Path of the Ascendant

A day later, the answer to a few questions was obtained.

For one, it was clear that Primordial Metal was willing to move into action, but only when its territory was threatened. Thus, when the Ascendant and her Arbiters brought their forces far enough, it arose and manifested a vast number of metal shards from the air itself, forcing a quick retreat. They were not followed, but this was not something that Wei Yi intended to rely upon in the future. One or two more major battles would have to be enough.

Her own power while using purely Law was also clearer. She could do a great deal with the Dao of Law, that much had always been obvious, but its limits became all the more obvious now that she fought purely with it. To use Law as a weapon, she needed to have the strength to enforce or subvert it, or the correct level of access to the chains in order to reduce the other requirement. With her Dao of Law stuck at the Great Stride stage, she could perceive the chains with her vision state but lacked the natural attunement of the Full Success stage, or the superior control potentially offered by the true Dao stages that she had yet to see.

In truth, she was already doing far more than anyone with a Dao at her level should have been able to manage. If not for her choice to use Law as her foundation for understanding existence itself, she wouldn’t have been able to supress Primordial Metal in any way.

This was what distinguished the Dao stages attainable through the help of the heavens, and the true Dao stages that one might acquire without any contact with the heavens at all. In the first stage, one would need to acquire something similar to a vision state through the comprehension of Dao, as well as some additional control over it that she would only receive in Full Success under the standard set of Dao stages.

She expected the second stage to permit manipulation of other Dao, as well as strengthening it for herself or others. The third would be something akin to what she was already attempting with Law, and that would be to deconstruct other Dao through the perspective of Law, for instance, permitting innate control over them as over the chosen Dao focus.

Unlike the standard Dao stages, the last true stage would be the fourth one, without room for significant improvement, as it would be a form of complete control. With innate control over a Dao, and control of all aspects of the world through it, one would attain complete control over a chosen Dao and therefore all other Dao, freely transforming anything into it or it into anything else, as that was what complete control entailed. It sounded rather amazing at first, but it hardly outweighed the current capability of planar energy within the Planar Continents.

It could become nearly anything, and many things could be broken down to planar energy, so it was a theoretical Dao in the stage of Complete Control. The three other true stages would be First Glimpse, for the first, Feeble Grasp, for the second, and Firm Grip, for the third.

She had arrived at these names rather spontaneously, but she liked the sound of the names, and didn’t honestly believe that she would reach anything beyond First Glimpse within her expected lifespan, even if she successfully reached beyond the ninth realm. To understand the whole world would be absurdly difficult, and it showed in her current inability to reach Full Success or First Glimpse on her own, without the aid of the heavens.

‘Anyway, I don’t intend to limit myself to the Dao of Law while fighting Primordial Metal, so it is not a problem in the present, only for the future. Perhaps gathering the five elements from the Primordial Deities will give me some insight into reality…’ she thought, skipping across the water towards the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom, ‘For now, let’s see if I can’t come to an agreement with this lot.’

There were two outside nations that she could have gone to, the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom and the Heavenly Peak Court, as both were bordering the Empire of the Dawn and thus able to attack it easily enough. She knew little about them, as they hardly kept in touch with Yi City since their separation and Yi City’s decline, but she had heard a few things and observed a few memories relating to them in her everyday mental scans of just about everything she could scan. It led to her arriving at a few quick conclusions about the two nations.

First off, the Heavenly Peak Court was likely to wish to fight Primordial Metal, and would probably leapt into doing so when given the chance, but they appeared to be fond of pride and some sense of rule that placed them above Yi City or their neighbours.

Working with them would be tedious, especially if they were the first point of contact for her and the Arbiters. They would be unlikely to appreciate Yi City due to perceiving them as some wicked force that did not fall below their system of rule, and it would take some time to resolve their disagreements without compromising her interests.

On the other hand, the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom was ruled over by a more traditional, greedy leader, with less focus on justice and more on strengthening himself, and the kingdom after that.

It was not a good system in the long term, at least on paper, but it had worked well enough to let the current Coastal Lord be the seventh of his line. From the moment it was formed, it had lasted for more than twenty thousand years, or around the lifetime of three cultivators in the Linked Channels realm. Yi City had lasted far more, but rather than it setting the standard, it would be more accurate to say that Yi City was rather miraculous and that the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom was more along the lines of a typical nation of the Planar Continents.

Without the presence of Yi City, Great Leeches or the Primordial Deities, it would have been possible to see how long the nation could endure, but without their involvement they may well end before even the Primordial Deities did. This was likely to be enough motivation for the Coastal Lord to join her in the fight, and if she allied with him, then the Heavenly Peak Court ought to be more willing to ally with her.

Admittedly, she didn’t know much about the relations between the three nations, but she was willing to bet that they wouldn’t be willing to side with the Empire of the Dawn even had they been great allies previously to this.

A perfect indicator of that fact was that the two nations had not come alongside the Empire to invade Yi City, even though it would have been a perfect opportunity to claim some more lands for themselves.

‘I could offer them land, or some form of power among the districts of Yi City, though the final result has to be them joining Yi City as lesser districts, just like they had been before. I doubt that either nation deserves the position of a greater district with a leading family that has the same say as… even the Chen District, I guess.’

The Ascendant had considered how to enter the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom, as she could easily disguise herself and come in silently, or show up as the Ascendant and demand their action, or perhaps take a more diplomatic approach. Either way, she would need to make up her mind first, since she could do just about anything. Mentioning that she had destroyed a ship of the Empire of the Dawn carrying techniques might even earn her praise, provided that it wasn’t a joint effort with the Coastal Lord.

It took her a little while to consider the best approach, but she settled on approaching openly and diplomatically. A disguised approach could give her good results at first, but it would eventually need to come out that the Coastal Lord had been dealing with the Master of Yi City, and the Ascendant that had defeated the Great Leeches of Yi City. Even if she did not mislead them too greatly, they might easily interpret it as an attack against them and be more reluctant to have any kind of friendly interactions with Yi City for so long as she resided within it and had the position of authority, even if she was not technically holding any kind of official position.

However, she would still need to approach in a manner that was suitable for someone of her status and identity, or else the Coastal Lord and his kingdom might misinterpret a few things.

To provide the right impression, she approached from the ocean and let her recently acquired powers dominate the oceans, stilling waves around her and on her path towards the coast of the kingdom. Around herself, she made only a small circle of calm water, but it expanded outwards as it neared land, growing until it covered nearly half of the nation’s coastline. She made sure that this wouldn’t cause any damage nor significant disruption, but it was guaranteed to catch the attention of the powerful that claimed this land for themselves.

Indeed, she could feel a man’s divine sense covering a large portion of the ocean that she had affected, and it flickered with emotion when the change occurred, another tremble following when she stepped into it and let herself be seen by all that would look.

An entrance like that would have been rather threatening if she proceeded to excessively use her abilities, so she simply stepped onto the calm waters and progressed on foot.

She had removed her heeled boots, scale armour and clawed gauntlets back when they became useless at protecting her from Primordial Deities and the like, so it was her bare feet that touched the water, leaving no ripples thanks to a combination of technique and the Water Dao. With only her Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival visible upon her form, it was like an immortal that descended from the skies and entered the boundaries of a mortal nation.

A lot of gazes were immediately fixed upon her, but none was more obvious than the one belonging to the Coastal Lord. Whether it was intended as a warning or as a simple statement of acknowledgement, it provided her with a clear indicator of his location, and so she ever-so-slightly altered her course and headed in his direction, retaining a calm and peaceful look in the meanwhile.

‘Coastal Lord, I can come to you, or you can come to me. While I’m still leisurely striding towards you, it would be a good idea for you to make that choice.’

Her words were passed along to the man that ruled this place via her divine sense, and as quickly as she responded to come, she did not think that there would be one quite so soon. As soon as her words reached, the entire city she was approaching seemed to rise, the buildings ascending at different rates and to different heights in order to form an image that made itself clear only after a few minutes. Since she was still quite far away from the coast, not to mention the city that seemed to serve as the capital of the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom, she did not cease her advance, and let the Coastal Lord do whatever it was that he was intending to do.

A minute was enough for her to find hints of an array forming via the raised structures, though the nodes were messy and quite inefficiently arranged – and that was by her standards, which had never caught up to the level that she was supposed to have reached given her realm and general capability. Still, there were plenty of things that could be improved by sheer size alone, and this was one of them, letting a shoddy seventh realm array reach quite a high grade.

It took another minute for her to determine the nature of this array, for the structure was too complex to accurately simulate within her mind without knowing what to anticipate. As it turned out, she was facing an enormous defensive array meant to harness the power of the very waves she had stalled, with it being directed mostly towards the west and east, or the Empire of the Dawn and the Heavenly Peak Court respectively. However, there was plenty of room for redirecting that power towards the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom itself, if the need arose, and it appeared to be the Lord’s opinion that it had.

The structures continued to rise, with the one to rise highest reaching more than a hundred metres in the air. ‘A technique like this one would have been useful in Ping District,’ Wei Yi noted.

Of course, she doubted that this method could be applied to a district that had just collapsed, and hadn’t been prepared ahead of time, but understanding how this was performed could still have been highly beneficial. That was best left for later, when or while she was making a deal with the Coastal Lord, something she expected to come soon.

Just as she was stepping onto the shore, the array rose fully, and the Coastal Lord also emerged, floating in the air atop a layer of sea-like foam that bubbled beneath him. He looked down upon her, clad in royal garb and wearing a large crown of immortal gold upon his head, a beardless face surrounded by thin black hair looking down upon her. In addition, a vast aura was visible around him, the air trembling from a light blue radiance. It was obvious that he was intending to impress with his appearance.

“Who are you, woman, and what are you doing in my lands?”

“I suspect you know, but I am not averse to stating my identity. I am Wei Yi, second Master of Yi City and the Ascendant that has slain four Primordial Deities so far. My next foe is Primordial Metal, and it should be in your interest to aid me.”

“How so? The Primordial Deities are targeting your lands primarily, woman of the west. We can ignore them and reside here, safely.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you have no recorded history of the Primordial Deities and their deeds, then I can enlighten you on that as well. They seek to dominate the world, and the only reason they are currently trapped where they are is because of me and the power of Yi City,” she chose not to mention the presence of Xu Shi Meng, as she didn’t know who he truly was nor why the Coastal Lord would appreciate the presence of a man that posed a great threat to his ancestors, “The Empire of the Dawn is under Primordial Metal’s control, and if it was to take lands from our side, you can be sure that either the Primordial Deity itself or their Dawn Emperor shall seek to take these lands as well. By that point, he might even reach the eighth realm.”

Most likely, the Coastal Lord was just trying to get her to leave with his dismissive comments, but if he truly believed that he was safe, then it was best to correct him as quickly as possible.

“Oh, so the Ascendant will not be able to defeat some Primordial Deities.”

“I can beat them just fine, but a potential plan involves forcing it out into this Kingdom and the Heavenly Peak Court to have a battle far from its home territory. Since you don’t mind that, I suppose I’ll just get on with it and leave you to explain to your people why they will be threatened by an uncontrollable Primordial Deity.”

Normally, such a threat was best followed by turning around and beginning to leave, but she knew that she didn’t need to do so. Since she had come here in the first place, it was obvious that she had wanted something from a nation she previously had no direct contact with, and since the Coastal Lord appeared to have enough of a brain to get to the seventh stage and use the array of structures, he would not believe the words that he had spoken. Thus, all that was necessary was to make it clear that she wasn’t just joking around so that the conversation could move onto the serious topics.

That did not take long, for soon after the Coastal Lord diminished his aura and let some of the structures return to the ground, waving her to come closer in the meanwhile.

“Fine, we shall talk. My palace is the only place for such discussion, so hurry up before I change my mind,” the Coastal Lord said, perhaps intending to keep his proud presence among the common people of his nation, “Enter through the sky entrance, to make things quicker.”

She had no intention of slowing things down just to go all the way from the first floor doorway to one of the highest parts of the city, the floating structures not included, so she simply stepped on the air and vanished, her foot landing right upon the frame of the window that the Coastal Lord had passed through a moment earlier. There was a disturbance below, on the streets, and the leader of the outer nation was clearly caught off-guard by the speed with which she arrived, but he recovered quickly.

“If you have damaged anything, I-”

“Nothing at all. I hadn’t touched a thing other than your shore and oceans, and I mean that literally,” she replied, his words being very familiar as she was rather tempted to do the same rather often, “Now, let us talk about the most important topic of our time – hopefully, provided that the Hunger of the Beyond does not arrive soon – which is the fight against the Primordial Deities. I need your aid.”

The man sat down quietly in an excessively regal chairs, waving his hand in a prompt for her to do the same, so she did so after a while.

“Let me drop one of my pretences, if only because there are none that would listen in on us,” the Coastal Lord said, lowering his voice anyway, “I understand the gap in our strength. I had been paying attention to the west, you see, so I know that I am no match for you at your strongest. As such, I struggle to comprehend exactly why my aid would benefit you in any way, even if I and the full force of my kingdom would come to your aid and attack the people of the Empire of the Dawn, much like we had wished to do for some time prior.”

“I need two forces. Both with catch the forces of the Empire of the Dawn and force them to be divided in a more manageable manner. Primordial Metal is guaranteed to go to one of the forces if it cares about attacks, and even if not, it will still be isolated from the majority of the Empire. This gives me the opportunity to attack it without concern for the lives of others, and gives you the chance to take down the armies of the Empire of the Dawn without fear of Primordial Metal.”

“Why not the Heavenly Peak Court?”

“I chose to see you first. If you are unwilling to assist me, then the Heavenly Peak Court will be contacted next, and if they don’t put up too much of a fuss, I would work with them.”

“No, that wouldn’t do. The Heavenly Peak Court is proud and most annoying to deal with, especially when they bring out their teas and ceremonies and all of their other bullshit,” the Coastal Lord took a breath, “However, they are strong. At their best, they would be able to conquer my lands easily enough, but they have fortunately stuck to their own lands for now.”

“You’re saying they would be useful?”

“Those bastards would go around proclaiming their superiority and how all of us are unjust and flawed on every level… but they would be stronger than us. They would also create another front.”

“Just a moment ago, you said it wouldn’t do to work with the Court. You might want to explain yourself, before I end up going to them anyway and simply ignoring you. Alternatively, I could always take over this place and simply lead your forces instead. You are weaker than some of the Patriarchs I had faced in lower realms and with fewer resources,” the Ascendant said, Moon Splitter appearing in her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow with such smoothness that even she might have missed it appearing.

The Coastal Lord didn’t notice it until she brought it to her lap and began to sharpen it with her finger, which was harder than star metal and could be made rougher to act as a perfect sharpening surface for a weapon as powerful as this one.

“No need for that. On your own, you will not get far with them unless you take the same approach as you seem to want to take with me,” the man said, pulling his chair back a little, “I know more about their actions than you, I should be able to convince them if I put in the effort, which is what I want to discuss now.”

Her reply was that of the blade continuing to be sharpened as she calmly sat back and seemed to relax.

These messages were mixed enough for the Coastal Lord to be stuck in silence for quite a while before he worked up the courage to speak up. He did so with the return of his blue aura and a faint glow within his eyes, though it dimmed as quickly as it appeared when he glanced at her sword.

“You will want us to work with your Yi City, and to put lives on the line. Of course, it is for the survival of the Western Continent, but once we are weakened by this conflict, we must have a good foundation for peace, at the very least. There must be something that we receive as insurance, or payment. What can you offer us?”

“You know that you should be the one making offers, right? I’m offering to keep you and the people safe from a threat that could obliterate your nation with ease.”

“And yet, you’ve come with an offer first. Clearly, you were interested in protecting the people of my nation… even more so than I, which is saying a lot about one of us. I would prefer to make a point about your altruism more so than myself.”

“Since you want an offer from me, I can give you a perfect one – re-join Yi City. If you’ve paid attention to what I have given the city I inherited from my predecessor, you will know that there is little that I cannot offer, and that I would not share with my people,” she said, Moon Splitter vanishing as she rose to her feet and reached out with her right arm, offering her hand to the Coastal Lord, “It’s good for me, and it’s good for you, unless you value being on the top of a faction, regardless of how insignificant it may become.”

He stared at her in silence for a long while before he rose also, glaring her directly in the eyes as their height was nearly equal. His aura became more pronounced, as did his cultivation and everything connected to the source of his power, but even at his strongest moment, all that the Ascendant needed to do to break any sense of his suppression was to nudge a chain ever so slightly, and it was all dispersed.

A little more effort was necessary to prevent this from being damaging to his cultivation and body, but she could afford that much.

“I don’t know what you think you will achieve by standing around like this, but you should just give me an answer and move on. Otherwise, you can fight me, or tell me to fuck off, or whatever it is you do with people. Just skip the needless glaring and standing around.”

“… We must receive the status of a major district.”

“If you want, you must make a case alongside the Heavenly Peak Court’s leader, as Yi City does not need a disorganised arm that could be replaced with a far superior one. Remember that no matter what you try to say or do, you are still the one that is more in need of aid than us, so it would be in your best interest to drop at least some of that unnecessary pride,” Wei Yi advised, taking a step back before walking over to the window, “Just to be clear on something, you did misunderstand my intentions. I don’t really care about your nation and your people. If it was necessary to kill them all to prevent the Primordial Deities from surviving, then I would do so – only if it was truly necessary, of course.”

“You mean to say that you are different from those Great Families of Yi City, I suppose. I don’t get it at all.”

“Then that is your problem. Make up your mind, and if you make the right choice, head over to the Heavenly Peak Court. I don’t yet know where the entrance is, but I will probably not look for one, and instead head right to the top.”

“That… I would approach differently, but I won’t dissuade you.”

She nodded, then vanished from the spot, using Omit Movement in order to bypass nearly the entirety of the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom and arrive at its edge. This brief exchange with the leader of a nation did not bring her much pleasure, but it had at the very least gone well enough for her to have some hope for receiving his proper assistance.

There were steps to negotiating that she had omitted – without the use of Law, so they weren’t present regardless of her outward effort – but she had made sure to make this deal be one that the Coastal Lord believed he needed to take initiative in. Most likely, he did not expect to gain entrance into Yi City, nor the seeming acceptance of labelling the two outside nations as major districts despite them never being ones before. He was right to expect something different, for the Ascendant had no thoughts at all about letting such places join Yi City to such an extent.

As minor districts, they could be present and contribute to Yi City in whatever ways they can, and in turn receive Yi City’s assistance, as well as her own. There had been plenty of minor districts, and they had more freedom to do as they wished without besmirching Yi City’s name.

On the other hand, a major district mattered quite a bit to the image and nature of Yi City, so it was vital that only acceptable countries made their way into the ranks. So far, she had found none that would fit that description, most certainly not the mess that was the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom. It looked fine on the outside, but the time spent inside exposed numerous failures that were just waiting to lead to its collapse.

She intended to head to the Heavenly Peak Court and approach in a similarly overbearing manner, ignoring typical procedures and instead appearing to them as she wished. Provided that they accepted her offer and believed it entirely, they would have no room for complaint, as the Master of Yi City can traverse any district freely and without much consequence, even if some official rules were made to state otherwise. After all, the first one had created the very concept, and the second one brought it back from the brink of collapse with ever-growing powers unseen within the world before her.

If she wanted to do something, who could reasonably argue against her?

Of course, she would let some attempt it, especially when she wasn’t sure of something, but the Kingdom and Court neither knew it, nor would be given that opportunity any time soon.