Chương 436: Destruction, Karma and Fate

Li Yu continued his research and exploration into the laws. Some of his nights were spent with the Law of Destruction. He didn't know why but he always saved it for night time, it seemed fitting for it. There was a sense that he could get more from studying it at night. He wasn't sure if that was true or not but instincts were a strong thing and should be followed. This was the hardest, most painful and seemingly most dangerous of the laws he was peering into.

He would find a dead log or a large stone at the edge of the valley. He would stare at it until his eyes watered and until his soul ached for the inspiration. He entered the River of Destruction. The magma, the ash and the crumbling red sky. The pressure here was hostile. It wanted to end him the moment he stepped foot here. The Spirit of Destruction watched him with hollow eyes as he appeared. Li Yu could only manage two steps before his soul began to fray. But he persisted. Almost every night he would go back.

That night however, the Fisherman seemed to have gotten tired of his patheticness. The Fisherman stepped in front of him and gestured to its feet. After a moment Li Yu realized that it was telling him to follow it.

'Step where I step, go where I go.' It seemed to be telling him. Sure enough it took a step forward and Li Yu stepped in the area its feet used to be. That step forward carried considerably less pressure and pain from the cuts.

'It's that effective?' Li Yu thought. The Fisherman didn't seem to even be stressed or under any kind of pressure.

'I don't understand, the Fisherman and Koi are technically my souls, me, yet they seem so different. They appear in these rivers with me and aid me in moving forward. However, they barely seem to be affected by the pressure of these law rivers. I, myself, am the one cracking and fracturing. Not them. But aren't they technically me? I really don't understand…' His thoughts drifted at questions that have been plaguing him as he was learning the laws.

He was snapped back to the present when the Fisherman took another step forward. Li Yu once again stepped where the Fisherman used to be and once again the pressure and pain was considerably less. He managed to go a full 10 steps, something that was unthinkable to him before. As his ethereal form was dissipating the Fisherman turned around and gave him another look.

'Even with my help you only made it that far?' It seemed to say, no Li Yu was sure that's what it was thinking. He tried to reach his hand out to hit the Fisherman out of protest but his formed had already dissipated from there. He learned that Destruction was not evil or bad, something that he began to understand on his own earlier than this. It was necessary. Without Destruction, the forest would be choked with dead wood. Without decay, there would be no soil. Destruction was the janitor of the universe.

He started to learn to control the End Point. He picked up a pebble and he once again found the flaw. Snap. The pebble turned to dust and blew away in the wind. He picked up a fallen leaf and he found the flaw in the Law of Life binding it. Channeling his qi to the weakest point in the Laws of life. Wither. The leaf turned brown and crumbled in seconds.

"Destruction is inevitable," Li Yu whispered.

"It is only a matter of time and place. The end comes for us all. I can already see the end of those Seven so called Fears. Begging in front of me to end their miserable lives!" Li Yu raged as his killing intent spiked but this time there was the tough of destruction law within his killing intent that killed some of the plants in the area. One evening as the stars began to take over the jungle canopy, Li Yu sat in his courtyard and was brewing a fresh pot of tea. The steam rose in spirals and was a calming sight.

Surprisingly, a miniature crab was also standing on the table as well.

"You are progressing," Khaos simply said without much emotion.

"Your foundation is slightly solidifying. But you are ignoring the strings." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Strings?" Li Yu asked.

"You have the Fisherman," Khaos said.

"What is a Fisherman without a line? And what is a line if not a connection?"

"Karma…" Li Yu realized.

"That inner voice within me that has been able to tell if someone should be spared or killed… That must be what it is, the Karma Laws. But how did I touch upon it before entering the river?" Ignoring Li Yu's comments completely, "And Fate," Khaos said.

"They are twin rivers. They flow into each other and are interwoven. Karma is the cause and effect. Fate is the destination." Li Yu put down his cup.

"I thought those were impossible to see and even harder to understand."

"Impossible for most," Khaos said.

"It requires something else, something special. I, for example, cannot peer into the rivers of Karma and Fate. But you have been entangled in Karma ever since that Fisherman came into existence. I can sense it. Try." Li Yu closed his eyes as before with the other laws. He didn't push out toward the physical world. He pushed toward the interactions of the world, or at least he tried to. He focused on the bird nesting in the tree above and also focused on the worm it had just eaten. However, nothing was happening.

He remained in this state for several hours and he went through everything he could think of in his mind. The karmic ties with people he's met. Saving someone, killing someone and living life in general. Nothing worked. Eventually he turned to what Khaos had said, the Fisherman Soul within himself. He appeared before on the island within his Ocean of Qi and without saying anything he revealed his intent to the Fisherman. I want to go and understand Karma, to the River of Karma. The Fisherman's eyes flashed.

The shift was different this time. It wasn't a violent tear but was instead a dizzying spin. He opened his spectral eyes and he was not in a river of water, magma or anything like the others he had experienced.. He was in a Web. It was a vast and infinite space filled with red and golden threads. They crisscrossed everywhere, tangling and knotting. There seemed to be no sort of pattern or rules for where they went or what it all meant. Some threads were thick as ropes and others were thin as silk.

The "River" here was a flow of these threads and they were moving endlessly forward. The Spirit of Karma hovered in the distance. It looked like a giant golden Spindle and it was constantly spinning, winding the red threads of the universe. Li Yu looked at himself. There were threads coming out of his chest. Hundreds of them. Some were thin and faded, perhaps people he had met once in a teahouse. Some were thick and pulsing red, most likely his enemies.

Some of the threads were cut and were flapping in the wind but the knots remained on his soul.

'What is the point of these cut threads? Perhaps the burden someone carries from the dead? That doesn't seem right, I feel no burden. Carrying their hopes and dreams? That doesn't seem right either, I don't feel anything from that. What could it be…' Li Yu pondered the mystery behind it. There seemed to be an infinite amount of black thread pulsing with malice.

'That's most likely the group of Xylarri that have sworn to be my enemy and hunt me down' Li Yu made the conclusion quickly.

'That was most likely the case.' There was a thread that glowed with a strange dark warmth.

'Could that be Khaos?' There was a thread that felt demonic and like iron.

'Krell?' And there was one thread... a golden thread. It was extremely thin but felt unbreakable. The thread was stretching off into the unknown distance. It felt like... a pulling force? Perhaps destiny? Some kind of fate? Li Yu then realized that his two souls were way off in the distance. Something that had never happened before. They were way ahead of him here and it didn't seem like they were going to turn back for him. He tried to take a step toward the Spindle. Buzz.

The web vibrated and a headache unlike anything he had felt before struck him. It wasn't pain, it was confusion. Millions of voices, millions of consequences flooded his mind. If you step here, a flower dies. If the flower dies, the bee starves. If the bee starves… The causality overwhelmed him and his soul soon fractured and dissolved into nothingness. Li Yu gasped and pulled back but he was already back to where his real body was. He jerked and knocked over his teacup.

"Too much," Li Yu panted while clutching his head.

"It's too loud."

"Karma is the noise of the universe," Khaos said calmly, as if he knew that would have happened.

"You cannot listen to it all. You must learn to follow only the threads that matter. You need to isolate the connection or come up with other ways. This is a path that you will need to walk on your own or perhaps your souls." Li Yu nodded but his heart racing.

"And Fate?"

"Fate is the river that carries the web," Khaos said.

"Do not try to look at Fate yet. To look at Fate is to see things you are not ready for. Perhaps it is your own death. Perhaps it is some other and even more terrifying secret. You could be trapped there as well and not escape." Li Yu agreed with those words. He wasn't anxious to see those things, if he could even get far enough to see.

'How does Khaos know so much? Did he unlock memories through his bloodline? That's probably it... but it definitely seems like he is hiding things from me. If he is, it is probably for my own good. Khaos has always helped me so far…' Li Yu thought.