Chapter 965: The Feeling of Vulnerability

The warships of the Zhan Clan fleet broke through the heavy clouds above the central headquarters as they carried the heavy weight of a brutal battle and the solemn burden of the dead. The majestic peaks of the clan estate offered a familiar and grounding comfort to the exhausted defenders.

It was a stark and beautiful contrast to the ruined ash of the Blood Forge Valley and inwardly they were thankful it was not them. The fleet landed smoothly at the primary military docks as the clan members gathered along the stone platforms to receive the returning warriors. The atmosphere across the docks was incredibly subdued.

There were no cheers of triumph and no celebratory cheers. Everyone present understood the cost of the night's survival. Even though eleven was a small number compared to the scale of the clan, every person loss was honored and respected.

Final rituals for the eleven fallen disciples took place exactly a day later. All eleven victims hailed from the various sprawling branch families of the massive Zhan Clan that could easily be called an empire. They were not members of the direct main lineage but they were family nonetheless and the Zhan Clan valued blood and loyalty above all else.

The direct families of the deceased traveled quickly from their respective territories to attend the rites. The clan ensured the fallen were honored properly with all the dignity afforded to heroes and their families provided with resources to slightly take the edge off from their loss. Li Yu did not attend the public mourning events, he paid his respects in his own quiet way from his private quarters. He understood that the dead required peace but the living required strength and that was exactly what he was focused on.

Zhan Tian had two days before he was required to return to his duties as a Worldkeeper. Li Yu did not waste a single hour of those precious two days. He dragged his grandfather to the private and heavily reinforced training grounds deep within the clan estate and he asked Zhan Tian for relentless combat training without any restraint. Li Yu wanted to be pushed to his physical and mental limits.

The private training grounds echoed constantly with the deafening sound of clashing metal and shattering stone. Li Yu gripped his staff with both hands as he lunged forward and swung the weapon with terrifying momentum. The air cracked loudly as the staff cut a horizontal arc directly toward Zhan Tian's chest.

The Worldkeeper raised a single bare forearm to meet the strike as the heavy staff slammed into Zhan Tian. A shockwave rippled outward and shattered the thick paving stones beneath their feet but Zhan Tian did not move a single inch.

"Again." Zhan Tian commanded while his voice remained calm and remarkably steady.

Li Yu gritted his teeth and pulled the heavy staff back. He channeled his Qi and activated his Devouring Leviathan Physique to its maximum output. He launched a rapid and desperate flurry of strikes.

He aimed for his grandfather's shoulders, ribs and knees. Zhan Tian parried every single blow with minimal effort while he smoothly redirected the violent energy harmlessly into the earth. The Worldkeeper watched his grandson closely as the relentless assault continued without pause.

Zhan Tian noted a distinct and concerning change in the young man's combat demeanor. He had sparred with Li Yu many times in the past and Li Yu had always been determined. This time was entirely different though.

There was a frantic and consuming intensity burning fiercely in Li Yu's eyes. It was the most severe fire Zhan Tian had ever seen lit under his grandson. Every single strike carried a desperate and heavy weight. Every movement was fueled by an unspoken and deeply rooted urgency.

Li Yu swept his staff low to strike violently at Zhan Tian's legs. The older man casually stepped over the sweeping weapon and pushed a flat palm forward. The gentle palm strike hit Li Yu squarely in the center of his chest and sent the young cultivator flying backward across the courtyard. Li Yu crashed heavily into a reinforced stone wall and cracked the masonry. He immediately scrambled back to his feet and raised his weapon to charge forward once again.

"That is enough for today." Zhan Tian said as he lowered his hands and sighed. "Your body is actively tearing and your Qi flow is becoming dangerously erratic. You cannot force a sudden breakthrough by simply breaking your own body."

Li Yu stopped his aggressive advance and slowly lowered Star Crusher. He was breathing heavily and his dark robes were completely soaked in sweat. He wiped a streak of blood from his chin and nodded slowly, he knew his grandfather was right. The frantic and unyielding exertion was beginning to yield diminishing returns.

Zhan Tian walked over and handed Li Yu a clean cloth from a nearby bench. "Your parents sent a communication talisman this morning while you were resting. They are currently tied up with a complex situation. They will be gone for at least a month before they can properly return to the estate."

Li Yu took the cloth and wiped the grime from his face. He felt a sharp pang of disappointment but quickly suppressed the emotion. He understood the incredibly demanding nature of their lives and only hoped they remained safe. "Tell them to focus entirely on their tasks. I will be fine here at the estate."

The Worldkeeper looked up at the sky as the sun began to set over the majestic peaks. "I must leave within the hour. My people also require my presence."

Li Yu stepped forward and looked directly into his grandfather's eyes. "Take care of yourself out there. Please come back safely."

Zhan Tian offered a rare and genuinely warm smile that softened his hardened features. He placed a heavy and comforting hand on Li Yu's shoulder. "You do not need to worry about us so intensely. Your parents and I have been taking care of ourselves and fighting these endless wars for centuries. We have survived apocalyptic things that you cannot even fathom yet. You just need to focus entirely on your own path. Advance step by step. Do not let the vastness of the cultivation world crush your spirit before you truly begin."

"I understand." Li Yu replied with a firm nod. "Thank you for all the training these past two days. I wish you good luck on your tasks."

Zhan Tian looked deeply into Li Yu's eyes and saw the lingering shadows hiding there. He saw clearly that Li Yu was deeply distressed. The Worldkeeper truly wished he could stay at the estate a little longer to personally guide the boy through this turbulent mental state but duty bound him to the safety of countless others and he could not linger.

Zhan Tian gave his grandson one final reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as he turned around and stepped directly into the void as the spatial rift closed silently behind him. Li Yu stood completely alone in the ruined training courtyard as the evening wind blew through the compound. The silence of the massive estate felt incredibly heavy on his shoulders. Zhan Tian was correct in his silent assessment. Li Yu was indeed distressed.

However, the distress did not stem from the horrors he had witnessed at the Blood Forge Valley. He was not traumatized simply because he saw his allies fall in battle. He did not lose any sleep over the sight of people dying or the sickening stench of burned flesh.

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Li Yu had walked the harsh path of cultivation for a long time now. He had seen countless deaths and participated directly in brutal slaughters. He understood the fundamental cruelty and the unforgiving nature of the Myriad Realms.

His distress came from a much more personal and terrifying internal source in combination with everything else that had happened. It was the recent intrusive images violently plaguing his mind. He kept seeing hypothetical scenarios where his parents or his grandfather fell in combat.

The orchestrated ambush at the valley proved that massive and established factions could be completely erased in a single night. It proved without a doubt that supreme experts could be baited into traps and killed. The terrifying vulnerability of his family haunted his waking thoughts due to his own powerlessness.

He also carried a heavy and suffocating burden of self blame regarding his own combat performance during the ambush. He sat down heavily on the cracked stone floor and analyzed the battle with cold and ruthless logic in his quiet moments.

He had performed exceptionally well for a cultivator of his current level. He had saved multiple lives and successfully killed enemy commanders. However, it simply was not enough to satisfy his own standards or goals.

If he had already mastered the Nexus Mind technique to split his consciousness better, he could have changed the outcome of his skirmishes. He had been forced to hide behind his heavy rusted sword because his mind could not handle the immense strain of melee combat while simultaneously commanding his flying swords. If his mind was stronger, he could have fought aggressively alongside the others with his main body while his swords reaped lives from afar. He could have pushed the front lines forward and intercepted the ambushing elders much faster.

That increased combat efficiency could have easily prevented more deaths among the Zhan Clan disciples. He also knew he lacked true mastery over his Celestial Star Sword Formation. He was currently just using the swords as highly lethal individual projectiles. He was not utilizing the true exponential and world breaking power of the actual formation. If the complex formation had been fully active, he could have shredded the enemy ranks in half the time.

He never had the time required to perfectly master either of those complex skills. Real mastery over such arts took years of secluded meditation and endless repetitive practice. He still considered his lack of proficiency to be a massive and entirely unacceptable problem.

He now had at least a month of uninterrupted time before his parents returned to the estate. He decided right then and there that he would use every single agonizing second of that month to ruthlessly fix his weaknesses as much as he could.

The next month transformed into a grueling period of ruthless training for Li Yu. He isolated himself entirely within a heavily reinforced courtyard near his private quarters. He refused all visitors and strictly instructed the Core Wardens to leave his necessary meals at the outer gate and allow no interruptions. He dedicated himself entirely to the agonizing pursuit of power.

He started every single morning long before the sun crested the horizon. He sat perfectly still in the exact center of the courtyard and activated the Nexus Mind technique. The ancient mental art was designed to fracture and safely compartmentalize the soul's focus.

It was an excruciating and deeply unnatural process. He had made some progress in it since given the technique but it was not enough. Li Yu closed his eyes and forcefully commanded his consciousness to split into distinct and highly independent threads. He pushed his soul to the breaking point every single day to make progress.

He tried to read a complex cultivation manual with one part of his mind while actively solving an array with another. The intense and unnatural strain caused severe migraines that felt exactly like burning daggers twisting behind his eyes. Blood frequently trickled down from his nose as his mental limits were aggressively tested and broken.

He did not stop to rest when the pain flared, he simply wiped the warm blood away and pushed the technique even harder. He needed his mind to become an unbreakable and flawless fortress of multitasking efficiency. When the migraines became truly unbearable and threatened to render him unconscious, he transitioned his focus to the Celestial Star Sword Formation.

He stood up on shaky legs and summoned his majestic weapons. Silent Bastion slammed heavily into the earth to act as the central anchor. Pale Extinction, Firmament's End, Whispering Frost and Gilded Calamity shot upward into the air and began their orbit.

Li Yu paced relentlessly around the courtyard and forced his exhausted mind to smoothly control the four orbiting blades. He commanded them to weave through intricate and overlapping patterns to strike specific moving targets simultaneously.

He practiced moving his physical body through complex martial routines while strictly ensuring the swords never broke their synchronized flight paths. Whenever a flying sword wavered slightly or lost its lethal speed, he punished himself ruthlessly by starting the entire complex routine from the very beginning. He drilled the fluid movements until his hands bled and his Qi reserves were entirely empty.

Li Yu did not stop to sleep when his Qi naturally ran dry. He utilized the vast and premium resources available to him as a recognized member of the main lineage. He sat cross legged on a specialized meditation mat and consumed high tier spiritual pills provided by the clan alchemists. The potent and expensive medicine dissolved rapidly in his stomach and released tidal waves of pure energy.

Li Yu meticulously guided the violent energy through his deeply aching meridians as he forcefully expanded his Qi pathways and refined the raw spiritual power to aggressively advance his cultivation base. The rapid and forced influx of energy often caused his internal organs to burn with intense and uncomfortable heat.

He gritted his teeth tightly and endured the mounting internal pressure. He knew that relying too heavily on external pills could eventually create dangerous impurities in his foundation. He constantly circulated his Devouring Leviathan Physique to completely crush and assimilate those microscopic impurities before they could ever settle and he smoothly turned the raw medicine into pure and highly stable strength.

The extreme mental strain and the accelerated Qi cultivation were only a portion of his daily agonizing routine. Li Yu also dedicated a significant amount of time every evening to the legendary and brutal physical training methods of the Zhan Clan. The body refiners of this empire did not achieve their indestructible physiques through peaceful meditation or simple exercises. They achieved it through systematic and brutal physical trauma.

Li Yu walked down to a specialized tempering chamber located deep beneath the main training grounds. The large circular room was inscribed with hundreds of ancient gravity and complex elemental arrays. He stripped off his protective armor and his upper robes. He stood entirely bare chested in the center of the dark room and activated the brutal formations to their maximum safe limits for his cultivation level.

The gravity in the chamber instantly multiplied and the crushing invisible pressure forced Li Yu directly to his knees. The air became so incredibly heavy it felt exactly like breathing thick mud. He planted his calloused hands on the solid stone floor and slowly forced himself to stand up. His dense muscles bulged and his reinforced bones creaked loudly under the unnatural weight.

The elemental arrays flared to life as soon as he successfully established his footing. Thick hardened wooden pillars violently shot out from the hidden walls and battered his body mercilessly. He did not dodge or attempt to deflect the attacks. Just as he did in the training grounds, he stood his ground firmly and allowed the heavy logs to slam directly into his ribs, his back and his shoulders. The blunt force trauma left deep purple bruises across his pale skin over time.

The room then shifted elements rapidly. Jets of scorching white flames erupted suddenly from the floor and engulfed him entirely. Li Yu circulated his Qi to protect his vital internal organs but he intentionally allowed the intense fire to sear his outer flesh. The extreme heat burned away the weaker superficial layers of his skin and forced his body to naturally regenerate thicker and far more resilient tissue.

The roaring flames were quickly replaced by piercing jagged shards of hardened ice that pelted him like a localized and deadly blizzard. The sharp ice cut small and shallow gashes across his muscular arms and chest. The extreme and sudden shift from burning heat to freezing cold tested the limits of his physical endurance and pain tolerance.

Li Yu stood in the center of the agonizing elemental storm and strictly regulated his breathing. He endured the painful and continuous attacks to systematically toughen his body and his mind. Every single bruise, burn and cut served as a harsh physical reminder of his own vulnerability.

He absolutely refused to let weakness dictate the ultimate fate of his family. He embraced the agonizing pain and successfully transformed it into necessary fuel for his progression. The days quickly blurred into weeks as he relentlessly hammered his body and soul into a living weapon capable of defying the cruel reality of the Myriad Realms.