Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The morning suns rose over the neutral zones casting long shadows across the dense alien forest. Li Yu and the surviving merchant guards parted ways at dawn. The ants thanked him once more for the fire and the food before taking to the sky in a ragged formation. They headed toward the Aegis Legion territory while Li Yu continued his slow leisurely walk towards the same place.

He walked for another half day before the thick trees began to thin out and revealed a massive dried out canyon. Built directly into the stone walls of the canyon was a sprawling and bustling town. This place was a chaotic melting pot of rogue factions, exiles and independent merchants.

Li Yu walked down the winding dirt path and entered the town of Dirty Hollow.

The architecture was unique. The dwellings were constructed from a mixture of hardened mud and thick layers of spun silk. Large woven canopies stretched across the canyon gap and provided shade from the harsh midday suns.

The inhabitants were a diverse mix of insectoid traits. Li Yu saw bulky beetle warriors walking alongside slender moth merchants. There were creatures with multiple compound eyes, soft fuzzy wings and jagged chitinous plating. Since they did not belong to any specific empire there were no unified banners or uniforms.

The habits of the town were just as strange as its architecture. Li Yu noticed several public molting stations carved into the canyon walls where cultivators could safely shed their damaged carapaces. Instead of bowing or shaking hands, the locals greeted each other by rapidly clicking their mandibles in highly specific and rhythmic patterns. The sounds echoed constantly around and made the entire town hum with a vibrating energy.

Li Yu wandered through the crowded markets to take in the sights. He got looks everywhere he went but no one bothered him. The air was thick with the smell of exotic spices and strange roasting meats .

He stopped at a small stall draped in bright yellow silk. A four armed vendor was selling skewers of plump giant aphids that were glazed in a thick and spicy fungal sap. Next to the skewers were large hollowed out beetle shells filled with a faintly glowing blue liquid.

Li Yu bought a skewer and a shell of the drink. He paid with a few spirit stones.

He took a bite of the glazed aphid. The outer skin was crispy and the inside was rich and savory. The spicy fungal sap gave it a deep earthy kick that numbed his tongue slightly. He washed it down with the blue liquid. It was a fermented nectar wine. It was sweet but carried a very potent alcoholic burn that warmed his chest instantly.

He enjoyed the unique flavors as he continued his walk deeper into the canyon.

The vibrant atmosphere of the food stalls gradually faded giving way to a much darker and grim section of Dirty Hollow. The air here smelled of rust, sweat and despair.

Li Yu stepped into the grand plaza of the slave market.

It was a massive sunken pit in the center of the canyon floor. Hundreds of heavy iron cages lined the walls. Inside the cages were enslaved insectoids of every shape and size. Some had their beautiful wings brutally clipped to prevent escape. Others had heavy metal muzzles bolted over their mandibles. The chains binding them were etched with glowing runes designed to forcefully suppress their Qi and keep them weak.

Merchants and rogue warlords shouted bids. They were bartering over the lives of the trapped cultivators.

Li Yu walked past the cages and his face was a mask of calm indifference. He kept his eyes focused forward. He was not here to buy a servant or a guard. He just wanted to pass through to the other side of the town.

"Please!" A weak voice called out from the shadows of a nearby cage. "Please help me!"

Li Yu paused and glanced to his right.

Pressed against the thick iron bars was a young girl. The girl possessed a fragile human-like body but her arms and head were fully integrated with bright green mantis scythes. The jagged blades were currently bound tightly together with thick heavy chains. Her compound eyes were wide and filled with terror. She had spotted Li Yu walking through the crowd.

"Please sir." The girl begged as her voice was cracking. "They are going to sell me to the fighting pits. I will not survive a single day there. I beg you. Buy my contract. I will serve you faithfully forever!"

Li Yu looked at the trembling girl . He felt a sharp pang of sympathy in his chest. He was not a cruel person. He knew the fighting pits were a death sentence for someone so young and fragile. He had the wealth in his storage ring to buy the girl a thousand times over.

But Li Yu did not reach for his spirit stones.

He stood there and let out a very slow quiet breath. He remembered the harsh and brutal lessons he had learned while traveling with Malos. The Demon Lord had shown him some of the true and unvarnished reality of the cosmos.

Cruelty was the baseline of the universe. Pity was a luxury reserved only for those with the absolute strength to enforce their will.

Li Yu knew the grim reality of his situation. He was just a 4th level Divine Transformation cultivator. He was a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. If he paid to free this girl what would actually happen? The slave merchants would gladly take his money. But the moment Li Yu left the girl would just be captured right back by another rogue faction or she would die starving in the wilderness.

Was Li Yu going to take the girl with him forever? He wasn’t fit to care for the girl and he didn’t want to care for her. Traveling with him was also vastly more dangerous than fighting in the pits.

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Was he going to go to every single town in the insectoid realm and try to free everyone he saw in a cage? It was an impossible task. He could not save a single fish from drying out if the entire ocean was boiling.

He had to worry about protecting and saving himself first. He was much too weak to actually make waves in this realm. Trying to play the hero here would only draw unwanted attention and likely get them both killed.

Li Yu looked the girl in the eyes. He did not offer a false apology or a word of comfort. He simply turned his head forward and continued walking away. There were simply too many people like this for him to make any true difference right now.

"Wait! Please come back!" The girl screamed while shaking the heavy iron bars. "Do not leave me here! Please!"

The desperate cries echoed over the noise of the market but Li Yu did not look back.

He forced himself to keep walking until the sounds of the slave pit faded into the ambient hum of the canyon. He left the market but the experience left a terrible bitter taste in his mouth. The spicy fungal sap and the sweet nectar wine sitting in his stomach suddenly felt heavy and nauseating.

He did not want to enjoy the local food anymore. He did not want to look at the unique architecture or watch the merchants barter. Li Yu walked straight through the rest of Dirty Hollow and exited the canyon town long before the suns began to set. He just wanted to get back into the quiet isolation of the wild forest.

He traveled for several hours and put a large distance between himself and the canyon. When night finally fell he found a dense grove of pale trees and set up a very minimal camp. He did not bother starting a fire or hunting for fresh meat. He just sat cross legged on a flat rock with his eyes closed to meditate and clear the lingering guilt from his mind.

The forest was silent for a long time. Then the sound of heavy and desperate footsteps broke the quiet.

Li Yu opened his eyes and frowned. The footsteps were erratic and accompanied by the heavy smell of blood. He could already sense what was coming. The brush parted and two figures collapsed into the small clearing.

Li Yu narrowed his eyes in disbelief. It was the merchant group from earlier. But they were no longer a group of twelve. There was only the male leader and a single heavily wounded guard left.

The misfortune of this specific squad seemed to get worse and worse with every passing hour. The guard was missing his right arm and his crimson armor was completely shattered. It exposed his soft inner flesh. The leader was covered in deep slicing wounds and his breath coming in shallow and ragged gasps.

The leader looked up from the dirt and saw Li Yu standing in the moonlight. A look of desperate relief washed over his bloody face.

"You." The leader coughed spitting up a glob of blood. "The heavens must have guided us back to you."

Li Yu did not step forward to help them this time. He kept his distance and his posture rigid. "You should not be here. You are bringing a massive amount of trouble right to my camp."

"We could not outrun them." The leader gasped while dragging himself up into a sitting position against a tree trunk. "They caught us again near the canyon border. My men gave their lives so we could slip away but the assassins are still tracking our blood. We are not going to survive the night."

The leader reached with a trembling hand into his shattered armor. He pulled out a single smooth storage ring. It was the core shipment they had been sacrificing their lives to protect.

The leader held the ring out toward Li Yu.

"I know I have no right to ask this." The leader pleaded, his voice weak but frantic. "But I am begging you for a favor. I am going to die here. Would you be willing to take this ring to my father? You just have to hand it to him."

Li Yu looked at the bloody ring and then back at the dying ant.

"No." Li Yu said, his voice cold and flat. "I do not want to get tangled up in whatever you are doing. It is clearly incredibly dangerous. Two dozen elite guards have died trying to transport that item. If I take it, I will become the next target."

"Please!" The leader begged and was gripping the ring tightly. "This shipment is the only thing that can save my family's business! If it does not reach my father our entire lineage will be ruined! We will be thrown into the slave pits or executed for failing the contract! Just take it and fly!"

Li Yu remembered the terrified face of the mantis girl in the cage. He hated the idea of an entire family being sold into slavery but his pragmatic logic remained firm.

"I still refuse." Li Yu stated while shaking his head. "I am just a traveler. I do not even know your name. We have just met twice by pure chance. I am not risking my life for strangers."

The leader let out a wet and hacking cough. His compound eyes dimmed slightly as he felt his life force fading.

"My name is Raxen." The leader said. "My father is General Vant of the Aegis Legion. We will split away from you right now. We will run and draw the assassins away. They will catch us and kill us. But if you take the ring, you can slip through their net. Just bring it to my father."

Li Yu crossed his arms. The logic was completely flawed and he saw right through it.

"That makes no sense Raxen." Li Yu countered his tone sharpening. "If you run and they kill you they will search your body. When they do not find the storage ring on you they will instantly know you passed it off. They will track your movements, find this camp and then they will come after me. I will be hunted regardless."

Raxen stared at Li Yu. The desperate pleading look in the leader's eyes slowly shifted into something much darker and far more frantic. It was the look of a man who had exhausted all his honorable options and was now willing to do whatever it took to complete his mission.

Raxen gripped the storage ring and pushed himself to his feet leaning heavily against the tree.

"You are right." Raxen breathed as a bloody smile stretched across his mandibles. "They will search my body and find nothing. But I will not let them guess where it went."

Li Yu uncrossed his arms as his eyes narrowed slightly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean." Raxen coughed. His voice turned hard and vindictive. "When they corner me, I will surrender. And before they kill me I will tell them exactly what happened. I will describe your face, your dark robes and your human features. I will tell them that I gave the core shipment to you."

The quiet forest clearing suddenly felt incredibly tense.

"So." Raxen continued his chest heaving. "Whether you accept this ring right now or not they will come after you. They will hunt you down and tear you apart looking for it. Your only chance to survive is to take the ring, use whatever hidden strength you have to escape and reach my father for protection."

Li Yu stood perfectly still in the moonlight.

The ambient temperature in the clearing seemed to drop several degrees. The faint gray and purple light of his Destruction laws flickered deeply within his dark pupils. He hated many things in the cosmos but one of the things he hated the most was this. He hated being forced to do something against his will.

Li Yu looked at the bleeding desperate ant leader. The sympathy he felt for the dying merchant evaporated completely and was replaced by a cold simmering anger. He was not being asked for a favor anymore.

He was being blackmailed.