The evacuation of the fissure cave was efficient and quick. The main reason being because no one wanted to stay in a hole filled with such smells. At the first order that they could leave the troops scrambled out as quickly as their legs could take them.

  Li Yu stood at the entrance and was directing traffic. The medics from his own army—healers from the Violet Silk Pavilion and a few rogue doctors from the mercenary groups—took charge of the triage. They moved with practiced speed. They were stabilizing the critical patients and loading them onto stretchers improvised from floating shields and spirit-wood planks.

  "Move them to the White-Bark Forest three kilometers east," Li Yu instructed the head medic. "The trees there can provide cover and they will be away from here. It’s the safest spot in this area from what I can see."

  As the procession of the wounded began to shuffle out, a group of cultivators in silver robes remained stubbornly seated near the back of the cave.

  Elder Guo of the Silver Sword Sect sat on a clean meditation mat and was cradling his blackened arm. Around him, the remaining elites of his sect—mostly Core Formation disciples who looked perfectly capable of walking, if not fighting—hovered protectively.

  "We will remain here," Guo announced loudly as Li Yu approached. "My injuries are too severe to risk movement. And my disciples must stay to guard me. We will... hold the rear."

  Li Yu looked at Guo. He looked at the disciples who were avoiding eye contact. It was a pathetic display. They weren't injured; they were either terrified or refused to be commanded by someone else. Either way was pathetic. Their spirit had been broken by the ambush and seeing Li Yu take command had shattered their pride. Now, they were choosing to sulk in the dark rather than risk their lives under a new banner.

  "Suit yourself," Li Yu said indifferently. "But you're moving to the forest with the wounded. I’m not leaving a separate guard detail for a hole in the wall."

  "I told you, I cannot move!" Guo snapped.

  "Then crawl, I don’t care how you get there. But you will get there. Now." Li Yu said as he turned away. "Tekton!"

  The ground shook as the massive centipede lowered his head to the cave entrance. His mandibles clicked, dripping a bit of green ichor from his earlier snack.

  "Tekton, you’re on babysitting duty," Li Yu said as he patted the dreadnought’s nose. "Escort the wounded to the forest. Guard them. Let nothing in."

  He leaned closer.

  ‘And let nothing out that looks like a Silver Sword disciple trying to flee. If Elder Guo tries to give you orders, ignore him. If he tries to hurt the vassal clans... eat him. I don’t care if he lives or dies. Just make sure he doesn’t cause trouble.’

  Tekton let out a low rumbling hiss that sounded disturbingly like a laugh. He swiveled his massive eyes toward Elder Guo. Elder Guo suddenly looked very small despite his Soul Formation cultivation.

  "Alright, the rest of you," Li Yu addressed the combat-capable survivors—mostly from the smaller clans who had been glaring at the Silver Sword sect. "Form up outside. We have a job to do."

  Outside the fissure the fog of the Silent Hollows swirled thick and white. Visibility was low and at certain places you could barely see in front of you. The air was damp and cold, carrying the chittering sounds of thousands of unseen legs scuttling in the deep ravines.

  Two figures stepped forward from the survivors of the Broken Army to meet Li Yu.

  The first was Patriarch Han, a burly man wielding a heavy glaive. He was a Late-Stage Core Formation expert. His face was scarred and his armor dented. He led the remnants of the Han Clan.

  The second was Sect Leader Yan, a woman with sharp eyes and dual water-swords at her waist. Also Late-Stage Core Formation, she led the Mist-River Sect.

  Both looked weary and their Qi fluctuations unstable. However, their eyes held a grim determination that the Silver Sword disciples lacked. They were the two leaders selected from the remaining cultivators. There to represent them in their meeting with the new commander.

  "Commander Li," Patriarch Han spoke while eyeing the thick fog. "We have about four hundred fighters left who can still hold a weapon. But without a defensive array, walking into this fog is suicide. The beasts ambush from above and below. We were wiped out earlier in the same way."

  "We tried to push through this yesterday," Sect Leader Yan added with her hand resting on her sword hilt. "We barely made it very far before the formation collapsed. We don't have the numbers to cover our flanks and every other direction. If we try to go from above we aren’t able to find the beasts."

  "Relax," Li Yu said calmly. "We aren't doing a standard push. I have a plan."

  He looked at his own army. Sect Master Zhou, Matriarch Su, Commander Lei, and the two thousand veterans of the Jagged Peaks. They were waiting expectantly but Li Yu sensed their curiosity. They knew he was strong but they also knew that a single man couldn't cover an entire army in terrain this bad.

  "It’s getting crowded," Li Yu muttered. "And I need to protect more people this time."

  He tapped his necklace.

  Flash. Flash.

  Two pillars of light erupted next to him. When the light faded, two figures stood flanking the Alliance Commander.

  A collective gasp went through the ranks—not just the Broken Army but Li Yu’s own forces as well. They had never seen these two before.

  On Li Yu’s left stood Si Luo. The Void-Silk Spider Matriarch was no longer wearing her scant, seductive silk webs. She was clad in form-fitting armor made of woven violet void-silk, hardened into plates that shimmered like amethyst. It covered her from neck to toe, practical and deadly. Her eyes scanned the fog with the hunger of a predator entering a buffet.

  On his right stood Bai Ruo. The Phase-Tunnel Worm Elder wore a set of grey, segmented robes that seemed to blur at the edges, making her hard to focus on. She held a pair of jagged, short daggers that looked like they were made of glass. Her expression was nervous but the spatial distortions rippling around her hands betrayed a terrifying power.

  "Soul Formation..." Patriarch Han choked out while stepping back instinctively. "Two of them. Mid-Stage... maybe higher?"

  Even Sect Master Zhou and Matriarch Su were stunned. They exchanged glances. ‘Where had the Commander been hiding two Soul Formation experts? Why didn’t he have them come out before?’ They thought.

  "Everyone, listen up," Li Yu announced while gesturing to the two women. "These are my associates. Lady Si Luo and Lady Bai Ruo. They are... specialists."

  "Specialists?" Commander Lei whispered to Zhou. "Specialists in what?"

  "Finally," Si Luo ignored the stares. Her voice carried a resonance that made the nearby disciples shiver. "I was getting cramped in there. And this place... it smells of spiders. Primitive, ugly little things. A disgrace to my kin."

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  "It is a bit damp," Bai Ruo noted as she was adjusting her grip on her daggers. "But the spatial stability here is weak. Good for tunneling underground. For us or the enemy."

  Li Yu turned to address the combined army.

  "Here is the plan," Li Yu announced as his voice cut through the fog. "I take point. Si Luo and Bai Ruo are behind me. The rest of you follow behind them."

  He pointed his staff at the deep ravine.

  "I break the line. The ladies expand the breach. You guys clean up the mess. Standard rules apply as before. You value your safety first. Do not be heroes. Call for help if you need it. Support one another. For loot distribution it is also the same as before. I take fifty percent of the loot. You split the rest. No stealing, no infighting."

  Patriarch Han stared at him. "That's... that's the plan? You're just going to walk in? What kind of plan is that?! Did you not hear that we were wiped out not that long ago?"

  "We call it the 'Spear and Broom' tactic," Captain Wei of the Thunderclap Mercenaries explained from the ranks. He was hefting his axe with a grin. "It works. Just trust me, keep your head down and keep your bags open."

  Li Yu didn't wait for further questions. He tapped the ground with his staff. A shadow detached itself from his feet. The Sentry avatar rose up, silent and blue-eyed.

  "Watch the rear," Li Yu ordered the Sentry. "If anything tries to circle back or come at us from there, freeze it."

  The Sentry nodded and drifted to the back of the formation.

  "Let's go," Li Yu said. He stepped into the fog without another word.

  The ambush happened less than a mile in.

  The Silent Hollows didn't do half-measures. The ground beneath them exploded as trapdoor spiders the size of carriages burst from concealed burrows. Simultaneously, the canyon walls erupted with movement as thousands of Cave-Stalkers descended on silk lines, screeching their hunger.

  Li Yu had already detected them but wanted to see what their plan was. If he acted too soon, they might run away and do something else. That was much messier.

  "Contact!" Sect Leader Yan shouted as her water-swords flared to life.

  The survivors of the Broken Army flinched with those that had it raising their shields. They were expecting the slaughter to begin. They had seen this before. This was how they had lost sixty percent of their friends. The beasts just kept coming.

  But this time, the spear was there. Li Yu didn't stop walking. He spun his staff in a vertical arc.

  "Scram," Li Yu said.

  BOOM.

  A shockwave of opalescence Qi exploded outward. The trapdoor spiders lunging at him didn't just get knocked back; they were obliterated. Their chitinous shells shattered like cheap pottery, turning into a rain of green ichor and dust.

  A massive Scorpion-King lunged from the fog on the left flank. It was aiming a stinger the size of a spear at the army. Patriarch Han braced himself to intercept it and gritted his teeth. "Hold the line!"

  He didn't need to hold anything. Si Luo didn't even look at the beast. She instead flicked a finger.

  From the void around her, dozens of violet threads materialized. They weren't soft silk; they were razor wire made of some special material. The threads whipped out and intercepted the Scorpion-King mid-lunge.

  Zip.

  The beast fell apart in perfectly cauterized cubes.

  "Amateur," Si Luo scoffed. She raised her hand and a web of violet energy expanded outward and caught fifty descending Cave-Stalkers in mid-air. She clenched her fist. The web contracted. The spiders were crushed instantly.

  On the right flank, a group of subterranean worms tried to burst from the canyon wall to swallow the vanguard of the army.

  Bai Ruo stepped forward. She didn't strike; she simply... shifted. The air around her warped. She thrust her spatial daggers into empty air.

  Thirty meters away the rock wall twisted. A spatial distortion ripple shot through the stone, crushing the worms inside their own tunnels before they could even surface.

  "Spatial compression," Sect Master Zhou whispered as he was watching Bai Ruo work. "She killed them through the rock without even touching them. Who are they? Space techniques are some of the rarest and hard to master techniques yet all three of them know some."

  The ambush was massive. Thousands of beasts. But they were throwing themselves into a meat grinder.

  Li Yu was the center of the storm. He moved with a brutal efficiency that was terrifying to behold. He wasn't using flashy techniques; he was using overwhelming force applied with surgical precision. A sweep of his staff cleared a twenty-meter path. A thrust punched a hole through three armored beetles lined up in a row.

  "Forward!" Commander Lei roared. "The path is clear! Clean up the stragglers!"

  The army surged forward. For Patriarch Han and Sect Leader Yan, it was a surreal experience. They were used to fighting for every inch, trading blood for ground. Now? They were walking through a hallway of corpses and occasionally stopping to gang up on a stunned spider that had miraculously survived the initial onslaught.

  "This is insane," Patriarch Han muttered while stabbing a twitching spider leg with his glaive. He looked at the carnage ahead. "Who is he? Really?"

  Beside him Captain Wei laughed. He then was wiping a speck of blood from his cheek. "He's the guy who fixes things. Grab that claw, Patriarch. It’s worth resources and can be traded."

  "But... the fog," Sect Leader Yan argued, gesturing to the thick white mist that usually obscured spiritual sense. "How does he know where they are? The array here interferes with perception!"

  "He doesn't care about the fog," Wei shrugged. "He just hits everything in front of him. If it screams, he hits it again."

  Ahead, Li Yu frowned. The slaughter was slowing him down too much.

  "Too many small ones," Li Yu grumbled. He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

  Thrum.

  A pulse of pressure-distorting Qi rippled out.

  The fog was instantly blown away and forced back by the sheer pressure of his aura. For a moment, the Silent Hollows in this area were clear.

  The beasts were suddenly exposed and stripped of their concealment. This made some freeze up and confused on what was going on. Li Yu’s pressure also slowed them down and it felt like they were moving through tar.

  "Si Luo, Bai Ruo," Li Yu commanded. "Widen the funnel. I’m going straight down the middle."

  "As you wish," Si Luo replied. She spread her arms and a massive net of violet energy materialized. It quickly covers the entire left wall of the canyon. "None shall pass."

  Bai Ruo tapped her daggers together. "I will seal the right tunnels."

  The two ladies unleashed their Soul Formation power. The canyon walls shook.

  Li Yu accelerated. He became a blur. He smashed through a blockade of Arachnid Guards. He ignored their venom as it was useless against him and he ignored their webs. He was a force of nature, a localized natural disaster moving towards the heart of the enemy territory.

  The army did not hurry up to keep up. They knew their role in this. Stay back and clean up. Rushing forward would only get themselves into further danger and distract Li Yu. They had to clean up and harvest or else Li Yu would more likely be upset he had to wait so long to get his share of the resources.

  "I can't believe it," a young disciple from the Broken Army whispered to an Iron Blood veteran. "My sect master died fighting one of those Scorpion-Kings yesterday. That woman... the purple one... she just sliced three of them in half."

  "That's Lady Si Luo," the veteran said reverently. "Don't stare at her too long. She’s way out of your league. And probably venomous. I only saw her today as well."

  "And the grey one?"

  "Lady Bai Ruo. It seems like she is really good at space manipulation. Scary. But hey, as long as they're pointing that way, I'm happy."

  The march continued for an hour. The deeper they went, the stronger the beasts became but the result was the same. The Spear broke the line. The Broom swept up the pieces. They were advancing at a steady rate.

  Finally the canyon opened up into a massive bowl-shaped depression in the earth. The fog here was so thick it was almost black. It was swirling around a central structure that looked like a nightmare cathedral built of webbing and bone.

  The headquarters of the beast in this place. The location that the previous group had tried to get to but couldn’t.

  Li Yu stopped at the edge of the bowl. The army eventually fanned out behind him. They were breathing hard but relatively unharmed. There were only minor injuries just as before. The remnants from the broken army were amazed.

  "That's big," Patriarch Han whistled as he was gripping his glaive.

  "It’s disgusting," Si Luo corrected. "Look at the weave. Uneven tension. Sloppy anchor points. No aesthetic sense whatsoever. A child of my clan could do better while drunk."

  "Can we burn it?" Bai Ruo asked hopefully. She too thought it looked disgusting.

  "We're going to do more than burn it," Li Yu said. "Leave nothing but the foundation."

  A roar went up from the survivors from earlier. A sound of catharsis and rage. They had been victims for days. Now, led by a monster of their own, greater than anything in the dark, they were the avengers.

  "Charge!" Sect Master Zhou shouted.

  But Li Yu moved first. He leaped into the air with his staff glowing and descended toward the center of the web like the judgment of heaven.

  The ground shook. The webs tore. And the Silent Hollows began to scream.