Myriad Rivers to the Sea

As Zhan Tian had arrived, the physical world faded away as Li Yu opened his eyes within the borders of his own soul space. He did not know what was happening in the ruined garden outside and he did not care. Li Yu had seen his grandfather arriving with his army and knew his mother would be safe. He had done what he set out to do, he killed the utter scum that had hurt his mom.

What happened afterwards did not matter to him now. If the Worldheart Clan was currently burning to the ground he wouldn’t even bat an eye in his current emotional state. His entire focus remained anchored on the spirit that had just been dragged into his domain. Li Yu had been successful but the burning rage in his chest had not subsided by even a little bit. It roared like a wild inferno that demanded more fuel.

The captured soul of Ancestor Guizhong hit the dirt of the tranquil island with a heavy thud. The fact that he held his features and shape showed that Guizhong actually had a rare Nascent Soul. The old man was no longer a figure wielding the power of the clan’s main array nor was he able to wield his ultimate weapon that was his inner world though. He was a naked essence stripped of his physical vessel and trembling in the presence of forces he could not comprehend. Guizhong was also shocked by what had happened to him and how he was so easily taken out.

The Fisherman Soul stepped forward from the edge of the spiritual water and raised a hand before the captive could even attempt to stand. A dark seal formed in the palm of the ancient entity and he slapped it directly onto the chest of the spirit before him. The dark energy spiderwebbed across the ethereal body and locked the essence of the ancestor firmly in place. Guizhong found himself bound to the dirt without the ability to move.

Guizhong was horrified to find himself defeated once again in such a sudden manner as his own soul was not weak. He was a supreme expert just moments ago and now he was trapped like a helpless beast awaiting slaughter. He opened his mouth to demand answers and tried to project his spiritual authority but the words died in his throat when he looked up.

Li Yu stood over him with eyes glowing in dual shades of crimson and pitch black darkness. The young man did not bother to ask why the ancestor had attacked them in the garden. He did not care about the hidden motivations or anything else about the person in front of him. Li Yu simply wanted the old man to suffer the greatest pain he could possibly inflict and Li Yu felt that even that was going too easy on this fool.

The Human Soul stood a short distance away and seemed to read the dark desires swirling within their shared consciousness. It raised an empty hand and a sharp sword materialized from thin air. The blade gleamed with a cold light as the Human Soul demonstrated the method to exact vengeance within this spiritual domain. It was a silent lesson on how to manifest intent into a weapon that could be used here.

Li Yu watched the action and instinctively knew how to replicate the process upon seeing it. He raised his own hand and reached into the empty space beside him. A sword formed in his grasp and it pulsed with the sheer malice leaking from his pores. The sword took on the shape of Pale Extinction, his strongest sword and was the one his grandfather had gifted him. He did not say a word as he gripped the hilt and stepped closer to the bound spirit.

Princess Yuehan had once vented her emotions upon her enemies with a reckless abandon when the Hollow Husk had destroyed her family, empire and her life as she knew it. Li Yu was now about to do the exact same thing. He raised the sword high above his head and brought the blade down in a brutal arc.

The weapon passed through the glowing shoulder of the ancestor. No physical wound appeared on the spirit at first but the effect was devastating. Guizhong threw his head back and shrieked in unadulterated agony. The pain bypassed flesh and bone to strike directly at his core essence. It was a torment that tore at his very identity and set his spirit on fire.

"Please stop!" Guizhong screamed as the realization of his situation finally settled in. "I yield! Show mercy!"

Li Yu did not even hear his words at all. The ringing in his ears drowned out the desperate pleas and left only the sound of his own heavy breathing. He pulled the sword back and swung it again. And again, and again after that.

He kept swinging and swinging with a relentless rhythm that echoed across the tranquil island. He brought the blade down across the chest and the arms of the captive soul. He slashed at the legs and drove the point of the sword into the stomach of the glowing figure at times. The shrieks of the old man filled the air and mixed with the ambient sounds of the rushing spiritual water.

Li Yu did stop for even a single moment as he seemed to find more and more ways to inflict pain upon this old man. Slash after slash, stab after stab rained down upon the old man and Li Yu was only getting faster and faster as time went on. He was not used to using a sword with his hand but he quickly became accustomed to it in a very strange way as he continued his relentless assault.

A strange phenomenon began to occur as the brutal assault continued. Deep lacerations started to show on the glowing soul. Souls normally weakened over time and faded away into mist when they sustained damage. Parts of them would disappear or grow dim but they did not get injured in the same way physical bodies did. They were not supposed to bleed or hold the shape of a severed limb.

Yet somehow it was happening right now due to the unique characteristics Li Yu possessed. Those things allowed his killing intent to act as a physical force against the ethereal realm. Pieces of the spirit tore away and hung loosely like ruined skin while drops of glowing spiritual blood pooled in the dirt.

Li Yu did not even notice this impossible occurrence as he kept hacking away. His mind was lost to the singular action of swinging the blade and hearing the screaming and screeching of the man before him. If the screaming slowed down or got too low, he would only increase his efforts even further until it was a peasant sound to his ears.

"You damned bastard!" Li Yu yelled as he drove the sword through the collarbone of the ancestor. "You think you can just attack us? You think you can hurt her?! You deserve more pain!"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He pulled the weapon free and brought it down again. He cursed the old man with every strike and his voice cracked under the weight of his own fury. It was not just the emotions from what had happened in the garden driving his hand. It was all the emotions he had bottled up in regards to his family.

"I was not strong enough!" Li Yu roared while slashing across the chest of the spirit. "I had to watch him fight those monsters without the power to help!"

He remembered standing safely away and watching his grandfather plunge into the horde of hollow horrors. Li Yu remembered the overwhelming fear he had that his parents or his grandfather would get hurt out on the distant battlefields. He spent countless nights wrestling with the dread that he would eventually receive news of their deaths. Li Yu carried the heavy burden of knowing they were risking their lives to protect the realms while he was forced to wait behind until he got stronger.

"I pushed myself to the brink!" Li Yu yelled and swung the blade with even more force. “I had just started to find some semblance of balance and you go and hurt her!”

He poured his own recent internal struggles into the weapon. He had fought so hard to rush forward in his cultivation so he could help them carry the weight of the cosmos with his family. He survived the soul implosion of the colossal squid and risked his entire self just to claim a sliver of supreme power. He did everything he could to ensure his family would never have to mourn his loss.

All of that stress and anxiety had mixed together with his explosive rage from seeing his mother hurt today. He saw the bright red blood staining her battle armor and it shattered the dam holding his fears at bay. The target for all that overwhelming emotion was this damned old man in front of him.

The torture was unlike anything the cultivation world had ever seen. Guizhong sobbed and withered under the relentless assault as his spiritual form was carved into ribbons. The pain was worse than anything he had ever felt in his entire long life. It eclipsed the agony of cultivation backlashes and the sting of wounds. It was a pure and concentrated suffering that offered no respite.

After just a bit of time, Guizhong hoped his soul would just disappear and die. He prayed to the heavens that his essence would shatter into a million pieces and grant him the sweet release of true death. He welcomed the void if it meant escaping the blade of the madman standing over him.

The glowing spirit finally grew dim after enduring thousands of brutal strikes. The ethereal form flickered like a dying candle in the wind and the screams of the ancestor faded into a weak gurgle. It seemed like he was finally going to die and find the peace he so desperately craved.

But just as he reached the edge of oblivion, he was brought back somehow.

“You will not get away that easily!” Li Yu roared at him as he continued his assault.

The Yin Yang vortex spinning high above the island was to blame for this cruel twist of fate. The vortex seemed to sense the true emotions and desires of its master. Li Yu wanted to inflict pain and a quick death would put an end to that punishment far too soon. He seemed to somehow be able to subconsciously know how to use it for his purposes in his current state which he did not know how to before or after. The vortex flared with a bright light and showered the broken spirit with a dense stream of restorative laws.

The energy wrapped around the ruined soul and forced the torn pieces back together in an almost miraculous fashion. It stitched the ethereal flesh closed and pumped fresh spiritual vitality into the core of the ancestor. Guizhong gasped as his consciousness was violently yanked back from the brink of death. The sweet sense of release vanished and was instantly replaced by the searing agony of the sword returning to his chest.

The vortex kept Guizhong alive specifically to be slashed, suffer and killed time and time again. It acted as a cruel warden that ensured the captive could never escape his sentence and this was something that it could only do within Li Yu’s personal soul space. If one were a true expert and examined closely, there were also the Laws of Time being used within this soul space that was aiding the Yin Yang vortex in this task. The ancestor was brought to death's door and shown the comforting darkness only to be pulled back into the light to suffer the blade once more. It was an endless cycle of torment that defied the natural laws of life and death.

The Fisherman Soul stood on the side of the dirt path and watched the gruesome scene unfold with a steady gaze. A faint smile currently rested on the face hidden beneath the woven straw hat. It was hard to read the complex thoughts of the ancient entity but the smile was clear enough for all to see.

There was not much happiness behind that smile however. It was a conflicted expression that carried the weight of countless ages. It was as if a smile was there but absent at the very same time. The Fisherman looked like a being who was seeing something he had been wanting to see for a very long time. It was like he wanted to see Li Yu possess the capacity for boundless cruelty when the situation demanded it. Like he wanted to see Li Yu discard the soft morals that he usually carried and embrace the dark reality of the cosmos.

But at the same time, it would seem that now that he was seeing it play out before his eyes, he was not so sure that was what he truly wanted. The sheer brutality of the torture and the broken state of the boy wielding the sword sparked a hidden memory within the ancient entity. It was a difficult expression to decipher and the Fisherman remained silent as he watched the carnage continue. His thoughts were his own and no one would truly know.

The torture went on and on and on.

Li Yu lost track of time as he reduced the once proud ancestor to a weeping mess of scars time and time again. During this time he did not care how long they stayed in this soul space or if he remained here forever. He would keep swinging the sword until his own arms fell off before he would stop. Li Yu raised the blade high above his head once more and prepared to deliver another strike when a sudden anomaly interrupted his rhythm.

A sudden burst of dark energy erupted from the chest of the captive soul.

The unexpected explosion pushed Li Yu back a single step and forced him to lower his weapon slightly. The dark energy leaked from the center of the spirit like a geyser of black ink and pooled in the dirt beside the bound ancestor. The energy quickly coalesced into a separate entity that pulsed with a raw and sickening malice.

It was a twisted shadow that writhed upon the ground as if the very act of existing was causing it immense pain. The creature separated itself from the soul of Guizhong and took the form of a kneeling figure.

"Please stop!" The new entity begged with a voice that echoed with a hundred different tones of desperation. "I beg of you to stop!"

Li Yu stared at the creature and tightened his grip on the sword while his dual colored eyes narrowed in surprise but he was ready to begin swinging at this new entity.

"Spare me!" The entity cried out while pressing its form flat against the dirt of the island. "It was the doing of that stupid bastard lying there and not me! I did not attack your mother! Please spare me! This is the worst pain and torture I have ever endured in my entire existence and I cannot take it anymore! What kind of monster are you!?"

The entity continued to grovel and weep before the young man while the broken soul of the ancestor lay silent beside it. The dark creature offered a pathetic sight as it begged for a mercy that Li Yu was in no mood to grant.