Li Yu sat cross-legged on Tekton’s head, the wind whipping his hair back as they soared through the cloud layer. He reached for his Alliance Token to call Shen Tu. He wanted to confirm that his merit points had been logged and maybe ask if there was a decent place to get grilled fish near the headquarters.

  Before his thumb could press the rune for Shen Tu, the token vibrated violently against his palm. It wasn't the standard pulse of a friendly call; it was the sharp, staccato buzz of a Priority One transmission. This was an urgent communication and usually meant that something had gone wrong.

  Li Yu frowned at the thought. He injected a strand of Qi.

  The voice that echoed in his mind wasn't Shen Tu’s exhausted baritone. It was a woman’s voice—sharp, clipped and radiating the kind of stress that comes from managing a continent-wide disaster.

  "Alliance Commander Li Yu. Report location."

  "Just left the Southern Jagged Peaks," Li Yu replied. "The node is active. The area is secure. I’m heading back now."

  "No, don’t do that. Return to where you were." the woman snapped. "This is Elder Ling, a part of Strategic Command. We have lost contact with the push into the Silent Hollows. The last transmission indicated a catastrophic ambush."

  Li Yu looked at the token. He sighed at the news. That was a large lost of life. Of powerful cultivators too. "Where is the relief force?"

  "There isn't one," Elder Ling said bluntly. "We are stretched too thin. Every available battalion is engaged. You are the closest capable force. A separate garrison unit is already en route to the Jagged Peaks to hold the fort you just cleared but they are not strong enough for an assault of that level. You are."

  "My army just finished a campaign," Li Yu warned. "They’re tired and deserve to rest."

  "They are alive," Elder Ling said coldly. "Which is more than I can say for the forces in the Hollows. Regroup with your army. Take them to the Hollows immediately. Secure the survivors and hold the line. If possible, reclaim that area as well. You are the reinforcement. I need to contact other places."

  The connection cut.

  Li Yu tapped Tekton’s carapace. "Turn around, big guy. Looks like we have more work to do."

  Tekton let out a hiss that sounded remarkably like a groan but the massive centipede banked hard and his legs rippled as he carved a U-turn in the sky.

  Back at the main cavern, the mood of celebration died the moment the shadow of the Dreadnought fell over the valley again.

  Sect Master Zhou, Matriarch Su and Commander Lei were standing by the entrance, their tokens glowing in their hands. They had already received the message from command. They looked at the exhausted disciples sleeping near the embers of the fires and then at each other.

  "Silent Hollows," Commander Lei spat on the ground. "That’s a death trap. Narrow canyons, bad visibility. Who was leading that push?"

  "The Silver Sword Sect," Zhou said grimly. "A top-tier sect. Proud. If they got hammered that badly, it’s a mess. Either they were too stupid or the enemy was too strong. Probably both."

  Li Yu jumped down from Tekton as the centipede landed with a heavy thud.

  "You got the orders?" Li Yu asked while walking up to them.

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  "We did," Matriarch Su nodded. She looked tired. "The disciples... they won't be happy. They thought they were going home. Going into another warzone after having just fought in one will never go well. Many want to enjoy the riches they just got. No one wants to die with it in their hands. On top of that, we are being asked to go into an area that just wiped out another force."

  "I know," Li Yu said. "But we’re the only ones coming. The Alliance is sending a garrison here to watch the array, so we’re free to move. Get them up. We leave now. The faster we get there the better it will be for that team."

  Li Yu and the commanders expected complaints. He expected resistance. But as the orders were shouted out—"Gear up! We’re moving out! New objective!"—the two thousand cultivators didn't argue with the command. They didn’t groan about it. The only thing the army had was confusion that they were needing to go off and fight so soon.

  They all looked at Li Yu.

  They saw the man who had cooked them soup and the man who had shielded them from a disaster. He was standing calmly by his massive beast.

  "If the Commander says we go, we go," a Thunderclap mercenary said as he went and kicked his sleeping partner awake. "Get up, lazy. We’ve got more loot to grab."

  Li Yu had given them confidence that things would be more or less okay. He had shown them that he was willing to take on things for their benefit. He was willing to fight for them so they in turned were willing to go fight for him.

  Within minutes, the army was loaded onto Tekton’s back. The Array Masters and the small squad of guards watched them go, looking relieved that they weren't the ones being redeployed.

  The journey to the Silent Hollows was tense. The wind howled but the mood on the centipede’s back was different this time. There was no terror but there was a grim professional silence. They sharpened weapons, checked pill supplies and meditated. They were veterans now in this war and they were heading into an area that was recently just wiped out.

  The Silent Hollows lived up to its name. It was a region of deep, fog-filled ravines that cut into the earth like claw marks. The rock here was pale, almost white, making the shadows look darker by contrast.

  Tekton slowed and was hovering over the lip of the largest ravine.

  "It’s quiet," Sect Master Zhou noted while standing near Li Yu at the head of the centipede. "Too quiet. No spiritual fluctuations. No fighting. Where is our army? Where are the beasts?"

  "They’re hiding," Li Yu said. His spiritual sense pushed through the dense interfering fog. It was more correct to say the fog was part of some sort of array or formation that was blocking spiritual sense. "Or they’re dead."

  Suddenly the fog below churned. "Ambush!" Matriarch Su shouted.

  It wasn't an ambush from the sides; it was a surge from the depths. A wave of beasts erupted from the ravines—hundreds of them. They were mainly arachnids. Massive, spindly Cave-Stalkers and armored Scorpion-Kings. They swarmed up the canyon walls and launched themselves into the air, aiming for the hovering Dreadnought.

  "Disembark!" Li Yu ordered. "Form a perimeter on the ridge!"

  The cultivators leaped from Tekton’s back and landed on the high ground of the canyon rim. Protective Qi shields flared and weapons were drawn.

  "Tekton," Li Yu said as he was going down. "Wipe them out but try to leave the bodies intact as best as you can. No mist."

  Tekton hissed. A sound of pure unadulterated violence.

  For the last campaign Tekton had fought the aerial threats by himself and away from everyone else. It was away from the eyes of the army. They knew he was big, they knew he was scary but they hadn't seen him work.

  Now, they had front-row seats. The Dreadnought dived.

  He didn't use any Qi techniques. He used mass and anatomy.

  Tekton slammed into the ascending wave of arachnids like a freight train hitting a wall of glass. His legs each tipped like a blade became a thresher. He coiled and uncoiled, his body moving faster than something that size had any right to move.

  CRUNCH.

  A Scorpion-King, a beast at the peak of Core Formation, tried to sting Tekton’s underbelly. Tekton simply grabbed the scorpion with four of his legs and ripped it in half with a sickening tear. He then quickly tossed the pieces aside.

  He spun, his massive tail whipping around to smash a cluster of Cave-Stalkers into the canyon wall. The impact shook the ground under the cultivators' feet.

  It was brutal. It was efficient. It was the difference between a cultivator fighting a beast and an apex predator culling the herd.

  "Ancestors above..." Captain Wei whispered with his axed lowered. He watched Tekton bite the head off a flying spider and spit it out. "We were riding that?"

  "He's holding back," Li Yu noted. "He's trying not to squash the bodies too much. Keeping it somewhat harvestable."