Chương 238: Two Dead Ends

The canyon was a scene of carnage and quiet dread. The brief, violent clash of ideologies was over, leaving behind only the dead, the dying, and the terrified. The members of the Human Revolution Faction and the Beast Revolution Faction lay broken and paralyzed on the dusty ground, their holy war brought to an abrupt and humiliating end by a power they could not comprehend. Li Yu turned his attention to the remaining captives.

Jian Xuan's soul pressure, a suffocating, invisible weight, still pinned them to the ground, rendering them helpless. It was time for the interrogation to continue, though Li Yu held out little hope of learning anything new. Jian Xuan's cold gaze fell upon the leader of the Human Revolution Faction, the spear-wielding Core Formation expert.

"Your turn," he said, his voice flat.

"Your faction. Your bases. Your leaders. Speak." The man, though terrified, seemed to find a new surge of conviction. He looked at Jian Xuan, and then his fanatical gaze locking onto Li Yu.

"You… you are human," he grunted, the words a strained effort.

"And you are powerful. Unimaginably so. Why are you stopping us? Why would you stand against your own kind? You should be with us!" His voice grew stronger, filled with a desperate, recruiting fervor.

"Don't you see the threat? The beasts grow stronger every day! The sects are weak, the empires are corrupt! They make treaties, they engage in trade, they treat the monsters as equals! We are the only ones who see the truth! We are the only ones with the courage to fight for humanity's rightful place as masters of this world!" He strained against the soul pressure, lifting his head a mere inch from the dirt.

"Join us! With your power, and the guidance of your profound master," he glanced fearfully at Jian Xuan, "you could hold a position of immense authority in our faction! You could be a true hero of humanity, a guardian of our race! Together, we can cleanse this continent and prepare for the return of the Human God!" Li Yu listened to the man's tirade with a completely impassive expression. He felt no connection to the man's cause, no stirrings of racial pride.

'Humanity,' he thought, 'is just a word. I have seen the best of it in my friends, and the worst of it in men like Elder Jin. I have seen the loyalty of beasts, and the savagery of beasts. Good and evil, loyalty and betrayal… they are not traits of a species. They are choices of an individual. This man's holy war is nothing more than a grand excuse for hatred and slaughter.' Neither he nor Jian Xuan believed the man's words, nor did they have any interest in his mad crusade.

After several more minutes of fruitless questioning, it became clear they would receive no actionable intelligence from him. The man's mind was a closed loop of fanatical dogma. They turned their attention to the last few captives from the Beast Revolution Faction. The result was the same. Their minds were filled with their own brand of zealous belief in the supremacy of beasts. They knew nothing of their faction's command structure or their hidden bases.

They were simply soldiers, true believers sent to fight a holy war, their knowledge limited to their own small cell. Their plan to follow one of the groups to a secret hideout was now completely gone. The hunt had led them to this canyon, but the trail ended here, in a bloody stalemate of ideologies. All they had gained was the troubling confirmation that a second, equally dangerous faction was operating in the shadows. Li Yu gave a quiet, final nod to Jian Xuan.

A moment later, a dozen swords of pure, white energy materialized in the air. The canyon fell completely silent. The remnants of the two revolutionary factions were erased from the world with a clean, merciless efficiency. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. With the last of the enemies dispatched, the tension in the air finally dissipated.

A soft, opalescent shimmer of light appeared beside Li Yu, and Kui emerged from the Koi Sanctuary, his cheerful face looking slightly at odds amidst the scene of carnage. His eyes, however, were sharp and practical.

"Well," he said, looking at the bodies, "that's a mess." He then immediately got to work, his merchant's instincts taking over completely.

"A shame about the roc, but the materials are still valuable! Purple-Winged Roc feathers are excellent high grade materials, and their talons can be ground into potent alchemy ingredients. Their beast core should also be intact. A fine prize!" He moved over to the massive, broken form of the roc and began the process of harvesting its valuable parts with a practiced, almost surgical skill. It was classic Kui, seeing the profit in every situation, wasting nothing.

While he worked, he also began systematically looting the storage rings from the other fallen cultivators, his spiritual sense sweeping through them and absorbing their contents into a master ring for the Guild. It was quite a big windfall as both factions had a lot of spirit stones for the auction. Since only one side won it, the other side had all their spirit stones left intact. Li Yu, his own work done, walked over to where the Crystal Orb of Serenity had fallen during the battle. He picked it up.

The perfect sphere of crystal pulsed with a gentle, calming, silvery light in his palm. He could feel the soothing energy it radiated. It was, as Fengliu had reported, a treasure of immense value for nurturing beasts. He tucked it away into his own storage ring. The cleanup was swift and efficient. By the time Kui was finished, the canyon looked almost as it had before, save for the dark stains on the ground and the lingering, faint smell of blood. They did not linger.

The three of them took to the air, leaving the canyon of death behind as they began the swift journey back to Coralspire Harbor. They arrived back at the Golden Shell headquarters under the cover of darkness. The massive complex was a hive of quiet, efficient activity, its security clearly heightened since their departure.

Li Yu gathered them all in the main hall: Kui and Fat Pig, their faces now grim and serious; Xylia, her predatory senses on high alert; a silent, ever-ready Spine; the unassuming but deadly Fengliu; and the powerful and profound Jian Xuan. Li Yu laid out the Crystal Orb and the other useful spoils from the battle on the large central table. Everyone took what they needed, Fengliu took the core of the roc, it didn't have an extreme value to him but was a bit helpful to his cultivation. He then began his report.

He recounted everything that had happened since they left the auction house: the chase, the battle in the canyon and the ideologies of the two warring factions so Fat Pig and Spine could know. As he finished, a heavy, troubled silence filled the room. The problem was far bigger, and far more complicated, than any of them had initially imagined.

"Two revolutionary factions," Kui said, his voice a low, troubled rumble.

"Both fanatical, both seeking to dominate the world. This is not just a threat to our business. This is a threat to the entire continent, to the very fabric of society."

"And the Golden Tide Clan is allied with one of them," Fat Pig added, his usual cheerfulness completely gone.

"That makes them our direct enemy. But how do we fight a hidden, continent-spanning terrorist organization?"

"We don't have enough information," Fengliu stated.

"We know the Golden Tide Clan is one of the local heads of the snake, but we don't know how deep their connection to the Beast Revolution Faction goes. We don't know their true strength, or how many other cells like the one you encountered are operating in the south. To attack them directly now would be reckless." They were at an impasse. The trail they had followed so successfully had gone cold. They had a name, they had a motive, but they had no clear path forward.

Their proactive hunt had ended in a dead end, leaving them with more questions and a far greater sense of the danger they were facing. The enemy was a hydra, and they had only managed to cut off one of its many heads. The larger beast was still out there, hidden in the shadows, and now, it was almost certainly aware that it was being hunted.