Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 947: The Line Crossed

The conference settled into a steady and intense rhythm as the second day began. The initial politeness of the gathering faded and it was replaced by a fierce and competitive desire to prove the superiority of their respective paths.The morning demonstrations on the second day were dominated by the Freeblade Alliance. Lead Envoy Ren stepped onto the black stone platform and drew his rusted blade. He did not assume any stance. He simply walked forward and swung the sword in a chaotic and completely formless arc. The resulting wave of Qi was jagged and wildly unpredictable. It shattered a massive boulder positioned on the stage into irregular fragments.

A high ranking priest from the Heavenly Sword Sect immediately critiqued the display. He pointed out the massive waste of excess energy. The priest argued that a formless strike bled Qi into the surrounding air instead of focusing it into a lethal edge. Lead Envoy Ren merely laughed back. He argued that unpredictability was worth the cost of efficiency. The resulting debate lasted until the lunch bell rang.

The third day brought the minor factions into the spotlight. The Frostmoon Empire demonstrated a defensive sword array that required three cultivators to link their Qi. They created a dome of ice that completely neutralized incoming force.

A Li Clan elder offered the critique for that session. He praised their elemental harmony but pointed out a fatal flaw in their footwork. The elder noted that if the central cultivator was forced to shift their weight, the entire array would temporarily collapse. The Frostmoon disciples took the advice with respect. They spent the rest of the evening spars testing new stances to fix the weakness.

The tension peaked on the fourth day. The Heavenly Sword Sect finally took the stage to demonstrate their own arts. A core disciple performed a sequence of strikes that were terrifyingly rigid. There was no wasted motion and it looked perfect. Every single slash and thrust landed on the exact same millimeter of space in the air. It was the physical embodiment of unyielding dogma.

The critique session that followed was incredibly heated. The Freeblade Alliance called the flawless sequence completely predictable. They argued that a perfect textbook strike was easy to read and even easier to trap.

The Heavenly Sword disciples fired back. They claimed that perfection did not need to be hidden because it could not be stopped. The evening spars on the fourth day resulted in several minor injuries. The referee elders had to step in multiple times to pull fighters apart.

Li Yu continued to absorb the lectures and analyzed the endless spars. He remained completely invisible among the larger Li Clan delegation.

The fifth day arrived and the atmosphere was thick with unresolved rivalries. The morning demonstrations and the afternoon lectures passed in a blur of technical debates. The sun finally set over the jagged peaks. The floating orbs illuminated the outdoor courtyards. It was time for the evening spars.

The designated arenas were immediately filled with eager challengers. The Blazing Edge Empire had suffered several embarrassing defeats to the Li Clan over the past few days. They were desperate to reclaim their lost pride.

A young man wearing ornate crimson armor leaped onto the primary stage. He carried a heavy broadsword that radiated a blistering heat. He was Yan Lie and he was a senior martial brother to Yan Bo. He stood at the peak of the Paragon realm.

Yan Lie pointed his heavy blade directly at the Li Clan pavilion. His eyes scanned the crowd of white robes before locking onto his target, who had a similar cultivation to his own.

"Li Yu." Yan Lie called out with a voice infused with Qi. The challenge echoed clearly across the noisy courtyard. "I have watched you hide in the back row for five days. You sit and watch while your clan fights. Step into the ring and let us all see what the newly revealed great son of Li Canghai can do."

The surrounding conversations died down as hundreds of eyes turned toward the Li Clan delegation. Li Yu sat at the heavy wooden table and slowly set his teacup down as he heard the challenge. He looked up at the cultivator on the stage and he did not feel any anger at the challenge. He simply felt it was a waste of time because he did not use the sword.

"I must decline." Li Yu answered politely. His voice was calm and measured. "I do not use sword techniques. A spar with me would not be appropriate for this venue. It would defeat the purpose of the gathering."

A ripple of confused murmurs washed through the crowd. This was a sword conference. To admit a lack of sword techniques here was highly unusual. Yan Lie lowered his broadsword and let out a loud and mocking laugh.

"You do not use sword techniques?" Yan Lie sneered. He paced along the edge of the elevated ring and played to the listening crowd. "How can the son of Li Canghai not know how to use a sword? That is like a fish not knowing how to swim. What have you been doing with your life?"

Li Yu felt a slight flicker of annoyance but he kept his calm. He remained seated and ignored the taunt. His silence only emboldened the challenger. Yan Lie scoffed and pointed his blade at the Li Clan banner hanging nearby.

"I suppose the rumors of your sudden appearance explain it." Yan Lie continued to provoke him. "You grew up in the dirt outside the clan. But it truly shows how far the mighty Li Clan has fallen. They bring a sheltered coward to a sacred sword gathering and let him wear their robes. He does not even know the blade."

The Li Clan disciples bristled with anger. Several of them stood up from the tables and gripped their hilts. They were incredibly proud of their heritage. Hearing their clan insulted was infuriating. Li Mei sat nearby and narrowed her eyes. She did not intervene but she watched Li Yu closely to see how he would handle the pressure.

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Li Yu still did not move, he could bear personal insults easily. He had lived an entire lifetime as an outcast. A spoiled fool calling him names meant absolutely nothing to him. Yan Lie noticed the lack of reaction and it even made him angrier, he felt like he was being ignored. He decided to push harder and find the nerve.

"Perhaps your father realized you were useless." Yan Lie laughed cruelly. "Maybe that is why Canghai hid you away for so long. He must be deeply ashamed of his own bloodline. The great Sword Saint of the borders sired a weakling who refuses to even hold a sword. What a pathetic legacy for such a famous man."

The ambient temperature in the courtyard plummeted instantly.

Li Yu stopped breathing as the faint annoyance vanished. It was replaced by a cold and absolute void. He could tolerate personal insults all day long. But he would never let anyone insult his father. Li Yu would not tolerate disrespect toward his father, the man who had fought countless wars to protect the realms and had given up so much.

The line had been crossed and there was no turning back. The space where Li Yu was sitting suddenly distorted. He did not walk to the stage. He simply disappeared.

A loud crack echoed through the air as Li Yu materialized directly in the center of the sparring arena. He now stood opposite from Yan Lie and in the normal starting position marked on the arena floor. His expression was completely blank but his dark eyes were hollow and terrifying. He was violently holding back his rage.

"Are you ready then?" Li Yu asked in a whisper that somehow carried over the entire silent courtyard. "If you want to spar with swords so badly. I will give you one."

Yan Lie flinched at the sudden appearance. He quickly recovered his bravado and raised his fiery broadsword. He settled into a heavy combat stance and grinned. The Heavenly Sword Sect elder acting as the referee stepped forward. He raised his hand and brought it down sharply. "Begin."

Li Yu did not draw a weapon. He simply let go of the restraint he had been holding back since hearing those words. A monstrous and suffocating killing intent exploded from his body. It did not just project outward. It physically warped the reality of the arena.

The clear night sky above the ring seemed to bleed into a horrific red and purple hellscape. The illusion of decaying bones and rivers of blood flashed across the vision of everyone watching. The sheer density of the malice forced the surrounding cultivators to instinctively step back from the stage.

It was the aura of someone who had slaughtered millions if not trillions and bathed in their karma. As the hellscape manifested Li Yu willed his weapon to appear. Since this was a sword conference, he would use a sword.

He did not reach for a hilt though. Pale Extinction drifted out and materialized directly in the air beside him. The jagged bone sword radiated an aura of rot and slaughter that perfectly matched Li Yu's terrifying intent.

He did not grab hold of the weapon. He simply looked at Yan Lie's right arm and Pale Extinction vanished.

It did not fly through the air. It bypassed the physical space as it became blur of white death moving with impossible speed.

The referee elder's eyes widened in horror. He was an expert at the Sovereign Realm. He was vastly stronger than both of the young men in the ring. He instantly recognized that this attack, this sword, was too powerful.

"Halt!" The elder roared.

He thrust both of his hands forward and summoned a barrier of condensed sword Qi between the two fighters. Pale Extinction hit the barrier and it did not slow down. The bone sword sliced clean through the elder's defense as if it were made of wet paper. The horrific nature of the blade ignored the orthodox Qi entirely.

Yan Lie did not even have time to swing his broadsword. From the moment the elder had said begin, he was already too taken back by killing intent that he couldn’t even move. He did not even have time to blink.

A pale arc of light flashed past his side.

Thud.

Yan Lie's heavy broadsword clattered onto the stone floor. His right hand was still tightly gripping the hilt. A heartbeat later a fountain of blood erupted from Yan Lie's shoulder. The young man stared at his stump in shock. The pain had not even registered in his brain yet. His sword arm was simply gone.

The entire courtyard fell into a dead and horrifying silence.

Pale Extinction drifted casually back across the ring. It hovered obediently by Li Yu's shoulder and there was not a drop of blood on it. Li Yu stood in the center of the red and purple hellscape as he looked down at the pale and trembling cultivator before him.

"Keep your mouth shut and never insult my father again." Li Yu said with his voice was devoid of any human warmth. "You are lucky this is a controlled duel. If we were outside these walls, that strike would have taken your head."

Li Yu closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He began to reign in his emotions. The red and purple hellscape instantly shattered and faded away. The terrifying and suffocating pressure vanished from the courtyard as the night air returned to normal.

He seamlessly stored the bone sword back into his Koi Sanctuary. Li Yu then turned his back on the bleeding cultivator and calmly stepped off the stage. The crowd erupted into chaos behind him.

Healers from the Blazing Edge Empire rushed the stage to tend to their screaming cultivator. The referee elder stood frozen in place while staring at the cleanly sliced edges of his shattered barrier. He could not comprehend how a Paragon realm junior had broken his defense so effortlessly.

The Li Clan delegation was completely stunned, it was accurate to say they were even more stunned than everyone else. They stared at Li Yu as he walked quietly back to his seat. They had absolutely no idea he harbored that level of monstrous killing intent.

They could not understand how someone so young could project that kind of aura. And the sword he wielded was a nightmare forged into reality. This was the very first time the clan members had seen Li Yu take action in combat. It fundamentally changed their entire perception of Canghai's hidden son.

Sitting in a shadowed pavilion above, Ancestor Cangyuan watched the entire event unfold. A group of elders stood behind him with pale faces and wide eyes as well.

"What in the heavens was that artifact?" An elder whispered in shock.

Cangyuan did not answer immediately. He stroked his faded grey beard and a wide, raspy smile spread across his wrinkled face. He had seen the bone sword before but he had never seen the boy wield it with such ruthless precision.

"I must admit." Cangyuan chuckled softly to himself as he watched Li Yu pour another cup of tea. "The boy is piquing my interest more and more."