Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

Not for the first time, Shin Ren regrets not having spent time refining his Domain. The space his cultivation can reach to is impressive, and he has the Qi reserves to transform most things in it, but it's not the same as a true Domain, where the rules of reality are entirely overwritten in favor of one's own.

He's just… not sure what he wants the rules to be. Not sure how he truly sees the world.

Usually having three Souls, each capable of reworking reality in their own ways, is more than enough compensation. A massive amount of energy to draw from, a complex array of effects that interface with his Truths, as well as two semi-autonomous high-realm manifestations- all circle around to making him one of the strongest Nascent Soul realm cultivators he's heard of outside of legend.

It's also something that holds him back.

If he had just one Soul, just a singular vision of himself and all his pieces, he'd have likely hit Warrior Realm by now, having gained an avatar of his ontology that can cultivate and rewrite reality alongside / for him. As it stands, he's discordant- hard to have one clear vision of the world when his is in three parts.

The fisherman seems to have no such issues.

None of the flames disappear- but they all calm. Where once they were vectors of exponential growth, explosive harm in iridescent colors, they're sitting passively, calm and organized like candles and plant-life around a pond. All of the chaos and mess of the space of the thorn landscape is absorbed seamlessly as the Fisher doesn't just impose his will, but integrates it.

[Domain Of The Fisher's Pond] manifests as a still and peaceful sheen of water, surrounded by calm hills and gentle slopes. The world is transformed by it for over a mile in each direction, but rather than stamping out or overwriting the space they're in, the thorns are instead used as places for half-real animals to sit. The cordite flows like sand into a soft beach, where curious crustaceans pick at it and make little popping sounds as they eat it. The mist from Mei Yu's abilities is turned to soft fog over the puddle, and the sky above, limitless Blue, seems content to remain in the heights.

And then the fish is born.

It emerges from out of the pool like a whale. It should not fit in such a small body of water, shouldn't be able to exist in this space- where the [Domain Of The Fisher's Pond] is stillness, harmony, the Soul that emerges is a riot of colors. Rainbow scales glimmer as a sound like an orchestra and a laugh and rainfall and crackling fire echoes around its emergence, and the thousand-foot carp turns glowing, pulsing eyes onto Shin Ren as his flames are taken from him into peace.

"Whoo!" comes the voice of the fisher. Shin Ren's gaze snaps to it and finds him sitting on the edge of the pond, fishing line sunk into the cool and too-dark waters. "Been a while since I whipped out this 'ere fishie! And for such youngun's too! You gots a baking bunch of things goin' on, and at your level? Making all the other secty's on y'er side look right dogshit!"

As he speaks, Shin Ren takes the opportunity to try and find his companions. The horizon still looks "normal"- thorns of blacksteel and the jungle they make up, the budding gun-fruits, the hint of another quarry in the distance and the one they came from behind. Taran and Yun Ka likely remained behind, and he still doesn't sense Mei Yu, but where's-

There. Lying on the ground, staring up at the sky, bleeding from the stump of one thigh- Gou Mai.

He keeps an eye on the fisher as he walks over to his friend, trying to get the flames he's connected to moving again.

Where are his Souls?

He feels the Smiling Noble go to say something, fulfill the role of manipulator and distraction-

"Ah ah ah. None o' dat now. Ain't been a short time since I seen a Demon Cultivator, but I recognize one when I see it. Right balanced, I ken, but I notice things! Why not a lil peace for a min, hmm? Not every moment is about reelin' the line."

Gou Mai shifts. He's alive- but Shin Ren can barely sense any Qi from him. He wouldn't be surprised if his friend had to burn into his reserves, maybe even damage his Soul, to pull off the strikes he did. Even now, there are sections of the Fisher's Domain that are half caved-in, where space seems warped and almost inverted between depth and height.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he says instead, his voice deader than he'd like. "I'm not a Daemonic-"

"Nah, see, ya added letters to it. That's your fancy sect-cult talk for the Void, and I don't mean Voids. Your Heart Demons. Most people get rid of em or grow past em, but you hung on to yours- makes you a demon cultivator. Don't usually see people givin' them their own souls though. Mighty risky."

He feels the Corpse Aflame and the Smiling Noble both twisting inside him. They haven't been referred to directly by… well, by anyone other than the woman who helped create them. He feels Corpse Aflame pull on her Soul, her core churning inside him- but it only appears as ripples along the landscape, glimpses of features only barely pushing against the landscape. He's never felt a Domain like this, not since…

Not since his Master.

"You seem to have me at a disadvantage," he admits. "You seem to know so much about me, and I know so little about you. You said your name was Fisher?"

"That's what ye can call me, mmh."

"Why are you here, then? I've been tasked to stop this place from spreading, but here I find an industry all its own. I-"

"You surrenderin?"

"I- no?"

Fisher shrugs. "Then ye had enough of a break."

And the hook flies forth once again. Up out of the water, faster than Shin Ren can perceive- but not faster than the Smiling Noble. Ren jerks to one side and only barely avoids the attack as the hooked bone the size of a torso slashes through an illusion to one side of him- an illusion that conveniently hides his storage rings as he activates them and leaves a box of pills beside Gou Mai's body.

And then he's moving again.

His cultivation is still his own- not even the Heavens can deny that, that's the point, but the moment the flames of his movement technique leaves his body, all the destructive heat of them vanishes. Not their propulsion though- he can still move, still launch himself like a bullet- but the fires done spread. They become harmless grass to either side of him, flickering flame-plants and-

And then the hook is back. And the wire. And the hook again.

He weaves and bobs and moves almost blindly, reacting violently and abruptly enough that it pulls at his tendons, feels bruising along his spine. Without the Smiling Noble there's no chance he'd be able to make it through this- the manifestation of his delusion, an unbeatable, perfect princeling, continues to warp heat haze and distraction, ideas and illusions, to keep them moving. The non-damaging effects of the heart demon's techniques manifest just fine in this place, unlike the rest of his powers.

Still, it's imperfect. A piece of fishing line tears through the armor on his arm like soft butter, cutting a steak out of the flesh beneath. The hook grazes the back of his ankle, then his lower back, getting closer with each burst of propulsion he uses, each illusion seen through.

But then he's close enough that it doesn't matter.

He's close enough to swing his Guandao, his Blade, to Cut-

And then he isn't.

[Joyous Swim Through What May Be] giggles like a waterspout above him, doing something. He can't sense it, can't tell something's happened, but from one moment to the next, the Fisher simply isn't where he was. The Cut tries to sever the world, and there's a piece of land that's gouged briefly, but then the Domain imposes its rules onto reality further, turning the cut into a small ridge of equally peaceful landscape.

The Fisher just smiles, casually sitting as if nothing ever happened.

And the fish hook tears through his thigh.

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He bites his lip to stop from screaming, drawing blood even as his thigh and the armor are forcefully stapled together by the hook. With a yank, he's torn free from his position and dragged through the space, the [Joyous Swim Through What May Be] iridescent and swimming in the air above the Domain.

He tries to cut the fishing line, holding his staff-blade tight near the tip, but there's just not enough space. The flesh tears as he uses his propulsion technique to pull away, trying to focus, his cores shifting-

A crack of thunder echoes from outside the horizon.

A flutter of soft leaves land peacefully on the ground next to the Fisher. He raises an eyebrow, peeking out towards the direction it blew in from-

Shin Ren carves out a chunk of his thigh.

He misses due to the velocity he's moving at, but it removes enough that when he jerks away, he can tear out the last few chunks of meat holding the hook in him. The leg is compromised, damn near ruined-but that's fine. He doesn't need the leg to move.

He launches himself at the Soul above rather than at the Fisher.

He swings a Cut-

And the aquatic manifestation flashes once as it swims forward, out of space and time and reality and the consequence and the causality of the moment.

The Soul swims through possibility itself, such that the possibility of it being hit isn't, and the Cut dissipates before it reaches it and the Blade is short and-

The hook spears through his calf, and then the violence of movement is all he can perceive and he is thrown into the waves of the pool below.

It is the deepest cold imaginable. It is perfectly still, even as he slams against it hard enough to shatter some of his ribs and crack through more of his ever-failing armor. He feels it sap away at his Qi, draining through his skin any ability to resist-

He detonates as hard as he can, pushing out with everything in his being. The water expands outwards, less than it should, heavy and quiet and still, and he goes to form a second pulse, something more directed-

The hook pulls at him, and he feels it ripping away his calf, dragging him out of the water.

Stay down, and the waters drain him, trap him beneath them.

Go back up, and the hook will only catch him again.

Manage to avoid either, and the Soul simply unmakes the circumstances of what may be, any chances he has of fighting back.

The Cuts he makes do work, but only for a little while, only for a very short space right around him. His flames do manifest- but they can't burn things here, can't…

No.

That's not true. That can't be true. Even against reality itself, against other Daos, things burn.

All Things Burn.

Focus.

All this passes through his mind in an instant as he's yanked partway out of the water, the fishing line he is caught on dragging him out and towards the Fisher-

Until he cuts his leg off at the knee.

And detonates it like a bomb.

He chooses to burn, so his leg chooses to burn, so the things around it Burn.

He's not denying what is, he's changing its context. Fire and burning exist but they don't consume, don't destroy things, don't disturb the peace.

Shin Ren roars inside himself, and the crackling of ruined flesh roars back in joy and destruction and the perfection of being allowed to be.

[Burning, Grasping Ruin] shrieks in its absolute majesty.

It never demanifested- it was simply limited by the Domain, buried beneath a stronger, more powerful manifestation of madness. It was always there, still pulling from him- and now he gives it everything.

He remembers the sea of thorns. He remembers the dead ash and the sands of bone. He remembers the bodies and the battlements and the pieces of flesh that used to be people. He remembers how things change forever at the touch of War.

[Burning, Grasping Ruin] used to be what remained, what was unmade, at the grasp of flame. But Shin Ren hasn't been just flame in a long time. He's learned to Cut and kill and detonate and tear apart and unmake, he's learned to command violence itself. He's walked through the Breach over and over and over, and has lived for months unsleeping, unending, unhealing, as he experiences War.

And what is Ruin, if not the child of War, forever and ever?

The Pond erupts.

The Domain is briefly unmade through upheaval, torn open and up into the world like the detonation from an artillery strike. A thousand hands of molten flesh that has started to look like carbonized weapons, like broken bits of equipment, like bits of black thorns, tear through the landscape entirely.

The iridescent god-fish fluttering in the air flaps its many tails, and the Fisher makes a face as a fresh wave of Qi blankets the space. The territory is already starting to shift back, taking the new features into account, turning the active ruination into a quiet cemetery-

Another crack of thunder. This time the Fisher has to dodge backwards, shifting his head back just an inch. The bullet, a thing of pearl and gold and carved funnels, still vanishes into bits of grass and falling pebbles- but it lasts longer.

A second shot echoes, and the god-fish slips its tails, a brief burst from [Burning, Grasping Ruin] carving out a bit more landscape as it deflects the Fisher out of the possibility of getting hit-

And then the sky falls.

One last blow. One final moment.

The peace of the Fisher's pond is interrupted completely as the ground is torn to pieces by endless violence. The serenity of the Domain is interrupted by the sky falling, an aurora that is a meteor that is a falling ceiling that is an infinite blue above and now below. A fourth gunshot echoes, and this time it does not simply fly, but tears the world open in its path, unmaking the Domain along channels of the runes carved upon it.

The Fisher frowns.

He raises a hand, holding his fishing line, as Shin Ren moves in the chaos to try and sever reality one more time.

And then everything goes wrong.

The Fisher casts his line.

The Domain changes.

[Domain Of The Fisher's Pond] is no longer a field. It is marshland. It is a sucking, quiet, draining silence, dragging everything down below into itself, quiet and still- with a single pond at its center.

Shin Ren's cut becomes a part of the river's flow, a simple part of the Domain already.

The sky is reflected off the water of the below, and even as the Fisher grunts and breaks a finger holding up the world, it ceases to be below or above.

The endless ruin that is bursting through the calm earth is instead buried beneath sucking soil.

And the bullet slams into the fin of the Soul of the Domain.

There is a burst of blood, where thousands on thousands of veins and bits of muscle and shards of bone manifest. A thousand thousand explosive detonations of Qi and proto-divinity, a thousand possibilities, all unavoidably leading to one ending.

The Fisher grunts, and a drop of blood leaves his lips, one of the [Joyous Swim Through What May Be] tails falling into the water.

"Well. Good friends you got there."

And then the fishing line is everywhere.

There are a million million fish and insects and creatures and things in the water and they are biting at everything, even as they burn, even as they fall to Ruin, even as it all collapses.

Everything they did, and it wasn't enough.

A wound on his body. A wound on his Soul. Not nothing.

But the difference between the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm and an expert of the Warrior Realm.

The things in the Domain are eating.

They will eat Gou Mai. Once he isn't the focus, he'll go after Mei Yu and the others.

Even now, [Burning, Grasping Ruin] still struggles. Even now, he can feel [Gilded Smile Of Delusion], ready to attack but unable to perform violence here.

Only consumption works here, and the consumption of Flame is buried like oil beneath the marshes.

None of it is enough. None of his team are strong enough for this.

He isn't strong enough for this.

He needs to do more.

He is screaming. It hurts so much. It hurts so much.

His friends are in danger.

He has to do more.

He grabs his Guandao hard enough that he feels the charred wood begin to break.

He places it between his hands.

It is not enough to wait for perfection. Not enough to simply stride forward while the world goes on, to follow along with the plans of others. It's not enough.

The fishing line is cutting through his muscles and his pieces and his bones and his armor, and the gunfire is echoing and striking and failing to finish the fight even as they distract, and Gou Mai isn't making any sound-

And he has to do more.

Or others will command the world for him.

[Gilded Smile Of Delusion] falls under his command, under his hand, as the Smiling Noble cackles and laughs and prepares.

[Burning, Grasping Ruin] roars an endless roar and an endless cry and an endless breaking sound, weakened but transformed by the battle.

Everything Burns as the pieces of himself fall into the [Divine Purity Of Flame], as his Souls change. As he Chooses.

And for the first time since he began, the first time since he's allowed himself to go on after what he's done, the first time since he created his Souls and his new form and dedicated himself to his causes-

Shin Ren manifests a Domain.