Chương 1185: Chapter 1183: A Mountain of Debt

Li Yu felt the heavy fog of his rage finally lifting from his mind. Roughly a day had passed in the outside world since he had passed out while he processed the turbulent emotions inside his own soul space. His senses returned to a state of calm and the dark desire for violence washed away into the rushing spiritual water surrounding the tranquil island.

The ruined spirit of Ancestor Guizhong remained pinned to the dirt and twitched under the weight of the endless pain but Li Yu no longer cared about the broken old man. He turned his attention toward the Fisherman Soul standing quietly by the edge of the shore and allowed his weapon to fade into nothingness. He did not, however, kill off that soul just yet. Just in case he still had to vent his feelings for what it did. Li Yu walked over to the ancient entity and dropped to his knees once more.

He bowed forward and pressed his forehead firmly against the spiritual earth in a deep show of ultimate respect and honor. He owed this mysterious figure his life and his sanity on multiple occasions now. The Fisherman had helped him before and just recently provided the means to punish the enemy who dared to harm his mother.

"Thank you for helping me, again." Li Yu said while keeping his head bowed low to the ground.

"My debts to you are piling as high as a mountain and I am unsure I will ever be able to repay it back. You have offered me salvation time and time again without asking for anything in return yet." The Fisherman Soul did not move for a long moment and simply stared out across the vast expanse of the spiritual ocean. The ancient entity finally raised a weathered hand to wave the young lord away.

The Fisherman spoke the exact same words he had shared when he took action earlier and his raspy voice echoed across the gentle waves.

"Remember that feeling as you begged me," The Fisherman said with a tone that carried the weight of countless forgotten eras.

"That will be enough as repayment this time." The Fisherman sent him away with a gentle wave of his hand and the physical boundaries of the soul space began to fade from view. Li Yu vanished from the spiritual island to return to his physical body in the waking world. The ancient entity stood alone in the silence and the woven straw hat dipped slightly toward the rushing water. A single tear escaped the hidden eyes of the Fisherman and traced a slow path down his weathered cheek.

The entity remained standing in deep thought as if remembering painful memories of something long lost to the tides of time. Li Yu opened his eyes and blinked against the bright sunlight streaming through a wooden window. He found himself lying on a comfortable bed inside a grand guest pavilion located on one of the secondary peaks of the Worldheart Clan. The scent of medicinal incense filled the air and eased him in his waking up.

His mother sat in a wooden chair next to the bed with a look of concern etched across her face. Tielan had waited patiently for him to wake up while the entire clan remained under strict lockdown by the occupying forces of the Worldkeeper. Li Yu sat up and stretched his arms while taking a deep breath of the fresh mountain air. He felt refreshed and his mind was still a bit cloudy as he scanned out using his divine sense to understand the circumstances.

The overwhelming bloodlust was now gone and replaced by a cold clarity.

"You have been unconscious for a full day," Tielan said while pouring him a cup of warm water from a pitcher.

"How do you feel? I checked your body and found no physical damage but the soul is a delicate thing."

"I am fine now, mother," Li Yu answered while taking the cup and drinking the soothing liquid. He placed the cup on a nearby table and looked at Tielan with a very serious expression. First he made sure to check her that she was okay and sure enough she was. Once that was done he moved to the important topic at hand.

"I need to quickly talk to grandfather and the sect leader. I have found the truth behind the attack and the conspiracy here." Tielan did not waste time asking for details in the room. She trusted her son and immediately led him out of the pavilion. As they were heading to the destination, she sent word to her father via a token to gather the correct people. They walked down the winding stone pathways toward the main assembly hall of the clan as Tielan showed him the way.

The armored soldiers of the Tian army stood guard at every corner and saluted sharply as they passed. The usual vibrant energy of the Worldheart Clan was replaced by a heavy silence as the disciples remained confined to their quarters. They entered the grand hall to find Zhan Tian sitting at the head of a large stone table carved from a single piece of mountain rock.

His eight generals stood behind him like imposing statues of war while the Sect Master and the two ancestors stood nervously on the opposite side of the room. The tension in the hall was thick enough to cut with a blade. This group was already meeting so there was no need to prepare anything. Li Yu walked up to the table and offered a respectful greeting to his grandfather before turning to face the group. He explained what he had discovered within his soul space and told them about the Heart Demon named Zaal.

He revealed that the parasite had witnessed every secret meeting the ancestor attended and held the answers to the now larger issue at hand.

"I believe the entity is telling the truth," Li Yu stated while looking at the gathered leaders.

"It knows too many specific details about what had happened and even lined up with what the sect leader just said about stolen resources for it to be a fabrication." General Draken crossed his thick arms and offered a skeptical grunt that echoed loudly in the quiet room.

"Heart Demons are born from deception and madness. They weave lies from the fears of their hosts and twist reality to suit their needs. Trusting the word of a parasite is a dangerous gamble, boy."

"I assure you it is telling the truth, General Draken," Li Yu replied without backing down from the imposing warrior.

"My instincts tell me so and I have verified its terror firsthand. It has no reason to lie to us now because it only wants to escape the torment it suffered." Zhan Tian raised a hand to silence the general and leaned forward in his chair.

"Show us this creature and let it speak for itself." Li Yu nodded and reached into his own foundation to summon the prisoner. He willed the dark energy to appear and a sphere of rusted iron chains and jagged thorns materialized on the center of the stone table. The dark glass core reflected the terrified bloodshot eyes of the entity as it took in the sight of the experts surrounding it.

The Sect Master and the ancestors stared at the thing with hatred as it played a part in their ancestor falling, whether big or small. Li Yu ordered Zaal to recount the story exactly as they had discussed in the soul space. The entity did not dare to hesitate or play games in front of this demon of a man. Zaal told the story of the grand conspiracy and detailed the hidden meetings Guizhong held with the mysterious faction.

The parasite explained how the old man traded the security of his home for the promise of supreme power and a corrupted inner world technique. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The entity recounted the thirty years of stolen resources and the hidden arrays built across the territory. Zaal revealed the ultimate fate planned for the Worldheart Clan according to the whispered conversations of the unseen masters.

The hidden summoning gates were designed to consume the life force of every disciple on the mountain to fully activate. The entire clan was meant to be a blood essence sacrifice to open the spatial pathways for the invading army. Guizhong had fallen to the temptations of another force and willingly condemned his own descendants to a gruesome death just to elevate his own status. The Sect Master turned pale and his hands shook with a shocked horror.

The two ancestors standing beside him trembled as the heavy weight of the betrayal crushed their spirits. They realized that one of the ancestors that was greatly respected and thought of as the backbone of their clan viewed them as nothing more than cattle waiting for the slaughter.

"He was going to kill us all," One of the ancestors whispered while clutching his chest as if he had been struck by a physical blow.

"Our own revered teacher was going to feed our children to those monsters." Zaal continued the story and reached the part where it described the physical features of the unseen masters. The entity detailed the thick black scales that drank the ambient light and the elongated limbs featuring multiple joints. It described the burning amber eyes lacking pupils and the crowns of jagged bone growing directly from their skulls. The reaction from Zhan Tian and the generals was immediate and intense.

The Worldkeeper narrowed his eyes and the temperature in the hall plummeted to a freezing extreme that caused frost to form on the stone table. General Yue squeezed her fist tight enough to turn her knuckles white while sparks of blue lightning danced furiously across the silver armor of General Rai. It was very clear they had encountered these creatures before and they have. Like the Hollow Husk they just fought, they have also fought against the creatures being described now.

Zaal finished the long explanation and even detailed the location of every single array constructed. It wanted to reveal anything and everything to reduce its value of being kept alive. Once it was finally done, the sphere of rusted chains slumped against the stone table in a posture of total defeat. The entity looked at Li Yu and begged for the release they had agreed upon in the spiritual space.

"Please fulfill your promise," Zaal cried out with a multitude of overlapping voices that grated against the ears of the listeners.

"I have told them everything you demanded. I have given you the plans and the faces of your enemies. Kill me now and end my suffering!" The clan leaders and the generals looked confused by the deranged display occurring on the table. It was bizarre to see a creature of pure malice begging for oblivion so desperately. People did not quite understand what kind of torment Li Yu had inflicted to break the entity so thoroughly but they could sense the genuine terror in its overlapping voices.

"I agree to your terms," Li Yu said while raising his hand and gathering his Qi to deliver a lethal strike to the dark glass core. Before he could bring his hand down and shatter the entity, a voice projected directly into his mind. The Fisherman Soul reached across the boundary of the soul space to offer an alternative path.

'I want that parasite,' The Fisherman said within the mind of the young lord.

'Send it to me. I will propose an arrangement it will agree to and you will not be seen as breaking your word to grant it a way out of its current torment.' Li Yu paused and slowly lowered his hand. He trusted the ancient fisherman above most in the cosmos and knew the Fisherman would handle the situation properly. Li Yu channeled his Qi and wrapped the energy around the sphere of rusted chains.

He sent Zaal back into his soul space to let the Fisherman deal with the creature and decided he would check on the parasite later when the urgent matters were settled. Zhan Tian leaned forward and rested his heavy hands on the table. The grim expression on his face carried the weight of a brewing war that threatened the peace of the Myriad Realms.

"The forces Guizhong was working with are indeed the Shadowed Pantheon. They also went by that name when we fought against them." Zhan Tian announced with a heavy tone that commanded the attention of everyone in the room.

"They are a highly dangerous group we fought against during our time in that zone. They are ruthless conquerors who will stop at nothing to rule over everyone and everything." General Yue nodded in agreement and her voice carried a rare trace of anxiety.

"It is very concerning that the Hollow Husk and now the Shadowed Pantheon are both revealing themselves to us at the same time. The fact they have been working in the dark to infiltrate the realms and establish hidden footholds shows a level of threat that we did not anticipate."

"Zaal verified during his story that no one else in this clan was involved," General Yue added while looking at the Sect Master.

"The parasite saw everything through the eyes of the ancestor and confirmed Guizhong worked alone to maintain his secrecy. This lines up with what the elders have been saying and corroborates what we investigated during the day we spent here." The verification provided by the Heart Demon gave the Worldheart Clan their desperate way out of the crisis. Zhan Tian acknowledged their innocence in the grand scheme and shifted his focus toward dismantling the immediate threat hiding in their territory.

The Sect Master and the two ancestors wasted no time in getting to work for their clan. They set to work to discover all the arrays and hidden formations within their clan based on the specific locations Zaal had revealed. They led Zhan Tian and the generals out of the assembly hall and ventured deep into the underground caverns beneath the mountain peaks. Sure enough, they found the hidden arrays exactly where the parasite claimed they would be.

The Sect Master summoned his Qi and prepared to launch a devastating strike.

"We will destroy these foul constructs right now and cleanse this sin from our home before they can be used."

"Stop," Zhan Tian ordered while grabbing the shoulder of the Sect Master with an iron grip.

"If you destroy them, you will give away the fact that we know about their plans and we will lose our advantage. They will realize their plan has been discovered and they will simply move their operations elsewhere to strike without warning." The Sect Master lowered his hands and looked at the Worldkeeper for guidance on how to proceed.

"We need to counter the arrays and isolate them," Zhan Tian explained while studying the glowing runes etched into the stone.

"We will isolate these arrays so they are untouched but will not function on activation. Ideally we wipe out these forces before they can activate anything but will do this just in case. They will believe their plan is still okay and we will use that blind spot to prepare to get the jump on them." The Sect Master and the ancestors agreed without hesitation. They were eager to right the wrongs committed by their former leader.

It was also beneficial to their clan as their clan was part of the targeted area of these forces.

"This is the sin of our ancestor and a dark stain upon our history," The Sect Master said with a solemn bow toward the Worldkeeper.

"We are willing to help in solving this issue and we will work together with your forces to get to the root of this invasion." Zhan Tian nodded in approval but told them to tell no one else of this while leading the group back to the surface. The initial crisis had passed but a much larger storm was gathering on the horizon and they needed to prepare for the coming battles. The Worldkeeper stood before the sprawling main courtyard and projected his voice to the armored soldiers waiting for their orders.

He dismissed the main army and thanked them once again for their rapid response and unwavering loyalty. The grand spatial rifts tore open across the sky and the elite legions marched back through the void to return to their base to then return to their respective territories after that. The overwhelming pressure occupying the mountain finally lifted and allowed the disciples of the clan to breathe freely as the danger passed.

Zhan Tian kept his eight generals by his side as the last rift closed above the mountain peaks. He looked at his trusted commanders and offered another rare apology for keeping them away from their homes.

"I am sorry for dragging you into this right after our last campaign," Zhan Tian said to them.

"I know you were all looking forward to returning to your normal lives and I keep taking that away. But with this new development I need your help here. We have a lot of work to get to and we might not have much time."