The world became a streaking blur of green and blue. Chen Fan, a boy who had spent his life on slow-moving river barges, was now a passenger on a living comet. He knelt on the platform on Tempest's back, his hands gripping the smooth, pearlescent scales, his knuckles white. The wind did not tear at him; the air around them was as still and calm as a sealed room, a testament to the profound, silent power of the man who stood at the front.
Li Yu's face was a mask of cold, hard stone. The warmth and gentleness he had shown in the town was gone, replaced by a deep, chilling focus. He had come to this place to perform a simple act of kindness, to experience a world outside the sect's high peaks. He had found a small, fragile peace in the Chen family's honest hospitality, a warmth that reminded him of the life that had been stolen from him as a child. And now, these so-called pirates, these parasites of the river, were threatening to shatter it.
It was no longer just a matter of principle. It was personal.
"Faster," he projected to Tempest, his voice a blade of ice in the leviathan's mind.
The Rank 7 Skyshroud Leviathan, sensing its master's cold fury, let out a silent, psychic roar of agreement. Its massive, wing-like fins beat once, a single, powerful stroke that seemed to bend the very fabric of space. Their speed doubled, the landscape below becoming an incomprehensible river of color.
The Black Reef chokepoint was a narrow, treacherous section of the great river, flanked by high, dark cliffs. It was a perfect, natural ambush point. As they arrived, hovering thousands of feet above in the concealing glare of the afternoon sun, the scene of the battle unfolded below them.
A convoy of five large, flat-bottomed merchant barges, the "Morning Mist" caravan, was trapped. They were surrounded by a fleet of over a dozen smaller, faster pirate vessels, their black sails marked with the crude, white emblem of a fanged fish skull. The pirates were in the middle of their assault. Grappling hooks had been thrown, and the sounds of clashing steel and desperate screams echoed up from the gorge.
On the deck of the largest merchant barge, a small group of caravan guards, their cultivation no higher than the middle stages of Qi Condensation, were fighting a desperate, losing battle against a swarm of savage, laughing pirates. And in the center of that desperate defense stood Mei Lin, Chen Fan's mother. She held a simple, long-bladed kitchen knife, her face pale with terror but her eyes burning with a mother's fierce, unyielding resolve as she shielded a group of crying children behind her.
"Mother!" Chen Fan cried, his voice a choked, agonized whisper.
Li Yu's gaze was not on the main battle. It was on the lead pirate vessel. A large, fat man with a cruel, sneering face sat on a makeshift throne, a bloody saber resting on his lap. His aura was that of a peak, Ninth Stage Qi Condensation expert. He was the leader, the head of this venomous snake.
Li Yu's expression did not change. He simply raised a hand. "Stay here, Chen Fan. Do not move. I will handle this."
He did not wait for a reply. He stepped off the edge of Tempest's back and fell.
He did not plummet. His descent was a silent, controlled fall, his new «Void-Current Passage» art in full effect. A formless, invisible field of his own True Qi pulsed around his body, guiding his fall, making him as silent and unobtrusive as a falling leaf. A thin, invisible cutting edge of void energy annihilated the air before him, leaving no trace of his passage. And a sheath of life energy kept him in a state of perfect, internal calm.
From the battlefield below, no one saw him. No one sensed him. He was a ghost, a judgment descending from the heavens.
A thousand feet above the chaotic melee, he stopped. He hovered in the empty air, a silent, invisible specter of death. He looked down at the swarm of pirate vessels, at the laughing, savage men who were in the process of slaughtering innocents for a few crates of spiritual herbs. And he felt a cold, clean, and absolute fury.
He raised his hand. His Star-Iron Rod was not in it. He did not need it for this. He drew upon the vast, deep ocean of his Core Formation, channeling the abyss-black water and the destructive law of the void.
The air around him shimmered. One by one, a dozen massive, six-foot-long javelins of pure, condensed energy materialized in the air around him. They were the color of the deep, sunless ocean, and they shimmered with a dark, corrosive light, humming with the heavy, destructive weight of his void-aspected Qi.
«Abyssal Javelin Volley».
He brought his hand down.
The twelve javelins did not whistle as they fell. They were utterly silent. They were not just projectiles; they were streaks of pure, conceptual destruction. They fell upon the pirate fleet like a judgment from a silent, angry god.
The first javelin struck a pirate vessel near the bow. There was no silent dissolution. There was a sound of a thousand trees snapping at once. The impossibly dense javelin tore through the wooden deck as if it were wet paper, passed through the hull, and exited through the bottom, leaving a gaping, five-foot-wide hole. The second javelin struck the mast, and the thick, ironwood pole simply ceased to exist, shattering into a fine powder. The ship, its structural integrity annihilated, groaned and split in two, its crew screaming as they were thrown into the churning water.
The other eleven javelins struck with the same, brutal, and overwhelming force. They did not just destroy; they shredded. Hulls were ripped open, decks were pulverized, and any pirate unlucky enough to be in their path was turned into a fine, red mist. In the space of a single, breathtaking second, twelve of the fifteen pirate vessels were reduced to nothing more than a floating junkyard of splintered wood and drowning men.
A stunned, absolute silence fell over the river. The surviving pirates, who had been in the process of boarding the merchant barges, froze, their minds unable to process the impossible, silent apocalypse they had just witnessed. The caravan guards, who had been preparing for their final, desperate stand, could only stare, their weapons hanging loosely in their hands.
The pirate leader, the fat, Ninth Stage expert, who had been laughing a moment before, was now on his feet, his face a mask of pure, soul-shattering terror as he stared at the wreckage of his fleet.
It was into this silence that Li Yu descended. He landed softly on the deck of the lead merchant barge, a few feet from Mei Lin. The pirates who were still on the barge shrieked and scrambled back, tripping over each other in their haste to get away from the figure who had appeared from nowhere.
"You… what are you?" the pirate leader stammered from his own ruined vessel, his voice trembling.
Li Yu did not answer. He looked at the dozen or so pirates still cowering on the merchant ship, their weapons shaking. His eyes went cold. He raised his hand again.
The air shimmered, and a new volley of six Abyssal Javelins materialized. He brought his hand down.
The javelins shot forward, not with a roar, but with a silent, ghostly whisper. The caravan guards and Mei Lin cried out in terror, thinking they were the next targets. But a miracle happened. The javelins became ethereal, passing through the wooden railings of the barge without leaving a scratch. They passed through the bodies of the crying children Mei Lin was shielding, a harmless, ghostly shadow. Then, the moment they reached the pirates, they solidified.
There was a series of soft, wet thuds. Each of the six javelins pierced through a pirate's chest, the void energy in their core instantly annihilating their life force. The javelins continued, passing through the pirates, becoming ethereal again as they passed through the deck, and finally dissipating harmlessly in the river below. Not a single plank of the merchant ship was damaged. Not a single innocent was harmed. It was a display of spiritual control so profound, so utterly perfect, it was beyond the comprehension of anyone present.
He had learned this fine control thanks to Khaos, his mastery of the void aspect making leaps and bounds thanks to his great teacher.
Li Yu raised his hand one last time, and a final, single javelin appeared. He looked across the water at the terrified pirate leader.
The leader, his mind finally snapping from terror into a final, desperate rage, roared and charged. He was a peak Qi Condensation expert, a king in this small river. He leaped from his own boat, intending to cross the distance and kill this terrifying boy.
Li Yu's hand fell. The javelin shot forward. It met the pirate leader mid-charge. There was no meaty thud. There was only a soft, wet crunch. The pirate's protective Qi, his spiritual artifacts, his very body… they were all irrelevant before the conceptual power of the void. He imploded, his existence reduced to a fine, red mist that settled gently on the river.
The remaining pirates on the last two ships, their leader now a bloody stain on the water, felt their courage, their rage, their very souls shatter. They dropped their weapons and began to desperately paddle away, their only thought to escape this impossible god of death.
Li Yu looked at the kneeling, whimpering pirates still on the merchant ship, and the cold, killing intent in his eyes slowly faded. He was a protector. He turned to the stunned, speechless caravan guards. "Tie them up," he said, his voice calm. "The town guard can deal with them."
He then walked over to the small group of crying children and the woman who was still standing, frozen, her kitchen knife held in a white-knuckled grip.
"Are you alright, Auntie Mei?" he asked, his voice now gentle, the monstrous god of war once again replaced by the kind, unassuming boy.
At that moment, Chen Fan, having finally gathered his courage, descended from the sky on his own, clumsy flying sword. He landed on the deck and ran to his mother, his face a mess of tears and relief.
Mei Lin, her mind finally catching up with the impossible events, looked from her son, to the kneeling pirates, and finally, to the calm, polite young man who stood before her, his simple robes unstained by even a single drop of blood. She did not know what to say. She simply pulled her son into a fierce hug and began to sob, her tears a mixture of terror, relief, and a profound, overwhelming gratitude that was beyond any words.
Li Yu stood, a silent guardian in the middle of the carnage. He had come to this town to heal a single, sick turtle. He had ended up destroying a pirate fleet and saving a caravan.