The old man, Shen Chu, fell into deep thought after hearing Riven's words.
Riven's path… it was something entirely different, a path he had created himself.
Shen Chu was about to ask further, curiosity stirring within him, but Riven continued before he could speak.
"My family once had many great cultivators," Riven said calmly, his gaze fixed ahead. "Geniuses—true geniuses."
"When they looked at me, they saw nothing more than someone slightly above average, at best, according to the standards of our family's cultivation methods."
"At first, I tried everything to stand out. I worked harder than anyone, forced myself to act like a genius, and tried to prove my worth."
He paused slightly.
"But none of it mattered. No matter how hard I tried, I was never comparable to those who were truly gifted."
A faint sigh escaped him.
"There came a time when I realized… none of that mattered."
"I thought of giving up, of living an ordinary life."
"But then something happened—something that changed everything."
His voice grew quieter.
"The person I thought I would spend my life with… was gone."
"That moment changed me."
"It brought me to an entirely different path. A path no one had walked before. A path I created for myself."
"And that path… allowed me to reach a height I had never imagined."
Riven turned slightly toward Shen Chu, a faint smile appearing on his face.
"Well, I simply made that decision much earlier than you."
Shen Chu remained silent as Riven's next words carried a quiet weight.
"You have already spent too long walking a fixed path. You cannot abandon it now."
"You can only refine it… and create something new within it."
"A path ahead of the Spirit Sovereign realm you speak of."
Shen Chu understood.
There were many cultivation paths in the world—qi cultivation, body cultivation, spirit cultivation, and others—but most of them were limited. The resources required were rare, often extinct, and their ceilings were far lower compared to Qi cultivation.
Some sects attempt to combine multiple methods, creating hybrid paths that allow cultivators to surpass others of the same realm. Such individuals could even fight above their level, and he himself had walked such a path.
By cultivating both body and qi to a high level, he had become one of the three strongest cultivators in the entire plane, but beyond that point there was nothing. As for the materials required for further advancement in body cultivation, he hasn't seen them till now.
His path had reached its natural limit.
Riven, understanding this without needing explanation, said nothing further. Instead, his gaze shifted forward.
After some time, Shen Chu also sensed something, as the surroundings had changed.
What had once been lush land filled with trees and vegetation was now barren. The ground below was scorched.
Trees stood blackened and broken, as if burned in a massive catastrophe.
Even the Skylance Roc slowed down, its speed dropping drastically, as if the air itself had grown heavier.
Both of them looked down and saw the destruction below and were surprised as the destruction stretched endlessly, and Shen Chu frowned, seeing this.
"There has been no major war on this continent recently," he said. "Yet this level of destruction…"
"It looks recent."
Riven observed silently for a moment before speaking.
"There is fluctuation in qi, a smell of blood of humans and beasts, and from the looks of it, there are some differential qi cultivators too, carrying impurities."
Hearing this, the old man asked, "Differential qi cultivator?"
Riven, looking down, said, "From the looks of it, this differential qi cultivator uses the blood of other beings to cultivate."
Hearing this, the old man understood and said, "Demonic cultivator!"
"Here I thought that they were laying low, but from such a scale it looks like they have been hiding their strength for a long time to do a mass slaughter."
Riven looked at the map and saw that there was a city ahead.
Soon, the city came into view.
From there they saw a city surrounded by beasts, and above the city walls many soldiers were using bows and arrows to shoot the beasts down, along with some cultivators using their qi to use long-range attacks.
There were even many soldiers and cultivators fighting below the city using swords and spears, trying their best to fend off the beasts.
Sometimes there were humans coming out along with the beast to attack the ones defending, taking out some soldiers with an ambush.
They struck suddenly, cutting down defenders before disappearing back into the chaos.
The situation was deteriorating rapidly as the soldiers' and cultivators' numbers were decreasing, making the atmosphere above the walls dire.
...
Inside the city walls, the atmosphere was heavy.
Exhaustion and desperation filled the air as the soldiers and cultivators used every ounce of their strength to fight and kill as many beasts as they could.
A man in heavy armor stood at the edge of the wall, his eyes filled with fury.
"How long has it been since we sent out the distress signal?" he demanded.
"Where are the reinforcements?"
"And there is still no answer from them?"
Saying this, he came down from the wall and entered a tent, inside which many people were sitting on chairs while some were pacing around the tent.
The messenger, with helplessness in his eyes, said, "Commander, we had already sent the signal three days ago and had been defending the city for so long."
"If they wanted to help us, they would have done so two days ago, but they have left us on our own."
The commander, hearing this, didn't say anything for some time and said in anger, "Even the city lord has run away."
Looking down, he continued, "We can't do anything; this city will go down in a day or two."
The messenger hesitated before replying, "But the beast tide has weakened. The number of demonic cultivators has also decreased."
"We can overcome it; it's just that we have to sacrifice a lot."
The commander shook his head.
"You're missing the real threat."
"The fearsome opponent has not even shown his face. How can we fight them?"
The officials froze.
"Commander… you mean—?"
He nodded slowly.
"There is an Elemental Core demonic cultivator among them."
"And he is close to breaking through to the Golden Core realm."
"I think he is going to use this entire city as a sacrifice to advance to the golden core."
A wave of anger and fear spread across the tent.
They understood the situation clearly.
The commander himself was only at the refined core stage, one level below. There were only two other core cultivators in the city, both with mortal cores, and even together, they could only delay the enemy.
If they were to fight the demonic cultivator together, they could still hold him back for a long time and do him some damage, but the thing is, who knows if the demonic cultivator will let them fight their way?
He could simply bring other cultivators to help; as long as they could take on some time, the elemental core demonic cultivator would finish them off one by one.
As the discussion was going on, suddenly one of the soldiers ran inside; seeing this, everyone thought the situation might have become dire.
The soldier said, "Commander, there is a huge flying beast coming in our direction, and it appears that there are even two people riding it."