Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The physical world melted away as Li Yu slipped into a deep meditation that transitioned seamlessly into sleep. His second mind detached and drifted upward through the infinite dark until it breached the surface of the grey void. The River of Souls stretched out before him endless and silent. The grey mist hung thick over the water obscuring the horizon.

Li Yu stood on the surface feeling completely unburdened. The Fisherman soul floated quietly beside him acting as an absolute shield against the crushing pressure of this dimension. Many cultivators would have their minds shattered just taking a single step where he was along the river but Li Yu simply walked forward.

He had been searching this section of the river every time he entered it. Since that chance encounter with the towering old man in white and black armor he had walked in circles hoping the mist would part again. He wanted answers. He wanted to know who that figure was.

Today the mist finally yielded.

A localized pressure warped the grey fog ahead. The water churned violently as a massive figure forced his way through the currents. It was him. The old man with the wild white mane and the armor that seemed to absorb the scant light.

Li Yu felt a surge of excitement and quickly walked toward the struggling figure. The old man looked up and his eyes widened with joy. Those burning eyes softened immediately.

The old man tried to speak but the silent laws of the river swallowed the words. He then reached into his robes with trembling hands. He pulled out a glowing sphere. It radiated an incredibly pure and terrifying energy. It looked like the core of some legendary cosmic beast. The old man held it out toward Li Yu with a desperate and eager expression. He wanted to give it to him.

Li Yu reached out to take it. As his fingers closed around the glowing core his hand simply passed through it like smoke. The River of Souls was a domain of spiritual laws and understanding. Physical objects and treasures could not cross the boundaries between their respective physical locations.

The old man looked at his own hand holding the core and a look of heartbreak washed over his face. The old man knew he couldn’t give it to him but he had hoped that it would somehow work. He put the core away. He looked at Li Yu and the fierce warlord seemed sad.

He stepped forward while ignoring the violent currents of the river. He opened his massive arms and tried to wrap them around Li Yu in a tight embrace.

Li Yu stood still and accepted the gesture. He didn’t know the man but something inside him felt like it did. But there was no warmth. There was no physical contact. The old man’s armored form passed completely through Li Yu. They existed in two entirely different corners of the universe connected only by a fragile spiritual tether.

The old man turned around to look at Li Yu. His eyes were shining with unshed tears. The fierce pride was replaced by a crushing sorrow. He opened his mouth to say something silent and then the connection violently shattered. The mist rushed back in and the old man was gone. Li Yu stood alone on the grey water feeling a strange hollow ache in his chest.

Countless realms away the air smelled of endless slaughter and destruction. Within a command tent made of the hide of an Emperor Dragon, Zhan Tian sat perfectly still.

The Worldkeeper of the Ethereal Horizon lowered his arms. The command tent was quiet, save for the distant unending roars of horrors beyond the perimeter. Zhan Tian looked down at his empty hands. He had been harvesting cores of unbelievably strong beasts specifically for his grandson. He had refined some and purified them. He was just waiting for the chance to pass it on.

But he could not. He could not even hold the boy.

Zhan Tian sank heavily into his chair. A loneliness crept into his bones. It was a feeling he had not allowed himself to experience but it came back once again after seeing the boy again. He thought of his daughter. He remembered the day he left his clan to fight this endless crusade. He had promised to return. He promised to see her grow and to guide the family.

"I am doing my best," Zhan Tian whispered to the empty tent. "I am holding the darkness back. I hope you and the boy are doing well. I hope you can forgive this old fool."

He rubbed his weary eyes. He was a shield for the realms but right now he just felt like a failed father. The heavy hide flap of the tent was violently thrown open once again. A general clad in golden armor rushed inside covered in fresh steaming blood.

"Lord Zhan!" The general shouted while falling to one knee. "The perimeter has been breached in the South! A massive coalition has erupted from the third void rift! Ancient Dragons and Void Chimeras are leading the charge! They are burning the outer trenches!"

Zhan Tian sat silently for a moment. The crushing sorrow in his chest needed an outlet. The grief of being entirely absent from his family's life began to curdle and twist into a terrifying apocalyptic rage.

He stood up. The ambient pressure inside the tent skyrocketed instantly, pulverizing the heavy iron table in front of him into fine dust. The general on his knee grimaced.

‘Not again, he keeps destroying desks lately. I am the one that has to get him a new one too…’ The general thought but would never dare say it out loud.

Zhan Tian reached out and grasped the shaft of his massive halberd. The weapon hummed with thirsty anticipation.

"Ancient Dragons?" Zhan Tian growled. His voice vibrated with lethal intent. "Their marrow is perfect for tempering the bones. And Void Chimeras possess bloodlines that can strengthen meridians."

The golden armored general looked up in confusion. "My Lord? They are slaughtering the vanguard!"

"Then we shall slaughter them in return!" Zhan Tian roared as his aura exploded outward and tore the roof of the command tent completely off. He shot into the blackened sky like a white comet of absolute destruction. He was once again on the hunt for materials for his grandson.

‘Not the roof too!’ The general groaned internally at the sight.

Below him a sea of monstrous dragons with scales the size of houses were breathing destruction upon his troops. Zhan Tian did not see an overwhelming enemy force. He saw a mountain of resources that his grandson desperately needed.

"You dare interrupt my grief?!" Zhan Tian bellowed as his voice echoed across the battlefield and terrified the approaching dragons. He swung his halberd downward releasing a wave of pure obliterating force that cleaved the foremost dragon perfectly in half. "You are all nothing but inheritance gifts!"

‘This is the second time the WorldKeeper is talking about that. Has he gone insane?’ Many of his troops thought but would never dare say it out loud.

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The despair vanished from the battlefield and was replaced by the terrifying infectious wrath of the Worldkeeper.

Li Yu woke up in his quiet pavilion within The Eternal Crucible. The morning sun was just beginning to filter through the windows. He sat up and rubbed his face. The hollow ache from the river still lingered in his chest.

He wondered who that old man was. The sorrow on the man's face when they could not embrace was too genuine and too raw to belong to a stranger. Li Yu left his room and found Malos sitting in the main courtyard. The ancient Demon Lord was sipping tea and reviewing a jade slip filled with merchant ledgers.

"Malos." Li Yu said while taking a seat opposite him. "I have a question regarding the River of Souls."

Malos lowered the jade slip and raised an eyebrow. "An esoteric topic this early in the morning. I am surprised you can even walk upon that river Li Yu. It is arguably one of the hardest Rivers of Law to comprehend. Making even the slightest progress there is extremely tough. I myself cannot even step foot into that specific river."

"I have a unique advantage there," Li Yu replied vaguely. "But I need to know about the people you can meet on it. I ran into someone. An old man in white and black armor. He tried to give me something and tried to embrace me but we just passed through each other."

Malos leaned forward and his cheerful demeanor shifted to a serious analytical focus. "You met someone? That is incredibly rare. I have never met anyone on the rivers I walk but I have read the ancient texts. The River of Souls is vast beyond comprehension, all Law Rivers are. The chances of randomly bumping into another spiritual projection are effectively zero. Not because it is big but because everyone is isolated on their own path."

Malos tapped his chin thoughtfully. "The legends say that the river bends space and time around deep karmic threads or random fate. You can only meet the spiritual self of someone you share a connection with. A connection forged by fate, karma or blood."

"Perhaps the old man is family?" Malos suggested gently.

Li Yu frowned and shook his head. "My parents are dead. They passed away a long time ago. I do not have any surviving family that I know of. My lineage was quite ordinary."

"This realm hides many truths, Li Yu." Malos said while pouring him a cup of tea. "Your foundation is anything but ordinary. However, that is only a possibility. Blood calls to blood on. Keep an open mind. Or it could be nothing as well, many times ancient texts are wrong."

Li Yu took the tea and nodded. He decided to file the information away for now. He had an empire of martial knowledge waiting for him outside these walls.

Instead of sparring in the arena the generals and commanders had agreed to a different approach. Since the disparity in cultivation levels made physical combat a one sided beating, they decided to teach him directly through demonstrations and lectures.

Li Yu stood in the center of the training grounds. Sovereign Ignis and Sovereign Morven watched from the elevated balcony ensuring their elites imparted their knowledge thoroughly. They added in additional information as needed. They were really going out of their way to help Li Yu.

Commander Rael stepped forward first. She did not draw her hooked blades. Instead she held out her hand and summoned a small concentrated sphere of fire.

"Watch the core," Rael instructed. "Fire is not born from nothing. It requires a catalyst and it requires fuel. But the expansion of the explosive force that grants me speed comes from the sudden violent consumption of that fuel."

She allowed the fire to expand rapidly but slowed the process down using her control. Li Yu watched with his spiritual sense. He observed the exact moment the Qi destabilized and pushed outward. He realized he could apply this same destabilization to his Void Step. Rael went on with a few more of her own understandings. Ignis added in a few words as well. Allowing Rael to gain further insights herself.

Commander Vaneer stepped up next. He summoned a floating stream of water.

"The tide does not strike and pull back." Vaneer rumbled. "It pushes constantly. When you face an obstacle you do not shatter yourself against it. You flow around it and apply pressure until the foundation rots away."

Li Yu nodded while watching the water erode. He thought about his Laws of Destruction. He usually applied them as a direct force. But if he adopted the philosophy of the tide he could create a lingering aura of destruction that constantly chipped away at an opponent's defenses without requiring active explosive bursts of Qi.

General Karr demonstrated the denial of Ash. He created a small zone of grey fog and explained how to manipulate the density of the particles to aggressively snuff out ambient energy.

"Ash is the end of all things" Karr said while his remaining eye burned with intensity. "You must embrace the concept of finality. When you apply your devouring arts do not just eat the Qi. Eat the potential of the space itself."

Admiral Vark showed him the precise structural weaving required to create the water spheres. He broke down the resonance of the water laws, proving that absolute pressure was achieved through perfect structural integrity rather than just pushing hard.

Finally General Tankard explained the mechanics of kinetic tracking.

"You cannot just throw a mountain and hope it hits," Tankard laughed. He manifested a small molten rock and made it orbit his hand. "You must tether your law to the enemy. I lock onto the life force because it is the brightest beacon. But you can tether your attacks to their killing intent, their spiritual signature or even their fear."

After Tankard finished his explanation Li Yu stood up. He wanted to test the theories immediately. He looked at Tankard and asked him to release a small burst of killing intent. Tankard grinned and flared his aura slightly projecting a thin sliver of hostility.

Li Yu summoned a single Abyssal Javelin. Instead of just throwing it he focused on the concept of the tether. He reached out with his spiritual sense and tried to lock the javelin onto that specific sliver of killing intent. It was incredibly difficult. The connection kept slipping like trying to tie a knot with wet silk.

He remembered Vark's lesson on structural integrity. He adjusted the density of the javelin and made it perfectly uniform. Then he remembered Rael's lesson on explosive consumption. He gave the javelin a tiny catalyst of Void Qi.

Li Yu released the javelin. He intentionally threw it in the completely wrong direction aiming at the empty stands. The javelin violently curved in mid air. It snapped toward Tankard following the invisible line of killing intent. Tankard moved to many different areas but the javelin followed him. Finally he raised his hand and easily caught the javelin before it could strike his chest.

"Not bad for a first try!" Tankard boomed with laughter. "You learn frighteningly fast, human."

Li Yu bowed respectfully. He knew it was crude and required much more refinement but the foundation was there. He now possessed the theoretical knowledge to make his artillery strikes track their targets more accurately. Perhaps he could launch them from even further away now.

He then turned his attention to Karr's lesson on Ash and denial. Li Yu walked over to a training dummy forged from deep earth iron. He activated his Devouring Abyssal Leviathan Physique but instead of just absorbing ambient energy he focused on eating the potential of the space around the dummy. Using his Void laws together with his Koi martial spirit as well.

He created a small localized vacuum of pure emptiness. When he struck the dummy with his staff the impact did not ring out loudly. The sound and the kinetic backlash were instantly swallowed by the dead space. The iron dummy caved inward silently.

Karr nodded from the sidelines. "You understand. Silence is the true marker of absolute destruction. Not only can you be sneaky, your attacks are even stronger."

Li Yu spent the next several hours practicing these new applications. He blended Vaneer's continuous erosion with his Laws of Destruction creating an aura that slowly dissolved the stone tiles beneath his feet just by standing there. He practiced Rael's explosive expansion to increase the initial burst speed of his Void Step making his movements faster.

The generals and commanders watched with growing astonishment. They were passing on centuries of refined martial arts and this young wanderer was adapting them into his own foundation in a matter of hours. He didn’t master it but they could see the seeds starting to form. A bud of pride swelled without their own hearts. He was like a mini disciple to them now, carrying on their legacy in a way.

Ignis and Morven observed from the balcony.

"He is a monster." Morven murmured quietly so only his wife could hear. "If he ever reaches our realm everyone else will have to bow."

Ignis watched Li Yu silently shatter another training dummy. "Then it is a very good thing he is your sworn brother."

As the sun began to set and was casting long shadows across the training grounds Li Yu finally stopped. He was drenched in sweat and his Qi reserves were nearly empty but his eyes shone with sharp clarity. He had taken the combined wisdom of these generals and commanders and was starting to make them his own. It helped fill the void that he was feeling in his own heart.