Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The dark waters of the river seemed to thicken. It was turning from a rushing current into a surface as smooth and viscous as black glass. The unnatural grey mist rolled over the banks and began swallowing the grass and plunging the edge of Li Yu’s estate into a suffocating silence.

The small wooden boat did not bump against the muddy shore. Instead, as the old man lifted his worn wooden paddle, the skiff rose smoothly from the surface of the river. It was levitating through the dense fog until it drifted directly over the grassy bank and was hovering a mere foot above the solid ground.

Li Yu stood perfectly still. The chaotic domain of Time, Soul, Life and Death was ready to shatter the space around him the instant this intruder showed hostile intent. Yet, there was no hostility. There was only an ancient emptiness.

The old man lowered his paddle and stepped off the hovering boat. His tattered grey robes hung loosely over a gaunt and weathered frame. He raised his left hand and the clouded glass of his iron lantern cast a pale and yellow glow that pushed the unnatural mist back just enough to reveal the lower half of his face. He had a short, wispy white beard and lips that were pressed into a thin and weary line.

"Peace, young one," the old man said to Li Yu. His voice was a dry, rasping whisper that sounded like dry leaves skittering across a tomb. "I bring no violence to your sanctuary here, only opportunity."

"Who are you?" Li Yu asked him. His voice was calm but laced with caution. "And why are you sailing a boat into my backyard in the dead of night?"

The old man offered a small, polite bow as he was leaning slightly on his wooden paddle.

"You may call me Old Du." The ferryman replied. "And I am here because you have been chosen."

Li Yu’s brow furrowed. "Chosen? For what?"

Old Du raised his lantern slightly and the pale yellow flame flickered. "For a grand trial. A competition of sorts. My people possess a sacred and guiding artifact of immense antiquity. It peers through the myriad realms, searching the mists of fate for beings who possess exceptionally strong souls. Specifically, those whose cultivation rests at the Paragon realm and beneath. When the artifact identifies a candidate, I am sent to ferry them to the trial."

Li Yu crossed his arms and his mind was rapidly processing the information. A competition specifically targeting strong souls below the Paragon realm? It sounded like an elaborate recruitment drive or worse, a harvest.

"I am a farmer, Old Du," Li Yu said evenly. "I have no interest in your grand competition. Nor do I know anything about your sacred artifact."

"Your interest is irrelevant to the artifact's decree, unfortunately." Old Du rasped with a hint of genuine apology in his tone. "The artifact resonated with you. In fact, it practically sang. You were identified as the youngest among all the current candidates across the realms and simultaneously, the one possessing the strongest soul below Paragon. A true anomaly that I have never seen."

Li Yu kept his expression neutral but internally he panicked. An artifact that knew so much about him already was scary. His soul had always been powerful and with a full five Nascent Souls within it was no surprise that his soul strength would shine like a blinding sun compared to other cultivators.

"You are actually quite late," Old Du continued as he was shaking his head slowly beneath his straw hat. "You were supposed to enter the trial two years ago. I sailed in search of you but you had simply vanished. The artifact could not track you anywhere in the cosmos. It was as if you had ceased to exist. Only recently did your signature flare back into the world, allowing me to finally track you to this quiet town."

Li Yu knew exactly why he had vanished. The Temporal Dao Stone had completely severed his connection to the outside universe. Before Li Yu could decline the invitation again, the ambient Qi in the courtyard behind him distorted with a violent and overwhelming suddenness.

A spatial rift tore open. Deep and twisting purple energy flooded the riverbank. Khaos stepped out of the void. The ancient warrior did not look relaxed. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on the old ferryman and the suffocating weight of his true power bled into the world. It caused the silver trees to groan and the dark river water to violently ripple away from the bank.

Old Du took a half step back when Khaos appeared. His grip tightened on his wooden paddle. The pale yellow flame in his lantern shuddered violently under Khaos’s pressure.

"You," Khaos rumbled.

"It has been a long time," Old Du replied carefully and had recognized the entity immediately.

Li Yu looked between the two of them. "You know each other?"

"I know of him and the broken realm he hails from," Khaos stated. Khaos did not take his eyes off the ferryman. He took a slow step forward and placed himself slightly between Li Yu and the levitating boat. "But there is absolutely no way your broken artifact should know of this boy. His fate is obscured by forces far beyond your little guiding compass."

Old Du let out a dry and rattling sigh. He did not seem terrified but he was undeniably cautious.

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"You over estimate yourself, Vo--," Old Du said before he was cut off.

The moment the name was about to leave the ferryman's lips, the oppressive aura surrounding the area intensified causing Old Du to stop mid speech. As if understanding Khaos, he did not continue. Khaos’s expression remained a mask of stoic indifference but the area was intensifying.

After a long and suffocating silence, Khaos narrowed his dark eyes.

"Regardless of how you found him," Khaos stated with absolute finality, "Li Yu will not be partaking in your trial."

Old Du shook his head slowly. "You know the ancient decree as well as I do. Participation for chosen candidates is mandatory. They either go willingly, accepting the immense resources and rewards the trial offers or they are taken forcefully and still enjoy the resources and rewards. The artifact has decreed it and my people desperately need a soul of his caliber."

Khaos let out a harsh and booming scoff that shattered the unnatural mist clinging to the grass.

"Mandatory?" Khaos sneered as his lips curled in disdain. "Do not dress your desperation in the robes of divine law, ferryman. Let me ask you a simple question. If this child were a direct scion of the Hong Clan or the crown prince of the Tian Clan... would you sail your little wooden boat up to their ancestral palaces and try to take him forcefully?"

Old Du paused. He looked at Khaos and then looked down at the dark dirt. A wary and self-deprecating chuckle escaped his thin lips.

"No," Old Du answered. He had chosen honesty. "I would not. If he belonged to those lineages, the artifact's decree would be ignored. The rules of the strong still apply in this cosmos, as they always have. But..." Old Du raised his head and his dark eyes locked onto Li Yu. "...this child is not part of those clans. He is a wanderer that is farming dirt in a remote corner of the universe."

"And what if he is not alone?" Khaos countered, his voice turning lethally quiet. The space around Khaos began to physically crack as thin black fissures appeared in the air. "What if I am sheltering the boy? Will you try to force my hand, Old Du? Because I promise you, your boat will burn before it leaves this bank."

Old Du visibly swallowed. A bead of sweat formed beneath the brim of his straw hat and rolled down his weathered cheek. He was clearly nervous now. He was caught between the desperate, unyielding demands of his devastated people and the terrifying reality of the monster standing before him.

"I... I do not wish to fight you," Old Du stammered slightly and the confidence drained from his posture. "But you must understand. We cannot afford to lose him. He is the youngest candidate we have ever seen and his soul strength is unprecedented for his age. To rebuild what was broken, to restore our realm... he might be the key we have been praying for. Please help an old classmate out just this once."

Li Yu remained silent and was analyzing the exchange. He was very curious and the fact that these two were once classmates somewhere was quite the reveal. Li Yu was a piece on a very large board but he was starting to understand the rules of the game.

Khaos stared at the nervous ferryman for a long time. Then, the ancient warrior’s eyes gleamed with a sudden and dark inspiration.

"Let me show you something." Khaos said.

Khaos didn't ask for permission. He didn't even warn Li Yu. With a sweeping and violent wave of his hand, Khaos channeled his mastery over the void. Li Yu gasped as a sharp and pulling sensation erupted in his chest. It didn't hurt his foundation but it felt as though someone had reached into his pocket and forcefully yanked an item out.

A swirling portal of dark energy ripped open directly in the space between Li Yu and the ferryman. The portal churned and then it spat a figure out onto the damp grass. It was Grandma Xyphyra.

The ancient looking woman hit the ground with a grunt. Thanks to the suppression of the Fisherman Soul, she did not manifest in her true form. She looked exactly as she had when Li Yu first saw her with his other souls. A hunched and withered grandma.

Xyphyra scrambled to her feet with the sudden and violent change to her environment. Her ethereal joints popping. "What is the meaning of this?!" She screeched. She got her bearings and then glared at Khaos, then at Li Yu. "You dare drag me out like a common beast whenever you want?!"

Then, her eyes landed on the old man standing next to the levitating wooden boat. The enraged screech died in her throat. Xyphyra froze. Her withered hands began to tremble.

Old Du stared at the hunched crone. He did not recognize her. To his eyes, this was just an ugly and bitter spirit that Khaos had somehow pulled from the boy’s soul space. He was confused as to why Khaos had summoned such a weak and pathetic looking entity to make a point.

But Xyphyra recognized him instantly. Even beneath the straw hat and the weary, weathered lines of age, the soul of the ferryman was unmistakable to her.

"Older brother?" Xyphyra whispered. The grating, demonic rasp vanished and was replaced by a voice trembling with centuries of complex emotion. The wooden paddle slipped from Old Du’s hand and clattered against the hull of the boat.

The ferryman’s dark eyes widened to an impossible degree. His heart, which had beat with a slow, steady rhythm for thousands of years, seized in his chest. He took a staggering step forward. His mind violently rejected what his ears had heard. But beneath the withered exterior of the crone, he felt it. The fundamental soul signature that he had known since the dawn of his life.

It was her. The shining genius and the ultimate sinner. The sister he had lost.

"Xyphyra?" Old Du breathed. His voice cracking and entirely devoid of his previous mystical composure. He stared at her hunched spine and her wrinkled, rotting face. "By the heavens... what has happened to you? Why do you look like this? Why do you look like a shriveled crone?"

Xyphyra’s face contorted in a mix of humiliation and defensive rage. To be seen by her esteemed older brother in this pathetic, suppressed form was a torture worse than the Fisherman’s hook. She cursed vehemently. A string of ancient and foul words that made the river water ripple.

Because she was physically bound by Li Yu’s soul space, her ability to speak of her captor’s secrets was restricted. She could not mention the five Nascent Souls. The Fisherman’s hook ensured her absolute silence on the matters that mattered most.

She offered no details on how Li Yu had beaten her, ensuring all of Li Yu’s deepest secrets remained completely locked away. Instead, Khaos spoke up.

“By chance we met with her and sealed her away, permanently. Ending old grudges.”

Old Du staggered backward and caught himself on the side of his levitating boat. He looked from the withered form of his beloved but traitorous sister, to the calm and unassuming human farmer standing a few feet away.

The boy hadn't just been chosen by the artifact. He had somehow captured, defeated and enslaved the strongest and most devastating prodigy their people had ever produced.