Li Yu returned to the ship, a lone, silent figure in the vast, empty sky. The brutal, lightning-fast battle had left no trace, the clouds of blood and erased bodies already scattered by the relentless northern wind. He landed softly on the deck, where Cyra was waiting, her face a mask of worry that melted into profound relief the moment she saw he was unharmed.
"Welcome back, it is good to see that you are unharmed," she said. She was worried that he could get hurt but with how quickly he came back and how he looked, it would seem like her worries were unfounded.
"I am fine, thank you for worrying about me, I appreciate your thoughts" he said. He held out the collection of storage rings he had taken from his vanquished foes. "Have these logged and stored. I need to think about a few things."
Without another word, he retreated to a quiet chamber within the ship, leaving Cyra to manage the crew and the growing number of rescued personnel. He sat down, the silence of the room a stark contrast to the storm of questions in his mind.
He needed to understand the forces he was now facing, to peel back the layers of conspiracy that were choking this entire region of the continent. He felt a profound sense of responsibility not just for the people on his ship, but for the countless innocents being consumed by this dark plot.
He was deep in thought, meticulously analyzing the encounter. The force he had just annihilated was not insignificant. Their leader, an 8th stage Core Formation expert, was a true powerhouse, a figure who could command respect and fear across the continent.
She was not a disposable pawn; she was clearly an important member of their organization, a mobile expert whose task was to move where she was needed. For her organization to deploy such a flexible and high-ranking member just for a reinforcement and retrieval mission spoke volumes about their power, resources, and the importance they placed on their northern operation.
He immediately compared her to the other powerful enemy he had faced recently, Elder Tian Long of the Beast Revolution Faction. Tian Long had been stronger, a 9th Core Formation expert, but there was a distinct difference in their auras and methods.
Tian Long's power had been a kind of wild, zealous fury, the strength of a true believer whose every action was fueled by fanatical devotion. This woman's power had been colder, more disciplined, the strength of a soldier following orders from a clear, established chain of command. Her every move had been tactical, not passionate.
Could they be from the same faction? It was possible. A massive organization like the Beast Faction would surely have different military wings with different styles. But his instincts, honed by his increasingly powerful soul, told him they were different. It felt like comparing the wild, untamed fury of a wolf to the cold, precise strike of a viper. Both were deadly, but their natures were fundamentally unalike.
His mind then turned to the greater mystery: the mass disappearances. Jian Xuan's theory of a large-scale ritual was an explanation that made logical sense. The sheer scale was what was most troubling. To make an entire town vanish would require immense power, not just for the ritual itself, but for the logistics of silencing witnesses, erasing evidence, and maintaining secrecy.
It required large groups of people working together towards the same goals. All of this while a war was going on, was a good cover. They had been planning this for a long time, to move their pieces into this position.
Could it be that the Beast Faction, in their desperation to win the war against the Human Faction, was trying to summon their great beast god? It was a terrifying thought. A being that powerful, brought into this world through a massive blood sacrifice, would be a world-ending catastrophe.
But something about it didn't quite fit. He sifted through everything he knew, every piece of intelligence Fengliu had gathered, every word he had heard from the fanatics themselves. The followers of the Beast Revolution Faction spoke of their god's return. It was always framed as an inevitable, prophesied event, a day when their deity would descend once more to reclaim the world.
He had never heard anyone from the Beast Faction saying anything about actually summoning their god. A summoning implied a forceful, deliberate act, an attempt by mortals to pull a divine being into their world. A return implied the being was coming of its own volition. The theological distinction was subtle, but profound.
For a group as dogmatic as the Beast Faction, such a distinction would be everything. To try and force the arrival of their god might even be considered heresy, a declaration that their faith was not strong enough to await the prophesied day.
So, if it wasn't them, who was it? Could it be the Human Revolution Faction, performing some heinous act to frame their rivals? Unlikely, but not impossible. They too could be summoning their so-called human god as well, they were also a possibility. Or was it the third, and most likely, possibility: an entirely new group, one even more ruthless than the others, using the chaos of the Boreal Empire's civil war as a smokescreen for their own profane agenda.
He brushed the thoughts aside with a sigh of frustration. He would eventually find out. He was getting deeper and deeper into these grand, world-spanning conspiracies. They were a tangled, bloody web, and he kept getting involved with them. They were disrupting the peace he wanted, causing all kinds of trouble, and forcing his hand time and time again.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the north, Kui and Jian Xuan arrived at the capital. The sight that greeted them was one of a desperate, final stand. The ancient, magnificent capital city of the Boreal Empire was completely surrounded. A massive, sprawling military camp, a sea of tents and banners, encircled it for miles in every direction.
The snarling dragon of the Soaring Dragon Sect flew alongside the personal crests of the two princes and at least a dozen other smaller sects that had joined their cause. Their combined armies were a suffocating, overwhelming force of tens of thousands, a patchwork quilt of different uniforms and fighting styles, all united in their desire to breach the city walls. War drums beat a constant, monotonous rhythm, a psychological attack designed to wear down the morale of the defenders.
The city itself was silent, a shimmering, translucent dome of ancient, powerful energy covering it entirely. It was the Queen's last bastion, and her remaining forces were hiding behind the ancient, powerful defensive formation of their ancestors. But it was only a matter of time, the amount of energy needed to maintain such a thing wouldn't last forever.
The formation flickered and groaned under the constant, probing attacks of the besieging army, and Kui knew it would not hold forever. From their vantage point, they could see the exhausted, desperate faces of the Queen's soldiers on the walls, their numbers a mere fraction of the force outside.
Jian Xuan and Kui observed the scene from far away and in a high, hidden vantage point in the clouds. This was the last, and most important, stop on their rescue mission. The Guild's main northern headquarters was located here, and more than twenty percent of their total forces in the Boreal Empire were trapped inside those walls.
"Negotiation is useless here," Kui stated. He pointed towards a massive, heavily guarded command tent at the center of the encampment, from which a powerful, arrogant aura was emanating. "The 9th level Core Formation expert we were warned about is almost certainly in there."
Jian Xuan nodded. "I agree. This is the heart of their army. To break this impasse and guarantee the safety of our people with a swift, unopposed entry, a greater deterrent is required. We must present them with a power so absolute that they would not dare to even consider refusing. The risk of them having their own hidden experts is high, but the risk to our people inside that city is higher. I don't think they dare risk revealing any hidden cards, if they had any, just to stop us."
"You mean…?" Kui asked.
"Yes," Jian Xuan said. "It is time they understood the true power they are dealing with."
He did not wait for a further command. He and Kui stepped onto the flying sword and shot out from the cover of the clouds, flying directly towards the heart of the besieging army.
As he approached, he unleashed his power.
The sky above the army seemed to darken, the wind died, and the constant, oppressive beat of the war drums fell silent. A silence that it was deafening fell over the entire battlefield. The very spiritual energy of the world seemed to still, to bow in reverence to a higher form of existence.
This was the power and grandeur of a Soul Formation expert, a being who had transcended past them all. Something rarely ever witnessed, a power of a soul formation expert. He only unleashed his 1st level Soul Formation aura, a mere fraction of his true power, but it was more than enough.
He came to a halt directly before the army of men below, a figure of unassailable authority. Then, he spoke, his voice not a shout, but a calm, resonant decree that echoed in the soul of every living being for miles in every direction. It appeared as a shout within their very souls, making them shudder and tremble.
"I AM THE SECOND GRAND ELDER OF THE GOLDEN SHELL GUILD. MOVE ASIDE SO I CAN TAKE MY PEOPLE OUT OF HERE, OR DIE PATHETICALLY BLOCKING MY PATH. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO DECIDE."
The effect was instantaneous and absolute. Across the entire, massive encampment, tens of thousands of soldiers and disciples froze, their minds seized by a primal, soul-deep terror they had never known.
The Core Formation experts and sect elders who served as the army's commanders felt their spiritual energy seize up in their meridians, their bodies refusing to obey them. They were insects in the presence of a dragon, and their very souls knew it.