Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The silence on the riverbank was heavier than the surrounding mist. It pressed down on the dark water and stifled the gentle current and froze the silver grass.

Old Du stood by his levitating wooden boat, his weathered hands trembling as he stared at the hunched and withered form of the crone. The pale yellow light from his lantern flickered erratically, mirroring the turbulent and agonizing storm within the ferryman’s ancient heart.

"Release her," Old Du whispered. He looked up and teared his gaze away from the humiliating state of his sister to glare at Khaos. "I do not care what grudges you claim to have settled. I do not care about the sealing arrays. Let her go, Khaos. She is still my family. She is my blood."

Khaos did not move. His dark robes seemed to absorb the ambient light, casting him as a towering silhouette of unyielding judgment.

"Blood?" Khaos repeated, the word dripping with cold and measured disdain. "Did blood stay her hand when she shattered the spiritual veins of your home? Did family matter when she butchered some of the elders who taught us or when she turned the skies of your realm into an ocean of screaming souls? You know better than anyone how dangerous she is, Du. You lived through the ashes she left behind."

Old Du flinched as if he had been physically struck. "She is the sinner of our people, yes. But it is our burden to bear, not yours to lock away as a trophy!"

"She betrayed her people, she betrayed the cosmos and she betrayed the trust of everyone who ever looked upon her with pride," Khaos rumbled back. The space around him shivering with suppressed force. "That is exactly why she is exactly where she belongs. She is sealed and she will remain sealed. This is not up for negotiation."

Xyphyra let out a bitter and grating hiss from her spot on the damp grass. She glared at Khaos with concentrated venom but she said nothing. She was forced to endure the agonizing shame of her brother's pity and Khaos’s judgment.

The tension between the ferryman and the ancient warrior reached a breaking point. The dark purple energy around Khaos began to spiral and the unnatural grey mist around Old Du’s boat flared, thickening into a defensive wall. It seemed like they were about to trade blows.

"Enough."

The word was spoken quietly but it carried weight that it shouldn’t have.

Li Yu stepped forward. He looked at the ancient expert and the desperate ferryman.

"Before anyone burns a boat or shatters the space around my farm, we are going to calm down," Li Yu stated with his tone carrying the authority of a host in his own home. He gestured toward the wooden table in the center of his courtyard.

"I am entirely confused by all of this. You both speak in riddles and ancient history while standing in my backyard. Sit down. I will brew some tea and you are going to explain exactly what is going on."

Old Du blinked and was startled by the human’s audacity to interrupt a standoff between them. Xyphyra let out a mocking and raspy cackle. "You think you can command them, boy? You think a cup of tea will—"

"Quiet," Li Yu said while not even looking at her. Through their soul connection, Xyphyra’s jaw clamped shut instantly and her eyes widened in fury as she couldn’t talk.

Li Yu turned his gaze to Khaos. He fully expected the ancient warrior to scoff at the invitation and to fight Old Du, leaving Li Yu in the dark as he always did. To Li Yu’s and Old Du’s immense surprise, Khaos let out a slow and controlled exhale. The dangerous twisting purple energy faded from his hands.

"Very well," Khaos said smoothly. He walked past Xyphyra without sparing her a second glance and took a seat at the wooden table.

Old Du hesitated for a moment with his eyes lingering on his silenced sister. But seeing Khaos yield, the ferryman slowly lowered his lantern and followed behind him. He took the seat opposite of him. Xyphyra remained standing where she was away from the table slightly.

Li Yu felt a surge of satisfaction. He walked to his small fire pit, channeled a brief spark of Fire Qi and set a kettle to boil. He gathered his dried floral leaves and brought the clay cups to the table.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the courtyard was the bubbling of hot water and the soft pouring of the tea. Li Yu set a steaming cup in front of Khaos and another in front of Old Du. He sat down between them and was taking a slow sip of his own tea.

"Alright," Li Yu said while setting his cup down. "Who is she, really? And what does this have to do with this grand competition I am supposedly late for?"

Old Du wrapped his weathered hands around the warm clay cup. He stared into the amber liquid and his eyes reflected an ancient sorrow. This was information that he would not be telling someone he was coming to get. However, with Khaos here, only the truth could be spoken.

"Her name is Xyphyra," Old Du began. Li Yu finally learned of the name of the grandma that had been inside him over this time. "She is my younger sister. Long ago, before the Great Devastation, our people were a proud and prosperous race. We were not known for our physical strength or our mastery of Qi but for the terrifying depth of our souls. We were the masters of ethereal arts."

Khaos took a silent sip of his tea and his face an unreadable mask. He didn’t say anything so it must have been the truth.

"Xyphyra was the shining genius of our generation. No, of all of the generations that have come before and since." Old Du continued as a ghost of a proud smile touched his lips before vanishing instantly.

"I was considered a prodigy as well but she... she outshone me completely. She outshone everyone. Her comprehension of soul laws leading into the Dao was unparalleled. Because of her brilliance, the elders of our race entrusted her with the second of our three sacred treasures. It was an artifact of immense soul power that was meant to safeguard our realm."

Li Yu listened intently. He had guessed Xyphyra was someone important but to be the guardian of a race's sacred treasure spoke of unquestioned authority.

"But something happened," Old Du said as his grip tightened on the cup until his knuckles turned white but the cup didn’t shatter. "To this day, no one truly knows what triggered it. Perhaps it was a flaw in her cultivation, a whisper from someone or something. Or simply the corrupting allure of absolute power. Whatever the reason, she turned her back on us. She sacrificed the second sacred treasure."

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Li Yu’s eyebrows raised. "Sacrificed it? You can do that?"

"When you possess a soul as potent as hers and a mind as brilliant, you can break the unbreakable," Khaos interjected. "She didn't just break it; she consumed its core essence to forcefully expand her own soul power to a monstrous and unnatural degree."

"With that stolen power," Old Du said as his voice began trembling slightly, "she brought absolute devastation to our home. She amassed a following. Zealots who worshipped her new and terrifying strength. They waged a brutal and unholy war across our realm and many others. The skies burned with ethereal fire and the earth was soaked in the blood of our kin and others."

Li Yu glanced back at the hunched crone sitting on the grass near the edge of the light. It was difficult to reconcile the image of this withered and silenced hag with a warlord who had shattered a realm.

"She was unstoppable for a time," Khaos said while setting his cup down. He looked directly at Li Yu and his dark eyes were intense. "It was only through the ultimate sacrifice of the top tier powers of their people that the tide turned. They also called upon outside forces. Allies from neighboring realms. Coalitions that had sworn ancient oaths."

Li Yu caught the subtle implication in Khaos’s tone. We. Khaos had been part of those outside forces. He had marched to war.

"Even with the combined might of our greatest elders and the allied forces, we could not pierce her defenses," Old Du admitted with the shame heavy in his voice. "It required the ultimate price. Our people were forced to sacrifice the third sacred artifact. It was our greatest weapon of war. By doing so we were able to shatter her offensive formations and break her physical vessel. The backlash killed the majority of our remaining top experts."

"And despite all of that blood, despite the loss of the artifacts, we failed to kill her," Khaos sneered as his gaze shifted to Xyphyra. "She escaped, heavily injured, slipping into the cracks of the cosmos like a coward."

Xyphyra’s eyes burned with hatred but her jaw remained tightly locked.

"The aftermath was a nightmare," Old Du whispered as he was staring blankly ahead. "We had lost two sacred artifacts that possessed immense power. The vast majority of our top powers, our pillars, were dead in the dirt. The foundational spiritual veins of our realm had been torn apart by the conflict. Our world was literally falling apart, bleeding its ambient Qi and life essence into the void. Xyphyra became the ultimate sinner of our race, a name cursed by every child born after the ashes."

Li Yu let out a slow breath. He had seen the aftermath of wars in the mortal and lower realms but the destruction of what was probably a high tier realm, the shattering of its very foundation, was a tragedy of a scale he was only just beginning to comprehend.

"Someone had to pick up the pieces," Old Du said while straightening his posture slightly. "As one of the few surviving elders, I took up the responsibility. I had to find a way to rebuild our people and stabilize our collapsing home. But without the artifacts and without our strongest cultivators, we were helpless against the decay."

"Which brings us to the present," Li Yu noted as he began connecting the dots. "The guiding artifact. The trial."

"Yes," Old Du nodded. "The only sacred artifact we had left was the first one. It is not a weapon. It cannot mend spiritual veins or fight off the beasts that prey on our weakened borders. It is simply a guiding compass. The artifact can locate the strongest, brightest souls across the myriad realms. In the past before the Great Devastation, it was used as a tool to either recruit outstanding talents in other realms or hunt down dangerous and powerful Soul Cultivators. Now… it has only become a tool to locate outstanding talents that might be able to grow into beings that can help us. We can barely help ourselves let alone hunt down others."

The ferryman looked at Li Yu and his dark eyes were pleading for understanding.

"Our ultimate goal is to restore our torn realm," Old Du explained passionately. "But we lack the personnel. We lack the understanding and soul power required to weave the spiritual veins back together. The competition... the trial... it is a recruitment effort. The artifact searches for beings with incredibly strong souls, from the Soul Formation realm up to Paragon. We bring them to our borders and put them through rigorous and grueling trials."

"To weed out the weak," Khaos added cynically.

"To find those truly capable of helping us," Old Du corrected smoothly. "It is true, candidates are sometimes forcefully taken if they refuse the initial call. But they are treated well, Li Yu. This is not a slave harvest. The trials are designed to push a cultivator’s soul to its absolute limits. Made to force them to evolve and strengthen their foundation. At each step, each milestone they pass, they are rewarded with rare resources our realm still possesses. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. It is not a loss for the candidates."

"And what happens to the winners?" Li Yu asked as he took another sip of his tea. "When they finish the trials?"

"Many of them choose to stay," Old Du answered with a genuine note of pride returning to his voice. "Once they see the depth of our ethereal arts and the purity of our soul techniques, they integrate with our people. They continue their cultivation path among us. They grow stronger and in return, they use their immense soul power to help us slowly and painstakingly stitch our torn realm back together. We are rebuilding our numbers, Li Yu. We are healing our home."

Li Yu sat back in his wooden chair and was digesting the massive weight of the history lesson.

The story was a tragedy. It was born of betrayal and ancient ambition. He looked at Xyphyra, understanding now why Khaos harbored such deep and unyielding hostility toward her and why Old Du, despite the horrific devastation she caused, still looked at her with the agonizing pain of a brother who had lost his sister to madness.

He also understood the nature of the trial. It wasn't a standard tournament where young masters fought in an arena for a shiny pill. It was a crucible designed to forge strong souls into pillars capable of holding a broken world together.

"I understand," Li Yu said finally. "Your people are desperate and the artifact pointed you to me because my soul is abnormally strong."

"You are an anomaly," Old Du repeated. "To possess such a strength at your age... the artifact deemed you the most vital candidate in recent times. That is why I sailed around the last two years searching for you. With your potential, you could reach heights with our soul arts that would take others millennia to grasp. You could be a hero to a people who desperately need one."

"Or he could simply end up as another casualty in a broken realm." Khaos countered him. He looked at Li Yu.

"You have heard the story, boy. You know the truth of her sins and you know the desperation of his people. Do not let his honeyed words about 'mutually beneficial rewards' blind you. A broken realm is a dangerous and unstable place. There are several eyes on it as well as their soul heritage is great."

Li Yu looked down at his tea. He thought about the existential dread that had paralyzed him after returning. He had felt useless while giants shouldered the sky. He had wanted a path. He had wanted a way to build his foundation, to understand the cosmos and to eventually reach a level where he could stand beside those giants. To obtain that peace that he wanted for himself, as Khaos has said, he would need to be stronger than everyone.

Now, an ancient ferryman was sitting at his table and was offering him a direct invitation to a realm dedicated entirely to the mastery of the soul. The one area that he had always excelled in and had an advantage. If he could further take that advantage further and turn it into an even more potent weapon, his goals would be easier to obtain. It was a place of high risk, grueling trials and resources.

Old Du watched the human closely and his breath was hitching as he waited for the verdict. Khaos remained still as his dark eyes were calculating. He offered no further advice and left the choice entirely in the young man's hands.

Li Yu set his empty clay cup down on the wooden table. The soft clink echoed loudly in the quiet courtyard.

"Tell me more about the cutoff," Li Yu said while looking directly at the ferryman. If he were to make a decision, he wanted to know as much as possible. "Why does your sacred artifact only choose candidates at the Paragon realm and below?"