Myriad Rivers to the Sea

Chapter 1060: The Art of the Stare Down

Li Yu floated in the sky and stared at the old woman hovering above the ruined palace courtyard. Her sudden appearance brought a deep sense of surprise to his tired mind because he had not felt any bad karma radiating from that location after Ancestor Aethon first arrived on the battlefield. His karmic senses had been incredibly sharp after reaching breaking through the five thousandth step on the Karmic River of Law. Those honed senses told him the royal palace was clear and there should have been no more hidden experts waiting in the shadows, at least ones that had incredibly negative karma. However, with Matriarch Olenna standing right in front of him now, the putrid karma rolling off her aged body was undeniable and thick.

He could feel her dark aura seeping into the surrounding air and it was worse than the king, the ancestor and the clan leader he had just killed put together. This old woman carried a karma that felt ancient, cold and soaked in the despair of countless innocent lives. The weight of her sins felt like a physical pressure pushing against his chest even though it was just a phantom pressure.

He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek and wondered how she managed to hide such an aura before this very moment.

'Can high level cultivators just hide their karma so well?' Li Yu thought while studying the deep wrinkles on her face. 'That does not seem right. If it was just a matter of her cultivation realm being high, I would not be able to feel it so clearly right now. It is spilling out of her like a toxic river.'

He pondered if perhaps she used a treasure to conceal herself. He shook his head at the idea almost immediately. That did not seem right either because he could feel her dark aura radiating freely now that she stood under the open sky. Unless the item in question was a specific type of treasure she could not take with her when she left the depths of the palace. He considered what kind of object could possess such a concealing effect.

‘Perhaps a grand array, a deep earth formation or some sort of rare natural treasure that could block karmic senses and divine probing? Setting up such a perimeter required immense resources and specialized knowledge. The cultivation world was a vast place filled with many mysterious things and hidden wonders afterall.’ He thought while making a firm note in his mind to go investigate the inner palace where she had been hiding to find his answer later. Uncovering the source of that concealment could prove incredibly useful for his own future travels.

Knowing his current limits, Li Yu reached into his spatial ring and pulled his jade token into his hand. He kept his fingers wrapped tightly around the smooth stone and stayed ready to crush it if things went badly. The intense battle against the Ashen Stone Clan left him as a spent force against someone as strong as she was. While his Qi reserves were full thanks to Krag supplying him from the ground, his body and mind were in terrible states.

The internal bruising from the violent fire beam throbbed with every breath he took. His outer armor had held strong against the searing heat but the force still rattled his bones and left deep aches across his ribs. The five soul resonance he used to execute Patriarch Malphas had drained his mental energy dry and left a constant ringing sensation in his ears. Pushing his spirit to such extremes unconsciously carried a heavy price.

Furthermore, Matriarch Olenna was clearly at the Creation Lord realm where he would not be able to do much against her besides send his remaining swords off in a futile attack. His attacks in his current state would do very little. If he did attack and caught her attention, Zhan Chen would need to break his focus to defend him from her. Becoming a liability in a fight between a Sovereign and a Creation Lord would not be ideal for anyone involved.

Li Yu looked up and saw that Zhan Chen was not panicking at all. The aura surrounding his older cousin burned bright and steady against the oppressive pressure of the Matriarch. Li Yu chose to believe in his family member. If Zhan Chen thought this situation was unwinnable, he would have already retreated or at least told Li Yu to crush his token and escape. Since Zhan Chen held his ground with a confident posture, Li Yu decided to prioritize his own safety and stay out of the crossfire.

Li Yu descended from the sky and flew over to where Krag rested in the dirt. He decided it was best to stay near the ground so if a stray attack came his way, he could just duck behind the big rock for protection. While Krag could not fight at all right now due to his lack of offensive abilities, the natural defense of the sturdy beast should keep them both safe from collateral damage. Li Yu leaned his battered back against the cool gray stone and focused on regulating his breathing to recover.

High above the ruined palace courtyard, Zhan Chen was indeed not worried about the looming threat. The Sovereign was actually excited to fight an opponent a realm higher than himself and take on the challenge to cross realms and fight. It wouldn’t be his first time and it wouldn’t be his last. The blood in his veins pumped with thrilling anticipation as he analyzed the dense aura of the old woman. His only regret regarding the entire situation was that the person he was fighting against did not look cooler or more menacing.

He stared at the hunched shoulders, gray hair and wrinkled face of Matriarch Olenna and felt a brief twinge of disappointment. He wished he was facing a mighty dragon with gleaming scales or some sort of towering celestial beast. In this specific regard, he wished his opponent was as cool as the giant violet crow that Li Yu had just fought. A flaming avian construct looked much better in a tale of heroism than striking down an elderly woman.

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Why would the esteemed heir of the Zhan clan care about such a superficial thing during a life and death battle? Because while he did not care too much about politics, managing territories or ruling kingdoms, he deeply liked to look cool in front of other Zhan clan members. It was a unique quirk of his personality that was not really a negative trait but it was a quirk nonetheless. He secretly enjoyed the prestige and the grand stories that followed his name. While he did not go around seeking such things out, when the opportunity appeared right in front of him, he knew what he would choose.

He acquired this specific mindset from being raised by his father, who in turn learned it from his own grandfather. Both men from the Zhan Clan, not married in. The senior men of his family always taught him that no matter what he did in life, he needed to look good while doing it. That was the true way of being men according to the Zhan clan elders in his direct family. They had ingrained several rules into his mind since he was young.

If there were two opponents to fight on a battlefield, a true man must always fight the one that looked the most intimidating to establish dominance and prestige. His grandfather once ignored a scheming sect master just to wrestle a giant stone ape because the beast looked far more menacing to the crowd that was watching.

If you were going to save someone from certain death, you must wait until the very last moment to intervene. Doing so ensured you looked much cooler and the person you saved was far more thankful for the dramatic rescue. His father often employed this tactic during border skirmishes, descending from the clouds just as the defensive arrays were about to shatter.

The teachings did not stop there. His grandfather always told him that if an enemy was charging up their ultimate technique, a real warrior should stand tall and let them finish preparing it just to tank the attack head on. Enduring their strongest strike without flinching was the fastest way to shatter their fighting spirit and prove the physical might of the Zhan Clan. If it looked like the attack was too strong, to quickly kill the person as to not embarrass oneself with failing to take such an attack head on.

His father had added another, stating that whenever a cultivator lands a finishing blow against a powerful foe, they must briefly pause to let their robes flap majestically in the wind before walking away. Rushing away from a victory ruined the aesthetic of the triumph and was unmanly. These lessons partly molded Zhan Chen into the warrior he was today.

Li Yu, on the other hand, did not know this specific quirk about Zhan Chen yet. They had not known each other for very long and their interactions had mostly been focused on traveling to events and combat where things were too chaotic for Li Yu to notice. Those who knew Zhan Chen well though, understood this vain aspect of his personality because it was not something he ever tried to hide from the public. He wore his dramatic flair with pride and to his credit, he often had the power and timing to pull it off.

Because Li Yu lacked this context, he was incredibly confused as to why Zhan Chen was still just standing there in the sky. The golden Sovereign was letting his vibrant aura flare wildly and strong, sending ripples of power through the clouds but he was not taking the initiative to attack. Li Yu narrowed his eyes and tried to figure out the strategy behind the delay.

‘Was Zhan Chen gathering energy for a secret technique? Was he trying to find a flaw in the Creation Lord's defenses?’ Li Yu could not make sense of the inaction but just stayed hidden behind Krag while keeping a tight grip on his token.

The confusion was not limited to Li Yu alone. Miles away on the edge of the capital city, Grandmaster Orion stood on the deck of his warship and frowned deeply. The commander of the Lunaris fleet gripped the wooden railing and stared at the two powerhouses hovering over the royal palace.

Orion was not sure what Zhan Chen was doing either. The grandmaster had readied his own Lunar techniques the moment the Matriarch appeared, expecting a sudden and violent clash. Yet, the sky remained eerily still despite the suffocating pressure radiating from both fighters. The silence was rather unnerving.

King Sterling stood beside Orion with a deep scowl on his face. The ruler of the Lunaris Kingdom tapped his fingers against his royal robes and exchanged a bewildered glance with Princess Lena. They had just witnessed Zhan Chen instantly execute Ancestor Aethon with a single devastating punch, showing a decisive and ruthless fighting style. Now, faced with the true mastermind behind the Solaria Kingdom, the warrior was simply posing in the sky with his arms crossed over his chest. The king rubbed his beard and tried to decipher the tactical meaning behind the standoff but could not understand it.

Over on the northern horizon, the members of the Crest Spine Sect were equally lost. Sect Master Korren hovered in the air with his dragon kin gathered behind him. The scarred leader watched the golden aura flare majestically against the dark pressure of the Matriarch and wondered if the Zhan clan heir was employing some sort of advanced mental warfare. Perhaps he was waiting for the perfect alignment of natural energies. No one on the battlefield understood what was truly going on in the mind of the Sovereign.

The one thing they did all think was that he looked incredibly brave and pretty cool standing there with his aura flaring wildly. He was not backing down in the face of what should be a stronger opponent. The man looked calm, composed and unshakable.

Matriarch Olenna remained entirely still above the ruined courtyard as well. The old woman had not launched a single attack since she emerged from the hidden depths of the palace. She kept her withered hands tucked into her sleeves and let her own dark aura clash against the golden light filling the sky.

She was purposefully waiting for Zhan Chen to attack first so she could easily deflect his strike and show the arrogant youth the vast gap in their strength to crush his morale. A Creation Lord possessed an understanding of martial laws and she intended to use his own momentum against him to break his confidence before taking his life.

However, this man was not attacking either. The sky above the Solaria capital fell into a strange and tense silence. The ambient heat from the previous fires caused the air to shimmer between them, distorting the light and casting long shadows across the rubble. Pieces of broken stone and shattered tiles began to levitate off the ground, caught in the invisible gravity of their clashing realms. The wind howled through the ruined buildings and whipped their robes around as the two experts simply stared at one another.