The fog had lifted completely, leaving the Silent Hollows exposed under the midday sun. The white stone canyons which were once a maze of terror now looked serene. Almost beautiful, were it not for the frantic industrial activity happening on the canyon floor.

  Matriarch Su held her alliance token and was channeling Qi into the communication rune. Her face was a mask of professional neutrality but her eyes danced with a hint of amusement.

  "Repeat that, Matriarch Su," Elder Ling’s voice crackled from the token. The strain in the Strategic Commander’s voice was palpable. "You are claiming the sector is... secure?"

  "Secure and cleansed, Elder Ling," Su replied smoothly. "The environmental arrays causing the fog have been dismantled as well. It is clear for work to begin. The beast headquarters has been leveled. The ambush forces have been wiped out from what we can tell. We are currently conducting final resource extraction."

  There was a long silence on the other end.

  "It hasn’t been that long since Commander Li Yu and your forces were diverted," Elder Ling said slowly. "You cleared a catastrophic zone… so quickly? We had best hoped that the survivors were secured and all of you safe in the process."

  "The Commander is efficient," Su said. She was using the same line Sect Master Zhou had used earlier. "We are ready for the restoration team."

  "Grandmaster Pan is already in the air," Elder Ling sighed, sounding like she needed a strong drink. "He will be diverted from his return trip. I will contact him now and sort through the details. A garrison force will be sent out to where you are as well to hold the area in case your team needs to leave again. Grandmaster Pan should be there shortly. Command out."

  Matriarch Su lowered the token. She looked at Zhou and Lei as they were supervising the sorting of a massive pile of scorpion stingers.

  "She sounded confused," Su noted.

  "Let her be confused," Lei grunted. "Better confused than dead, which is what we'd be if we had served under another. What happened to the first team here could have easily happened to us as well.”

  “If we were still under the command of the Crimson Fang. They would have used us as meat shields or pawns to be thrown away when needed. We were lucky to get Commander Li Yu. I plan to sacrifice a few animals to my ancestral altars at home when this is over. To thank them for the luck they have saved up." Lei said jokingly but he had real plans to do just that.

  Two hours later a familiar hum vibrated through the canyon.

  The massive Alliance Transport Ark descended from the clouds. It was the same ship, with the same dented hull, carrying the same team. It was like deja vu for the veteran army and a welcome sight from the survivors of the broken army.

  The ramp hissed open. Grandmaster Pan walked out and was holding his map yet again. He stopped. He blinked.

  He looked at the neat piles of loot. He looked at Li Yu who was napping on Tekton’s head while the centipede chewed on a large rock of sorts. He looked at the two thousand cultivators who waved at him cheerfully. He saw another few hundred that were beaten and battered but looked prepared for battle.

  "I feel like I'm stuck in a time loop," Pan muttered lowering his map.

  "Grandmaster!" Sect Master Zhou walked over and slightly bowed. "Good to see you again so soon."

  "Sect Master Zhou," Pan sighed as he was rubbing his temples. "Let me guess. The beasts are gone. The ley lines are clear. And Li Yu wants me to fix the array as soon as possible."

  "He mentioned a Scorpion-King’s poison sac for you if things can be done a bit quicker." Zhou offered with a smile. "Intact. Still pulsating."

  Pan’s eyes lit up. "A poison sac? From a Peak Core Formation King? Those are incredibly stable for corrosion arrays!" He clapped his hands. "Alright, team! You know the drill! Unload the pillars! Same thing as before but remember this place is different! We need to recalculate and do things properly!"

  As the Array Masters scrambled to work, a different kind of construction was happening near the edge of the camp.

  A large circle had been cleared on the flat stone floor. Sitting cross-legged were not just the five main leaders that Li Yu had been talking to and giving commands with. There were nearly fifty representatives.

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  On one side sat the coalition from the Southern Jagged Peaks. Zhou (Iron Blood), Su (Violet Silk), and Lei (Thunderclap). They were flanked by the heads of the even smaller sects, clans, families and mercenary corps that had marched under the banner.

  On the other side sat the survivors of the broken army. Patriarch Han of the Han Clan and Sect Leader Yan of the Mist-River Sect sat at the front. Behind them were the elders and patriarchs of the thirty-odd clans that had been decimated in the ambush. This force was originally much bigger than the force that Li Yu had gotten for his mission.

  The atmosphere was heavy but also slightly hopeful. The adrenaline of survival had faded and was replaced by the cold and biting reality of the future.

  "The original army here lost sixty percent of our strength. Some sects, clans and mercenaries were hit harder than others. Some less. However, the damage was devastating for all." Patriarch Han began the conversation. He stared at his scarred hands. "The Han Clan... we were a mid-tier power in the Reaches. Now? We are barely a mercenary squad. We had to bring most of our true fighting force. We have lost nearly all our elders. We have lost our heirs for the current generation."

  He looked up and his eyes met Sect Master Zhou’s eyes.

  "When the war ends, the eating will surely begin," Han said. "You know this. The Silver Sword Sect... they will not accept blame for this failure. They will look for scapegoats. And they will look for compensation from everyone. They will try to absorb our territories to rebuild their own strength."

  Sect Leader Yan nodded and her expression extremely grim. That was the reality of being weaker. You get the blame and taken advantage of even if you did no wrong.

  "The Mist-River Sect is in the same boat. And it isn't just us. Look at the Red-Iron family, the Cloud-Walkers, the Stone-Fist Dojo... all of us here. We are in this area with the Silver Sword. Now that Elder Guo is dead... and we survived... they will say we abandoned him. They will use it as an excuse to purge us."

  She gestured to the vast group of Broken Army survivors.

  "We are meat," Yan said bluntly. "Unless we change the game."

  Commander Lei leaned back and was chewing on a piece of dried meat. "So change it. Stop being vassals."

  "You know it is not that simple," a smaller clan leader spoke up nervously. "Alone, any single one of our clans is weak. We cannot stand against a Top Tier sect. We would be crushed."

  "That is why we are talking," Patriarch Han said. He looked at Zhou, Su, and Lei. "We saw how you moved today. You have twenty different organizations in your ranks. But you moved as one body. The Iron Bloods shielded the Violet Silks. The Thunderclaps pulled my people out of the mud. You didn't fight over loot and you didn’t throw each other to the wolves. You were even sharing healing pills and talismens."

  Matriarch Su fanned herself slowly. "We learned quickly that infighting in the Commander’s presence is... unwise. He set the rules and terms at the beginning. There was no reason for us to do anything but listen to his commands. But yes, we have found that cooperation is more profitable than competition. As you have seen with the rules Commander Li Yu set. Staying alive and sharing was the most profitable path. It was also the safest."

  "We want to join you," Patriarch Han said. This was the main reason they had gathered here today. With their forces broken and tattered. Not only was there fear of the Silver Sword coming for them. There was also fear of other forces in the area that weren’t damaged as much taking advantage. They didn’t want to rule the world. They were looking for survival in it.

  The circle went quiet at the proposal. The commanders and representatives from Li Yu’s original army knew what this meeting would be about when the request came to meet. They could see it clearly because this is exactly what they would have done themselves if they were in the other situation.

  Sect Master Zhou stroked his chin. "Define 'join'."

  "A Grand Alliance," Han said with conviction. "Not vassals. Not servants. Equals. Your coalition, and ours. Every clan, every sect, family. Every mercenary group standing in this canyon. We bind our fates. We trade resources. We defend each other when attacked. We share with one another and all grow stronger in the process."

  He leaned forward and it could be seen in his eyes, the intensity. "Think about it, Sect Master Zhou. The war has weakened the Great Sects but they are still giants. They will still get more merit points than any of us will.”

  “They will get resources from the Five Mountain Alliance and be able to rebuild faster than us. The power vacuum is coming. Alone, we are snacks for others. But together? We would have a combined force that could compete. They would have to think twice or more before moving on us as a whole."

  "A conglomerate of the forgotten," Sect Leader Yan added. "The mid-tier and low-tier sects uniting to form a wall that even the Silver Sword cannot break."

  Commander Lei grinned. "I like it. It’s a big enough rock that the big boys will break their toes if they try to kick us."

  "It makes sense strategically," Matriarch Su analyzed. "The Iron Blood Sect is strong in defense, but lacks speed. The Violet Silk Pavilion has intelligence but lacks bulk. The Thunderclap Mercenaries have power but lack stability. Your clans add water-control, heavy infantry, scouting... We become a complete organism."

  "We agree in principle," Zhou said formally. "But there is a problem. An alliance of fifty different groups... it is like herding cats. Without a center there is the risk of splintering or falling out completely. It could be over within a few months."

  "We understand," Patriarch Han said. "We have discussed this amongst ourselves and thought of a person that could be that center for us all."

  He looked toward the massive centipede napping in the sun and the young man napping on it as well.

  "We need a center of gravity that is heavier than the mountains," Han whispered.