The guest quarters back at Highland Reach was comfortable and spacious. Taren told me he could take as long as he needed. Li Yu sat cross legged on a meditation mat with the three green jade slips arranged before him.

  He picked up the first one. It was Grandmaster Thorne’s insight.

  Thorne’s mental voice resonated within Li Yu’s mind. It spoke of becoming like the ground. Unmoving. Eternal. It dove into his own insights on how it felt to go through the breakthrough to Divine Transformation.

  Li Yu set it down. He picked up the second one. The Disciple’s Dao of Flowing Water. It spoke of trying to be like a river. To adapt, erode and flow around obstacles. If ever stuck, it would be relentless until freed.

  Li Yu closed his eyes and the information settled into his mind. They were powerful paths. Each had their own uniqueness, strength and weaknesses. All paths were such, there was no best path. Only the path that suited oneself the most.

  "A mountain is strong," Li Yu whispered to the empty room, "but the sea drowns continents. A river is persistent but it ultimately flows into the ocean."

  He remembered his revelation from long ago. He remembered his own Dao of the Silent Leviathan.

  To be a Leviathan was to be a creature of absolute, overwhelming power that ruled the deep. It meant existing in the crushing pressure of the abyss, unseen and unheard, until the moment he chose to surface. It wasn't about posturing or roaring; it was about the inevitable, terrifying silence before the strike.

  And his cultivation... that was the Dao of the Universal Sea.

  Thorne and his disciples viewed the world as something to withstand or navigate. Li Yu viewed it as fuel. The life essence of beasts, the void energies, the ancient curses, the spiritual energy of this realm. They were all just rivers. And all rivers flowed into the sea, eventually.

  He stood up after a few days of meditation. He swept the jade slips into his hand. He had what he needed. Li Yu found City Lord Taren tending to some plants.

  "You're done?" Taren asked. He was surprised to see Li Yu emerge so soon. "The insights within those slips usually take months to digest."

  "I digest quickly," Li Yu said while handing the slips back. "Thank you. They helped clarify my direction."

  Taren took the slips and was clearly hesitating with something. "It would seem that you are leaving us already. We have resources here, Li Yu. The Alliance has stockpiles of spirit stones, pills..."

  "I need more than you can spare," Li Yu said honestly. "To break through I need vast amounts for my own foundation. And I don't want to owe that kind of debt. I will go get it from your enemies instead. Weaken them while keeping your own reserves full."

  He adjusted his robes. "I'm heading North, back into non-human held lands."

  Taren didn’t look surprise.

  "Li Yu—"

  "Thank you for your help, Taren. For yours and your master’s help." Li Yu interrupted calmly. Li Yu had a vague feeling about what Taren wanted to say to him. Most likely trying to keep him here and grow stronger. It wasn’t a bad idea but Li Yu couldn’t take their resources because then he would feel like he had to stay here.

  Taren looked at him and then sighed. "May the heavens watch over you, Li Yu."

  "Thank you. May humanity prosper under your care." Li Yu replied. He blurred and was already gone.

  Back in the humble cottage, Grandmaster Thorne stood over a scrying basin. The water rippled and was showing a blurry image of Li Yu walking away from the human border.

  "He is gone," Taren’s voice came from a communication talisman. "Master, I let him go. But I still feel... we are making a mistake."

  Thorne watched the image. Even through the scrying technique he couldn't see Li Yu clearly. The boy was a smear of distortion against the landscape.

  "He is the greatest genius I have ever seen." Taren continued. His voice was thick with regret. "Under thirty and with that kind of strength. That kind of potential. Most importantly, with that kind of heart. If you had taken him as a disciple... if we had guided him..."

  "If I had guided him," Thorne interrupted softly, "I most likely would have ruined him."

  "How? You are the strongest human in existence!"

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  Thorne dipped his hand into the water and shattered the image. "Teaching is a box, Taren. When I teach you, I give you walls and a roof to protect you. But I also limit your growth to the size of the house I build. You can see it another way. Me showing you the path is like making it so you never take a look at the darkness. Only the illuminated path I show you. What if the true path is in the darkness that you don’t see?"

  The Grandmaster wiped his wet hand on his robe. Thorne looked North and his gaze pierced the clouds.

  "He does not need a teacher. At least not one at my level. He needs the ocean. He needs to drown in the blood of his enemies, consume their strength and realize his own magnitude. I would be a sinner against humanity if I domesticated a monster like that."

  "So we just let him roam?" Taren asked.

  "We let him feed," Thorne said. "And we hope that when he is full, he remembers we were friends."

  Li Yu made his way back into the world. It was once again more chaotic. A nearly lawless hellscape where the strong ate the weak. Li Yu moved through it like a ghost.

  He wasn't here to be a hero. He was here to be a predator. Li Yu came upon a fortress of the Iron Tooth Clan three days into his journey. It was a massive structure of spiked metal built into the side of a volcano. The air smelled of sulfur and roasting meat.

  Li Yu observed from a ridge. He saw cages. Hundreds of them. Humans, demons, elementals and beast-kin. All were slaves captured from raids or battles. They were being worked to death in the magma forges or being prepared for food.

  In the past, Li Yu might have worried about the consequences of attacking. Will this incite a war? Will they retaliate against the humans?

  But as Li Yu learned more and more about this world, he realized he was mistaken. His initial thoughts were wrong. They were already at war. Everyone was at war, all the time. Retaliation was a myth because the aggression was already at maximum. The beings here didn't need a reason to kill and pillage. If it made sense for them to do so, they did.

  He vanished. Li Yu appeared in the central plaza of the fortress. He was cloaked in a Void fog to not reveal his true form. It was a shimmering distortion that bent everything around him. A patrol of five Iron Tooth demons walked past him. They were massive, seven feet tall with skin like plate mail.

  Li Yu attacked them.

  His staff moved in a blur and tapped each of them on the back of the neck. It wasn't a hard strike but the kinetic force was delivered with surgical precision. Their spines severed instantly. Their bodies were already absorbed into his storage rings before they could hit the ground.

  Li Yu kept walking. He reached the armory. He went into the first layer of the void to bypass the wall and then reappeared again on the other side. Inside of the armory were racks of weapons and crates of refined magma crystals that were stored in crates. These crates lined the walls.

  "Mine," Li Yu murmured.

  He swept his hand and stored away the treasures. He stripped the room bare in moments. Ever since coming to the Northern Continent back in his home world, Li Yu wanted to acquire all kinds of loot. Finding out that the price of demonic cores was so cheap there, he only regretted not having more goods to exchange for them.

  He didn’t want to have such regrets again. His greed for loot was at an all time high. Even if he didn’t need these weapons, he could trade them at a later time. Perhaps he would end up in a realm that valued such things greatly and under value the things that he needed.

  It didn’t change how he looted. He had always taken everything when he did. But it now made him prioritize going to the vaults and armories first. Even going out of his way to check for secretly stored away treasures.

  Once he was sure he had gotten everything, he then moved to the slave pens. The overseer there was a fat demon with a whip made of the spinal cords of some beasts. He was laughing as he tormented a young elemental girl. He raised the whip for another strike.

  The whip never landed.

  A hand materialized out of thin air and caught the whip. The overseer was confused and then he realized what had happened. He looked up to see a distorted figure, his face obscured by the shifting void.

  "You..." the overseer started. Li Yu squeezed.

  The whip shattered. Li Yu’s hand continued forward and gripped the demon’s face. He slammed the creature into the stone floor. The demon didn't even have time to scream; he was bashed into a bloody mess. Li Yu stabbed his hand into the body and took out the demonic core.

  Li Yu stored it away and then he looked at the cages. The slaves were staring at him in terrified silence. They didn't know if he was a savior or a new nightmare. They had seen it all too many times. A new group taking control and their lives only got more miserable.

  Li Yu waved his hand as he condensed small ice javelins. They charged forward and smashed into the locks on each of the cages.

  Click. Click. Click-click-click.

  Hundreds of doors swung open simultaneously.

  "The demons are dead," Li Yu’s voice projected, calm and oceanic. "The armory is empty. The gate is open. Run. Your fate is your own."

  He turned his back on them and walked toward the main keep. It was where the Clan Leader’s energy signature was.

  "Wait!" A human man called out while stumbling from a cage. "Who are you? I want to at least honor you for freeing me."

  Li Yu paused. He looked back.

  "I'm just a traveler," Li Yu said. "Go. Don't look back."

  He stepped forward and vanished into the void. He appeared instantly on the balcony of the Clan Leader’s tower.

  The Clan Leader was a monstrosity of muscle and fire. He immediately roared and swung a flaming greatsword. "Assassin!"

  Li Yu didn't need to dodge it. He caught the blade with his bare hand. The fire washed over him but was sucked into his pores and fed his cultivation. Li Yu then punched out. The impact boom echoed across the valley.

  Minutes later, the fortress was silent. The slaves were fleeing into the treeline. The demons were dead. The group hadn’t been particularly strong, just cruel. It was a simple task for Li Yu to clean up this kind of group.

  Li Yu stood on the highest peak of the fortress and was watching the fortress burn. He was still on edge the entire time because the fear of a Demon Lord showing up out of nowhere was burned into his mind. It was very unlikely but as long as that chance wasn’t zero, he would always be on edge. It wouldn’t stop him from doing what he set out to do though.