Chapter 1118: Unexpected Encounter
With Krag now firmly in charge of the royal Axolotl leadership, Li Yu turned his attention back to his primary goal within this realm. Li Yu looked down at the trembling figures of Ruler Astrid and Ancestor Ulfric while the seal kept them pinned to the cavern floor. The seals burned brightly on their souls and guaranteed their total obedience to the giant rock beast floating above the pool.
"Since you are now bound to my companion, I will ask you one final time," Li Yu said with a calm voice. "Do you possess any hidden information about the Dragon Core or the true strength of the dragons residing in the center of this realm? Is there anything else stored in your private vaults that might help me understand the central continent?"
Ulfric coughed and shook his head slowly while keeping his eyes averted. "There is truly nothing else senior. The dragons hide deep within their own territory and they punish anyone who tries to spy on them. They eradicate entire bloodlines for asking too many questions so any records detailing their operations do not exist and they make sure it stays that way. We only know that anyone who has ever tried to find out the truth is either captured or dead. We know nothing of their current strength or their borders."
Li Yu let out a soft sigh and accepted the reality of the situation. There really was nothing else to find in The Sunken Mires. He quickly made up his mind to visit another beast continent and decided on heading toward the territory of the Storm Astral Moths. He had read a few vague geographical notes about their lands in the library and figured they might have different information and worse case perhaps he can learn something unique about lightning from them.
Before leaving the hidden cavern, he turned back to the underground pool to bid his companion farewell. Krag was still hovering near the beating red heart and studying the pulsing veins with his nine pale snake heads. Ever since he came here, Krag was drawn towards this heart like it was its childhood sweetheart. He seemed to refuse to step even a few steps away from it as if it would run away if he did.
"I will leave you here to study your opportunity, Krag," Li Yu offered with a warm smile. "I wish you the best of luck and that it leads you towards the evolution you seek. I will return to visit you once I settle my own matters."
He spoke those words with genuine sincerity because he did not know he had time traveled. Li Yu believed that would see Krag again even if he found a way to leave this realm. Afterall, traveling between realms was a common thing that could be set up if you had enough resources to create the gateways.
Krag turned his central head toward Li Yu and projected his voice across their mental link. 'I wish you luck on your journey as well, Li Yu. I must say that for someone as powerful as you are, you remain quite soft hearted and kind. I thought that trait was pathetic at first but I must admit it has its own unique charms and you seem to carry it well. You have your own unique and strange charisma that draws others to you.'
"I will take that as a compliment coming from you," Li Yu chuckled.
'Take it however you wish,' Krag replied as his other heads continued to watch the glowing heart. 'Just remember to stay true to yourself. That is the most important thing for anyone walking towards the apex of this long path. Do not let the cruelty of others change your core beliefs even if I still think your values are quite wrong.'
Before Li Yu could even ask if Krag could order the ruling class to make the lives of the beasts on this continent a bit less miserable, Krag already anticipated the request.
'Do not ask me to save the mud dwellers, Li Yu,' Krag warned with a firm tone. 'Their lives do not matter to me at all. The weak suffer and the strong devour. That is the natural law of this universe and I will not pretend to be a benevolent god for creatures I do not care about. But perhaps if their prosperity becomes a benefit to my own cultivation, I will consider changing things.'
The giant beast remained intentionally vague about whether he would actually alter the brutal policies of the Axolotls or not. Li Yu smiled at the response and did not push the issue any further. He would not force human morality onto an ancient beast who operated on completely different principles.
Li Yu gave his companion one last wave and turned around to leave the underground cavern. He used his void stepping technique to phase through the stone ceiling and bypass the defensive arrays as before. He did not realize it would be eras from now when he would see Krag again. It would not seem that long to Li Yu as he navigated his own temporal journey but for Krag, countless eras would pass until their reunion. When they finally crossed paths again, Li Yu would be shocked by the staggering transformation his companion had undergone but that reunion waited much later on the cosmic timeline.
Li Yu emerged into the gray sky above the capital city and accelerated toward the open ocean with Heiyuan wrapped securely around his waist. As they left the borders of The Sunken Mires, a sudden pop of spiritual energy erupted from the black serpent. Yuan let out a loud hiss as his internal Qi condensed and shattered his previous bottleneck in an instant. He successfully broke through and stepped firmly into the Foundation Establishment realm.
Li Yu slowed his flight and held his arm out so the serpent could slither down to rest on his forearm. He inspected his companion closely but very little had changed physically and the breakthrough felt like it was a long time coming. Yuan was still the exact same length and his dark jagged scales maintained their sleek appearance. The only noticeable difference was a slight hardening of the scales and a deeper predatory glow radiating from his unblinking dark eyes.
'I broke through!' Heiyuan projected a feeling of incredible happiness across their mental bond. 'I am finally making real progress, Li Yu. I can feel the energy flowing through my flesh.'
Li Yu smiled brightly and gently patted the smooth head of the serpent while remembering the time when he broke through the same realm and the same excitement he also had back then. Seeing the genuine joy radiating from the beast brought back fond memories of his own early cultivation days and Li Yu couldn’t help but smile brightly..
"You did very well, Yuan," Li Yu praised him. "You have a bottomless appetite and a strong will to grow stronger. We will find plenty of resources to push you even further."
He was truly happy for Heiyuan, this creature that seemed to only care about growing stronger. Li Yu secured the serpent back around his waist and resumed his flight toward the territory of the Storm Astral Moths.
He flew for a while across the dark and turbulent ocean separating the beast continents. He scanned for life beneath the waters but found the ocean to be quite sparse in aquatic life. The environment then grew increasingly chaotic as heavy rain clouds gathered and violent winds whipped the sea into towering waves. He maintained a steady pace while creating a Qi barrier to repel the harsh weather and keep his robes dry.
While traveling through the storm, he noticed a series of strange spatial rifts opening off in the distance. The anomalies glowed with a faint silver light and crackled with untamed void energy. Li Yu felt a surge of excitement and hurried over to investigate them as perhaps they could lead him home. He had been searching for spatial anomalies since he arrived in this realm, hoping to find a tear that could lead him out of this realm so he could contact someone to come get him.
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However the rifts behaved very strangely as he approached. It was like they were actively avoiding him. Whenever he got near one of the silver tears, it would suddenly disappear and reappear further away. The anomalies darted through the stormy sky like they were playing tricks on him and baiting him forward.
Li Yu narrowed his eyes and chased after the erratic spatial tears. He pushed his speed higher and followed the glowing rifts until he hovered directly over a calm patch of deep blue water. The moment he stopped moving the water below him violently exploded upward.
A trapping array composed of glowing green runes burst from the ocean surface and formed a spherical cage around him. The trap activated instantly and the false spatial rifts he had been chasing shattered into a cloud of silver dust.
A team of strange beast kin rose from the churning water and surrounded the glowing formation. They were the Moth people he was originally going to visit for additional information. They possessed humanoid bodies covered in fine gray fuzz and large intricate wings sprouted from their backs. They carried long curved blades coated in a shimmering toxic powder.
Li Yu hovered calmly inside the glowing cage and looked at the leader of the ambush party. The leader was a tall Moth warrior possessing vibrant purple patterns on his wings and holding a crushed crystal artifact in his palm. The silver dust falling from the broken crystal perfectly matched the energy of the fake spatial rifts.
It looked like they had lured him out over the deep water using the projected rifts as bait.
‘How did they know what I was looking for? Or does that treasure allow the person it’s being used to see what they want to see?’ Li Yu thought to himself.
He quickly deduced they actually had no idea who he was or what he wanted. They were simply casting a wide net using an illusion treasure. They knew such a thing would attract people and curious beings flying across the ocean so they set the trap and waited for a traveler to take the bait.
There were fifteen Moth warriors floating outside the cage. Li Yu swept his divine sense over them and noted that fourteen of them were hovering between the Core Formation and Divine Transformation stages. The leader with the purple wings was the strongest by far among them and radiated a stable Half King aura.
Li Yu crossed his arms and wondered what they wanted him for. He debated if he should scheme against them and pretend to be captured so they would willingly take him to their capital city. It would save him the trouble of navigating the strange continent on his own.
Then he thought better of it and discarded the idea. He was in a rush and playing the part of a helpless prisoner was a waste of his time, perhaps in another situation he would do it but not here. He decided to resort to the Zhan Clan way of handling things, making him miss his family even more.
Li Yu waved his right hand in a dismissive arc. His power surged forward and slammed into the glowing green cage. The complex trapping formation groaned for a fraction of a second as if it could contain the power before it crumbled into useless sparks of fading light.
The Moth leader widened his eyes in shock as his trap shattered effortlessly with a wave of the hand. Before the leader could shout an order or raise his curved blade, Li Yu used his void stepping technique once more. He disappeared from his spot in the sky and instantly reappeared directly in front of the Half King leader.
Just a moment later, fourteen Abyssal Javelins arrived from where Li Yu had originally been trapped. The spears of condensed dark Qi shot forward with terrifying speed and precision.
The fourteen subordinate Moth warriors did not even have time to scream. The Abyssal Javelins smashed into their chests and easily pierced their natural Qi defenses. The dark energy pulverized their internal organs and killed them instantly before their bodies began to fall toward the churning ocean. Li Yu held back his destructive laws so their bodies would not be completely erased though.
While his javelins slaughtered the lackeys, Li Yu reached out and grabbed the Half King leader by the throat. He was mimicking what his grandfather had shown him when dealing with nasty enemies. He channeled his dense Qi into the Moth warrior and forcefully sealed his meridians to paralyze him.
The leader choked and thrashed his vibrant wings but he could not break the iron grip holding him in the air and the Qi that was locking him in place. Li Yu did not bother asking questions or negotiating. He drove his divine sense directly into the leader's mind and established a brutal soul binding contract. He bound the Moth warrior to his will and turned him into a helpless servant.
Now he had a perfect guide to navigate the new continent.
Li Yu waved his left hand and used a gentle pull to gather the fourteen falling bodies before they hit the water. He took the storage rings and brought the deceased Moth warriors over whiling presenting them to Heiyuan who was eagerly peeking over his shoulder. The bodies contained a vast amount of rich spiritual energy that could be put to good use at the hands of the correct being.
"Are you sure you can eat all of this, Yuan?" Li Yu asked while holding the bodies suspended in the air.
'Yes,' Heiyuan replied with certainty while unhinging his dark jaws.
Li Yu watched as the small serpent generated a spatial distortion within his mouth and swallowed the large Moth warriors one by one. The bodies vanished into the dark void hidden within the snake and Heiyuan did not bulge or show any signs of discomfort .
Li Yu figured that the mysterious space Heiyuan utilized for devouring must allow the serpent to absorb the stored energy only as his physical body actually needed it. The internal void likely acted as a buffer to break down the dense Qi over time or something like that. If the serpent absorbed all that raw energy at once, he would have long exploded into a shower of gore. It was the same when he ate all of the cultivation pills that Li Yu had given him at once.
With the battlefield cleared, Li Yu released his physical grip on the leader's throat.
"Take me to your continent," Li Yu commanded with a cold voice. "Explain to me everything you know and the fastest route to your grand archives."
The sealed Moth leader gasped for air and nodded his head frantically. He turned and began flying toward the jagged coastline visible in the distance while Li Yu followed closely behind. The leader began to explain what he could to Li Yu, with the sensitive information locked away in his mind by other seals to prevent situations just like these.
They traveled as the storm raged around them. Li Yu acted uncharacteristically quiet and only listened to the information being given. As they flew together, Li Yu could clearly feel the foul karma radiating from the Moth leader. The man's soul was stained with the blood of countless innocent travelers he had lured into his traps over the years and who knows what else. The thick stench of murder and torture clung to his spirit like a second skin.
Li Yu had no patience or mercy for someone who thrived on such things. He only needed the man for his geographical knowledge and overall understanding of the lands he is going to next.
The dark coastline of the Moth continent finally appeared. Instead of a gradual shoreline the landmass violently jutted upward into a colossal high altitude plateau known as The Shattered Sky. The turbulent weather Li Yu had flown through over the ocean did not end here but rather it intensified into an eternal raging thunderstorm. Black clouds blotted out the sky and jagged forks of purple lightning continuously hammered the rocky plateau below.
As soon as they arrived at the designated border of the continent, Li Yu stopped flying and looked at his captive guide. He did not say a single word of thanks to him either. Li Yu clenched his fist and triggered the lethal condition of the soul bind he had placed on the leader. The Half King expert spasmed violently as his soul was crushed into fragments and his eyes rolled back into his head. The Moth warrior died instantly without uttering a sound.
Li Yu let the lifeless body drift downward and patted the dark scales resting on his waist. Heiyuan eagerly lunged forward and swallowed the Half King expert whole to add to his growing stockpile of refined energy. With his guide digested and a new strange land stretching out before him, Li Yu prepared to see what secrets this stormy continent held.