Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 866: The Broken Token

The morning sun struggled to pierce the thick artificial mist of Gilded Fate City. Li Yu stepped out of the Cloud Ascendant Inn and took a deep breath of the cool air. The opulent streets were already beginning to fill with wealthy merchants and eager tourists. The relentless cycle of gambling and greed never truly stopped in this place. For most it merely paused for a few hours before resuming its chaotic pace.Li Yu walked down the grand stone steps and spotted a familiar figure waiting near the street corner.

Mei was standing quietly by a glowing jade pillar. She looked entirely different from the exhausted and terrified girl he had met at the city gates. She wore a clean grey tunic and her yellow guide sash was tied neatly around her waist. Her face was washed clean of the slum dirt and her eyes were bright with hope. The crushing weight of debt was gone from her small shoulders.

"Good morning, young master." Mei bowed respectfully as he approached. Her voice was steady and full of life.

"Good morning, Mei." Li Yu smiled warmly and stopped in front of her. "I assume your grandmother had a peaceful night."

"She slept entirely through the night." Mei nodded enthusiastically. "The black blood stopped completely and her breathing was clear. Doctor Chen said she will make a full recovery in a few days. My parents have already started looking for a small place in the outer trade district. We are leaving the slums today."

"I am very glad to hear that." Li Yu said with a smile. He felt a deep sense of satisfaction that their outcome had changed. It was always a good feeling when a small effort resulted in a massive positive change for someone else.

Mei reached into her clean tunic. She hesitated for a moment before pulling her hand out. She held her fist out toward him.

"I bought this at the morning market on my way here." Mei explained softly. She opened her fingers to reveal a small object resting in her palm. "It is my way of saying thank you to you. I know it is not worth anything and you already have immense wealth but the design looked very nice. I wanted you to have it."

Li Yu looked down at her palm. Resting on her skin was a broken half token. It was carved from a dark smooth stone that felt oddly heavy for its small size. The edges where the token had been snapped in half were jagged and worn smooth by time. The visible part of the carving depicted an intricate turtle with a profound expression. The turtle was staring intently at the jagged edge as if it were looking at whatever was carved on the missing other half.

It was a simple trinket and a piece of junk sold for a few coins in a street market. But the sentiment behind the gift was pure.

"I love it." Li Yu accepted the broken token with a gracious smile. "Thank you, Mei! I will keep it safe."

The moment the dark stone touched his bare skin a massive shockwave ripped through his entire body.

Li Yu froze in place. He did not drop the token but his eyes widened slightly. An ancient calling erupted from the broken stone. It was not a sound but a physical pulling sensation that hooked directly into his soul. It resonated wildly with his foundation and tugged at him. The invisible tether pointed fiercely out toward the horizon far beyond the walls of Gilded Fate City.

His Koi Soul stirred violently within his inner world. It sensed the ancient energy hidden within the mundane looking stone and began to swim in rapid circles.

Li Yu quickly suppressed his aura before it could leak out and frighten the people on the street. He closed his hand around the token and took a deep steadying breath.

"Mei." Li Yu said. His voice was calm but carried a note of finality. "I need you to head back to your family now. Go help them pack your things and move to your new home."

Mei looked slightly confused. "Are we not going to explore the city today, young master?"

"I am going to do some exploring outside the city today." Li Yu explained. "I have found a personal matter I need to attend to immediately. Your job as my guide is finished and you performed excellently. Go be with your parents."

Mei understood that cultivators often had sudden and mysterious business. She did not ask any questions or pry into his affairs. She simply bowed deeply one last time to express her boundless gratitude.

"Thank you, for everything." Mei said sincerely. She turned around and walked away down the bustling street to start what was hopefully her new life.

Li Yu waited until she disappeared into the crowd before he turned his attention back to the piece of dark stone in his hand. The pulling sensation was growing stronger with every passing second. It felt like a physical weight dragging him toward the east. If the token led him to treasure, he would make sure to share it with the girl.

He did not hesitate any longer. He walked swiftly through the city and passed through the towering eastern gates. Once he was clear of the crowds and the strict city patrols, he unleashed his cultivation base. He tapped into his Law Integration powers and his body blurred into a streak of white light as he shot across the landscape with terrifying speed.

He followed the invisible pull for several hours. He left the opulent lands surrounding Gilded Fate City far behind and the lush green forests gradually gave way to barren dirt and dead vegetation. The ambient Qi in the air thinned out until it was almost entirely nonexistent.

He finally arrived at a massive and broken down mountain range.

The mountains here looked like a skeletal hand reaching out of the earth in pure agony. The peaks were jagged and completely shattered. Deep craters scarred the landscape and the ground was covered in a thick layer of grey ash. There were no animals and no sounds of life around here. It was a completely desolate wasteland that felt entirely forgotten by the world.

High above the jagged peaks the five elite shadows and the two Core Wardens hovered in the void. They had followed Li Yu's sudden departure from the city and they were looking down at the ruined mountains with deep curiosity.

"I have not seen these broken stones in thousands of years." Fenric murmured. The massive warden crossed his heavily armored arms and stared at the grey ash below.

"You recognize this desolate place?" Winter asked from his stealth position.

Oram nodded slowly. The elegant warden adjusted his long robes and looked at the central shattered peak. "This is the resting place of the Exploding Turtle Sect. They were an incredibly powerful faction that helped the Eidolon Empire expand in its earliest days. They pacified the chaos beasts in this region and secured the borders for the Ancestor."

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"What happened to them?" Autumn asked. She had never heard of them before and she looked at the massive craters that indicated a battle of apocalyptic proportions.

"No one knows." Fenric sighed heavily. "They disappeared almost overnight. An entire sect of experts simply vanished from the face of the realm. There were no bodies left behind and no surviving enemies to claim the victory. The empire sent investigators but they never found a single clue regarding their fate."

The wardens and the shadows looked down at the ruins with a sense of solemn respect. They believed the Exploding Turtle Sect had been wiped out by an unknown horror or a sudden heavenly tribulation.

What the two Core Wardens did not know was that the entire sect had not died at all. The entire Exploding Turtle Sect had been pulled into the shadows by Li Yu's other half soul during the ancient wars. They had been reformatted and reborn in the darkness to become a core part of the Phantom Scythes. The sect had vanished because they had been recruited into a hidden war that transcended the Empire.

Down on the ground, Li Yu knew nothing of the sect's history. He only knew that the broken token in his hand was practically vibrating with desperate energy. He walked through the grey ash and navigated the treacherous rocky terrain. He followed the pull directly toward the base of the largest shattered mountain.

He eventually found a pile of massive boulders and random clutter. The token told him something was there so he spent a bit of time clearing everything. He didn’t try to smash it, fearing that he would destroy something important.

After a while a hidden cave entrance was revealed after the token flew out from his hand and inserted itself into something in the air. After revealing the entrance, the token flew back into his hands.

The entrance was so perfectly concealed by formations that spiritual sense would simply slide right over it without noticing. Li Yu only found it because the token guided his hand directly to the opening and then deactivated whatever it was that was hiding it.

Li Yu quickly stepped into the dark cavern and the air inside was freezing cold as well as perfectly still. He walked deeper into the mountain for several minutes. The walls of the cave were smooth and polished as if they had been carved by a massive blade of energy. He reached a dead end where the tunnel opened up into a perfectly circular stone chamber.

The moment Li Yu stepped into the center of the chamber, the half token violently flew out of his hands once again.

It shot across the room like a dark meteor and Li Yu tracked its movement with his eyes. The token slammed into the far wall of the chamber but it did not shatter against the rock. Instead, it connected perfectly with another object embedded deep within the stone.

Li Yu could not see what the other half was. The stone wall obscured the second piece entirely but he heard a sharp and distinct click echo through the silent cavern. The two pieces connected together and the very fabric of reality instantly tore open.

There was no warning and no buildup of ambient energy. A spatial rift violently ripped through the center of the stone chamber. It was a jagged wound in the universe that glowed with a terrifying purple light. The sound of tearing space was deafening. It sounded like an entire ocean of glass shattering at once.

Before Li Yu could even react or summon his cultivation, a massive wave of suction blasted out of the rift. It grabbed him with the strength of a dying star.

His foundation instantly reacted to the lethal threat. His Koi Soul flared into life. A brilliant light erupted from his chest and formed a protective bubble around his entire body. The suction dragged him forward and he did not even have time to shout before he was pulled violently into the purple light.

The moment his body crossed the threshold, the rift snapped shut.

The jagged purple wound vanished as instantly as it had appeared. The deafening roar of tearing space was replaced by the dead silence of the cold stone chamber. The broken token fell to the floor with a quiet clatter.

Hidden just outside the circular chamber the seven Eidolon experts were stunned by how quickly it had happened. Even they could not react in time.

They had watched the entire sequence of events unfold right in front of their eyes. They saw the token fly and they saw the rift open. They saw their target get sucked into a spatial anomaly before they could even step forward.

The Core Wardens were the first to break the paralysis. As ancient guardians who stood near the pinnacle of the empire, their reaction times vastly eclipsed the five shadows.

Fenric dropped his concealment completely and roared in panic. The massive warden charged into the chamber like a rampaging beast. Oram was right beside him, his elegant composure completely destroyed. The five shadows rushed in immediately after. The entire mountain shook under their combined pressure.

Fenric rushed to the exact spot where the rift had been. He slammed his armored fists into the empty air. His supreme power shattered the solid rock walls but the spatial fabric remained perfectly intact.

"Open it!" Fenric screamed furiously. He spun around and glared at the five shadows with wild desperate eyes.

Spring and Summer drew their weapons. They slashed at the empty space in a desperate frenzy but their blades only cut through normal air. Solstice pushed his void manipulation techniques to the absolute limit. He sweated blood as he tried to find a way to open it. The rift had erased its own tracks completely.

Oram stood in the center of the shattered room. The elegant Core Warden was trembling violently. He possessed power that could easily level entire continents but he was completely helpless against a temporal tear that had already sealed itself.

"He is gone." Autumn whispered. She dropped to her knees in the rubble and stared at the empty space.

"The Ancestor." Oram breathed out in horror. He grabbed his own face as the reality of the situation crushed his ancient mind. "She was sleeping inside his inner world. He took her with him."

They had one ultimate mission. They were supposed to ensure Li Yu experienced a smooth and peaceful journey because he carried the soul of their supreme founder. Now he was gone. He had vanished into the unknown; they had absolutely no way to follow him.

They tried several more times to blast the space open with their combined might. They exhausted their energy and destroyed the entire cavern in their frantic efforts under the Wardens' barking orders but they were unable to get to him. The rift was closed permanently.

The seven terrifying experts eventually stopped attacking the empty air. They stood in the ruins of the mountain and looked at each other. They were the apex predators of the empire but right now they were completely clueless and terrified. They had no idea what to do next.

Far away from the panic of the Eidolon wardens, Li Yu was violently tumbling through a tunnel of swirling colors. He had experienced this sensation before but he still did not understand what it actually represented. It was not a simple spatial jump across the cosmos. It was a chaotic plunge through the river of time itself.

The Koi Soul maintained the protective bubble around him and was the only reason he was able to survive such a thing. The bubble absorbed the lethal pressure of time and kept his physical body from being crushed into dust.

The violent tumbling suddenly ended.

Li Yu was spat out of the temporal rift with immense force and he crashed heavily through a thick canopy of giant leaves. Massive branches snapped like dry twigs under his weight as he fell down. He tumbled down through the dense green foliage and finally slammed into a patch of soft, glowing moss on the forest floor.

He groaned and slowly pushed himself up to his feet. The protective bubble faded back into his chest. He brushed the dirt from his robes and took a deep breath. The ambient Qi in this place was wildly different from Gilded Fate City or any realm he had visited. The energy here was unrefined and chaotic but incredibly dense. It felt heavy and primal in his lungs.

He looked around his new surroundings. The trees here were astronomically large. Their trunks were as wide as city blocks and their canopies blotted most of the sky. Strange glowing insects the size of small dogs buzzed through the humid air.

A massive shadow passed overhead. Li Yu looked up and saw a creature with leathery wings block out the sun for a brief moment. A terrifying screech echoed across the forest and shook the very ground beneath his boots.

Li Yu closed his eyes and stabilized his breathing. He realized what had happened, the broken token had pulled him through a rift and thrown him into a different realm. What he didn’t know was he was indeed in a different realm but also a different place in time as well.