The Sorrow's Peak Monastery was a hive of frantic but organized activity. The survivors worked side-by-side with a desperate energy to fortify the place.

At the monastery's peak, Grand Elder Corvus directed the meticulous reconstruction of the primary defensive array. Rune-smiths from the Skyfire Academy and demon Forgemasters from Zaltar's contingent argued in terse clipped tones over the best way to integrate their two opposing energy types into a stable and stronger cohesive shield.

While they were doing this they were setting up their own arrays and formations. They had to first stabilize the area and then they could work on this fusion to make it even stronger. The two teams were going to lay the groundwork for a new formation. It was an unprecedented but necessary fusion of arts.

Li Yu, Jian Xuan and Zaltar stood in the central command hall observing a tactical map. They had been at the monastery for just over a day.

"The repairs are... proceeding," Corvus reported, entering the hall and wiping his brow. "We should have a basic and functional perimeter array by nightfall. Full restoration will take at least two more days. That is assuming we have no interruptions."

"Good," Zaltar grunted with his four arms crossed. "This place is a fortress but without its walls, it is a tomb. We must..."

He was cut off as a communication token on Corvus's belt flared with a frantic pulsing red light—a priority distress signal.

Corvus's blood ran cold. "It's from one of the other strike groups... the one led by the Cultists." He activated it and a voice strained and filled with panic burst from the artifact.

"...overwhelmed! We've been... Xylarri... thousands! We secured the Sunken Basin Outpost, but they hit us before the arrays were... crackle... We can't... static... High Priest Vrak is holding the... screech... any allied group, we are... we are..."

The signal cut out, replaced by a harsh silence.

Silence filled the command hall. The Sunken Basin Outpost was the closest of the other forward strongholds. It was still "back west" from their own dangerously deep position but also significantly south from where they were. On the map they were the nearest allied force, relatively speaking.

Jian Xuan's face was grim. "They're being overrun and clearly need help."

"They are our former enemies," Corvus said, his thoughts clearly on the war and forces he had lost to them. "And our forces are exhausted right now. We've just taken this position. We cannot abandon it."

Zaltar let out a low growl. "The human speaks sense. Many are wounded and tired. Let them handle their own affairs. Our priority is holding this peak and keeping our own forces alive."

Li Yu looked at the map and started to ponder. He had watched the Cultists fight in the tournament. He remembered the Red-Eyed Mistress's fury, Vrak's oily pragmatism and just recently the Armored General's sacrifice. They were ruthless, fanatical and dangerous.

But he also remembered Theron's face, Korgath's roar and Caelia's cold logic. He remembered the Demon Lord Zaltar himself agreeing to an alliance. This was a force that this continent had been fighting for centuries. Not them exactly of course, but the demon kind.

'An internal war will destroy us all... We face a common enemy...' Li Yu thought.

This was about pragmatic survival.

"If their line breaks," Li Yu stated, his voice cutting through the tension, "that's a hole in the new eastern front. A tide of Xylarri will pour through that gap and strike the Black River defensive line from the flank. It will compromise the entire strategy."

Corvus and Zaltar stared at him. They knew he was right, they themselves knew this was true as well. They might have said what they did out of frustration for the moment but they were both seasoned leaders. They knew what had to be done but how were they going to do it. Their forces were truly spent right now.

Li Yu looked at the map again, his mind processing his own reluctant logic. His nature was screaming at him.

‘Hide. Fortify. Let them die. It's not your problem. You never set out to save the world.’

But the logical part of him, the part that had learned from Theron, his own sect leader and the other truly great leaders he has met, saw the bigger picture. The Cultists were, for now, a necessary buffer and ally. Their deaths would make his own position more dangerous. He had to be broad-minded, adapt and not be stuck in his old ways.

"I will go, alone." Li Yu said simply.

The three Soul Formation leaders looked at him as if he were insane.

"Brother Little Crab!" Jian Xuan protested. "Alone? Into that? We just fought a war! You fought more than any of us!"

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"I am fine," Li Yu stated. It was the simple truth. His reserves were full and his cultivation churned from the last battle. The only thing that was slightly off was his mental state, which had not only had to process all the battles he’s been through but also battle against his nature.

"You are all injured or exhausted. Grand Elder Corvus is needed here to complete the arrays. I am the only one who can go."

"He is right," Zaltar said. "The fish farmer... Commander Little Crab, he is the only one at peak condition. But to go alone..."

"It is suicide," Corvus insisted. "We cannot allow—"

"I am not asking for your permission," Li Yu said, his voice still calm but with an edge of finality that silenced the room. He had never been that direct before. "I can sustain myself. I will provide aid if possible and if not I will simply run away. Secure this monastery."

He didn't wait for another word as usual lately. He walked out of the command hall and shot into the sky like a white bullet, flying south-west at his absolute maximum speed.

The flight was a blur. His mind was a quiet storm of self-admonishment.

'This is foolish. This is reckless. This is not your problem.' But beneath that his new resolve held firm. 'I can make a difference. I must make a difference.' He was adapting. This was a new war, and it required a new broader way of thinking.

After flying for a while his spiritual sense detected it: a massive swirling vortex of purple energy clashing with the desperate flickering auras of human cultivators.

He arrived like a silent thunderclap. The scene was worse than he'd imagined. The Sunken Basin Outpost was a small low-lying fortress, its minor arrays were only partially constructed and he could see their two soul formation experts operating it to enhance their own abilities.

A desperate knot of perhaps two hundred Cultist cultivators were holding a tight circle, back-to-back, in the outpost's central plaza. They were being assaulted by thousands of Xylarri. It was just like everywhere else they went, the Xylarri was a relentless suffocating tide.

Leading the assault were two towering Xylarri Praetorians that almost looked identical to each other. They were the same pale, purple-veined marble-skinned variant that had killed his allies at the monastery but they were bigger.

The two were methodically dismantling the Cultists' defenses. At the center of the Cultist formation, High Priest Vrak and the Red-Eyed Mistress were desperately combining their Soul Formation power and their Martial Spirits—a 'Shadowy Oracle' and a 'Crimson Banshee'—straining to hold back the assault.

Li Yu's arrival was not subtle. His aura was blaring at the absolute peak of Core Formation and brimming with energy. It flared across the battlefield like a second sun, drawing the attention of everyone on purpose.

A Cultist was on the wall and his armor cracked from the battle. His face was a mask of terror when he saw the white robe streaking from the sky. His eyes went wide, his mind snapping.

"No... no, no, no... ANCESTORS, NO! IT'S HIM!"

A younger Cultist beside him, barely holding his spear looked up. "Who?! Who is that?!"

The first Cultist began to scream, a half-mad amd terrified wail that cut through the sounds of battle. "THE WHITE ROBE! THE VOID EMBLEM! IT'S LITTLE CRAB! THE DEVIL OF THE SOUTHERN FRONT!"

The Cultist's voice cracked, hysteria taking over as he babbled the rumors whispered in their camps.

"They say he captured the Venom Lord and kept him alive for weeks! They say he bathed naked in a vat of Vespertine's own poisons while slowly and methodically torturing him to death, just to prove he could! They say his white robes are woven from the ghosts of his victims and that is how they are able to stay so white no matter what. That he devours the souls of those he slays! He's an unholy abomination, a demon in human skin!"

The Cultist forces, already on the brink of breaking, froze. Their morale, which had been held together by the presence of their leaders, began to shatter. They knew they were in an alliance and that he should be an ally.

However, in the middle of battle and this war, who knows what could be trusted. They were already panicked from the Xylarri attack and this only added to the fire. Their boogeyman, the one whispered about in their camps as a demonic figure of unstoppable power had arrived. They were surrounded by Xylarri and now he was here to finish them off.

High Priest Vrak and the Red-Eyed Mistress looked up, their faces ashen. "Little... Crab..." Vrak whispered. "Is he coming to help… or coming to kill… while we are weak?"

But Li Yu was not looking at them. He heard the words of the man's terrified speech below and was surprised since he didn’t do any of those things. He quickly focused back on the Xylarri.

He had never paused since coming here. He simply acted. His devouring field erupted, an invisible vortex of siphoning power that covered the entire Xylarri swarm.

Simultaneously, his Abyssal Sentry orb materialized. He had to thin the herd if he was going to save anyone below and do it quickly.

He raised his hand and was pouring his near-limitless Qi into a massive attack. "Abyssal Javelins," he commanded.

Not twenty. Not fifty. Hundreds black spears materialized in the sky above him. There were so many that they blotted out the light, a forest of hanging death. The air crackled and the space around the javelins seemed to be warping.

The Cultists stared, their terror reaching a new silent peak. He really was here to kill everything and everyone! The Xylarri swarm sensing this new threat momentarily paused their assault and their heads turned towards the sky. The Praetorians themselves hissed and back offed their attack briefly.

Li Yu's hand dropped.

The javelins fell. It was not a rain, it was a deluge. A targeted carpet-bombing of pure void energy that slammed into the thickest ranks of the Xylarri swarm. The sound was a deafening continuous hiss as hundreds of drones, elites and all were vaporized instantly. They were simply erased from existence leaving massive empty gaps in the pale tide.

The earlier cultist on the wall, his mind broken and re-formed by the impossible sight, watched as the wave of darkness annihilated their enemy.

"He... he brings the darkness," the Cultist whispered, his voice cracking. Then, he roared, a new hysterical and confusing hope dawning in his eyes. "Just like the rumors say! He brings the night! He’s …. He’s not attacking us! He’s killing them! The monster…. Our ENEMIES monster.. He’s killing them and saving us!!”

Li Yu continued to charge. His staff was a black blur as he plunged into the remaining and now slightly weakened and disorganized swarm. He was going to target the two leaders here and with the damage he had done, it should be enough for those down there to have enough breathing room to fight back.