Path of the Ascendant

From the many floors of the auction house, everyone who had been trapped within slowly emerged to look down into the depths of it, where one woman in crimson robes stood amongst the carnage.

That woman, Wei Yi, slowly turned around on the spot, looking at all of these people carefully before the number of observers had grown to a sufficient number, and until several individuals that appeared to be high-ranking amongst them appeared at the edges of the auction house.

She walked towards the ruined golden throne and reached into the rubble, rummaging around for a little bit before she pulled out a large blade out of it. The metal was damaged and scuffed, with a large chunk missing from it, rendering it mostly useless due to the fact that it would break soon due to the immense structural instability that this missing piece caused. Nevertheless, it was recognisable to all who looked upon it.

“Warriors of Ding Wen’s faction, you should be aware of who owned this blade. This same person cultivated the Greed Congregation, and once he felt threatened by me and Meng Chu, he sought to turn all of you into his belongings to bolster his abilities. You should be able to recall something about that experience, even if it is only a few seconds of freezing alive,” Wei Yi said and, when she saw several of the warriors look to one another and nod, knew that her assumption was correct, “Now, Ding Wen is dead, and I have killed him.”

There was some murmuring from the watching crowd, but most of them had gathered this information from the fact that the treasury was ruined and there was no trace of their leader.

Still, it was incredible to some of them due to the fact that Ding Wen appeared to be nearing the peak of his Searing Torch realm, with some previous speculation mentioning the fact that he may have even reached the Hatred Augur realm, the absolute height of killing intent cultivation in this realm, as well as a realm that gives the cultivator something nearing immunity to most attacks.

“As his slayer, I wish to offer you a proposition – join me. I have no need for extreme wealth nor your lives, and my goal isn’t limited to reigning over Beast’s Rest. Instead, I wish to break free of this prison, and when I do, you will all be able to come with me.”

It was this statement that caused significantly more ruckus amongst all of them. After the first few arrivals into the prison realm, there were many that sought to exit it and retake their previous places in the Planar Continents, but with every generation, just as Yi City declined from the greatest jewel of the continents to a series of separate districts, so did their hope of returning. They had never been able to so much as scratch the storm-like walls around the prison realm, and in order to leave, assuming that they could do so simply by passing through those walls, they would need to tear an enormous hole within them.

For this reason, most had long given up on such a thing, for the Hatred Augur realm could not be surpassed, and yet, even when combined with the most powerful hatred blades, it was powerless.

“Can you even claim that you have a good chance of succeeding?” one of the men called out, not due to some remaining loyalty to Ding Wen, nor to disturb her, but because the very idea of leaving was so enticing that most would willingly throw themselves into flame for such a possibility, so long as it was truly plausible.

“Yes, I can. In fact, I can do more than just claim a chance of success – I can guarantee it. During the battle with Ding Wen, I had managed to utilise the combination of our two attacks to damage the stability of the space around him, thus bringing him down. When I reach the peak of my cultivation in this prison realm, I will be able to do so on my own, and with the combination of several arrays and hatred blades, I can create a permanent rift in space, or possibly cause the decay of this prison realm to begin. Regardless of the method I use, it will give us all a way out,” she said, “And once we are free, with my knowledge of the Planar Continents, I can continue guiding you to rebuild Yi City without the vile influence of the Great Families. Most of you would appreciate that, no?”

“You broke space? How can we believe that?”

“Just take a look at the space above the throne, and you will see the truth,” Wei Yi answered a different person, turning around and swinging White Echo towards the space she had previously created the warp in.

The slash was coated in crimson light that burst out, cutting through the air in a straight line. When it came into contact with that space, it strangely distorted, forming into the shape of the previous spatial cracks. For a few seconds, it remained in place, then dispersed and scattered into naught, the killing intent merging with the bright crimson of the Beast’s energy.

“She was speaking the truth! She broke space!” one yelled immediately after recovering from the sight.

“The woman can break space!”

“We may actually be able to free ourselves!”

“Additionally, you lot may have noticed the robes I am wearing. In case you are unaware, these are the Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival, one hundred of which are worn by the strongest killing intent cultivators within the prison realm. I claimed mine from the Black Terror when I had only begun to cultivate killing intent, so you can be sure that my power will be formidable no matter who I contend with,” she added, “Join me, and return to where you belong. Under my command, you will all have a set of combat techniques that I will adapt specifically for you, and with every significant contribution you make, I can grant you all kinds of power and wealth. What do you say?”

“Yes!”

The majority of those watching kneeled down in place, all of them showing their respect to her. To those that remained undecided on the matter, she said one more thing, “If you are worried about the other two factions, don’t be. I already control Meng Chu’s faction, which we can confirm the moment that we leave the former auction house. As for Shi Luo Feng, she won’t stand a chance with our forces and insights combined. We will put her down for good, before she can create more abominations.”

“We will serve you!”

In truth, convincing these people wouldn’t have been difficult for anyone that had come in and defeated Ding Wen seemingly on their own, as most of the soldiers wouldn’t be willing to go over to Shi Luo Feng, the one that was responsible for killing many of them due to her creation of monsters from her own troops, and going over to Meng Chu would be foolish when the slayer of their previous leader was clearly superior to him. Since she claimed to have the latter under her rule, then it would either mean that she is sufficiently certain of her chances in contending with him, or because her words are true. Regardless of which one it was, since she was confident in allowing them to confirm this with Meng Chu himself, then there would be no harm in siding with her. After all, if she was found to be lying, then they could always turn on her and pledge allegiance to Meng Chu instead.

Naturally, most people did not actually think that turning against her would be a good idea, as her ability to damage space itself meant that they would be killed in a matter of seconds the very second that they revealed their killing intent.

“In that case,” Wei Yi smiled, waving towards the entrance of the auction house, “why don’t we begin on our first task together?”

 

“You are really intent on saving all of your men, aren’t you, Meng Chu? Just give up that redhead and I won’t need to feed all of you to my creations!” Shi Luo Feng repeated, the twisted forms of several men and women that had been in the Searing Torch realm undulating around her, keeping any of Meng Chu’s troops from retreating. Although the numbers were not in her favour, every single one of the abominations could stretch their bodies until they created a perfect semi-circle around their foes, with the other wall being part of the auction house.

“And I think you’re under a great misconception, Shi Luo Feng!” Meng Chu answered, “She-”

All of a sudden, they felt an extreme quantity of energy fluctuate above them, prompting all forces to immediately look above them. Even the abominations followed this compulsion, momentarily ignoring the orders barked at them by Shi Luo Feng.

Amidst the sky, an enormous quantity of crimson that was both similar to the Beast’s killing intent and yet entirely unique from it formed within the air, then, the next second, it formed into a great beam that descended with enormous speed upon the auction house, its target being near the back of the building.

Despite every single one of them being a significant distance from the edge of the beam, they still felt the immense quantity of energy concentrated within threatening all of their personal killing intent, forcing it to retreat into their meridians. It fell onto the roof of the auction house and broke straight through, continuing through the many floors, both above and beneath the surface. The great quantity of crashing stone combined with the enormous force of the strange killing intent technique caused the entirety of Beast’s Rest to tremble.

It was suddenly stopped by something else, some kind of immense power from beneath the auction house, one that certain members of Meng Chu’s faction inexplicably understood to be from a sword.

For several seconds, these twin energies collided with one another and spread out sideways, shaking the rest of the auction house while tearing through the walls and windows, the killing intent and sword energy reaching even beyond the building’s walls and washing over the competing forces of Meng Chu and Shi Luo Feng.

Then, just as suddenly as the sword energy appeared, a third force burst out of the auction house, and while some were able to recognise the nature of the second force, the third was entirely unknown to any of them, and was significantly more powerful. It shattered both types of force and seemed to rupture space itself, causing all of their killing intent flows to be disrupted. Some, like the abominations, even visibly twisted and distorted, though they did not, unfortunately, return to human form.

The duration of the third force was significantly briefer than the other two, though both of them disappeared with it.

For a few seconds, there was only silence, before quiet rumbles of movement appeared all throughout the remains of the auction house. Although none of them could fly, as such an ability was beyond even the Hatred Augur realm, and could barely be attempted with some trickery by those in the equivalent realm of planar cultivation, from what they were able to see of the inner hall of the auction house, it would not be of much use for its original purpose for a long time, as not only did the three strange energies damage the building itself, they also damaged the foundations and structure of the auction house. With careless attempts at repair, it would only cause more of it to collapse.

As the quantity of movement slowly rose and fell, neither Meng Chu nor Shi Luo Feng dared to resume their battle, as they knew that if Ding Wen’s forces emerged and decided to attack both of them at once while they had already injured themselves, it would simply mean that they would both perish without accomplishing their own goals.

Thus, they waited for whatever was happening within to conclude in order to assess the situation more accurately. Both sides were aware that Wei Yi was bound to be within the building, with both also knowing that she was likely to be the most significant of any individual participant. If the incredible show of power they had witnessed earlier came as a result of the confrontation between her and Ding Wen, for example, then it would mean the victor possesses an incredible degree of strength, and, most likely, the leadership of the warriors within, for the warriors would have no reason to go against whoever was able to win in a fair battle – or an unfair one, for that matter, especially if the victor was the same one who was forced to go against those inferior odds.

Several minutes later, just when Shi Luo Feng began to consider attacking anyway, the possibility that Meng Chu was somehow fooling her and that the redhead that had somehow stopped and learnt everything about her cultivation technique in just a single day wasn’t anywhere near the grand auction house slowly blossoming within her mind, figures slowly emerged on the many floors of the auction house.

All kinds of warriors wielding a variety of weapons, with some primarily using ranged weaponry while others only had them behind their backs or in their other hand, approached the shattered windows of the auction house, each one of them looking carefully at the two forces outside of their doors.

Curiously enough, Meng Chu noticed that they were looking mostly at Shi Luo Feng’s abominations, though there were still quite a number of eyes on his own troops.

That naturally presented a series of potential implications, though the fact that some were contradictory in nature made him reluctant to assume the accuracy of any of them just yet. If he assumed Wei Yi’s success when these warriors were still under Ding Wen’s control and were just discounting Meng Chu and his troops due to the fact that a number of them were already injured, it would simply put him at an even greater disadvantage. Even if things were in his favour, it was best to be certain about the situation before acting.

However, as more and more warriors appeared beside the windows and slowly filled them, he couldn’t help but question how either side would have been able to win without several casualties amongst Ding Wen’s forces. After all, no matter how confident any one of them was in their abilities, it surely wouldn’t occur to them to let the enemy get to them without putting any obstacles in their path?

“Meng Chu, you did lie to me, didn’t you? There’s no way someone like her wouldn’t have been able to kill even a single treasure-covered goon!” Shi Luo Feng clearly found the same issue with the situation, raising her hand to order her abominations to attack.

She stopped mid-way when she felt an extreme killing intent pour of the auction house, slowly moving towards them from the middle and heading towards the main, central entrance of the building. With the long reach of killing intent for those in the Searing Torch realm, they were able to observe the compressed aura while it was still half-way down the auction hall, while their aides, those who were a realm lower like Dugu Wei, noticed it a minute later.

Shi Luo Feng recalled the particular killing intent that had repealed her own, but this one did not match. If anything, it was somehow the complete opposite, though perhaps even more powerful.

Meng Chu thought back to the last time he witnessed the power of either Ding Wen or Wei Yi, and found that neither one appeared to match, though the latter’s energy was far closer to what he was feeling at this particular moment.

When that baleful energy got even closer, the common soldiers were also able to sense it. However, with their naturally lower sensitivity and inferior ability to distinguish the subtle differences in energy thanks to their weaker talent, even if they pooled all of their observations together and tried to recognise the killing intent, they would be unlikely to succeed.

Fortunately for them, they did not need to try so hard.

The tall doors of the auction house suddenly slammed open, both of them literally embedding themselves into the walls from the pure force that had been invested into that simple action. If that wasn’t enough for them to determine the identity of the victor, then the crimson robes, tall stature, muscular arms, the illusory battlefield and the twin knives by her sides proved to be more than sufficient.

She took several more steps, both for effect and to avoid the debris from her earlier over-eager opening of the doors, then faced Meng Chu.

“It seems that my typical estimations of success chance, even when facing otherworldly demons, are a little low. For the smoother progression of our future operations, I’ll amend that in the future,” she said, though she was a little more occupied with scanning through the remaining contents of the House of Gold than the conversation.

Due to the earlier battle with Ding Wen, as well as the faked demonstration of the spatial tear, Wei Yi’s pools of energy had been significantly drained, meaning that even if Shi Luo Feng was a significantly weaker opponent than Ding Wen – which was not just likely, but outright guaranteed – it would still be in her best interests to use the remains of her energy as wisely as possible to ensure her own success. Since she also needed to empty the otherworldly book of unnecessary items to be able to store her own things inside of it, this presented her with the perfect opportunity to discard some of the treasures that would only be usable in this particular situation.

This was made somewhat easier due to a certain function she had discovered within the House of Gold, which displayed a small summary of the item she focused on so long as it was stored within the book.

Besides allowing her to figure out the functions of weapons, pills and other equipment without needing extensive analysis and experimentation, it also made her want to gain access to some empty space within as quickly as possible, as this book, so long as it could do the same for things that aren’t yet within it, could potentially allow her to discover far more about the items and knowledge that she currently possesses.

Meanwhile, with her hand still half-raised, Shi Luo Feng was trying to understand the sight in front of her, mumbling to herself, “What is this… how did she…”

“By the way, Meng Chu, there are a number of items I’ll pass on to you later. I’ll naturally provide you with an explanation of their functions, though how you use them is naturally up to you,” Wei Yi continued, seemingly ignoring the muttering that was extremely obvious with her superior hearing, “As you might be able to guess, Ding Wen had quite the number of things hidden away.”

‘She is aware that Shi Luo Feng is standing right there-’ Meng Chu was trying to understand the purpose behind her actions when he spotted the glimpse of movement in the distance, prompting him to glance into the windows of the auction house, ‘Is she intent on surrounding our forces first before making a move? If so, then how many people were just sitting about in the auction house while waiting for her to deal with Ding Wen?’

As outright asking such a thing would spoil whatever she was planning, he simply nodded and said, “Indeed. Have you been able to find the secret of his treasury?”

“It was more or less what I had expected, with a slight twist. Not the best time for me to speak of such things, but I can share most of the information with you when we return to our base,” she answered, seemingly acknowledging the presence of others for the first time, “Ah, Shi Luo Feng. We meet again.”

“We… Oh…” since Meng Chu was able to observe the subtle movements in the background, how could someone more capable than him in combat fail to do so? After all, with greater experience and ability came greater perception and a better ability to focus on more than one thing, which was especially important in the prison realm, where most killing intent techniques did not require execution with a single part of the body, a bit like the Cherry Blossom Strike, except requiring far less cleverness and resulting in less damage due to the general lack of structure and stability of killing intent at all levels in comparison to planar energy.

Even in the Searing Torch realm, when cultivators condense weaponry from their own concentrated hatred, their weapons lack the same stability as the solidified planar energy of those in the Active Core realm, whose planar constructs can remain in place for months so long as they are not dispersed, although they do require a certain proximity to the planar construct until the higher realms, at which point the range of their energy and spiritual will increases and might eventually become sufficient to no longer rely on their planar anchor for stability.

In theory, they could even be turned into a form of planar stone that is animated by the original technique behind the construct, attaining a form of perpetual existence so long as the concentration of planar energy in the atmosphere around them is sufficient to continuously operate the technique.

‘Right, this is me getting distracted by all sorts of nonsense again, except… the Staff of Discombobulation in the House of Gold is described as containing a technique that disrupts any complex cultivation technique in the direction it is aimed towards, and while I would like to test it on the Greats, I have yet to figure out their secret, meaning that it might not be a technique but a physique, some kind of abnormality, artefact, some kind of energy I cannot even comprehend yet, a forbidden skill or something entirely different, and this staff might prove to be useless against a sufficiently powerful technique,’ she decided, choosing that staff as one of the artefacts to use now, ‘In a similar vein, the Crystallised Human Effigy, regardless of what it is actually made of, is stated to cause a temporary return to common human form without any special effects of cultivation or training, so I should use it second…’

Although she had the chance to consider far too much within the mental library, Shi Luo Feng only had the time to raise her hand and bark out an order in that same amount of time.

“Attack them all!”

Thanks to her enemy saying her words for her, all that Wei Yi chose to add was, “Now!”

At the same time, she willed two items to fly out of her robes, though they truly emerged from the spatial storage of the House of Gold, and grabbed them with either hand. A large and long golden staff settled in one while a strange crystalline object that slightly resembled the humanity sprite transformation of the Concentrated Humanity physique landed in the other.

She pointed the staff towards Shi Luo Feng’s group, making sure to include as few of her allies in the area of effect. Her spiritual will flowed into it at an extreme rate, mostly due to the will of the Staff of Discombobulation itself, forcing her to quell the flow slightly until it was something her limited quantity of spiritual will could handle, then a thinner rod within the staff melted into pure energy and burst out of the staff, flying out in a loose wave of colourless energy.

It reached Shi Luo Feng and the surrounding abominations before they had a chance to react, causing them to stop in their tracks. The abominations were affected first or were the first to display those effects due to being warped entirely by the method of the Magnanimous Leech.

Their limbs and chunks of flesh compressed and tried to unwind themselves into some kind of more ordinary shape, but with the current arrangement of bones, muscle and whatever else had festered within them, every single movement simply unravelled them into a helpless mass of former human flesh.

Once those effects also began to apply to Shi Luo Feng, her body’s reaction was surprisingly similar, though disturbing in an entirely different way. Her facial features blurred and shifted, the colour of her eyes rapidly changed between brown, green, blue, yellow and grey, as well as some other, rarer shades that could only be inherited from some very specific blood or physique. The woman’s skin also warped between the extremes of white and dark, though only individual patches of flesh were affected at a time, creating countless spots upon her.

Furthermore, her limbs also shifted and undulated, their changes in length and width being minor but extremely bewildering to the person affected.  The majority of fighters rely on their body, whether to wield a weapon or to strike directly with their fists and legs, meaning that even the slightest abnormal changes in their physiques can lead to significant difficulties and the requirement for a certain period of adjustment.

All of this combined meant that Shi Luo Feng would have very little opportunity to do anything but blindly unleash her killing intent and hope that the effort does not kill or injure her.

Wei Yi, while grabbing a third item that flew out of the House of Gold, raised the Crystallised Human Effigy and focused on Shi Luo Feng, making sure her image was firmly in her mind before she crushed the strange object, noting with some surprise that it was incredibly fragile.

When it broke, every single fragment of crystal that broke beneath her fingers turned straight into mist by some mysterious process, and the energy sealed within formed into a clump of black and white smoke that flew out at a slow yet steady pace. It passed unseen through the abominations and Meng Chu’s troops alike, with them and Ding Wen’s former warriors completely surrounding the frozen forces before it finally reached the skin of its target.

The mottled and warped skin of the former beauty was enveloped in smoke for a single second, then, as it dispersed, Shi Luo Feng’s entire body cracked audibly several times as it shrunk by several centimetres. A number of her primary physical features transformed, her proportions shifting in one breath before freezing in such a way that she appeared to be an entirely different person.

Before such a thing could be pondered by anyone, the third item to be removed from the House of Gold was used, instantly applying some kind of field of energy over the entire area.

Every hatred blade and weapon that was used within by her allies miraculously became sharper and more powerful, and if the abominations were capable of attacking at this moment, they would have found their attacks becoming weaker for no clear reason.

While the majority of strikes were aimed at the former subordinates of Shi Luo Feng, Wei Yi targeted their leader herself, forming a hatred spear out of the Living Spear technique and then gave it some stability with some of her spiritual will energy. Only the point and the internal channels were formed carefully, while the rest was composed of unstable killing intent that was already threatening to turn into nothingness.

As she could not afford to create another such spear, she would naturally not waste it.

‘One of the core parts of the body, the most difficult to correct no matter how powerful the technique is, would be the brain!’ she thought as she aimed for that exact spot, throwing the spear with a speed greater than that of sound.

Shi Luo Feng tried to dodge, based on how her muscles twitched, but the extreme number of physical changes and confusion nullified that movement into nothing.

With a sharp cut of flesh, the spear pierced her skull and exploded as it was mid-way through her head, taking all of her upper torso with it. The smoke around her dispersed and came into contact with a number of the abominations, temporarily softening their flesh and making them just as easy to temporarily kill.

After the rest of them were taken care of, their bodies laid in one pile and burnt with the vast majority of Wei Yi’s physique energy, the Three of Beast’s Rest became one.