Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 1080: Balanced

Two full days drifted by under the quiet shade of the hidden camp before Li Yu finally broke his continuous healing cycle. The young cultivator sat cross legged on the grass and slowly withdrew his hands from the bare shoulders of the two unconscious women for the last time. He couldn’t even remember how often he used all the different healing techniques he had at his arsenal to repair the different parts of their bodies.Exhaling a long breath, he allowed his Qi to recede back into his own meridians while feeling a deep ache in his mind. The strenuous process of mending the bodies of such high tier cultivators was finally over and he had successfully pulled them back from the edge of death.

Li Yu had carefully guided his energy through their broken bodies and repaired the most serious internal damage within them. The constant healing and repairing had stabilized their failing conditions and ensured their powerful foundations could handle the rest of the natural recovery from here without his direct intervention. It could be faster if he continued but he had done enough and his efforts could be put elsewhere.

Looking over at Seline, Li Yu observed the steady progress his efforts had produced over the last forty eight hours. The right side of her face was no longer a horrific display of exposed skull and charred tissue. A thin layer of new flesh had grown back over the bone to cover the grievous wound while forming a protective barrier against the elements. It still looked raw and gross but it was an undeniable sign of healing.

Where her right arm and right leg used to be, there was now a sign of new physical growth taking place. A tiny arm and a tiny leg were beginning to bud from the sealed stumps as her Sovereign realm vitality pushed outward to replace what was lost. The natural resilience of a beast kin at her level was a terrifying thing to witness in action.

Alys was experiencing a similar regeneration on her side of the woven blanket. Her missing left arm was slowly sprouting anew while the deep burns across her torso were flaking away to reveal fresh skin underneath. They were both out of immediate physical danger because of his treatment, their bodies were naturally more resilient coming from a beast background and the medicinal pills provided the necessary fuel for their regeneration to continue. As long as they rested and allowed their blood to circulate properly, their limbs would eventually grow back to their normal proportions over time without the need for a specific pill.

However, Li Yu noticed a very concerning detail during these two days of treatment. Scanning his spiritual sense through their bodies one more time, he noted how much weaker their souls were compared to what they should be. A Sovereign and an Origin Awakening expert should possess radiant soul fires that burned with vibrant energy.

The souls residing within the two sisters were flickering and dim like fragile candles caught in a strong wind storm. The spiritual energy was frayed at the edges and they had actually grown weaker over the last two days instead of stronger. Their physical bodies were on the mend but their ethereal foundations were struggling to maintain their cohesion. He noticed it after the first day and gave them each a pill for the soul that he obtained from the Veil but their soul showed no signs of improvement and have only degraded.

It became clear to Li Yu now that the crystal lotus treasure Seline detonated was not just a physical explosive device. The weapon must have carried a devastating spiritual attack woven into its core and unleashed a strange soul related attack that directly targeted the soul of anyone caught in the blast radius. This realization explained why Lord Vance and Commander Seryn were crippled so easily during the battle above the city.

The two city rulers did not just suffer physical injuries from the blinding light and explosion as they suffered severe injuries to their very souls as well. The damage to their souls caused them to lose the ability to command their laws effectively against the invading coalition and sealed their fates. The treasure damaged the ethereal foundation which was far more difficult to mend than simple flesh and bone since the soul dictated the flow of cultivation.

Standing up from the grass, Li Yu stretched his stiff muscles and stepped away from the two women. He walked over to the edge of the nearby stream and splashed some cold water onto his face to clear his tired mind. During these last two days, he did not merely treat the wounds of the two women. He was also growing in terms of healing and understanding the deeper mechanics of the body. His recent treatment of Morrigan and now his efforts to save these sisters allowed him to push his comprehension of life laws much further than before. He could see the intricate connections between blood, Qi and bone with a much clearer vision now.

But more importantly, the continuous shifting of energy pushed his understanding of Yin and Yang to a new level. He sat down on a smooth stone by the water and watched the clear stream flow over the rocks while letting his mind wander through the vast concepts that he touched upon.

He had experienced and witnessed two drastically different things over the past few weeks but he realized they were intricately a part of one another. The brutal combat of the cultivation world always led into a period of resting and healing just to prepare the body to fight again. It was a near endless cycle that governed the lives of every person walking the martial path. Destruction paved the way for creation while injury demanded mending. A cultivator tore down their enemies and then rebuilt their own foundations in a continuous loop of violence and recovery. One action could not exist without the other just as day could not exist without the night.

His first mind pondered how things had a way of leading to the next event in a grand chain of cause and effect. He thought about Darius and the tragic tale he heard in the busy streets of The Onyx Market. Darius lost his lover to a cruel slaver and that sorrow festered into a burning desire for revenge that consumed his entire life.

That revenge required an army and the coalition utilized the capture of Alys to draw Seline into a direct conflict with the two Sovereigns. The scheme came full circle when Darius finally got his revenge and struck down the city rulers to claim the territory for himself and whatever else he was going to do next. But how many people suffered in between for that single goal to be reached by one man?

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Thousands of beast kin warriors died while the city guards were slaughtered and the market was thrown into total chaos. Two sisters were left crippled in the wilderness while countless others were caught in the crossfire of a grudge they had no part in making. There were probably countless others that fell during the time his hatred began and when he finally got his revenge as well.

A single seed of love and loss had bloomed into a sprawling tree of violence and death over the course of many years. The interconnected nature of these events was staggering to consider as the universe operated on a grand scale where every action birthed an equal and opposite reaction across the tapestry of fate. Each branch alters another person’s life in one way or another.

The concepts became more grand and abstract as Li Yu stared into the flowing water and let his thoughts drift beyond the realm as he began to see the stream as a physical representation of time and destiny. The water nurtured the plants growing along the banks but it also slowly eroded the heavy stones resting in the riverbed.

It gave life and it took it away in the very same motion, showing there was no true separation between the two forces. They were two halves of the exact same whole. Light could not exist without shadow to define its edges and sound carried no meaning without silence to frame the notes. A person could not truly understand the profound beauty of peace if they had never experienced the harrowing terror of war.

Deep within his soul space, his second mind stood upon the ethereal river of Yin and Yang. The metaphysical river was vast and swirling with contrasting colors of black and white that flowed together in perfect harmony. His second mind had been walking upon this river for a long time while studying the laws hidden within the strong currents. Every step taken on this river represented a deeper understanding of the universe and brought him closer to the true essence of the Dao. He had walked four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine steps so far and the path ahead was shrouded in a thick mist of complex laws.

The recent events in the physical world and the philosophical musings of his first mind provided the final spark needed to break through a stubborn bottleneck. The healing of Morrigan and the sisters paired with the observation of the cruel cycle of revenge showed him the true face of Yin and Yang. It was not as simple as light and dark or hot and cold. It was love giving birth to hatred and healing giving purpose to injury. His second mind took a bold step forward and broke through the 5000th step in the river of Yin and Yang.

A radiant light erupted from the ethereal waters and bathed his inner world in an intense glow. The mist hovering over the river parted and revealed new truths directly into his very soul. The breakthrough triggered a sweeping enlightenment that resonated directly from his inner world and poured into his physical body sitting by the stream.

Li Yu closed his eyes as his aura surged forward with untamed power as the Qi in the surrounding area surged towards him. The air around the quiet campsite vibrated with heavy energy while the surrounding trees rustled wildly despite there being no real wind. The ambient Qi in the shallow valley rushed faster and faster toward Li Yu while forming a swirling vortex of energy around his seated figure. He did not suppress it and let his mind expand to merge with the vast concepts of the Dao washing over his senses.

Faen stopped tending to the array disks and stood up to look at the swirling vortex of Qi. Borum and Garren rushed over from the edge of the camp and stared at their leader in surprise. The rock elementals could feel the oppressive weight of the laws radiating from his body.

"He is breaking through to a new level of understanding," Faen whispered while gripping the hilts of her weapons. "Spread out and reinforce the perimeter arrays. Do not let any wandering beasts or rogue cultivators get close to this camp and interrupt him. We must protect him while he undergoes this state."

Borum nodded his heavy head and marched into the tall grass to stand guard while Garren hurried to carve more earth runes into the dirt to strengthen their hiding formations. They formed a protective ring around the camp and left Li Yu undisturbed by the stream.

Li Yu was unaware of his companions moving around him as he fell deeper into the trance. He felt like he was more at one with the cycle of life and death, creation and destruction and many more concepts than ever before. He understood that a blooming flower and a rotting corpse were just different stages of the exact same journey. The energy was never lost and it simply changed forms to serve a new purpose in the grand design. A fall of a great cultivator was not the end but the beginning of countless more adventures.

He felt the intrinsic link between love and war as his mind explored the actions of Darius. The deepest affections often fueled the most destructive conflicts and the desire to protect a loved one always required the willingness to destroy any threat that approached them. This was something that he knew first hand, he would do anything to protect his loved ones. Love was the ultimate creator of peace but it was also the most potent catalyst for slaughter. They were intertwined forces that pushed the world forward through eras of prosperity and ruin.

He pondered the nature of peace and chaos while feeling the laws of Yin and Yang settle into his bones. A quiet valley held more meaning because a raging storm existed beyond the mountains. If the entire world was peaceful, the concept of peace would lose some of its value and become stagnant. The universe required balance to function and every extreme eventually cycled back into its counterpart to maintain harmony. A man who reached the peak of power would eventually fall and a ruined empire would eventually give rise to a new civilization.

His first mind continued to explore these grand ideas while his second mind absorbed the surging laws of Yin and Yang from the ethereal river. He felt the heavy burdens of his own journey lighten as he accepted his place within the cosmic cycle. He was a healer when the situation required mending and he was a killer when threats needed to be removed. He was a creator of delicious food and a destroyer of those who stood in the way of his goals. Li Yu was a cultivator walking the Dao and he felt more at one with the universe than he ever thought possible.

The boundaries between his physical form and the surrounding energy seemed to blur as he slipped into a state of meditation. He could feel the pulse of the stream and the slow growth of the grass beneath his boots. Li Yu felt the steady beating of the hearts belonging to the two sisters resting under the blanket and the heavy footsteps of his companions walking the perimeter to protect him. His senses expanded to encompass the entire valley and he simply existed as a part of the natural flow of the world.

The world around him faded away as he began to float in the sea of universal laws. The wind rustled the leaves and the stream continued to babble while his enlightenment carried him deep into the mysteries of the Dao and detached his senses from even the passage of time. The sun rose and set in the sky above him as the cycle of day and night mirrored the very laws he was comprehending.

When his eyes finally opened and the surging aura receded back into his core, a sense of clarity washed over his mind like never before. He took a deep breath of the cool air and looked around the quiet campsite. The stars were shining brightly in the night sky and the campfire was burning low. He checked his internal clock and realized a full two days had passed during that time of deep meditation but it felt like several years had passed within his own mind.