The battlefield at the Crimson Ridge Pass had ceased to be a contest between cultivators and beasts. It had become a war of monsters, and Li Yu, the quiet boy from the fish ponds, was the greatest monster of them all. His 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 hundred Rank 5 Tyrant Beasts, a force that should have swept away the exhausted allied army like a storm, were not alone. They were the commanders, the kings of this final wave. Behind them, a new, dark sea of hundreds of thousands of powerful Rank 3 and Rank 4 beasts surged forward, their roars a deafening chorus that drowned out all other sound. This was the true third wave, an army led by a hundred kings. The exhausted disciples of the allied sects, seeing this new, seemingly endless tide, felt their hearts sink into a pit of absolute despair.
The hundred Tyrant Beasts, ignoring the lesser cultivators, crashed against the sudden, impossible fortress that was Li Yu's personal menagerie.
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, their forms 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, its claws cracked and bleeding, having failed to leave so much as a scratch. 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 utterly 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, a true Flood Dragon, 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 was a ghost, a silent, deadly assassin. 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 Tyrant, her silver horn glowing with a cold, 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.
The final layer of this symphony of destruction was the invisible one. The two Mind-Weaver Squids had become one with the air itself, their psychic auras a web of confusion and terror that spread through the enemy ranks. A charging Earth-Ripper Scorpion would suddenly screech to a halt, its multifaceted eyes seeing a terrifying, illusory predator where there was only empty air. A Stone-Fisted Ape would begin to wildly attack its own allies, its mind trapped in a nightmare of phantom enemies.
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 to rival his most powerful companions. While his monsters engaged the Tyrant commanders in a battle of equals, he became a meat grinder for everything that followed in their 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 that were getting by 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 best as he could.
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 utterly final statement of his strength.
While his personal army engaged the Tyrant commanders, his friends were flawlessly executing his grander strategy. On the Central Front, Brother Kai and his contingent of beast tamers, their defensive beasts reinforced by the sheer, unshakeable presence of Li Yu's own turtle wall in the distance, had formed a new, unbreakable 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 impossible, miraculous battle being waged by Li Yu's personal army, roared with a new, ferocious morale and began to push the new tide back.
Even in the midst of this grand battle Li Yu did not forget his personal objective. This war was a feast, and he was still hungry. He would of course focus on fighting his best but if there were opportunities he would take them. He found his new opportunity in the sky.
It was a Rank 5 Storm-Roc, a magnificent, eagle-like beast with feathers of shimmering, silver-blue that crackled with lightning. It was a rare, wind-and-lightning-aspected flying beast, a perfect addition to his menagerie. It was currently locked in a desperate battle with a powerful elder from the Crimson Cauldron Sect.
Li Yu saw his chance. He sent a silent, psychic command to one of his Mind-Weaver Squids. The invisible beast focused its power, and a subtle, almost unnoticeable psychic pulse washed over the Storm-Roc. The great bird, in the middle of dodging an attack, suddenly faltered, its mind filled with a fleeting, disorienting illusion of a dozen other attacks coming from all directions.
It was all the opening the Crimson Cauldron elder needed. He roared in triumph and unleashed his most powerful technique, a massive, spinning vortex of fire that engulfed the stunned beast. The Storm-Roc let out a final, agonized screech as its wings were burned to a crisp, its body a broken, falling comet of charred flesh.
It fell directly into a deep, muddy, blood-filled crater that had been created earlier in the battle, hidden from the view of the main fight. With a single, hidden thought, a tiny, invisible portal to his sanctuary opened in the murky water. The dying roc, and its rare, dual-elemental bloodline, was silently, completely, and utterly devoured.
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 Tide of Kings. The hundred powerful Tyrant Beasts were being ground down, their numbers dwindling under the relentless, overwhelming assault.
As the last of the Tyrant commanders was finally pulled down by the combined assault of Crimson and Lirael, a fragile, exhausted 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 profound, 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, mountainous 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.
A chorus of pure, unrestrained, and utterly furious rage, four voices joined as one, washed over the battlefield. The seven brilliant suns in the sky, which had been holding their own against a single opponent, were suddenly overwhelmed by this new, impossible 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 true kings. 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.
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.