Chương 1186: Chapter 1184: Overarching Laws

Zhan Tian stood in the courtyard of the Worldheart Clan and turned to face his trusted commanders. The sky above the mountain peaks was finally clear after the spatial rifts sealed shut and the heavy tension of the occupation faded away.

"General Yue and General Rai will discover the hidden locations that Zaal mentioned," Zhan Tian commanded with a firm voice.

"Go to the areas the parasite provided and find clues. Do not engage any large forces you encounter. Your goal is strictly reconnaissance and tracing their networks. General Draken and the rest of you will scatter across the various territories and try to discover any unusual activities related to this." The generals bowed in unison and accepted their deployments without a single word of complaint. They understood the gravity of the situation and they knew time was a precious resource.

Zhan Tian looked up at the sky and let out a long breath that carried a trace of exhaustion.

"I will personally call upon the Council of the Myriad Realms. One force slipping through might be written off as a stroke of chance or a minor breach. But another group showing up shows a great issue is brewing. They both were trying to summon things here or to bring something even greater here. Perhaps there is another hidden zone they are using to cross over." General Yue nodded her head in agreement.

"The Myriad Realms are vast and stretching across endless distances. It is impossible to guard every inch even with all of the armies."

"There are new realms being found all the time and uncharted forces being discovered regularly," Zhan Tian added while looking up at the sky.

"We cannot handle all of this alone as there could be other forces. We need to create a special force of trusted people to investigate and explore. We need the council to organize a unified defensive net before some other force is successful in their missions, whatever it is. Dismissed." The generals vanished into streaks of light and darted across the horizon to execute their orders. Zhan Tian watched them leave before turning to escort his daughter and grandson back to their own territory.

After bidding them farewell, he disappeared and went to do what he said. The tranquil waters and the familiar pavilions offered a comforting contrast to the blood and destruction they found at the Worldheart Clan. Li Yu kept checking his mother to see if she was experiencing any lingering pain. Tielan did the exact same thing and kept a close eye on his breathing. Both of them were concerned for one another but at a physical level, both were fine.

Tielan sat down on a wooden bench near the edge of the crystal clear water and looked at her son. Her motherly instincts allowed her to realize what had happened during the battle to a certain degree. She saw the guilt hiding behind his dual colored eyes in that quick moment and she knew he was also blaming himself for the injury she sustained.

"You need to stop worrying about what happened," Tielan said while gesturing to her shoulder.

"I fight all the time and I face monsters far worse than a crazed old man. These things are nothing to me. While I get hurt from time to time in combat, I am much tougher than I look. Your mother is a Zhan after all, we are incredibly tough." Li Yu understood what she was trying to say and he appreciated her attempt to soothe him. He put up a strong front and offered her a small smile.

"I know you are strong, mother. I am just glad we are back home and the threat is dealt with. Fortunately, due to that incident, we were able to discover another plot at hand." Tielan could see right through his facade but she chose not to press the issue. She knew he needed time to process the events on his own terms. She stood up from the wooden bench and prepared to depart even though she wanted to stay long. She had to get back to her own forces now and especially so with this new information coming to light.

As they all saw today, the realms were getting chaotic just as they had predicted in the past. The decay of peace was accelerating and getting worse faster than anyone could imagine. They saw signs that things were growing turbulent long before the Hollow Husk and the Shadowed Pantheon showed up but the rate is moving too fast now. Since they could not figure out what was going on with his inner world right now, they agreed to leave it as it was and simply keep a close eye on it.

"I must return to my legions and prepare the defenses," Tielan said while resting a gentle hand on his cheek.

"Stay here and cultivate. Do not go wandering off too far until we understand what we are facing." She walked away and then disappeared through a rift. Internally, she was concerned with the terrifying killing intent he had shown back in the ruined garden. This was not the first time he had displayed such killing intent but this was the first time she felt such dark emotions from him. She worried a bit for his mental stability but understood where it came from this time.

The burdens he carried were heavy but she trusted in his decisions and his abilities to handle his own path. If it ever looked like he could not carry the weight alone, they would all step in to help him without hesitation. Li Yu watched her leave and let out a heavy sigh. He too wished she could stay longer but as she had mentioned, things were taking a turn for the worse. Since she had to prepare for the worst, this made him worry even more since it would mean his family would be involved in more fighting.

Li Yu returned to his private cultivation chamber and sat cross legged on a smooth mat. He closed his eyes and sent his consciousness inward to check on the situation within his soul. He arrived on the tranquil island of his soul space and immediately looked for Zaal but Zaal was gone. The twisted sphere of rusted chains and jagged thorns was nowhere to be seen.

The ruined spirit of Guizhong remained pinned to the ground and twitched under the lingering pain of the sword strikes but the Heart Demon had vanished without a trace. Li Yu walked over to the edge of the spiritual water and asked the Fisherman Soul what had happened to the parasite. The ancient entity did not turn around to offer a verbal explanation. The Fisherman only waved him off with a casual flick of his weathered hand.

The gesture pretty much stated that the problem was taken care of and Li Yu did not need to worry about the Heart Demon anymore. Li Yu did not question him at all this time. He owed the Fisherman Soul too much at this point to harbor any doubts or demand answers. Time and time again the ancient entity had stood by his side and offered salvation from certain death. Li Yu held a trust in the Fisherman and knew the ancient soul would not do anything to harm him.

He chose not to press the issue further and simply bowed deeply to the figure standing by the water. Li Yu made his way towards Guizhong and the Pale Extinction shaped sword appeared in his hand. He took a few more slashes at the old man and then he finally destroyed the soul. Li Yu didn't want to see the appearance of the fool any longer and felt he had done enough. He then left the soul space to return to his physical body. This novel is published on a different platform.

Support the original author by finding the official source. The young lord opened his eyes in the silent cultivation chamber and stared at the wooden ceiling. The scale of what was happening across the cosmos was now far above his current abilities. His grandfather, his mother and the other supreme forces would take over the hunt for the Shadowed Pantheon. They commanded vast armies and possessed the political authority to convene the right councils.

He was just a single cultivator trying to find his footing in a turbulent era. He knew he just needed to focus on himself and grow stronger. His recent experiences in the void and the ambush at the neutral clan acted as another powerful driving force for him to advance his cultivation. He refused to be a weak link when the true war finally arrived at their doorstep. Li Yu closed his eyes again and shifted his focus downward.

He descended into his inner world to check on the very thing that started all of this trouble recently. The vast expanse of his inner world stretched out with a chaotic beauty and it looked mostly the same as before. The towering mountains of dense Qi and the swirling clouds of elemental energy remained undisturbed. However, when he directed his divine sense toward the dark ocean containing the foreign energy that came with Calamari, he noticed a distinct change in the atmosphere.

The invisible barrier containing the dark waters had weakened slightly. The violent reaction that rejected Guizhong seemed to have caused the restrictive seal to loosen just a fraction. Li Yu pushed his perception forward and found he could sense a bit below the churning surface now. His divine sense penetrated roughly ten meters into the dark depths and allowed him to feel the foreign laws swimming within the currents below.

The laws were incredibly chaotic and mixed together instead of being neatly separated like how laws were normally perceived by cultivators in the Myriad Realms. It was not that the laws themselves were fundamentally different from what he knew. The Dao was the same in all places. The Dao was the origin point of all creation and the final destination of all destruction. But how the laws chose to manifest could be vastly different depending on the environment they grew in.

All paths eventually lead towards the Dao so there were countless ways those laws could show or represent themselves in reality. This dark ocean was one such case. Wherever the colossal squid had come from, the laws existed in fused states. They seemed to naturally join together when there was a shared capability or a complementary resonance between them. Li Yu extended his divine sense deeper into the ten meter zone and isolated a cluster of flowing energy.

He recognized a three part combination spinning like a toxic whirlpool. The laws of Water, Decay and Poison were bound together in a seamless fusion. In the traditional realms a cultivator would usually master Water to control the tides, Decay to age physical objects and Poison to afflict the biological body. They were separate concepts studied in isolation in most cases. After advancing further on the path, cultivators would also then dive into compatible laws to further their strength.

Because there are similarities between such laws, the comprehension was easier with double the reasons with half the effort. Cultivators would then combine such laws together in their techniques or attacks to further empower them and make it harder for others to counter. Here, they did not exist as separate pieces in a natural environment. They manifested as a single highly toxic and rotting liquid. The water itself carried the heavy weight of decay and the sharp sting of poison in every single drop.

The fluid nature of the water allowed the rot to spread instantly while the poison acted as a catalyst to break down any resistance. He moved his perception slightly to the left and encountered a second grouping floating in the dark current. This one was a void fusion. The laws of Space, Illusion and Gravity were braided together into a highly dangerous trap. Space was torn and folded into jagged edges while Gravity was weaponized to crush anything caught within those folds.

Illusion served as a shroud over the entire mechanism to completely mislead the senses of anyone approaching the anomaly. A cultivator walking into this three part fusion would feel their physical weight shifting wildly while their eyes fed them false images of safety just before the spatial tears sheared their body apart. It was an elegant and deadly trap born from the natural environment of these waters. It was a strange yet fascinating thing to witness since he had never seen it occur naturally like this before.

Studying the different ways these laws existed and intertwined together began to further his own foundational knowledge. He dove into exploring them with a fierce dedication and pushed his divine sense to its absolute limit within the shallow waters. He spent hours analyzing the connection points between the fused concepts and wanted to understand how Water could embrace Decay without losing its flowing nature.

He wanted to see how Space could bend under extreme Gravity while maintaining a flawless Illusion on the surface. Since these laws were doing this naturally or at least it seemed natural, it was like watching an animal in its native habitat instead of a zoo. As he explored the swirling currents, a sudden realization bloomed in his mind and illuminated his thoughts. The three part combinations were not just randomly stuck together like mud and stone.

There was usually an overarching law that carried the other 'lesser' laws along. A stronger and more complex law acted as the anchor holding the fusion together. For the toxic liquid combination, the overarching anchor was a law resembling Consumption. It was a greedy and hungry concept that demanded the breakdown of all matter it touched. Water provided the flowing medium, Decay provided the method of breakdown and Poison provided the speed of the reaction. They all served the higher purpose of Consumption.

For the void fusion, the anchor was Distortion. Space, Illusion and Gravity were merely tools used to achieve a state of Distortion. The overarching law dictated the end result while the lesser laws executed the violent process. The end result of these law combinations was the same though, Destruction. If Consumption and Distortion were the anchors then Destruction would be like the ship the anchors were on. They were mere tools to achieve the result the ship wanted.

Li Yu felt a rush of enlightenment wash over his spirit as the concepts clicked into place. If he could comprehend the overarching laws acting as the anchors, he could unravel the fusions and perhaps even recreate them using his own Qi. The chaotic dark ocean was no longer just a terrifying hazard sitting in his foundation waiting to explode. It was a library of alien-like concepts waiting to be deciphered. He settled deeper into his meditation and allowed his divine sense to drift along the dark currents.

He analyzed the ebb and flow of Consumption and Distortion. He watched how the anchor laws fed energy to the lesser laws and kept them stabilized under varying different pressures. The complex interactions challenged what he knew about traditional cultivation but was also offering him additional insights into other laws. He realized a spear strike did not just need to be fast and sharp in isolation.

If he could forge an overarching law like Execution to act as an anchor, he could force the laws of speed, sharpness, weight and possibly more to fuse perfectly into a single devastating attack. Then instead of just Execution, he could also use Destruction to act as an additional anchor and force another three or more laws into that as well. After that was done, the two things of Execution and Destruction could be anchored by something such as Death for example.

His attack with a singular intent could for example carry the might of perhaps forty plus or more laws depending on his level of mastery and how many levels down he went. This was something he had already moved to but did so in a singular fashion instead of a branching one. For example, since Death was a stronger law than piercing, he would choose to imbue his attack with death laws as it carried a bit of the piercing laws with it and it was stronger overall.

However, he was going about it the wrong way he realized. Instead of using the stronger law and that law already incorporated small bits and pieces of some of the 'lesser' ones; he would have them all fully fused together and have the attack carrying the entire being of each law down the branching tree to the most basic laws. Every new insight he gleaned from the shallow depths fortified his inner world and brought him one step closer to the strength he so desperately craved.

The mysteries were slowly unfolding before his eyes and he spent the rest of the day absorbing the knowledge hidden within the dark waters.