Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Garrick's face was bright red with embarrassment and fury. The Great Sage with No Equal was currently the laughingstock of the grassy plains. He could hear the whispers of the massive crowd rolling over the fields. People were calling him a fraud and a loudmouth.

He lifted his head and glared at Sovereign Morven and Sovereign Ignis. They were looking at him with expressions of skepticism and mild amusement.

"You think I am a scammer?" Garrick growled, his voice vibrating with barely contained rage. He uncrossed his arms and pointed a thick metallic finger directly at the two Demon Lords. "You think I am just some trickster hiding under a rock? I will show you exactly what absolute toughness looks like! Both of you attack me right now! Do it together!"

Ignis raised a fiery eyebrow and looked at Morven. The Lord of the Violet Deep simply shrugged his massive shoulders. They were both genuinely curious to see if the boastful beast possessed any real power at all.

"I really would not bother if I were you." Li Yu warned while stepping between the Demon Lords and the furious Garrick. "He is clearly just a scammer. He is probably a criminal who was punished for his crimes and trapped under that mountain. Somehow, I was just the unlucky one chosen to set him free. Do not waste your Qi on him."

Garrick was completely flabbergasted by the sheer disrespect coming from his new master. His metallic skin flushed even darker.

"I am not a scammer!" Garrick roared while pounding his fists against his chest. "I am the Great Sage! Attack me you cowards! I will not even put up a guard! I will stand right here and take your strongest combined strike to the face!"

Ignis smiled a very dangerous smile. She loved a good challenge and she absolutely despised being called a coward. She raised her right hand and summoned a swirling sphere of condensed flames. The heat instantly scorched the grass beneath her boots.

Morven chuckled and raised his trident. He gathered a terrifying amount of water Qi, compressing the sheer weight of a deep ocean trench into the tip of his weapon.

"If he insists then we should happily oblige" Morven declared.

Garrick stood his ground. He puffed out his massive chest and planted his feet firmly into the dirt. He did not circulate his Qi. He did not summon a defensive barrier. He completely relied on the impenetrable nature of his natural carapace to protect him. He was fully prepared to take the attack, show off his flawless durability and finally demand the respect he deserved. These people were beneath him after all.

What Garrick did not know yet, was that the binding seal had fundamentally altered his existence.

The terrifyingly fierce woman who trapped him did not want him to easily carry her son through every single danger. She wanted Li Yu to have a bit of help but she did not want him to have too easy of a time. It would ruin his experiences and travels. Therefore, a core part of the soul contract dictated that Garrick could only ever be as strong as the top power level of the current realm they were in.

In this specific lower realm, he was severely capped at the ceiling of the Demon Lord level. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know that yet.

Ignis thrust her hand forward and unleashed a roaring pillar of white hot fire. Morven swung his trident and launched a massive compressed blade of crushing water. The two sovereign attacks merged in midair, creating an explosive mixture of boiling steam and raw destructive power. The combined blast struck Garrick directly in the chest.

Garrick expected the attack to simply splash harmlessly against his invincible skin.

Instead, the kinetic force of the blast picked him up entirely. His eyes widened in shock as he realized his strength had been heavily restricted. He was completely unable to anchor himself against the attack.

With a deafening boom, Garrick was violently blasted off his feet. He shot backward through the air like a discarded ragdoll. He flew over the heads of the massive crowd and was screaming in surprise as he was flung far over the horizon and out of sight.

A heavy silence fell over the plains.

The crowd blinked and then a massive wave of laughter erupted from the thousands of cultivators. The self proclaimed Great Sage had challenged two Demon Lords without putting up a guard and he was instantly blasted away.

"Definitely a scammer!" someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

Miles away, Garrick crashed violently through a dense forest, snapping massive trees in half before finally slamming into the side of a large hill. He laid in the dirt and was completely stunned by what had just happened.

He slowly sat up and looked at his hands. He felt the heavy restrictive chains of the golden seal wrapped tightly around his foundation. He finally realized exactly what the contract had done to his power.

"You insufferable woman!" Garrick screamed at the sky, cursing Li Yu's mother with every vile word he knew. "You trapped me for five hundred years and you limit my strength? You are absolutely cursed!"

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He spent ten minutes throwing a massive temper tantrum in the ruined forest. When he finally calmed down, he wiped the dirt from his face and began the long and humiliating flight back to his new master.

When Garrick finally trudged back onto the plains the massive crowd had already dispersed. Everyone firmly believed he was a complete fraud. Only Li Yu, Malos, Morven and Ignis remained near the royal warship.

As Garrick approached and was looking incredibly grumpy, Li Yu and his group noticed something very surprising. The beast had taken a combined unguarded attack from two Demon Lords. His coarse clothing was heavily singed and torn but his metallic skin was completely unblemished. There was not a single cut, bruise or burn on his entire body. He was relatively unharmed.

"Well!" Malos observed with a raised eyebrow. "He might be a loudmouth but his physical toughness is certainly no joke. He took that blast directly without preparing a single defense and he is perfectly fine."

Li Yu nodded slowly and realized the beast was not entirely useless.

The group boarded the royal warship and set course for Ignis's territory. They traveled through the sky f before arriving at the Crimson Capital. They settled into a grand guest estate within the upper palace.

Later that evening, they gathered in the courtyard to interrogate their new companion. They asked Garrick exactly where he was from, what realm he originated in and who the woman was that trapped him.

Garrick simply shook his head and crossed his arms.

"I cannot tell you anything." Garrick grumbled while taking a massive gulp from a jug of wine. "I am completely bound by the seals. If I try to speak about the higher realms or the people who put me there my throat literally locks up. All I can tell you is that I am here to serve the chosen one for five hundred years."

He pointed a thick finger at Li Yu. "And unfortunately it turns out you are the chosen one."

Li Yu had so many questions but he knew he would not get any answers now. He decided to just accept the situation and move forward for now. Over the next few days Li Yu and Malos fell back into their routine. They found a vacant stone storefront near the bustling markets of the capital and set up their small clinic.

Treating beasts in the Crimson Capital was an entirely different experience for Li Yu. There were very few aquatic beasts here. The local fauna consisted of flame lizards, volcanic hounds and ash winged falcons.

Because of this drastic shift in environment, Li Yu could not rely on his water affinity or the empathetic connection of his Koi martial spirit to instantly understand the creatures. He had to actually use his medical skills. He had to manually diagnose complex meridians and balance volatile heat blockages without accidentally harming the patients.

Because he was no longer able to cheat, he experienced a much higher rate of initial failure. He misdiagnosed a few flame lizards causing them to burp clouds of black smoke for hours. He accidentally overloaded a volcanic hound making it run in endless circles.

But Li Yu learned from every single mistake and rapidly adapted his methods. He drew on his experience treating beasts over the years and applied his understanding. Despite the initial failures, his treatments were mostly successful and he gained a much deeper understanding of fire aligned life forces.

Malos was just as enthusiastic as ever, loudly advertising their services and collecting spirit stones to brag to his daughter later. During this time the group slowly started to get to know Garrick.

The Great Sage was an incredibly brash person. He was deeply prideful, straight forward and always followed his heart without a single second of hesitation. They also quickly discovered that he was incredibly lustful.

Thanks to the dragon side of his ancient heritage, he was a shameless skirt chaser. He constantly flirted with the palace maids, the market vendors and female cultivators. Garrick never forced himself on anyone but he didn’t seem to care if they were married or were already in a relationship either. He flirted all the same.

Garrick also loved to drink heavy alcohol and eat staggering amounts of meat. He consumed entire roasted beasts in a single sitting.

They also found out he was exceptionally skilled at cooking meats over an open fire. He knew exactly how to sear the outside while keeping the inside perfectly tender. However, he was absolutely terrible at all other kinds of cooking. When he tried to make a vegetable soup, it tasted like boiling mud and nearly poisoned one of Morven's generals.

Garrick liked to fight, he loved taking on challengers and he never backed down from a drinking contest. Because of this boisterous personality, he got along great with Sovereign Morven right off the bat. The two massive men spent their evenings sitting around roaring fire pits, sharing grand and exaggerated stories of past battles and drinking entire barrels of wine or anything else they could get their hands on.

Li Yu still was not entirely sure about the arrogant beast. He found Garrick to be a bit too loud, too obnoxious and overly aggressive. But since their lives were permanently bound together by the seal Li Yu, treated him well and respected him just like anyone else in their strange group.

Later that night, the Crimson Capital was quiet. The rivers of magma provided a soft ambient glow against the dark buildings.

Garrick was sitting alone on the very top of the palace roof. He had a massive jug of strong wine resting on his knee and he was looking up at the glowing moons. He was thinking about his lost freedom and the cruel five hundred year sentence stretching out before him.

Suddenly, the space around him violently warped.

Garrick did not even have time to shout. An invisible force wrapped around his body and violently pulled him straight up into the sky. He vanished from the palace roof in an instant, dropping his jug of wine which shattered on the dark stone tiles below.

Garrick tumbled through the void and slammed hard onto a floor made of pale smooth stone.

He groaned and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He looked around trying to figure out who had ambushed him. He was inside a quiet, isolated realm. It was completely devoid of sound or weather.

He looked forward and saw a man standing a few paces away. It was Khaos.

Garrick felt the pressure of the man and his survival instincts immediately screamed in warning. This was not someone from this realm. This was an entity that operated on a level far beyond the limits of this lower realm.

Khaos looked at Garrick and offered a blank face.

"Garrick." Khaos said, his voice carrying the weight of authority. "I have a few questions for you."