Li Yu stepped out of the First Layer of the Void. The grey mist fading from his vision as the bruised purple sky of the Battered Coast returned.

  He landed on the cracked pavement of the parade ground. His Star Crusher staff was still humming with the residue of the destructive laws he had channeled and his breathing was heavy.

  Signe was waiting for him. She stood at the head of her forty Crimson Valkyries with her flame wreathed spear planted in the ground. They had been waiting to take action as soon as anything happened.

  "Is it done?" Signe asked Li Yu. Her hope warring with the grim reality of the sky above.

  "The Gatekeeper is dead," Li Yu said but his voice was flat. "But the Rift didn't close."

  Signe’s grip tightened on her spear. "Why? You said he was the anchor."

  "He was," Li Yu explained as he was wiping sweat from his brow. "But he was just part of the problem. I think the energy keeping that tear open isn't coming from this world anymore. It’s coming from the other side. Someone, or something has built a bridge so to speak. On the other side. A permanent connection."

  Signe looked up at the stable tear. "So we cannot close it?"

  "Not from here. At least I don’t think so." Li Yu said. "We need to regroup with Thyra and come up with a plan. We need to—"

  Rumble.

  The ground beneath their feet shook violently. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a resonance hitting the bedrock of the continent in their area.

  "Is it collapsing?" Captain Kara asked as she was looking up at the sky.

  "No," Li Yu whispered. He sent his spiritual sense up. "It's opening."

  The stable black surface of the Rift rippled like a pond disturbed by a stone. Then, it shattered outward. It wasn't a single entity. It was a tide.

  "Form up!" Signe roared.

  A swarm of demons poured out of the sky. They were weaker demons. Hordes of winged horrors, four-legged crawlers with bladed limbs and screaming imps that dripped acidic saliva. There were hundreds of them and they were spilling out like grain from a torn sack.

  "Hold the perimeter!" Signe commanded.

  Her aura exploded. A pillar of crimson fire shot into the sky. She spun her spear, unleashing a wave of flame that incinerated the first hundred demons before they hit the ground.

  "For the Young Master!" the Valkyries shouted in unison.

  The forty elite warriors moved as one. They were using an attack formation. Their spears were a blur of flaming death. They too became a meat grinder of martial arts and discipline.

  Li Yu didn't stand idle even though he was tired. His Sentry came out and began bogging down the entire area with water and ice techniques. Creating space and room for everyone else to fight.

  Li Yu himself was trying to conserve a bit of Qi and was using his powerful body to smash and kill the demons with his staff.

  "We can hold them!" Kara shouted. She was stabbing a crawler through its multiple eyes. "They are weak! Fodder!"

  It was true. Individually, these demons ranged from Foundation Establishment to Core Formation level. Against a Grand Marshall and her elite guard, they were being slaughtered wholesale. The pile of corpses was already rising. It was forming a rampart of black ichor and twisted limbs.

  But Li Yu felt it. The pressure. It wasn't coming from the swarm. It was coming from behind them.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Something else is coming!" Li Yu warned. "Something big!" Li Yu feared it was something like the massive hand that had tried to assassinate him earlier.

  As if in response, the flow of fodder demons suddenly stopped. The swarm parted in the sky and started fleeing to the sides as if terrified of what was behind them.

  A large hand gripped the edge of the Rift. It was a hand with four fingers and was covered in red scaled armor.

  Then, the owner pulled himself through. Li Yu’s breath hitched.

  The entity that emerged was a nightmare made flesh. It stood upright on two massive trunk-like legs that ended in cloven hooves of burning magma. It had four arms. Two enormous ones emerging from its shoulders and two smaller, dexterous ones from its ribcage.

  It was colossal. The Gatekeeper Li Yu had fought in the void was a child compared to this. This demon was easily four times that size, a towering mountain of muscle and hate.

  Its skin was the color of dried blood. Its head was crowned with four twisting horns and its eyes were burning pits of white hot abyssal fire.

  The aura it released wasn't just heavy; it was hot. The stone of the parade ground began to melt just from its presence in the sky.

  "Finally!" the Demon Lord roared as it came through.

  The voice shook the command tower. It caused the Valkyries to stumble and clutching their ears as blood ran from them.

  "The cost was great," the Demon Lord bellowed as he was stretching his four arms wide. "But the path is open. This world... is this Demon Lord’s… it’s all mine!"

  Li Yu scanned the entity. It wasn't at the level of the hand that had attacked him. That incomprehensible entity that had nearly killed him earlier. However, it was far, far beyond anything Li Yu could handle right now. It was at least in the realm after Divine Transformation, probably more. Li Yu had no idea.

  "Run!" Li Yu roared out loud.

  Signe looked at him. She was trembling from the pressure of that demon. Her fire aura was flickering like a candle in a hurricane against the Demon Lord's blazing presence.

  "Young Master..." Signe whispered. "We can..."

  "No!" Li Yu cut her off sharply. "We can't. Look at it, Signe. If we stay, we die. There is no honor in suicide. Take your sisters. Fly. Get to Thyra and tell her the coast is lost."

  Signe hesitated for a fraction of a second. She looked at the monster in the sky and her decision was made. Signe gritted her teeth. She knew he was right.

  "Valkyries! Retreat! Pattern Delta!"

  "Yes, Grand Marshall!"

  The forty women didn't argue. They grabbed their wounded and launched themselves into the distance. They were flying low and fast away from the fortress with their crimson auras streaking like comets.

  Li Yu looked up at the Demon Lord.

  The monster was descending slowly. It was almost like he was savoring the air of a new world. His white hot eyes locked onto the lone figure on the parade ground.

  "A gnat remains?" the Demon Lord laughed loudly. It sounded like a landslide.

  All Li Yu had to do was stall. He finished up killing the demons that had tried to follow the Grand Marshall. It looked like the demons weren’t going to do anything else until they were ordered. The Demon Lord himself didn’t seem like he was in any rush to attack.

  They stared at each other for a long moment. After a bit, Li Yu thought he had brought them enough time to retreat. Their fortune would be their own after this point. He channeled his Qi.

  Void Step.

  He tried to shift. He tried to fling himself far away from this monster. Nothing happened.

  Li Yu slammed into an invisible wall. The space around the fortress wasn't just solid; it was dead. The Demon Lord had long flooded the entire region with a repressive domain that locked down all spatial movement.

  "You think you can leave?" The Demon Lord sneered from high above. "I sealed this place after I arrived. I only let those weaklings leave to see your pathetic face now. Hahahahaha. Nothing moves without my permission."

  Li Yu’s heart hammered against his ribs. He tried shifting into the first and second layer of the void. He ran into a wall there too. Panic.

  Real, cold panic.

  He couldn't escape. He stood no chance in a fight.

  ‘Strength! I keep being completely powerless against these entities!’ Li Yu screamed in his mind.

  He had gotten careless yet again. He thought since he was able to escape from the hand before, that his abilities were good enough to run away at least. He underestimated the magnitude of the beings he might encounter.

  The large hand of the Demon Lord began to descend. It wasn't an attack; it was a press. The Demon Lord intended to squash him like a bug to christen his arrival.

  For one reason or another the only thought going through Li Yu’s mind, what could be his very last thoughts, was, ‘Why do they keep trying to squash me with their hands? Is this how they view me? Not even worth anything but a quick palm?’

  Li Yu raised his staff and was preparing for a final, futile defense.

  Whoosh.

  A mist erupted from Li Yu’s chest. Vespera materialized in front of him.