With the Beast Revolution Faction gone, a tense but profound sense of relief settled over the arena. The immediate threat had passed, but thousands of disciples and guests remained unconscious, a stark reminder of the insidious attack. Li Yu, holding the precious vial of antidote, did not hesitate. He first went to Cyra.

He knelt beside her, placing a single, clear drop of the antidote on her lips. The effect was almost instantaneous. The pale, strained look on her face began to fade, and the tightly controlled flow of her spiritual energy, which had been focused entirely on suppressing the poison, relaxed.

A few moments later, her eyes fluttered open, clear and sharp once more. She took a deep breath, the first easy one she had taken since the poison took hold. “It’s gone,” she said, a hint of wonder in her voice. “Completely neutralized.”

Li Yu then moved to the leaders on the high balcony. He gave a drop to Mo Jian, then to the Blazing Sun Sect Master, the head of the Stone Breaker Sect, and all the other Core Formation experts who were still struggling to stay conscious. One by one, they felt the cold, insidious poison dissolve from their souls, and their own powerful cultivation began to flow freely again.

A collective sigh of relief went through the group of leaders, their expressions a mixture of gratitude and lingering fury. With the leadership now recovered, Li Yu split the antidote up. He poured a portion of the clear liquid into a small vial of his own, keeping some for himself and the Guild for future study, then gave the rest to Mo Jian. “Clan Master,” he said, “I will leave the rest to you.”

Mo Jian took the vial with a look of profound gratitude. He immediately began organizing his own elders, who were now recovering, to administer the antidote to the rest of the unconscious guests.

It was a slow, painstaking process, but within the hour, the arena was filled with the groans and confused murmurs of thousands of people waking up, with no memory of what had happened after the first round of the tournament had ended.

Once the initial chaos of the mass awakening had been managed, Mo Jian and the other sect leaders approached Li Yu. They all performed a deep, formal bow. “Guest Elder Li,” Mo Jian began, his voice heavy with sincerity, “On behalf of all our clans and sects, I thank you. You protected us when we were vulnerable, and you secured the antidote that saved our disciples. We are all in your debt.”

Some of the other leaders, particularly the fiery Sect Master of the Blazing Sun Sect, still looked unhappy. “We are grateful, of course,” he grumbled, his arms crossed over his chest. “But I still say you were too soft on them. You should have let us kill them when we had the chance.”

Li Yu simply looked at him, his expression unreadable, and said nothing. His silence was a more potent response than any argument, a quiet reminder of who had been helpless and who had been in command. The Sect Master flushed with anger but held his tongue.

Mo Jian, sensing the lingering tension, quickly stepped in, his voice a booming apology that echoed through the hall. “Friends, this failure was mine. My Asura Demon Clan was the host.

That this insidious group was able to infiltrate our celebration and poison our guests is a stain upon our honor. I promise you all, we will get to the bottom of this. We will discover how the poison was administered, and we will give you all a satisfactory answer.”

He then turned to Li Yu, his expression shifting to one of respectful inquiry, as it was clear he knew more. “Guest Elder Li, you seemed to have some knowledge of that group. Who were they?”

Before Li Yu could speak, Cyra stepped forward, her presence as an Elder of the Guild giving her words a formal weight. She recounted what they knew of the Beast Revolution Faction, of their so-called Beast God, and their ultimate goal of cleansing the world of humanity to make way for an era of beasts.

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She was careful, however, not to say anything about the other continents, keeping the most world-shaking secrets to themselves for now. The leaders were stunned to learn of this fanatical group operating in their midst. Their anger, once directed at each other and their host, now had a clear, unified target.

They resolved to return to their sects and clans immediately and issue a standing order: the Beast Revolution Faction and anyone associated with them were to be attacked on sight. In a single afternoon, Li Yu had not only saved them but by chance of the event had also turned the entire region’s martial powers against one of his enemies. Having more people against the Beast Faction was certainly not a bad thing, they would have to be more cautious in what they do.

Later, as the guests began to prepare for their departure, Cyra approached Li Yu, her voice a low whisper only he could hear. “You weren’t really just letting them go, were you?”

Li Yu gave a small, cold smile. “Not fully,” he replied. “I promised the leader he could leave. I intend to keep that promise. But I made no such promise to his subordinates. And more importantly, I need to find out where they came from. I will follow them and see if they had a hidden base here.”

He didn’t go right away, however. He knew they would be on high alert for anyone following them immediately after their escape. He needed to give them time to lower their guard. His patience was rewarded a short while later by the arrival of a flying vessel moving at incredible speed.

It was Fat Pig, who had rushed over the moment he received Li Yu’s message. He arrived with chests full of every kind of antidote pill the Guild had in storage, ready for a crisis, only to find that everything was already over.

The leaders, seeing the Guild’s Vice-Guild Master arrive in person, laden with aid, were once again impressed by the organization’s efficiency and commitment. They all thanked him profusely, further cementing the Guild’s reputation and goodwill among the regional powers.

With the crisis averted and the social niceties concluded, the various sects and clans began their mass exodus, their ships and flying beasts lifting off from the Asura Demon Clan’s peak one by one. In the chaos of the dozens of departing vessels, it was then that Li Yu split out from among the others and vanished.

He did not fly. He simply took a step and was gone, activating a series of long-range Void Steps while keeping his aura completely hidden. To anyone watching, it was as if he had dissolved into thin air.

He shot through the void, crossing hundreds of miles in an instant, his powerful spiritual sense, greatly enhanced by his soul, sweeping across the landscape. They had a significant head start, but he was easily able to find the group again, a small collection of auras moving quickly towards the western mountain ranges.

He followed them from a great distance, a silent, invisible predator stalking his prey. He watched as they flew for hours, deep into a remote, uninhabited stretch of jagged canyons and barren peaks. Just as Jian had described the Hegemony’s base in the east, Li Yu saw the group fly towards a sheer, unremarkable cliff face and do a series of hand seals. It was another hidden formation base, this one here in the west.

As the group was about to enter the formation, Li Yu acted. Li Yu unleashed his attack on the fourteen subordinates who were still outside, following their leader in.

He simply raised his hand, and in the air around him fourteen abyssal javelins materialized from the void. Before they could even register the threat, he launched the javelins at the unsuspecting Beast Faction members. The black spears shot forward, silent and absolute.

They struck everyone but the leader, who had just passed through the formation. The bodies of the fourteen subordinates erupted into a fine blood mist before fading away into nothingness, their souls and life essence completely devoured.

In a perfect impersonation of Jian Xuan’s arrogant, booming voice, Li Yu projected his own voice, laced with a sharp, murderous energy that was the polar opposite of his own usual calm demeanor. “THE HUMAN REVOLUTION FACTION WILL ALWAYS OVERPOWER THE LOWLY BEASTS! HAHAHAHA!”

As the leader inside the base surely reeled in shock and rage, Li Yu long-distance void-stepped away, vanishing without a trace. He had kept his word not to kill the man. Did it really matter if he kept his word to such an enemy? No, it probably didn’t, it was probably better to have just killed him.

But Li Yu felt better by doing so and that was enough. Also, from the man’s action, it didn’t seem like he was a true fanatic but someone following orders. Leaving him alive, now convinced that his hated rivals had ambushed and slaughtered his team, was a seed of chaos that would surely bear bitter fruit in the future.