Li Yu withdrew from the Sanctuary and descended into the Ocean of Qi. As he manifested his consciousness above the familiar island, he froze.

Something was different. The air here crackled with an intensity he hadn't felt before. It felt similar to the aura that exploded out of him in his rage. He hadn’t been able to release that very same aura again since then, regardless of what method he tried. It would seem that the aura naturally came out in his rage but outside of that, he had no control over it.

Usually, his Human Soul would be sitting at the edge of the island and fishing. It would normally have a casted a line into the ocean below, fishing for who knows what. Usually, his Koi Soul would be swimming playfully in the waters around the island.

Not today.

The Fisherman was not fishing. The rod lay on the ground next to him. The figure was sitting back and leaning on its hands. Its head was tilted back and staring up at the "sky" of the Ocean of Qi. It looked... contemplative.

And the Koi Soul...

It was not in the water. The massive spirit body of his martial spirit had slithered up onto the island. It was coiled around the base of the entire island like a protective Leviathan, its scales were shimmering.

Li Yu drifted closer, landing softly on the sand of his soul island.

As he approached, he saw the eyes of the Koi Soul. They were no longer the warm gold. They were blood-red. Deep, crimson pools that held no malice toward him but promised absolute devastation to anything else. He had no idea when it had changed.

Sensing his arrival, the Koi Soul tightened its coil slightly but did not move away. Then the Fisherman sat up.

Slowly and deliberately the Human Soul turned its head toward Li Yu. As it did, it revealed its face to him. It was Li Yu’s face but it was older, harder and etched with an ancient wisdom. It didn’t look like this before.

And then there were the eyes. Li Yu’s breath was caught in his throat when he saw it. Another thing that had changed here without his knowing.

The Fisherman’s left eye was a pure and blinding white. The right eye was a void of absolute, absorbing black.

There were no pupils. Just the raw binary representation of existence. Light and Dark. Life and Death. Creation and Void.

It was similar to the energy of the leader of the beings that he had meant. The seemingly ancient entity that his Human Soul had stolen some soul power from. He had thought that power was just fuel for his soul. But it would seem like it was integrating into his soul.

‘Did my soul always have eyes like this, that were just dormant, before taking in that power? That the power unlocked its true eyes or is it that the Human Soul somehow took in the power and its eyes evolved to this state.’ Li Yu thought to himself but he didn’t know and he wouldn’t find out now.

Li Yu stared at the two figures, the red-eyed beast and the dual-eyed human. They felt incredibly potent. The pressure radiating from them was far beyond what he remembered.

‘I am...’ Li Yu realized with a start. ‘I am already at the Second Level of Soul Formation?’

He hadn’t even noticed. Sometime between the tragic event, the construction of the fortress and his days in Goldflow City, he had broken through to the next level..

He didn’t know what they had been doing while he was away. Had they been conversing? Planning? Or just sitting in shared silence?

"I'm back," Li Yu said to them.

The Fisherman stared at him with those terrifying and beautiful eyes. The Koi Soul watched him with its crimson gaze as though it was going to strike.

Li Yu sat down on the sand in front of them. He didn't try to command them. It was now their turn to listen to him vent his feelings.

"I was lost," Li Yu admitted to his own souls. "I thought if I just got strong enough, fast enough, the pain would go away. But it didn't. It just made me cold."

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He looked at the Fisherman. "I want revenge. I want it more than anything else right now. But I don't want to lose myself… us in the process. I don't want to become a monster that even Master wouldn't recognize."

The red-eyed Koi let out a soft roar and was nudging its head against the Fisherman’s knee. The Fisherman didn't speak. Instead, it slowly stood up.

The movement was fluid, carrying a weight and gravitas that felt ancient. The figure towered over Li Yu’s consciousness that was still sitting.

It reached out a hand. Li Yu stayed seated as the Fisherman placed a hand on his shoulders, much like Khaos had done.

The touch wasn't cold. It wasn't warm. It felt like... completeness. A feeling that he had never felt before..

And then, the energy flowed. It wasn't a torrent of Qi. It was a transfer of soul power and understanding. A stream of black and white energy, spiraling around each other like a double helix flowed from the Fisherman’s arm down into Li Yu’s spiritual body.

BOOM!

Li Yu’s entire Ocean of Qi shook. The golden sky turned a deep violet hue. The waves rose in a majestic crescendo. The entire sea was raging and turned into a chaotic storm of violent power that would have ripped anything in it to shreds.

His mind, which had been foggy with grief and fatigue suddenly snapped into razor-sharp clarity. It felt as if he had been looking at the world through dirty glass and someone had just shattered the pane.

His soul grew stronger. It grew denser, more tangible and even more real. The boundaries of his perception stretched outward. It began to encompass not just his body but the room outside, the island, the sea and the very air itself as it exploded outward. From this, the qi in the same area began to collect like a vortex that was funneling all towards him.

From his courtyard and surrounding walls, arrays and formations flared into life. Directing the qi from all over to focus and channel to his very cultivation room and into himself. It was like a black hole drawing in all of the light around it, nothing escaped.

The barrier to the next level, which usually required years of accumulation and understanding shattered like sugar glass. 3rd stage of Soul Formation had been reached.

The energy settled. Li Yu gasped, his eyes flying open in the physical world for a split second before he forced them closed again to focus.

He was stunned. ‘How?’

He hadn't absorbed a single spirit stone. He had tried using resources and natural treasures before but felt like he was making no progress at all from the 1st stage. Then today he found out he was already in the 2nd stage of Soul Formation.

He hadn't cycled a specific mantra. He had just... accepted himself. He had acknowledged his grief, his rage, and his desire to live.

‘There was that boost of soul power, the one stolen by my Human Soul. Could that be what pushed me to the third level? No, that doesn’t seem right. If it was just that then how did I get to the 2nd level? Could it be I advanced because I connected with my Human Soul and our purposes are one and the same? That kind of connection…’ Li Yu thought.

His thoughts raced back to Jian Xuan. He remembered his breakthrough that day on the roof above his room. He had then asked Jian Xuan about it afterwards. Jian Xuan hadn't cultivated at that time, he had been stuck at that stage for years.

The amount of resources he used during that time was immense but it didn’t make a difference. He had realized his "True Self." He had found his Sword Heart.

‘The Soul Formation Realm...’ Li Yu thought, the realization starting to form in his mind. ‘That is why Grand Elder Corvus and the others told me that I had to focus on my soul. I thought that I just had to build a good relationship and understand my soul. That it was an important thing but still second to the accumulation of Qi like before. I was mistaken. It would seem this realm is unique.’

‘It isn’t about having enough fuel,’ Li Yu understood. ‘It is about defining the soul. It is about knowing, truly knowing who you are. The clearer the self, the stronger the Soul.’

He wasn’t just one thing, he was a mix of many. A Quiet Physician to some, a boy that cries at his loss, the dangerous and mighty Little Crab and a simple friend. That complexity was his strength.

His attention returned to the Fisherman. The hand was still on his shoulder. The flow of energy had stopped but the connection remained.

The Fisherman leaned down. The black eye and the white eye bore into Li Yu’s consciousness. There were no words spoken. No telepathic message. But the intent was louder than a scream.

It was a promise. It was a vision of the future.

Fire. Blood. The Seven Fears falling from the sky. Anyone related to those seven laid around on the ground, broken. A world where everyone was freed from such horrible destruction and with him, Li Yu looking down on the bodies of his enemies.

You grieve, the eyes seemed to say. You heal. And when we are ready... we shall hunt.

It was a partnership. His Human Soul was not just a reflection, it was the part of him that was ready to do what needed to be done, waiting for the rest of him to catch up.

Li Yu looked back into those mismatched eyes. He felt the red gaze of the Koi Soul burning into his side.

He didn't feel fear anymore. He didn't feel hesitation.

A cold, grim smile spread across Li Yu’s face in the physical world, mirrored perfectly by the Fisherman in his soul.

"Thank you," Li Yu whispered into the silence of his own being.

He placed his own hand over the Fisherman’s hand on his shoulder.

"We will get those bastards."