Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 1055: The Pyramid of Power

The thick cloud of white dust and pulverized stone slowly settled over the ruined southern entrance of the capital. The sweeping winds generated by the devastating punch had scattered the heavy debris away from the innocent merchants and travelers waiting on the road. The towering iron gates that had stood for centuries as a symbol of royal authority were reduced to twisted scraps of metal and stone resting in a smoking crater.Li Yu stood frozen on the dirt pathway while staring at the destruction. He lowered his hand from his face and blinked several times to clear his eyes to make sure he was seeing things correctly. Li Yu then slowly turned his head to look at his older cousin standing tall and proud before the shattered threshold.

"This was your plan?" Li Yu asked while his voice carried a mix of shock and rising amusement.

Zhan Chen brushed a speck of dust from his simple martial robes and let out a bright laugh.

"This is the Zhan way, cousin!" Zhan Chen replied with a broad grin. "Why over think a problem when you possess the strength to shatter it directly? The evil we seek is hiding behind these walls, so I removed the walls. Now they have no choice but to come out and face us."

Li Yu remained surprised by the bold actions but he suddenly found the situation incredibly funny rather than wrong. He had spent hours racking his brain to formulate a subtle infiltration strategy. He had worried about all different kinds of things so they could be successful. Meanwhile, Zhan Chen simply walked up to the front door and punched a hole in the kingdom. The thought echoed in his mind.

'This guy is really doing this right now? The very same one that had taught me about all the intricate dealings that large factions dealt with, all the politics and maneuvering and so much more. All of those things involved careful planning, thought and a keen intellect. Then that very same person’s best idea was to punch through the main southern gate…’ Li Yu thought to himself.

Seeing the lingering surprise on the face of his younger cousin, Zhan Chen decided to demonstrate the true disparity in power between an investigator and a reigning Sovereign. Zhan Chen bent his knees and soared into the sky with a sonic boom that rattled the surrounding trees.

He hovered high above the red stone and metal fortifications of the Solaria capital and pulled his fist back once more and gathered a swirling vortex of golden Qi around his knuckles. He aimed at a pristine section of the grand wall located several hundred yards away from the ruined gates while thrusting his fist forward and sent another golden projection streaking through the afternoon air.

The intricate runic arrays and defensive formations etched into the red stone flared with blinding blue light as they tried to intercept the descending strike. The kingdom had spent countless resources reinforcing those barriers to withstand heavy sieges and focused attacks.

The golden fist slammed into the blue barrier and shattered the runic grid in a fraction of a second just as it did the main gate. The projection continued its path and struck the red wall directly while the resulting explosion tore a gaping hole through the fortified perimeter and this time destroyed all the pieces so nothing even fell down.

The wall was there one moment and in the very next it was simply gone. Zhan Chen floated in the sky and showed everyone that was watching below exactly how strong he was. He proved he could effortlessly break through the heavily reinforced defenses the capital possessed.

The loud explosions and the collapse of the city defenses did not go unnoticed. Warning horns blared from the surviving watchtowers while the deep ringing of alarm bells echoed across the sprawling capital.

Sure enough, a sea of soldiers began rushing toward the ruined southern entrance. Thousands of heavily armored guards poured from the inner city streets with their weapons drawn and their battle formations quickly taking shape. Elite commanders and decorated generals wearing ornate crimson armor stormed toward the breach alongside several members of the imperial family.

The royal forces charged forward with righteous fury and intended to slaughter the arrogant invaders who dared to strike their sovereign soil. Zhan Chen watched the surging tide of troops approaching the crater and he did not prepare another fist. He crossed his arms over his chest and released his full Sovereign aura without any restraint anymore, increasing his already overwhelming aura even further.

A terrifying pressure descended from the sky and slammed into the charging army like a physical tidal wave.

The front lines of the royal soldiers trembled violently under the crushing spiritual weight as their weapons slipped from their sweaty hands and their knees buckled against the stone pavement. The commanders and generals who were storming out with lethal intent quickly slowed their pace to a dead stop. They felt the air grow thick and suffocating around them as they chose to stay exactly where they were standing at that moment.

That radiant aura was simply too world ending for them to continue their charge, their instincts telling them that only death awaited anyone still moving forward. Every single person felt like fragile ants staring up at a descending mountain.

The same overwhelming suppression happened to the royal princes and princesses who were coming out from the inner palace to check what had happened to their gates. The noble heirs stopped where they were in the middle of the grand avenues and some even backed away in terror. These experienced cultivators realized they stood no chance against a true Sovereign expert. Fighting back would only result in their immediate demise with no effect at all. A heavy silence fell over the ruined entrance as the entire royal army was brought to a standstill by the sheer presence of a single man.

However, one figure broke through the frozen ranks. King Aldous flew down the main avenue while wearing a grand suit of golden armor radiating with defensive laws. He possessed a stern face etched with deep lines of authority and a burning anger in his eyes. Never in his entire life had something like this happened before.

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The king came out to face the invaders and kept going until he met the heavy pressure radiating from Zhan Chen. But the royal ruler was not foolish enough to step outside the inner city walls. He made sure to stay within the borders of the inner city where he had direct access to the grand ancestral arrays hidden beneath. The glowing runic lines carved surged with power and flowed into his golden armor to help empower him against the crushing pressure.

King Aldous himself rested at the realm of Origin Awakening. With the backing of the city arrays, he managed to stand tall under the Sovereign gaze but standing was pretty much all he could do against a threat such as Zhan Chen, who was no simple Sovereign.

Standing on the dirt road outside the city, Li Yu observed the now frozen battlefield. He cast his spiritual sense over the vast crowd of guards, soldiers, commanders, generals, princes and princesses. He scanned through their ranks and noted that their cultivation bases varied greatly, ranging from the Core Formation realm all the way up to the Paragon realm.

Seeing such a wide distribution of power gathered in one place caused Li Yu to reflect on the arduous path of cultivation and the rarity of each progressive realm.

The cosmic ladder of martial power was not a linear scale and the distribution of experts was never an even equation. The number of powerful individuals within any given territory depended heavily on the environment first and foremost. Some realms scattered across the void were stronger than others and were able to support much stronger cultivators. The Qi within the realm was denser and more rich, allowing cultivators to advance faster compared to a place where the Qi was thin.

A rich realm did not just support experts to advance but it supported them on their perilous path toward ascension. In those blessed territories, that thick atmospheric energy naturally produced superior spiritual herbs, harder forging ores and more potent natural treasures. A richer environment naturally produced better resources across the board, which in turn helped the local cultivators advance further and faster than those living in barren realms.

However, even with those environmental factors ignored, the vast majority of populations across most realms would still remain as simple mortals. Many who did manage to step onto the path usually stagnated somewhere along the road, be it due to talent, understanding, resources or many other factors.

As Li Yu looked at the thousands of soldiers trembling before his cousin, he thought of the staggering gaps between the ranks.

The first great filter was moving from Body Refining to Qi Condensation. That transition could be quite random depending on a being’s luck, such as humans needed to unlock their martial spirit. The requirement was different per species and could range wildly but the ratio was roughly around thirty thousand to sixty thousand Body Refining practitioners to a single Qi Condensation expert.

From that point forward, every single level up would very roughly be one success in five thousand or one in ten thousand attempts. But that steep ratio also scaled up drastically as the realms progressed.

For example, to produce a single Foundation Establishment expert, there would typically be between one thousand to ten thousand Qi Condensation cultivators struggling below them depending on the wealth of the realm. If a realm was very rich in natural resources, the ratio could be as favorable as five hundred to one. Or it could be a brutal fifteen thousand to one if the realm was poor and starving for spiritual energy.

The climb only grew steeper. Moving from Foundation Establishment to Core Formation usually saw a ratio ranging from five thousand to fifteen thousand to one. So for every single Core Formation expert standing in the royal army today, there were likely between five thousand and fifteen thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators elsewhere in the realm. That crushing numerical gap only ever grew wider as the power increased.

But standard progression ratios were not the only hurdles. There were also vast, nearly insurmountable walls in the journey of cultivation.

The transition from Core Formation to Soul Formation was one such wall. It required a shift in understanding the spiritual self rather than just accumulating dense energy. The ratio there spiked dramatically, often requiring thirty thousand to forty thousand Core Formation experts to yield just one successful Soul Formation master. It would only get worse and worse from there but those are only rough approximations and weren’t the definitive rule.

As Li Yu analyzed the commanding generals and the royal heirs, he traced the names of the higher realms in his mind. After breaching Soul Formation, a cultivator had to navigate the treacherous waters of Divine Transformation and then survive the trials of Soul Transformation.

If they succeeded, they reached the threshold of the Half King and King realms, where true authority began. But another massive wall waited for them at the Law Seed realm. Understanding the fundamental laws of the universe weeded out countless geniuses who relied purely on pills or other resources to advance them. Those who grasped the profound truths moved forward to Law Integration and then established their personal domains at the Domain King realm.

After mastering their domain, they reach the Paragon realm. Few of the royal princes and elite generals glaring at Zhan Chen from the safety of the city arrays represented this high tier of power.

But beyond the Paragon realm stood the two most massive walls a cultivator could face. Breaking through the Karma Severing realm required a person to cut the literal threads of fate tying them to the mortal coil, a feat Li Yu had recently achieved. Surviving the subsequent lightning judgments of the Tribulation realm required unparalleled resilience and flawless foundations.

If a warrior endured the fury of the heavens and kept going, they achieved Origin Awakening, just like King Aldous standing proudly at the front of his army. And standing above the king, projecting an aura that suppressed an entire royal legion, was the Sovereign realm.

Beyond the Sovereign realm was Creation Lord, another big step that many fail and where one would normally begin to form their inner world and then Supreme Exalt after that.

Of course, this didn’t mean there weren’t outliers to all of this. Some species in the Myriad Realms are born at a higher starting level than others. Clans, sects and other powerful organizations are also going to not follow those numbers either. They had the vast resources and knowledge to train and support cultivators so their numbers were naturally much more inflated and full of stronger cultivators than what those ratios would show.

Looking at the grand pyramid of power represented by the trembling army, Li Yu felt a sense of clarity wash over him. He was able to see how far he’s actually been able to progress on his cultivation journey since he stepped foot on the path. The path was long and littered with the broken foundations of trillions who failed the climb but standing beside a Sovereign like Zhan Chen made the impossible heights feel a little more reachable.

King Aldous tightened his grip on his sword and glared at the man hovering in the sky above the ruined gates. The royal ruler gathered his empowered breath and prepared to demand answers for this unprovoked destruction.