Path of the Ascendant

“- so what are you going to call me, Dugu Wei? You better be clear, since I can keep going for a long, long time…”

“Master! I’m sorry, Master! P-Please stop… Please!”

“Hmph,” Wei Yi withdrew, cleansing her hand with True Ascendant energy, “I’m sure you remember what I told you a few days ago, and yet you still kept shirking your duties. Now you two can come to me once a week, and if you’ve worked well enough, then I may grant you some relief.”

“Thank you Master!” both Dugu Wei and Qiu Sheng cried out, not daring to move in the slightest, “M-May we-”

“Yes, you can go. Meng Chu will inform you of your orders, so get out of here before you stain the floor any further.”

They didn’t say anything, getting up, grabbing their clothing and rushing out of the room before they had a chance to displease their new master any further. Wei Yi watched them leave, then seared the ground and air around her with her physique energy to limit how much their scent would spread. With the slight strengthening of both killing intent and physique energy, her sense of taste and smell of regular food had declined even further, and she did not want one particular scent to overwhelm all others while she resided in her study.

Once the ground had cooled sufficiently, she evened it out and returned to the desk that she had installed in the very middle of the concentrated killing intent point within her room. It was made of stone and the Beast’s bones, allowing it to be sufficiently sturdy to withstand the slowly growing killing intent concentration at that point of the room.

The paper and tomes that she typically looked at and wrote on there, however, did not fare as well, though that did encourage her to work more quickly and to improve her writing speed, which had been relatively slow due to her desire to keep every single one of her characters as neat as possible.

‘If I ever do this sort of thing again, I should get a bed that I can throw out instead of melting the floor,’ she thought, circulating her physique energy, ‘Nevertheless, I now have both vice-leaders under my control, Meng Chu has been rather supportive lately, and Shi Luo Feng has not sent too many more intruders, perhaps assuming that I’ve died or something along those lines, so things should go smoothly from now on. Once I attempt to expand Meng Chu’s grasp over the town, the other two leaders will most certainly rise up, at which point I can deal with them and ensure that they never have a chance at challenging my authority.’

She shut her eyes and focused her killing intent, opening them once the battlefield had appeared within her silver iris. For the most part, the battlefield of the Ascendant’s Gathering remained unchanged, but the fighters within now wielded lightning and thunder, with their movement and skills clearly wielding a far greater strength than before. Furthermore, the distant figure that terrified all who looked upon it, Wei Yi’s manifestation as the master of that mental domain, grew even mightier, with her glowing eyes frequently releasing sparks of crimson electricity.

Unfortunately, no matter what she did to alter the essence of the killing intent technique with her newly acquired manuals, she could not make it harm people physically in her current realm, but so long as those caught within its effects did not immediately realise that they were being affected by a mental technique, they would suffer great mental damage without fail.

The true power of these techniques would emerge the moment that the killing intent can be concentrated to a greater degree in the second realm, at which point the increased power could be concentrated on a single direction, and then would significantly increase again in the third realm, where the entire power of the illusory battlefield could be focused on a single individual, perhaps even allowing for the manifestation of certain obstacles from the battlefield into the realm world.

Still, her killing intent was currently able to overwhelm those in the first three realms of killing intent, which made it sufficient to deal with large groups of enemies and weak combatants.

Wei Yi willed the killing intent to return from her eyes and removed a few stacks of papers and a pen from the inside of the desk, flipping through a few of them in the physical world and significantly more within the mental landscape to remind herself of the current situation of Meng Chu’s faction and those it opposed, was neutral to, and had the potential of forming an alliance with.

Both Meng Chu and Ding Wen’s factions were in good standing with the populace of Beast’s Rest, as one provide security and much needed entertainment while the other ran a great number of shops and allowed for much more trading to occur, and for far more items and artefacts to be brought out of the darkness of the prison realm than otherwise would have. Shi Luo Feng, on the other hand, was not viewed as positively due to the extreme number of people that seemed to die or go missing after getting close enough to her and her faction, not to mention the fact that her training hall tended to be more useful to physique cultivators than common men.

There was a certain possibility of an alliance with Ding Wen, but Wei Yi did not intend to allow the town to be shared by more than one group – that being her own, of course – so she crossed out the possibility immediately.

Outside of Beast’s Rest, there were several primary factions or settlements of note. The physique cultivators of the Great Bone Lake and several scattered collections of those that fled from it were one, the Council of Crimson and Hold of the Mighty that sought to reach greater heights in killing intent and physique cultivation respectively were another example. A settlement by the name of Cranial Domain was on the opposite side of Beast’s Rest to the Great Bone Lake and was founded on what was presumably the skull of the Beast, much like the Great Bone Lake had been colloquially recognised as its rear end. They also primarily cultivated killing intent, though there were far more physique cultivators than in Beast’s Rest.

Near the Great Bone Lake, to the north-west, was a faction that called themselves the Seekers of Blood, with their purpose being to learn about the mysterious of all sorts of blood to understand and harness the immense power within. Their primary focus was the Beast’s blood, for it was the only true creature with a powerful bloodline, but they were open to experimenting with whatever they could get their hands on.

Out of these factions, the Council of Crimson was the one that would be most likely to accept an alliance due to their interest in driving out the people of the Hold of the Mighty and their shared preference for killing intent cultivation. They were also amongst the most powerful besides those that own the crimson robes, and so their addition to Wei Yi’s forces would allow her to subjugate or get rid of those in the Cranial Domain and the Great Bone Lake with far less effort than if she attempted to attack them now.

The Hold of the Mighty were also a viable alternative, as they were somewhat saner than the inhabitants of the Great Bone Lake and were also more open to having friendly relations with other factions. They would also wish for their neighbours, the Council of Crimson, to be driven out as the price for signing a pact of alliance with them, unfortunately.

It was a little more difficult to assess the stance of the Cranial Domain, which was extremely isolationist and against any alliances or outright wars towards anyone that did not intrude upon their territory. Strictly speaking, it was feasible to get on their good side by eliminating the Council of Crimson, as it was the closest faction to their territory, then allowing them to act freely within that area, but it would never go further than that without some extreme circumstances.

Those extreme circumstances could be manufactured, but the information that Wei Yi and Meng Chu currently had was insufficient to understand what that would require and how to accomplish it, so she added it to the list of priorities.

Seekers of Blood were a neutral faction who tolerated the presence of others around them but would instantly attack anyone that dared to enter their territory without their permission. Their research was their absolute priority, and if someone could assist it, they would let them in and either experiment on them, or permit them to attempt to experiment with them, but if there was any chance of them ruining their progress, they would instantly go all-out on eliminating them. Despite them not being the most powerful faction, having the fewest number of Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival amongst their ranks, if they went all out then they could permanently weaken any one faction and leave them vulnerable to attacks from every other power in the prison realm.

Before attempting to ally with the other factions, however, Wei Yi wanted to claim the entirety of Beast’s Rest for herself, before expanding it to occupy significantly more land, as well as the miracle fluid spring that was located several days of travel away from the current outer edges of the town. Only then would she have the necessary power to negotiate with the other factions.

‘Right, I should inform my subordinate about that and get an edge over the other two groups,’ she thought, throwing away a few papers that had shrivelled beneath the pressure of killing intent.

She left the room and went to the single chamber that she had designated as Meng Chu’s office, as she was tired of constantly needing to ask the horny couple about his location – for whatever reason, those two were far, far easier to find than their leader, and always seemed to be exactly where she was expecting to find him. Now that she had stopped them from engaging in elicit acts when they were not supposed to be, she could not rely on them and decided that if all of the scattered tomes and books from his many meeting chambers were brought into one place, he wouldn’t need to be in different places every time she looked for him.

Once she arrived at that office, she found him sitting at a desk much like her own, desperately trying to revise the formula for creating additional an additional meridian network to work with his own body. Wei Yi could have done this herself, but since he appeared to be sufficiently intelligent, she did not.

“How are things going for you, my loyal servant? Are you only eleven percent through the process?”

“Since you already know the answer, I don’t know why you’re asking,” he said, sighing almost as loudly as Wei Yi had many times in the past, “All of this is incredibly complicated, even for me.”

“That’s unfortunate, I’m sure. What about your practise of the Storm of Vengeance? I can sense that as well, but if every time I went past you I scanned your entire body and then made random comments that I really shouldn’t be able to make without a closer look at you, I’m sure you wouldn’t be too fond of that. For instance, I can detect that your root of yang-”

“I will agree with that and ignore whatever advice you wished to give me. I can take care of myself.”

“Sure. So?”

Meng Chu sighed again and released a strand of crimson energy, focusing it into a bolt of red lightning that constantly sparkled and crackled, random offshoots and bolts of lightning occasionally striking thing around it, his robes included.

“There. If you do give me any advice, please focus it on my killing intent cultivation.”

“Very well, I will do exactly that. Your killing intent has reached roughly fifty-four percent of the power that it could possess with the Storm of Vengeance technique, and only thirty-nine percent of the stability. If you want to improve, I recommend you visit my room and sit at my desk for a while, using only your killing intent to protect yourself. It will significantly strengthen it in a short period of time, though you ought to be careful not to overwork yourself and your energy,” she said, showing him a small smile filled with killing intent.

He did not bother to question exactly which part she expected him to suffer on the most and simply nodded, pretending that there had been something substantive in her words.

“Anyway, I have something to tell you. There is a spring of miracle fluid to the west of Beast’s Rest, roughly three days of uninterrupted walking away, so I need you to send a team to set up a camp there and do whatever it is that you do with it. I’ll need a cup a day to fuel myself, but the rest is up to you to use however you think is best,“ she explained, “Other than that, we need to make preparations to take on Shi Luo Feng. A temporary alliance with Ding Wen could work, but only as long as we immediately turn on him the moment that we have achieved victory against Shi Luo Feng’s forces. I will enter seclusion to deliberate on a full plan soon, but you may have the honour of setting up the foundations for it.”

“Just one question – how long do you intend to act this insufferably? It is obviously an act.”

“Sorry, but those two got on my nerves a little. I’m sure you understand,” Wei Yi replied, “I’ve dealt with them, but I only got so much out of it. Maybe when they come by in a week’s time, I’ll have a slightly better experience, but for now, you can endure, I’m sure.”

Meng Chu shook his head, “I’d rather not. How soon are you going to enter seclusion, then? If you could guide my- our forces to the miracle spring, it would make things much easier.”

“Not for a few days, at least. Last time, I had to work from nothing but books and records, which, while it proved mostly sufficient, is not enough for me. I need a better understanding of the entire town, of the three forces that occupy it, and of the people that we will be fighting over. If an action we take causes all of them to rebel, it would be somewhat pointless.”

“Indeed… I can organise a journey to the miracle spring within the day, so tell me when I should.”

“You might as well do it right away. While you are preparing, I will look around town. I’ll return to the brothel, then we may leave,” she said, removing her crimson robes and tying them around her waist, with the tight-fitting clothes already beneath them.

He nodded, turning back to the desk, so Wei Yi also turned around and departed, ignoring the desire-filled stares of two women that looked upon her from around a corner. They’d asked for their punishment, and she had no intentions of ever giving in to someone just because they were pitiful. It would be of no benefit to her now, and it would be of no benefit to her in the future, because anyone with half a brain would take advantage of such a weakness and intentionally appear weak as to make her submit to their whims.

Naturally, she had no intentions to be incredibly brutal to those that did not deserve it, as that would make it very difficult to get the common people on her side. After all, most have not experienced the wrath of the Great Families and might assume that they were the better choice if she went around burning down districts indiscriminately just for having a potential affiliation with the Greats.

‘I will need to research whether it is possible to bring back a scene that has already happened to show to others, either by deducing what must have led to a place looking the way it does, or through rewinding time itself, if that is even an option,’ she thought, exiting the underground passages through a secret entrance that brought her to a residential area of Beast’s Rest, ‘If I can also manipulate those images while still making them appear genuine, then rallying support for my cause would be significantly easier. A powerful leader is divided on who to support? I could show them how the Greats slaughtered their friends and family. One of the Great Families is having some internal issues? With such a technique, I could aggravate their poor relations further, and eliminate one Family with no need to do a thing myself.’

She left the residential area and went towards the primary trading zone, walking past the enormous auction house without even glancing at the guards at the front. Her destination was a weapon shop, or blacksmith store of any kind that had some experience in handling weapons made from the bones of the Beast, and her intention was to get them to appraise the black dagger that she had obtained from the Black Terror. It was something that she still did not understand fully, and that had to be corrected.

There was an unsurprisingly large number of weapon stores placed near one another, with some being in vastly better condition than others. However, most traded in common items or in hatred blades of an extremely low calibre, which would make them unsuitable for her purposes.

Eventually, she located a small store that contained several hatred blades of decent qualities, and a few sets of black bones that appeared to be intended to be made into something later. At the moment, there were no other customers within the store, so she entered without any hesitation and approached the old man that sat in the back, chipping away at some dark stone with a chisel while silently grumbling.

“Excuse me, are you the owner of this store?” she asked, not coming too close to him as to not disturb whatever it is that he is doing.

“Aye. D’you want something, lass?” replied the old man, not stopping his work as he talked.

“I have a hatred blade, and I need someone that can analyse it and inform me of what makes it different from other hatred blades,” Wei Yi said, “You seem to have a number of the Beast’s bones in your store, so I assume that you have that ability?”

“Heh… Listen, lass, I’ve got an issue right now. If ye can deal with it, I’ll make or inspect whatever you like.”

“Well then, what is the issue you’re faced with? I might be able to do something about it.”

“Y’know the three leaders of this place? My issue’s with Ding Wen, who wants to buy my store out and make me decorate all of his hatred blades for the rest of my limited life. Not exactly my preference for work, but in Beast’s Rest, there ain’t much I can do,” the old man sighed, placing the black stone onto a work surface, “So, can ye deal with it?”

She shrugged, “It depends on who has been tasked with ‘recruiting’ you, but if it isn’t Ding Wen himself, I should have a good chance at managing it. If it is him, that chance would be slightly lower, though it would not be completely impossible.”

“Then have at ye, lass. Just don’t tell ‘em I sent ye.”

Wei Yi shrugged and left the dark shop, quickly finding someone that looked to be part of Ding Wen’s faction. If they were truly interested in this man and his abilities, then they should be sufficient to accurately inform her of the nature of the black dagger. If he was either insane or simply lying, then it would just be a minor waste of her time.

‘However, if he is telling the truth and Ding Wen himself wants his services, then I will either need to beat up all of his forces, or find something that he is interested in more than the old man…’

There were a few ideas already appearing within her mind, but for now, there was nothing she could do but approach Ding Wen’s men and see if they knew anything about the matter. If not, there were a few alternatives, but the easiest would be to fake the man’s death and to take him away to the underground passages of Meng Chu’s faction, where they could seal him away and not permit him to see the crimson light of the prison realm. Whichever faction was interested in him, they could feign ignorance and pretend that they had nothing to do with them.