Myriad Rivers to the Sea

The Colossal Squid thrashed against the boundaries of the torn void and let out a roar that did not produce a sound but rather a destructive vibration. The ancient beast pushed its giant head and several thick tentacles through the sparking spatial rift while its main body remained firmly wedged between the two different areas. It was tethered to the doorway and forced to expend a great deal of its own ancient Qi just to keep the portal from collapsing inward and cutting it in half. Even with such a severe handicap, the creature proved to be a devastating opponent that radiated a terror that the entire fortress before could not match.

Zhan Tian swung his glaive and launched a sweeping crescent of energy toward the giant bulbous eye of the beast. The creature did not try to dodge the attack but raised one of its jagged tentacles and slapped the void.

A bizarre phenomenon occurred right before the eyes of the strike force. The space in front of the creature did not shatter or break under the force of the tentacle. Instead, the very laws of reality warped and twisted in unnatural ways. The silver crescent of Qi suddenly slowed down to a crawl as the distance between the attack and the squid seemed to stretch into an infinite expanse.

The colors in the surrounding void inverted and a sickening sense of vertigo washed over the nearby soldiers. The squid had introduced foreign laws from its own domain to manipulate the battlefield directly in a way that created a strange effect. It was almost like it was able to manipulate time and space but that wasn’t the case at all under careful analysis. There was something else at play that made that effect but no one knew what it was.

General Draken charged forward with his blood soaked battleaxe and aimed a heavy downward cleave at the exposed tentacle. He was of course fearless in front of such a terrifying creature, in fact he was loving this even more. This was his kind of fights and he loved being pushed towards the boundaries of life and death.

The brute brought his weapon down with terrifying force but the tentacle shifted its physical state at the last second. The organic flesh turned into a strange liquid shadow and the battleaxe passed right through it without dealing any damage. The shadow quickly solidified back into thick flesh and the tentacle lashed out to strike Draken in the chest.

The heavy blow sent the towering general flying backward through the dark space. Draken crashed into a floating chunk of debris and shattered the bone fragment into dust. He coughed up a mouthful of blood but quickly forced himself back to his feet with a wild grin that seemed like he wasn’t hurt at all but clearly was. The creature was incredibly strong and its reality bending techniques made it difficult to land a solid hit.

"Do not let it disorient you," Zhan Tian commanded while stepping forward to close the distance. "Its laws do not belong in the Myriad Realms and they will falter under the weight of our own. Strike with unwavering intent and do not hold back now."

The Worldkeeper demonstrated his words by channeling a silver light through his body. He stepped into the distorted space and his martial willpower forced the strange laws to yield around him. The inverted colors snapped back to normal and the stretched distance collapsed as Zhan Tian thrust his glaive forward to pierce the thick hide of the squid. Dark green blood erupted from the wound and the ancient beast shrieked in pain as the Worldkeeper landed his strike and proved his insight correct.

The eight generals rallied behind their lord and launched their own coordinated assaults. General Seraphina sent her whip sword snaking through the void to wrap around a flailing tentacle while General Zane threw his dual chakrams to sever the jagged barbs lining the appendage. General Tarkus slammed his mace against the invisible barriers the squid projected and sent destructive sound frequencies to destabilize the foreign energy.

The grand formations of the Four Legions also joined the fray to support the generals now as everything else was dead. The legion commanders directed their troops to focus all their offensive might on the trapped entity. They were all working together to fight it and the resulting clash created a sky shattering spectacle of warfare as techniques after techniques rained down upon the creature.

The Azure Wyrm Heavenly Formation roared and unleashed a torrential beam of crackling blue lightning. The attack illuminated the dark void and struck the side of the squid with blinding force. The foreign laws surrounding the beast tried to turn the lightning into harmless mist but the sheer volume of energy provided by thousands of elite cultivators overwhelmed the distortion. The lightning scorched the rubbery flesh and left deep blackened scars across the alien hide.

The Vermillion Phoenix Ashen Formation soared above the creature and rained down waves of sacred fire. The squid raised a tentacle to block the flames but the intense heat boiled the dark green blood spilling from its wounds. The White Tiger Slaughtering Formation charged forward and unleashed a flurry of crescent wind blades that lacerated the creature from multiple angles. The Black Turtle Aegis Formation stabilized the surrounding space and generated heavy pressure fields to pin the thrashing tentacles down.

Despite the overwhelming firepower bearing down upon it, the colossal squid fought back with a terrifying ferocity and without fear. The true danger was not just its physical strength or its strange reality warping techniques. There were other forces leaking out of the dark rift that it was stuck in and the cultivators did not quite understand what it was. A heavy gray mist spilled from the unknown abyss and flooded the battlefield.

This strange mist carried a unique suppression that they had never dealt with before. The gray energy seeped into their bodies and made their Qi feel sluggish and heavy like wet mud. It required far more effort to execute their techniques and the drain on their internal reserves increased noticeably. Furthermore, there was a constant pressure bearing down on their souls since the battle had begun. The ancient intellect of the colossal squid projected a dark psychic weight that constantly battered against them. It made focusing on complex formations difficult and tested the mental fortitude of every soldier present.

Zhan Tian was pushed harder than Li Yu had ever seen him pushed before. The Worldkeeper moved through the chaotic void with fluid grace but the strain of fighting the alien laws and the soul pressure was evident in the tight set of his jaw. He deflected sweeping tentacle strikes and carved deep wounds into the beast while constantly projecting his own supreme aura to shield himself and the others from the worst of the psychic attacks.

Li Yu watched his grandfather fight and realized he had never seen the Worldkeeper fight at his very limits before. Even now, fighting an ancient terror from beyond their known realms, Zhan Tian did not look like he had not reached his true limit. He was certainly holding things back but Li Yu did not understand why. Was there perhaps other enemies watching them or was he afraid of these secret techniques being divined after being used here? Li Yu didn’t know but trusted his grandfather had his reasons.

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The battle was incredibly taxing and required far more effort than the raids on the outer fortresses. The reality warping and the strange suppression made the squid creature very hard to deal with but the Zhan Tian and his forces were still winning regardless. The creature was trapped and forced to split its attention between fighting the army and keeping the portal open. The generals were slowly but surely whittling away its defenses and carving it into pieces.

Li Yu saw the dark green blood spilling into the void and felt the vast amounts of ancient Qi radiating from the injured beast. He could not resist the temptation of such a rare prize and knew that he could help this battle in his own way. He activated his ethereal Koi martial spirit and projected its immense suction force outward to draw the ambient energy into his body.

The moment the ancient Qi entered his meridians, Li Yu knew he had made a dangerous miscalculation. The energy was not just dense or heavy. It was vast and ancient in a way that defied his comprehension. It felt like trying to swallow a raging ocean through a narrow straw except the ocean was now above the straw and wanting to go through it. The raw power flooded his pathways and carried the strange foreign laws of the squid right into his core.

Li Yu gasped as the overwhelming influx of energy caused his physical body to crack under the absorption rate. Fine fissures appeared across his skin and blood began to seep from his pores in an instant. His bones groaned under the intense pressure and his Ocean of Qi churned violently as it struggled to contain the alien power. This was after the Koi martial spirit had mostly refined and purified it.

'This is too much!' Li Yu thought while gritting his teeth and trying to stabilize his breathing. 'The quality of this energy is too high for my current realm to refine quickly.'

He tried to sever the connection and stop the suction force but it was like the ancient Qi had already locked onto him and he couldn’t stop it. The energy was flowing into him like a broken dam and stopping it now would cause a severe backlash that might shatter his foundation entirely.

Li Yu had to think fast to survive the influx as Yue was suddenly stunned by what was happening to the young lord but couldn’t find a way to help him. His Ocean of Qi was overflowing and his physical vessel was breaking down. He needed somewhere else to put the energy before it tore him apart from the inside out. He turned his focus inward and looked at the projection of his Inner World residing within his soul space.

As a Creation Lord he possessed a foundational world that represented his understanding of the Dao and his personal laws. It was a serene realm filled with clear lakes, towering mountains and vibrant spiritual flora. There was also his forest of laws growing beautifully at the core of this world. It was his greatest asset in this cultivation realm and his sanctum to control.

Without any other viable options, Li Yu forcefully redirected seventy percent of the incoming overwhelming Qi directly into the foundation of his Inner World.

The ancient energy rushed into the serene landscape like a dark storm. The sky above his Inner World turned a turbulent shade of purple and green as the foreign laws crashed into his established reality. The ground trembled and the clear lakes churned with violent waves. Li Yu felt a sharp pain in his soul as his personal world struggled to digest the alien power as well.

The influx of ancient Qi forcefully expanded and enriched his world to survive the pressure. The borders of his Inner World pushed outward at a rapid pace and created vast new expanses of land and sky. The sheer volume of energy provided a terrifying boost to his cultivation base and his aura flared brightly in the physical void outside. The cracks on his skin stopped spreading as the pressure in his body eased up and his life laws were able to overtake the damage being done.

However, the rapid expansion came with a heavy cost that Li Yu had not anticipated. The world was growing by absorbing the foreign laws of the Colossal Squid as well and those bizarre reality warping rules began to take root inside his foundation. His Inner World recognized the danger of the alien laws and natural survival instincts took over without his input.

The world naturally formed a barrier to section off this dangerous new power. The land fractured and split apart to isolate the corrupted energy far away from his own forest of laws. The ancient Qi pooled into a deep basin and began to manifest as a dark sprawling ocean in his inner world.

Li Yu watched the transformation unfold with a sense of apprehension as it did not feel like it was a good thing but he didn’t actually know. The dark ocean sprawled outward and its waters were a deep shifting purple that absorbed all light. He could not see or probe in its deep waters. The waves crashed against the newly formed jagged cliffs and the depths of the water remained completely unknown to him. It felt like a piece of the terrifying home of this creature had taken up residence inside his own inner world.

He noticed the strange dark ocean settling into his foundation but there was nothing he could do now to stop it. The process was already happening and the foreign laws were sealed within those dark waters as they poured in. He could only hope that accommodating this alien energy would not prove to be a negative for his future path. He would have to explore the depths of that ocean later and find a way to tame the bizarre laws it contained within.

For now he had survived the crisis and gained a tremendous boost to his Creation Lord realm. He opened his eyes and returned his focus to the physical battlefield. The blood on his skin quickly dried and flaked away as his robust body healed the internal damage. He gripped his staff and watched the final stages of the grand battle unfold as he continued his help by draining away the energy of the squid.

The colossal squid was losing its fight for survival as the army continued its rampage across its body. The constant barrage of attacks from the generals and the four legions had taken a heavy toll on its trapped body. Its thick skin was covered in deep burns and frozen lacerations. General Seraphina managed to whip her blade across one of the creature's bulbous eyes and blinded it in a shower of dark fluids. The beast shrieked and thrashed wildly but the Black Turtle Aegis Formation pressed down with crushing force to hold it in place.

Zhan Tian seized the opening created by his generals and channeled a terrifying amount of Qi into his glaive. The weapon transformed into a towering pillar of light that pierced through the gray suppression mist and illuminated the dark void.

"Your time is over!" Zhan Tian declared while stepping forward and bringing the heavy blade down in a sweeping execution strike that was as beautiful as it was deadly.

The silver crescent cleaved through the space and bypassed the reality warping defenses of the weakened creature. The blade struck the thick neck of the Colossal Squid and bit deep into the tough cartilage and surprisingly stopped before it was able to cleanly sever all the way through.

The beast unleashed a final desperate roar that shattered nearby debris and sent violent shockwaves through the army formations. It tried to pull its body back into the rift but Zhan Tian twisted his glaive and unleashed a secondary burst of silver Qi that severed a good portion of the beast's rear body.

That attack seemed to be the final touch as the squid body suddenly went a bit limp and lifeless. Its movements slowed to a crawl and its aura weakened significantly. The battle looked to be almost over and a few more attacks should finish it off.