Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The final remnants of the enemy coalition had been pushed to the very edge of the abyss.

Supreme Admiral Erlong of the Fiend Sovereign Armada stood upon the ruined deck of his flagship. His armor was shattered and his crimson eyes were bleeding spiritual light. The void around him was a graveyard of millions, their shattered hulls drifting silently through the dark. The grand blockade was entirely broken.

Before him sat the allied armada. They were an ocean of overwhelming power that had swallowed his forces whole. Behind him hovered the shimmering and iridescent bubble of the Temporal Dao Stone.

Erlong knew this was his end. But as he looked at the approaching figures of the allied leaders, a venomous and triumphant sneer twisted his bloodied face.

"You have won the battle!" Erlong roared out loud. His voice was amplified by his fading Qi to echo across the silent void. "You have brought the wrath of the heavens down upon us! But you have lost the war! Look behind me! The Temporal Dao Stone is absolute! Even if you slaughter every last one of us, you cannot breach that bubble! Li Canghai will rot to dust before your very eyes and you are powerless to stop it!"

A shadow fell over the flagship. Zhan Tielan did not offer any grand speech. She did not waste breath on a dying enemy's final gloat. She simply descended from the void like a falling star.

Doom Cracker slammed into Erlong..

There was no explosion, only a terrifying ripple of absolute destruction. The kinetic force traveled through Erlong. It instantly erased his flesh, his bones and his Soul. The force continued downward and turned the flagship into a cloud of fine gray ash.

With their highest commander erased from existence, the surviving stragglers of the five enemy factions broke. But there was nowhere to run. The forces of Khaos, the Li Clan, the Zhan Clan, the Veiled Lotus and the two mysterious vanguards swept through the debris and continued mercilessly exterminating the remaining enemies.

The coalition had already been weakened by Li Canghai’s brilliant counter offensives before the trap was sprung. Blind-sided by this unprecedented rescue force, they were slaughtered to the last man.

The void fell completely and chillingly silent. The colossal armies came to a halt. They quickly formed an impenetrable and multi-layered perimeter around the glowing temporal anomaly.

Khaos stepped forward from the central flagship and gestured for Li Yu to follow. As they approached the edge of the Temporal Dao Stone's influence, several other figures materialized to join them.

Li Yu looked at the gathering leaders. He could see Gongsun Lian in her dark dragon scale armor but the others were completely obscured. They were draped in thick layers of swirling Qi and blinding light. Their features and auras intentionally blurred to his divine sense.

He didn't know who they were but he could feel the terrifying and realm ending weight they carried.

"Seal the space," Khaos said to the rest of them..

The blurred leaders moved in perfect unison. Some raised their hands while others brought out array disks. Together, they weaved a seal array that expanded rapidly and formed a dome of pitch black energy that completely isolated them and the temporal bubble from the rest of the viewing armies. They did not want the millions of soldiers witnessing what was about to happen, nor did they want anyone examining Li Yu too closely.

Once the space was sealed, Khaos turned to Li Yu.

"Li Yu," Khaos began but his voice was solemn. "Lian is calling in her favor today. The people trapped inside this bubble are crucial to her and to the stability of the known realms as we have discussed. Are you still willing to risk your life to pay back this debt?"

‘A favor?’ Zhan Tielan and the other leaders thought.

‘How could he owe her a favor? Isn’t she…?’ Zhan Tielan and those that knew of Lian’s relationship with Li Yu.

Before Li Yu could answer him, Khaos’s expression softened just a fraction. "I ask you again. Are you willing to take this risk?" It could be seen that even Khaos was hesitant with all of this now.

Li Yu looked at the shimmering bubble. He could see the frozen silhouettes of the warriors inside. He thought of the vast armies outside. All of these people were the giants who shouldered the sky. He thought of the sacrifices made to protect the peace he had enjoyed throughout his life.

"We have come all this way," Li Yu said and his voice was remarkably steady. It surprised even himself. "You and Lian did me that favor back in that demonic realm. Lian and her generals stood guard for me when I broke through. You cleared the path to this place. I will honor my word to Lian and I will try my absolute best."

He paused and was looking at the blurred figures of the supreme leaders. "My only fear right now... is that I will fail. That I will disappoint the expectations of everyone here."

A heavy and emotional silence descended upon the sealed space. Inside her shroud, Zhan Tielan squeezed her eyes shut. A single tear cutting through the grime on her face.

‘You could never disappoint us.’ She thought as her heart broke at his words. ‘Please stay safe, my poor child.’

This story originates from NovelFire. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Even the hardened leaders of the Li Clan, Zhan Clan and the two from the mysterious legion felt a pang of pain for the young man. He was a Divine Transformation cultivator staring down a cosmic relic of certain death and his only fear was letting his allies down. They did not realize that Khaos and Lian never really truly told Li Yu about the scale of his task.

Li Yu took a deep breath. He gathered his Qi and proactively activated the Devouring Abyssal Leviathan Physique. He then stepped forward and was flying slowly toward the rippling surface of the bubble.

After he passed the gathered leaders, an unprecedented event occurred.

The blurred leader of the Leviathan Smashing Vanguard and leader of the Golden Shell Phalanx simultaneously dropped to one knee. Their armor clanked against the void. They bowed their heads, offering unquestioning respect to Li Yu.

A wave of confusion rippled through the other leaders. The two patriarchs and Zhan Tielan stared at the two kneeling figures. Why are the commanders of two supreme legions kneeling to a Divine Transformation junior? Tielan wondered but was baffled. But there was no time to ask.

Li Yu crossed the threshold of the temporal distortion.

The pressure hit him like a planet. His skin immediately began to crack but his physique reacted and began the slow process of devouring the ambient laws. There was no way his physique would be able to keep up but it was providing a little bit of relief..

He ground his teeth together and was pushing forward inch by agonizing inch. He was already closer to the bubble than any of the supreme leaders could ever hope to get. But it was not enough. The temporal winds grew too fierce.

With a resonant hum, the space behind Li Yu tore open. The Koi Soul manifested like a leviathan springing out from the depths. It quickly swam around Li Yu, forming a bubble around him like it did when he went through the previous temporal rift.

Its ethereal and ancient scales glowed with blinding light as it swam through the temporal currents. The Koi possessed an innate connection to the laws of time. The bubble was redirecting the flow of accelerated time around his physical vessel.

Outside the distortion, the supreme leaders that were not really familiar with Li Yu’s abilities gasped.

"A beast shaped Nascent Soul?" The Li Clan leader muttered as his blurred head tilted in shock. "For a child of his lineage?"

Human cultivators almost exclusively manifested humanoid souls, usually themselves, to better channel the Dao. To see a beast soul was an anomaly in a human boy.

Li Yu continued to go forward and the pressure increased dramatically. The Koi let out a silent cry and was struggling against the raging current of the Dao Stone. The space behind Li Yu rippled violently again. The crushing and lightless depths of the abyss descended upon the area.

The massive Whale Soul burst into existence. It hovered above Li Yu with its size stabilizing the space around them so Li Yu could continue forward. It was also channeling its strength to the Koi Soul to aid it..

The jaws of the supreme leaders practically hit the floor.

"Two?!" Someone said, "Two Nascent Souls? And another beast one?!"

Slowly, as if guided by a single and shared thought, the heads of the Li Clan and Zhan Clan turned to look at Zhan Tielan.

Tielan felt the weight of their stares. She knew exactly what they were thinking. Did she cheat on Li Canghai with some sort of cosmic beast?

"What are you looking at?!" Tielan roared at them as her embarrassment manifested as rage. She hefted Doom Cracker onto her shoulder. "Keep your eyes on the boy or I will use your skulls to test the durability of my hammer!"

The leaders immediately snapped their heads back toward Li Yu. None of them eager to test the temper of the Zhan Clan’s most violent daughter. However, the thought lingered in their minds.

Inside the distortion zone, Li Yu was bleeding. The sheen of his skin was fighting a losing battle against the Dao Stone. With a deep and resonant moo that echoed with the weight of ancient eras, Muddy materialized.

The sturdy Water Buffalo Soul stood beside Li Yu with its hooves planting firmly on the invisible fabric of the temporal void. It radiated a stubborn and immovable endurance that reinforced Li Yu's cracking bones.

"Three!" The Li Clan leader breathed and entirely forgot his fear of Tielan. "Three Nascent Souls. And they are all beasts."

This time every single head turned slowly toward Zhan Tielan.

"I will kill all of you!" Tielan shrieked as her face was burning so hot her Qi shroud flickered. "I will grind your clans into dust!"

But even as she yelled, a brief, horrifying moment of self-doubt pierced her mind.

‘Did I...? No! That's impossible! Canghai is the only one! Wait… how much wine did I drink during that diplomatic summit with the Azure Dragon Emperor three decades ago?! No, no, snap out of it! The boy is just unique! She shook her head violently and banished the absurd thoughts.’

Li Yu was now very close to the bubble. The temporal distortion was a solid wall of shrieking energy. The Koi, the Whale and the Buffalo were pushing with all their might but the Dao Stone seemed to say ‘enough is enough,’ it wouldn’t let him move another inch.. Li Yu’s vision was fading to black. His journey was ending here.

Suddenly, a warm and comforting light bathed his soul. The old man with the grass hat stepped out of the void.

The Fisherman Soul did not roar or project a terrifying aura of destruction. He simply appeared and smiled at Li Yu. It was a bright and affectionate expression that seemed entirely out of place in the center of a cosmic warzone. With surprising agility, the Fisherman climbed onto Muddy's broad back.

Back inside Li Yu, the old grandma version of Xyphyra was wondering where the old man and Muddy had gone. She did not have authority to send your senses anywhere so she was completely blind to what was happening outside.

Outside the distortion, the collective tension of the supreme leaders broke into a collective sigh of relief upon seeing the 4th Nascent Soul. While a 4th Nascent Soul was what should have shocked them, the fact that it was a human one was what was first on their mind..

"Four Nascent Souls…" One of them whispered. "But... at least the fourth one is human."

Zhan Tielan let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She all of sudden felt immensely vindicated by the humanoid appearance.

The Fisherman adjusted his grass hat. He looked at the impenetrable and shimmering surface of the Temporal Dao Stone bubble. He casually raised his simple bamboo fishing pole, pulling his arm back and cast the line.

The hook sailed through the distorted space. It struck the surface of the bubble and dug deep into the temporal laws themselves. The Fisherman yanked the rod and began to help pull Li Yu in closer. Once the line was set, he too began channeling his power into the Koi Soul.

The Golden Koi Soul did not hesitate. Empowered by the other three souls, the massive creature surged forward. It abandoned Li Yu and acted as a living battering ram. With a defiant roar that seemed to echo through time and space, the Koi smashed directly into the surface of the bubble.