The physical world faded. The crackle of the campfire and Tekton’s rhythmic snoring dissolved into silence.

  Li Yu stood once again on the River of Souls. While many feared this River of Law the most, it was one of the easiest for him to walk. Where others would feel a crushing pressure, a weight that could grind a cultivator’s very essence to dust, Li Yu felt nothing. This was one of the most dangerous because one misstep could result in a damaged or destroyed soul.

  Li Yu stood on the grey silent surface of the river and he felt... light.

  It was as if the river recognized him. Or rather, it was as if he was wearing a raincoat in a storm that soaked everyone else. His Fisherman Soul was humming softly beside him as it always did here. It created an invisible film around him, pushing the pressure of the river aside like water off a duck's back.

  He walked casually here with hands behind his back. He wasn't struggling against the current; he was strolling along it. He had forgotten how far he had walked but it seemed endless and worse of all he felt no progress in his understanding of the soul.

  He had walked countless steps in this grey void since he first stepped upon its waters. He was trying to find the end or at least a landmark. Something that told him he was making some kind sort of progress here. But there was only the mist and the silence.

  Until today.

  As Li Yu ventured further the grey mist ahead began to thin, just a little. Then he saw it. Something different, something that he had never seen before. It was someone else standing on the river. Struggling to move forward.

  Li Yu paused. His soul-form flickered with surprise. Then his excitement grew at the new discovery.

  It was an old man. But to call him "old" felt inaccurate. He stood tall, easily over six feet, with a frame that looked like it had been carved from mountain granite. His broad shoulders were encased in armor of pristine white metal with sharp jagged black accents that seemed to absorb the scant light of the dimension.

  He was struggling against the river but was still able to make steady progress. Li Yu could see the river parting around his legs with violent force, as if he was an immovable pillar defying the current.

  The man had a wild mane of white hair that floated in the non-existent wind and a beard that reached his chest. He was staring down into the depths of the river, his expression one of intense, weary focus.

  Li Yu stepped closer to the old man. He practically broke out into a hop and skip as he moved closer to man. Extremely excited to finally see something different here.

  "Hello?" Li Yu projected his thought and bowed to the man. The old man’s head snapped up. Not because he had heard what Li Yu said but because he felt the presence of someone else here, which was just impossible.

  He turned. His eyes were like two burning suns, filled with a terrifying ancient power. When he saw Li Yu, those suns went wide. The old man’s jaw actually dropped and his body shook.

  He looked at Li Yu. A young man strolling along one of the most dangerous Rivers of Laws in existence as if he were looking for a tea shop. ‘How in all the Daos did this young man get here? And how can I see him?’ The old man thought to himself.

  The old man looked at the river, noting the complete lack of pressure around the boy. Then he looked back at Li Yu’s face.

  He tried to speak. His mouth moved, forming words that shattered the air around him but no sound reached Li Yu. The River of Souls did not allow casual conversation between strangers.

  The old man took a step toward Li Yu. His movement was explosive, churning the grey water. It was clear that each step required an immense amount of power and understanding. He pointed a trembling finger at Li Yu. He seemed stunned, his eyes searching Li Yu's face with a desperate intensity.

  He gestured wildly. He was pointing to his own eyes and then pointing at Li Yu’s face. He tried to bridge the gap, his hand glowing with a soft golden light but the distance between them warped.

  The connection was unstable as if there was a force of rejection. They shouldn't have been able to see each other at all. The River was too vast and more importantly too random. To meet here requires a karmic link and their understanding of the Laws of the Soul to be equal. Which was definitely not the case as Li Yu was a special case.

  The old man’s image began to flicker like a dying candle. It looked like the gesturing and movement took a large toll on his soul. Li Yu tried to gesture and communicate with the man as well but to no success.

  The old man shouted something. It was a silent roar of emotion. He reached out one last time and for a split second, Li Yu saw a look of heartbreaking longing in those ancient eyes. This caused Li Yu to reach out as well but the image of the man disappeared before Li Yu could touch him.

  The mist swallowed the man and the river was empty again. Li Yu stood there in disappointment.

  "Who was that?" Li Yu wondered. "He felt familiar. But how?"

  The encounter had only lasted seconds but it left Li Yu feeling strange.

  "Well," Li Yu sighed. "At least I'm not the only one crazy enough to be here."

  He walked for another two hours in hopes of seeing the man again. He didn’t just go forward, he was walking around in circles. Searching the mist but the white-armored man did not return. Eventually, bored and feeling no closer to an answer, Li Yu’s second mind let this consciousness drift back to his body.

  Somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

  The air here smelled of endless slaughter, destruction and agony. In a command tent made of the hide of an Emperor Dragon, a man sat in deep meditation.

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  Suddenly, he gasped, his eyes snapping open.

  BOOM.

  The pressure in the tent spiked instantly. The table in front of him, made of solid meteoric iron, disintegrated into dust simply from the release of his aura.

  Zhan Tian, Worldkeeper of the Ethereal Horizon, sat up and his chest was heaving heavily.

  "Impossible," he whispered, his voice sounding like tectonic plates grinding together.

  He looked at his hands. Hands that had crushed countless foes and strangled the strongest demons. They were trembling. Zhan Tian couldn’t even remember the last time his hands trembled.

  "A boy," Zhan Tian muttered as he was pacing the tent. His white and black armor clinking heavily. "A mere whelp! His soul age was at most thirty, maybe forty years! Yet he was walking along the river where I was!"

  He calmed himself a bit and stopped. He ran a hand through his white mane.

  "And there was no pressure on him. He was strolling through there like it was nothing." Zhan Tian realized as he thought back to what he had seen. Remembering that Li Yu even broke out into a hop and skip in the area where he needed to pour all of his concentration and strength into just in order to move.

  "The River did not weigh on him. He walked as if he were in his own garden. What kind of monster has a soul that the River of Souls cannot burden?"

  He frowned. The River of Souls was vast. It connected all realms and all places. The chances of meeting another soul were also infinitely small. The river looked narrow to most but it was actually massive. You can go your whole life and never see anyone walking it with you.

  "Unless..." Zhan Tian whispered. "Unless there is a connection of sorts. Blood calls to blood."

  He closed his eyes as he was recalling the boy’s face. The messy hair. The stubborn set of the jaw. The shape of the eyes.

  It hit him like a spear through the heart.

  "My daughter! My daughter..."

  The face was sharper, male, but the resemblance was undeniable. It was the face of the daughter he had left behind at the clan thousands of years ago. To go on this crusade to hold back the dangers.

  He had left to fight a war that threatened to consume the realms. He had thought he would be gone for a decade, maybe a century. But the war had dragged on.

  There were many twists and turns but there was no way to send any news back home and no way for news to reach here. They couldn’t abandon this post either because it would allow destruction and devastation to reach the countless realms.

  "He looked like her," Zhan Tian said to himself as his voice was cracking. "She must have married. Could it have been to that prodigy boy she talked about? That one that was extremely skilled in Qi arts? She... she had a son."

  Tears, hot and searing welled up in the old warlord's eyes. They tracked through the grime and scars on his face.

  "I have a grandson," he choked out. "And I wasn't there. I missed it all. I failed her as a father. I failed him as a grandfather."

  He sank deep into his chair. The weight of his duty crashing down on him. He was Zhan Tian, Worldkeeper of the Ethereal Horizon to all of those who knew him. He was a shield of the realms. But to himself he was a failed father and now a failed grandfather. He didn't even know his grandson’s name.

  "Report coming in sir!"

  The tent flap flew open. A general in golden armor rushed in, covered in ichor and black blood.

  "Lord Zhan! The defensive lines are straining! The Eclipse Swarm has breached the Third Perimeter! And the Chaos-Eater Legion is flanking from the Void rift! We are being attacked on four sides!"

  Zhan Tian didn't move for a second as he as still deep within his own thoughts. Then he quickly snapped out of it and regained his composure. He wiped his face. He stood up.

  The sorrow vanished. In its place, a terrifying and radiant pride bloomed. A grin split his bearded face—a grin that promised apocalyptic violence.

  "The Eclipse Swarm?" Zhan Tian laughed. "Good. Their Queen has a core that is excellent for tempering the body."

  The general blinked. "My Lord?"

  "And the Chaos-Eaters?" Zhan Tian continued, his eyes blazing. "Their flesh is great for enhancing Qi."

  "My Lord, we are being overrun! We need orders!"

  "Orders?" Zhan Tian roared. He quickly went to grab his massive halberd from the rack. The weapon hummed as if it was alive and it was thirsty for blood.

  "Here are your orders! We advance! We do not just hold the line today! We harvest!"

  The general stepped back and was terrified. He had seen his Lord angry. He had seen him desperate. He had never seen him... excited.

  ‘My grandson is a freak,’ Zhan Tian thought as his heart was swelling. ‘He walks the River of Souls at thirty. He defies the pressure of the heavens. He is a monster.’

  ‘Clearly he takes after me.’

  "Grandpa needs to prepare some gifts," Zhan Tian shouted to himself. His aura exploded outward and blew the roof off the tent. ‘If I ever find a way back, I won't go empty-handed! I must harvest for my only grandson… the only one I know about anyways!’

  He didn’t know for sure but Li Yu is his only grandson because he only ever had one daughter. He took many wives but only had the one daughter with his main wife. Once she passed away in battle he never had any other children.

  Zhan Tian launched himself into the sky. He became a white comet of war heading straight for the incoming tide of darkness with renewed vigor.

  "Die, you insects!" Zhan Tian bellowed as he was swinging his halberd and cleaving a hole in the sky. The soldiers had never seen him so pumped up and it was infectious. Morale sky rocketed and the legions surged. "You are now inheritance gifts!"

  He didn't know when he would be able to break through the blockade. He didn’t know if he would ever break through. He didn't know if the boy even knew he existed.

  But it didn't matter.

  Somewhere out there, his blood was growing and getting stronger. And Zhan Tian would slaughter every horror in this dimension to make sure he had something nice to give the kid when they finally met.

  Back at the ridge.

  Li Yu woke up. He checked his surroundings. The camp fire was still there, Tekton was there and the rabbit was napping as well. He was safe.

  He rubbed his chest. He felt... warm. A strange, comforting heat was settling in his soul, like someone had just draped a heavy, protective blanket over him.

  "The River of Souls was certainly weird this time." Li Yu muttered. "Who was that old guy? He looked like he was about to cry. And then he looked like he wanted to punch something. I hope I can see him again on that river."

  Li Yu stretched, looking at the eastern sky where the first hint of dawn was bleeding into the night.

  He felt energized. The frustration of the bottleneck seemed smaller now. He didn't know why but he felt like he had someone in his corner. Someone very, very strong.

  "Come on," Li Yu said as he was kicking dirt over the fire. "We're close. Let's get to the Cloud-Mist Peaks. See the progress they made within this month’s time in construction."

  "And maybe... maybe one day I'll meet that old man again. Ask him who made his armor. That armor was sharp."

  Li Yu smiled while hoisting his pack. He didn't know he had just motivated a man to liquidate multiple forces for him. He just knew he was hungry.

  "Let's go, Tekton."

  ‘Finally. This mountain has nothing to offer me.’