The air in Grey-Water Valley did not just freeze; it shattered.

  As the tentacled horror unleashed its void beam, a lance of purple annihilation aimed directly at the self-destructing Vorgnir, a silhouette flickered into existence between the man and the monster.

  It wasn't a teleportation that relied on movement speed. It was an instantaneous assertion of presence.

  Li Yu spun his staff. The heavy staff blurred into a solid shield of kinetic force.

  THOOM.

  The void beam struck the spinning staff. The impact scattered the beam and some of the resulting scattering flew into the massive demons nearby, injuring or killing them. The energy sprayed in a hundred directions and some carved deep furrows into the frozen earth around them but the ultimate result was that it left Vorgnir untouched.

  From the ridge above, the ground erupted. Tekton poured down the cliffside like a landslide of living armor.

  The massive creature was a nightmare for the demons. Tekton hit the valley floor with a wet, heavy thud that shook the earth. He coiled his massive body around a cluster of Behemoths, his legs digging into their flesh like daggers. His mandibles snapped shut on another, shearing it in half with a sickening crunch.

  Beside him Krell roared as he prepared for a fight. It was a sound like a volcano waking up and he charged into the fray. He grabbed a four-legged demon by its throat and crushed its windpipe before ripping the core out with his free hand.

  In the center of the valley, the Half-Step Divine Transformation demon was repositioning. Thinking about what to do next after its attack had failed just now.

  The mass of eyes and tentacles shifted its focus from the glowing Vorgnir to the smaller human holding a staff. The mental screech intensified, a psychic drill trying to bore into Li Yu’s skull. Too bad it had no effect on Li Yu at all. His mental defenses were much too strong.

  The demon attacked. Dozens of tentacles, each tipped with a blade of solidified void energy, lashed out. They were fast, extremely fast, blurring out of visual existence.

  Li Yu continued to advance as he plotted this course. His staff became a blur of speed to match the speed of the demon. He deflected a tentacle to the left, parried a spear-tip to the right and vaulted over a sweeping attack.

  He was closing the distance with terrifying efficiency. He felt like he could almost see a little bit into the future. Feeling and sensing that an attack would come from a direction and it would be there.

  Panic set in for the demon after continuously failing to strike the boy. It realized this human was a predator. An extremely strong one at that. It could feel that Li Yu didn’t seem to be affected by the demonic Qi flowing from it and the rift above.

  The demon’s many eyes glowed with a malevolent purple light. It channeled its innate divine ability.

  Li Yu felt the shift in the void Qi behind him. The demon had opened a micro-rift directly behind Li Yu’s skull, intending to fire a void beam point-blank into the back of his head. The very same move it had used on Vorgnir just moments before.

  Vorgnir, watching from his knees, his body still crackling with the aborted energy of his suicide technique, saw the rift open but it was too late to say anything.

  Li Yu didn't change his course or move at all. It would have seemed that he was going to fall for its trickery.

  Just as the beam fired, Li Yu vanished and slipped into the First Layer of the Void. He didn't move left or right; he simply ceased to exist in the material plane for a fraction of a second.

  The beam hissed through empty air, striking the demon's own tentacles and severing three of them in a spray of acidic blood. Li Yu had disappeared so abruptly that it couldn’t react in time.

  Before the demon could process the miss, reality distorted above it.

  Li Yu reappeared directly over the demon’s primary eye cluster and began falling with supreme weight. He held his staff raised high and channeled his new found power as he descended.

  He brought the staff down.

  CRUNCH.

  The impact was absolute. The demon’s main body was flattened, driven into the bedrock with enough force to shatter the valley floor. The shockwave knocked every combatant in a fifty-meter radius off their feet.

  The demon twitched once but its tentacles still sprung into action and tried to come down on him. Li Yu didn't hesitate. He coated his hand in destructive Qi and thrust his hand into the ruined flesh, found the core and ripped it free. At the same time the Fisherman within Li Yu’s soul hooked out the demon’s weakened soul.

  The demon went limp instantly as both things were done simultaneously. The oppressive aura that had blanketed the valley vanished instantly. It would seem that with the greatest general gone, the rift above stopped releasing demonic Qi.

  Silence returned to Grey-Water Valley, broken only by the chittering sound of Tekton tearing into the carcass of a Behemoth and the small skirmishes that were still going on.

  Li Yu stood on the corpse of the demon general and flicked the black blood from his staff. He looked at the core. It was large and pulsating with chaotic violent energy. A Half-Step Divine Transformation core. A great haul for his first steps onto this continent.

  Behind him, the sound of heavy breathing drew his attention.

  Vorgnir had cancelled his self-destruct technique and it was clear that had impacted him a bit. The white and black lightning had faded and left him kneeling in the slush. His back was a ruin of charred meat and the spinal bone visible through the burns. He looked like a man who had been put through a meat grinder and spat out alive.

  But the look on his face wasn't relief. It was hatred.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "You..." Vorgnir rasped while using his greatswords to leverage himself up.

  He looked at Li Yu—this young man with a face that looked barely twenty. He scanned his bone age and found that it was actually his age. He sensed the lack of injuries, only exertion. He sensed the calm in the boy’s eyes. This was a person who had been in many battles.

  Vorgnir’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his swords. “Why? Why did you interfere? I had it. I was finally going to go.”

  But then his warrior’s eye took over. He replayed the fight. The staff block. The disappearing to dodge the attack and use it against the demon. The brutal efficiency that had crushed a demon.

  The resentment in Vorgnir’s eyes faltered a bit, replaced by a grudging happiness.

  "You are a monster," Vorgnir grunted once but then was coughing up a clot of blood. "To be that young... and that strong."

  He shook his head, wincing as his ruined back stretched. "Humanity is lucky. If we have monsters of our own, perhaps the wall will hold a little longer."

  Li Yu stepped down from the corpse and was wiping the core on a clean patch of snow. He walked over to the other two demon generals that Vorgnir had killed.

  "I'm taking the cores," Li Yu stated flatly. It wasn't a question. He really needed these cores to get stronger.

  Vorgnir blinked and was thrown off by the sudden shift to looting. "What? The cores? They are poison. Useless trash."

  "For you, maybe," Li Yu said. He efficiently extracted the cores from the two generals.

  He then looked around the battlefield. The surviving cultivators from the other sects were beginning to regroup. They were looking at Li Yu, Krell and the massive centipede coiled behind him with a mixture of fear and relief.

  "I have a proposal," Li Yu announced as his voice carried over the wind.

  An older cultivator, the leader of one of the sects that had come here stepped forward. He wore the insignia of the Frost Hide Sect. He looked at Tekton, whose mandibles were clicking menacingly as he cleaned them of gore and swallowed hard.

  "We are listening, Senior," the man said respectfully.

  "My companions and I," Li Yu gestured to Krell and the giant beast, "have killed a significant number of demons here. We have no use for the bones, the hides, the scales or the claws. We only want the cores."

  The cultivators exchanged looks. Their eyes lit up.

  "You... you would trade the materials for the cores?" the Sect Leader asked, hardly believing his ears. Demon bone and hide were useful and had become a part of the Northern economy. "Just the cores?"

  "Correct," Li Yu said. "My friend here," he pointed to Krell, "can process them."

  "Agreed!" the Sect Leader shouted immediately. "It is a deal, Senior! We will harvest the materials. The cores are yours."

  As the cultivators began to fan out to harvest the battlefield, Li Yu finally walked back toward Vorgnir.

  The giant man was finally standing. He had refused help from the medics and took pills of his own. He was leaning heavily on his twin greatswords, his breathing ragged.

  "You fight well. You did a great job fighting against such odds and forces." Li Yu said and offered a genuine compliment. "If you hadn’t been sneak attacked, you probably could have fought that last demon general to a victory or standstill."

  Vorgnir’s head snapped up. The slightly good feelings he had for Li Yu earlier evaporated, replaced instantly by the return of that dark and burning anger.

  "Next time," Vorgnir growled as he stepped forward into Li Yu’s personal space despite his injuries. He towered over Li Yu and smelled of burnt flesh. "Do not interfere in my battles!"

  Li Yu frowned and was confused. ‘Was it because I was more concerned about the cores instead of his injuries at the end of the right? He seemed like he was going to be fine though.’ Li Yu thought to himself.

  "I saved your life. You were milliseconds from death."

  "Exactly!" Vorgnir roared. The sound was startlingly loud in the quiet valley. "I was there! I had my hand on the door! I was going to take that tentacled filth with me as well. It was perfect!"

  "And leave the other demons to overrun the valley?" Li Yu countered calmly. "My way, the demons are dead and you are alive. It is logically superior."

  "I don't want your logic!" Vorgnir shouted back with even more anger. He was trembling, not from pain, but from rage. "You stole it! You stole my end!"

  He glared at Li Yu with pure venom. "Stay out of my battles, brat. Or I will cut you down myself next time."

  With that, the giant turned. He dragged his greatswords through the snow for a bit. He was limping away and toward the ruins of the Iron Cliff Sect. He never looked back.

  Li Yu stood there and watched the man’s retreating back. He tilted his head in confusion. Nothing fully understanding what was going on.

  "He is angry," Li Yu stated obviously. "I saved him and secured the victory. Yet he hates me."

  "He wanted to check out," Krell said as he was walking up to Li Yu. Krell could understand Vorgnir’s thoughts better than Li Yu. "Some warriors get tired, Li Yu. The fire burns too hot for too long."

  "It is more than that," a voice said from the side.

  The Sect Leader from the Frost Hide Sect approached. He was watching Vorgnir leave with a sad and weary expression. Many knew of the story of that man. He was a hero by all accounts but he was now also a mad man.

  "Forgive Lord Vorgnir, Senior," the man said softly. "His mind... it walks a difficult path. A different path."

  "Can you explain it to me?" Li Yu asked.

  "He is known as The Spark before the Dawn. But nowadays he is better known as Death Seeker," the Sect Leader began. "But it is not because he is reckless. It is because he is tired. He has been fighting on the front lines for countless years. He has buried two wives. He has buried three sons. His entire family, some say. All to the rifts throughout the years."

  The man sighed and was looking at the smoking crater where the Iron Cliff Sect used to be.

  "He wants to die," the man continued. "He craves it. But he is a man of immense duty. His code forbids him from taking his own life or throwing it away uselessly. He cannot just let a demon kill him; that would be failing the Dominion."

  Li Yu began to understand. "He wants to fight to the best of his ability and take down as many demons and beasts as he can. But he is hoping to die while doing it..."

  "Exactly," the Sect Leader nodded. "He needs a death that justifies the loss of a Peak Soul Formation expert. He needs to trade his life for something of equal or greater value. Only then can he rest with honor."

  The man gestured to the crushed corpse of the Half-Step Divine Transformation demon.

  "A rift of this magnitude... a demon of that power... it hasn't appeared in this region of the continent for over a century. This was it. This was the moment he had been waiting for. The perfect enemy. The perfect threat. He could have died saving the valley, taking a monster with him and his watch would have finally ended."

  The Sect Leader looked at Li Yu. "You saved him, Senior. And for that, we thank you. But to him... you snatched a cup of water from a man dying of thirst just as it touched his lips."

  Li Yu looked back where the limping figure of Vorgnir used to be.

  "I see," Li Yu murmured. "He is trapped by his own power, honor and competence."

  "We were unlucky today," the Sect Leader said. He was looking at the bodies of the fallen Iron Cliff disciples being gathered by the survivors. "A great tragedy occurred here. But thanks to those that gathered, Lord Vorgnir and you, it was not a massacre. The living must continue. As it always is here."

  "Indeed…" Li Yu said in a quiet voice. His mind drifted with thoughts.

  He looked at the cores in his hand. He had won the battle. He had gained resources that he desperately needed. He had saved a powerful ally for humanity.

  But as the wind howled through the broken valley, carrying the scent of rust and old blood, Li Yu realized he might have just robbed a critical moment from a man who had done so much.

  The North was a complicated place.