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Scorched earth and demon hordes rose up to meet me as I slammed on the brakes with a burst of [Lightning Walk] right before slamming into the ground itself. My body exploded with a shower of earth and lightning, taking out at least a dozen demons as I landed in a superhero pose.

As I rose from my crouched position, a sea of lemonade greeted me as the remainder of Onyx company turned to stare at me. There had to be over five hundred soldiers still pressing against the hordes and when they saw me, I could feel their elation grow.

I cultivated their awe and redirected it back towards them with a rally cry. “Onyx Company! Fall back and make a perimeter around the meteor. We’ll clear out everything here and then deal with the Thrantor!”

My words boomed across the chaos of the battlefield, supercharged with Frenzy and [Struggler’s Resolve]. The technique resonated within their souls, bolstering them with confidence. Immediately the platoon commanders began echoing my order to reorganize their men just as my own teamed slammed into the ground behind me.

“Hard press towards the meteor!” I commanded, pointing my axe to the building sized boulder that was a couple football fields away. “Kill everything on the way there!”

I let out a battle cry as I led the charge, Axe and Glaive tearing through the stray demons with ease as I poured on the speed. The demons themselves now paused to take note of us as we tore through their ranks, exuding nothing but fear. They were red skinned and humanoid, with horns, wings and claws. The normal variety as far as I could tell and although they fought back, I didn’t even try to evade their attacks as their claws bounced off my naturally hardened skin as ineffectively as if I had been using [Steel Skin].

Holy shit, I thought reflectively. Was I this much stronger now?

This was the first time I had fought ‘normal’ demons after training on the Heavy World at Du Gok Bhong and then ascending to the Sacred Soul Realm. I knew I had grown in strength and power, but all I had to test it out against were things far more powerful than what I had left behind on Earth.

But now I could see how much I’d grown compared to ‘normal’ monsters again.

It was like returning to the tutorial zone after beating the damn final boss.

I was powerful as shit!

The thought boosted my confidence as I went all out, cleaving through whole swarms of demons with heavy swings of my [Frenzied Lightning] charged Axe and Glaive. My men did just as much damage as they followed in my wake, spreading outwards to pick off stray demons as the troops from Onyx platoon turned their backs to defend us from the outside while we cleared everything within.

I was getting so caught up, I nearly forgot the main attraction.

The Thrantor.

The giant monster was bellowing in the distance, taking swipes at what I could only imagine were a few stray platoons caught up closer to the giant meteor. I spent a few more precious minutes clearing out more stray swarms of demons in the area before setting sights on our main target.

There was still a sea of chaos between us and it.

More patches of demons mixed with splintered platoons of infantryman.

I couldn’t go all out like before.

Doing that would kill just as many soldiers as demons.

“New orders,” I shouted to my team. “Save as many of these infantrymen as we can before heading to the Thrantor. Let’s get to it! Steady advance!”

We progressed forward, but more slowly now. I jumped from swarm to swarm, taking out small handfuls of demons to liberate the one or two soldiers who were being pinned down and overwhelmed. To my surprise, once we had done so, they didn’t immediately run for the perimeter to join with the other platoons. Instead, they ran back into the fray.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” I stopped one of them, a woman—I realized—who was clean-head shaven like the rest of the troops. But she looked older than most and also wore a set of gold ribbons on her robes that denoted her rank as a sergeant. “You and your men can fall back now, sergeant. We’ve got it from here.”

Lemonade and fear spiked within her as she stared up at me and then she fell to one knee, bowing her head in deep respect.

“M-master Legionnaire Commander,” she stammered as she spoke. “I apologize, but the last order from our platoon commander was to retrieve the dead.”

“What?” I said.

And then I saw what was really going on.

The handful of soldiers here were all part of the same platoon. But they weren’t fighting to protect themselves. They were fighting to bring their fallen comrades home from the battlefield.

I took a step back within my own mind.

This wasn’t the selfish cultivator mindset I was accustomed to.

It was a reminder that these people were the same that I had met at the Golden Spire with old Iron Pot Wong. They were a brotherhood, not constant competitors like cultivation sect members. No way were they going to leave their own behind.

Dead or alive.

I couldn’t help but produce a bit of lemonade of my own for their sacrifice and nobility.

I nodded to her. “I understand, Sergeant. Carry on then, we’ll shield you as best we can while you carry out your work.”

“Thank you, master commander,” she said and then she paused. “But I would humbly request you not waste your skills and abilities on protecting us. Please, if you must save anyone. Save our commander, Battalion 2nd Spear and 1st Lieutenant of 7th Platoon.”

I raised a brow at her.

She then pointed towards the Thrantor. “He set out to distract the beast so we could retrieve the bodies. Please. He is a skilled cultivator, but I fear no true match for the creature alone. He will be killed eventually. He may be close to being killed already.”

I studied the giant beast, still thrashing around as if trying to catch a fly.

Was there truly only one cultivator keeping that thing’s attention?

I looked back to the sergeant who was now on both knees.

“Please save our, lieutenant,” she said. “If you can. He’s a good kid.”

I nodded to her. “Consider it done.”

I left the sergeant and pressed the team forward with a new sense of urgency. Anyone who would be willing to sacrifice themselves just so their lost comrades could make it back home was worthy of a save in my boo—.

Wha-boom!

My thoughts left me, as the world exploded in a shower of earth and fire. I went flying end over end, crashing into the backs of a couple of stray demons and killing them instantly in the process. I was more surprised than hurt, wondering what the hell just happened.

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I flipped back onto my feet, surveying the area.

A thirty-foot-wide crater burning with fire now stood where I had just been.

No…I thought with sudden apprehension.

Where I and the sergeant had just been.

“Sergeant!” I cried out as I scanned about looking for her. My heart jumped as I spotted her uniform in the distance, now a good fifty feet away. I sped to her with [Lightning walk] kicking off the air as I bounded over burning shrapnel and demon corpses.

When I landed next to her, my stomach lurched.

Her eyes were wide open, glassy and fixed, and half her bald head was now missing, as were both her legs. I’d experienced death before. Hell, even my own, but somehow, seeing the woman now dead after speaking to her only seconds ago, caused a pain that went to the root of my Dao.

Shit… I thought, looking down at her. I didn’t even know her name.

But I knew enough about her to care that she was now gone.

She’d lost her life trying to bring her men home.

And more than that, she cared enough about her lieutenant to ask me to try and save him as well. Another explosion went off about fifty feet away, throwing bodies and debris everywhere. As I shielded my eyes from it, I scanned about trying to find what the hell was causing it.

“There!” Ten Chui cried, now hovering a good twenty feet in the air above us for a better view. “Giants!”

I looked North-East to where he was pointing and spotted three towering figures atop the ridge of the larger impact crater. They were red skinned demons but several stories tall, give or take, given the distance we were from then. One of them lobbed something in the air and it sailed like a missile before exploding in a ball of fire half a football field away.

“They got damn artillery?” Ju Sui said next to me with a grimace. “Bloody smart demons this time.”

“New orders commanders?” Ten Chui asked. “Those bombs will wipe out what’s left of the infantry platoons with how fast they are tossing them.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Already another one of the giants had picked up what looked like a flaming kettle bell and was spinning it like a hammer throw. I looked down at the dead sergeant, rage and violence filling my heart. My Flame roared with it.

It would take the platoon far too long to get to them.

“Ten Chui,” I called to him. “Assume command and follow through with the last order. Target is the Thrantor. Save as many as you can along the way.”

“But the giants.”

“I’ll deal with them,” I said as I rose off the ground with [Lightning Walk].

We couldn’t all get there as a platoon in time, but I could as a Sacred Soul Realm Cultivator with [Ride the Lightning]!

As I cycled the technique internally, my skin exploded with lightning, shooting me into the sky. I flew like a rocket as I corkscrewed through the air, angling slightly to intercept the latest bomb being thrown by the giants.

The world exploded in fire as I tore through one of them, bursting it out of the sky.

I then went for another, protecting my men and what was left of Onyx battalion from their assault as I closed in on the lobbers’ position. I zigzagged like an out-of-control firecracker, blasting the projectiles apart without even a fragment touching my skin.

When I finally got close enough to see the giants up close, I could see they were indeed at least three stories tall. Bald-headed and covered in scars, they were chained to a large wagon, that looked filled with whatever the hell they were throwing at us. Clay pots filled with something explosive, it looked like.

A group of normal-sized demons were whipping the hell out of them, striking the giants on the back of their legs with long flails. They grunted and roared like pack animals and began grabbing for the pots even faster.

No you don’t, I thought. It’s karma time, bitches!

I angled towards them, aiming straight for the wagon as I applied [Steel Lightning] and [Steel Skin].

I struck like a literal lightning bolt, setting the entire cache of explosives off with a massive ka-thoom! Flames, shrapnel and debris flew everywhere as a new crater formed around me. I felt nothing as it went off, the damage unable to penetrate my duel defensive techniques, now jacked up to 11 in just my normal state.

When the smoke cleared, two of the giants lay dead along with their slave master brethren. The last demon, which looked to have been shielded by the other two was stomping about in a circle holding its ears. I nearly felt sorry for it.

Nearly…

The anger of losing the sergeant returned to my heart and caused my Flame to roar.

“Back to hell with all of you bastards!” I cried as I launched in to finish it off.

To my surprise, the giant reacted with a startled swipe of its hand.

I avoided it at just the last second, but didn’t see the length of chain still attached to its wrist. Rusted metal links the size something you’d anchor a cruise ship with, belted me out of the sky and slammed me into the ground.

This time I actually felt it and realized the monster had more than just brute strength behind its massive size. It wasn’t as strong as on a Bloodmoon world, but I could sense a core of Dark Frenzy churning within it.

The giant lashed out savagely, whipping the chains on top of me with a speed and violence that caused the very ground to liquify. I braced myself with my weapons, sparks flying as the chains bounced off of them, but the force penetrated straight through to me.

I gritted my teeth as I absorbed it all, grunting with a hard grimace of [Indifference].

Eventually the giant tired itself out and stepped back breathing heavily, dragging the chains with it. Clearly it must have thought it had killed me, because when I pushed myself out of the ground, the monster let out a surprised roar and stumbled back even further.

“That’s right, asshole,” I said as I readied my Axe and Glaive. “It’s [My Turn] now!”

I sprinted at it with [Lightning Walk] as I activated my retaliatory technique, pulling my weapons back for a [Frenzied Lightning] charged strike. The giant, now spent, could all but succumb to its fate as I cut through its hardened skin with the incredible force of my duel bladed attack.

“[Lightning Splits the Towering Oak]!”

I cleaved through the giant from head to heel and a few seconds later, the massive body of the demon fell apart in two halves, sundering to the ground with a massive thoom! I cultivated the [Bloodlust] trigger by my kill and said a small prayer for the sergeant.

It wasn’t much, but at least I had granted her revenge.

But I still had her other promise to keep.

If I could make it in time.

I looked for the Thrantor and saw it still in the same spot, close to the meteorite.

But it wasn’t hopping around anymore.

Shit… I thought.

Was I already too late?

Had it killed the commander?

The thought spurred me on and I jumped back into the sky with [Ride the Lightning] again. As I flew across the battlefield, I got a sense of the true scale of the engagement. Thousands were dead. Demons and humans both.

The massive meteorite loomed ahead of me, growing larger as I closed in with the speed of a jet fighter. Its true size became evident, towering at least twenty stories and the Thrantor that had emerged from it, perhaps just under half that height.

Holy crap, I thought.

This would be the biggest monster I had fought yet.

The wings on its back looked perhaps half formed and at least triple the size of when I had seen them before. But what truly shocked me was the Dark Frenzy palpable in the air. Again, not as strong as a full on Bloodmoon, but definitely enough to mutate anything the giant rock had come into contact with.

I tried to look for the cultivator lieutenant the sergeant had spoken of, but didn’t see anyone flying around it. The monster’s back was to me and it seemed focused on searching for something, looking from the ground and to the air and then back again.

I spotted a small cluster of infantrymen hightailing it away from the monster, carrying several stretchers of bodies with them. I flew downwards and stopped myself in midair above them with a blast of thunder.

Fear jumped into their souls as they looked up in fright, but then it quickly converted into lemonade once they realized who I was. They all bowed deeply.

“Master Legionnaire commander!” one of them said, out of breath. “Thank the heavens it is you.”

“Where is your commander?” I said. “Is he still alive?”

“Which one?” another one asked.

At first I thought he was simply being an idiot, and perhaps he was, but I guess from where he was in the chain of command there were perhaps half a dozen commanders above his rank.

“The one distracting the Thrantor,” I said with as little sarcasm as possible. I then recalled the title the sergeant had given him. “Battalion 2nd Spear, 1st Lieutenant of 7th Platoon.”

“Ah! The lieutenant lives still!” the same soldier answered. “He has the beast befuddled at the moment. But it won’t last long. He’s given us our last chance to escape.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m here to save him.”

I pushed ahead and towards the Thrantor, coming level with its massive head. It was still distracted, looking at the ground as if waiting to pounce. A low growl rumbled from it, deep and powerful like a volcano about to erupt.

The Dark Frenzy coming from within it was strong enough to make my Flame flicker.

If that giant was strong, then this thing was going to be off the charts.

I looked back for my team and saw them still making their way to me.

A sudden movement caught my eye and I saw a figure emerge from thin air.

He was a common looking soldier, like any other, but I could see from his uniform the pips and insignia that designated him as a lieutenant. The Thrantor immediately roared, finally spotting what it’d been waiting for. The lieutenant caught sight of me and when our eyes met, I caught a sudden mixture of fear and anger, come from inside him.

What the hell?

I then realized it was the same guy I had seen from before at the drill competition.

He disappeared then, flashing out of existence to avoid a paw strike from the lion like beast. He then reappeared with two jian blades floating at his sides. Luminescent beams of Qi burst from his palms as he went through a series of techniques to keep the creature’s massive jaws at bay.

I recognized the techniques immediately.

The patterns and forms.

The flying jian blades.

Nah, I thought, rejecting the idea immediately.

But then the lieutenant cried out with an annunciated technique.

“[Third Heaven, Double Sword Strike]!”

My heart leapt at the voice.

I’d know it anywhere.

The face now clicked as well, sans the long hair.

But I still couldn’t believe it.

As I watched the lieutenant face off against the beast there was no doubt in my mind as to who he was, yet still it didn’t make sense.

“Hein?”