The duel did not begin with a shout but with the terrifying silence of absolute focus.

  Lady Kaida leaped from the wall. She descended like a blood red comet and her greatsword raised high. Her aura exploded into the Crimson Cyclone.

  "Die, intruder!" Kaida shrieked.

  She struck.

  CLANG.

  The impact was deafening. Kaida’s greatsword was empowered by the blood of a thousand battles and it slammed into Gara’s crossed axes.

  The ground beneath Gara shattered into a crater but the Matriarch didn't buckle. She didn't even bend her knees. She caught the blow with the impassive stability of a mountain catching a raindrop.

  Kaida’s eyes widened in surprise. She tried to disengage, to use her speed but Gara was faster than her bulk suggested.

  Gara twisted her wrists. The hooks of her axes caught the crossguard of Kaida’s sword. With a grunt of exertion, Gara wrenched the weapon sideways and ripped it from Kaida’s grip. Gara then sent the sword spinning away into the rubble.

  "You possess speed," Gara stated with a calm and cold voice. "But you lack weight."

  Kaida snarled. She abandoned her weapon and lunged, her hands glowing with the red light of the Seal of the Dominator. She aimed for Gara’s forehead and was intending to enslave her mid-combat.

  "Submit!" Kaida roared.

  Gara didn't dodge. She stepped into the attack. She dropped one axe and drove her armored fist straight into Kaida’s midsection.

  CRUNCH.

  The sound of ribs snapping echoed across the battlefield.

  Kaida’s breath left her in a spray of blood. The red light on her hand flickered and died. She folded over Gara’s fist with her eyes bulging. Kaida never expected Gara to be this strong. Her senses told her they were on the same level.

  ‘A technique to hide her strength? Or perhaps an artifact?’ Kaida’s mind thought.

  Gara grabbed Kaida by her long white hair. She lifted the Berserker Demon off the ground as if she were a doll.

  "You like collars?" Gara asked softly.

  She slammed Kaida into the ground.

  BOOM.

  Kaida bounced. Gara hit her again. And again. It was a brutal and methodical dismantling. There was no fancy technique, no flashy arts. Just the overwhelming and crushing force of a Rhino Kin getting vengeance.

  Within a minute, Lady Kaida, the terror of Obsidian Hollow, was a broken heap in the dirt. Her crimson skin was bruised purple, her armor was shredded and her breathing was shallow.

  Gara stood over her. She bit her thumb and pressed it to Kaida’s forehead, enslaving Kaida to her. She walked over to Thrax and freed him.

  The massive Warlord was trembling. He looked at his wife and then at the ground. Shame was burning through his glazed eyes. He was naked save for a loincloth, beaten and enslaved.

  "Gara..." Thrax whispered, his voice cracking. "I..."

  Gara didn't speak. She touched the collar around his neck and she crushed it with her fingers.

  Snap.

  The collar fell. Since Kaida was now her slave, Thrax was freed once again. His mind fully returned to him.

  "Stand up," Gara said gently.

  Thrax stood as he was rubbing his neck. He couldn't meet her eyes. "I was weak. She... she broke me."

  Gara reached up and touched his cheek. Her expression softened slightly but there were more emotions behind those eyes. Exactly what she was feeling, no one knew but her.

  "You are alive," she said. "That is all that matters. We go home."

  She turned back to Kaida. Kaida was still gasping from the seal and her own injuries. Her eyes opened as the red light bound her soul. She looked up at Gara with hatred warring with the absolute compulsion to obey.

  "Get up, pet," Gara commanded.

  Kaida shuddered. She was trying to fight the seal but her body moved on its own. She crawled to her knees with her head bowed.

  Gara looked up at the walls of Obsidian Hollow. Thousands of faces peered down.

  "Your leader is defeated!" Gara announced. Her voice carried to the highest spire. "This territory now belongs to the Iron-Hide Tribe. Surrender and live or resist and die."

  There was a moment of silence. Then the Mantis guard on the wall shrugged.

  "Open the gates!" He yelled to the mechanism operators. "New management!"

  The crowd cheered. The betting slips were exchanged with frantic energy. Those who had bet on the wife were laughing; those who bet on Kaida were cursing her weakness. Nobody seemed particularly upset about the regime change.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Li Yu watched from the back of the crowd. The fact that there wasn’t much care for their leader showed him all he needed to know. Everyone here looked out for themselves. From the top to the very bottom. Everyone had their own fights to deal with.

  He watched as Gara led her procession into the city. Thrax walked beside her, now clothed in a cloak she had given him. His head was held a little higher but not much. Behind them crawled Lady Kaida. The tyrant was now the slave. She was barely dragging her broken body through the dust. What happened to her harem now, Li Yu didn’t care.

  The cycle was complete. While the town was distracted by the arrival of their new overlords, Li Yu turned around. He walked out the Southern Gate, unchallenged and unseen.

  A few hours south of Obsidian Hollow, the Iron Jungle ended.

  The metallic trees thinned out and were replaced by gnarled, dead stumps. The red soil turned into a fine choking grey powder. The air grew hotter, drier and smelled of sulfur and old bones.

  This was the Dust Lands. One of the trash bins of the realm.

  Li Yu walked through the haze. The wind here whipped the grey dust into blinding clouds. He had to use a layer of Qi to keep his eyes and nose clear. As he ventured deeper, he began to see signs of habitation.

  They weren't towns. They were hovels.

  Structures made of scavenged bone, scrap metal and hardened mud clung to the sides of dry ravines. There were no artifacts generating lights here. There was only the dim glow of cooking fires fueled by dried dung or whatever else they could find.

  He saw the people.

  There were Goblins with missing ears. There were Kobolds with broken scales. There were lesser Elementals that flickered weakly and barely held their forms together.

  And there were Humans. Thousands of them.

  Li Yu crested a ridge and looked down into a large valley. A settlement sprawled below. It was a shantytown. A true maze of grey desperation.

  He walked down. His clean robes and healthy complexion drew stares but mostly people just looked down and avoided eye contact. Staying out of trouble was one of the first rules people followed.

  He saw a group of humans pulling a cart loaded with rocks. They had no beast of burden; they were the beasts. Their backs were scarred and their hands wrapped in bloody rags. Beside them, a one-armed Goblin was pushing from the back, grunting in effort.

  He saw a human woman sitting by a dried up well. She was carefully dividing a waterskin among three children. Two humans and a young beastman cub. She took none for herself.

  "Here," she whispered to them. Her voice was dry as the wind. "Sip it slowly. Don't spill."

  Li Yu stopped. He reached into his storage ring. He pulled out a large jug of fresh water. He carried tons of such supplies.

  He walked over and placed it gently next to the woman. She looked up not with gratitude in her eyes but fear. Fearing that it was some sort of trap. "Master? I... I have no cores to pay."

  "It's free," Li Yu said softly.

  He didn't wait for thanks. He kept walking. He found a secluded spot on a cliff overlooking the settlement and sat down. The reality of this place pressed on him heavier than the gravity of the Demon Lord.

  'They are surviving,' Li Yu thought sadly. 'But only barely.'

  He watched the cooperation below. Here, in the trash heap, the racial divides of the cities dissolved. Misery was the great equalizer. The humans here helped each other and they helped the other outcasts because no one else would.

  The other outcasts would help the humans as well if they could. They were united by their shared worthlessness in the eyes of the strong. Li Yu gripped his knees.

  'I could fix this,' he thought. He really wanted to help them. It was miserable to see others like this.

  The thought was seductive. He was a cultivator with a great deal of power. The peak of Soul Formation could make a big difference here. He could go slaughter the local demon overseers and build a fortress. He could rally these people. He could lead them to a better future.

  He could be a hero. He closed his eyes and the image of Balor flashed in his mind. The overwhelming pressure. The feeling of being a gnat.

  'And then what?' Li Yu asked himself seriously.

  'I conquer this valley. I kill the local Enforcers. News travels. A Warlord comes. Maybe I kill him too. Then a General comes. Maybe I can handle that. Then a Demon Lord? Then I die or run away.'

  He looked down at the woman and her children.

  'If I raise a banner here,' Li Yu realized, 'I am painting a target on their backs.'

  He couldn't stay here forever. His path lay elsewhere. Returning home, ascending, finding the peak of cultivation and who knows what else. He was a traveler that happened to end up here, not a resident.

  'If I lead a rebellion and then leave, the Infernal Court won't just kill the rebels. They will burn this entire valley to ash to make an example. They will hunt down every human in the Dust Lands and probably throughout the realm.'

  Li Yu then thought about being a mercenary of sorts. Going around and killing demons and beasts. Weakening the forces in the surrounding area if not more. Give room for the humans to breathe.

  Then he thought about it further. even being a mercenary was a trap.

  'If I go out there as Li Yu, the Human Mercenary, and I start killing demons... word will spread. "A human is killing our kind." The demons won't just hunt me. They will take their anger out on the easiest targets available.'

  He looked at the settlement below.

  'They will come here. They will say, "The human mercenary is strong, so we will kill a thousand weak humans to teach him a lesson."'

  He felt a deep and frustrating impotence. He had power, but not the greatest power, he couldn't use his power freely. Being a hero required presence. It required the ability to protect what you built against the highest power in the land.

  He didn't have that yet. He wasn't like the guardian beasts. He wasn't Balor.

  "So I can't be a General," Li Yu whispered to the wind. "And I can't be a human avenger."

  He opened his eyes. They were clear, the conflict resolved into a cold pragmatism.

  "I have to be something else."

  He looked at his hands.

  'I need to weaken the demons. I need to disrupt their supply lines, kill their commanders and cause chaos so they are too busy fighting each other to oppress these people. But I can't let them know it's a human doing it.'

  He needed a mask. A persona.

  'I need to be viewed as a demon. Or a beast. Or a natural disaster. Anything but a human.'

  If a "Demon" killed another Demon, it was just politics. If a "Beast" attacked a town, it was just the war. The humans in the Dust Lands wouldn't suffer for it.

  'But how?' Li Yu frowned. 'I can't change my physical form. They would eventually figure it out.'

  He didn't have the answer yet. He didn't know how to become a phantom that could strike without leaving a human footprint.

  But he knew one thing: he couldn't stay here in the Dust Lands. The people here were too weak to know the answers to his real questions. He would find out some additional information here and then he would need to leave.

  He stood up. Below him the settlement bustled with the quiet and desperate activity of survival. Li Yu bowed slightly to the valley.

  "I won't be your King," he whispered. "And I won't be the reason you die."

  I will try to do what I can to ease your suffering though. I need time to figure out what that will be. You survived before I came here and you will survive after I leave. If I can just make your lives a bit better, that will have to be enough.