Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Malos and the three soaking wet generals carried the unconscious Li Yu away from the crashing waves. They walked back up the steep coastal cliffs and entered the border town. The citizens were awake and going about their business.

They completely ignored the powerful cultivators and focused on their market stalls after the strange slumber. The generals rented the finest suite in the largest inn available. They carefully placed the young human on a massive soft bed and set up a defensive array around the room to ensure he would not be disturbed.

A few hours later, Li Yu slowly regained consciousness. The soft light of the afternoon sun filtered through the wooden shutters and illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air. He sat up slowly and immediately checked his physical condition. He circulated his Qi through his meridians expecting to find lingering poisons or shattered pathways from the bizarre abduction.

Instead, he found nothing but a vibrant and calm foundation. He was completely uninjured. He actually felt incredibly well rested, like he had just slept for a decade in a sanctuary of pure energy. The slumber brought on by the ancient clam had acted like a supreme tier restorative pill. He rubbed his face and wondered what exactly had happened after he passed out on those pale blue jade stones. He remembered the overwhelming absolute drowsiness but nothing else.

He closed his eyes and sent his consciousness inward to inspect his soul space. He bypassed his physical meridians and manifested his spiritual avatar above his vast Ocean of Qi. The waters were calm and endless stretching out toward a horizon that only existed in his mind.

He floated downward toward the island where the Fisherman Soul was usually at.

The Fisherman was sitting on his usual wooden seat by the edge of the water. His weathered straw hat covered his eyes and his fishing rod rested lazily over his knee. Muddy, the water buffalo was resting nearby.

The massive beast let out a content snort as Li Yu approached. But there was something completely new on the island. For a moment Li Yu thought he had forgotten one of Vespera’s followers and she had made her way to this island.

Li Yu stopped floating and stared in confusion. Walking across the spiritual grass was an old grandma. She wore a simple coarse dress and her back was hunched over. Her long hair was a dull grey and her skin was heavily wrinkled. But despite her frail physical appearance Li Yu could sense a terrifying aura radiating from her very core.

It was heavily suppressed and bound by complex glowing runes that covered her entire spiritual body but the raw foundational power was undeniable. It felt ancient and incredibly dangerous, like a sleeping dragon trapped in a cage of light.

Li Yu watched in bewilderment as the immensely powerful grandma walked over to the Fisherman and respectfully handed him a small cup of hot tea. She then shuffled over to Muddy and dropped a large bundle of fresh spiritual grass right in front of the massive water buffalo. Where she got the tea or grass from he had no idea. She was acting exactly like a dedicated servant for the ancient entities.

"What is going on here?" Li Yu asked aloud as he landed on the grass of the island. He looked at the Fisherman and then pointed at the old woman. "Is she your wife?"

The Fisherman did not look up from the calm golden water. Muddy chewed the grass slowly and ignored him completely. The old grandma shot Li Yu a look of pure venom but she did not speak a single word.

Li Yu sighed and crossed his arms. No one responded to him, much like normal. He did not press the issue further because he knew from years of experience that he never got answers from his souls. If the Fisherman wanted a terrifying grandma to serve him tea, that was his own business and Li Yu was not going to intervene.

He didn’t feel the same connection he had with the other four souls so he understood that it wasn’t one of his souls. It was something else entirely. What it was though, he had no idea. A random grandma ended up inside him after his kidnapping but he didn’t feel any threat or harm coming off of her.

Xyphyra stood near the chewing water buffalo and boiled with a rage that could incinerate entire worlds. She heard the young human boy ask if she was the old monster's wife and it took every single ounce of her ancient willpower not to explode.

She was Xyphyra. She was one of the most feared and respected soul experts. She had commanded legions of spirits and shattered the minds of powerful and legendary beings in her prime. And now she was trapped serving tea to an old man who treated her like a lowly servant. The sheer indignity of carrying a bundle of grass for a simple beast of burden made her want to tear her own soul apart.

She desperately tried to curse at Li Yu. She wanted to scream at him and threaten his entire bloodline with eternal torment. But her mouth simply refused to open. The complex glowing seals wrapping around her soul were completely unbreakable.

One of the specific runes etched deeply into her throat prevented her from talking to Li Yu or interacting with him in any way unless explicitly allowed by the Fisherman. She was silenced and imprisoned in the most humiliating way possible to her. She couldn’t even enjoy her own beauty, something he had immense pride in.

She could only be released from these bindings if the caster decided to let her go. That realization was a bitter pill to swallow for someone of her supreme pride.

But as she stood on the spiritual grass, Xyphyra noticed something incredibly strange. The ambient Qi in this inner world was unbelievably pure and dense. The fundamental laws governing this space were profound and ancient beyond measure.

The Fisherman's Dao was so far above her own understanding that the ambient aura alone acted as a supreme healing array. She realized that her deep spiritual injuries from the ancient war were actually healing. They were recovering much faster here than they ever did when she was hiding like a parasite within the body of that old general.

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The speed of her recovery genuinely surprised her. It gave her a small glimmer of hope in the darkness of her captivity. She was a survivor above all else. She had endured thousands of years in the void just to enact her vengeance. She decided she would focus entirely on healing her soul first and then she would see what happened later. She would have to swallow her immense pride and act as the Fisherman's servant for now.

Just as she made that firm resolution, a sharp mental command echoed directly in her mind. It was the Fisherman demanding a snack to accompany his tea.

Xyphyra ground her teeth together so hard she thought they might shatter into dust. She forced her hunched body to turn around and shuffled toward the small wooden hut to prepare a plate of spiritual fruits for her captor.

Li Yu left his Ocean of Qi and shifted his focus to his other inner domain. He projected his senses into the massive inner world of his Koi Martial Spirit. The moment he entered he immediately sensed a new and incredibly powerful presence resting at the very bottom of the water.

He dove deep into the spiritual ocean. He swam rapidly past schools of glowing fish and armored sharks until he reached the deepest darkest trench in the sanctuary. There, directly underneath the massive glowing roots of his main lotus flower sat the Samsara Dream Clam.

The giant shell was resting peacefully in the soft sand. It was intermixing with the massive roots of the lotus and drawing ambient energy from the sanctuary itself. The most surprising thing was that the impenetrable shell was currently wide open.

Li Yu floated down and looked inside the glowing opening. He saw the pale blue jade stones. He saw the lush green willow trees, the modest wooden house and the beautifully crafted three story tower. It was exactly as he remembered it before he passed out.

"So it was not a dream." Li Yu muttered to himself while hovering over the open shell. He really had been kidnapped by a giant clam and deposited into a retirement estate.

He did not know how the clam ended up inside his soul space but he was not going to complain about his incredible fortune. He now possessed an absolutely impenetrable mobile fortress, albeit a very slow mobile fortress. He could retreat inside it if he ever faced an enemy he could not defeat.

Li Yu pulled his consciousness back to the physical world and opened his eyes. Malos and the three Violet Deep generals were sitting around a round wooden table near the large window in another room. They were in the middle of yet another game of cards with small piles of glowing spirit stones stacked between them. Li Yu called out to them.

"Ah, he lives!" Malos cheered while throwing his cards down on the table in dramatic fashion. The ancient Demon Lord stood up and walked over to the bed with a wide cheerful grin. "We were starting to wonder if you were going to sleep through the entire week, Li Yu."

The three generals immediately stood up and offered respectful nods. They were glad he was okay. They had failed to protect him during the abduction and his safe return relieved a massive burden from their shoulders.

"I am perfectly fine," Li Yu said while stretching his arms high above his head and cracking his neck. "How long was I asleep?"

"Nearly a full day," one of the generals answered quickly. "We plan to return to the capital immediately now that you are awake. Sovereign Morven is waiting for a full report. What exactly happened inside that beast?"

Li Yu looked at them and rubbed the back of his neck. He truly did not know the full story. He had no idea about Khaos or the old general or the terrifying soul battle that had taken place right next to him while he slept.

"I was pulled inside the shell," Li Yu explained honestly. "But it was not a stomach filled with acid. It was a beautiful courtyard made of jade with a small house and a garden. Then a massive wave of absolute drowsiness hit me and I just passed out. That is all I remember until I woke up here."

He intentionally left out the fact that the impenetrable giant clam was currently resting comfortably at the bottom of his Koi Sanctuary. Some secrets were better kept hidden even from friends.

Malos stroked his chin and looked thoughtfully out the open window. "A courtyard inside a clam. The universe is truly full of absurd mysteries. Well, let us not linger here any longer. The capital awaits our return."

They left the inn and walked through the busy streets to use the border town spatial array. In a flash of blinding blue light they traversed the vast distance and reappeared on the royal docks of the Violet Deep capital. The city was just as vibrant and bustling as before with massive waterfalls cascading down the dark coral cliffs into the ocean below.

Sovereign Morven was waiting for them on the upper palace balcony. The massive Lord of the Violet Deep walked forward rapidly and clapped Li Yu on the shoulder with a hand that could easily crush a mountain.

"Brother Li Yu!" Morven boomed with relief shining in his pale eyes. "I am incredibly happy you are alright. When I heard you were ejected into the sky like a ragdoll I feared the worst had happened."

Morven then let out a heavy booming laugh that rattled the nearby crystal windows. "But I must admit you sure have terrible luck. First getting hit with Elara’s soul attack and now the most stubborn mollusk in the history of the realm."

Li Yu could not deny that fact. Trouble simply seemed to find him no matter where he went or how slow it crawled. "My luck is a very unique Dao, Morven."

That evening the upper palace hosted a grand meal to celebrate Li Yu's safe return. The massive dining hall was filled with large platters of roasted leviathan flank, glowing deep sea crabs and rich dark kelp wine. The ambient bioluminescent flora provided a beautiful soft light while the crashing ocean waves outside served as a rhythmic peaceful backdrop.

Li Yu sat at the grand table with Malos, Morven, and the three elite generals. The atmosphere was incredibly light and joyous. The heavy tension of the previous day had completely evaporated into the salty air.

They spent the entire evening going over the ridiculous story of the abduction. Morven laughed until he spilled his wine. He was recounting how he had screamed creative profanities at a giant pearl.

Malos dramatically reenacted his absolute failure to cut the pristine shell with his sovereign blade. The generals admitted they had fallen into the ocean because they were simply too surprised to remember how to fly and argued over whose blade was the most useless against the clam shell.

"You must admit it is quite a legacy." Malos chuckled while raising his cup of wine toward the ceiling. "Men sing songs of grand heroes who slay dragons and conquer entire empires. But you, Li Yu, were kidnapped by a creature moving like a snail."

Morven slammed his massive hand on the table and roared with laughter. "The Slow Clam Man! That shall be your new title in the Violet Deep! The absolute terror of the creeping bivalve!"

Li Yu just shook his head and took a long drink of his kelp wine. He listened to the joyous laughter of the Demon Lords and the generals echoing through the grand hall. He was the Slow Clam Man to them but he didn’t mind.

‘It was better than being Little Crab.’ He thought to himself.

He smiled and joined in the laughter. The universe was completely absurd but the food was excellent and the company was even better.