Path of the Ascendant

Eleventh day of the ninth month. The Arbiters stood by and watched as the second layer of the ghostly green barrier before them and their target, the three districts of the Great Leeches, formed and wobbled, getting closer to the first layer and clearly coming closer to being able to pose some kind of threat to them.

Around the lands of Yi City, it became common knowledge that the Ascendant was cultivating, for the plentiful planar energy of the world was constantly being drawn out by a figure that none could catch nor observe, moving around the districts under the control of the Ascendant’s Arbiters in a manner that only that woman could. Some did try and claim that this was not her attempts to cultivate – for the quantity of energy drawn far surpassed that of any known Matriarch or Patriarch, making it a little absurd in the eyes of some – but that it was instead the energy that she had been using to pretend to raise overall planar density of the world dissipating after a while.

In short, they wished to accuse her of perpetrating a trick on the entirety of the Planar Continents, for even the Eastern Continent was known to believe her words. The only problem with doing such a thing was that the energy would swiftly return, and do so in even greater quantities.

From that, it was clear that unless the Ascendant was a particular kind of idiot, she wouldn’t have allowed such a drop to occur while she was able to fake far more energy quantity in every district. She did not appear to be any kind of idiot, since nothing she had done so far had been negative to her or her goals, so those who were doubtful of her remained in the minority and had little room to proclaim their theories as having any accuracy.

None could tell what her exact stage even was until she appeared before the barrier of the three central districts with her aura being sufficient to turn the earth beneath her to fine powder, then break it apart even further until it turned to naught and blew away. Other than that, there was nothing immediately different about her, and only those with the ability to perceive her cultivation even through her passive obstructions to the spiritual sense of others were able to tell that she was at the precipice of a new realms.

They instead became curious what about the purpose of coming over now instead of when her breakthrough had occurred and finished smoothly, but that was also easily answered.

“Everyone, clear away to other portions of the barrier and leave me with a two hundred metres in any direction, or else I may hit you and I won’t apologise for it. I have warned you, so go,” she said, speaking softly yet reaching everyone who needed to hear her.

All those in the fourth realm and below left immediately, rushing as quickly as they possibly could, and those in the fifth and sixth realms left after taking a moment to look in her direction. Only the Patriarchs, Matriarchs and the dragons that chose to stand by, for it would be far, far too risky for any but them to stay. Even they were not going to fare well if they remained for too long, but they at the very least had the chance to leave, and the curiosity that came with a higher realm.

“What exactly do you intend to do?” one Patriarch asked.

“Blow this thing up and allow all of that energy to not only suffuse into the rest of the Yi City Web, but also to flood the world with planar energy. We will require it in order to elevate the level of the world as a whole, and that will be necessary in order to face the threats that will appear once we deal with the Leeches… for now, just stand back and let me handle things. You wouldn’t be useful.”

“You will use your breakthrough to unleash something devastation, won’t you?” Luo Na said, sighing, “And you’re doing it near the Luo District, again…”

“Nearest to the Ning District, but yes, I’ll likely make a mess. If that’s an issue, stand around and fix it, otherwise help out at the other parts of the barrier, but either way, don’t be too close. Hitting you and absolutely slaughtering you by accident wouldn’t be pleasant, regardless of the reason for such a thing happening… aside from a scenario in which you decide to attack me on your own, in which case I will retaliate.”

“No, no intention to do such a thing. I’m not suicidal yet,” the Luo Matriarch shook her head.

The others might have had some objections as well, but the rather flat tone of the Ascendant combined with what one could easily construe as a threat targeted at all of them persuaded them not to push the matter, even if they had problems with her. Naturally, the dragons had no issues at all, for they were aware that she could speak to Long Mingyun like an equal despite their gaps in age, experience and power, and that she was significantly more powerful than the vast majority of their own kind, who were already stronger than most humans by virtue of their bloodline.

If she was instructing them to do something, then it would be best to follow her commands for their own good, and the benefit of Yi City as a whole.

After a few minutes, she stood far from anyone else, and turned towards the ghostly green light that flooded the area. Behind it, there were almost certainly Great Leeches and those who fought on their side, willing or otherwise, but it was harder to see now that there was a second layer of light attempting to merge with the first.

However, those on the other side would be almost certainly able to see or otherwise perceive her, and so the changes on the other side began soon, with the offensive layer stepping forth to ward her off and prevent her own offensive. This was not her concern, however, because her attention was entirely upon the state of her dantian, and the overflowing energy within that was close to rampaging and breaking through her dantian and core alike.

For her, this was a first. All of her previous realms had been contained by the power of her cultivation method and the Truth of the Universe, but with oblivion essence she went beyond that which was known to Kong Shi Meng.

Her technique also lacked a degree of refinement that was present in the Mysterious Characters technique, which was to be expected from something she was making up in the moment, but it necessitated that she shift all but a minority of her focus onto the state of her energy in order to prevent great physical harm coming to herself.

That did not prevent her from being aware of what she said to the others, but she had the twin advantage and disadvantage of not being affected as much by her will and emotions. The positive was that she wouldn’t be quite as angry from a glance towards the Great Leeches and their work, the negative was that she couldn’t suppress her more biting comments, as one may put it. She wasn’t concerned about offending anyone with her words, especially not when she would soon have the same cultivation realm as the strongest forces of the Yi District and significantly more power than them, but far more power than any of them could hope to command without perfected realms.

To fix this as soon as possible she had her focus on the next steps of her technique, and the way in which she would attempt to drive her energy during the breakthrough, ‘If I think about things broadly, an eternal gate is a structure that contain a stable source of energy. I will inevitably have ten halos, in some arrangement, so I ought to make use of them and the foundation of the rift to form something superior along the lines of the azure light…’

Just as with the use of the point beams of the Great Leeches, she was fine with using a power that would benefit her so long as it did not itself come at a cost or with consequences that were unacceptable to her. So far as she could tell, the azure lights had their effect partly because they simply provided power to those that greatly desired it, but also because of some kind of will within them that affected those that they inhabited, directly or through an otherworldly gift being in close proximity. If that will was her own, or if she managed to create something like an azure light with no will at all, then it should be safe for her to use, and it might even allow her to figure out a method to affect the other azure lights and make them safe for use as well, instead of sending them away.

Although that was something she was considering, she would rather take the azure lights for herself at that point. On one hand, the simple corrupting effect of power would be reason enough to deprive others of it, especially if she could do so without harming them like she would now, but it would also be excellent to prevent the azure lights from returning to wherever they came from, or affecting others.

She would never claim that their power wasn’t attractive to her, and that she wouldn’t want to claim it for herself, but if she managed to form an azure light on her own, she could always make two, three or however many she needed, but there would be no way of simply removing azure lights from the world with the immense power that surged from within. When she collapsed a black sun, all of that power would explode outwards, and an azure light had to contain a million times of that energy, meaning that collapsing something like an azure light would be enough to obliterate the Planar Continents as she knew them.

‘In short, the seventh realm sets up the stabilising halos that permit the imperfect rift to be maintained. Under the influence of oblivion essence and the structures set up for it, my rift should turn into an… uh, name should be decided on later. I don’t have the mental capacity for that right now. In the second half of Imperfect Rift, that will be developing until a gate can be formed from the rift and stabilised to the point that it no longer draws outside energy… but what if I don’t want a gate?’

Within the standard paths of cultivation, whether one was on the Western or Eastern Continent, one would need to follow a single arrangement, and perhaps this was also the case here. After all, even with her best attempts to obtain certain results from her cultivation, it was ultimately the heavens that had the last say.

Still, if she just transformed the gate from that into something that could produce something even greater than a boundless source of oblivion essence, then she would truly have the ability to challenge the heavens. She would, at that point, be at least on par with the strongest force the world itself could produce, and then she could compete with it on an even footing. In a best case scenario for herself, the formation of an azure light would be something feasible through the system of the Planar Continents, but not a power of the world itself. Thus, she would take a step beyond, and their competition would be as uneven as her fight against a normal cultivator at a similar realm to her own.

It was too much to expect that scenario, but she would certainly appreciate an easier fight.

‘For now, though, it seems that the Great Leeches have finally figured out a way to attack me. Time to deal with this and push through to the Oblivion Halo realm…’

She raised her silver eyes and looked upon the green barrier before her, as well as the numerous orbs that were forming right at the edge of the protective layer, at the central points of numerous offensive array channels.

Her Conqueror’s Eye and Elder Watcher physique abilities were activated in an instant, both being illuminated by the faint celestial glow and the background of chains manifested from the power of her oblivion essence. That power also appeared in a faint corona around her, almost akin to the rift-like visual of Primordial Invader, except that the light of the Primordial Deity could not be likened to her crimson might in any way.

The very instant that these orbs emerged through the barrier, her eyes narrowed just a little and an invisible aura appeared right before them, slicing down and up and to the side. Each slash severed a sphere of energy and cut just a little into the unstable points on the barrier, although those recovered far too quickly for the Ascendant to take advantage of them.

More orbs appeared, this time nearly quadrupling the number of the first wave and preventing Wei Yi from targeting all of them with her Edge Replication, allowing her to see what the attack was even supposed to be. They didn’t simply fly out at a constant speed, but instead hovered a metre away from the barrier before a series of bursts suddenly occurred, randomly popping inside each sphere that then suddenly shot out at a vast speed. A strange noise that she would have expected to hear from the weapons of the Ju District’s automatons followed each burst, but that delay simply meant that it was easier for her to manage these attacks.

She simply made use of additional waves of Edge Replication to destroy those before they could strike her, but she determined that as a method of expending her overflowing planar energy, it was far too efficient and slow to use up enough.

When it came to her cultivation, the energy that was actually present in the core didn’t matter as much as the energy that she had absorbed and integrated into her cultivation. Initially, it was all about filling up her core, but in the higher realms, the core would always have full capacity and absorbed energy would instead contribute to the construction and development of further planar structures within one’s dantian.

Hence, it was not only completely safe to throw out her planar energy at whatever task she could conceive of, but it would also greatly benefit her without much of a cost, as she wouldn’t need to focus on maintaining the stability of quite as much oblivion essence. With that in mind, she switched her method of defence just a little and spread out her killing will, flooding the earth with the power of the third stage of the Yin-Yang Conduit realm. She applied the power of the conduit on all of her killing will, and even made use of her oblivion essence to further boost the capability of the conduit by as much as she could.

By this point, her technique was well known, and none were surprised to find numerous figures sprouting from the ground and striking down the incoming spheres before they could even get near, but the Great Leeches simply couldn’t do anything about it.

“Well done for coming up with a new technique,” the Ascendant suddenly said, not trying to meet the gaze of anyone in particular, “Shame you started learning far too late.”

She hardly needed to explain what she meant, nor who she was addressing. Those behind the project to transform the one layer of the green barrier into two had to be some of the most knowledgeable among the forces of the Great Leeches, and those with the greatest ability to process information and to calculate it. One thing that couldn’t be denied about the first generation of the Leeches was that they were some of the strongest in this regard, and so at least one of them would be watching her at this very moment.

As for their timing, that became obvious when the faint echo of a circle formed around her, distorting light and energy as if she was a black sun and the halo around her was the odd light that formed around such a celestial phenomenon.

Her cultivation was progressing, and the Leeches naturally took action to stop her, reverting to more familiar tactics as they switched the simple orbs to beams and planar constructs in the shapes of hands, animalistic heads and more strange images that she couldn’t be bothered to classify or identify. She shifted her focus back onto her energy, and allowed the rest of her abilities to take care of things. The Titanic Conqueror appeared behind her and spread out its four arms within which the four distinct energies gathered to hold back the incoming attacks. It was able to act without direct and constant instruction directed at it at all times, so she made full use of that ability.

With enough killing will spread out to counter a few dozen thousand attacks from the Great Leeches, enough physique energy to support the continued use of the Titanic Conqueror for at least as long, while empowering the momentary phantoms of killing will using the banners to make their attacks capable of taking out several enemy offensive measures in one go, she was completely safe.

From the outside, it seemed that there was an immutable barrier between her and the attacks coming her way, but she cared the most about the manner in which her cultivation decided to progress on this particular breakthrough. Generally, all five of her paths would take a step forward at once, sometimes with her killing will leaping ahead in between breakthroughs and thus not advancing quite as much, but this time the individual paths seemed to be acting almost on their own, with the first being bloodline power.

Her veins were filled with a vast power as everything that her blood touched transformed, every blood vessel seeming to turn to pure light as they changed to immortal veins. From this, not only did the bloodline multiplier rise to the seventh realm’s first stage, but the final product of that complex equation was further doubled, meaning that her spiritual perception rushed out to distances unimaginable to her in the past.

The rest of her energy was naturally affected in a similar manner, her killing will phantoms growing significantly denser and tougher just as their weapons did, allowing their attacks and defensive measures to take out the beams and planar constructs without a single failure to do so in one strike.

Once the power of her bloodline combined with the greater density of killing will, that also advanced by a stage, and pushed forward the realm of her physique energy. Physical Amplification turned to Mortality Extrication, the influence of her physique vein network bursting out to cover the entirety of her body, her every particle changing alongside the previous influence of bloodline and once again repeating her experience with every single realm prior to this. She had no ultimate destination set out by a bloodline, and her physique was also changed by all of her work up to this point, and the numerous physique abilities she had managed to absorb up to this point.

Thus, her form had no necessary changes to undergo, but instead to improve that which was there.

Every crimson strand hair gained an even more vibrant shade, every muscle became even more powerful, and her whole existence’s nature was further clarified to herself and all others around her. For her, it was the former that mattered, for her current path needed no confirmation nor affirmation from any other than herself, and no denial of her attempts to change the world would matter until she had completed her work.

Right then, the physique abilities that had remained still for some time suddenly leapt forward, and the first to advance was her core physique – the Yin-Yang Ascendant physique. From the Imperial Yin-Yang Ascendant, it rushed forward, the incredible yin and yang gaining an even greater intensity until she could say without a shadow of a doubt that there was no purer state for either form of energy than what she now possessed. The dawn light turned to raw heat, a plasma bound by her will, and the silver light of the moon turned still into an absolute frost, completely freezing all within its reach.

Sun’s Regalia and Moon’s Regalia followed, advancing to their Royal Regalia states. The emblem upon her chest shone for a moment, having been suppressed for countless days, but their separate states suddenly merged into one, half of a sun and half of a moon remaining without any overlap upon her skin within that same Royal state.

She could only name the new physique the Celestial Regalia before being forced to move on to the next pair of physiques that underwent that exact same change, merging from Bright Sun and Soothing Moon to the second, Luminous stage of Blooming Cosmos, manifesting itself within her eyes as the untainted cosmos, dark and yet bright beyond measure, with a pure white celestial object occupying the positions of her pupils.

In fact, it seemed that all of her physiques would merge when the Golden Form and Silver Form also manifested upon her skin at once, but then merged into a single bronze shade that was almost identical to her skin colour, making it difficult to tell exactly when the Imperial Alloy Form faded from sight.

Immortal Mortal and Mortal Deity also came together, blending into the Celestial True Existence, yet another physique that she had seemingly created with her body acting as the forge. The rampant nature bestowed onto energy by the Mortal Deity physique vanished, the stability of the meridians intensified by a dozen times, and yet she could feel that she would have even more control of her energy from then on, as if the boundary between flesh and meridian was removed completely. In this regard, the name that came to her head represented that distancing from an obsession with certain ideals, like the image of divinity that was so sacred in the eyes of some. She did not need to be anyone, but if it would help her, then she would become anything that she considers acceptable.

The development of Deepened Pool was less impressive from a glance, but the manner in which it rapidly consumed some of her current oblivion essence and forced her cultivation forward helped a great deal. In addition, the Superior Deepened Pool also expanded the full capacity of all of her forms of energy by several folds with no other cost.

Her Glimmering Heart advanced to its peak, the Celestial Glimmering Heart, and that advancement combined with one other distracted her from the rest. Certainly, something like the Soul of Cinder physique advancing was incredibly noteworthy, for the power of the embers taken from others had greatly contributed to her current strength, but she simply couldn’t allow herself to be distracted from the manner in which a series of physique abilities took a bold leap forward.

The Conqueror’s Eye suddenly turned red, the blackened crimson aura becoming more alike to her current oblivion essence, and with it she gained the Elder Shaper’s Grasp, Awakened Elder Watcher and Red Titanic Conqueror physique abilities, all of them becoming prominent on the outside immediately.

Behind her, the form of the Titanic Conqueror transformed in a burst of raw power, the previous state being discarded entirely. Instead, the whole figure was robed in grey, a hood revealing only a field of crimson stars and nebulae, with the cloth ceasing at the four arms and turning into the respective outfits of the four segments of the Conqueror’s Eye. One was protected by star metal, another was covered in thin yet impenetrable dark leather, a third was decorated in a strip of stars condensed into cloth, and the last retained the robe of the rest of the body.

All four arms were brought forward, palms facing a central point at the level of the Titanic Conqueror’s chest, but in that moment it matched the height of the Ascendant, who also brought her hands forth.

Both of her limbs crackled with the colours of the stars, of oblivion essence, of killing will, of physique energy and with the radiance of her bloodline, even though one was made of flesh and another was not.

In fact, in this brief moment, her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow approached infinitely close to that perfect stage that she had wished for, of free movement and perfect equivalence to her original limb in all the ways that mattered, but this was a transient thing that she might only be able to duplicate after the breakthrough if she had a really productive time in the Ning District, which she faced and focused her will upon.

Most importantly, the phantom of a ring around her, of the first halo of the presumed ten, finally began to solidify as she could no longer be said to be in the sixth realm. At that point, the horizontal halo suddenly shook and began to rotate.

It used the sides of the core within her dantian and the air outside as the axis on which it spun, and every single full orbit made the halo more stable and more tangible, with all of her energy becoming even stronger with every single rotation. Most significantly for her, at this particular moment, was the clear development of her spiritual perception, and the manner in which it grew to reach even further beyond, but most significantly, gained a level of stability and raw force that couldn’t be overlooked.

Of course, with her attribute of spiritual perception, what couldn’t be ignored was, and what should be seen wasn’t. That was the strange power of the Hidden attribute, and once the Absolute power of the soul leaked into the strengthened spiritual perception, it neared collapse nearly instantly. However, it remained stable, and then pierced right through the Yi City Web’s barrier.

An instant changed the calm and subdued silver of her perception to the dark shade of immortal gold. It poured out from her form, both solid and ethereal, piercing the ground and travelling rapidly through the air, perceiving the entirety of the barrier and going far, far beyond. The gold light went beyond, to the borders of the Luo and Chu Districts, and even further out, even reaching the edges of some of the districts she had never been to before ceasing, and stabilising in a new form known to the world as divine sense.

She was able to see the district of blacksmiths with immense clarity, observing all of the measures taken by the Great Leeches, and created a plan within a single breath.

Her energy focused onto a single point, infinitely small yet enormous, and the oblivion halo that had been spinning around her ceased its movement for that moment, the ring pointing towards the Yi City Web’s barrier alongside her hands, and those of the Titanic Conqueror.

The secondary layer of the barrier, the offensive portion that had been continuously attempting to barrage her with ineffective attacks, receded right away and put up only the defensive portion to resist her imminent attack, for none of the Great Leeches could possibly underestimate the Ascendant after everything she had done. All of the green light grew denser, the offensive portion was outright disassembled a moment after that, but it was clear from the further reinforcement of the barrier and the appearance of several additional layers behind the first – which desperately attempted to form fully before the attack came – that the Greats did not believe in the strength of their defences against her.

They were right to doubt them.

When the small point burst forth, the power of five cultivation paths all in the seventh realm momentarily shattered space, exposing the cosmic void on the other side, and pierced the green barrier as though the resulting beam had passed through paper. All of the planar energy condensed into those obstructions scattered, and the beam instead fell on the wall of the Ning District, melting the metal without delay.

One moment was all that was needed to permanently damage something akin to a monument of Yi City, a thing that had stood for a million years without any breaches or damage. More importantly, however, it was that moment that allowed the War of Ascendancy to resume.