Path of the Ascendant

For the first time in many years, the Ascendant got to experience being unable to accurately perceive the flow of time. Within the realm of Yin and Yang, none of her usual methods worked, and even the infinitely helpful internal biological clock seemed to fail completely.

That combined with the rather monotonous nature of the fighting to obfuscate the time spent within, though she was hardly bored as a result. If she did suddenly find the confrontation so simple that she could spare the time for other things, she would go through her memories, deduce the exact time spent from her perspective, and then compare with the passage of time in the Planar Continents to confirm whether she had been placed into some form of temporal restriction, with time being slowed down on the inside to prevent her from getting out as quickly.

Unfortunately for her, the fighting was made consistent only by the methods of her foes. They had a pattern to their movements, one that she had understood within a few rounds of the pattern, but that didn’t mean that she could suddenly exploit it. Her strength was barely sufficient to block, evade or negate their strikes when she had entered and knew little about their current methods, and it remained that way.

To put it a little more precisely, at first she could only defend, and now she could use certain moments to disrupt the situation for a second or two, but the problem was that she lacked the next step in that process. She didn’t have a method to take them down or escape after a disruption.

None of her attacks could kill one of the Primordial Deities, and the Dao Domain she had invented, even if it was easy to repeat, couldn’t be used here. Whatever space she was in refused to show its workings to her, and so she couldn’t substitute her own Laws in place of existing structures. With the presumably long period of time spent in the strange domain, one might have imagined that she could come up with something that worked well enough, but it appeared that luck was not on her side in this regard.

She understood this to be the case after a few experiments, so she chose to act in a different way instead. The domain around her appeared to be centred on her, but it didn’t restrict her movement, as far as she could tell. So, logically, whatever her current relation to the outside world, she was still moving through it at some speed.

Hence, she chose to travel to the north-east, or what seemed to be that direction. Most likely, if the domain was intentionally obscuring her senses, her perception of direction would have also been affected, so she might be travelling in any direction at all, or nowhere, but it was better to try something than do nothing at all. Her destination was not any of the districts within her control, and she most certainly didn’t wish to draw too close to the lands of the remaining Primordial Deities.

Rather, she went to the only spatial realm near the Yi District – Testament.

What might the Ascendant want to do with two Primordial Deities and a spatial realm? A curious individual could find the answer if they went back to Wei Yi’s first time away from the Yi District, when she still had a different name and identity.

In short, she simply wanted to use the particularities of spatial realms to grant herself an edge, though there were many things that could function as said edge.

Before she could consider anything about that, there was the issue of determining that she was either near or in the spatial realm, and that was also something she couldn’t find an answer for right now. If something came up, she would take note right away, but until such a thing emerged, she simply had to continue fighting and travelling, moving slowly but surely – hopefully – to her intended destination, and letting her Arbiters take care of the other problems that Yi City would face while she wasn’t around to actively protect them.

Ideally, they would make use of the time to improve and gain a degree of independence that her intervention had unfortunately removed, but she would hopefully also spend little time in the domain and not need to risk Yi City while it was still in an unsteady and dangerous period after the Western Continent had undergone a great deal of change.

‘I must have been here for a long while if I am starting to wish for their fighting pattern to actually change,’ she concluded at some point, but for better and worse, nothing happened as a result.

First, the pair of Primordial Deities used their right hands to send vast physical force in her direction, which she mostly redirected to strike at one another, dispersing the rest across her body in a manner that only inflicted a small amount of pain. She contained some of it via her riposte techniques, then used when the pair produced a series of orbs from the domain they were in and launched their own variants of the attack at her.

That energy was used to break up a few of the energy orbs, mostly from Primordial Yang that created the most chaotic attacks and made it far more challenging for her to evade them, whereas Primordial Yin produced simple and reliable beams that were easiest to handle.

All of the beams that she could not nullify were made to miss with a surprisingly simple method, which was a combination of the final destination of the beam being determined just a moment before it was released and that they were unwilling to target the other Primordial Deity of the pair. In theory, the two were meant to be opposing due to their nature, but her presence might have made them unite in order to take her out first and focus on resolving their own disputes later. She didn’t know if the Primordial Deities communicated with one another, so it was hard to determine whether this behaviour would have occurred had she appeared at an earlier point in time, before handling so many of them.

Whatever the situation was, she abused their predictable behaviour to only need to resolve around a third of the initial beam orbs that had been produced by her opponents.

In order to handle this, she relied on some previous contemplations to produce Prism Refraction, a technique that generated a series of prisms that were able to break up beams and redirect them rather easily. The biggest problem was the planar energy cost, but the Imperfect Rift served to recoup all loses rather quickly, meaning that even that was not a significant issue. It would be if she decided to use that moment to attack, but it wouldn’t be a good time in general.

After that, they manifested a circular area wherein their powers intensified and caused ripples within the domain, clashing in the centre and producing powerful pulses of force. Her Law was most useful here, as the waves were not exceptional in their nature. She could weaken them and use their momentum for herself with the minor cost of the Arm dissipating by one third.

This was a very minor problem also, as her five paths were sufficient to restore it within a few moments, and let her handle the problem of their next attacks.

Using the energy built up as a result of their collisions, they produced swords with which they struck, appearing around her regardless of where she had gone in order to evade the attention of the previous wave-based attack. These swords were not beams, so Prism Refraction didn’t disperse them, and they weren’t casual waves that she could wave away. Her Weapon Dao and Sword Dao could apply to a small extent, but the more she fought against them, the more she realised the practical difference between her own comprehension and that of the heavens.

Of course, she didn’t mean to say that the heavens had lacking knowledge or anything of the sort, but when the majority of the Dao was made up of information unavailable to her, and not contemplated by her, it made the Dao nigh useless. Her Dao of Law was perfectly maintained in the domain specifically because it was her own, so even with altered and distorted Laws, she could affect it to a sufficient extent to get by.

In this case, she opted to employ her authority over the elements to convert the nature of the strikes a number of times, reducing their effectiveness every single time.

First, she made the swords – a metal weapon inherently – turn to flowing water, which could also cut if it flew quickly and directly. The mighty current turned to blunt wood, which could strike as strongly, but lacked an edge and could even be described as rather brittle. Once the sharpness was gone, she removed the blunt force by changing it to flame, which could soar rapidly and reach great distances with ease, yet lacked sufficient physical form to impact someone. Generally, it was the expansion of heated air that blew people away when one thought of an explosion.

Thus, when she returned the strikes to metal, they lacked the edge and the force, in theory. In practise, she had negated only small portions of those factors, and it still hurt a lot when they stabbed through her protective methods and tried to carve her up.

Still, she survived, and her body recovered, as it was good at doing. Then, it repeated.

The cycle was very simple, and it was mostly their overwhelming power that made it difficult to go against the Primordial Deities of Yin and Yang.

She did also need to invent a number of methods on the spot, which was made slightly more challenging by occurring in the middle of a battlefield against foes that never stopped for more than an instant. Had she been someone that had stuck to an established path and relied on existing knowledge to progress rather than seeking her own methods, she would have had a lot of difficulties in handling this matter.

Their fight continued for some time longer, though she still had no true notion of time and could only count the total number of loops. The issue was that the domain could have any number of effects upon time, so she was either there for a few seconds and simply moved with absurd speed, or a thousand years and was simply slowed down quite significantly.

Whatever the case was, the moment that she had felt something around her change – for one in however much time she had wasted there – she had to go into action. As soon as Primordial Yang and Primordial Yin manifested their beams, the many orbs that produced them to be more precise, she expended a greater quantity of her energy than usual and shifted her focus in its entirety to escaping the domain that they had ended up in. She had little expectations of shattering the spatial realm with whatever she did, as she intended to use Testament’s Laws against it.

The last time she had journeyed through it, she had a good idea of how it functioned.

In particular, she knew that due to its similarity to the Planar Continents and the array drawn within, she could perform a certain combination of actions that would grant her the greatest chance of success possible. To begin with, she simply ceased using her flight method.

She couldn’t be sure when she could land, or if she was in the air to begin with, but she simply posed herself in a standing position and relied on her absurdly powerful physique to endure whatever landing situation would follow. At the same time, she focused her energy and directed a beam into the ground, simultaneously attempting to influence both the spatial realm and the outside world at the same time, relying on different connections to accomplish both.

It didn’t matter whether or not she had a connection with only the spatial realm or the Yi City Web, but so far as she could tell, she had access to both. She simply lacked the ability to perceive them fully.

Thus, so long as she went all out, she couldn’t fail to accomplish something of use, and even the worst possible outcome likely involved her survival, albeit in a poor state. The amount of power and energy that she could unleash with sufficient effort would produce an utterly devastating effect that could end the lives of the vast majority of those within her vicinity, but her body had a degree of resistance to it.

Rather, she would need to be most concerned about the collapse of the spatial realm if she did that, as she was sure that her current cultivation realm was sufficient to repeat the Kong Holy Grounds incident and set the spatial realm on the path to destruction with one move.

Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang both adjusted to the switch in routine by heading straight to the last step, bringing out swords and slashing at her, but they were met with the sudden blast of invisible yet overwhelmingly bright light that burst out of nowhere. It shrouded the Ascendant and immediately got to eating away her skin and Crimson Robes, but it also repelled both the yin and yang, dispersing much of the edge of their blades in the brief time that they were in direct contact.

More importantly than that, the energy tore through their domain, the hole forming the moment that they were disrupted from their endless cycle of attacks. She could see the ground of Testament, the shine of the nearby entrance to the spatial realm. Her perception of the outside world also returned, and some sense of the time that passed came to her.

‘A month and three days! It’s the first of a new year? How the fuck did it take this long? What even happened? How… how come Primordial Corruption hasn’t reached very far? Seems a bit odd…’ her quick examination of the outside was briefly interrupted with that particular point of interest, but she switched back to her current priority right away, ‘I don’t know how the domain formed, but it could reappear at any time if they return to their previous resonance. I must take care of them right away, and if that means sacrificing a spatial realm…’

The only thing she needed to do before deciding on her course of action was thank her past self for not letting people settle in Testament, as it would have caused a number of problems in the present.

With all of the power she had produced, and all that she still had within her, she willed Testament to resonate with the Western Continent, and once more acted in both. A great beam, imbued with all the principles of Obliteration and Elysian light, both of which disrupted the world and spatial realms in their own way, manifested in the sky of both worlds, and crashed into the gateway on one side, and the centre of the small world on the other.

Both lands shook, the earth quaking and shattering with ease beneath that might, and the Primordial Deities of Yin and Yang were not the equal of this resonating force. The second that their rhythm was disrupted and they were unable to return to their previous equilibrium, she knew that they were weakened, but she didn’t attempt to go in for the kill. Perhaps she could pull it off and end one, and maybe the other wouldn’t grow stronger, but she needed certainty in this moment, and she would go to great lengths to ensure that it could be achieved in this moment. Hence, she directed her power at the world.

Primordial Yin produced numerous small orbs of concentrated energy from the air, the natural chill granting them power, but the foundation of Obliteration was Ire – more precisely, Ire against Law. Yin and Yang, the five elements, the five forms of true planar energy, and everything around them, had Law at their core, and thus the rebellion against Law distorted its power as well.

Where there was cold, heat suddenly pervaded the space, in its most primal form. What cold lights of yin remained were powerless to inflict much harm upon the Ascendant, and Primordial Yang did not fare much better. The heat that it had focused into blazing rays was snuffed out as if it were a mere candle amidst a terrible snowstorm atop a mountain peak, where the lightest of winds would bring down a town were it to pass through one.

They still attacked, and they still hit her every rather often, but every single attack was weaker than the damage she had done to herself in bringing down this beam, before she had escaped from it. Though she spent most of her oblivion essence, physique energy, bloodline power and killing will purely on her attack on Testament, leaving her body and face increasingly marred by numerous cuts and burn marks from the various attacks of her foes, she stood still and focused without regard for their actions. So long as she lived, she could recover, and so long as they were taken down, she would make sure to survive.

She knew she had succeeded when, at the very centre of the crimson blackness, a strand of warp emerged. It cut through her energy, snaking aimlessly away from both her and the Primordial Deities. However, it would not be the only one.

A dozen followed, and hundreds after that, rapidly swallowing up the world and cutting through everything with absurd ease. No technique seemed sufficient to overcome the warped space, and she didn’t try to experiment, instead turning right away and rushing off to the entrance, using Omit Movement to minimize the chances of a collision with the warp. This proved to be a wise choice, for Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang were touched a moment later and were broken into many pieces instantly, as if one took a sheet of paper and shredded it on the spot.

The moment she left, the white light of Testament shook and distorted, before it exploded with brightness to rival the stars.

Wei Yi had a history of making herself and her actions known to the world around her, starting with the Kong Prison Realm’s incident of splitting the moon and showing it and the sun to the people there, but this was at a different level. Here, she had just initiated the destruction of a spatial realm of incredible age and power, within which numerous Great Leeches had lived for many years. Furthermore, when it was destroyed, it had contained two Primordial Deities, both of which were torn apart.

Perhaps one wouldn’t see it on the eastern coast of the Eastern Continent, and maybe even those on the western coast would struggle to perceive the light, but there was no doubt that the Western Continent had seen it. They would have had to, as the energy that spilled out onto the world rivalled the quantity needed for someone to reach the ninth realm.

In theory, the power of the Primordial Deities would have also been scattered everywhere, partially poisoning this sea of power to most, but something caused it to pour right into her body instead, mixing flawlessly among yin and yang and her own energy. All of it flowed into the Imperfect Right, and it drank up greedily, swallowing all it could until only the smallest portion of the rift contained violet light. That portion somehow held on until the final drops of Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang’s power settled into her body, and then it changed.

Pure and rich oblivion essence poured from a crimson rift, chains of various sizes and proximities filling the night sky within, and overwhelmed her dantian quickly. Her losses were recovered within seconds, and she perceived that it would only take a third of a minute for full recoveries in the future.

Her divine sense reached out far further than before, more than doubling her initial range of perception at the eighth realm, for her other cultivation maths had made the same kind of advance as usual. Better yet, they were fuelled by the overwhelming oblivion essence within her body, which had nowhere to go but into her meridians, through her flesh and bones, rebuilding and revitalising everything it touched.

Whatever damage had been dealt to her body was gone, and in its place her body seemed eager to improve itself further, though even the path offered by the heavens appeared to run out of ideas.

She had reached the peak of the human body some time ago, so the only path she had now was her own, and it was not one that she had been given much time to explore or tread upon. Many other matters had taken her attention, and even now she was more preoccupied with Primordial Corruption, which had finally taken some action.

Dealing with it would come very soon, even though she was not yet sure how she would do so, but for now her mind remained upon the light that had flooded the world, and the lingering vitality and power in the air.

Even if one was blind and deaf, and lacking in any form of spiritual perception, they would feel what she had done for the world had gained additional vitality and energy that it had previously been lacking in since a million and two hundred thousand years ago, when Kong Shi Meng had formed Yi City and let the Planar Continents reach their peak. It led to the Hunger of the Beyond appearing, and to Kong Shi Meng’s disappearance and near certain death, but she believed that the revitalisation of the world was the only right path to walk.

Whatever threats loomed on the horizon, whatever wished to feast on the world, they still followed some form of Law. Perhaps it would be entirely foreign to her, and would cause her great confusion and terror for a time – though the latter was unlikely given everything she had seen and had the potential to be afraid of up to this point – but she knew that they would have a fault regardless of what strengths they might possess.

Thus, she would strike them down, or she would show the world that it was possible to do so, depending on her prowess in comparison to them.

For the moment, the light of Testament’s destruction served as a beacon to indicate exactly this. She would brave the great beyond, proving regardless of other successes that it was not a road that only the old Master of Yi City could walk. She would not back down, and so the Western Continent should not be weak either.

Whether they hate or love her, they ought to take the boons of a recovering world and grow in their own ways, to surpass past mistakes and reach heights previously unimagined. For those who were thought to lack the ability to cultivate, the first realm might be within reach, and for those that had gone as far as the eighth – no more than six in the current world, even with the month she had been away – they could look on to the ninth realm. If they acted fast enough, they could stand beside the Ascendant once the current threat was vanquished, once and for all.

In a way, this growth was also a warning to the last two Primordial Deities: Primordial Corruption and Primordial Blood. The beacon of immense light signalled that growth, and if it wasn’t heeded, she would not hesitate to strike them down in similarly spectacular fashion.

After all, although she had only risen by two effective stages in her planar cultivation, her actual power had grown by far more than five times. Whatever amount of energy she could previously use within any given time had greatly increased, as the period of full recovery shrank from two minutes to twenty seconds, exactly one fifth of what it had been before. In combination with the direct flow of oblivion essence in place of planar energy, she obtained far more from this breakthrough than most others.

Better yet, she had the feeling that the next few stages would come quickly so long as she defeated one of the last remaining Primordial Deities.

Thus, she added a bit more of her own power to the current shining light so that it could linger for a short while longer. The vitality and energy that would be emitted from it would not be as great as it had been at the start, when Testament’s accumulated energy was spread out throughout the world, but it should still be sufficient to give a little encouragement to the world, regardless of who saw it.

‘It appears that Primordial Corruption had gotten the right idea and is holding back for now, and the heavens appear to be doing a good job at recovering the spatial tear I had formed with Testament’s detonation,’ she thought, ‘I should relax for a moment and focus on how I will defeat that thing…’

She perceived no clear danger from remaining near the former location of the spatial realm, but she chose to leave nonetheless, and she not only wanted to avoid the attention that she would undoubtedly receive but also find a more suitable place for her contemplation of Primordial Corruption’s power. Additionally, she wanted to have a moment to take a look at what was currently happening with her people, both the ordinary Arbiters and those that had gotten close to her across the years, including those that were bearing her children.

Having stayed away for such a long time, it would be wrong for her not to confirm their health, as some drew close to giving birth to her descendants. If another incident like the sudden appearance of Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang’s domain, she could easily miss Chao Ru’s time, and if she wasted two months, then Shun Liu Min and Miyu would also be left alone at a significant and likely stressful time.

Even with all the wonders of planar energy, childbirth was not a trivial matter, and Wei Yi would like to be present to prevent any complications.

Although she would need to be away from her children while the battle continued, she had already provided numerous instructions for the restoration of the Wei District, so it would not be a barren wasteland for her people even if she was to spontaneously die on the spot and leave none of her energy or knowledge for the Arbiters to browse through.

It was fortunate that she could do that much, even if it was only a little.

‘I’m more affected by the near future of becoming a parent than I had originally guessed, but… it’ll be fine, whatever happens with them. There’s no way that they won’t manage in a hostile world with the advantages that my bloodline and cultivation will bestow upon them.’

With that thought, she briefly appeared within Paragon, though she did not make her presence known.