Chapter 842: Dying
Haelan raised a translucent hand and gestured toward the other Eidolon warriors. He ordered them to leave. The warriors bowed silently and retreated through the courtyard gate. They vanished into the winding streets of the city and moved like drifting shadows and left no footprints on the silver grass.
Only seven individuals remained in the pavilion. Li Yu, Khaos and Old Du sat at the wooden table. Haelan and Jhyra stood opposite them. Torend knelt silently in the corner. His posture was rigid but his aura was subdued. The soul contract bound his will tightly to Li Yu. It was a strange dynamic. Torend was a mighty general but he now sat as a quiet servant in a simple courtyard.
A soft golden glow materialized in the air above the table. The massive rings of Astramentis had condensed into a miniature form. The sacred artifact hovered quietly like a small glowing orb. It wanted to hear the truth as much as Li Yu did after what had happened.
Jhyra stepped forward. She raised her arms and wove intricate hand seals. The ambient Qi in the courtyard rippled. A dome of shimmering grey energy expanded from her fingertips. The barrier enveloped the courtyard and sealed them off from the rest of The Veil. The ambient sounds of the city faded away. The distant hum of the pagodas and the flowing water of the canals were silenced. The isolation barrier was dense and secure.
"We can speak freely now," Jhyra said. Her cold voice echoed slightly within the grey dome. "No diviner or spy can pierce this veil. The matters we discuss here must never reach the ears of our enemies."
Li Yu rested his hands on the table. He looked at the two leaders. "You proved your desperation today. You sacrificed one of your own generals just to secure a seat at this table. Now tell me the truth. What is threatening the Eidolon Court?"
Haelan took a seat across from Li Yu. He smoothed his shimmering silk robes with pale fingers. "Our home realm is dying. The spiritual veins are drying up. The ethereal rivers that power our arrays are turning to dust. But that is only a symptom of the true disease. Our realm is dying because our Ancestor is dying. The two entities are irrevocably tied together."
Li Yu frowned. He picked up the clay teapot and poured himself a fresh cup of tea. He watched the steam rise into the cool air. "Your Ancestor? How old is this person? Realms live for countless eras don’t they? They endure cosmic storms and massive wars. I have never heard of a single cultivator living long enough to outlast the natural lifespan of a world."
Jhyra took the seat next to Haelan. "She is a unique being. During the ancient eras, she reached a plateau in her cultivation. She possessed unimaginable power but she knew her physical vessel would eventually fail. The laws of time are cruel to all flesh. To bypass the cycle of reincarnation and ensure she could guide our people forever, she made a monumental sacrifice. She bound her very soul to the core of our realm. She merged her ethereal foundation with the spiritual veins of the world itself."
Li Yu listened with keen interest. It was a terrifying and awe inspiring concept that he didn’t even think was possible. Showing just how much of a frog in the well he was. To become one with a realm required a level of understanding and perhaps soul strength.
"She traded her freedom for immortality?" Li Yu asked.
"Exactly. In a way at least." Jhyra nodded. Her expression held a mix of reverence and sorrow.
"She lost the ability to leave the realm. She became the beating heart of our world. Over time, as the world shifted and aged, her physical form degraded further. She lost the ability to move within the realm itself. She became permanently anchored to the deep core. She has stayed alive all these eras to offer us guidance. She taught us supreme ethereal arts and shaped us into an empire. She is the mother of the Eidolon Court but she is effectively paralyzed."
"That explains why the realm is dying," Khaos spoke up. He drummed his fingers on the wooden table. His starry eyes studied Haelan. "If her soul is bound to the core and her soul is failing, the realm will wither alongside her. The spiritual veins will rot as her energy fades. But that does not explain your extreme panic. Empires relocate. You control other realms. You could simply migrate your people to a new world before the realm collapses. This has been done countless times throughout history."
Haelan looked down at his empty teacup. A shadow of immense sorrow crossed his pale features. The regal arrogance he had displayed earlier was gone. "We cannot migrate. Our location does not matter. Our entire race is bound to her fate. If she dies, we will all cease to exist."
Li Yu paused with his teacup halfway to his lips. He set it down slowly. "All of you? An entire empire spanning multiple realms?"
"Yes," Haelan answered. His voice was grim. "It is the curse of our bloodline. When our Ancestor was building her power during the ancient wars, she was surrounded by betrayal. Enemies and rivals constantly tried to assassinate her. Factions rose and fell daily. To ensure absolute loyalty from her followers and her descendants, she manipulated her own bloodline. She wove a fundamental law into the essence of our race. She tied our lives directly to hers so that no Eidolon could ever conspire against her without killing themselves in the process."
Li Yu felt a chill run down his spine. He looked at Haelan, Jhyra and the kneeling Torend. He thought about the ruthless way they did things and how they treated their own generals.
“Not many know this but she ‘created’ us. She did not have children in the way you would think. She was able to create the first of us from her bloodline using some sort of method. We then went on to live as any being does after that. That is why our bloodline is directly linked to her own life. She created a people and following she could trust.” Haelan admitted.
This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Ruthlessness did not just run in their empire's culture. It was literally woven into their blood. Their Ancestor had held her own children hostage to secure her throne. She had built an empire on a foundation of genetic extortion. Li Yu kept his expression neutral but the realization settled deep in his mind. They were a people that were absolutely ruthless to their core.
"It was an act of supreme paranoia," Jhyra added. Her voice softened just a fraction as she noted Li Yu's silent judgment.
"But you must understand the era she lived in. It was a time of endless slaughter. Over the millennia, her mindset changed. She watched her descendants build a vast empire and she grew to love the people we became. She deeply regretted what she had done to our bloodline. But the laws she wove were too powerful and had taken a life of their own. She could not change the knot she had tied. We prospered under her guidance but we always knew the sword was hanging over our heads."
Old Du leaned forward. The ferryman rested his arms on his wooden paddle. His dark eyes were filled with a sudden and intense curiosity. "If she is bound to the core of a heavily fortified realm, she should be untouchable. She is surrounded by your entire empire. How is she dying?"
"Betrayal," Haelan spat the word out like venom. His hands clenched into tight fists. "We have an eternal enemy. They are another spectral race that are similar but different to us. They are known as the Lemorian Shade. We have fought bloody wars against them for generations. They covet our territories and our soul arts. Twenty years ago, a traitor was discovered within the highest ranks of our own ruling council."
Old Du flinched slightly. The word traitor hit close to home. He thought of Xyphyra and the devastation she had caused from within. A trusted insider was always the most dangerous enemy.
Jhyra closed her eyes. "The traitor had been manipulated by love. A Lemorian spy seduced him and twisted his mind over thousands of years. It was a slow and meticulous grooming process. He used his high clearance to bypass the ultimate defensive arrays surrounding the realm core. He bypassed the guards and the wards. He delivered a catastrophic attack directly against our weakened Ancestor."
"He poisoned her," Haelan continued. "It was a hideous soul poison of unknown origin. It was likely crafted specifically by the Lemorian Shade for this exact purpose. Our finest healers and alchemists have studied it for two decades. We cannot identify it and we cannot cure it. The poison is slowly eating away at her ethereal foundation."
Li Yu processed the timeline. Twenty years was a blink of an eye for ancient cultivators. For a being that had lived for eras, a twenty year decline was a rapid and terrifying freefall. The Eidolon Court was watching a slow and inevitable execution play out in real time.
"Because she is tied to the realm, her dying means the realm dies," Li Yu summarized calmly. He traced the rim of his clay cup. "And because your bloodline is tied to her, her dying means every single one of you will fall dead the moment her soul rots away."
"Trillions of lives," Torend spoke up from the shadows. His voice was hoarse. As a bound servant, he was normally expected to remain silent but the weight of the topic compelled him to speak. "Men, women and children. Entire generations will be wiped out. The poison will erase our entire history. The Lemorian Shade will win the eternal war without fielding a single army. They just have to wait."
“If your enemy know this has been done, why all the need for the secrets?” Li Yu couldn’t help but ask.
“Because we have more than just one enemy, there are too many to even mention.” Haelan replied.
The courtyard fell silent again. The gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the trees but the sound was muffled by the grey barrier. Li Yu looked at the three Eidolon representatives. He could sense their fear beneath their arrogant exteriors.
They were not good people by any standard metric. They were manipulative, aggressive and cruel. They viewed lives as currency and leverage probably before this had happened. But they were also victims of an ancient curse and a devastating betrayal. They were fighting for the literal survival of their species.
Li Yu felt his anger toward them begin to fade slightly. The frustration that had plagued his morning practice dissolved. It was replaced by a wary understanding. He still did not trust them. He would never trust an empire built on such ruthless foundations. But he understood their extreme methods more now. When faced with total extinction, morality was always the first casualty. They were cornered animals lashing out in the dark.
Old Du let out a heavy sigh. The ferryman looked at the glowing miniature form of Astramentis and then at Haelan.
"I understand your desperation," Old Du said softly. The anger he had harbored over the attempted kidnapping vanished completely. It was replaced by a deep and painful empathy. His own people had faced a similar extinction event during the Great Devastation. They had watched their realm fracture and their elders die because of a traitor from within. Old Du knew the crushing weight of watching a home collapse.
"It is a terrible fate to watch your people fade away while you stand by helplessly."
Astramentis pulsed with a warm golden light. The artifact resonated with Old Du's sorrow. It too had lost siblings to the betrayal.
"We have exhausted every option," Jhyra said. Her voice broke slightly to reveal a crack in her icy facade. She looked directly at Li Yu.
"We have scoured the cosmos for a cure. We have offered bounties in secret that would bankrupt lesser empires. We have consulted ancient texts and forbidden ruins. We have found nothing that can purge the poison from her soul. The toxin is too deeply embedded in her foundation. That is why we need you, Li Yu."
Li Yu met her gaze. He had heard the history and he understood the stakes. The Eidolon Court was facing a ticking clock of extinction. But he was just a Law Integration cultivator. He possessed a unique foundation with five Nascent Souls but he was not an ancient healer or a master alchemist. He knew how to fight, raise fish and he had recently learned how to farm. He did not know how to cure a soul poison that stumped an empire for 20 years now.
"I understand why you are desperate," Li Yu said slowly. He kept his voice measured and calm. "I understand why you offered the Realm Essence and why you were willing to resort to kidnapping. But I still do not understand what role I play in this. If your finest experts and your ancient alchemists cannot cure her, what do you expect me to do?"
The question hung in the air. The grey isolation barrier shimmered quietly. The Eidolon leaders exchanged a heavy look.