Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Dust and debris rained down upon the ruined garden as the force of the lethal strike finally settled. The Worldkeeper stood amidst the broken tiles with his glaive resting casually at his side. The physical shell of Ancestor Guizhong lay in two separate pieces near his boots but Zhan Tian did not spare the corpse a single glance. His sharp eyes remained fixed on his daughter and the bright red blood staining the front of her battle armor.

Li Yu had fallen unconscious the moment the ethereal hook dragged the captive soul into his body and was caught by his mother. The triple layered hellscape of nightmare and suffering had withdrawn along with the Fisherman Soul to leave the garden quiet once more. That quiet peace did not last long at all though. Zhan Tian continued to look at the blood on his daughter and his unconscious grandson and a terrifying fury erupted from his core. His own killing intent exploded outward to paint the physical world in a fresh coat of crimson.

A new hellscape formed over the mountain and projected a suffocating aura of death that made the air freeze in place. The domain of the Worldkeeper felt different from the chaotic madness Li Yu had projected. This hellscape carried the weight of a cosmic executioner and one that had fought in countless wars.

It was a heavy and structured wrath that pressed down upon the shoulders of everyone present and forced them to bend toward the earth as if welcoming a god. The injury Tielan sustained was a light wound and something that could be healed quickly but the simple fact that she had to suffer pain was enough to push Zhan Tian into a state of unyielding rage.

Zhan Tian raised his free hand and pointed his finger toward the sprawling pavilions of the Worldheart Clan. "Secure the entire clan. Kill anyone who resists."

The command echoed like thunder across the peaks and his elite army moved out with flawless discipline. Dark armored soldiers descended from the colossal rift in the sky and swarmed the mountain like a plague of locusts. They did not shout or break formation. They moved with a silent and deadly synergy to lock down every courtyard, training hall and beast pen within the territory. The troops raised their weapons and established secure perimeters while others hovered in the clouds to cut off any avenues of escape.

The Sect Master and the two ancestors stood a short distance away while feeling the crushing weight of the new hellscape. They watched the sky darken more as the soldiers of the Worldkeeper took over their home in a matter of minutes.

The Worldheart Clan possessed sturdy defensive formations and a home field advantage that could stall an invading force for a while. The Sect Master knew they could put up a fight but he also knew that many would die and the clan would eventually fall anyways against such overwhelming power. If they could somehow resist the army before them, it wouldn’t be long before the armies of Li Canghai, the Li Clan, the Zhan Clan and Zhan Tielan’s personal army would come as well. They did not want this conflict to start in the first place and fighting back would only seal their total destruction.

"Stand down!" The Sect Master yelled while infusing his voice with dense Qi to carry across the mountain peaks. "All disciples and elders drop your weapons! Do not resist the incoming forces! Stay where you are and submit!"

The Sect Master and the two ancestors hurried forward with difficulty and bowed deeply before the Worldkeeper. They kept their heads lowered in a show of submission as they approached the towering warrior.

"Lord Zhan Tian, please stay your hand," The Sect Master pleaded while staring at the tiles beneath his knees. "This is a huge misunderstanding. We did not sanction this attack and we tried to stop him."

Zhan Tian narrowed his eyes and the grip on his glaive tightened until his knuckles turned white. "Stay right where you are until I get to the bottom of this. If any of you move even a little bit I will cut you down myself."

The cold threat silenced the leaders instantly. They remained frozen in their kneeling postures and did not dare to breathe too loudly while the Worldkeeper walked past them. While they had nothing to do with what had happened, they were now humiliated by kneeling but had no choice if they wanted their clan and themselves to survive this.

Zhan Tian approached his daughter as Tielan gently lowered her unconscious son to the ground. She was currently inspecting his body to ensure he was not badly harmed from their earlier battle. If Li Yu were awake, he would have realized that the facial expression on his grandfather's face was much more serious than when the old man was facing the reality warping squid. Zhan Tian was truly mad this time around and his eyes burned with a dark intensity that promised violence and unlike Li Yu he had the current abilities to carry it out.

"Are you badly hurt?" Zhan Tian asked while his voice softened for his daughter.

"I am fine," Tielan answered while wiping the blood from her chin with the back of her hand. "The injury is superficial but the old man was truly aiming to kill or capture us. He did not hold back his strength."

"Tell me everything," Zhan Tian demanded while casting a dark glare back at the kneeling Sect Master. "Why did an ancestor of a neutral clan decide to attack my family in their own garden?"

Tielan began to recount the events leading up to the clash while keeping a protective hand resting on her son's chest. She explained how Li Yu suffered a strange anomaly during the campaign and how they came to the Worldheart Clan to cash in an old favor for an evaluation. She detailed the failed tests using the Resonant Echo Stone and the cleansing pool while explaining that the tools simply could not read the inner world of her son.

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"The tools broke or failed to register anything," Tielan explained while looking up at her father. "Guizhong arrived and asked to examine Li Yu personally. He managed to project his consciousness close to the barrier hiding the foreign energy but a violent force rejected him. It was a defensive reaction from the inner world but it sparked a blazing obsession in his mind."

Zhan Tian listened carefully and a look of surprise crossed his face when he heard about the anomaly inside his grandson. He had fought beside Li Yu during the campaign but he did not know the boy had suffered such a problem. It was a dangerous risk and he wished the boy had mentioned it sooner.

The surprise faded quickly and anger took over again as Tielan reached the climax of the story.

"He ordered his elders to capture us so he could use Li Yu as a test subject to further his research," Tielan continued with a harsh tone that conveyed her own lingering fury. "When the elders refused to obey his insane command, he seized control of the clan arrays to empower himself and attacked us directly. I crushed the token and held him off while trying to shield Li Yu from the shockwaves."

The raw fury burning inside Zhan Tian reached a boiling point once more as the story concluded. He turned around and looked at the two pieces of Guizhong resting on the ground. The Worldkeeper raised his heavy glaive and brought the blade down in two rapid succession strikes. The sharp weapon sliced through the corpse with ease and cut the body of Guizhong into quarters to vent some of his rage some more. Blood and bone scattered across the ruined garden as Zhan Tian raged upon the torn flesh of the madman and wanted him to have no peace even in death.

The sound of heavy boots landing on stone broke the lingering silence in the area. The eight generals stepped into the ruined clearing after securing the outer perimeter of the mountain peak. General Yue held her mystical guqin at her side while her two female disciples stood quietly behind her. General Draken rested his blood soaked battleaxe over his broad shoulder and a wide grin stretched across his face as he surveyed the destruction. The generals walked over and offered respectful greetings to Tielan while checking the surrounding area for any hidden threats.

"It is good to see you safe, Zhan Tielan," General Yue said with a serene nod while plucking a single string on her instrument to clear the ambient dust from the air.

"We are glad we arrived in time," General Zane added while spinning a small circular blade around his finger with practiced ease. "It seems you handled the brunt of the assault well enough on your own."

Tielan looked at the gathered generals and offered a nod of appreciation for their swift arrival. "I am grateful for the rapid response. I thought you all had returned to your own territories after the campaign concluded. You usually disperse quickly once the main threats are eliminated."

"We were just about to disband and head back to our normal lives," General Goliath laughed boisterously while crossing his thick arms over his chest. "The Lord apologized to us many times for calling us back under his banner for the recent fight against the Hollow Husk. We were standing at the spatial gates saying our farewells when he suddenly received your message. We turned around and came here as fast as we could afterwards."

"Speed is the greatest weapon in situations like this," General Rai commented while sparks of blue lightning danced across his silver armor. "We did not hesitate when the call came."

The clan was now fully secure. The elite soldiers of the Worldkeeper had locked down every pavilion and training hall on the mountain. The disciples and elders of the Worldheart Clan sat on the ground with their hands raised in surrender while the dark armored troops stood over them with drawn weapons. They truly would do as commanded and if anyone resisted, they would have been killed without hesitation. The majestic winged serpents and glowing deers hid inside their pens as they sensed the overwhelming killing intent radiating from the occupying force.

Zhan Tian turned his attention back to the Sect Leader and the two ancestors still kneeling on the stone tiles. The Worldkeeper walked forward and stopped just a few paces away from the leaders and looked down at them with a gaze that promised nothing but suffering.

"My family has helped your clan out many times in the past," Zhan Tian spoke with a voice that carried the weight of a rumbling thunderstorm. "Tielan in particular has done so several times and each time asked for nothing in return but a simple token of goodwill. Is this how you repay that kindness? Is this how we are treated when we come to you for a bit of help?"

"Lord Zhan Tian," The Sect Master pleaded while keeping his forehead pressed firmly against the cold ground. "Guizhong went mad. His obsession with the inner world consumed his rational mind and he acted alone in this endeavor. We tried to stop him and we stripped the array from his control the moment we arrived. We did not want to harm your daughter or your grandson. You must believe us."

"If we are not friends, then we should at least not be enemies," Zhan Tian continued while ignoring the desperate plea of the clan leader. "Yet your ancestor dared to attack my daughter and my grandson in your own territory. You let a madman hold the keys to your defensive arrays and you allowed him to strike at my blood. Even if you took action towards the end, you did not act well enough. I don’t care if you didn’t know until you acted. Your actions or lack of actions towards the bastard laying in four pieces led to this!"

The two ancestors kneeling beside the Sect Master shivered under the oppressive aura of the Worldkeeper and his words. They knew that words held very little weight in the face of spilled blood and from what had happened. The cultivation world ran on a simple set of rules and attacking the heir of a supreme power usually ended in total annihilation.

Zhan Tian leveled the tip of his glaive until the sharp blade rested just inches away from the Sect Master's throat. The metal hummed with residual Qi and the threat of impending death hung heavy in the freezing air.

"Even if Guizhong was crazy and did it all on his own," Zhan Tian declared with a cold finality that left no room for negotiation. "He was one of yours. He carried your banner and he used your arrays to enforce his madness. You better be able to answer for what he did today or I will wipe the Worldheart Clan from the face of the cosmos and leave nothing behind to remember you by."