Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The golden black wave of spiritual death descended from Saintess Elara’s ornate brass lantern like a falling comet.

It was utterly silent and lacked the concussive roar of fire or the crashing thunder of a tidal wave. Yet, the concentrated malice of the soul attack was so powerful that it caused the physical world to shudder. The air turned freezing cold and the ambient fire Qi of The Eternal Crucible was instantly snuffed out. It was replaced by the suffocating scent of decaying spirits and death.

The defending Sovereigns realized the catastrophic nature of the strike immediately.

Malos felt the cold grip of terror seize his heart. This wasn't a physical blow he could deflect or parry with his son's sword. It was an indiscriminate and city wiping soul purge. As a Demon Lord, he could weather it, though it would wound him. But his children could not. A Core Formation and a Soul Formation soul would be instantly vaporized into nothingness.

Malos abandoned all thoughts of engaging the enemy. He instantly dropped toward the courtyard as he prepared to envelop Lana and Tuwark in his own soul space. Then he fully intended to rip a hole in the void and flee to save their lives.

A hundred yards away, Sovereign Ignis reacted with a mother’s instinct as well. She threw herself downward and wrapped her body around Princess Asha to physically and spiritually shield her daughter from the incoming annihilation.

Sovereign Morven roared and stepped directly over the two of them. The Lord of the Violet Deep thrust his trident upward. This summoned a massive and swirling dome of water to desperately try and buffer the soul attack. They were all bracing for the powerful attack.

But as the Sovereigns went down, Li Yu went up.

Just moments ago while watching the golden black light cascade downward, Li Yu’s mind raced with calculations that usually kept him alive in the chaotic realms. His normal instinct screamed at him to stay hidden. To let the Demon Lords handle it but there was an even greater instinct to flee.

But as the apocalyptic light bathed the terrified faces of everyone here, Li Yu realized he could not simply walk away. He had built a friendship with these people . He had watched Tuwark pour his heart into a sword for his father. He had kept Asha company when she was dying.

He knew these people. He quite liked these people.

And more importantly the type of attack made him reconsider. He knew his own foundation. He was incredibly cautious when it came to physical damage but when it came to the soul, Li Yu possessed an unshakeable arrogance it.

‘A soul attack,’ Li Yu thought as his eyes locked onto the concentrated point of the attack. It was just inches below Elara’s lantern. ‘I have nothing to fear from a soul attack. Please don’t let me be wrong this time.’

Li Yu acted just mere moments after the attack was launched.

BOOM!

Li Yu exploded upward. Lana and Tuwark were thrown off their feet by the sheer backdraft of his launch and were looking up in absolute shock at their friend who was currently tearing through the sky like a dark comet. He was charging up into the attack that promised total annihilation.

Li Yu didn't aim for Elara. He aimed directly for the front of her attack, right before it could fully expand like an umbrella over the capital. He appeared directly beneath that body and placed his body squarely in the path of the strike.

"Brother Li Yu!" Morven roared from below. His pale eyes were widening in horror as he saw the human throw himself into the epicenter of a Sovereign’s ultimate attack.

"Li Yu! No!" Malos screamed at him, having just reached the courtyard. Malos watched the only friend he had made in centuries sacrifice himself to block the unblockable. Even if he took an attack like that, there was no way he alone would be enough to stop it. It would easily just go right through him after destroying him. That’s what everyone thought all at once.

The golden black attack collided with Li Yu’s chest. For a fraction of a second the sky strobed with blinding, negative light. The attack of spiritual death didn't bypass Li Yu. Like water funneled into a bottomless drain, the entirety of the apocalyptic soul attack slammed directly into Li Yu’s body, much to everyone’s surprise.

The sheer concussive force of the spiritual impact was deafening. The golden black energy wrapped around Li Yu and was violently attempting to rip his soul from his flesh. To incinerate his memories and to grind his consciousness into dust. And then, he fell.

Blasted by the incredible kinetic force of the impact, Li Yu’s body was violently hurled backward. He plummeted from the sky like a broken doll and his aura completely vanished. His life force became entirely undetectable.

He crashed into the grand plaza of the inner palace with the force of a meteor. A massive crater of shattered ironstone and dust exploded outward as it buried his unmoving body in debris. Malos and Morven were still in place to protect their loved ones to go and catch Li Yu. They had not expected him to be able to stop the entire attack and were still protecting their families.

High above, Saintess Elara staggered backward and her immaculate white robes fluttering violently. The ornate brass lantern in her hand was completely dark with its ancient power thoroughly spent. She gasped for air with her face pale and her hands trembling. Channeling that attack had cost her half of her total Qi and placed a massive and agonizing strain on her own soul. It was her trump card for the battle. The strike was meant to cripple three Demon Lords and slaughter millions. Yet, it hadn't touched the city. Elara stared down at the crater in the grand plaza and her composed expression of compassion replaced by utter shock.

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"What... what was that?" Elara breathed as her mind struggled to comprehend what had just occurred. "Who was that? How did he stop my attack? No one could stop that attack."

Lord Jareth gripped his greatsword and his feral eyes narrowed as he peered through the swirling dust. "Just a human boy. He possessed a Divine Transformation foundation but he was a fool. He took the full brunt of the attack. He is dead. But... he somehow absorbed the blast."

It made absolutely no sense to all of the Sovereigns present. A soul attack of that magnitude should have simply passed through the boy and continued its descent. It should have vaporized him along with everyone else. But the boy had somehow taken the entire payload into himself and died in the process.

Down in the courtyard, Malos stood frozen with his hands trembling as he stared toward the distant crater. A cold and hollow grief settled into his chest. Li Yu, the blind spot that had given him peace, had thrown away his life to save Lana and Tuwark. To save everyone here.

"Li Yu..." Lana whispered while covering her mouth with her hands. But deep within the rubble of the grand plaza, Li Yu was not dead. He wasn't even injured. He lay perfectly still at the bottom of the crater and had suppressed his breathing and completely withdrawn his aura. He was flawlessly playing the part of a corpse. Using his understanding into the Laws of Life to mask off his lifeforce.

Back when he had taken the soul attack, within the depths of his inner self and high above his Ocean of Qi, the golden black energy of Elara's city wiping attack roared like a trapped hurricane. It thrashed and burned and was attempting to lay waste to his spiritual foundation.

But it couldn't.

Sitting casually on the island he was always on was the old Fisherman. The Fisherman adjusted his straw hat and looked up at the apocalyptic storm of golden black light. The Fisherman raised a single calloused hand.

He didn't use a grand technique. He simply made a gathering motion.

The terrifying soul attack, an attack that had cost one of the Human Pillars half her power, was instantly and effortlessly compressed. The raging hurricane of spiritual death was squeezed, condensed and neutralized in the blink of an eye. The Fisherman formed it into a perfectly smooth, floating orb of dark golden energy.

The Fisherman lazily twirled a finger and the orb floated down and was now resting quietly above Li Yu's Ocean of Qi like a new moon.

“Well,” Li Yu thought internally and perfectly comfortable in his crater. “That pretty much confirms it. When it comes to the soul, I am entirely untouchable.’

He remained unmoving with his eyes closed. He was playing dead for a calculated reason. He was buying time. He had contacted Thorne, but he still didn't know if the old farmer was truly an ally or if he was secretly in league with Elara and Jareth. If Thorne arrived and stood alongside the invaders, the odds would be three against five.

In that scenario, Li Yu would remain "dead" until the fighting moved away and then he would quietly slip away. There was bravery and then there was suicide. He didn’t want to die a pointless death. He was waiting to see where the pieces fell. He didn't have to wait long.

As Elara, Jareth, Terris, and Corva recovered from the shock of the intercepted attack, the space a hundred yards behind them violently tore open. The sky was literally ripped apart by a pair of bare and weathered hands.

An old man stepped out of the chaotic void. He wore rough, stained linen robes and a simple straw hat. He looked exactly like a mortal farmer who had spent his entire life toiling in the dirt. He possessed no aura. Thorne had arrived.

Behind the old farmer, several figures stepped out of the rift. They were Thorne's personal disciples. Individuals he had managed to gather in his frantic rush to the demon capital. They radiated immense power as well and their faces set in grim determination.

Thorne ignored the defending Demon Lords. He ignored the panicked city below. His hollow, void-like gaze locked entirely onto Saintess Elara and Lord Jareth.

"Elara. Jareth," Thorne spoke. His voice wasn't loud but it resonated perfectly in the minds of everyone present. It carried the crushing weight of centuries of shared history and absolute heartbreak. "Tell me this is an illusion. Tell me you have not abandoned us."

Jareth hoisted his massive greatsword and was stepping slightly in front of Beast King Corva. "It is no illusion, Thorne. Open your eyes. The humanity we fought for is a lie we sold ourselves so we could sleep at night. We are taking our own sunrise."

Elara, leaning heavily on Sovereign Terris as she tried to recover from her massive Qi drain, looked at her oldest companion. "Go back to your fields, Thorne. This world is changing. You cannot stop the turning of the era."

Thorne slowly reached up and removed his straw hat and let it fall away into the wind. The void around him expanded. It turned the sky a deep and starless black.

"I have pulled weeds from the earth for a long time, Elara," Thorne whispered as his sorrow gave way to a terrifying fury. "It seems I missed the most poisonous ones growing right beside me."

Down below, the failure of the soul attack had given the city the precious seconds it needed to react.

Because Li Yu had absorbed the strike, the command structure of The Eternal Crucible was entirely intact. The deafening blare of war horns echoed from every district. General Karr of the Ash Guards shot into the sky with his heavily scarred face twisted in absolute rage. He was leading thousands of heavily armored elite troops.

From the guest pavilions, Admiral Vark of the Violet Deep led his own terrifying contingent of abyssal commanders. Their shark-like teeth bared as they too prepared for the battle to come. They wouldn’t be facing the Sovereigns but the army that they had brought.

More war horns echoed from the horizon. The border guards were already marching back and their numbers swelling the ranks of the defenders by the tens of thousands.

Sovereign Ignis slowly rose from her daughter. Seeing that Asha was entirely unharmed, the mother’s protective instinct was instantly replaced by the Sovereign’s apocalyptic wrath. Her flames didn't just burn; they turned the sky into hell fire.

Sovereign Morven gripped his trident and his massive muscles bulged as the acidic tide around him roared. He looked toward the crater where his sworn brother had fallen. His fanged teeth grinding together with lethal intent.

Malos floated upward and abandoned his disguise entirely. Tuwark’s sword rested in his hand and was wrapped in a layer of his own Sovereign Qi once again. His black eyes were fixed entirely on the Demon Lord Terris.

Tuwark wanted to go check on Li Yu but was pulled away by Lana and Ashe. They had been told to head to the palace right away. The safest place in the city and hide there. No one believed that he could have survived that attack.

Three defending Demon Lords and one furious but sad Human Pillar. They were facing off against two betrayors, a Beast King and a rival Demon Lord.

The grandest wedding in years had been canceled. The all out war had begun.