Path of the Ascendant

The Ascendant changed her mind about staring at Primordial Inferno’s chest, and switched to its ass instead, not that it made too much of a difference.

Both fluctuated with the flames of its body, so the sizes of its assets changed constantly, and thus one could look wherever they wished and see the full array of physical sizes within the conventionally accepted range of attractiveness within a short amount of time. If they lingered, that variety would somehow increase exponentially and infinitely, for the tongues of flame never quite settled in the same places as before.

This was not her goal, of course. Rather, she was attempting to understand what it was that the changing flames meant on a far deeper level, so that she could have some influence over flame and the ability to negate Primordial Inferno’s absurd level of control over anything even vaguely blaze-related.

It was a rather difficult task, and she was slowly starting to realise that she was not going to be able to get anywhere with just staring. Aside from her divine sense being quite significantly obstructed by the dome of heavenly light, meaning that she couldn’t get as much information from each moment as possible, she needed to get some experiments out of the way with Primordial Inferno, and that could not be done without the barrier being opened and the Primordial Deity being loosed upon the Planar Continents.

Hence, she was mostly staring and waiting for Primordial Mind to appear, as getting it under control would guarantee some free time for her to attack any of the Primordial Deities currently out there. Whether she stuck with Primordial Inferno or attacked some other entity, like the elusive Primordial Cosmos, was not something she had figured out yet, but whatever it was, it would be better than sitting around and doing nothing.

“How long?” the Ascendant glanced to the side, where Xu Shi Meng was standing by as always, though whether he just appeared there or had been there all along was hard to say.

He didn’t ask what she meant, simply answering, “Two hours and fifteen minutes.”

That meant that she had two hours and fifteen minutes before Primordial Mind would emerge from its current prison, and the repeating cycle of emergences would cease, at least in theory. Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang apparently had some unique circumstances that would keep them sealed a little longer, so they weren’t much of an immediate concern either.

‘When it comes to Primordial Mind, I might have a significant advantage, provided that my energy is as effective against it as it typically is against the typical cultivator,’ she attempted to think more optimistically than usual, as pointless as the exercise was, ‘No, mental techniques should be weak against it due to the Dao it embodies, but Primordial Energy was vulnerable to me, so perhaps Primordial Mind would be vulnerable to the Invader’s Roar, or some other method that strikes strongest against the mind.’

The exact manner in which the Primordial Deities operated was not yet fully grasped by the Ascendant, only being able to conclude that they all had their specialties and particular branches, but still represented the whole of an element or aspect.

Each one had a controlling influence on the world around it, save for the foreign Primordial Invader, and for whatever reason, Entropy wasn’t Primordial Entropy, even though everything else was. Perhaps Entropy had never aged or changed, so it remained as the one and only Entropy. She had no clue, Xu Shi Meng didn’t give her any answers in this regard, whether he knew or not, and Yi Shi Ming had already told her everything she could about the Primordial Deities.

Whatever the answer was to some or all of her questions, the facts remained – there would need to be a battle between her and the Primordial Deities that remained, and it would need to end in her victory if the world was to survive in a state agreeable to humans. This did necessitate action, regardless of what kinds of things the cultists that had once worshipped the Primordial Deities might say in response, and that was a little better than the Great Leeches and the fact that their solutions did work, if only at the cost of literally everything.

 

“And now?”

“One minute and-”

“Alright, I’m going.”

“You understand where the emergence is going to occur? How have you managed to accomplish such a thing?”

“Divine sense is mental energy, so the Primordial Deity’s energy resonates with it the most. It just so happens that the area between the Xin District and Shun District is particularly hostile to my divine sense,” the Ascendant said, using Omit Movement to appear near that position, “As I thought, there that thing is… Looks weird, in comparison to Primordial Nature.”

She chose a position in the air, as always, standing on a chain of Law as she overlooked the space where Primordial Mind was beginning to appear. There, the space looked disturbed, as if it was bent and torn, but within was no disruption of space or time, but instead a completely different phenomenon was taking place. The vague images that Wei Yi could recall appeared inside, some vibrant and others not, though the majority were not pulled from the many shelves of her Ascendant’s Library but instead her surface thoughts, recollections that appeared and disappeared with every casual moment regardless of the situation.

Most likely, this was not something that the Primordial Deity was able to actively derive from her mind, but was instead a side effect of its power. Whether it was able to use her memories against her would need to be determined in battle, if it got the chance to try.

Ideally, it would not.

There were only a few more moments before Primordial Mind emerged, all of which the Ascendant spent on contemplating various scenarios using the tried and true method of Endless Calculation in order to test what some potential uses of potential techniques might have against potential possibilities of the Primordial Deity she was about to face.

It was, ultimately, a lot of speculation with unfortunately little productive outcome, for even a billion predictions could all be entirely inaccurate and, perhaps, even counterproductive by making her believe something that wouldn’t be true. Still, it was some form of preparation against her foe.

From her understanding, the Primordial Deities were not granted the same benefit, not that any one of them required it. Each one emerged with relatively little knowledge or preparation against her.

When Primordial Mind emerged and tainted the world with its presence, the phenomenon was rather different from what the Ascendant had anticipated, but not entirely out of the realm of imagined possibility. It appeared rather unceremoniously, but the moment after a wave of those surface memories that had previously surrounded it spread out, quickly touching and covering Wei Yi as it expanded in all directions.

In that wave, she could sense a slight connection to a great number of other minds, and most were malignant and obviously hostile. They screeched and roared at her from afar, and one stood out among the rest.

The direction of this mind was identical in reality and in this strange network of minds, allowing it to identify it as Primordial Mind right away. She couldn’t be sure exactly what the intention and meaning of this network was, whether it was deliberate or not, but she knew that an opportunity like this would not appear for a while if Primordial Mind realised what it was doing and identified its potential weakness to a mental attack while in such a state. To put it significantly more straightforwardly, it was a necessity for her to strike at this immediate moment.

She did so by invoking her killing will, forcing it toward that powerful mind, and imbued it with whatever she could extract from the principles of the Invader’s Roar. Her research had stalled on a number of her techniques, and fortunate inspiration had also not been appearing as of late, but that didn’t mean that she lacked any progress at all.

Previously, she had been able to invoke it with a tap of clawed fingers on a table, and now she merely needed to pair her release of killing will with an audible shout.

Given that the area between the Xin District and Shun District was already vacated by most living things that mattered, and Xu Shi Meng was likely immune to whatever she could do even if he was standing by somewhere near, so there was no reason to worry about collateral damage. It wasn’t rare to come across such situations in her current pursuit – the killing of all the Primordial Deities – for it naturally scared away the majority of the world’s population, but this was the first time that the Primordial Deity had given her such a direct connection to it, as strong as it might well be.

Her Invader’s Roar reached the entity, and that network instantly shook. The visual of Primordial Mind, an unclear and rather blurred one, also trembled, though far less, until the rest of her energy reached it in the form of her killing will. The smoke and silver of her energy interweaved and pierced the Primordial Deity, and in that moment the mental field that had enveloped her changed, breaking apart from the cacophony that the other minds provided and instead left her and that thing alone.

Form appeared where there was none before, reminiscent of the mental landscape she had entered when assisting Mo Zhouquan and her Primordial Corruption-inflicted weakness. Fortunately, this time she did not need to deal with the moist and fleshy limbs embodying corruption, but was instead presented with a strange world that was reminiscent of a web of jewels, within which an infinitely large web of memories lay. It was a peculiar sight at first, but a moment of thought led to the landscape making more sense. All that needed to be done was to interpret it as something similar to the concepts of the inside of the human brain generated by the otherworldly demons.

They had a concept of neurons lighting up within the brain, bouncing around in a striking manner to the people of other worlds, and the many webs she saw now shared an aesthetic with their wild imaginings.

In the centre of it all was the physical form of Primordial Mind, if the contents of a mental landscape could really be described as such. A hundred spider-like limbs were upon its body, and yet they were placed into the form of two legs and two arms, with a head on the top of the vertical torso. It was oddly humanoid despite the multitude of limbs, contrasting with Primordial Invader’s constant breaking from the humanoid form that it initially held.

She couldn’t be sure whether this was even a good thing, but if Primordial Mind stuck to it, things would be significantly simpler for her.

“You… a thing like that can make such a sound? How unexpected,” it spoke, slowly and quietly.

“So you won’t call me a mortal thing, just like the others do? That’s a surprise,” she replied, though she did not forget to infuse the Invader’s Roar to guarantee that her words would have some effect, even if it would only mildly inconvenience the Primordial Deity, “Tell me, what exactly do you mean by ‘such a sound’?”

Her every word caused that odd figure to tremble, prompting her to elevate the power dedicated to the Invader’s Roar with every word, but it was not yet enough to do significant damage to it. The Primordial Deity managed to speak not long after she finished.

“It is not right! The sound twists the mind… No thing should have a sound like that…”

That didn’t explain much that the Ascendant’s didn’t already know, for the Invader’s Roar was a blatant attack on the mind and little more so far. She did lose interest in listening to it by the second sentence, as she felt some inspiration finally coming to her after all this time, provided by the manner in which Primordial Mind seemed to connect to the world around it, and the effectiveness of her Invader’s Roar derivative within.

The entity’s words could also be taken to mean that the sound was foreign to the world, but considering the influence that otherworldly demons had on the Planar Continents, it was not surprising.

Quite obviously, the Invader’s Roar was meant to break into the mind of another to damage it, but the fact that it grew stronger when used within that person’s mind led to her considering that the purpose of the Invader’s Roar might not be as simple as she thought. Rather than simply attacking the mind, the full thing would do far more if it literally invaded it and rampaged within, wreaking havoc wherever possible. It could be done by the technique itself, or, as was happening now, by intruding with one’s own mind to gain a certain advantage against an unsuspecting target. Of course, someone with a mental landscape and a proper cognition of it would be more resistant to such an invasion.

Primordial Mind did have something that was likely to be its version of a mental landscape, but it was still a better place to be than outside of it, as she could target said landscape direction.

‘What kind of thing is most effective against a mind? I have a number of physiques that are theoretically effective, and a whole lot of techniques that work outside of a mental landscape, but things here shouldn’t match the outside world precisely,’ the Ascendant thought, thinking back to what proved most effective against Primordial Corruption when she encountered it within Mo Zhouquan’s mental landscape.

Back then, she had managed to affect the mental domain with some revelations in Dao, as well as some general secrets that the Primordial Deities did not appear to be able to handle all too well. It was always possible to make use of this again, but she suspected that it would be a bad idea to try it against an entity like Primordial Mind. Unless she was able to finish it right here and now, the Primordial Deity might be able to learn and understand the knowledge she used, and then she would be dealing with a hyper-intelligent entity that had far more raw power than her.

Even Primordial Corruption might have benefitted from the knowledge that the Ascendant freely gave out, explaining in some part why it behaved differently than the insane and ravenous corruptor that Wei Yi had envisaged.

‘Well, since I’m here anyway, and I need something powerful that shouldn’t give Primordial Mind an advantage, I should make use of the physique abilities I have first and see what that does,’ she concluded, unleashing some of the physique abilities that had been produced after the most recent breakthrough in their power, as well as the fusion of several major physiques.

The Celestial Regalia appeared upon the chest of her mental projection, a merged sun and moon piercing this dark and blue world of Primordial Mind. Her eyes changed to projections of the Blooming Cosmos, flooding the mental domain with stars that overwhelmed the lights of the Primordial Deity’s neurons – or whatever those were. When her flesh changed to the Alloy Form, that made her presence all the more blatant and powerful, nearly overwhelming that of the entity that owned the mental domain.

With all of these, she understood that the mental domain was more focused on thought and ideas – something she already understood to a certain extent, for it was rather obvious – but also that the belief that something will work would translate into its successful operation – which was less clear.

Those physique weren’t strictly present in the mental domain, but she knew what they were and what they were supposed to do. Thus, the physiques were actuated, and she now had the abilities that the physique abilities bestowed, perhaps at an even stronger level as they were able to benefit from the power of her killing will and general mental strength, which was rather good at the worst of times. Of course, she then activated the last of her merged physique abilities.

True Existence was not a physique that had existed prior to her obtaining it, as far as she knew. It merged the strengthening of meridians belonging to Immortal Mortal and the ability to circulate energy outside the meridians, originating from Mortal Deity, but the results produced were far more outstanding than the combinations of all the other physiques. Her Celestial True Existence somehow responded to her Dao of Law, responding in particular to the chains of Law with which it was connected, and while she was not sure about the exact nature of this power, she could tell that it had an impact upon the Primordial Deity.

The mental domain, which had been entirely inhospitable to her previously, suddenly became stable and familiar, letting her stand calmly where she previously needed a certain portion of her mental energy to stabilise her existence.

“What is that? How much are you capable of doing, thing that should not be?”

“Oh, so I got elevated to that level… Begone!” she instructed, adding the Command of Law to the Invader’s Roar.

Together, these abilities shook Primordial Mind far more than the previous attacks, and all that was really needed was the minimal degree of damage that would permit Xu Shi Meng to establish the barrier over the Primordial Deity. The mental world was broken, she was set free, white light gathered and the districts around Primordial Mind’s emergence point were saved, but the Ascendant had her focus elsewhere.

 

“The barriers are being worn away. It is slow, but they are gradually going to vanish entirely, and there are two things that will accelerate it. The world’s breakthroughs, and your own.”

“I know. How much time do I have?”

“Before something is able to escape? A week at most, less if you advance more quickly. Sealing your cultivation, or breaking it entirely, will not decelerate it whatsoever. As such, you may need to hurry, despite my earlier suggestions to do otherwise,” Xu Shi Meng said to her, “There is still something I could do to assist you, as you recall, but the limit of a single empowered attack is still there.”

“Then I will need to fight with Primordial Inferno, won’t I? I understand that already, so the moment that I figure out the best way to do it, I’m working on that right now.”

“I will leave you alone, then.”

Xu Shi Meng vanished, and silence overtook the area. The Ascendant stood on the side of the dome covering Primordial Inferno, staring into it as she had done many times before, and the only real development that occurred was the realisation that a certain physique ability was effective against one of the many Primordial Deities. It was far less than she would have liked, especially when previous passive uses of the physique weren’t effective against the others, but just as Xu Shi Meng said, she needed to do something if she was to have any chance of success.

To a certain extent, she was in a similar state that the Primordial Deity of the mind had been left in thanks to her attack, but she hadn’t even begun to fight with Primordial Inferno yet. It didn’t help that she also wasn’t sure where Entropy was currently located.

‘Still, I should review things. I have a number of Dao, but the most effective had proven to be the one that feeds whatever element the Primordial Deity represents. Presumably, it is because I lacked the power to overwhelm their control of the Dao, but I was able to prevent it from coming into play in the first place, like by removing all life from the vicinity of Primordial Nature,’ she thought, glancing at the Truth of the Universe’s display briefly, ‘I have Primordial Nature’s Dao now, so it might be that I can apply it to the battle, but it is already burning freely, without the presence of any fuel, ignoring one of the three key aspects of flame…’

Technically, she also had Full Success in the Earth Dao, but she had only partial control over the grey dust that Primordial Earth controlled. It would be far less effective than she would prefer.

‘My Dao of Metal is also rather poor, even if I was to count the power of the Dao of the Elements, Planar Dao, and whatever stage the Dao of the Heavens is currently at. I don’t have a unique ability there, and imagining one spontaneously will be fucking tough,’ the Ascendant sighed, a large plant sprouting from the ground to form a seat for her.

She put her right hand on her chin, her left on her knee, and looked straight forward, where Primordial Inferno seemed to turn towards her just the same. Most likely, it had no clue that she was there, or didn’t really care, but the Ascendant didn’t mind having a better view of the thing that she needed to fight. The entity’s body had to hide some aspect of its nature, and a lengthy stare at it combined with her recent considerations of Dao led to her thinking in a slightly different direction to before, although one that should have been incredibly obvious given her specialty.

In theory, at least, the Primordial Deity of flame was still following the basic principles of fire, even if they were substituted in some way by the power of Dao and the properties of energy made form. Even if there was no fuel, and perhaps no oxygen for the flame to burn with, it was still possible to disrupt the reaction and force the flames to stall, at least for a little time. If that provided her with enough additional strength relative to the entity itself, a single empowered strike might be sufficient for her to take it down. Xu Shi Meng did not appear to have any good reason to lie to her on the topic of supporting her for one last attack – as he could have just claimed to be unable to empower another strike – so that much was certain.

‘Unfortunately, my Dao of Law is still stuck at the Great Stride stage, because heaven’s will still cannot figure out the concept of Law. My own attainment of it is unknown, and due to the way I interpret Law, it empowers my other Dao but is not empowered by anything other than my Ascendant’s Dao, which I am mostly ignoring. It would be very easy to flip my view of the world around and simply state that Law is but one aspect of everything else, but that would fuck up everything else in the long term…’

As the flames of Primordial Inferno burned, her brow furrowed.

‘Why not empower the Fire Dao directly, then? If Primordial Inferno wishes to be flame, then I ought to ensure that it follows the proper Laws of reality! The world is most fond of following natural Laws, hence why anything that subverts them requires additional energy. Potentially, even if I cannot freely impose the natural order on Primordial Inferno, it would still have a greater effect than the majority of attacks I am able to perform against it,’ the Ascendant thought, rising from the seat produced by a casual use of the Wood Dao in a land barren of life, ‘Alright then, I should attempt it.’

She stopped only a step after she began, ‘This is odd. While Xu Shi Meng was standing by, I didn’t have much major inspiration, and it appears nearly the moment he fucks off. It is too much to presume that he was actively responsible, but I should watch out for that sort of thing in the future.’

In order to quickly verify whether her theory had any truth to it at all, she checked whether Xu Shi Meng was anywhere near her, finding little to suggest his presence. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t be around, but at least it wasn’t as obvious as when he was standing right before her, making himself known openly and directly.

She wasn’t sure what kind of difference the man could be making if he wasn’t doing something deliberately, but she couldn’t make many assumptions after a one-off occurrence. From her other interactions with men, she was sure that she hadn’t developed some kind of gender-wide dislike, and the man didn’t seem to have an abnormal aura that would influence her process of thought, nor could she recognise the significant presence of any active Dao, either.

The man was almost certain to have a Dao or two, whether or not he was Kong Shi Meng, so it wasn’t impossible for him to have the same type of influence as her Dao of Lust might have over others.

Of course, speculation was less important now that she had a potential solution to the menace of Primordial Inferno, so the Ascendant went right up to the barrier with little additional hesitation and knocked upon it with her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow.

“Hey, Shi Meng, if you’re away, can you still hear me?”

“Do you wish me to open the barrier? I had only left you for a few minutes, so it may be a good idea to rethink your plans once or twice.”

“I’m already done with that. If it succeeds, then I will win, otherwise no new ideas might arise. This might also take quite a long time, so the sooner I begin, the less risk there is of the barriers for all the other Primordial Deities weakening. Incidentally, will defeating Primordial Inferno let the other barriers remain stronger?” the Ascendant asked, turning to her left, where the man appeared as usual.

At the same time, she was already sending out instructions to her forces, the dragons and whoever else was available, as she had a pretty good idea of what would happen in the end. Whether Xu Shi Meng agreed or not, she would need to fight Primordial Inferno, and that would only require more people to come along. While the other barriers were not at risk, it was a good idea to hasten into the fight and take care of it.

“No. It will-”

“Then I’m going in anyway. Open it up, and keep as much of it up while I’m in there. I don’t want the Planar Continents to be besieged while I’m fighting the Primordial Deity.”

“Very well. A small opening shall be granted.”