Path of the Ascendant

As they clashed, both displayed their greatest abilities. Yi Fenwu did not have enough arrows to shoot every attack out of the air, so she instead evaded, doing so while perfectly maintaining her aim. Yi Henghua didn’t have to modify her tactics in the slightest, and simply increased the number of projectiles she fired alongside their power, causing a constant swarm of dust and sand to crash upon the position where Yi Fenwu had stood a moment prior.

After a minute, the archer finally found an opportune moment to strike, shooting the arrow through a rain of bolts and right into Yi Henghua’s head.

This time, she was not caught off guard. Every dust projectile was about to form flew into one place, right in the path of the arrow, and solidified as much as it could before assuming solid form, for even the Fairy of Dust forbidden skill couldn’t bypass the limitations of realm.

Metal met earth; the arrow met the dust shield. Both broke the other down, causing the arrow to drop to the ground and the dust to scatter, their collision creating a shockwave that struck Yi Henghua and pushed her back by a step, weakening every single one of the planar constructs she had created by this point.

Yi Fenwu took advantage of this moment to knock every dust spear out of the air, giving her a momentary reprieve from the assault. However, her expression only became darker.

Despite her being three stages above her opponent and the arrows being closer in terms of power to the level of someone in the eight stage, she couldn’t pierce the defences of Yi Fenwu, not even when she found a gap in her offence.

The next planar constructs had completely recovered by the next wave of attacks, which followed only moments later, showing that in order to weaken her for a single second, she had to waste an entire arrow. Since it would take a little longer than that to fire a second arrow to take advantage of Yi Henghua’s weakened state, she had no ability to seriously injure her on her own. Thus, her attention was momentarily drawn to Yi Wei, but she realised that she was unable to sense her position, as if she had become even less visible than she was the last time she went after her.

She decided to leave her be – if she was able to evade her detection, then she should be able to slip past Yi Henghua’s sight as well. Although she was someone in the middle of the second realm, as long as she could strike at a weak point in her body, then even a common person could severely injure, or even destroy her cultivation completely. Since there was a small chance of this, it would be better not to disturb her plan, whatever it may be.

To give her a slightly greater chance of success, she did not reach for another arrow, instead conjuring a weaker metallic replica via a weaker, simplified version of the Soaring Dragon’s Tooth.

With it, she was able to meet the next volley of projectiles with a volley of her own, for the planar constructs had far less weight to them than real arrows, not to mention than the spears she usually called arrows. To draw, aim and fire the silver strands of light took mere moments, and since a number of dust spears were launched at positions around her, as to prevent her from dodging easily, Yi Henghua only had to deal with half of the dozen or so dust bolts which were formed endlessly from her planar energy.

“Ha, so you figured it out, haven’t you?” Yi Henghua shouted, prompting Yi Fenwu to raise an eyebrow as to inquire about her meaning, “I have an infinite pool of planar energy! You can never exhaust it, no matter what you do! My life force isn’t suffering at all!”

‘Life force?’ both Yi Fenwu and Yi Wei wondered, ‘The natural implication is that she is using the forbidden art to convert her life into planar energy. That must be why her body is slowly changing.’

Yi Wei had a little more time within her thoughts, so she also added, ‘She really needs to better control her mouth, and perhaps her spiritual will. Any casual observer can see that she is slowly turning into sand, just like how Jiang Sheng was previously changing to ice. Perhaps his forbidden art had a similar function, and he too failed to notice it before his throat and voice transformed.’

Yi Henghua was unaware of their thoughts, and instead of calming down with her attacks, she increased their quantity even further, causing them to form an entire sea of grey particles that endlessly rained down.

If there was one good thing about her tactic, it was that it made a lot of noise, allowing Yi Fenwu to keep track of every projectile without needing to remove her blindfold.

‘If she had been someone who attacks silently, like an assassin of sorts, my Soaring Dragon’s Hearing would be completely useless,’ Yi Fenwu thought, finding a small quantity of good within the current troubling situation, ‘I’m impressed with her, nonetheless. I had mistakenly assumed the likes of Yi Jiazhi to be more of a threat, but if she isn’t removed now, then she will have a high chance of claiming the hidden grounds, whenever they eventually appear.’

All of a sudden, she saw a bright spot of light through her blindfold, appearing completely grey in her eyes in spite of whatever colour it truly was.

That light was near Yi Henghua’s position, and it was thrown to her the next instant.

Despite already being sufficiently bright to seep through the tight cloth of the blindfold, it seemed to grow even brighter, finally catching even Yi Henghua’s attention. She turned to it, finding the same great arrow that she had previously kicked away, but it was now cracked and damaged, and through the gaps she saw a great cosmic light within, growing enormously in size and luminescence in the few moments that she had looked at it. At the edge of her sight, she saw the retreating, bloodied and scratched back of someone with crimson hair, and realised that she had forgotten about Yi Wei amidst the conflict.

Before she had any chance to act upon that realisation, the artefact arrow exploded next to her feet. It looked as if an entire galaxy was born next to her, consuming her and her surroundings as it expanded. Endless nebulae and stars flashed past her eyes – and were suddenly torn apart by a second arrow, which lodged itself within her chest.

That same arrow threw her down to the ground, pinning her to the hardened dirt and stone.

“AH! DAMN Y-” Yi Henghua’s exclamation was cut short when a foot crashed down onto her stomach, knocking all of the air out of her lungs, alongside a great quantity of dust and sand-filled blood.

Once the astral light cleared out of her vision, she realised that it was Yi Fenwu that now stood on her body, with one foot on her stomach and the other beside her head, aiming the greatbow at her head from such a short distance that she was able to feel the cold tip of the arrow on her nose.

“Yi Wei, tell me again – she is from another world?”

“So she claims, yes,” Yi Wei’s voice came from somewhere near her head, but as Yi Henghua did not dare to look away from the arrow that could end her life in a single instant, with just one twitch of the archer’s muscles, she could only assume that the servant girl was crouching somewhere near her head, likely covering every inch of her body with her perverted gaze.

In fact, it could be said that her gaze was somewhat out of the ordinary, but only in that it wasn’t focusing on the physical form of the one she observed, but the energy within.

Yi Wei had not had many opportunities to inspect forbidden arts, having exhausted herself far too much the first time she fought against someone who used it, and then did not get the opportunity to study the technique itself, while Chu Ling possessed a cultivation realm that was too high for her to research silently or to any reasonable degree of success. Now that she had a living user of a forbidden skill being suppressed completely, she couldn’t miss this chance to expand her understanding of the matter.

So, she made sure to speak slowly and to divulge as little information as possible no matter what she was asked, just to prolong the period of time in which she could observe the flow of the dust-like planar energy within the supposedly otherworldly body.

“Did she express any desire to topple the family?” Yi Fenwu asked again.

‘Then the planar energy flows through- wait, is she intending to kill her as well? If she is able to justify it by saying that she was intending to destroy the family structure, as well as the fact that this Yi Henghua isn’t even her real self, then she might be able to avoid any and all punishment…’ Yi Wei understood quickly, but she pretended to take a moment to consider it, “She did say that she intended to become Empress of the world, as you know, and that the Master of Yi City is weak and insignificant, and that the family should be happy for her to get rid of us…”

“I see, so she is mad and seeks to undermine the very structure of the family. Elder, would you prevent me from passing judgement on this poor child?”

Her words seemed to address no-one in particular, being spoken up, towards the air, but the intended recipient heard them nonetheless. The elder that they had last seen upon their arrival to the valley appeared out of nowhere, standing a low branch of a nearby tree, with a red nose and a tired face. He looked over the situation, his gaze pausing on each one of them, before replying.

“I can permit this…” he said, “Only if all group leaders agree. That is all.”

Immediately after, he jumped up slightly and disappeared again, though all three knew that he was not gone. For this reason, Yi Fenwu laughed before addressing the air once more, “Elder, you are well aware that she will not be saved like this. At most, we’ll take one look at her and condemn her to death.”

“That is fine.”

Yi Fenwu shrugged, turning back to Yi Wei with a smile on her face that more closely resembled her previous attitude, “Honey, we’ll be heading back to camp. It will take a while, so you can do what you like for now. Just be sure to show up by the end of the day, so that you can provide your testimony as to how she was plotting against us all, ‘kay?”

“I’ll do that,” she replied, though she didn’t move from her spot, continuing to scan Yi Henghua’s body with her spiritual will. Her understanding of a small element of the Fairy of Dust was almost complete and leaving now would ruin her opportunity to comprehend it and use it in the future.

A few moments of awkward silence followed, after which Yi Fenwu seemed to recall something.

“I don’t want to remove my blindfold, so if you could assist with restraining her, I’d be very grateful for your assistance,” she said, nodding towards an inner pocket in her robes, “Since I wouldn’t like to remove my hands from my bow and give this girl an opportunity to escape, won’t you reach in and grab the restraints for me?”

‘Isn’t it common knowledge that you are able to do something like this so quickly that even someone in the fourth realm would struggle to keep up with you? Are you just trying to test if I am as perverted as Yi Henghua claimed me to be?’ Yi Wei questioned internally, though she didn’t voice a single thought and instead did as she was asked, reaching into the woman’s robe and removing a set of handcuffs from within, doing her best to avoid touching the woman’s breasts.

She noticed the corner of Yi Fenwu’s lips rise slightly, but ignored it and instead restrained Yi Henghua, taking advantage of the situation to complete her analysis of the Fairy of Dust.

“Good. Thank you, darling. I’ll see you later – if you’d like to serve under me in the future, I wouldn’t mind it at all. Actually, could you share with me the skill you used to create that bright light? It turned the tide of battle entirely, and I’d love to use it in the future.”

Yi Wei wasn’t surprised by the question, having expected it from the moment she decided to employ her ability to explode artefacts via her planar energy, and thus she already had an answer prepared, “It’s a technique I found in the library not long before our departure. The only function, so far as I can tell, is to destroy and overwhelm the structure of a low-grade artefact to cause a large explosion. I’ve only managed to make it work somewhat recently.”

“Like the time I mistakenly shot an arrow or two at you?”

“Like that, yes. Now, I’ll get going, unless you have some more questions.”

“No, no, go ahead. Don’t get delayed too much,” Yi Fenwu said, casually waving her away before lifting Yi Henghua with one hand and dragging her away.

She watched the two of them leave, then looked to the side, where she sensed a faint movement just a second earlier.

“Fen Zhi, you can come out now.”

The assassin appeared in front of her, the planar anchor that had stood in the shadow of a nearby tree sinking into her body. She looked around, using her own methods to confirm that no-one was observing them.

“You ended up… not needing my help… Unfortunately…” Fen Zhi said, “I had intended to… thank you… by assisting in battle… but now… I have to do something else… would you like more techniques?”

“While I can’t say that I wouldn’t, I do also want to point out that you don’t have to do anything at all,” Yi Wei said hastily, “You’ve already given me a great deal of things, which I greatly appreciate. What would you have even done if you hadn’t intended to help me?”

“I could have escaped…”

“That… Hm. Yes, you could have done. Why didn’t I consider that?” Yi Wei frowned, taking a moment to consider why such an obvious option evaded her thoughts, as well as marking it down in her mental notes as to be addressed during her regular mental cultivation, “Anyway, if you want to give these techniques to me, then I’ll accept them, but don’t feel obligated to provide anything for me. I took the Third Eye Elixir from you initially, and I took the Golden Bones Elixir that you could have given to one of your friends or fellow assassins, if you manage to free them as well, and drank it despite not even needing to be there. Then, I also attracted the attention of Yi Henghua, who you might have otherwise avoided.”

“… I’ll just… write down my techniques now… before you convince me out of it… I don’t want to… speak on things I’m not knowledgeable on… but I think that you won’t get much… in the future… if you always do things like this…”

‘Naturally, but this whole situation is a little unusual for me. I’ve got a part of a forbidden art, two elixirs, one middle-class member of the family might be killed by five others and we’re just one Lock Obelisk away from opening the Kong hidden grounds… Not to mention the fact that I am currently bleeding from a number of shallow wounds that haven’t yet healed… Ow,’ she drove her planar energy a little faster, finally causing the last few cuts to begin sowing themselves up, “I’ll keep that in mind. What techniques are you going to give me?”

“A few, but… one is based on a… forbidden skill, or… as it is called near my home… cursed skills… It is far weaker, but it won’t hurt you… unless you overuse it…” Fen Zhi said, jotting down the technique.

Unlike most of her previous techniques, which she was able to relay swiftly, and in few words, this skill took her several minutes of fast writing on pieces of wood with the tip of a throwing knife. Once she completed it, she returned to the top of the first ‘page’ and wrote the name of the technique: ‘Aeon of the Endless Dark’.

“It should help you to… hide your identity and cultivation… as well as your very existence… in theory… I have not cultivated it myself… as I lack the talent to do so… but the Master was very eager to praise it…” the assassin explained, handing the thin slabs of bark to Yi Wei.

The latter read through it quickly and agreed with the judgement of the Master of the Endless Dark. There were traces of the Dao within, and if she was able to understand the properties of this technique to any degree of accuracy, then it would undoubtedly prove to be similar in quality and effectiveness to her own Elysian Palm, albeit it would not reach that same power in her hands as quickly as any technique she made herself.

‘However, this does give me a second fragment of a forbidden art to study, and one that I ought to be beneficial if I ever find that I cannot remain within the family,’ she thought.

“One more thing… During that fight… I felt the energy of another assassin group… though I couldn’t identify it… Someone from your family… might be affiliated with assassins… in secret or otherwise…” Fen Zhi said, slowly walking away, “If this isn’t already known to you… I would advise you to keep your guard up… Just in case.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I hope that you’re successful in your goals, and that we meet again.”

“So do I… Goodbye, Yi Wei… May your sands be still…”

The assassin bowed, then faded into the darkness. Yi Wei was able to faintly hear her footsteps as she left, though she was unable to see her, no matter how hard she tried.

‘It is an incredible skill, isn’t it?’ she remarked to herself, waiting for Fen Zhi to go out of her range of hearing before sitting down on the side of a tree that had been felled at some point during the battle, ‘While I have the time, I should make use of the planar energy I have and complete my breakthrough before heading over to the camp. I already have the ability to disguise my cultivation, and with the added effectiveness of the techniques I’ve ended up getting from Fen Zhi, I should be able to hide any particularly strange changes that passing the mid-point of a realm may bring.’

Naturally, she wasn’t sure what those changes would be. It could be that the early liquid planar energy she attained in the first realm was simply a one-off occurrence, but if it wasn’t, then she had a number of ideas regarding the possibilities. Since the first realm allowed her to gain the ability of the second realm early, could crossing the mid-point of the second realm result in her gaining an early planar anchor?

Although the idea was quite interesting, it was highly unlikely, as the changes between the various states of planar energy did not rely on any particular structure within the dantian, which was what allowed it to transform between gas, liquid and solid in the outside world. A planar anchor, on the other hand, cannot form naturally, no matter what someone does in the outside world.

This did raise the question of what the next perfected stage could possibly bring. According to her knowledge, there was no state of matter greater or denser than solid, so what could possibly come after?

‘Doesn’t really matter, I guess. I’ll see what happens either way,’ she thought to herself.

She had already begun to absorb the unbound energy within her dantian, and within a minute, it was enough to cause her energy to tremble within her body.

The solid mass of cosmic energy pulsed once, then twice, almost matching her rapid heartbeat, and then it finally exploded outwards, cutting through bone, flesh and skin whilst rapidly sealing those same wounds the next instant, before it reached outside of her body and formed a thin layer around her. Unlike the previous instances of this, it wasn’t merely a second layer of skin, but instead it had clear shapes, spikes and edges to it that her body did not have, almost as if it was transforming into armour.

However, it lost that shape soon after, and collapsed into her body, bursting out the next second to do the same thing. When it seemed to finally settle down within her planar aperture, she thought she was mistaken in regard to her theory.

That thought remained only for a moment, for the next, the sound of cracking stone entered her ears.

It was not from her surroundings, nor from her physical body. Instead, it came from the cosmic energy within her, which, rather unceremoniously, suddenly transformed, gaining edges and faces akin to those of a gem, or some other crystal structure. With the way that her planar energy had no real texture, it was difficult to see each individual face, but she still had the knowledge of its shape.

Furthermore, the spherical barrier that surrounded her dantian also changed, becoming more solid than before, almost as it, too, ascended by a cultivation realm.

To her, and to any cultivator that could have viewed this scene, the sight of crystalline planar energy was absolutely enthralling. It went beyond any common understanding of cultivation, and gave the cosmos shown within a fascinating appearance.

A quick scan also revealed that the quantity and quality of that planar energy was vastly heightened, effectively increasing her pool of cosmic energy by almost ten times with just one breakthrough.

She still had one more to go.

 

When Yi Wei returned to camp, she drew much more attention than she usually did. Naturally, the fact that one of the six leaders was recently brought in and was being held captive within a tent under a great deal of observation caused everyone to wonder what happened, and what anyone walking in or out of the camp had to do with it, but there were a few other things that drew their eyes.

For one, her heavily damaged clothes were rather revealing, and although they did not show anything explicit that would prompt a parent to obscure their child’s eyes, the many cuts and holes in her robes revealed a far greater quantity of skin than normal.

The eyes of some stopped on the tantalising glimpses of naked flesh, but others paid more attention and realised that her appearance had changed slightly. For one, the tan on her skin had grown darker, though not by much, and not too unexpectedly for someone who spends so much time in the wilderness, without anything to hide herself from the sun, and without powerful techniques to restore her regular appearance.

However, that was the change that was easiest to understand and explain, while the rest were observed mostly by one’s intuition. They noticed that her hair seemed to flow more smoothly behind her, though only a few were able to understand that this was because each strand moved freely, without interfering or getting tangled up with another, thus causing her crimson ponytail to resemble a slow waterfall. Also, her grey eyes had subtly transformed to resemble well-cut gemstones, though that could only be observed by someone if they had a habit of staring deeply into the eyes of everyone they meet.

Nevertheless, no matter how curious her changed features were, the attention of the majority did not stay on her for long once the six leaders of the camp emerged onto a platform visible from the tents of every group.

Yi Henghua was in chains, her arms and legs bound together tightly. On each link of the chains, there were small inscriptions to prevent her from escaping, and to prevent them from breaking easily.

The other five stood around her in a semi-circle, and none seemed particularly distraught over this – Yi Jiazhi was positively beaming, while Yi Fenwu had her typical smirk on while she did her best to push Yi Tai’s arm as deeply as possible into the valley of her breasts. The other three pretended to not notice that behaviour and stood around with mixed expressions.

There was no need for any announcements or declarations. Everyone naturally gathered around them, whether to see Yi Henghua, the most disliked member of the Yi family, bound, or to hear what their leaders had to say.

“Explain again,” Yi Tai said, only now turning to the person embracing his arm.

“Yes, darling,” she replied, seemingly unphased by his lack of reaction, “That woman appears to be completely insane, and claims she is from another world. She has convinced herself that she has acquired a peerless treasure in the form of Fairy of Dust, and that she is superior to the Master of Yi City in every way, so she is planning to take us down and take over his legacy.”

A series of surprised gasps followed, as well as a number of gazes being directed toward Yi Henghua to see her rebuttal of the claims. However, she said nothing.

‘I’m slightly tempted to believe that she is genuinely insane, rather than simply a little over-enthused with herself,’ Yi Wei thought to herself, finding a spot near the back of the crowd to quietly listen to the proceedings, ‘Do people not defend themselves of accusations in her world, perhaps?’

“You want to kill this bitch, then? Do it. I’m all for it,” Yi Jiazhi said, barely keeping his laughter in.

“One of five-”

“I also agree with that. She is a danger to the expedition, and is just too unreasonable, trying to kill a poor girl for no reason at all,” Yi Fenwu added.

Somewhere in the crowd, Yi Wei could hear familiar grumbling that likely belonged to Yi Bai.

“Then, two. I have no strong opinion and will side with whichever side has the most votes.”

“And if it’s two against two?”

“It won’t matter, because her death will come after five votes.”

“Right… Yi Guanyu, Yi Zheng, what about you?” Yi Fenwu inquired, looking towards them almost like a puppy might look at its owner while begging for treats.

Yi Guanyu, who had cleaned himself up in the time he had and now resembled a normal person, just with a large quantity of tears within the upper half of his robe, spoke up first, “Who’d she try to attack? Was it someone important?”

“Well, you could speak with her. Yi Wei, honey? Could you come out to the front?”

She pushed through the crowd and the moment she emerged at the front, Yi Guanyu’s eyes lit up, and he nodded, “I agree – Yi Henghua deserves death.”

“Then I have nothing to say,” Yi Zheng said, “She has not benefitted the expedition in the slightest.”

Yi Tai shrugged, showing his agreement. All five of them looked into the air, seeking approval of the elder that followed them, which they received the next moment, once he appeared on a tree branch and nodded, vanishing the next second. Since they had nothing else to confirm, Yi Fenwu took out her greatbow and an arrow, aiming it right for Yi Henghua’s head.

Her target looked at her without fear, “You think you can kill the main character? Any moment now, I’ll-”

She was never able to finish her sentence, as her skull was destroyed by the arrow spear.

For a moment, the mysterious characters within Yi Wei’s planar aperture shook, but they calmed down quickly and she could find no particular reason for this strange instance of their activity.

“Anyone who was in the dead girl’s group can go to any other group, so long as the leader accepts you.”