Path of the Ascendant

A crackling lance of crimson blackness tore through the oddly glass-like sand of the north, tearing part an entity that couldn’t be described as anything but the deterioration of the world in humanoid form.

It didn’t so much move as begin existing in a different place at any one time, but it couldn’t travel instantly. There was an unknown limitation placed upon it, though those that knew enough about the world would suspect that this was due to yet another Law of the heavens, transforming natural order into something completely different, barely operating within a set of rules that needed to be maintained constantly in order to exist as they were.

This had been happening for the last two weeks, or, more precisely, thirteen days, and this whole time, Wei Yi had been deliberating upon the nature of this entity. She needed to understand entropy itself as well, but what mattered most for the moment was the discrepancy between the truth of the concept and its manifestation in the form of Entropy. That divide was the key for the death of several Primordial Deities so far, because it allowed her to employ the might of the Planar Continents to break them down and let them take their power. Without it, to oppose an unavoidable, irreversible process that might occur in all worlds in existence would be entirely silly – and impossible.

‘Unfortunately, this thing exists in a rather stable state, without any obvious discrepancies with the principles of entropy…’ the Ascendant’s mind was rather tired after thirteen days of work, so it took her a moment to stumble onto something in her thoughts.

Once she did realise it, she had the urge to berate herself for her own obliviousness.

‘Despite calling so many others idiots, among other terms, I seem to be on the top of that chain, so to speak. In theory, something at the state of maximum entropy will be stable – an equilibrium of energy and mass, something irreversible – but it wouldn’t be moving around like that. It isn’t a closed system that shifts around, but instead imposes itself onto the world in different places. Where it no longer is, the supposed process of entropy is reset. That should not be happening.’

She had been flying to chase Entropy’s wild movements, but she stopped in the air and found her footing on a nearby chain of Law, easily positioning both of her bare feet on the length of the chain.

Although the Primordial Deity did not stop, she ignored it and softly placed her right hand on her head, sliding it back until she reached the single crimson strand that held her ponytail in place. With a casual pull, she removed the strand and let her hair down, permitting it to fall down her back and settle near the back of her knees. Her hair was longer than necessary, especially when she did not use any techniques to attack with it, but it somehow made her feel more relaxed, especially when she was about to injure herself a great deal regardless of success.

There was only so much that could be displaced onto the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, and so she needed to be in her best state in order to affect Law without worry. Also, it was nice to let herself go for a bit, even if it was in an aspect as insignificant as this.

She held out her left hand, the clawed shadow aimed directly at Entropy, then placed her right hand upon her left arm, letting the meridians form a slight connection that would help support the limb even when it was expended to maintain her power over Law. There were more elegant solutions to this, like completely remaking certain circulation pathways to increase the limb’s stability, but it wasn’t worth it for now. Too much would need to be changed and moved around in order for that method to work.

“Entropy is a natural process, lacking intelligence or will. You are not. Therefore, you cannot exist.”

The outer part of her Arm burst out, the stable smoke dispersing at a rapid rate even when she fuelled it with her excess power. It was only the first of her intended assertions, so that was a little concerning, but she had grown accustomed to such things with her great experience, so her mood wasn’t affected at all.

Instead, it was Entropy that was more affected. Despite her proclamation being the simplest she could make, lacking a solid foundation that could cause significant change, the Primordial Deity had to stop and turn towards her, as it must have understood at some level that it was in great danger right now.

Of course, if she was permitted to do whatever she wished, she would succeed no matter where, as she would simply need enough time to work out the right approach before taking care of it the way she wished, but right now, she did have the chance of ripping apart the personified concept before her, and since that thing possessed even the vaguest semblance of intelligence, it naturally perceived this and reacted in whatever manner it could.

No minions could be produced, no influence upon the world could be exerted without deteriorating the very nature of the attacks it might attempt to use against her.

It was like Primordial Physique in a way, except for most of them. The entity could not manifest its will in the outside world beyond its own body, so it had to repeat its first attack against her and rush straight at her, ignoring the limitations of reasonable speed and trying to appear right next to her.

“You are able to progress and negate entropy at a rapid speed, which contradicts the very nature of reality. Therefore, you must end.”

Its advance was halted once more, but this time the chains of Law did not need to be invoked directly. Her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow was diminished once more, but the entity was left just far enough away for her to be free of its influence. She knew that her words were working, so she tightened her grip on the Arm and focused her energy entirely on it, effectively draining everything from her legs, leaving her unable to move even if she chose to later on. Still, it let her release roughly 25% of her body’s overall energy capacity and focus it purely on the task before her.

“An intelligent being is not in equilibrium, conflicting with the principle of entropy that you supposedly represent. Therefore, you must lack either the power, or the mind.”

This was an attempt to change her usual modus operandi a little, by progressively removing aspects of her opponent until nothing was left. She might not even need to kill the Primordial Deity, as the energy that is left over could simply flow into her with no other suitable host for it. Of course, for that, she would need to completely deconstruct the very nature of her foe until all that was left was energy, and that was easier said than done.

For now, she was more than happy to witness the figure of Entropy suddenly divide – both parts remaining in the same place, yet being clearly distinguishable from one another. One was nigh transparent, lacking distinct shape, while the other was more defined, possessing a clear form, yet lacked the clear signature of entropic power that clearly marked the other.

They were not truly divided, but the foundation was there.

‘So, I need to find something that would divide it further. Something that clearly marks the contradiction between the intelligent being and entropy. With that established, neither will vanish, but it will permit me to take the power of one while the other puts up comparatively minimal resistance.’

She wasn’t able to move her legs into a more steady position, nor could she shift her upper body without affecting her balance, so she was forced to stare directly at the split form of Entropy without backing down, activating her various means of temporarily boosting her power in order to deliver her next edict. Fortunately, she knew that there was one place where she was making a consistent error, and that was in equating the Laws of the Planar Continents to those she learned of the other worlds she learned of. Even if the latter seemed closer to the fundamental truth, there were differences in the current state of the Planar Continents.

In this world, certain factors existed that she could take advantage of, and obtain an even greater benefit from the world that she couldn’t receive it by contradicting it.

“Without intellect, power aside from planar energy cannot be controlled. With intellect, one is subject to restrictions and limitations related to their cultivation,” she stated, her mouth being filled with particles of former air that was broken down by the entity before her, “Therefore, the being before me cannot exist as one.”

Again, she was cheating a little by distorting the truth, but it worked just as well.

Her words seemed to shake the very fabric of reality, the twin figures before her distorting as one lost even more of its cohesion changing to something akin to a meaningless blob of natural Law. The other quickly accumulated a dantian, within which the basic planar structures of every realm formed, one after the other. The initial cloud of energy melted into a planar pool, which was then affected by the spontaneous formation of an anchor in the middle. Its energy reached out to some unseen beyond and put countless shard-like pieces into the core, which was then marked with numerous symbols.

These joined the anchor, and then flew out, forming a series of halos around the core, with the channels from within merging the inner and outer portions of the core together. Both the channels and the halos pressed down upon the anchor, pressing more and more until the anchor collapsed inwards, producing a fantastic rift that erupted with a fast quantity of planar energy, bringing this entity to the eighth realm.

Unfortunately, the situation didn’t become as simple as having one mass of raw entropic energy for Wei Yi to steal, and one simple opponent at the eighth realm that would be as easy to kill as Shi Gong without any of his evasion or recovery methods.

The power of Entropy had surged to the intelligent being, and the rest was simply the stagnant entropic energy that had gathered in the air. With nothing supporting it, the heavens scattered it, leaving the battlefield with only the cultivator half of the Primordial Deity – if it could still be deemed as such, with some of it primary features being taken away from it.

Whatever one would call it, the entity had a semi-solid appearance, yet it remained oddly incorporeal, gazing upon her with a furious expression significantly more human than the little it showed before.

Before it could do anything, Wei Yi knew she had to even the odds a little further, especially since she was still incapable of using her legs to make the typical types of rapid motions necessary for any movement technique, even her Omit Movement. It would take a few moments to recover her full range of motion, and in that time, an opponent in the eighth realm with the power of Entropy could do a great deal of things, most of which were not at all on the list of things she wanted to handle at the moment.

She was also unaware of the exact power of this entity, as there was no way that the sudden manifestation of a cultivation by some act of reality itself could produce a purely ordinary set of planar structures. They may be weaker than usual, the same but with particular abnormalities, or significantly stronger, at which point she would be at risk, so it was safest to remove the chance completely.

“Stop!” she used a traditional Command of Law to prevent Entropy’s motion, then sought a particular aspect of the entity that she could target, finding something quickly enough, “You an entity with the power of Entropy that cannot be controlled by a regular cultivator. You cannot exist.”

Removing the existence of an entity was impossible at her current limited level, but she could weaken it in a way, and therefore open it up to attacks that it might otherwise be able to evade or resist. In particular, what she needed to negate was the principle of entropy itself. Her own energy could not defeat the concept of entropy to a sufficient extent, so she needed something to weaken or outright neutralise it, giving her the chance to act upon Entropy – the Primordial Deity, not the force – for a moment or two, at least.

Her Arm was further destabilised, barely giving her anything to hold onto with her right hand. As if she faced some great wind, her hair was blown back, creating a flowing mass of crimson strands that somehow resisted any attempts to tangle them up, allowing every single strand to pass by one another almost as  if they lacked the ability to collide at all.

Despite the visual splendour, she found that Entropy’s existence was not only being maintained, but it wasn’t being affected much at all, making it clear that she had made a fundamental error in her latest assumption. She presumed, thanks to the creation of the new body and physique, that the entity would no longer be able to support the power that, out of all cultivators so far, appeared to only be usable by her, but since she had already guessed that it would be unique, she should have known better.

‘Right, I can’t just say whatever I want and get the best results. If I make an error, I might even be able to strengthen a Law I do not wish to, resulting in me getting weaker or my foe becoming stronger.’

She might have made another attempt if not for her divine sense – spread out widely, so as to ensure that she wouldn’t have an unwanted intrusion into the fight after the last one – catching sight of some hooded figures dressed in the attire of the Perpetuals of the Worm.

On one hand, their presence was meaningless. They lacked much real power. On the other…

“Give our faith to the Great Worm, so that it may consume the gods!”

“Our faith to the Great Worm!”

Technically speaking and from what Wei Yi had been able to gather, the Great Worm was akin to a construct built around Entropy to encase it. It did not possess much of a life of its own, but it had endured with enormous vitality for over a million years. If one wanted to think of it in a certain way, it could almost be said to be part of Entropy.

Therefore, if the entity before her was still Entropy, as it had to be in some part in order to use the Primordial Deity’s power, then the Great Worm could be said to still exist around it.

‘Yes, do give your power to that Worm! Make it the strongest concept in the entirety of the desert!’

Faith wasn’t as solid of a concept as planar energy, and did not have direct power, but when a sufficient number of people believed in something, it could change the world. Most of the time, it would only be through the deeds of numerous people flowing into a hand that nudged the path of fate, and it did not have a direct effect upon the world, but this was one thing that Law amplification and redirection could take advantage of incredibly easily.

Thus, she fuelled her Arm with what little energy she still had to spare, and let its power reach out and grab onto the chains of Law, feeling them reaching out from the Perpetuals to Entropy, and beyond.

“Give our strength to the Great Worm, so that it may guard from the invaders!”

“Our strength to the Great Worm!”

‘Not really an otherworldly force, here, but sure, do continue,’ Wei Yi commented inwardly, trying to find those faint shifts and rumbles of the chains that would give her the necessary power over her foe. It was difficult to get a grip on a concept she had not explored so far.

“What was, will be! What will be, was!”

It was an odd pair of phrases, yet this was the exact kind of thing she as looking for. So long as there was enough of a belief that the Great Worm still existed, it could be manifested into reality with the energy that the Perpetuals of the Worm were releasing, and the more they prayed to their Great Worm, the easier it became to isolate chains that resonated with their words. Some of the chains even began to near one another seemingly out of their own accord, though another moment let her confirm that their prayers were not purely simple utterances. Fortunately, that was also to her benefit.

“We must do our part! Grant our will to the Great Worm!”

“Praise the Great Worm!”

‘There!’

With her outstretched Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, she grabbed the air and found dozens of chains falling into her grip, most reaching far and passing through both Entropy and the Perpetuals. She held them tightly, her claws ensuring that each chain remained within the confines of her fingers, which dug into the smoke of her palm and might have drawn blood had her left hand still been flesh.

All of them responded to slightly different aspects of Law, and all of them were able to affect the entity that stood frozen before her, held in place by forces unseen even by her.

“The Great Worm is Entropy. Therefore, Entropy is the Great Worm,” she stated, “Entropy was contained by the Great Worm. Therefore, you shall be subdued all the more. The Great Worm was undying for a million years, and it still persists. Therefore, you must remain within its restraint.”

Everything she said was only legitimate on the surface, like the Worm’s continued existence – the shell remained, but it lacked any semblance of life and might even rot away soon enough, if given the time – but that didn’t matter. She could feel the necessary resonance, and she could clearly perceive the manifestation of a faint shell around the entity that had been Entropy. It was faint, immaterial, yet it could grip this thing with surprising strength, further amplifying the previous restrictions placed upon the entity.

Somehow, there was even a certain level of feedback, waves of energy flowing back into her and filling up the meridians that she had emptied. Just like that, she regained her freedom of movement.

It might have been a good idea to take a step back just to be safe, but she was now in a very good position. To retreat might mean to surrender a great advantage, and so she decisively took a step forward, keeping her left hand outstretched and thus nearly coming into direct contact with the spectral form of the restrictive ‘Great Worm’. She removed her right from the smoky skin and flesh, instead reaching out to the side to affect a few more chains, but also in order to bring out Moon Splitter.

“Lend our existence to the Great Worm, a being perpetual and immortal!” voices came from afar.

“Our all to the Great Worm!”

Again, their words lent some power to the chains, to her proclamations, to the faint vision of the Great Worm’s concept solidifying around what was once Entropy, but their choice of topic was once again extremely suitable. Had she designed a script for them, she might have gone with very similar focuses and similar terms, but there would have been no major changes made to the things that they said.

They wished, prayed for an immortal Great Worm, but if seen from the right perspective, they would also be said to announce that the Worm had never perished nor departed from the entity that it contained.

“A mortal body cannot withstand the pressure of the Great Worm. Therefore,” she channelled her power into Moon Splitter, a lance of crimson blackness bursting out the shards at the tip and forming a longer blade as she lifted it and brought it back, as to give herself the widest and strongest swing she could, “You must perish, for the sake of the world. For the sake of us all.”

As she seemed to have done a few too many times before, she raised the sword and then dramatically brought it down, ignoring the Worm’s guarding shell and delivering her blow directly to her foe.

She merely needed a single command to achieve this, dispersing that outer shell, and giving her a perfect shot at the humanoid figure within, letting her Moon Splitter crash directly onto the middle of the figure’s head with a vast degree of force. The mere motion split the sands of the north and dug an enormous valley into it, and the moment of impact released a heat that turned the sand, which was already glass-like due to the heat of the north, to a pure sheet of liquid glass, which was then set in place by the raw force of the strike.

It set in a manner akin to a parted sea, glistening wondrously, but unable to match the extreme north’s Glass Wastes, where only glass existed in various forms, living and otherwise. Fortunately, the visuals were not important.

She cared far more about the severing of the figure before her in two, and the power that surged from within. To any other woman, it would have been lethal, but her body must have gotten used to it.

There was none of the pain she had grown accustomed to in the process of the energy travelling through her body and to her dantian, and it managed to go straight there and instantly merge with her cultivation. A moment was all that she needed to push through to the peak of the eighth stage, and then another passed before she burst through the figurative doors of the ninth stage.

As before, two breakthroughs occurred, one after the other, for the regular stage and perfected stage. There were no major changes to her True Apertures, but they were clearly growing stronger in preparation for the eighth realm. In the Imperfect Rift realm, the unusual arrangement of ten circles, each larger than the other and positioned together perfectly, her Apertures would stabilise the rift, and potentially permit it to expand or change to something else. Perhaps it would be fantastical, or merely powerful, or something entirely unexpected. Either way, she had some expectations, and was looking forward to what she might be able to accomplish.

The next realm wasn’t even that far away now, as she had been brought straight into the peak of the ninth stage of Oblivion Halo, meaning that the next Primordial Deity she killed would bring her straight to the eighth realm, provided there were no abnormalities or surprises associated with this realm.

‘For now, though, I need to take care of all of this,’ she meant two things by this, and the first was easiest done by putting Moon Splitter back into the House of Gold, then turning to the Perpetuals of the Great Worm.

Omit Movement placed her near them, still in the air above the sand, yet within a hundred metres of them. This was enough for them to see her, and more than enough for her voice to be able to reach them without needing to add in certain semi-malicious elements like the Lion’s Roar, which wasn’t exactly meant to be used simply to amplify their voice across greater distances. There were other methods for that, and the ever-useful ability to transfer ideas via planar energy or spiritual perception.

The Perpetuals of the Worm noticed her immediately, but they did not respond, as if they did not know what kind of stance to take with her.

Wei Yi decided to clear it up right away, “The Great Worm had been containing Entropy, one of the Primordial Deities. Recently, the Worm fell, but now, so has Entropy. When it comes to Primordial Deities, I currently have the confidence of defeating any Primordial Deity that comes our way, so I’ll protect you. After that… I shall do my best. That’s all I can promise.”

She did not wait for their response, nor did she keep an eye on them after disappearing. What they thought didn’t matter much, especially without someone like her amplifying their ideas to affect an entity or force. Furthermore, she did have something more important to handle, the second point of note, and it was that she might have finally reached a point that many cultivators would come across, especially those that had not continued to train and strengthen their bodies after they reached the second realm and beyond.

As she appeared in the far cooler portion of the northern sands, a burst of wild oblivion essence burst out of her right arm, tearing several lightning bolt-like shapes within her flesh before they healed a moment after.

‘My body, despite the reinforcement from all the times it has gotten damaged, is not keeping up with the growth of my energy. My physique energy is growing, but it is not directly representative of my physical state, so I cannot rely on that alone to judge the state of my physical strength,’ she assessed easily, ignoring as another arc of crimson light burst out of the side of her neck, ‘Ow. Fortunately for me, I do have something I can hunt to solve this problem by quickly increasing my understanding.’

She turned to the place where Primordial Physique resided, then appeared not far from the spherical dome around the Primordial Deity.

It had no minions nor a proper territory, like Entropy, so the weakening of the barrier did not affect the area around it as much as with the other Primordial Deities – Primordial Corruption especially – but it did appear to encourage the Primordial Deity to attempt an escape from its confinement. A consistent drumming on the dome could be heard from far away.

Before she attempted to stride inside, she sat down on a dried root that formed beside her, and looked.

The rampaging sparks of oblivion essence wouldn’t kill her, and they wouldn’t give her the necessary push to empower her body to the extent that it could endure the energy, so she wasn’t in a significant rush to take down Primordial Physique.

On the contrary, if she sat around for long enough and took in Primordial Physique’s motions and strikes, she might be able to elevate her understanding of the human body ahead of time, and then combine it with the natural boost in Dao comprehension from slaying the Primordial Deity to form a stage beyond Full Success, though it would still be rather lacking in comparison to a True Dao stage, provided that she even had the ability to reach such a thing.

‘Whatever the case, I’ll just wait here for now. The phoenixes should come over soon enough.’