bell in the depths of her soul.
She looked at the boy, at his calm eyes, at his relaxed posture, and she did not see a Core Formation disciple. She saw an abyss. She saw a sleeping, primordial catastrophe that was moments away from waking up.
Her instincts, the very senses that had saved her life a dozen times before, were telling her one thing with a desperate, absolute certainty: Do not attack this boy. Leave. Leave now, and you might live.
Her subordinates were growing impatient. They looked at their leader, then at the lone boy, their expressions a mixture of confusion and contempt. They too were a bit confused why a boy was here trying to stop them, what gave him his confidence. So most of them were waiting for their leader. Why was she hesitating? This was an easy kill.
The woman was frozen in a state of agonizing indecision, her hand hovering over the hilt of her massive halberd. Logic dictated a swift, brutal attack. Instinct screamed for a full, desperate retreat. The lives of her and all her subordinates, and the fate of her mission, hung balanced on the razor's edge of her next choice.