Path of the Ascendant

The great titan called Primordial Earth glared at the Ascendant as she formed another sphere around the two of them, preventing it from escaping, and others from intruding upon their battlefield. All of the flowing magma upon its body boiled as it escaped from between earthen cracks and dry grey surfaces, complete with the horrendous jagged teeth that grinded against one another.

Obviously, the barrier wasn’t strong enough to hold it if it was given a moment to attempt an escape, but that would need Wei Yi to let it flee, which was not going to happen.

‘So, this thing has clearly become stronger. Otherwise, rising to the eighth realm would have been enough to replace Xu Shi Meng’s barriers myself, without any need for the world’s energy,’ Wei Yi assessed easily enough, as her Ascendant’s Library maintained all of that data without much conscious effort necessary on her part, ‘In that case, it will be more difficult to kill this thing, but I was prepared for something like this. After all, I need to get used to the fact that my Imperfect Rift and other eighth realm features permit for a rapid recovery of energy that would previously take far, far longer. I wouldn’t want to be like Shi Gong.’

Thus, she didn’t wait and began with the most fundamental of attacks – amassing oblivion essence and launching it at her foe, whether in the shape of a sphere that would explode on impact, or a lance that was intended to penetrate the foe and damage their internals.

One could attempt something like this even in the second realm, once they acquired the ability to control their energy externally and could thus produce a necessary mass of planar energy, but there was an issue when it came to the effectiveness and efficiency of such a thing. In order to match the power of a proper planar construct, one would need to expend far more energy, and this was a challenging thing to do in the earlier realms.

There was also the problem of stabilising energy, faced most by those without planar anchors, but even after that one does not immediately gain full control over the energy in the air, even if it is theirs.

An Eternal Gate, the final planar structure obtained in the final realm of planar cultivation, would permit one to gain near ultimate control over their own power, but for now, the Imperfect Rift had far better effects than her Endless Monolith, and she also had significantly more energy than before, with a greater density. So, by unleashing the same amount, she expended less of her overall pool and manifested something that could match her Obliteration beam at the lower end of the seventh realm. In other words, something very effective and efficient.

She produced a lance of crimson light and flung it at the entity, forming a dozen more in seconds as she quickly became acquainted with the exact manner in which she could accomplish this with her current skills.

The lances struck the front of Primordial Earth, but they left shallow markings upon its surface, even when it did not appear to react actively to her. Rather, it seemed like the giant was simply standing there, watching her with fury in its inhuman eyes. Such a behaviour made it a perfect target for a short while, though the more of her lances struck the Primordial Deity – and the more she was able to manufacture in the same length of time – the greater the anger grew.

After only a few volleys, that appeared to overflow, and it bent down slightly, before roaring.

This roar served as a kind of cover when it dashed forth and raised a fist boiling with magma, which bubbled and popped out to not only ignite the air, but also splash copious quantities of earth flame at her. Some of the droplets neared the level of heat achieved by Primordial Inferno itself.

Fortunately, she had been able to tolerate the heat of the Primordial Deity of Blaze even before the eighth realm, and her latest improvement had greatly enhanced her physical endurance. Thus, even without specifically using protective techniques, the intense heat was closer to an unpleasant warmth, and since she had no intention of being hit by the droplets themselves, she could avoid the most significant risk easily enough. Of course, that was aside from the fist that was scattering all of this magma in the first place, which was a little harder to evade.

Thus, she did not dodge at all, but instead placed her wrists together and took the blow directly, ignoring the fact that the fist alone was larger than her entire body.

It hit a moment later, but the collision didn’t simply involve her arms, whether the left Arm of Slaughtering Shadow or the right arm of flesh and blood, but her whole body – her whole physique, one might say. The force was spread instantly and flawlessly across her form, and her entire being came together to resist it, manifesting a force that was significantly greater than usual.

Rather than a titan crushing a fly, the clash instead resembled a man attempting to break down a fortress with no cultivation and a small hammer. The hammer and the man wielding it were undamaged, but it would take a long time for these kinds of strikes to knock down the great fortress of muscle and energy, and it would require that the fortress of the analogy didn’t act at all to prevent such an onslaught.

Wei Yi took the strike and completely negated it, absorbing its force and remaining in place, carefully positioned on the chain of Law beneath her, then used that plentiful power and redirected it back at the entity that struck her in the first place, exerting twice the amount of force she should have had.

It met the fist and caused several cracks to form atop its surface, grey dust spilling out in places where there wasn’t already plenty of magma. She followed with a series of oblivion essence lances that she had built up in the process, sending them all with just a slight delay between each one so that the final result was rather unpredictable.

Primordial Earth was not likely to actually care about this arrangement, but it didn’t stop her from practising and achieving the exact same effect overall. In the end, all lances would strike within a second, as the delay was sufficient for faster fights between experts at higher realms. Once the crimson lances were fully used up, she had to step up to the next level of technique, and she did so while manifesting a Titanic Demolisher to perform another strike in her place, giving her a moment to leap back and so the left, onto a different chain of Law.

With a wave of her left hand, a few wisps of smoke flew out of her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and were immediately replaced with her plentiful energy, while those wisps formed into a series of sharp swords, spears and other pointy implements, all empowered with the Weapon Dao, coated in poisonous ice formed from aspects of the Conqueror’s Eye set of physique abilities, glistening with a silvery tinge and resonating with her blood.

As odd as it might seem on first glance, this was effectively equivalent to the simplest planar constructs one could produce, just with every type of energy and advanced technique thrown in on top. Relative to her other methods, this was rather simple in nature.

Simple did not mean safe, however, and the moment that these were sent out, the body of Primordial Earth hardened, an additional layer of stone manifesting upon its surface and gathering on the side that was currently facing her, resulting in several inches of dense material extruding from that side. This appeared to be an instinctual reaction, not one based upon its immediate senses, since the instant that she produced a few more projectiles and directed them to fly around the entity and strike the back, a similar layer of stone defences formed at the back, albeit more slowly and with less density overall, implying a limit that could be exploited without too much difficulty.

First, though, she let the projectiles fly and then leapt in once more, this time activating the effects of her recently Physique Dao. She hadn’t been using it up to this point, relying primarily on her increased cultivation instead of anything else, but the instant she let herself acquire the vision state, she felt herself acquiring a vast range of information and comprehending even more that she had previously misunderstood when fighting Primordial Physique.

Furthermore, it was clear that just like her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, which included the concept of muscle and physique to form a superior limb, the Primordial Deities with solid bodies were also using similar structures to humans, just in a twisted and distorted manner. It was possible to exploit these factors, especially when the Primordial Deity failed to apply this fact to their tactics and methods.

Most of them focused primarily on their element of choice – not that she believed them to be free to choose at any point, of course – and used nothing else, with their physical strength coming from the raw force of their bodies. Had they been placed into human forms, like Entropy momentarily was, they would be pushovers, quite literally. They might be unable to remain standing for long, as any casual attack could throw them off their feet, right onto the ground, where their skulls and bones might fracture, among many other potential outcomes.

Thus, the moment that she could perceive their very existence from a different perspective, with new understanding, she switched her plans a little bit and triggered the other vision states to come into prominence, focusing most of all on fire, wood and metal, for those would be the most significant.

Wood opposed earth directly, fire would feed earth, and earth fed metal, so by observing those three elements, she could know all she needed to in order to defeat her foe. In addition, she kept up the Physique Dao vision state, in order to observe the musculature of the entity before her and support her own movements, and slightly reduced the visibility of the other vision states so as to not take away from her focus.

Then, she used the authority of the fallen Primordial Deities to concentrate the power of those elements around herself, and manipulate them in the most precise of fashions.

 

She did not persist in her more interesting attacks, as it would go against the most suitable method of assault, and thus the events were not particularly stimulating to look at. Worse than that, it didn’t proceed in only a few minutes, as would have been ideal for managing the other Primordial Deities, but instead took two whole days.

By the end, one might even believe that nothing had occurred the whole time, as neither of them were visibly damaged, exhausted or affected in any other manner.

However, this was only the case if one limited themselves to using ordinary vision. When one sensed the energy around Primordial Earth, what they would perceive is the strange density of metal and wood, and the odd absence of fire from anywhere near the scene. In forcing this particular arrangement, then intensifying it as much as possible, she guaranteed that elements capable of damaging earth would be unaffected, especially with metal’s ability to cut through wood. To achieve the necessary density took a long while, as she was intending to use this as a finishing move and not simply to open up a wound or two.

The moment that it was ready, a light flashed in her eyes as three circles within them lit up, one slightly after the other two. All of the fire and wood elemental energy fell upon the entity, and crushed it with such great force that the entire being was distorted and cracked, spilling grey dust everywhere.

Then, a second afterward, all of the metal energy concentrated on the sudden vacuum around Primordial Earth, colliding with it and actively devouring the earthen energy within the Primordial Deity, causing the air to suddenly be filled with the power of the earth that had a far looser grasp upon it than the energy within the body of the entity itself.

Before Primordial Earth could even begin to attempt to absorb all of it back into itself, Wei Yi stole it first and gained a few more drops of grey dust-like energy, which she put to use just as quickly by covering the entity and forcing the grey dust to do what it should. The dust represented dryness, the absence of life and energy, so even though it matched the element of her target, it would still have the ability to drain it of a certain amount of its power. Then, all she would need is one good burst directed at it, and she would have the death of another Primordial Deity under her belt.

After a moment, when Primordial Earth shifted and tried to strike her, she added a great deal of fire-type energy to the mix, causing an abnormal resonance. In an instant, the two elements merged into one, transforming with an explosion of might that burrowed into Primordial Earth’s form.

A layer of magma converged upon the entity, and then sank into its body, boiling away the life from its form and suddenly making its outer shell more vulnerable and soft, as the magma tore away all traces of stability and coherence within the structure of stone and earth. She didn’t delay after confirming that her newly created dual element type was effective, and instead leapt in and struck the Primordial Deity with her right hand, using the vast quantity of physique energy still within her body, delivering a strong enough strike to demolish the barrier she had made from the loose oblivion energy that had belonged to her.

Part of this entity caved in, and she took advantage of that to manifest an Elysian Blast infused with Obliteration energy and rend it apart, letting her sink her right hand in and grasp onto the invisible flow of earth-type energy within it. When she went to absorb it all for herself, she found that things became even simpler than before – even without touching her dantian, the earthen force bent to her will.

On one hand, she had already dominated one of the fragments of Primordial Earth, gaining her initial grey dust ability, meaning that she had a great deal of control over this entity’s element that with most of the other Primordial Deities, but on the other, her body had grown stronger and her cultivation had advanced. Although she was unable to draw upon the world’s power directly, as Xu Shi Meng somehow could, she did have a significant ability to interfere with the energy of others.

Combining these two factors meant that she was in an extremely favourable position, and it was one she used right away as she added the power of her four other cultivation paths to the equation, making use of the more powerful state of her physique energy and mental energy to deliver a powerful blow with her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and open another large tear within its body, and from it she willed the outpour of a vast sea of power, all flowing to her, all bending to her will the moment that she came into contact with it, as easily as if it was returning to its proper owner after a brief period of unwilling separation.

Of course, that was not the case, even if Primordial Mind seemed to suggest otherwise, as the Primordial Deities had come into being long, long ago, before there was any hint of Yi City’s existence, not to mention her own life. Even if she had somehow been there then and produced these entities in some manner, that energy would not belong to her now, as it would have changed too greatly.

Instead, this feeling was created by the ease of controlling their power and nothing more. As it joined with her cultivation, she felt herself advance in two distinct ways.

The first was, as one might expect, in her cultivation. Her stage had slowly been building up thanks to her Imperfect Rift, and now it was rushed forth by the power of Primordial Earth, manifesting the second stage with less ease than her previous breakthroughs, but easy enough nonetheless.

The outer portions of the rift grew more crimson, and that repeated upon the perfected stage breakthrough, shading two tenths of her rift with the light of oblivion essence. As expected, this process had begun from the first stage, and would cease as she broke through the half-way point of the realm and achieved her tenth stage breakthrough during the step to the sixth stage. From then on, the rift would change, and pure oblivion essence could spill through it instead.

After that, she could not be sure, nor was she certain what changes that step would bring.

She was more interested in the other change, one that came with the acquisition of her last Dao and elemental authority. When she obtained the Earth Dao, she felt the other Dao resonate with rapidly rising intensity, and a certain pull forced her to take a step back from the decaying body of the entity before her and manifest some of her Mysterious Magma again.

Wei Yi had stuck to her previous naming scheme for elemental energy, but despite coming up with that form after a long break from creating any new elemental combination, she now felt the inspiration for two more forms emerge.

A wave of the hand turned the surrounding dirt to thick and wet mud, which consumed the snow around it and further moistened the ground, while the air above this land also transformed to a thick mist that simply couldn’t be escaped. This was a Mud Realm, or a Mysterious Mud Realm in full, combining water and earth, and her mind wasn’t done there, as she simply waved her hand once more as some of her power escaped from her body.

The water in the air turned to steam in an instant, combining fire and water, and then exploded with vast might, shaking her position just a little.

After that, all of her other types of elemental energy flew out, forming small masses where that energy concentrated. In the end, a large array formed from those types of power, manifesting a great beam of light that could be seen from a great distance, bringing towards her the attention of many in the surroundings that weren’t already keeping their eyes upon her and her exploits.

Slowly, these types of energy converged upon her position, or, more precisely, between her two hands, unifying into a chaotic sphere of sheer madness. All kinds of colours, lights and powers sparked and burst out of this mass, unable to merge into one, and the Ascendant’s didn’t even understand what her own mind seemed to be attempting until a faint gleam of something unknown yet incredibly familiar shone from the depths of the mass, letting the unconscious and conscious mind converge and cooperate.

Even then, she could barely comprehend the moment that changed the chaos to stability – the moment when the maddening mass melded into a single sphere that resembled a gateway to another world. Stars shone through it, as if it was a gateway to another world of stars entirely unseen in the Planar Continents, but it was a landscape that she had seen before, a thousand times, and could see even now, albeit obstructed by numerous chains of Law.

It was the same sight as her cosmic energy, but there was a major difference between the two.

Her energy had been formed long ago, based upon the first realm and nothing more, so it lacked in power and complexity. Nevertheless, the overall foundation was similar, combining the elements in such a manner that it permitted her to transform it into any other elemental type with ease by amplifying it and diminishing the others. Only pure planar energy shone through, at first.

Within this Mysterious Cosmos, there was no such shine, and all forms of energy were equal in their light. This was the true combination of all forms of planar energy, and she soon understood how this difference occurred in the first place.

‘Kong Shi Meng was a man that believed in the power of pure planar energy, but somehow he had managed to produce an omni-elemental mixture, so in his later years, he must have expanded his horizons. With that, he created his initial Truth of the Universe technique and stored it in the characters, letting it form within me when the characters awoke,’ she realised, staring into the deep sea of stars, ‘He did not invent it out of nothing. He based upon the truth of the world, and handed it to me without telling me… Fuck, you are such a dick. Could’ve told me and spared me the effort.’

She felt her various Dao advance rapidly, the basic elements reaching the Fifth Stage just like that, and her Dao of the Elements advanced to Full Success. Her Planar Dao was also pushed through to the Second Stage, though it had already moved past the Full Success stage some time ago. This advance was still not purely her own, but she knew that she saw some more of the world’s truth in that moment.

With some more work, and far more comprehension, she might reach a True Dao stage.

For now, though, she dispersed the mass of the cosmos in her hands, and glanced up at the sky, where the sun had fallen beneath the horizon and left her with nothing but the stars of the Planar Continents.

These stars did not match those that she saw in her own energy, nor the stars of the Kong Prison Realm, but she could tell that there were certain similarities. Perhaps the sky was also not the same as what the people of other worlds knew, and there weren’t numerous planets and stars and nebulae out there that one could visit, if only they had the means to travel far enough and survive in the process. Perhaps it was just energy, manifesting a most peculiar form.

That would certainly explain why it was difficult for anyone to escape the boundaries of the world, though it would not answer her curiosity regarding the origin and current location of the Hunger of the Beyond. What would entities that could feed on the purest energy out there need from a world where the ninth realm was never easy to achieve?

She didn’t have the answer to that, and the name of the Hunger of the Beyond did not inspire much confidence in their communicative abilities, nor their interest in conversing in general.

Even if they began their invasion with a conversation, it would be hard to trust them.

Wei Yi released a quick pulse of energy to cleanse herself of the dust that built up on her robes, then appeared inside of the Bao District, next to the Bao Patriarch. She found him sitting before a small shrine full of abstract sculptures and tokens, though there was a pattern of crimson and silver, as well as a woven sheet of black and white that resembled the cosmos. It almost seemed like he decided to pray either to her, or for her.

‘No, not seemed like, it’s literally what I’m seeing! Where did this come from?’ she didn’t have the answer, but she was suddenly concerned that he or someone else with the same idea might try to steal hair from her to add to their shrine, so she quickly tied it back up before coughing loudly.

“Hm? Oh, Ascendant! You succeeded? You’re alive?”

“Do you think I could be a spirit that’s come to haunt you? As if I would’ve had nothing better to do than that… Do explain what I’m seeing, though.”

“What you’re seeing… Oh, this! Yes, the shrine! I wished to pray for your success and safety!” the Bao Patriarch announced proudly, “I have attempted to represent your being with these abstract images, and I hoped that the heavens would listen.”

“Right…” Wei Yi shook her head, but didn’t add any more comments, “Don’t bother with that, and instead take advance of the surge in energy over at the south of your district. Your gems might not return, but you ought to be able to gain something from Primordial Earth’s remaining energy and rebuild some new method for your district to specialise in. Collaborate with everyone in the district if the inner family cannot comprehend anything on its own.”

“I will get on that immediately, Ascendant.”

He might have wanted to say something else, but that didn’t get heard as the Ascendant vanished from the spot again and showed up near the Wu District, gazing at the distant battle between the Heavenly Masters and Primordial Invader. She hadn’t been intending to come here before dealing with some other foes, but she could sense that the Heavenly Masters were faltering.

Primordial Invader was easily one of the most concerning Primordial Deities, whether one looked at all that ever were or only those that still remained. In the long term, she expected Primordial Corruption to be most dangerous, but if Primordial Invader got out of its current restriction and rampaged, it would easily be able to ruin the Wu District. Not all may die, not all of the land would be gone, but it would certainly be a terrible thing. Since she had been focusing on minimizing the damage done by the unleashed Primordial Deities, it was only right to step in here.

First, though, she stood in place for a while and adjusted to the energy that she had obtained most recently, adjusting her cultivation so that it would be most stable in preparation for the fight at hand.

She now had access to a greater variety of moves thanks to her dual elemental types, so she had a greater chance at defeating Primordial Invader, but that was predicated on her using her abilities to her fullest, and that was hard when the most she had done with them so far was create spaces with those dual elements existing. More practise would be difficult to attain without using something like the Mirror of Potential, but she had already decided to commit to avoiding that kind of thing.

Otherworldly gifts had dangers, and the less she relied on them, the better, though it wasn’t even the danger that she cared for the most. Instead, she wished to use the more complete existence of the world around herself, to comprehend that and work on improving her every method.

So long as she put in her fullest effort, she would eventually attain the understanding she required, surpass the world’s limits, and achieve that perfect state of Law and Justice that she had desired for a long time. If she used the otherworldly gifts, no comprehension would be complete, and the time taken to replace all incorrect aspects and complete it might be far greater than doing it all in one go.

The Wu District would last for a few minutes more regardless of her actions, so she would take those few minutes and refine her understanding.