Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The dark spatial rift tore open and deposited the strike force into a silent sector of the void where ambient starlight struggled to pierce the gloom. A third flesh fortress floated ahead in the darkness and the organic structure pulsed with an eerie green luminescence while a defensive organic cloud formed a shimmering barrier around the outer walls to ward off dangers. Zhan Tian did not even need to give an order before Eighth General Draken let out a deafening roar and launched himself forward like a meteor.

The towering brute gripped his battleaxe with both hands and crashed directly into the shimmering defensive array without slowing down. The impact sent chaotic shockwaves rippling through the void and fractured the energy barrier instantly. Draken did not use elegant techniques or subtle laws to fight his battles. He relied on violence and raw force to tear his enemies apart limb from limb.

"More blood to feed the edge!" Draken bellowed while swinging his weapon in a wide arc that carried the weight to crush all that was in its path.

The heavy blade cleaved through the thick bone plating of the fortress and crushed dozens of Hollow Husk defenders who tried to block his path. The alien creatures shrieked as their dark blood sprayed across the broken bone walls and rained down upon the laughing general. The battleaxe absorbed the spilled blood and began to glow with a dark crimson light. The weapon grew sharper and heavier with every life it took and the aura of carnage surrounding the general expanded to feed his physical strength to even higher levels once more.

He waded into the thickest concentration of enemies and became a grinding wheel of death. The Hollow Husk warriors thrust their weapons, techniques and lashed out with their jagged tentacles but everything bounced off his thick skin or shattered against his armor. Draken laughed a booming laugh and chopped a commander into pieces before stomping on the remains to shatter the floor beneath them. He swung his battleaxe in a full circle and released a wave of crimson Qi that bisected hundreds of squid creatures in a single breathtaking strike.

Li Yu followed the path of destruction and let his ethereal Koi project its suction force. He walked through the ruined halls and found hundreds of crippled squid creatures groaning on the soft tissue floor.

'I need your help again,' Li Yu projected his thoughts into his soul space as he surveyed the injured survivors.

The Fisherman flicked his glowing hook and the process repeated itself once more. Afterwards Li Yu sent a soul seal to each one and then threw them into the Koi Sanctuary like before.

Zhan Tian and the other generals quickly finished off the remaining troops and the leadership of the third base. They extracted the next set of information from the broken minds of the commanders and moved on without a moment of hesitation. They were a surgical knife cutting a swift path through the dark territory of their enemy. Once they were done, they would send additional troops here to clean up the aftermath.

The fourth fortress drifted within a dense field of a shattered realm and might have been their doing. The strike force arrived and General Yue stepped to the front of the formation to take the lead. She unstrapped the mystical guqin from her back and let it float before her chest while supporting it with her Qi. Her two young female disciples mirrored her stance and readied their own stringed instruments while standing a few paces behind her in a precise triangular formation.

"Let us play a gentle song for them," General Yue spoke softly while resting her slender fingers on the tense strings.

She plucked a single note and a visible ripple of silver Qi expanded across the void. The sound bypassed the physical barriers of the fortress and invaded the minds of the Hollow Husk defenders standing guard on the outer rings. The alien creatures shrieked and dropped their weapons as disorienting illusions flooded their senses. They saw their comrades as terrifying predators and began to tear each other apart in a frenzy of violent confusion.

Yue continued to play a rapid and haunting melody while her disciples provided a supporting harmony that amplified the range of the domain. The younger women plucked their pipas and sent out echoing soundwaves that formed physical Qi barriers to block any stray projectiles. Lethal threads of condensed Qi shot out from the guqin with every sharp note Yue struck. The threads wove through the chaotic battlefield like silver serpents and sliced the alien commanders into neat pieces before they could dispel the illusions clouding their minds.

The elegance of her combat style stood in stark contrast to the brutal carnage Draken had displayed earlier but it was equally devastating. The defenders could not fight an enemy they could not perceive and they died swinging their blades at shadows while the beautiful music echoed through the dark space. In a way it was much more terrifying than Draken because it was not what you’d expect from a massacre. Whole battalions of Hollow Husk warriors fell to the ground in pieces as the silver threads danced through their ranks and painted the asteroid field with dark blood.

Li Yu harvested another large batch of Qi from the enemy and secured several hundred more broken survivors from the wreckage. His Koi Sanctuary was quickly becoming a bustling holding area for the alien creatures as they healed in the dense spiritual waters. His Creation Lord cultivation deepened with every fortress they conquered and he felt his understanding of the laws expanding as well.

The vast volume of energy he was absorbing would take a normal cultivator a long time to refine but the Koi martial spirit purified the power and integrated it flawlessly into his foundation. It would take some time to make the power his own but it was more or less already usable.

The fifth fortress proved to be the largest of the gathering points and featured multiple defensive rings of hardened cartilage interwoven with dark metal veins. The strike force did not slow their pace and unleashed a coordinated assault that overwhelmed the defenders in a matter of minutes. This battle served as a testament to the teamwork and synergy of the elite generals fighting under the Worldkeeper.

General Tarkus stepped forward and shattered the outer rings with frequencies from his mace which Li Yu still felt was so strange. He slammed his weapon into the void and generated ripples of destructive force that quickly spread outward. His two sturdy disciples stood beside him and pounded their heavy hammers against their tower shields in perfect rhythm as well. The synchronized beating amplified the vibration of the general’s attack and turned the bone plating of the fortress to fine dust while liquidizing the internal organs of the thousands of defenders stationed on the walls.

General Seraphina and her assassins slipped through the falling debris like hunting vipers. She swung her segmented whip sword and the weapon extended for hundreds of yards as a metallic lotus of death. The blade danced through the air and executed the frontline troops by slicing their throats before the aliens could raise an alarm. Her three disciples utilized shadow arts to phase through the organic walls and plant explosive Qi talismen into the spines of the structure resulting in a chain of silent executions that crippled the defensive lines.

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While this kind of frontal attack did not suit them all that well, they were still clearly able to do the job just fine. There was a time to be stealthy and there was a time that they needed to fight and Seraphina and her disciples could do both. Li Yu was especially impressed with her movement techniques and made a mental note to ask his grandfather about them later on when things had settled down.

General Zane sent his tearing wind to clear the remaining grunts in the courtyards. He threw his chakrams and formed dual tornadoes that acted as a giant meat grinder spanning miles across the void. His successor rode the outer edges of the typhoons and threw smaller circular blades that followed the wind currents to decapitate any creature that managed to stumble out of the storm.

Li Yu thought that general Zane technique was similar to his hurricane of steel but Zane was doing it mostly via Qi, laws and other techniques while he relied on his weapons. It was clear that general Zane’s methods used far less Qi and soul strength for controlling them but the results were similar. Li Yu wondered which path was better at the same level and it was something he would have to ponder about or perhaps discuss it with general Zane if he got the chance.

General Rai flashed through the inner chambers like a bolt of lightning to secure the primary leadership targets once again. He moved so fast that the Hollow Husk forces only saw a blue streak before their chests were pierced by his silver spear. The young man standing beside Rai threw chains of crackling electricity that bound entire groups of alien warriors together and nearly cooked their bodies.

Li Yu also noted their use of lightning which resonated with him since he acquired a very special kind of lightning from his tribulation. He would have to pick their brains as well when there was time.

General Ghost stood on a floating chunk of bone near the edge of the battlefield and rained arrows down upon anyone attempting to flee into the void. His great bow fired streams of condensed energy to strike the targets directly in their souls. His two masked successors mirrored his fluid motions and fired their own volleys to ensure not a single runner escaped the slaughter. They blotted out the distant area with their arrows and secured the perimeter with lethal precision. It was shocking to Li Yu that three people could do what they were doing.

The synergy of the Eight Prime Generals was a breathtaking spectacle of martial dominance. They covered each other's blind spots and dismantled an army of tens of thousands without sustaining a single injury this entire time. Li Yu walked through the aftermath as before and performed his routine harvest with practiced efficiency.

By the time he finished clearing the corridors of the fifth fortress, he had gathered roughly five thousand Hollow Husk creatures into his Koi Sanctuary from all five fortresses. The vast sea of cultivation energy he had absorbed pushed his foundation to a robust new height and his aura hummed with an intensity that made him feel good.

The surviving leaders of the fifth base were dragged into the ruined command center and bound tightly against the cartilage walls by Yue's musical threads. Silent Night stepped forward to conduct their grim work and secure the intelligence once more. Warden Mo directed his son and his young disciple to work quickly because the enemy network would eventually notice the silence from these five fortresses. They knew they were on the clock as each moment that passed by was a chance for their main target to move.

The creature shrieked and thrashed against the Qi bindings but Su Yin maintained her cheerful smile as she pulled the information from its dying mind. Mo Chuan carved his runic conduits into another captive and funneled agony into its consciousness to force its memories to the surface against the will of the seals.

"I have found what should be the main base," Su Yin announced happily while withdrawing her hands from the collapsing soul. The creature went limp and dissolved into ash as its life force faded away under the strain of the interrogation.

Warden Mo tapped his bone staff against the floor and projected all of the gathered intelligence into the air using his own Qi. A complex map formed from glowing runes and detailed the spatial currents of the surrounding void. The old interrogator pointed his crooked finger at a dense cluster located in a seemingly normal area. They had cross referenced all of the information they had gathered and this place was the one that showed up the most and was also the one that a few of them revealed was their headquarters.

"The pieces form a much clearer picture now," Warden Mo spoke with a grave tone while studying the floating runes. "This is not just another staging area or a forward camp. We have located the main base for this branch of the species. It is an organic structure of staggering proportions and it houses their primary breeding pools along with their supreme leadership."

Zhan Tian studied the glowing map and crossed his arms over his chest. The Worldkeeper knew that a hive of this magnitude would possess defenses far beyond the simple bone walls of the outposts they had just crushed. They would also possess much far greater numbers as well and while he felt confident they could still do it with this group, it would take them a much longer time. What they needed now wasn’t just quality, they needed quantity as well.

"They have been gathering strength unchecked for a long time," Zhan Tian said while analyzing the projected runes and formulating a strategy. "The outer bases we destroyed today seemed smaller in size than what we would think. The main fortress will hold the majority of their numbers."

Elder Huo Zheng stepped forward and looked at the map with a serious expression etched into his scarred face. "Our strike force is highly capable but a structure of that scale will require more than just a surgical strike to destroy. They will swarm us with numbers and attempt to bog down the generals in a war of attrition. We will expend too much energy fighting the fodder before we even reach their leadership. We can’t afford to waste so much time killing the trash when the leaders could get away."

"I am aware of the scale and the risks involved," Zhan Tian replied while a dangerous light flashed in his sharp eyes. "A surgical strike is no longer sufficient for this task. We need to eradicate them down to the last root to ensure they never threaten our realms again and that requires an army."

Zhan Tian turned to face his generals who stood ready for their next orders. They had cleared five fortresses in rapid succession and their weapons were still eager for more combat. The disciples and successors standing behind them shared the same eager anticipation and they waited for the Worldkeeper to dictate the next move. Not only were the disciples getting experience, they were also getting merit points for doing these tasks and they were hungry for more.

"The time for stealth has passed," Zhan Tian declared with a booming voice that echoed through the ruined chamber and shook the remaining bone pillars. "I ordered the bulk of our forces to gather on standby before we began this campaign as you all remember. We have found the target and we will hold nothing back now. General Yue, send the signal and open the grand spatial gates for the rest of the army to arrive there. Summon the full weight of the army to these coordinates."

General Yue plucked a sharp resounding chord on her guqin in acknowledgment. The loud note rang out like a war bell across the void. The other generals followed suit and raised their weapons to signal their readiness for a true war.

"We will crush their fortress and leave nothing behind," Zhan Tian promised while turning his gaze back to the dark void beyond the fortress walls.

Li Yu felt a thrill run through his body as he prepared to witness the full military might of the Worldkeeper take the field. He had seen the incredible power of the individual commanders but an army trained and led by Zhan Tian would be a sight of unparalleled destruction. The upcoming battle would push his own understanding even further and he was anticipating the vast sea of Qi waiting for him at the main fortress.