Chapter 756: Collateral Damage
The lockdown was much longer than expected. The heavy crimson dome of solid light remained active over the Aegis Bastion and has been casting an eerie red glow across the dark stone streets day and night.
It had been a full week now and the stolen treasure was still missing.
The military efficiency of the Ant Empire was on full display during this time. The elite enforcers did not panic or riot. They systematically tore their own city apart block by block. Every single building was searched. Every spatial ring was scanned. Every resident and trapped traveler was formally investigated.
Li Yu was questioned several times over the course of the week.
Squads of heavily armored guards knocked on his tavern door at all hours. They commanded him to step into the hallway while specialized array masters swept his room for hidden compartments. They asked for his name, his origin and his reason for visiting the border.
Li Yu answered them honestly and kept his demeanor calm. He did not act arrogant and he did not resist their scans. He had a storage ring where he kept most of his travel rations and the rest were stored away inside his Koi Sanctuary where they couldn’t be detected.
Because of his cooperation the guards never treated him unfairly or rudely. They performed their duties with clinical precision, thanked him for his time and moved on to the next room.
It was a tedious process but Li Yu did not mind. He was not in a hurry. He spent his days cultivating in his room and was digesting the influx of combat data he had gathered from before and headed down to the tavern floor to eat when it was time.
On the evening of the seventh day, Li Yu sat at his usual corner table. He ordered a fresh plate of roasted tunnel worm meat and a tall ceramic cup of spring water.
The tavern was packed with stranded merchants and frustrated rogue cultivators that he had somewhat gotten to know over the past week. The air was thick with tension and the low hum of hushed conversations. With the city sealed tight, gossip was the only currency flowing freely.
Li Yu chewed his tough spiced meat and extended his senses. He was listening in on the surrounding tables like normal. The dominant rumor floating around the hall finally painted a clearer picture of the stolen item. The treasure was a special rock.
According to the whispered claims of a wealthy weevil merchant who had connections in the military logistics branch, the rock was not a forged artifact. It was created naturally and had been discovered deep underground in an uncharted cavern within the neutral territory. The excavation team had found it exactly a week before Li Yu arrived at the Aegis Bastion.
The rock was said to contain vast raw power and laws of the earth. It was a foundational treasure. A cultivator could study the intricate natural runes etched into its surface to gain insights or they could actively absorb the dense power radiating from it to grow stronger. It was an item capable of helping anyone within this realm.
The Aegis Legion brought it into the Bastion under heavy guard. On the exact day they were scheduled to transport it under maximum security to the royal capital, it simply vanished from the central vault.
Li Yu took a sip of his water and pondered the timeline.
From this detailed rumor, he easily ruled out a lingering suspicion. The special rock was definitely not the item hidden inside the ornate storage ring he had taken from the treacherous ant guard and given to Moros.
The timing simply did not fit. Even if Raxen possessed some massive array or a supreme trick for instantaneous transportation, the special rock was already found and safely secured inside the Aegis Bastion vault during the time Li Yu first met Raxen out in the wild neutral zones. Raxen was carrying something else entirely.
Li Yu felt a small wave of relief. He had made the right choice handing the ring over to the Eclipse Court. If he had kept it, he would have had two different empires hunting for two different supreme treasures.
He cut another piece of the tunnel worm meat and raised his fork. Before the meat reached his mouth a great commotion broke out. It started as a deep vibrating hum that rattled the floorboards of the tavern. Then a massive explosion shattered the evening routine.
The sound was deafening. It was not the boom of a siege weapon striking the outer walls. The blast originated from deep within the city limits. The Aegis Bastion was under attack from the inside.
The heavy timber ceiling of the tavern groaned. Thick clouds of dust and loose mortar rained down onto the tables. Patrons screamed and scrambled for the exits while knocking over chairs and spilling hot food across the stone floor.
Li Yu dropped his fork and stood up. He did not panic. He walked calmly out the front doors of the tavern and looked toward the eastern district of the city.
A towering pillar of thick black smoke and bright green flames rose into the sky directly over the military barracks. The crimson dome above flared violently as erratic pulses of Qi slammed against the internal barrier. The thieves were not hiding anymore. They were highly organized and they were violently fighting their way out of the fortress.
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The streets erupted into chaos. Thousands of elite ant soldiers poured out of their garrisons and charged toward the flames. The air filled with the sharp metallic sounds of organic armor locking into place and the rhythmic thud of running boots.
Li Yu looked at the approaching battle and frowned. He wanted no part of it.
He turned on his heel and moved quickly away from the fighting. He navigated through the panicked crowds of merchants and bystanders. He was heading straight for the opposite district of the city. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the warring cultivators as possible. He planned to find a quiet place on the far side of the Bastion and wait for the military to crush the thieves.
He slipped through narrow alleys and crossed wide plazas. The eastern sky grew brighter with the flashes of combat techniques but the district he was in remained relatively quiet. Li Yu reached a large open market square near the western ramparts. The stalls were abandoned and the wide stone plaza was packed with hundreds of stranded low level travelers seeking refuge away from the blast zone like he was.
Li Yu stepped into the shadow of a large warehouse feeling satisfied with his positioning. Then the ground beneath the market square violently erupted. To his immense dismay the brutal fighting on the eastern side of the city was just a loud, albeit bloody distraction. The true forces of the rogue faction were right here breaking out of the city through the western walls.
The thick paving stones of the plaza shattered upward. A colossal armored centipede burst from the subterranean tunnels, its massive scythe limbs tearing through the fleeing crowd like a scythe through dry wheat. Dozens of heavily armed spider and scorpion cultivators poured out of the massive crater and were radiating the oppressive auras of the Soul Transformation and Half King realms.
"Damn my luck." Li Yu cursed under his breath.
He did not hesitate. He activated his Void laws instantly, stepping backward into the deeper shadows just as a squad of elite ant defenders dropped from the high ramparts to intercept the thieves.
What followed was a brutal display of the grim reality of the cultivation world.
When supreme experts clashed, the heavens shook and the earth shattered. The fodder and the bystanders were nothing more than fragile blades of grass caught in a hurricane of blades.
A Half King spider cultivator raised its multiple arms and summoned razor sharp shadow webs. The attack was aimed at a descending ant general. The ant general swung his massive war hammer and deflected the lethal webs with a burst of kinetic crimson Qi.
The deflected shadow webs did not vanish. They scattered outward cutting across the crowded market square.
The dark threads swept through a group of terrified merchants and families huddled near a spice stall. The low level protective amulets they wore shattered instantly. The shadow webs sliced through their bodies with zero resistance. Men, women and children fell into bloody pieces, their screams cut short before they even registered the pain. The ant general did not blink and the spider cultivator did not care.
A centipede rogue spat a globe of highly concentrated green acid at a fortified guard tower. The defenders atop the tower deployed a thick energy shield and redirected the acidic blast.
The globe of melting death splashed heavily onto a crowded residential block adjacent to the market. The brick homes dissolved instantly. The people trapped inside had no time to run. Li Yu heard the horrific agonizing shrieks as the acid burned through roofs, walls and flesh. It quickly turned fifty innocent bystanders into a toxic slurry in a matter of seconds.
The casual nature of the collateral damage was staggering but it was something that occurred all the time.
Two Soul Transformation experts clashed directly over the center of the plaza. Their weapons met and were creating concussive shockwaves. The invisible ripple of force expanded outward hitting the surrounding buildings.
The warehouse Li Yu was hiding behind groaned and exploded outward. The shockwave turned the sturdy building materials into a shrapnel bomb. Thousands of jagged bricks and sharp timber splinters tore through the remaining crowds and shredded low level grunts and fleeing travelers alike.
Li Yu felt the deadly debris rushing toward him and quickly Void Stepped.
He vanished from the alley and appeared fifty feet higher on the intact roof of a nearby armory. He looked down at the slaughter occurring below.
A wealthy beetle merchant tried to bribe a passing scorpion cultivator offering his entire life savings for safe passage. The scorpion did not even slow down. It swung its massive stinger and cleanly decapitated the merchant and crushed his body under its segmented claws as it charged the ant defenders.
A young and hot blooded sword cultivator likely no higher than the Foundation Establishment realm drew his weapon. He roared a battle cry and was trying to act the hero and defend a group of wounded civilians from a rogue spider.
The spider merely glanced at the boy and released a tiny fraction of its oppressive aura. The gravitational weight of the Soul Transformation realm slammed into the young hero. His bones snapped and his internal organs ruptured. He dropped dead onto the paving stones without the spider ever lifting a single finger.
It was a stark brutal reminder of the lessons Malos had taught him. The universe was inherently cruel. Strength was the only truth. If you were weak, your life was forfeit the moment a stronger being decided to fight near you. The being didn’t even know or cared that you were even there. Your death was meaningless to it.
Li Yu watched the massive armored centipede rear back and slam its body against the western outer wall. The thick organic resin cracked under the immense physical force. The rogue faction was seconds away from breaching the perimeter and the ant defenders were unleashing their most devastating attacks to stop them.
The air grew thick with blinding crimson light and corrosive green smoke.
Li Yu tracked the erratic trajectory of the stray blasts. A crescent of red kinetic energy formed by a swinging war hammer missed its target and hurtled directly toward his rooftop.
Li Yu took another Void Step and moved laterally across the rooftops. He wove through the falling debris and the stray arcs of lethal Qi. He was trying to keep his movements precise and defensive. He had no intention of striking back or joining the fray. He just wanted to survive the nonsense.
Above him the battle raged on. The deafening roar of dying beasts, the shattering of organic armor and the endless screams of the collateral victims echoed through the Aegis Bastion.
Li Yu found another area in the city where there wasn’t as much destruction to hide. He sat in the dark and was surrounded by the horrific reality of combat. He waited for the storm of violence to pass. This had reaffirmed that out here in the vast and uncaring cosmos, being an innocent bystander was one of the most dangerous occupations of all.