Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 398: The Awakening

The ground continued to rumble. It was a deep resonant thrum that vibrated in the very bones of everyone there. It was a terrifyingly familiar sound, reminiscent of the day the Xylarri rifts first tore open the sky. Everyone stared at the sky and a collective cold dread washed over everyone there.

Fear spreads like a contagion. What new hell was this? Had their broken world finally attracted another, even greater, predator?

As they watched, three figures emerged from the golden light.

They stepped out into the sky, hovering over the armies below. Their power was immense; even at a glance, Li Yu could tell they were all at least Soul Formation but the truth felt far, far deeper.

Each one was shrouded in a roiling personal fog. It was a swirling miasma of blinding light and abyssal, all-consuming shadow that danced around their forms. It was obscuring them from sight, from spiritual sense and from any form of perception.

The assembled masters on the ground felt their spiritual senses shredded, their vision blurring as the light-and-dark aura devoured their attempts to see.

A choked, strangled sound came from Lord Zaltar. His four arms, usually crossed in serene confidence, were trembling. His eyes were wide with amazement, wonder and terror.

"Could it be… It... it cannot be..." he whispered.

Vizier Morn glided to his side, his own unnervingly large eyes fixed on the three beings. "The legends... the Anti-Duplex?"

"Beings of light and dark… " Zaltar breathed, his voice shaking. "Beings who walk the line... I... I thought it was a story. A myth to give people hope... By the Demon Kings... they exist."

Lady Vyltra was staring up as well in awe. "They exist," she whispered, her own voice barely audible.

One of the three shrouded figures drifted forward, it seemed like their leader. It stopped and then in an act that sent a jolt through Li Yu's very core, two souls emerged from its form.

One soul was a miniature sun, a pulsating sphere of pure blinding white light. The other was a vortex of absolute consuming darkness, a perfect sphere of black. Yet, like the figures themselves, even these two souls were foggy, their true forms.

‘Are those Nascent Souls? Normal souls? or something else entirely?’ Li Yu and the others thought to themselves. They would never know as the souls were shrouded from view.

Li Yu felt his own Ocean of Qi convulse. His Koi Soul and his Human Soul pulsed in a sudden, sharp and strange rhythm.

'Two souls...' His mind reeled. 'Just like the legends said they had... just like... me.' He felt a sudden connection with the unknowable entity hanging in the sky. It wasn’t the connection of knowing someone, it was something more primal and instinctual. ic energy.

For a single, imperceptible instant, Khaos's form went rigid but quickly he quickly went back to normal. No one noticed this sharp reaction from him.

Ten rifts. Ten beasts.

Li Yu's mind was spinning faster than it ever had. 'Ten... I counted ten.' His heart hammered against his ribs. 'The Qilin... it's the one from my home. The one under my sect. It's real.'

'Ten beasts. But Theron... the records... there are only seven known continents. Even the seventh is a forgotten legend. If there are 10 beasts… are there... are there ten continents? Or more than one beast per continent? Maybe all of them besides the Qilin are on the seventh one?'

“What are those beasts!? They are incredibly powerful. There’s a massive crab as well! Is that the Crab God?!” Jian Xuan spoke to himself loudly.

“There is indeed a crab, one of massive power… is what this fanatic has been saying true?” Grand Elder Corvus spoke as well but mostly to himself.

Throughout the group of leaders everyone was just speaking to themselves. Trying to process what they were seeing and predicting what would come next.

“I know now! That must be it! The Crab God has sent these things and beasts to save us! He even sent one of his followers to lead them. What do you non-believers have to say now?!.” Jian Xuan spoke and then he went quietly into his chants for the Crab God.

Several of the leaders reactively took a few steps away from him but their minds couldn’t help but be moved by what he said. Could it really be divine intervention to save them?

Finally the shrouded leader, its dual souls of light and dark still pulsing, spoke again. Its overlapping, male-female voice was now a bellow of absolute command, shaking the very souls of all of those around.

"FULFILL YOUR DUTY! SEAL AND PUSH BACK THESE INVADERS AND PROTECT THE LANDS! THAT IS YOUR ETERNAL TASK! WHY HAVE YOU NOT ACTED YET?!"

The beasts, these ten living embodiments of primal power, did not cower. They did not bow.

In a single, unified and defiant act, they roared loudly.

It was a cacophony of divine, primal power that shook the world. The Qilin's life-giving cry, the Phoenix's fire-song, the Dragon's thunderous bellow, the Tiger's metallic snarl, the Tortoise's earth-shaking groan, the Leviathan's glacial hiss, the Thunderbird's crackling shriek, the Fox's psychic wail, the Panther's dark-howl, and the Crab's hum. All ten merged into a single wave of sound and power that physically swept outward.

Then, their auras, which had been vast but dormant, flared into life.

It was not a cultivation level anyone present had ever seen, felt or even dreamt of. It was a pressure. A divine weight that crushed the air, buckled the ground and sent cracks spiderwebbing through the First Defensive Line's newly-built walls.

Theron, Zaltar, Lady Vyltra and everyone present were forced to their knees. Not by an attack but by the simple presence of the ten awakened beasts.