Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Li Yu expanded his spiritual senses through the pristine glacier garden while keeping his expression perfectly calm and continued to act normal. The pale blue flowers continued to emit a soft luminescent glow under the freezing sky and the serene environment hid the lurking danger well.

He traced their unique aura that he was able to detect and quickly pinpointed all twenty of the hidden attackers. His soul swept over their signatures and evaluated their strength in a fraction of a second. The group was highly trained in stealth but the strongest among them only rested at the Sovereign realm. While extremely strong in its own right, it was not even a consideration for Li Yu now that he rested at the Creation Lord realm.

He felt a sense of confidence wash over his mind upon confirming their cultivation levels. Li Yu currently stood at the Creation Lord realm and the gap between a Sovereign and a Creation Lord was a chasm that could rarely, if ever, be crossed. Li Yu had utilized his refined control over his Qi to mask his true power since arriving in this realm. He had pushed his aura down and revealed his cultivation to be at the Tribulation realm so he appeared weaker than he was.

'Be ready to defend yourself if they slip past my initial attack.' Li Yu sent a swift mental transmission to Yuehan while pretending to admire a frozen archway. 'You do not need to attack just yet. I am going to crush them all at once so stay close and keep your guard up.'

'You are going to crush them all?’ Yuehan couldn’t help but reply in shock and then steadied her mind since they were in the middle of battle. ‘I am ready,'

The twenty unseen figures still had no idea they were already discovered but they were about to attack regardless. Li Yu did not give them the chance to draw their weapons though. He stepped forward and his aura, demeanor and power changed in an instant as he projected his inner world outward into the physical realm.

The serene glacier garden vanished for the twenty attackers as a crushing and oppressive weight descended upon their bodies. The projection of an inner world was a fundamental power that defined the Creation Lord realm. Anything below that level of cultivation simply could not withstand the overarching laws and power of an inner world projection. The twenty creatures slammed into the frozen ground as the pressure locked every single one of them in their place and they would have been utterly destroyed if Li Yu had wanted it so.

Their stealth techniques shattered under the overwhelming suppression of Li Yu’s inner world. The physical illusions faded away and revealed their true forms scattered across the snow. They possessed rubbery squid like bodies covered in a thick mottled skin that shifted colors in a desperate attempt to regain camouflage. Terrifying appendages lined with sharp suction cups and jagged barbs thrashed weakly against the invisible weight pressing them down. They looked like nightmares dragged from the deepest oceans.

Li Yu did not hesitate to escalate his control over the situation as he could not allow anything to go wrong. He summoned his martial spirit and a giant ethereal Koi materialized in the air above the garden. The Hollow Husk species carried a distinct aquatic bloodline and the Koi martial spirit thrived on dominating aquatic entities. The ethereal fish swam through the freezing air and aggressively drew out the Qi from the twenty squid like creatures.

The Hollow Husk warriors shrieked as their internal energy rushed out of their bodies and flowed directly into the ethereal Koi. Li Yu turned them into living batteries and rapidly drained their strength to ensure they could not mount any form of resistance later on. He did not want to kill them right away because he needed them alive for the next step of his plan. Weakening them was the safest way to secure captives without risking a sudden counterattack or them somehow activating another treasure.

He then unleashed the full weight of his powerful soul. The dense killing intent he had cultivated over countless battles washed over the glacier garden like a tidal wave of dark energy. The Yin Yang vortex inside his soul space flared into life but only the dark side of the rotation activated for this task. A suffocating aura of death and despair pressed into the minds of the captive creatures. Li Yu felt his soul operating with incredible fluidity and power since the Yin Yang vortex formed in his soul space. The dark energy crushed their willpower, minds and left them trembling in the snow.

The attackers stared at the young man with wide and terrified eyes at the sudden turn of events. They were stunned that their stealth had failed so thoroughly but they were even more terrified by the fact that they were powerless against him. They felt their Qi draining away into the ethereal fish floating above and they lacked the strength to stop the process.

Their rubbery bodies were designed to be tough and survive heavy blows but physical resilience meant nothing against the crushing weight of a Creation Lord projecting an inner world. From what they could feel, it was not a simple inner world either. Many of them had felt or seen a projected world once or many times before. Even from those at a higher level of cultivation, they never felt one to be this strong but they didn’t truly know since it was never projected at them before.

Li Yu looked over the suppressed group and was satisfied with the result, it went just as planned. He also understood that the princess standing behind him needed a release for her festering anger just as he did back then. Li Yu was never given the opportunity to release those feelings back then but that was why he was able to understand and go out of his way to offer it to her.

Keeping all the enemies alive for interrogation was practical but denying her a chance for vengeance would only hinder her healing process. He did not need everyone here alive anyways, most likely the weaker ones would not know anything important.

He focused his senses and identified the five weakest members of the Hollow Husk party. These five were hovering between the Paragon realm and the Karma Severing realm. That particular small group consisted of three females and two males. Li Yu commanded the ethereal Koi to rapidly drain the last remaining drops of Qi from their bodies and then he used his Qi to slide them across the ice toward Yuehan.

"They are yours," Li Yu spoke out loud finally while maintaining a firm suppression over the five creatures so they could not strike back with just their physical bodies. "Do what you must."

Yuehan looked at the five horrifying creatures at her feet and the helplessness in their eyes. The creatures that had eaten her family and turned her beautiful city into a graveyard were now helpless before her blade. Her breath hitched in her throat and a fierce fire ignited in her striking blue eyes. She drew her sword and the sharp ring of the steel echoed through the quiet canyon.

She did not offer them a swift death as that would be too good for them. She stepped forward and brought her blade down in a precise and shallow cut across the shoulder of one of the male creatures. The monster let out a burbling shriek of pain as dark blood spilled onto the pristine white snow.

"You took my father from me!" Yuehan yelled as her voice cracked with raw grief. She slashed her sword again and carved a line across the appendage of a female creature. Every sentence came with a slash that drew blood and inflicted pain. "You took my brothers! You destroyed my home! You ate my people like they were nothing!"

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She continued to deliver small cuts all over their rubbery bodies. She took a dark enjoyment in torturing them and letting them feel a fraction of the pain they had inflicted upon the Frostmoon Empire. She raged and yelled at them while tears streamed down her face. It was a violent and messy display but it was a deeply cathartic release of the emotions she had been bottling up inside her chest.

The Hollow Husk creatures would normally be able to resist such shallow wounds and they could fight back against a Tribulation realm cultivator. However their Qi was gone and their souls were heavily suppressed by Li Yu. They were locked down by the inner world projection and they were powerless to do anything except endure the painful cuts of the grieving princess.

As Yuehan delivered another stinging slash to a male creature, she paused and looked at the dark blood staining her blade. She felt some of her hatred and anger vent into the freezing air but a hollow realization settled into her heart as well. Torturing these monsters did not bring back anyone that died. Her family was still gone and her capital was still in ruins.

"It changes nothing…" Yuehan wept openly while gripping her sword with trembling hands. "But it is the least I can do for them!"

She raised her blade high and channeled her ice aspected Qi into the steel. She brought the weapon down in a flurry of strikes that inflicted even more pain. She slashed all over their bodies until it was hard to even recognize what they once were.

After quite a long time she finally ended the miserable lives of the five creatures. Their bodies went limp on the ice and Yuehan fell to her knees while sobbing heavily into her hands with her sword falling to the side. The release of her anger left her exhausted and empty but the burning knot of rage in her chest felt significantly lighter.

Li Yu gave her a moment to cry and process her own thoughts while he turned his attention back to the fifteen Hollow Husk creatures left alive. The leader of the group was the female Sovereign and she glared at him with an intense hatred. Li Yu ignored her fierce gaze and extended his soul strength to bind them for the transport back to headquarters. He needed to place a firm seal on their minds so they could not plot an escape while he dragged them back to the camp.

As his soul energy touched their minds, a hidden mechanism triggered deep within the souls of the fifteen captives. A biological suicide seal flared to life with a destructive heat. The seal was specifically designed to destroy their minds and detonate their bodies to prevent capture and interrogation.

Li Yu widened his eyes in surprise and quickly willed his own soul strength forward to try and stop the self destruction since he desperately needed them alive. This was their best chance at finding out where the rest of them went or what their plans were.

In that split second of urgency, the Fisherman Soul resting within his inner soul space acted on its own. The mysterious entity did not wait for Li Yu to issue a command. It cast its ethereal fishing line directly out of his body and pierced into the souls of the fifteen captives. The glowing hook bypassed their physical forms and latched directly onto the activating suicide soul seals. With a violent and spectral tug, the Fisherman ripped the seals out of their minds before the destructive energy could detonate.

The fifteen creatures slumped forward and gasped for air. They were left alive and were utterly stunned by their failure to die. Their biological fail safes had been removed with surgical precision and they stared at Li Yu with genuine horror. They had all been prepared to die once they were defeated by the unknown of what was going to happen to them now that they couldn’t even die was terrifying to them.

Li Yu let out a slow breath and mentally thanked the Fisherman Soul for the timely intervention. He walked over to the female Sovereign and placed his hand on her head. He forcefully bound her soul and turned her into his servant using a dominant soul seal. He intended to issue a direct command to force her to reveal the location of her horde.

He sent his probing questions into her mind but he found a dense wall of secondary seals blocking his access. These seals were tied to her memories and her core knowledge. Because being a slave to Li Yu did not bypass these specific memory barriers, he realized he could not extract any useful information from her right now. Breaking the seals would require time and specialized techniques he did not currently possess.

Since binding her as a servant did not provide immediate answers, he decided not to bind the other fourteen creatures as his slaves. The remaining group consisted of eight males and six females. He simply used a soul technique to seal their minds and bodies so they were powerless to take back any control of their bodies during the trip back.

The Qi from the twenty captives surged through his body before setting into his Ocean of Qi and improving his own cultivation. Li Yu gathered the fifteen subdued captives and lifted them into the air using his Qi. He walked over to Yuehan and offered her a hand to leave. The princess wiped her tears away and accepted his help to stand up. She sheathed her sword and looked at the floating pile of monsters with a tired nod, understanding what Li Yu intended to do with them.

The duo rushed back toward the main camp and it was only during this brief trip back that Yuehan fully processed what had happened. Li Yu destroyed all of the enemies in a blink of an eye and the person that seemed so gentle and caring was monstrously powerful. She had a hard time actually relating and tying the two together as they seemed that different from one another.

They arrived at the secondary armory a short time later and found a commotion. Elder Huo Zheng stood in the center of the camp with his broadsword resting on his shoulder. He had just returned through a spatial tear and he was speaking with Elder Cai when Li Yu and Yuehan approached.

Huo Zheng turned his head and his scarred face registered extreme shock as he saw the fifteen live captives floating behind Li Yu.

"By the heavens…" Huo Zheng stepped forward and inspected the bodies of the Hollow Husk creatures. "You found some and actually captured them alive? This is an unprecedented achievement, Li Yu. These creatures always destroy themselves before we can take them prisoner. No matter what we did, we could never bypass the seal within each of them."

"They tried," Li Yu explained while dropping the captives onto the crushed stone floor. "I managed to rip the suicide seals from their souls before they could detonate. The leader is a Sovereign but she has secondary memory seals preventing me from asking her questions. I don’t have a way to remove those."

Realizing the immense intelligence value this holding presented, Huo Zheng declared his intentions with an excited voice.

"We must take these captives to the Worldkeeper immediately," Huo Zheng stated while looking at Li Yu. “We can forcefully extract the information via a special kind of soul search that bypasses those internal memory seals. We will get the ones that are best at it to come immediately."

"Will that not kill them?" Elder Cai asked while observing the captive creatures. It wasn’t that he cared for them but it was just a curious question.

"It usually results in the death of the person, yes." Huo Zheng nodded grimly. "But in this case we do not care about their lives. We only care about finding the rest of their horde before they consume another place."

Huo Zheng turned to Li Yu and gestured toward the open spatial tear swirling a few paces away.

"Come with me, Li Yu," Huo Zheng ordered while stepping toward the portal. "Zhan Tian will want to hear exactly how you bypassed their suicide seals and your presence will expedite the meeting."

Yuehan stood near and felt a desperate urge to ask Li Yu to stay or that she be allowed to go with him. She wanted him to remain by her side because his presence brought her a sense of safety she could not find anywhere else. She opened her mouth to speak but the words caught in her throat. She was unsure of her own feelings and she knew his duty to the Myriad Realms outweighed her personal desires.

She stayed silent to her own deep regret and watched Li Yu offer a reassuring nod before stepping into the spatial tear alongside the elder. It was time for Li Yu to leave because this matter was more important than the feelings of a single person. Many more people could be affected and Li Yu felt that the princess was also in a much better state now.

The black rift snapped shut and the lingering scent of ozone washed over the camp. Yuehan lowered her gaze to the ground and let out a quiet sigh. She remained behind with Elder Cai and her guardians while preparing to investigate the glacier garden further to see if they could find any more left over forces hiding around there.

She hoped that her path would cross with Li Yu’s again.