The lull in the fighting was a cruel, fleeting illusion. The moment the last of the five Tyrant commanders fell on the Central Front, a new, unified roar shook the heavens. The second wave of the Beast Tide, a disciplined, intelligent army of hundreds of thousands of Rank 3 and Rank 4 beasts, 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 new wave was not just a fresh batch of bodies; they were a true army, their movements coordinated, their auras a crushing, unified presence. 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. The chaotic, mindless rage of the first wave was gone, replaced by a cold, tactical fury. 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 with the clarity of a high-level expert, instantly 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 with the cleanup. 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 deeply before her swallow beast shot away like a black arrow, carrying his vital 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. He found it on the Left Flank.
He shot into the sky on his Silver-Winged Flying Swordfish, a single, silver streak against the blood-red sunset. 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 pure, 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 perfect 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 pure, 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 shock as he saw Li Yu, surrounded by a legion of powerful, loyal beasts, effortlessly turn the tide of his collapsing front.
With the defensive line stabilized, Li Yu turned his attention to the true prize. His spiritual sense swept through the chaos, and he found it: a massive, Rank 5 Hundred-Eyed Swamp-Walker. It was a grotesque, centipede-like beast, its body covered in a hundred, independently moving eyes that gave it a perfect, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the battlefield. It was a living watchtower, the commander of this section of the tide. It was a priceless, control-type beast.
He did not charge. He simply tapped the ground with his Star-Iron Rod. A wave of high-pressure water erupted from the earth, a utility art that churned the ground into a thick, grasping mud, momentarily slowing the Swamp-Walker's advance.
He then sent a silent command to his companion. Mirage.
The Rank 4 Phantasmal Octopus, which had been hidden in the shadows, acted. A wave of psychic energy washed over the Swamp-Walker. The world in its hundred eyes distorted, the battlefield around it dissolving into a confusing, illusory maze.
In that moment of confusion, Li Yu moved. He was a ghost, his «Abyssal Dragon's Shadow» carrying him through the chaos. He appeared directly before the massive, disoriented beast. It was too powerful to simply crush, too valuable to kill. He had to capture it.
He opened the portal to his sanctuary, a shimmering, crimson-gold vortex. "Lirael!"
The Rank 5 Naga shot out, her golden eyes locking onto the Swamp-Walker. She let out a silent, psychic screech, not of attack, but of pure, draconic authority. The Swamp-Walker, its mind already reeling from Mirage's illusions, was completely overwhelmed by this new, noble pressure. It froze, its hundred eyes filled with a dazed, instinctual fear.
It was all the opening Li Yu needed. A dozen thick, powerful water whips, formed from his own profound Qi, erupted from the ground, wrapping around the massive beast's legs and body, a temporary cage of water.
With a final, desperate surge of his will, he widened the portal to his sanctuary. Enter.
The bound, terrified, and mentally dominated Swamp-Walker offered no resistance. It was pulled, body and soul, into the swirling, crimson-gold vortex, a new, priceless addition to his hidden army.
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. He was no longer just a commander; he was a symbol, a one-man army whose very presence could turn the tide.
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, began to pull back, a disciplined, orderly retreat.
A fragile, exhausted silence fell over the battlefield. The disciples, their bodies battered, their spiritual energy almost completely drained, could only stare at the mountain of corpses before them. They had 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. It was a procession of kings. A hundred colossal, monstrous forms, each one a Rank 5 Tyrant Beast, began their slow, inexorable advance.
The third wave had arrived.