As they flew on Tempest, the familiar air of the Central Continent was a balm after the chaos of the southern continent. Li Yu felt the knots in his shoulders, his mind and all throughout his body finally unwind. He was almost home. He had been looking forward to this for a long time.

"Senior Krell," Li Yu said, pointing forward. "From this height, we should be able to see the Green Mountain range soon. It's quite a..."

Li Yu's voice trailed off. He squinted. He flew to the very front of his Skyshroud Leviathan, peering into the horizon.

"That's strange," he murmured. "We should be seeing the mountain ranges by now."

There was nothing. Where the gentle and familiar peaks of his home should have been, there was only a flat, unbroken line.

"Boy," Krell's deep, grunting voice came from behind him. "Look... up."

Li Yu tore his gaze from the empty horizon and looked skyward. His heart stopped.

Floating in the air were six of the divine beasts. The Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, and others... he recognized them instantly. The sight of them from the southern continent still burned into his mind. They were... hovering there and not moving. As if they were waiting for something.

Worry, panic and a thousand dreadful emotions surged in Li Yu's soul. What were they doing here? They only showed up before due to a disaster. What disaster could have happened over here that they were here. Where were the other four?

In a flash of spiritual energy, he abandoned Tempest and instantly began to void-step. He tore a hole in the fabric of space, his body blurring as he used his fastest and most desperate mode of transportation.

"Boy! Wait!" Krell roared. The massive demon jumped from Tempest's back as well and his own powerful Soul Formation energy flaring as he gave chase but Li Yu was too fast. He was already out of sight by the time Krell had gotten off of Tempest. Fueled by a new, terrible fear, Li Yu's void steps were frantic. He was closing the distance between him and where the beasts were in an instant.

He arrived in a series of disorienting and lurching flashes. The air as he got closer was wrong. It was heavy and thick with a power so violent it was suffocating. He saw the remaining four beasts as he neared.

And his world ended.

On the ground, the great life-green Qilin was laying on its side. Its iridescent scales were cracked and a massive gaping wound in its flank was pouring green blood. There was a massive puddle of it right next to him.

The Vermilion Phoenix and the Twelve-Tailed Fox were on either side of it, their own auras blazing. The Phoenix pouring a torrent of rejuvenating fire, the Fox a shimmering prismatic light into the wound.

It looked like they had stopped the bleeding but the Qilin's life-force was still ebbing. The Black Tortoise stood over them, its mountainous shell a shield and its ancient head turned toward the surrounding. It kept guard and as soon as Li Yu neared its head went right to him but it recognized the young boy. Surprised that it would see him again so soon. .

This sight of these great beasts, which would have shattered his understanding just a bit ago, was not what held Li Yu's attention. It was what was beyond them.

It was where the Green Mountain Sect was supposed to be. Where there should have been mountains, a sect, some lakes, his home... there was now only a massive crater.

It was a wound in the earth itself. It was so big, so impossibly wide, that Li Yu could not see the other side from where he was standing. It stretched on into the horizon, a gouge of incomprehensible power.

The very foundations of the world had been torn open. Water was already gushing up from the ground, the earth's own blood. It was slowly and inevitably beginning to fill the scar. The energy from the attack was so recent, so raw, that it hummed in the air. It was a physical pressure that made his skin sting and his bones ache but none of that even registered to Li Yu.

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‘What happened here? Where was the sect I called home?’

‘It couldn't be….’

"No..." he whispered. His mind, which had endured all the trials and tribulations of the southern continent, simply refused to process the sight. "No. It... it can't be... I must be seeing things."

He dropped to the ground, his legs giving out on him completely. He landed on his knees at the very edge of the crater. He looked down into the vast empty muddy hole where his life had been.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

He roared. It was not a word. It was a sound of pure animalistic pain, a howl of a soul being torn in two. He tried to convince himself it was his imagination, some sort of illusion art or trick, a nightmare.

That's when Krell finally arrived, his massive mist-shrouded form landing heavily a distance behind Li Yu. He took one look at the boy, one look at the crater and pieced the information together. They had been going this way for this boy’s sect and here stands this crater now. He looked on and said nothing, for there was nothing that could be said at this moment. The demon could only give the boy his space.

Krell tried to walk closer and give the boy a bit of comfort but he couldn't get closer. The power from the attack was still lingering in the crater was a physical wall, a screaming torrent of energies so violent that even his Soul Formation body warned him against it.

But Li Yu... Li Yu was kneeling right on the edge, his hands digging into the super-heated and crackling dirt, as though everything was fine. He was so lost in his emotional agony that he didn't even register the physical pain.

‘It was as though the boy was using the searing pain from the earth to somehow soften the impossible, all-consuming pain in his heart. That somehow the physical pain would lessen the mental one. Either that or the boy is so lost in his mental pain that he doesn’t even realize about the physical one.’ Krell thought to himself with pity.

A shadow fell over Li Yu. Its footsteps were silent as the grave and it had moved slightly closer. It was the Tortoise that had come near, moving impossibly silent for its size. Then it spoke, its voice a deep, slow, geologic rumble that vibrated in Li Yu's very bones.

"Viridius was ambushed," the Tortoise said. "It had returned to its post and was just about to return to its slumber."

Li Yu didn't look up at the speaking figure. His body just shook with silent and wracking sobs.

"This place, or rather the subspace here" the Tortoise continued, its voice heavy with an ancient sorrow, "was a natural node. A place of great power. It is... was... one of ten, connecting to nine others. In your terms, a grand formation. One that has protected this realm for eons. Each node... is guarded by us."

The beast's ancient eyes looked at the crater. "The Seven Fears... they have always tried to destroy the nodes. But the natural protections of each node and the strength of the guardians had always held."

The Tortoise paused. "But this time... they had a treasure. Something... new. It weakened the node's protections from a distance. They combined all their powers and... they defeated Viridius.”

“The other nine of us... we came instantly. But it happened too fast. The Seven Fears were able to escape, though we wounded them... heavily. Their mission, however... was a success. The node is destroyed. The realm's barrier is... now weakened with no way to repair it but time."

Tears continued to fall from Li Yu's eye and sizzled on the hot ground. "My... home..." he choked out. "My sect… What did they do in all of this… for this destruction…"

The Black Tortoise looked down at the kneeling and broken boy. He couldn’t help but feel pity towards him, even after this almost eternal life it was still moved by such a scene..

"Your sect," it rumbled, its voice holding no malice, only the terrible and cold finality of fact. "And everything else in this area... it was destroyed as a consequence of their attack to destroy the node in the subspace. They... were not targeted. They were... simply unlucky... to be here."

The new information he was just told about what had happened here, the explanation, the logic... none of it mattered. Li Yu couldn't process it. He couldn't process anything at this moment. The dam of his denial broke and the grief, pure and unadulterated, overwhelmed him even more.

He slammed his fists into the burning earth, not even feeling the remnant energy burning his hand. He remained on his hands and knees, his head bowed down, crying his heart out.

At times, a choked, strangled cry would rip from his throat. It would be yelling out the names of those he had just been so excited to see.

"Master Ning...!"

"Brother Kai... Lin Tao...!"

"Uncle Wei...!"

"Grand Elder Mei and Chen...!"

It went on and on as Krell and the beasts looked on but no one said anything. The Phoenix and the Fox continued to heal the Qilin as the sobs continued.

But the only answer... was the hissing of the wind over the new, dead and desolate edge of the hole here.