Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Li Yu eventually arrived at the Inner Sanctum. This area was completely isolated from the rest of the Trial Grounds by a high wall of smooth white marble. There were no crowds here and no boasting warlords trying to recruit followers. The air was incredibly heavy and thick.

In the center of the secluded plaza stood the Pagoda of the Sundered Sky.

It was a breathtaking structure constructed entirely of fractured blue crystal. The massive shards of crystal were suspended in mid air by invisible arrays. They were constantly orbiting a central core of blinding white light. It did not look like a building meant to be entered. It looked like a captured explosion frozen in time.

Li Yu walked up the smooth stone steps and stepped directly into the blinding white core.

There was no mechanical voice to greet him this time and there was no grand foyer to explain the rules. The moment his boots crossed the threshold, the physical world violently tore itself apart. He was instantly pulled into an illusionary space of chaos.

The scent of burning ozone and spilled blood assaulted his senses. The sky above him was not a featureless white mist or a starry void. It was a bleeding tapestry of sickly purple fault lines, exactly like the true sky of The Veil, but raw and freshly torn. He was standing in the middle of a grand and ancient metropolis that was being utterly consumed by war.

Massive estates of polished stones were crumbling into dust while rivers of fire raged through the streets. The screams of the dying echoed from every direction.

Li Yu quickly realized this was not a generic testing ground filled with lifeless wooden puppets or simple arrays. It was something else entirely.

Astramentis had plunged him directly into a historical recreation of the Great Devastation. These were the actual battlefields where the realm had broken.

A deafening roar shook the burning street. From the thick smoke ahead, a vanguard of corrupted soldiers charged toward him. They wore heavy armor forged from black bone and wielded massive and jagged polearms. Their eyes burned with a chaotic, maddening crimson light.

Li Yu instantly expanded his senses and felt a thrill of danger. The pagoda had perfectly mirrored their cultivation to match his own. Every single soldier in the charging vanguard radiated the dense and oppressive power of a Law Integration expert.

"Let us see how much fuel the engine can handle," Li Yu murmured quietly.

He reached into his inner world and connected with his Human Soul. In a flash of brilliant blue light, Star Crusher materialized in his right hand. The impossibly dense staff hit the paved street with a heavy thud, cracking the ancient stone beneath his boots.

The vanguard was only fifty paces away and closing fast. Li Yu did not wait for them to strike. He channeled his Qi and he activated the Sentry technique.

A massive surge of energy separated from his physical body and it solidified in the burning air right beside him. While Li Yu gripped Star Crusher with physical might, the Sentry construct was designed for pure elemental devastation.

"Cover the left," Li Yu commanded.

The Sentry moved with lethal intent. It raised its hands and tapped into the laws of water and ice, instantly weaving them together with the terrifying Laws of Destruction.

A wave of black and freezing mist erupted from the Sentry’s palms. The temperature in the burning street plummeted. The freezing mist swept over the left flank of the charging vanguard. The corrupted soldiers roared as the black ice encased their armor but this was no ordinary ice. The Dao of Destruction hidden within the freezing water rapidly decayed their spiritual defenses. Their heavy bone armor grew brittle and their movements ground to a painful halt.

While the Sentry locked down the left, Li Yu pushed off the cracked stone and launched himself directly into the center of the horde.

He swung Star Crusher in a wide, sweeping arc. The heavy staff tore through the air with a boom. It connected with the lead soldier’s chest plate. The physical density of the weapon combined with Li Yu’s monstrous physical strength, instantly shattered the soldier’s defense. The corrupted warrior was thrown backward like a broken doll, crashing into his comrades and disrupting their charge.

Li Yu did not stop. He flowed through the chaotic melee with brutal efficiency. He thrust the staff forward, crushing helmets and breaking polearms. Every time a soldier managed to slip past his guard, the Sentry was there. It would fire concentrated lances of destructive black javelins to pierce their vulnerable joints.

The synergy between his overwhelming physical offense and the Sentry’s relentless crowd control was working amazingly. Within five minutes, the burning street was completely silent. The vanguard had been reduced to a field of shattered bone armor and frozen, dissolving ash.

Li Yu rested the heavy staff on his shoulder and took a deep breath. His body ran hot with exertion. Before he could even steady his breathing, the illusion shifted.

The burning metropolis melted away like wet paint. The ground beneath his feet vanished and was replaced by a stomach churning sense of vertigo. Li Yu was suddenly falling through a sky filled with massive but floating chunks of a shattered mountain range.

He adjusted his posture mid air and landed heavily on a flat plateau of floating rock. The sky here was entirely dark and illuminated only by the violent flashes of distant lightning. The moment his boots touched the stone, the shadows themselves detached from the debris.

They were not mindless troops this time. They were assassins. They were clad in form fitting grey leather that perfectly camouflaged them against the floating rocks. They moved with terrifying silence. Dozens of them converged on his position from all sides, leaping across the floating debris with unnatural grace. They wielded short, curved daggers that glowed with a sickly green light. These were weapons designed to directly sever the soul.

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Once again, their cultivation perfectly matched his own. They were incredibly fast, perfectly coordinated and set to their purpose. Li Yu planted the base of his staff into the stone and unleashed his chaotic domain.

The space around the floating plateau warped violently. A spherical barrier of distorted light expanded outward from his body, encompassing the entire chunk of rock and the airspace immediately around it. Within this domain, Li Yu was the master of Time, Soul, Life, and Death.

The assassins leaped into the domain with their green daggers raised for the kill.

The moment they crossed the threshold, their reality fractured. The Dao of Time seized their bodies, slowing their lightning fast strikes down to an agonizing crawl at times and speeding it up at others. What was meant to be a flurry of lethal blows became a chaotic movement where they ran into each other and missed their intended target.

Simultaneously, the Dao of Life and Death activated. The vibrant and violent energy of the assassins began to rapidly decay. Their grey leather armor withered and the sickly green light of their soul-severing daggers dimmed as the domain actively drained their vitality.

Li Yu moved freely within the warped space. He did not need to swing his staff. He stepped calmly toward the first assassin and tapped the end of Star Crusher against the man’s chest. The impact, reinforced by the oppressive laws of his domain, instantly shattered the assassin's internal meridians.

The Sentry clone hovered near the center of the plateau and was acting as a relentless turret. It fired rapid and precise bolts of destructive javelins at the assassins who were desperately trying to retreat out of the domain’s range. The black ice froze them to the floating debris and left them helpless as the Dao of Death slowly consumed their forms.

It was a display of crowd suppression. Li Yu moved across the plateau and was systematically dismantling the assassins while they struggled hopelessly against the chaotic flow of time. He was bleeding massive amounts of Qi and soul power to maintain the four interconnected laws of his domain, feeding the pagoda's hidden engine with every step he took.

As the final assassin crumbled into grey ash, the chaotic domain dispersed. Li Yu leaned heavily on Star Crusher. Sweat poured down his face and his breath came in ragged gasps. The constant drain of the domain was immense and this was the first time he had used it in real combat. It was something he would have to work on but he had successfully cleared the second phase of the historical trial.

The illusionary space did not give him time to rest. The floating mountains began to violently tremble. The rocks shattered into fine dust and the sky tore open. Li Yu fell once more, landing hard on a vast and endless plain made of smooth but cracked black glass.

A massive cosmic fault line ripped across the center of the glass plain. It was the epicenter of a realm collapse. The sheer scale of the devastation was awe inspiring and deeply terrifying at the same time.

From the depths of the glowing purple fault line, the final wave emerged.

They were not soldiers or assassins. They were massive and armored behemoths that looked like a terrifying cross between giant beasts and reinforced walls. They stood thirty feet tall and were covered in thick, interlocking plates of dark iron. Each behemoth carried a towering shield that looked like a piece of a fortress wall and a spiked mace the size of a small house.

There were three of them. Their combined soul pressure rolled across the glass plain like a physical tsunami. They formed a tight phalanx, locking their massive shields together and began to march toward Li Yu. Every step they took shook the illusionary world.

Li Yu wiped the sweat from his eyes. His Sentry clone flickered slightly as its Qi reserves were running low from the previous two battles. Star Crusher was powerful but trying to batter down a thirty foot wall of solid iron while dodging house sized maces was a bad strategy when he was so spent.

He needed an immovable force to meet an unstoppable object. Li Yu closed his eyes and reached deep into his inner world. He focused his intent on the sturdy island resting in the center of his internal ocean.

"Muddy," Li Yu called out through his soul. "Time to work."

The Water Buffalo let out a deep bellow that resonated through Li Yu’s very bones.

Li Yu raised his hand and the space in front of him tore open. From the tear in reality, Muddy the Water Buffalo physically manifested into the illusionary battlefield. The three behemoths slowed their march when they sensed the sudden arrival.

"Break the line," Li Yu commanded while raising Star Crusher.

Muddy did not hesitate. The Water Buffalo lowered its massive horns and charged directly at the iron phalanx. The beast moved with the unstoppable momentum of a landslide. As it closed the distance, the ethereal projection of the heavy war hammer that was now bound to it swung forward, mirroring the beast's charge.

The impact was cataclysmic.

Muddy collided with the center behemoth’s tower shield. The massive war hammer slammed into the dark iron with the force of a falling meteor. The deafening crack echoed across the endless plain as the thirty foot shield completely buckled and shattered under the overwhelming weight.

The center behemoth was thrown off balance, its defense completely broken by the immovable power of the Water Buffalo.

Li Yu exploited the opening instantly. He surged forward in Muddy's wake. He leaped into the air, vaulting off the Water Buffalo’s broad back. He channeled the last of his explosive energy into his arms and brought Star Crusher down directly onto the exposed helmet of the staggering behemoth.

The heavy staff caved the dark iron helmet in, instantly dispatching the massive creature.

The phalanx was broken but the remaining two behemoths retaliated furiously. One swung its spiked mace directly at Muddy’s flank.

The Water Buffalo did not dodge. It braced its heavy hooves against the cracked glass and met the strike head on. The spikes tore across Muddy's thick hide but the beast's earthen laws absorbed the kinetic shock. Muddy countered by ramming its horns upward and also driving the war hammer into the behemoth's kneecap. This shattered the joint and brought the giant crashing down to the glass.

Meanwhile, the Sentry clone hovered high above the chaos. It focused all its remaining Qi into a single lance of destructive Qi and hurled it downward, impaling the fallen behemoth through its chest plate before the Sentry faded away.

Li Yu landed on the glass and immediately engaged the third and final behemoth. The monster roared and raised its shield but without the support of the others it was much too slow. Li Yu blurred into motion, using the footwork he had refined over countless battles. He slipped under the wide swing of the spiked mace, stepped inside the beast's guard and drove Star Crusher upward into its unarmored throat like a spear.

The final behemoth let out a gurgling, metallic gasp before collapsing backward. Its massive body hit the glass plain with a heavy and final thud. The battlefield fell perfectly silent. Muddy let out a low but victorious snort. It shook the dust from its thick hide.

Li Yu stood amidst the wreckage of the three giants. He was completely exhausted now. His muscles burned, his breathing was heavy and his spiritual reserves were significantly depleted. He had burned brighter than ever before, fighting through three relentless but perfectly scaled historical nightmares.

The cracked glass plain and the glowing purple fault line slowly began to dissolve. The illusionary space was breaking down and returning him to the reality of the Inner Sanctum.

The fighting was over and the true cost of the crucible had been paid. Li Yu leaned on Star Crusher and waited for the white light of the pagoda’s foyer to return, knowing he had passed the test of the sundered sky.