Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Li Yu crossed the invisible threshold separating the dark turbulent ocean from the central continent without any issues. The heavy gray storm clouds of the outer world simply ceased to exist past a specific point in the sky and a warm radiant sun bathed the lush green landscape in a welcoming golden light. The air grew incredibly dense with sweet spiritual energy and the harsh scent of ozone was replaced by the fragrant aroma of blooming flowers.

He hovered just above the crystal clear water and stared at the vibrant shoreline. He had prepared his mind and body for perhaps a brutal siege against a fortified stronghold built from dark stone and flowing lava along the shore.

The stories told that no one ever came back alive from coming here. He expected to find heavily armed patrols of dragon kin scouring the coast for any signs of intrusion. Instead, he found a pristine paradise that looked like a painting brought to life.

A gentle breeze ruffled his robes as he slowly lowered his altitude. The spiritual energy in the air was so rich that it formed faint glowing mist along the surface of the water. Breathing in the ambient Qi felt like consuming a decent grade medicinal pill. The energy washed through his meridians and revitalized his spirit with a soothing warmth. It was a welcome change from the environment that he had been exposed to since coming here.

Despite the serene beauty stretching out before him, Li Yu did not let his guard down. He knew better than to trust a pretty facade in a world ruled by what everyone said were monsters. The dragons were known as invincible tyrants who eradicated entire families for asking questions or not following their orders.

A vicious ruling class did not build peaceful utopias without a sinister purpose hidden beneath the surface. He gathered a layer of dark Qi around his body and engaged his void and life laws to cloak his presence. He melted into the spatial fabric and stepped onto the grassy shore without making a single sound or disturbing a single blade of grass. It was as if he was not there at all and unless someone was actively looking for him or a much higher understanding than him, he was virtually a ghost upon these shores.

The first day of his journey into the Dragon Core was a tense and calculated exercise in stealth. Li Yu moved through a sprawling forest of ancient trees bearing glowing golden fruits. He tried some of the fruits and they were delicious with a hint of sour taste. He wanted to pick them but stopped himself, thinking that there might be some alert system possibly tied to doing so.

The bark of the trees shimmered with a metallic luster and the broad leaves captured the sunlight to generate even more spiritual energy. He walked from shadow to shadow while keeping his divine sense tightly compressed around his body. He did not dare to cast his perception too far out for fear of brushing against a high level sentry or triggering a hidden alarm array.

As he navigated the vibrant woodland he noticed the staggering abundance of natural treasures. Rare herbs that would cause wars on the outer continents simply grew like common weeds along the dirt paths. He saw clusters of azure spirit ginseng resting near the roots of the ancient trees and vibrant starfire lotuses blooming in the shallow streams.

These were not young sprouts either that needed time to grow. Based on the rich color of their leaves and the dense energy swirling around their petals, Li Yu estimated these herbs had grown undisturbed for several hundred years. He was no expert on herbs but it was easy enough to tell based on how much energy was coming from them. The volume of wealth scattered across the forest floor was enough to fund a sect for many generations on the other continents and push disciples into the higher realms.

His hands twitched with the ingrained desire to harvest the valuable resources once more. The Zhan clan principles encouraged taking advantage of every opportunity to grow stronger and secure the future of the family. His grandfather had always taught him to strip a battlefield bare of any useful resources once the fighting was done. However, Li Yu forced his hands to remain at his sides and he kept a strict distance from the glowing plants.

He analyzed the situation with the cold logic of a seasoned veteran and someone with high paranoia of these lands as he did before with the fruits. In any sect or royal territory valuable resources were always guarded or harvested according to a strict schedule. Leaving such high tier herbs out in the open made no sense unless they served another purpose. He suspected the dragons had set up some sort of intricate natural trap to detect greedy intruders.

Plucking a single golden fruit or digging up a single ginseng root might sever a hidden lay line and alert the central authorities to his exact location. The plants could be tied directly to the life force of some sort of hidden array. He decided the risk far outweighed the reward and chose to leave the treasures untouched for now; he could always come back for them later once he was more sure. Li Yu was here for answers regarding a way home and picking up spare herbs was a foolish way to announce his arrival.

The sun set and rose again as Li Yu continued his covert trek inland. The dense forest eventually gave way to rolling green hills dotted with crystal clear lakes. The landscape remained breathtakingly beautiful but the oppressive silence began to gnaw at his nerves. He had walked deep into the territory of the most feared race in the realm yet he had not seen a single guard or military outpost. In fact, he had seen no one at all.

He paused on the crest of a high hill and observed a large herd of beasts drinking from a nearby lake. They resembled tall deer with scales covering their flanks and multiple spiral horns adorning their heads. The beasts drank the sweet water peacefully and their movements lacked the twitchy paranoia of hunted prey. They grazed on the rich spiritual grass without lifting their heads to check for predators at all, as if none ever existed. The lack of fear in the non sentient wildlife indicated that hunting was a rare occurrence in this region.

Li Yu crouched in the tall grass and frowned deeply. He understood that the central continent was large but the borders of any sovereign nation required constant monitoring. Even if the dragons believed no one would ever dare to cross the ocean, they still needed to maintain spatial arrays or watchtowers to coordinate their own forces. He scanned the clear blue sky for any signs of flying patrols and probed the deep soil for the hum of underground formations. He found nothing but natural stone and flowing water.

The absence of security was far more terrifying than a visible army to Li Yu who was on high alert. An army could be measured and countered using standard tactics but this empty paradise offered no clues to him at all. He wondered if the dragons utilized a form of surveillance that existed beyond his current understanding of the laws.

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Perhaps the very wind and rain acted as their eyes and ears in these lands somehow. He maintained his void cloak and kept his energy signature suppressed to the minimum in hopes to avoid whatever it was they were using to monitor the area. He moved slowly across the rolling hills and treated every open meadow like a minefield waiting to detonate.

By the dawn of the third day, Li Yu finally allowed his tense muscles to relax. He had crossed hundreds of miles of diverse terrain ranging from lush forests to wide floral plains and the result remained exactly the same. He had encountered zero dragon kin and zero defensive structures of any kind. There were no hidden tripwires buried in the dirt and no spatial traps hovering in the sky.

Li Yu came to a logical conclusion after analyzing his three days of travel. If the dragons possessed a passive detection net capable of seeing through his technique, they would have sent an execution squad after him on the first day. If the detection net required physical contact, he would have stumbled upon a border checkpoint by now. The harsh and strange reality was that there simply was no security grid in this outer sector of the continent.

Li Yu dropped his concealment arts and allowed his physical form to materialize fully in the sunlight. The transition felt jarring after spending days suppressing his energy and in fear of discovery. He stopped hiding in the shadows and stepped onto a wide dirt path that followed the curve of a rushing river. He breathed in the sweet atmospheric Qi freely and stretched his arms over his head to relax slightly. Walking openly felt like a strange rebellion in a land that carried such a horrific reputation. The sun warmed his shoulders and the gentle breeze carried the song of vibrant birds flying overhead.

He strolled along the riverbank and admired the serene environment without the filter of dark Qi clouding his vision. He compared this untouched paradise to the outer continents he had visited. The Axolotls lived in endless mud and fought over scraps of Qi while the Moth people battled eternal thunderstorms just to survive.

The disparity in resources was staggering and it painted a clear picture of why the outer races were so weak. Vaxx and the other dragon kin grew up bathing in this dense energy from birth. They did not need to struggle or fight for a foundation because the world simply handed them the pinnacle of cultivation environments in this realm. They would obtain at least twice the effect with half the effort just from living here compared to the other continents.

Li Yu picked up a smooth stone from the river edge and tossed it into the rushing water. 'No wonder Vaxx was so arrogant,' Li Yu thought as he watched the ripples fade. 'When you are raised in a garden that produces top tier fruit without effort, you naturally view everyone else as inferior dirt. They do not earn their strength through tribulation and survival. They inherit it from the very lands they live on.'

He continued his open journey until the radiant sun began to dip below the western horizon. The sky shifted from a vibrant blue to a breathtaking canvas of deep purple and bright gold. The temperature dropped slightly but the air remained comfortable and warm. Li Yu decided to stop traveling for the day and found a suitable location to set up camp, the first time he had done so since coming here.

The other nights he had just continued to move through the night without any camping or sleeping at all. Afterall, he had long passed the point of needing to eat or sleep very long ago but had continued to do so because he enjoyed it. With him on the constant edge of being discovered, he chose to just keep scouting during the night and make his way through this land. That was not the case anymore and he could finally relax and enjoy himself a bit

He chose a secluded spot near a cluster of large smooth boulders that offered a natural windbreak. Li Yu gathered a few pieces of fallen dry wood from a nearby grove and arranged them in a small circle near the boulders. He flicked his finger and generated a tiny spark of fire Qi to ignite the wood.

The flames crackled cheerfully and cast a warm orange glow against the gray stone. Li Yu sat on a flat rock and pulled a jug of spark wine he had purchased from Fulgurite Town out of his spatial ring. He uncorked the jug and took a long drink of the static filled liquid to clear the sweet taste of the local air from his palate.

The night sky above the central continent was a breathtaking sight. Without the eternal storm clouds of the plateau or the gloomy smog of the swamps blocking the view, the heavens displayed a sea of brilliant stars. The constellations shone with a clear and piercing light that illuminated the grassy plains below.

He rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the dancing flames while his mind churned with questions. He felt the ambient Qi pulsing around him and pondered the great mystery of the Dragon Core.

'Why does no one come here?' Li Yu asked himself as he took another sip of the wine. 'There are no walls and there are no guards patrolling the shores. There seems to be nothing at all to catch intruders walking through the outer fields. Countless people could have raided the shores for the valuable resources and left without ever being detected. How did this place become known as a place of no return?'

He thought back to the terror displayed by Skarn and the Lumin warriors when Vaxx arrived in the courtyard. The insectoid leader had mentioned that there were only stories of people coming to the central continent and never a single story of anyone returning. The fear of the dragons was deeply ingrained into the blood and soul of every outer race in this realm. They worshipped the core as a land of forbidden gods.

A theory began to take shape in his mind. What if the dragons did not need to build physical walls or maintain expensive detection arrays because their reputation did the heavy lifting for them?

'Could it be that the legends alone prevented the majority of the population from ever trying?' Li Yu mused as he watched a spark float up toward the starry sky. 'If you spread enough horrific tales and occasionally eradicate a bloodline to prove a point, you create a psychological barrier stronger than any stone wall. The outer races believe stepping foot on this grass means instant death so they never try. The dragons save their resources and live in peace while their neighbors cower in fear of a ghost.’

That explained some things but not everything. Li Yu continued in thought. ‘But that doesn’t explain it all. Without the ability to kill everyone that came here and prevent everyone from coming back, that story would prove to be false very quickly. So they must be able to kill everyone and anyone that comes here… somehow. But how?’

The dragons currently ruled the realm through the projection of invincible power rather than the daily application of it. They hoarded the best land and the richest Qi while using fear to keep the desperate masses locked in their miserable environments.

Li Yu leaned back against the smooth boulder and sighed. He knew his theory only answered part of the puzzle. Even with terrifying legends there would always be desperate or ambitious cultivators willing to risk death for a chance at this level of spiritual energy. There had to be a reason why those brave few never returned to tell the tale. Something else was happening deeper within the continent and he was determined to find out what it was.

He secured the cork back into the wine jug and placed it beside his feet. He closed his eyes and settled into a meditative state while keeping his divine sense actively scanning the perimeter of his camp. After a bit of time, Li Yu began to make himself a simple but delicious meal before bed time.

He would rest for the night and continue his trek toward the center of the paradise tomorrow.