Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The Demon Lords and Beast Kings refused to accept defeat so easily. Sovereign Morven roared and raised his trident. Sovereign Ignis, Zylith, Malos, Rathor, Aquila and Seraphis all gathered every last drop of their remaining Qi.

They activated their strongest combat talismans and channeled the destructive energy into one final desperate combined strike. A blinding beam of mixed elemental power shot directly toward the center of the rift attempting to collapse the tunnel entirely.

Before the attack could even reach the portal, a dark hand emerged from the swirling void.

The hand was covered in thick purple chitin and radiated an ancient and suffocating authority. It swatted the combined ultimate attack of the lower realm leadership away like a bothersome fly. The elemental beam shattered into harmless sparks of light that rained down over the grey ash.

A booming voice echoed from the other side of the rift shaking the very core of the planet.

"You should all submit now." The voice commanded and was carrying a weight that made the blood of the Demon Lords run cold. "I am in a generous mood today. I will not mind taking in slaves or servants. If I take a liking to any of you, I could even elevate your status in my empire. You could rule over this land for me. Think about it."

Suddenly, Li Yu and Garrick landed heavily on the outskirts of the Demon Lord vanguard. Garrick was still carrying the unconscious body of Sovereign Thorne over his broad shoulder. Li Yu looked at the hand protruding from the rift and felt a sense of familiarity. He immediately turned to the exhausted leadership.

"We need to run," Li Yu told them. "There is absolutely no point in staying here. We will need to think of something else to save this realm because we cannot fight whatever is on the other side of that door."

Morven agreed immediately. He grabbed Ignis by the hand and turned to retreat.

But as they took their first step backward a shimmering dark barrier flared to life in the sky forming a massive dome over the entire valley. Malos swung his sword against the barrier but the blade bounced off and was completely unable to leave a single scratch. They were entirely trapped like insects in a jar.

Garrick narrowed his eyes and inspected the dark barrier. He commented internally to himself that he could probably break out of it if he pushed his newly uncapped cultivation to the absolute limit. If things got truly bad, he would just grab Li Yu, smash a hole in the dome and run for his life. He honestly did not care about what happened to the rest of the people here.

Lucien hovered in the center of the trapped valley and continued his endless boasting.

"You are all completely foolish!" Lucien laughed but was coughing up more black blood. "You thought you could stop the inevitable. So many of my brilliant plans failed along the way but it does not matter! I tried to get Ignis and Malos to kill each other by having your daughter attacked within her own lands but you avoided the bait!"

Malos froze. His dark eyes widened in horror and sudden blinding fury.

"How did you know about her?" Malos demanded. The other Demon Lords were entirely stunned. None of them had any idea that the Lord of Foresight had a daughter. It was one of his most closely guarded secrets.

Lucien refused to say another word about it. He just continued laughing.

"So many plans failed but my ultimate goal succeeded!" Lucien declared spreading his single remaining arm wide. "I have brought true salvation to this dying realm!"

A shadow detached itself from the rocks directly behind the hovering traitor. It was Sovereign Thorne. He had woken up from his unconscious state while Garrick was holding him. He had silently and slipped into the shadows using the last embers of his life force to make one final move.

Thorne materialized directly behind Lucien. With tears streaming down his face, the old man drove his broken shadow sword directly through the back of Lucien's remaining head. The dark blade erupted from the traitor's mouth, completely destroying his soul and cutting off his maniacal laughter forever.

"That was my last task as your master." Thorne whispered, his voice breaking with sorrow. He had somewhat regained a tiny shred of his sanity in his final moments.

Lucien's mutilated torso finally went completely limp and crashed heavily into the grey ash.

Thorne pulled his broken sword free and dropped it to the ground. He turned and bowed down deeply to everyone present. He then turned and bowed deeply to all four directions of the compass.

"I am so incredibly sorry!" Thorne wept, his tears mixing with the blood on his face. "I am sorry for the sins of my friends. I am sorry for the sins of my disciple. I have failed you all."

He fell to his knees and pressed his forehead firmly against the ash covered ground once again and remained completely still. He passed out again in that pose. Li Yu checked on him and he wasn’t dead, just exhausted and battered. Out of respect for the man, Li Yu left him as he was, perhaps that was what the man wanted.

The Demon Lords looked at Thorne with genuine pity. They had known him for a very long time. While they were never truly friends, they were not exactly mortal enemies either. He had been trying his absolute best to give humans a home in this violent realm. They had fought a few times over borders but they never fought seriously.

They also pitied him deeply because they realized this exact tragedy could have easily happened to any one of them. They all had disciples of their own, besides Malos. Each Sovereign made a firm mental note to thoroughly check in on what their own disciples were currently up to, assuming they actually survived the day.

The towering rift shook violently. The massive dark hand retreated back into the void.

A few moments later a massive head poked through the tear in reality. It was a terrifying demonic being with a head that looked very close to that of a monstrous armored bee. It had massive compound eyes and jagged mandibles dripping with golden energy.

This was Xerxis the Hive Emperor. Xerxis looked down at the trapped group and laughed, a sound that vibrated the marrow in their bones.

"You have thirty minutes to decide your fate." Xerxis announced, his voice booming through the valley. "Surrender and become my loyal servants or die here in the dirt. I will cross over when the time is up. Do not think of escaping, my physical body may not be there but it is already enough for my powers to kill you all with a thought."

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Xerxis pulled his massive bee head back through the portal, leaving the swirling void empty once more.

The trapped group spent the next twenty minutes trying everything they could think of to attack the rift or break the dark barrier. They threw their strongest remaining attacks but every single attempt failed completely. The barrier was impossibly strong.

Realizing that their struggle was entirely futile, Ignis and Morven stopped fighting. Morven pulled Ignis into his arms and held her tightly. They shared a deep, passionate kiss right in the middle of the ash covered battlefield.

Sovereign Zylith watched them and scoffed loudly while crossing her arms in disgust.

"Could you please refrain from doing that while we are facing the end of the world?" Zylith complained, her face twisting with annoyance.

Ignis broke the kiss and glared at the Lightning Demon Lord with a smug fiery smile. "It is not my fault that no man has ever chased after you Zylith. Do not project your bitter loneliness onto us just because you are going to die alone."

The insult angered Zylith deeply, making sparks of purple lightning dance across her skin. But internally the Lightning Demon Lord was having regrets. She looked away from the couple and realized that she had spent her entire long life chasing power and territory. She had never actually experienced having a true lover.

Despite the grim situation, none of the Demon Lords truly believed they were all going to die. They knew the Hive Emperor wanted intelligent slaves to rule over this realm in his place. They would most likely be captured and forced to act as his puppet governors. Because they fully expected to survive in some miserable capacity they were not spilling their deepest darkest secrets or making grand final confessions. They just stood there waiting for the inevitable.

Exactly thirty minutes later the dimensional rift flared with blinding purple light.

Xerxis the Hive Emperor finally flew through the rift and officially entered their world. He was not as massive as his projected hand or head had suggested. Since he was able to fully get through the gateway he had just manipulated his body to shrink down to make talking and moving much easier. He was now roughly ten feet tall and clad in majestic dark royal armor.

He arrived looking exactly like a conquering king.

But everyone present immediately noticed something incredibly shocking. The Hive Emperor was missing his right arm. A jagged scarred stump sat where a limb should have been. The Demon Lords and Beast Kings were entirely surprised that a being possessing that much power would currently be missing an arm and completely unable to regenerate it.

Xerxis landed softly on the grey ash. He crossed his single remaining arm behind his back and boasted about his own absolute magnificence.

"I am the ruler of the Hive Empire!" Xerxis declared. "You will all bow down before me and pledge your eternal loyalty to my throne!"

As he swept his compound eyes across the group and demanded their obedience his gaze eventually landed on the young human standing near the back.

Xerxis did not recognize Li Yu by his physical appearance. But he instantly recognized his aura. It was the exact same aura of the boy he had tried to crush in the other realm.

'It cannot be!' Xerxis thought to himself, his mind completely stopping. Suddenly the phantom pain in his missing right shoulder flared up with agonizing intensity. The lingering void residue left by Khaos seemed to burn in response to the boy's presence.

Xerxis realized it with absolute terror. It was that damn boy! The little monster who had escaped his attack and was the reason he lost his arm. The boy who was protected by an entity capable of ripping an arm off across dimensions as easily as snapping a twig.

'Why is he here?!' Xerxis screamed internally, his majestic bearing and aura completely shattering. The Hive Emperor was stunned.

Without warning, Xerxis immediately rushed forward. The sudden aggressive movement startled everyone. Sovereign Morven raised his trident. Garrick panicked and reached his hand out to grab Li Yu to forcefully drag him away through the barrier.

But Xerxis did not attack. The supreme ruler of the Hive Empire dropped heavily onto his knees and was sliding through the dirt and stopped perfectly right in front of Li Yu's boots.

"I was just kidding!" Xerxis shouted, his voice cracking with panic. His tone had changed completely, it was like he was a completely different person.

Everyone in the valley completely froze. The Demon Lords, the Beast Kings, the army and even Garrick stared at the kneeling Emperor in shock. Xerxis quickly forced an incredibly fake smile onto his insectoid face.

"I was just making a grand entrance!" Xerxis stammered as he was looking up at Li Yu. "I actually came all this way to personally present you with gifts, young master! Just gifts! Nothing else!"

Xerxis bowed his head deeply. "I sincerely apologize for ambushing you in that other realm before! I was completely out of line! Taking my arm was the absolute correct punishment for my sheer arrogance! I humbly ask for your forgiveness!"

Li Yu was completely stunned but his mind was rapidly piecing the clues together. He looked at the kneeling Emperor and then looked at the missing right arm. Li Yu remembered the terrifying massive hand that had chased him through the void back in his original realm. The hand that had nearly killed him before he passed out, barely getting out of the void in time.

Li Yu realized this was the exact same being. He did not know that Khaos had intervened and ripped the arm off but he knew he had gotten away from that hand. It looked like there was a massive misunderstanding and the Hive Emperor believed that Li Yu had something to do with him losing his limb.

The Demon Lords and Beast Kings were completely dumbfounded. This incredibly powerful being who had just orchestrated the destruction of an entire domain was currently sucking up to a young human that had been by their side.

Xerxis reached into his royal armor with his left hand and presented a glowing silver storage ring.

"I brought this ring filled with all kinds of supreme natural treasures from my home realm!" Xerxis offered, holding the ring up high. "That was why I opened this rift and came all this way! Purely to present these gifts to you! Everything else you saw today was just a massive and terrible misunderstanding!"

However, Xerxis was a paranoid ruler. He was terrified but he still wanted to test his theory. Before presenting the ring he had secretly implanted a very powerful and lethal soul technique directly onto the silver metal.

If whoever touched it was weak, the technique would instantly consume them and they would die on the spot. He needed to know for sure if this boy was truly a hidden monster. Or if he was being protected by incredibly strong beings like he suspected.

Li Yu looked at the kneeling Emperor and reached out without thinking anything of it. He was working out in his own mind how he should handle this misunderstanding so everyone can get out alive. He took the storage ring from the Emperor's hand.

The moment his fingers brushed the metal the lethal soul trap activated. A spike of dark spiritual energy shot directly toward Li Yu's mind.

Before the trap could even scratch Li Yu's consciousness, the Fisherman soul resting deep within his foundation opened a single eye. The terrifying soul sensed the pathetic attack and casually swatted it away. The lethal technique was instantly neutralized and dissolved into nothingness without Li Yu even noticing it was there.

Xerxis felt the destruction of his soul trap. The sheer casual ease with which his technique was erased confirmed his worst nightmare.

'This damn boy is playing tricks on me again!' Xerxis thought to himself, sweating profusely under his royal armor. 'He is actively playing weak so that I will attack him and get horribly hurt again! He is trying to bait me so those guarding in the dark will be forced to take my other arm! What a cruel monster!'

Sovereign Thorne lifted his head from the dirt. Thorne had regained consciousness again at some point and stared at the kneeling Emperor in rage.

"You killed billions of people!" Thorne roared. "You opened a rift and destroyed everything, purely to present gifts?!"

Xerxis panicked. He could not afford to let this crazy old man ruin the mood. With a swift flick of his fingers Xerxis shot a pulse of heavy sealing Qi directly into Thorne. The energy slammed into the old man instantly, locking his voice and his movements completely. Thorne was once again knocked unconscious but he wasn’t harmed.

Xerxis looked back up at Li Yu with a nervous and desperate smile. He was terrified that any sudden outburst from the bleeding locals would remind the young master of the slaughter and anger him, bringing the wrath of his guardians down upon the Hive Empire.