Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 1058: The Starving Bear and the Violet Crow

Li Yu swung his glaive and met the descending talons of Patriarch Malphas in a shower of violent sparks. The violet flames licking the edges of the crow leader flared outward as the physical force behind the strike pushed the Tribulation realm expert back several paces through the sky. Malphas widened his beady eyes and stabilized his footing in the air as he slid back. He looked at the black robed youth with a mixture of confusion and growing anger. It baffled his mind that a mere Karma Severing cultivator possessed the raw physical strength and Qi density to match his own powerful strength in a direct exchange of blows.

The fiery patriarch shifted his gaze past the resilient youth and looked toward the chaotic battlefield unfolding behind him. The Ashen Stone Clan was suffering a ruthless and efficient slaughter.

The flying swords cut through the vanguard and crushed the fiery beasts into dying embers. The ethereal Qi clone raised its hands and sent endless waves of Abyssal Javelins tearing through the elemental warriors as well. The dark javelins pierced the weaker combatants and turned them into mist before erasing their physical presence from the world.

What infuriated Malphas more than the sudden deaths of his clansmen was the bizarre phenomenon occurring in the wake of the destruction. The vibrant thermal energy of his fallen people did not return to the natural world. It swirled upward and vanished directly into the chest of the young warrior. Seeing his people killed was one thing but seeing them die only to fuel or help his enemy was another.

"Gather to the center!" Malphas screeched out loud. "Form the Ancestral Sun Array!"

The members of the Ashen Stone Clan charged toward their patriarch. Over five thousand fire elementals merged their bodies and their cultivation bases together into their grand array. They funneled their essence into Malphas while forming a towering construct of solid violet flame. The resulting creature took the shape of an enormous crow that blocked out the afternoon sun. The heat radiating from the beast melted the clouds and scorched the earth below. Li Yu looked like a mere speck of dust hovering before the towering avian construct.

Above the capital city, Ancestor Aethon floated within a cocoon of protective arrays powered by the royal palace. The glowing Solaria ancestor looked toward the northeast and let out a booming laugh that shook the city walls.

"Your arrogant young friend is going to burn to ash within the next few breaths," Aethon mocked while pointing a burning finger at the towering violet crow. "The Ashen Stone Clan has formed their ancestral avatar. No Karma Severing cultivator can survive that level of concentrated power."

Zhan Chen hovered opposite the old man and crossed his arms over his chest with a bright smile that touched the corners of his mouth.

"You should be worrying about yourself instead of watching the children play," Zhan Chen replied with a relaxed tone.

He vanished from his position and reappeared directly above the ancestor. Zhan Chen swung his fist downward and shattered the first three layers of the city defense arrays with a single casual strike. He pushed Aethon back toward the palace rooftops with his own overwhelming force.

Even with the defensive formations of the capital boosting his strength, the ancestor found himself losing ground with every violent exchange. It appeared to anyone watching that Zhan Chen was simply toying with his opponent and not even going all out. They were in the same cultivation realm but it looked like a man bullying a child. Zhan Chen did not unleash his full domain or his killing techniques. He fought with a measured pace as if he was patiently waiting for something else to reveal itself in the shadows of the city.

Toward the west, the Lunaris Kingdom fleet maintained their holding position in the sky. They did not push their ships forward to join the chaotic battle unfolding before them. Grandmaster Orion stood like a statue on the prow of the command ship and kept a watchful eye on the northern horizon. The heavy presence of the Lunaris forces was one of the primary reasons the Crest Spine Sect remained wary and refused to commit their dragon kin warriors to the fight. They were no match on their own against the Lunaris Kingdom.

Princess Lena watched the towering violet crow form in the distance and gripped the wooden railing.

"Should we not send reinforcements to help that man fight the ancestor or send some help to Li Yu?" Lena asked while looking toward her father.

King Sterling shook his head and gestured toward the imposing back of their most powerful warrior. "We will wait and follow the orders of the grandmaster," the king stated firmly.

Orion turned his head slightly and offered a nod of approval.

"We wait," Orion commanded with a calm voice. "Our presence here is okay for now. Pinning the northern dragons in place is the best support we can offer right now. The man in the city does not need my help and Li Yu seems confident enough."

The grandmaster turned his gaze back to the glowing capital. He seemed to be thinking of something else entirely while analyzing the subtle shifts in pressure across the battlefield.

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Li Yu meanwhile tilted his head back and studied the towering violet crow looming over him. The heat rolling off the construct was intense enough to warp the space around it and turn the air to almost a kind of poison. He realized his current blades would not be enough to control a beast of this size.

He tapped into his spatial ring and summoned the entirety of his arsenal. Sixty distinct weapons shot out from the void and took up complex orbiting trajectories around his body. The weapons quickly formed a churning hurricane of steel that screamed through the air.

Alongside the weapons, a large rock emerged from his Koi Sanctuary. Krag fell down from the sky and stayed on the ground. Li Yu reached out with his senses and tapped into the deep reserves stored within the creature to fuel his demanding techniques.

The towering crow lunged forward and swiped a talon the size of a warship at the lone cultivator. Li Yu stood his ground and directed the storm of steel to meet the attack. The sixty weapons crashed into the violet flames in a deafening explosion of metal and fire. The flames tried to drown him out but the rotating blades kept the inferno at bay.

Claw strikes battered against the steel hurricane while the outer layer of Li Yu's arsenal chipped away at the fiery construct. As the exterior weapons defended his position, the premium blades in his collection proved their worth. Pale Extinction and Firmament's End pierced directly through the outer shell of the crow array. The swords swam through the fiery interior and slaughtered the clan members sustaining the formation from the inside.

Every time a fire elemental died within the avatar, their essence did not fade either. The energy ripped outward and flowed past the defensive weapons directly into Li Yu. The outer damage to the crow also sent showers of sparks raining down and every single spark was forcefully sucked into the young warrior.

The natal flame resting in his core roared more and more into life as the battle continued. It acted like a greedy bear that had not eaten in months. The cooking fire eagerly swallowed every drop of essence and grew stronger with each passing second. Nothing could escape the ravenous pull of the flame. The Qi clone continued to rain Abyssal Javelins into the lower sections of the array where Li Yu was to add to the widespread destruction.

The warriors of the Crest Spine Sect, the Lunaris fleet and the defending Solaria army watched the northeast battlefield with wide eyes. They all had the same thought and that thought was that the fight occurring there was simply ridiculous. They could not comprehend how a single person was acting as an entire storm of destruction.

There were flying weapons filling the sky in every direction and they were not the typical flying weapons. There were large meter diameter spike balls flying around and smashing into the crow and also helping to keep the flames away from its wielder. No one knew how someone would manage that kind of Qi usage without being completely drained within moments. The black robed youth was physically swinging his glaive against the crushing talons of the crow as well. Qi techniques tore through the air and flying swords executed complex internal assassinations all at once.

‘How was a single person able to manage all of this at the same time?’ Everyone thought, friend or foe.

He was fighting against over five thousand cultivators fused into an array led by a Tribulation expert and he was actually holding his own. Many of the watching experts also found their attention drawn to the large rock that he had taken out and did not use yet. They wondered what purpose the stone served because he never swung it or used it to block attacks. It was simply there while the battle raged around it.

‘Is that some kind of last resort weapon that he is going to use if he gets desperate?’ Many wondered.

After trading dozens of blows with the towering construct, Li Yu realized he could not overwhelm the enemy fast enough. He was making steady progress but the volume of Qi fueling the crow kept regenerating the damage. He was not losing but he was only winning by a slight margin and that wasn’t enough. He decided it was time to change his approach.

Li Yu narrowed his eyes and tapped into the deep well of his soul power. He drew in a breath and his Koi Soul unleashed Death's Roar. A terrifying shockwave of gray soul energy erupted from his position and washed over the violet crow. Physical defenses and fiery barriers offered no protection against the ethereal attack.

The invisible wave slammed into the cultivators forming the lower sections of the avatar. Those nearest to the blast radius within the formation died instantly as their souls shattered under the pressure. The elementals positioned further back cried out as the attack stunned their minds and disrupted their focus as the wave rolled out.

The lower half of the towering crow flickered violently. The talons destabilized and dissolved into chaotic bursts of flame as bodies fell from the sky. As the formation lost its cohesion, hundreds of Ashen Stone Clan members plummeted toward the earth. The dark violet flames belonging to the dead beings were immediately sucked upward and absorbed by the greedy flame resting in Li Yu.

Patriarch Malphas felt his array crumbling from the bottom up and was furious, not at losing his men but at losing the battle. This insolent man should have been dead already under such an assault. Realizing they were losing the battle pushed the clan leader into a desperate corner.

"Ignite your cores!" Malphas ordered through the mental link of the formation. "Burn your life force to fuel the ancestral flame!"

The surviving elementals did not hesitate to follow the command. They ignited the very fire of their lives to surge their power beyond their natural limits. They burned up a sizable chunk of their life force to fuel the towering crow for a final strike.

The violet crow opened its beak and gathered a terrifying amount of compressed energy. The space inside the beak turned a blinding shade of white before the beast launched a concentrated beam of fire directly at the young warrior in an instant. The beam smashed into the spinning orbit of weapons with the force of a falling meteor. The kinetic impact shattered the balance of the steel hurricane and broke through the layers, sending a lot of those weapons flying away in every direction.

Li Yu reacted on instinct and ducked behind the wide blade of Silent Bastion. The sword held firm against the heat but the fiery beam seemed to possess a mind of its own. The massive amount of violet energy pushed past and curved around the metal to strike Li Yu directly.

The impact struck him and threw him backward through the sky. He, along with his scattered arsenal, blasted into the earth below. The ground shook violently as his body carved a deep smoking crater into the dirt.