Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 1081: You are Cruel

Li Yu directed his senses inward and found his Karma Severing foundation brimming with a vast ocean of Qi, much stronger than before. The breakthrough on the river of Yin and Yang pushed his cultivation forward by leaps and bounds while also somewhat refining his physical body. He felt the barrier to the Tribulation realm hovering just out of reach and knew he was knocking on its door. He just needed a bit more accumulation and a few more insights to take that final step forward.Li Yu scanned around and realized he had forgotten to take care of some things and got to work. He recalled Krag back into his Koi sanctuary and directed pills toward the dark trench where Krag went. The Supreme Exalt beast swallowed the pills and rumbled with satisfaction as the medicinal energy washed over his rocky shell.

‘Sorry for taking so long to return you this time. Thank you for your help this time.’ Li Yu communicated with him with a smile.

‘Try your best and solve the issue with your kind heart, boy. However, thank you for the pills and place to rest.’ Krag replied in his own kind way.

Faen noticed Li Yu had returned with the removal of Krag and walked over from the edge of the camp while handing Li Yu a cup of fresh water. She explained that she and the two elementals took turns feeding the sisters the required medicinal pills during his two days of meditation and he didn’t need to worry about that. Borum and Garren nodded from their posts near the tree line to welcome him back.

Li Yu drank the water and approached the woven blanket to evaluate their current condition. The physical progress was remarkable to witness. A lot of their flesh had regrown to replace the charred tissue and smooth new skin was starting to cover the raw patches along their torsos. Shimmering dragon scales were returning in the areas where scales existed before the blast while offering a renewed layer of natural defense. The tiny buds of their missing limbs extended further and showed real promise of full regeneration over the coming week or weeks. Li Yu was glad to see his initial efforts taking root so well as the two women rested peacefully on the grass.

However, a deep frown formed on his face as he scanned their internal energy once more. Their physical bodies were safe but their souls were incredibly weak. The ethereal flames dictating their life force had actually gotten weaker over the last two days despite the pills he fed them earlier. The degradation was slow but steady and it would eventually snuff out their consciousness if left unchecked as it was the only part of them that was not recovering.

Knowing his own healing techniques focused primarily on physical mending, he sent a mental call to the small farm island within his inner soul space. He asked Elysia to come out and check their condition for him since she possessed ancient knowledge far exceeding his own and should be one of the leading experts on the soul.

A flash of white light illuminated the campsite as the Ancestor of the Eidolon Court materialized on the grass. She wore her simple radiant robes and crossed her arms over her chest while looking down at the two unconscious women resting beneath the blanket.

"You are quite cruel, Li yu" Elysia playfully scolded while giving Li Yu a sideways glance. "You summon an esteemed Ancestor out of her peaceful sanctuary just to check on two naked girls for you? Have you no shame at all?"

Li Yu did not know how to respond to the sudden accusation but it lightened the tension in his soldiers from his deep meditation earlier. He stood there with a blank expression while thinking this ancient being was frequently quite silly for someone holding such an imposing title and reputation. She ruled an empire yet acted like a teasing neighbor that had been wronged.

"I am asking for your medical expertise," Li Yu replied with a dry tone, not knowing what else to say. "Their physical wounds are healing but their souls are continuing to degrade. The pills I gave them are not working on them."

Elysia chuckled slightly at his awkward defense and then got down to business. She hovered her pale hands over Seline and Alys as her dark eyes glowed with a bright light while she traced the frayed edges of their spiritual foundations. Just moments later she was able to give a diagnosis.

"They were hit with a highly concentrated frequency or sound spiritual attack," Elysia diagnosed while pulling her hands back from the blanket.

Li Yu remembered the strange disruption he felt and explained what he saw when the crystal lotus treasure went off. He described the chaotic spiritual twisting and the blinding flash that scrambled his senses.

Elysia nodded in agreement while listening to the details. "That was most likely a part of the treasure’s core function. A very concentrated blast of soul tearing frequency hidden within the physical explosion you saw. It is designed to cripple the foundation of experts and bypass normal Qi defenses."

Li Yu looked at the flickering souls and asked if there was a way to help them recover from such a vicious strike.

"Of course there is," Elysia answered while standing up and brushing off her robes. "There is usually a way to save anyone in this cosmos but the question at hand is whether the price is worth paying."

Li Yu tilted his head, “Does the process require expensive materials or rare treasures?”

Elysia offered a mysterious smile and posed a hypothetical question to him instead. "What if I said it was? What if the materials required to mend a Sovereign soul were extremely rare to get? Imagine if you needed to acquire a drop of Void Marrow Liquid and a Star Core Lotus just to brew the medicine. Those items are incredibly expensive if you were to try and find a merchant who already had them in stock."

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Li Yu almost instantly shook his head as he didn’t even recognize those items. "Then that is their bad fate and I will not help them any further."

He was very straightforward in his reasoning and did not hesitate to voice his stance. They did not know each other and he had already helped them to the best of his current ability. He would not change his own adventures or spend a fortune in resources to help near complete strangers. There was a limit to his kindness and he had clearly drawn the line with that answer.

Even if they swore to become his followers upon waking up, they were not strong enough to warrant such an extreme investment on his part given his other options. Li Yu had his own path to walk and his own family as well as friends to protect back home. Derailing his journey for a chance to save two strangers was simply a foolish endeavor in his eyes.

A booming roar of laughter suddenly echoed in Li Yu's mind. Krag was listening from the deep trench of the inner world and found the pragmatic response highly amusing and to his liking.

'Finally you are starting to sound smart!' Krag sent through their mental link with a grinding chuckle. 'I was beginning to be afraid that I had followed a stupid master.'

Elysia chuckled as well. "That was the answer I wanted to hear from you."

She turned into a wise ancestor taking care of a junior for a moment and began to preach to him. She went on to explain that one cannot save everyone they come across and a cultivator will frequently be forced to make tough choices like this. Determining whether or not someone was worth saving and whether or not to go out of the way for them was a vital skill on the martial path. Elysia told him stories of fools she had seen in the past or heard about who did too much for strangers only for those people to be ungrateful or simply leave them the moment they recovered their strength.

"But of course it all comes down to the person making the choice," Elysia continued while looking up at the starry sky. "Whether one person thinks an action is worth it is drastically different than another person’s definition of worth. A grand sage could think that saving a lowly child at the cost of losing his own arm was a worthy trade because his Dao aligns with compassion. Meanwhile a common merchant could think it was the stupidest thing in the world because there is no profit to be gained and only suffering."

She turned back to Li Yu and pointed a slender finger at his chest. "A lowly child is not worth the arm of a sage in the eyes of logic but logic does not always govern someone’s choice. I remind you to evaluate every situation carefully. Be who you are and maintain your kind heart if you have one but do not be stupid with your generosity."

Li Yu chuckled self deprecatingly and rubbed the back of his neck. He often wondered if he made the right choices during his travels but he realized long ago he could only make the choices he does because he is himself. Not someone else. He could not pretend to be a ruthless monster just as he could not pretend to be a selfless saint. He walked his own path and dealt with the consequences of his choices as they came.

Elysia smiled warmly and placed a hand on his shoulder. "In this case however, rare materials will not be needed. I just wanted to hear your answer and test you. I might not look it but I am an Ancestor after all. I will stop the damage the two girls are experiencing and set them on the path to recovery using my own techniques."

She stepped back and gestured toward the two unconscious women. She also offered to teach the technique to Li Yu as well so he could learn it while she performed the treatment. She called it the Ethereal Silk Mending Art and explained it was a highly effective method for repairing spiritual foundations. If it couldn’t mend it, it could at least stop the damage from getting worse.

The rest of the night was dedicated to this lesson as Elysia instructed Li Yu to sit across from her and observe the flow of her energy closely. She extended her pale fingers and summoned threads of glowing white Qi that resembled fine silk. The threads were incredibly thin but pulsed with dense spiritual vitality and required immense concentration to maintain as Li Yu quickly found out by trying to copy her. Even with his powerful soul strength, he found the process to be taxing.

"You must compress your spiritual sense and fold it over itself," Elysia instructed while weaving the threads between her fingers. "Infuse the compressed sense with Soul laws and draw it out like a spool of yarn. It takes finesse rather than brute force and you must be delicate."

She guided the ethereal silk into Seline first and the glowing threads bypassed the physical flesh without any resistance while wrapping around the frayed edges of the Sovereign soul. Elysia manipulated the silk with the precision of a master weaver as she tied the broken spiritual fragments back together one step at a time.

Li Yu watched with his senses and noted how the threads acted as a scaffold for the soul to rebuild itself upon. The degradation stopped the moment the silk took hold and the dim soul fire began to burn a little brighter as the frayed edges were securely bound. It didn’t seem like Elysia was healing the soul but was instead stopping the bleeding for the soul to recover herself.

Elysia moved on to Alys and repeated the delicate process with the same level of care but she made it look easy. She wove a protective net around the damaged core and tied off the ethereal threads to ensure they would not unravel. She then turned to Li Yu and told him to summon his own spiritual energy to replicate the technique a few more times.

Li Yu closed his eyes and gathered his Qi as he focused on condensing the raw energy into thin threads of silk just as she described. His first few attempts resulted in thick ropes of Qi that lacked the necessary finesse for soul mending and was the main reason the technique was so taxing for him. The thick ropes collapsed into formless energy the moment he tried to manipulate them outside his body and the ropes were at last twenty times thicker than Elysia’s.

"You are forcing the shape," Elysia corrected gently while offering quiet advice. "Do not push the Qi into a mold. Draw it out naturally using your intent. Let it flow like water freezing into a thin icicle."

He adjusted his breathing and tried again and again. He practiced the Ethereal Silk Mending Art for hours under her watchful gaze and careful guidance. Without her help, it would have taken him weeks most likely to reach the progress he was making within those hours. He slowly refined his control until he could produce a dozen glowing threads that hovered above his palms. He directed the threads toward a nearby tree and practiced weaving them through the bark.

It was a tedious and demanding exercise but he found great satisfaction in learning a new skill and seeing visible progress in it. The threads snapped several times when he pulled too hard but he steadily improved his tension control with each attempt. The night deepened as Li Yu continued his practice by the stream. The two sisters rested peacefully under the blanket with their souls finally secured and their road to full recovery assured.