None the Wiser

The front-line camp, deep in the Endless Mountain Range.

In his quarters, Lu Yuan materialized.

After killing the Heavenly Calamity Cult Apostle, he had visited every other Forbidden Zone on Great Qi Star and hunted down every Saint-grade Aberration Feral Beast he could find. The final count came close to twenty.

It had consumed most of the night.

Beyond the Apostle, he found no other Heavenly Calamity agents.

As a precaution, after clearing the Forbidden Zones he had swept through the cities and surrounding settlements as well, using the Evolution Cube to confirm no further Apostles were hiding in plain sight. Only then did he allow himself to return.

After washing up, Lu Yuan lay back on the bed, his thoughts drifting to the small orb of light that had flickered out from the dying Apostle.

*The green dog before probably had one of those too. That's the only explanation for how the Heavenly Calamity Cult knew to send someone here.*

*But since this one was destroyed before it could transmit anything, I shouldn't need to worry about another Apostle arriving anytime soon.*

Of course, it was also possible the Apostle had been scheduled to check in with the Cult's headquarters at regular intervals — if so, his absence might eventually raise an alarm. But there was nothing to be done about that.

Lu Yuan shook his head slightly. Better to focus on cultivation. *Once I break through to Battle Emperor and evolve all my Transcendent Genes to Divine Grade, even a War God will find me a worthy fight.*

Given the Heavenly Calamity Cult's unsettling methods, War Gods among their ranks wouldn't be surprising — though surely not many.

With that thought, he let the matter go and closed his eyes.

In the camp's command center, Karol sat behind his desk, brow deeply furrowed, working through strategies for weathering the Beast Tide.

A sharp, urgent knock rattled the door.

Karol frowned, rubbed his temple, and said flatly: "Come in."

The door swung open. A Battle Sovereign rushed inside, his face still wearing a look of sheer disbelief.

"Commander! Something's happened — something major!"

Karol's expression shifted. He pushed to his feet. "What is it? Has the Beast Tide accelerated?"

"No, no — it's good news, Commander. The Beast Tide suddenly broke up!"

The man could barely contain his relief.

Karol stared at him.

"...Say that again?"

He wondered if he'd misheard.

"The Beast Tide broke up, Commander."

A beat of silence. Karol's eyes went wide.

"How is that possible? A Beast Tide this massive doesn't just collapse on its own. Commander Xi — are you absolutely certain?"

Commander Xi gave a firm nod. "I wouldn't have come to you if I weren't. I went and saw it myself. A few hours ago the horde suddenly fell into chaos, and then it dissolved entirely."

Karol was still for a moment. Then: "I need to inform the two My Lords immediately. Not a word of this to anyone else — we can't afford rumors until we know what we're dealing with."

"Understood!" Commander Xi straightened, expression grave.

Karol crossed to the small rear courtyard and knocked. A composed voice answered.

"Come in."

He entered to find the doors to the main building already open, Rafael Harold and Li Xinghai stepping out together.

Both had come here because of the simultaneous outbreaks at the Endless Mountain Range and the Ice-Fire Rift Valley. Li Xinghai had traveled to reinforce Rafael, while Si Qi had taken command of the Rift Valley defensive line.

Karol clasped his hands respectfully. "My Lords."

Rafael's brow furrowed slightly, his gaze questioning. "Karol, shouldn't you be drawing up countermeasures? What brings you here?"

Karol hesitated. "That is precisely why I've come, My Lords. According to the Scout Unit's commanding officer... the Beast Tide appears to have dispersed."

Silence.

Both Rafael and Li Xinghai froze, a flash of astonishment crossing their faces.

Li Xinghai's frown deepened. "You said what? Dispersed? That's impossible. This Beast Tide had several Sovereign Grade beasts coordinating behind it — something like that doesn't simply vanish."

"I... couldn't say. I'm just as baffled. That's precisely why I came to you, My Lords. I'll defer to your judgment."

Li Xinghai and Rafael exchanged a long, silent look. Neither could read anything in the other's eyes but uneasy uncertainty.

Finally, Li Xinghai said: "I'll go take a look myself."

Rafael nodded. "Go. Be careful."

Li Xinghai disappeared without another word.

High above the Endless Mountain Range, Li Xinghai kept himself concealed in the pre-dawn sky, studying the scene below.

What he saw left him thoroughly baffled.

The last time he'd come here, the sheer scale of the Beast Tide had set even him — a Battle Emperor — on edge. Yet now the creatures were scattering in every direction, the horde already dissolving into nothing.

And there was something else.

He extended his senses across the surrounding range, a cold unease settling over him. When he'd entered these mountains before, the air had been thick with a sinister, suffocating presence — a force so malevolent it had sent a chill straight through him.

Now, it was simply gone.

"What in the world happened here?"

He pushed deeper into the Endless Mountain Range at full speed, determined to understand.

After a thorough sweep, the verdict was clear: the Beast Tide had fully dissolved, and whatever sinister aura had saturated these peaks had vanished with it — without a trace.

He returned to the rear courtyard still at a loss, his expression vacant.

Rafael and Karol were both waiting. Rafael was the first to speak.

"Well?"

"...The Beast Tide is gone. Truly gone."

Li Xinghai still couldn't piece it together. Had the beasts gathered just for the novelty of it? Swarmed together, then simply wandered off?

A brief silence settled over the three of them.

Then Karol's face broke into a wide, relieved grin. "If the Beast Tide really has broken up, that's the best news we could have gotten. We won't have to lose nearly as many Guard Corps soldiers this way!"

The words snapped both Li Xinghai and Rafael out of their daze.

They nodded in turn. A faint smile crossed Rafael's face. "In that case — go spread the word. The Beast Tide has dispersed."

"Yes, My Lord!"

Karol strode off with barely-concealed excitement.

The courtyard fell quiet again. Li Xinghai and Rafael looked at each other.

Rafael broke the silence first. "Old Li — did you notice anything unusual out there?"

Li Xinghai was quiet for a moment. "That sinister, overwhelming aura I detected on my last sweep — the one we suspected was connected to the Beast Tide — it's gone entirely. If that aura disappeared, it seems likely the two events are connected."

Rafael's frown returned. "If we're talking about multiple powerful Sovereign Grade Aberrations, then who dealt with them? Something like that doesn't vanish without making a sound."

Li Xinghai thought about it, then shook his head slowly. "I genuinely can't figure it out."

Just then, he paused and reached for his communicator.

The screen lit up. Si Qi's stern face appeared, and he spoke without preamble.

"The Beast Tide at the Ice-Fire Rift Valley has dispersed. What's the situation on your end?"

Li Xinghai and Rafael both went rigid at the same moment. They looked at each other in silence.

The following morning, Lu Yuan woke, washed up, and stepped out of his room.

He had barely reached the common area when a knock came at the door. He raised an eyebrow and crossed to open it.

Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu stood in the doorway.

The moment Li Qinghe saw him, her eyes lit up. She stepped inside without ceremony, and Si Tingyu closed the door quietly behind her.

Both women fixed their gaze on him. Li Qinghe spoke first.

"Word is the Beast Tide broke up. Yuan — was that you?"

Lu Yuan blinked. "The Beast Tide broke up?"

Then it clicked. The Beast Tide had almost certainly been driven by those Saint-grade Aberration Feral Beasts. Without their organizing force, ordinary beasts had no reason to hold together — of course the tide would collapse once they were gone.

Si Tingyu caught the flicker of surprise on his face and tilted her head, puzzled. "A'Yuan — are you saying it wasn't you?"

Lu Yuan came back to himself with a small smile. "It was me. I went and killed the Saint-grade Aberration hiding in the Forbidden Zone last night."

Both women went still, eyes snapping wide.

"There really was a Saint-grade Aberration Feral Beast?" Li Qinghe exclaimed.

Si Tingyu's expression turned thoughtful. "But if you killed it... how did none of us feel a thing? There wasn't even a ripple."

"I teleported it far out into space before fighting," Lu Yuan said. "No reason you'd sense anything from that distance."

A beat of silence.

The two women looked at him with a deeply strange expression.

"...Yuan," Li Qinghe muttered, "you're an absolute freak of nature."

Lu Yuan's mouth twitched.

*...Was that actually an insult just now?*

"That means our Beast Tide is over," Si Tingyu said, refocusing. "Should we head out to reinforce the Ice-Fire Rift Valley?"

Lu Yuan smiled. "If I had to guess, the Rift Valley's Beast Tide is already gone too."

Both women startled and looked at him.

They were both sharp enough to catch his meaning at once.

Li Qinghe's expression went strange. "Yuan... was there a Saint-grade Aberration at the Ice-Fire Rift Valley as well?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Not just the Rift Valley. Nearly every Forbidden Zone on Great Qi Star was affected this time. Every single one had a Saint-grade Aberration behind it. I dealt with all of them."

"..."

Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu stood with their mouths slightly open, at a complete loss for words.

Lu Yuan noticed their blank expressions and tilted his head. "What's wrong?"

Li Qinghe swallowed. "...There were close to twenty Forbidden Zones that went active this time. So last night, you — in a single night — killed that many Saint-grade Aberrations?"

And there was the source of the shock. It clicked.

He smiled easily. "To be fair, those Saint-grade Aberrations had only reached that level through Aberration. Their actual combat power was roughly equivalent to someone who's just barely broken through to Saint Grade and inscribed their first Transcendent Gene — comparatively weak. That's why I could move through them so quickly."

Li Qinghe: "..."

Si Tingyu: "..."

*Just barely Saint Grade. Comparatively weak.*

Coming from someone registered as a Battle Sovereign, no less.

Even knowing who he was, both women found the whole thing surreal.

Si Tingyu gave a slow, perfectly earnest nod. "Qinghe is right. A'Yuan, you really are a freak of nature."

Lu Yuan: "???"

Not long after, news of the Beast Tide's dissolution spread through the assembled group.

Elder Yu gathered everyone together. Confusion was written across every face.

They had come to hold the line against a massive Beast Tide — and it had simply stopped. Before they'd done a single thing. There was a bizarre, deflating feeling to it, like charging up for a confrontation that never materialized.

"How does a Beast Tide just suddenly break up like that?" Hart asked, standing beside Lu Yuan, genuinely baffled. He had the look of a man whose understanding of the world had just taken a knock.

"Maybe it was intimidated by how many of us showed up?"

"...Come on. That's not how it works."

"Then what caused it?"

"Who knows?"

Lu Yuan stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe they decided they'd rather live in peace with humanity?"

Hart shot him a flat look. "Lu Yuan, that's a little too optimistic, don't you think? Since when do Feral Beasts want peaceful coexistence with humans?"

"Yeah, that theory really doesn't hold up."

"..."

Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu looked from the earnestly debating crowd to the very man responsible for all of it — joining the speculation with a perfectly straight face — and both rolled their eyes in unison.

Elder Yu chuckled. "Alright, alright. Not only has the Endless Mountain Range's Beast Tide broken up — so has the one at the Ice-Fire Rift Valley. With no tide to face, there's nothing keeping us here. It's time to head back."

The group exchanged glances.

Honestly, this whole deployment had felt less like a military operation and more like a brief tour of the front lines. Embarrassingly uneventful, start to finish.

Still, none of them had any reason to linger. They made their farewells to Karol and the others, boarded Elder Yu's warship, and set off — stopping at the rear lines to collect the Talent Camp students, who were still collectively dazed and hadn't quite caught up with events. Then they set course for the Imperial Capital.

A flash of white light.

Lu Yuan, Si Tingyu, and Li Qinghe emerged together from the Land of Origin's Upper Layer.

The three exchanged a glance, then smiled.

Li Qinghe stretched with a languid, satisfied groan. "Back to training."

"I need to make a trip to White Cloud City first," Lu Yuan said.

Both women looked at him, surprised.

"What for?" Li Qinghe asked, tilting her head.

"To challenge the Sovereign Grade Rankings," he said with a smile. "And I have something to take care of with Tingxue and the others."

When they had returned from the border deployment, Si Tingxue had told him she'd broken through to Battle King Rank, and Rebecca had also been on the verge of her breakthrough. Since their cultivation bases were lower, the Light Gate had reset for them sooner — they'd entered the Land of Origin ahead of him, and by his reckoning, Rebecca had almost certainly broken through by now as well.

The timing worked out perfectly.