Li Yu saw their pity. He felt it and it was like gasoline on the cold coal of his rage. Even a large part of him knew they weren’t wrong but he was in no state of mind to consider that.

"Fine," he said. He took several steps back. "I don't need you to believe me. I will get to that realm and I will find you. And we will talk about this again at that time. I will definitely kill those bastards!"

As he spoke, his conviction reignited the fires within him. The suffocating blanket of demonic qi surged and his killing intent washed over the clearing once more. The beasts didn't know what to say. This boy was simply too stubborn but they understood he wasn’t in a completely right state of mind

Viridius opened its mouth, perhaps to scold him again but the Fox put a prismatic tail up to stop him. They could all see it. This was beyond reason. This was beyond talking him out of it. The boy’s heart had been scoured and this new purpose was all that had grown back in its place.

Further words were meaningless. The fact that the three of them had put up with his level of stubbornness surprised even them. They were beings of great strength and always commanded respect. Yet, here they were having an argument with a little boy and trying to convince him out of such a plainly foolishment endeavor.

Li Yu took a deep breath. He looked at the Qilin and his burning gaze softened, just a fraction, into something that still resembled the boy he was. He understood that he had already been overstepping his bounds and had been disrespectful to these great and mighty beings..

"Thank you for the blessings you have given me earlier on my journey, Senior Qilin. I am... I am in enough of a right state of mind to understand why you are telling me this. I know you are trying to deter me, for my own good."

He paused and his gaze hardened again, the demonic qi and killing intent lashing around him like a storm.

"However," he said, his voice dropping into that inhuman growl, "nothing will stop me from getting this revenge. Nothing. I will reach that level. No… I will go beyond it! And I will find those Seven Fears. I will make those seven suffer beyond what is possible. When they are broken, when they finally beg me for the release of death... that is when I will really begin to torture them."

The words hung in the air and almost seemed to take form within his killing intent. They were so cold, so personal and so utterly divorced from the kind boy who had once called these lands home. His killing intent got thicker and thicker as he spoke, the very air seeming to weep blood.

From her place on the side, Cyra’s skin crawled. She had seen Li yu calm, sad, determined and even panicked. She had never, ever, seen this. This was a dark, cold and terrifying stranger wearing his face. If she had never met him before, she would have thought that he was the reincarnation of death and possibly revenge right now.

Even Krell, a demon born of magma and war, felt a cold and unwelcome chill slither down his spine. He had heard threats from demonic lords, from nasty creatures in his home realm and from beings of pure malice. But they had all been... more tamed… at least compared to what he was seeing. This... this was a personal promise of cruelty that was somehow far more terrifying.

‘It doesn’t make any sense. How could this boy have this kind of killing intent? Sure, he’s killed a lot during the war but that doesn’t equate to this. There must be something else, something more to him. That very thing is what we are seeing manifest in physical form now…’ Krell thought to himself.

In the silent space of the Koi Sanctuary, Khaos was still in his human form and he was watching. As Li Yu's vow echoed in the spiritual space, a small and almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It was a smile of dark approval. It vanished in an instant and was replaced by the usual impassive seriousness and a moment later he dissolved back into his normal form.

With his vow to the heavens complete, Li Yu gave the three divine beasts a deep formal bow. He had said his piece and had already way over stepped his bounds. He turned to leave.

"Hey, young boy," the Twelve-Tailed Fox's melodic voice called out. Li Yu stopped. "Take this as well. We... we have the same enemy after all. Maybe it will help you in your revenge."

A ball of prismatic light, the size of his fist detached from her aura and floated toward him. It was pure, condensed qi, aspected toward the fox's own unique illusionary energy.

Li Yu looked at it, then at her. He bowed in thanks, not willing to miss any opportunity to increase his strength quickly. Before he could even think of how to absorb it, his Koi martial spirit reacted. From his Koi Sanctuary, an irresistible suction erupted. The ball of light quickly was pulled towards him. It vanished into his body in a single silent instant.

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The three beasts were surprised. The ball of qi that the Fox provided was not simple, it was a higher form of qi that should have been difficult to take in. They were expecting him to spend quite a lot of time here integrating with it.

"What...?" the Phoenix whispered, its healing efforts stopping once more.

The Fox responded slowly. "He... he just... absorbed it. Instantly."

"What a strange boy," Viridius rumbled, its voice a mix of shock and fascination.

They were watching his body and could vaguely see where the ball of qi went. They could see the new energy. It did not fight with the Qilin's life-qi or the Void-aspected energy they could dimly sense. It simply... settled in a vast space where his core should have been.

It found its own place, a new unoccupied corner of his Ocean of Qi as if it had been a part of him all along. There was no conflict. No rejection. No refinement. Just... acceptance.

The Vermilion Phoenix looked at the Fox, then at Li Yu. "You... are truly... a contradiction."

The Phoenix's aura flared. A second ball of energy, this one a tiny brilliant sun-white orb of fire, flew from its chest. "Then take this, as well. See what you do with it."

It was a core of its Nirvana-aspected fire qi. The Koi martial spirit did the same once more. Inhale. Settle.

Another new, pure and divine energy found a home in Li Yu's vast and accommodating Ocean of Qi.

"What a strange kid indeed," the Fox murmured, shaking her twelve tails. "He can absorb it so quickly... and there's no conflict in his body. Not even a ripple. He’s holding more than one higher form of energy inside without any conflicts… The speed of it as well…"

It didn't bring a spike to his power. He wasn't suddenly a master of fire or illusions. Li Yu was able to absorb the energy but it simply floated there on top of his Ocean of Qi and didn’t mix in. Similar to how it was with his Void and Life aspected Qi.

They knew it would take time. But the integration... to accept two new higher level qi and fundamentally different-aspected qi signatures in no time, without his body tearing itself apart was not just impressive. It was impossible. They knew they couldn’t do that.

Li Yu felt the new warmth in his body. He bowed to the Fox and the Phoenix, a gratitude deeper than his rage. "Thank you to you both. I will make sure to put it to go use."

Li Yu turned and he walked back to the edge of the crater. He looked at the vast empty muddy hole that had been his sect, his home and his life. He dropped to his knees. He pressed his forehead to the raw dead earth. A deep respectful kowtow. He did it a second time. And a third. A final farewell.

After a bit of time he finally got to his feet and he did not look back anymore. He walked to Tempest who had been hovering patiently. Krell and Cyra followed him on.

They flew in the direction of his childhood home. He already knew, just from the sheer incomprehensible size of the crater, what he would find. But he had to see it for himself.

It was gone.

The area that Kui and the guild had built up, the new fortifications, all of it was just... gone. Wiped from the face of this continent. It had all become a part of the same vast crater. His parents' makeshift graves, the small simple mounds he had made... they were of course gone too.

This new sight brought another wave of grief and pain. But it was not the all-consuming and mind-breaking agony of before. It hadn't been his home for a long time. His grieving for this place, his closure before he left for the Southern Continent brought him an amount of comfort. He was thankful he had the chance to do so. If he had never returned before going, the regret would have been unbearable.

The graves, too, were symbolic. He never knew where his parents had truly died. But seeing it... seeing both of his homes that he had ever known, his past and his present, wiped from existence by the same cosmic hand... it was the final insult.

The grief solidified, instantly into pure unadulterated anger.

"RAAAAGH!"

His demonic aura exploded again and his killing intent flaring wildly. This time it was out of control. The sky around Tempest shimmered red. He was losing his grip again.

"Calm yourself, boy!" Krell's voice roared, a demonic bark that cut through the rage.

Li Yu's head snapped around, his colored eyes glaring.

"I know what you're thinking!" Krell shouted, his own aura flaring to meet Li Yu's, not in aggression but in a show of force. "I know how you feel! But that... that wild, uncontrolled rage... will not lead you to your ultimate prize! It will not get you your revenge!"

Krell took a step forward, his own red eyes burning through his shroud. "You want to torture them? You want to make them beg? Then you need to be cold. You need to be smart. You need to get stronger. This... this is just noise. It's weakness. This is not embracing your emotions, this is being swallowed up by it! Get stronger! And only then can you fight and kill all those that have wronged you!"

"He... he speaks crudely, Young Master," Cyra added, her voice a calm serene anchor in his storm. "But he is right. Power. Time. And the calmness to achieve your goals. That is what you need now. Not this."

Krell's harsh pragmatic logic and Cyra's calm and steadying tone helped to cut through the red haze. Li Yu's chaotic aura, the flaring demonic qi, the wild killing intent... it all receded. They both pulled back into his body and left him trembling but sane.

He looked at Krell and then at Cyra. "Thank you," he said, his voice quiet but firm again. "Thank you... both of you. For the reminders."

‘I understand what needs to be done but why is it so difficult?’ Li Yu thought to himself.

He turned Tempest around, his back now to both of his destroyed homes. There was nothing for him here. There was still a need to honor those that have fallen this day and he would make sure he did it.