Sect Master Zhou was scanning the battlefield to see what had happened. It had all happened too quickly. From the five beings coming to them being taken away happened in an instant.

  ‘Where did they just go? What was that?’ He thought to himself. His focus then turned over to where there was still a lone human figure in a horde of beasts.

  Standing in the center of the beast horde was the Sentry. The beast army was also confused by the sudden disappearance of their leaders and they hesitated. The tide was supposed to turn in their favor but their main attacking force just disappeared. That hesitation was their end.

  The Sentry was in action as soon as it appeared. It raised both hands.

  "Ice Wall." the Sentry spoke. Its voice was Li Yu’s but stripped of all warmth. A massive wall of blue ice erupted from the ground. It was separating the stunned cultivators from the main bulk of the beast horde. This was giving them a moment to recover from the spiritual suppression.

  "Regain your footing!" the Sentry commanded, its voice projecting over the battlefield. "The threat is contained. Resume the advance."

  Commander Lei shook his head and was trying to clear the ringing in his ears. He realized what had happened. "He... he took them away. He took five Soul Formation disasters into the Void or something else to fight them alone so we wouldn't get caught in the crossfire."

  "Get up!" Matriarch Su commanded. Her fear just moments ago turned into frantic energy. "The Sentry is holding the line! Do not let the Commander's effort be in vain! Continue as we did before. Do not let what just happened change the plan."

  The Sentry turned back to the horde. It was a different kind of fighting than the main body. It was surgical control. Ice spikes impaled wolves that tried to flank. Void javelins sniped range attackers on the ceiling.

  The army behind him rallied. They weren't fighting for spoils anymore; they were fighting because their Commander had just jumped into hell to save them. The five beings that just appeared could have easily crushed them.

  Their leaders could have contented with the four followers and held them. They might have even been able to win. However, the leader that appeared was unstoppable with the forces they had here, outside of Li Yu. Without even a moment of hesitation Li Yu had taken all five beings away.

  They were clearly fighting somewhere else. But that was the problem, Li Yu was fighting against all five of them on his own. He could have just taken the leader and left the four others for the army to deal with. However, doing so would have caused a lot of issues for the army behind him. There would be a lot of people dying if he had done that.

  The commanders of the army recognized this and recognized what he had done. It was another move that showed that Li Yu was intent on trying to keep as many alive as possible. It did not matter to the commanders that perhaps Li Yu was just strong enough to take care of it. That didn’t matter.

  What mattered to them was that he had done what he did. Actions always spoke more than words and Li Yu’s actions so far showed that he was a leader that cared. Many others within the army realized this as well and their respect for him grew. They might never see him again after this but it didn’t mean they couldn’t admire his actions now.

  "Kill them all!" Zhou roared.

  The cleanup resumed but the mood was different. It was more frantic and desperate than before. They had felt safe the entire time but they just came so close to death just now. This made the cultivators want to end things as quickly as possible.

  They did not rush though. They followed the plan from the beginning, stay back and only take out weakened beasts. Their role was not to go out in a blaze of glory, it was to survive and make it back home. They cut down the leaderless beasts and were pushing forward.

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  Everyone had a sense of unease while they were fighting. Li Yu had disappeared with those five beings but there was nothing saying that he had to reappear as the victor. They saw that he was powerful but his aura was never as strong as the leader of those beasts. Li Yu never needed to show that kind of power.

  As they fought, it felt like they were fighting on borrowed time. Everyone was watching the Sentry. If it began to flicker or disappeared, that meant that Li Yu had also fallen. They were waiting for the air to ripple. Waiting for the sign that their leader was alive.

  The waiting felt like an eternity. A battle that usually seemed like it happened in a flash seemed like they were fighting day and night. The mental strain became much tougher than the physical one. Afterall, if Li Yu was defeated then their deaths would swiftly come as well.

  The tunnel floor was slick with blood and it was only getting deeper. The beast army was broken by the Sentry after all this time and was demoralized by the loss of their Emperor. The beast army finally routed and many began fleeing back into the deep dark.

  The Sentry stood in the center of the clearing and became motionless. It too was watching the empty air. Suddenly, the space rippled.

  It wasn't the violent tear from before. It was a soft displacement. Li Yu stepped out of the air.

  He landed softly on the floor. His robes were slightly scorched and there was some small cuts on his robes. He looked tired and his chest heaving slightly but his eyes were calm. Li Yu didn’t have aquatic beasts to absorb from here so the constant fighting had taken its toll on him.

  Li Yu had not returned alone. Four bodies also reappeared with him and were laying on the ground, completely motionless.

  Gripped in his left hand and dragged along the ground by the back of a tattered grey collar was an old man.

  The old man was wretched. His long white hair was wild, his face bruised and pale. He was trembling violently and his eyes wide with a horror that bewildered the cultivators. He didn't look like a cultivator; he looked like a beggar who had seen the end of the world.

  Li Yu dropped the old man onto the cavern floor with a heavy thud and released a long breath. It hadn’t been an extremely tough battle but the built up fatigue from all the fighting was wearing on him. The main culprit of his tiredness was actually something of his own doing.

  Li Yu had been careful this entire time to try and preserve the bodies of the beasts he had killed as best as he could. This took up a lot of mental strain and physical strain. It was much easier to destroy everything and just collect cores. However, Li Yu wanted more resources and that was also what was agreed upon with the commanders.

  If he had just gone and erased everything or blasted everything into a fine mist. There would be almost nothing to collect. Of course some beasts were blasted into a fine mist or worse. However, the majority of the beasts were kept relatively intact.

  The Sentry upon seeing the main body return, nodded once and dissolved into a stream of blue Qi that flowed back into Li Yu.

  The entire human army fell silent at Li Yu’s return but there were two thousand people cheering silently that it was he who came back. Not those five beings from before. Two thousand pairs of eyes stared at Li Yu and the shivering old man at his feet.

  Sect Master Zhou stepped forward with his sword lowered. He looked at the empty air where the five monsters had been then at Li Yu.

  "Commander? The... the beasts?" Zhou asked even though he could see it with his own eyes. It was as though he felt his eyes were lying to him and needed to hear a verbal confirmation before he believed it..

  "Handled," Li Yu said. He rolled his neck, a loud crack echoing in the silence. He stretched his body and a series of popping and cracking rang out.

  Li Yu then pointed a finger at the shivering old man.

  "Sit," Li Yu commanded.

  The old man scrambled into a kneeling position so fast it looked painful. He slammed his forehead against the stone floor and was trembling so hard his teeth chattered.

  "Please," the old man croaked, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering on stone. "Mercy. Servant obeys. Servant obeys."

  Matriarch Su stared. She looked at the old man's aura. It was faint, suppressed, but underneath the fear, she could feel the remnant of the terrible wind that had nearly killed them all. There was no doubt that this old man was that fearful beast from before.

  ‘He took someone that strong... dragged it into the void... beat it into submission... and brought it back as a servant’ She thought to herself. Her thoughts were echoed by many others within the army.

  Li Yu looked at the army before him. Some people were battered a bit but everyone was okay. At least their lives weren’t in jeopardy. He took a deep breath and was steadying his own Qi.

  "We’re done here," Li Yu said. "Secure the area."