Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Hua Eversong took another sip of her tea and she set the delicate porcelain cup down with a soft clack that echoed in the vast command center.

"The clan started losing on all their different fronts." Hua continued her explanation. Her voice carried the somber weight of a historian recounting a tragedy. "It was not a gradual defeat. It was a sudden and catastrophic collapse. Even new forces came in from the outer edges. The cosmic borders were already in chaos due to the fighting happening everywhere else. The predators simply smelled blood in the water and flocked to the feast."

Lian leaned back in her chair. She crossed her arms over her dark dragon scale chest plate.

"They were completely unprepared for a war of that scale." Lian noted. "They had grown fat and complacent under the shadow of the Zhan Clan. They forgot how to truly fight for their borders."

"Exactly." Hua agreed. "But the attackers did not just come for land or resources. They had specific goals. Some of the forces wanted to take Yue as a prize. They wanted to capture her and make her a concubine for their master or their clan heir."

Lian let out a short and cold laugh. The irony of the situation was almost physical.

"She is powerful and possesses good talent." Hua explained. "She would serve their organization well. Producing strong heirs and acting as a combat asset. To them, she was not a person. She was a resource left unguarded in the void."

"Others simply wanted to destroy the Gongsun Clan for things they have done in the past." Hua added. "The reasons were numerous. Unfair trade agreements. Stolen territories. Ancient blood feuds. The Gongsun leaders made many enemies over the eras because they believed they were untouchable. When the shield fell, those enemies came to collect their debts."

"They were desperate." Hua said. Her voice dropped a fraction lower. "And desperation breeds foolish decisions. Yue eventually fell in love with the heir of one of the attacking powerful clans."

Lian raised an eyebrow. She looked away from the map and met her mother's gaze.

"Fell in love?" Lian asked. Her tone was completely flat and laced with pure skepticism.

"Supposedly." Hua clarified with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I do not believe it for a single moment. It is mostly fake. Our spies within their courts reported that she acts the part but her eyes remain cold. She regrets her actions now and she sees what her arrogance has done to the clan. She realizes the magnitude of her mistake but it's too late. She wanted to break an engagement only to enter into another."

Lian shook her head slowly. The sheer stupidity of her former clan was staggering.

"In order to get some additional forces on their side, she chose this path." Hua stated. "She sold herself to forge a desperate alliance and buy them some time."

"She threw away a sacred bond with the Zhan Clan because she refused to be a concubine." Lian said. Her voice was sharp with disgust. "She claimed she wanted freedom. She claimed she wanted to control her own fate. And what does she do the moment the consequences of her actions arrive? She sells herself as a concubine to a lesser power just to survive. She traded the protection of a dragon to become the plaything of a wolf."

"It is a tragic irony." Hua agreed softly. "She thought she was cutting a chain. She did not realize she was just trading it for a much heavier and far more degrading collar."

Lian only shook her head at the stupid decisions her clan had made over this time. But it mattered not to her. She had already left long ago and left them a long time ago. She had cut her ties with the foolish elders and dedicated her life to a cause that held meaning. The Veiled Lotus would not shed a single tear for the Gongsun Clan.

"Did this fake romance actually help them?" Lian asked. She already knew the answer but for some reason found herself asking what her mother knew about it.

"For a time." Hua replied. "After the hasty engagement was announced, the allied clan stepped in. With the help of that clan, they were able to stabilize their borders for a short time. They pushed back some of the smaller raiding parties and secured their core territories."

Hua paused. She reached out and traced a path through the glowing stars with her finger.

"But then the larger cosmic wars reached that allied clan." Hua explained. "The chaos your Young Master’s parents unleashed across the cosmos ripples outward. It would seem that the arrogant heir Yue engaged herself to upset the wrong people. He offended an elder from the Silent Oblivion Sect."

Lian felt a chill run down her spine. The Silent Oblivion Sect was one of the five factions that had ambushed Li Canghai. They were masters of erasure. They did not fight wars. They exterminated problems.

"The heir was foolish and arrogant." Hua continued. "He thought his clan was powerful enough to demand respect in the changing cosmic landscape. He insulted the Silent Oblivion Sect during a territorial dispute."

"That is a death sentence for many." Lian stated.

"It was." Hua confirmed. "The allied clan was wiped out over the course of a few short months. It was a complete and utter slaughter. The Silent Oblivion Sect deployed their arrays and erased their home realm from the void in the end."

Hua looked at Lian with a heavy expression.

"But the true disaster for your former home was the collateral damage." Hua said. "The Gongsun Clan had sent a massive portion of their remaining military forces to help their new allies defend their borders. They sent some of their best ships and their elite troops to honor the new engagement."

"Those forces were taken along with them." Hua said softly. "The Silent Oblivion Sect trapped the Gongsun reinforcements within their dead zones and annihilated them. Tens of millions of elite soldiers were wiped out without a single survivor making it back home."

"A fatal blunder." Lian analyzed coldly. "They overextended their forces to protect a shield that was made of paper."

"This greatly weakened the Gongsun Clan." Hua nodded and continued. "Without the extra forces from the alliance and now with even less of their own forces remaining, the clan was completely pushed back. The enemies they had temporarily stalled surged forward with renewed aggression. They breached the inner territories last week."

Lian opened her eyes. She looked at her mother across the wooden table. The intelligence report was comprehensive and terrifying but matched her own information. The Gongsun Clan was bleeding out. But there was a piece missing from this puzzle.

"You have excellent spies Mother." Lian said. She kept her voice respectful but probing. "But you did not travel all the way to my hidden command center just to give me a tactical update on a clan we both abandoned. Why are you here?"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They had both left the clan long ago. They had absolutely nothing to do with the fate of the Gongsun Patriarch or his foolish daughter.

Hua sighed deeply. The wrinkles around her eyes seemed to deepen in the blue light of the star maps.

"You are right." Hua admitted. "I did not come just to tell stories. I came because the situation has escalated beyond simple border skirmishes. The clan is facing total annihilation."

Hua took a breath to steady herself.

"The older elders of the Gongsun Clan have also come out of secluded cultivation a few weeks ago." Hua revealed.

Lian sat up straighter. This was significant news that she hadn’t received yet. The seven ancient elders of the clan had been in deep seclusion for thousands of years. They were the true foundation of the family. They only awakened when the clan faced an existential threat.

"They woke up to find their empire burning." Hua explained. "They emerged from their hidden vaults to try to keep the enemies at bay. When they investigated the cause of the war, they found out what decisions had been made by the Patriarch and Yue."

"I imagine they were not pleased." Lian said dryly.

"They were absolutely furious." Hua said. "They nearly executed the Patriarch on the spot for breaking the oath with the Zhan Clan. They understood the grace that had been bestowed upon them and they saw how the current generation had spat upon it. But their fury could not change reality. It was too late to even come back to the Zhan clan begging. Li Yu’s mother was much too furious and the enemies were already at the gates."

Lian looked back at the map. She could imagine the ancient experts taking to the skies to defend their crumbling cities.

"They fought bravely." Hua said softly. Her voice carried a trace of respect for the old warriors. "But the enemies were too numerous and the allied forces arrayed against them were too strong. Of the seven ancient elders that had to come back to fight, four of them have already fallen in the fighting."

Lian felt a flicker of surprise. To kill four supreme elders required an overwhelming application of force. The attackers were truly committed to wiping the Gongsun Clan from the annals of history.

"The clan is on its very last legs." Hua stated plainly. "Their outer defenses are gone. Their fleets are in ruins. They are trapped on their few core realms waiting for the final siege to begin."

Hua looked directly into Lian’s eyes.

"Two of the three surviving elders managed to slip through the blockade." Hua said. "They came to me."

Lian narrowed her eyes. The pieces finally clicked into place.

Lian’s mother came from a powerful faction of her own. The Eversong Clan was a wealthy and influential force in the cosmos. Lian’s father was the one who belonged to the Gongsun Clan originally. But their entire family had left the clan long ago.

They packed their belongings and walked away when they saw the Gongsun leadership heading in the wrong direction and failing to honor their ancient bonds. Her father and mother currently lived peacefully within the territories of the Eversong Clan.

"They came to beg you for help." Lian deduced.

"Yes." Hua nodded. "They knelt in the courtyard of our estate. These ancient men who had lived for eras pressed their foreheads to the stone and begged the Eversong Clan to intervene. They begged us to send our fleets to break the siege and save their bloodline."

Lian did not react much. Her expression remained as cold and hard as the walls around her.

"How stupid the Gongsun Clan has become." Lian said. Her voice lacked any trace of pity. "They burn their bridges and then beg for a rope when they start drowning."

"Your father felt differently at first." Hua revealed quietly.

Lian frowned. She knew her father possessed a softer heart. He still carried a sense of nostalgic loyalty for the clan of his birth despite their numerous failings.

"He saw the broken old men kneeling in the dirt." Hua explained. "He saw the desperation in their eyes. He had thoughts of mobilizing our private guard and asking the Eversong Patriarch for permission to help the Gongsun Clan. He felt pity due to how bad of a shape they are in."

Lian gripped the edge of the wooden table. If her father marched to war for the Gongsun Clan he would likely die in the crossfire. The enemies arrayed against them were too vast for a single rescue fleet to handle. If her father went, she would have no choice but to go as well to keep her father safe.

"But you stopped him." Lian said confidently. She knew her mother was a master of diplomacy and reason.

"I did." Hua confirmed with a firm nod. "I have already talked him out of it. We sat down and I reminded him of the reality of the situation."

Hua looked at the swirling red lights on the tactical map.

"I told him that we have been gone for far too long." Hua said. "I reminded him that he has already more than paid them back through the years. He provided them with resources and guidance when they needed it before we left. He owes them absolutely nothing."

Lian relaxed her grip on the table and she felt a sense of relief.

"You did the right thing Mother." Lian said sincerely. "If the Eversong Clan intervenes now, you will only drag your own people into a doomed war. You will bleed for a clan that does not know the meaning of gratitude."

"I know." Hua agreed. "I told the two elders that the Eversong Clan will remain neutral. We will not send a single ship or a single soldier to aid them."

Lian nodded in agreement.

"Let the Gongsun Clan face their own fate." Lian declared coldly. "They wanted freedom from their bonds so badly. They wanted to stand on their own without the protection of the Zhan Clan. That is exactly what they will get. They will face the cold reality of the cosmos alone."

"It is a harsh lesson." Hua murmured.

"It is the only lesson the cosmos teaches." Lian replied. She looked at her ten generals stationed across the stars on the map. Her purpose was clear. She would not waste her strength on a dying and foolish clan. Her power belonged solely to the Young Master.

The heavy conversation reached its natural conclusion. The fate of the Gongsun Clan was sealed and neither woman felt any desire to change it.

Hua stood up from the wooden table. She smoothed her elegant silk robes.

"I must return." Hua said warmly. The tactical commander vanished and the loving mother returned. "Your father worries when I travel through these volatile sectors."

Lian stood up instantly. She walked around the table and embraced her mother. It was a tight and genuine hug. The cold supreme general of the Veiled Lotus allowed herself to be a daughter for a brief moment.

"Travel safely, Mother." Lian whispered.

Hua held her daughter tightly. She pulled back slightly and smiled.

"You need to visit home more often, Lian." Hua scolded her gently. "We miss you at the estate. Do not spend all your time hiding in these dark halls preparing for war."

"I will try." Lian promised. "Once the current cosmic turbulence settles down I will come visit."

Hua smiled brighter. A mischievous glint appeared in her warm eyes.

"And when you do visit." Hua added smoothly. "Make sure to bring Li Yu back with you. I really want to see my son in law after all."

Lian froze completely. The supreme general who commanded legions suddenly forgot how to breathe.

A fierce and uncontrollable heat rushed up her neck and settled deeply into her cheeks. She blushed a vibrant and furious shade of red. She opened her mouth to protest or explain the actual professional dynamic of her relationship with the Young Master but no words came out.

Hua let out a bright and musical laugh. She patted Lian on the cheek affectionately.

"Do not work too late dear." Hua teased her.

With a final warm smile Hua turned around and stepped into the spatial distortion. The purple energy twisted and folded inward. She vanished from the command center and left Lian standing entirely alone in the dark hall.

Lian stood frozen for a long time. Her face was still burning. She looked at the empty space where her mother had stood and then slowly raised her gauntleted hands to cover her flushed cheeks.

The fearsome Black Lotus was staring blankly at the floor. The cosmic war raged outside but the only thing she could focus on was the terrifying prospect of bringing Li Yu home for dinner. She finally snapped out of it and looked around.

‘Perhaps this place is a bit too dark… I should get someone to decorate it.’ Lian thought to herself.