Path of the Ascendant

Several days later, Wei Yi stood atop a small mountain, looking down to its foot to observe a man dressed in all white as he was slowly navigating his way through the wastes of the prison realm.

‘Bai Hao, this person’s outfit perfectly matches the things worn in the right of the prison realm, yes?’

‘Almost entirely, yes,’ the man in white replied, his body manifesting in reality through Wei Yi’s personal instruction, for with the growth of her twin mental energies, it became even more difficult for him to appear where she did not want him.

‘Excellent. I hope they are all as easy to interrogate as you were.’

She forced him back into the prison tower within her mental domain and activated her many stealth techniques, using some of her spiritual will in combination with them to prevent sounds that she makes from travelling through the air and reaching her target, the other man that was dressed in an incredibly similar set of white robes.

As she wasn’t aware whether this particular individual from the spiritual will side of the prison realm was hostile or otherwise eager to battle – there had to be one or two such people who would intentionally leave that side of the prison realm to seek out the more hostile world of the killing intent side, where they could get all of their destructive tendencies out of their system before returning to the seemingly dull world of the spiritual will side of the prison realm – she decided to be cautious and approach him without being spotted, before pretending to have come across him coincidentally and without any malicious intent. Depending on his response, she would then change her plans accordingly.

The moment that she got within five metres of this person, she felt a thin wall of spiritual will surrounding him, continuously scanning everything that it touched. However, she was able to tell that this field was imperfect, hardly informing him of as much information as her spiritual will did.

‘Whether I should assume that to be due to his incompetence or my competence is something I could investigate later, but for now, I don’t think that it would be a good idea to bypass the spiritual will unnoticed if I want to appear non-threatening to this person,’ Wei Yi concluded, straightening her back and disappearing behind a small hill that would be in the path of this person in white, then allowed herself to be revealed as she pretended to walk out from behind it just as he approached.

“You! Who are you?” the man in white questioned instantly, taking a step back while removing a short stick from his belt.

“I am just a traveller,” she answered, examining the object with her spiritual will while he was distracted, “You appear to be someone from the other side of the prison realm. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

“Questions? What does a savage like you-”

“We can compete with our spiritual wills, if that is more to your liking.”

“You… You are aware of that?”

“Mhm. Let us stand an equal distance away and release our spiritual wills. The one to win will have to answer a certain number of questions from the other, whether that’s only three or all of them.”

“Any question at all? In that case, we can compete for all questions! There are many things I have to ask of you, and whatever allowed a savage like yourself to learn of both spiritual will and our standard practises will be revealed to me!” exclaimed the man in white, demonstrating far less intellect and general stability than Bai Hao in all of his actions.

“Very well, then. How close would you prefer me to stand?”

“All of this is down to you, for your spiritual will is clearly inferior to mine. Even if you need to stand right next to me, I shall tolerate it.”

‘What an arrogant fuck. That seems to be a trend of their entire society, and one that I should not permit within my Yi City,’ Wei Yi decided while maintaining a straight face and walking back a few steps until she was exactly three metres away, “I will be fine with starting here. Shall we begin now?”

“Of course!”

Thus, both of them released their spiritual wills at once in a sphere, though even a casual glance would reveal that her spiritual will was significantly more stable, almost forming an array simply by existing, while his sphere was constantly fluctuating and lacking the distinct stability that Wei Yi had long gotten used to with her own energy.

Their rates of expansion would have also differed, but Wei Yi made sure to restrain herself so that the man did not get scared away or use some kind of insane technique that would turn the odds in his favour.

Nevertheless, this man in white had noticed that her energy was not exactly matching his expectations, though he failed to observe the fact that she had long scanned the object that he had returned to his side and was also unaware that there were traces of killing intent mixed in with her spiritual will, helping her sphere remain stable and granting it a significant degree of offensive potential in the case of a collision with any other force.

When their two energies met, Wei Yi stopped her spiritual will from progressing while the man in white pushed on. Despite that, his spiritual will could not budge hers, only enveloping it further without harming the perfect sphere in the slightest. The man’s expression changed, and he tried to affect his spiritual will by raising his hand and trying to direct it, but he could do nothing.

“I must say, I had been expecting a little more from someone in the third realm. I’m not mistaken in that assumption, am I?”

“I am in the Greater Stability realm! Are you some kind of monster in the Balanced Being realm, are you?”

“No, I am not,” she replied, ‘However, it is certainly possible that the presence of planar energy and the spiritual will that comes naturally from planar cultivation could be causing my energy to be significantly more powerful and stable than his, which, in combination with the insane array that I had constructed in my mental landscape and my general mental ability, leads to me surpassing realms in this path as well.’

She waited a little longer, hoping to see something that she could emulate and learn from, but all he managed to do was hold out his hand more desperately than before, prompting her to activate her spiritual will energy and crush his sphere, pushing it back until her energy cut several hairs from his beard.

“Now, I am owed some questions… Unless you would like to try again?”

“I… Fine, you have the victory. Get your questions over with!”

“Don’t worry, it won’t take too long. First of all, is there any way of getting over to your side of the storm wall? Is there a scheduled opening within it for you?”

“Don’t you think of taking it away from me! I-”

“Unless it is limited to a single person, I see no reason not to let you return to the other side of the prison realm. What matters more than that is when it will be happening. For instance, if I decided to lock you up somewhere with the intention of interrogating you and caused you to miss it, then neither of us will benefit, and I may torture you significantly more than I otherwise could.”

“… Two years. I will be returning in two years, at a point that is exactly east of here.”

“Two, huh? That’s quite a while, but I can wait. Just don’t try to trick me, understand? It won’t end well for you, no matter how powerful you think yourself to be.”

The man in white shook his head vigorously, “No, I’ll not do such a thing.”

“However, you’re thinking that once I cross over with you, the people on the other side will punish me in your stead? Is that right?”

“N-No…”

“Whatever. That’s not up to you anyway. Now, tell me about that weapon on your belt. I see that it uses spiritual will as energy to condense a blade, but I am curious to learn more about it. Unless you want to let me borrow it, I suggest you tell me absolutely everything you know.”

“This? This is a spiritual concentration blade, made to deal with the threats of the prison realm on this side,” he explained, taking the object and showing it to her, though he kept a tight grip on it, “By sending our spiritual will into the weapon, it can be controlled to form anything, so long as it is in a straight line from the handle. The weapon can be two-sided, if necessary, though most of us practise only swordsmanship and thus use the simplest configuration.”

“Very interesting. Are these plentiful on the other side, or are you one of the only ones to wield such a tool?”

“They are typically loaned out for training, and directly given to us only when we go out of the right side of the prison realm,” the man in white answered, “In total, I recall that it was said that we have only one hundred weapons right now.”

“That’s excellent, thank you. Just one more thing, and then I may consider letting you go. Share all of your techniques with me.”

That finally caused him to display reluctance, “No, I can’t-”

“Must I really explain why denying me is a bad idea? Did you fail to hear me the first time, you worthless insect?” Wei Yi completely changed her stance, radiating her killing intent without holding back. She only addressed him with a degree of politeness in the beginning so that he would speak to her more easily, but now that he refused to answer a simple question, she could get the same results with a slightly different method: namely, forcing him into combat so that he uses his combat techniques and allows her to duplicate them on her own after defeating him.

Indeed, he acted just as she had expected, silently flooding the weapon in his hand with spiritual will and lunging at her with an angered expression.

Although his movements were smooth and fluid, clearly displaying the training that he had received in the spiritual will domain of the prison realm, and the blade he created from the spiritual concentration blade was certainly on par with the low-grade hatred blades that were common within the crimson side of the prison realm, his actions were still simple and entirely lacking in power.

Even if he was facing someone other than Wei Yi, who was an anomaly in almost every way, he would still encounter an unpleasant surprise the moment that he attempted to strike them in this manner, for they, just like Wei Yi, would be able to grab his arm and wrench the spiritual concentration blade form his hand without any difficulty whatsoever. As she did so, she also sent a thread of killing intent into his meridians, instantly disrupting any circulation of his spiritual will in that arm.

He gasped and tried to focus his spiritual will in his other hand, but she was able to do the exact same thing in an even shorter period of time.

‘Come on, use some kind of technique so that this trip becomes a little more worthwhile!’ she demanded in her mind, but he did not respond in the way she wanted. Instead, his eyes widened, and he stumbled back, an expression of mixed terror and confusion dominating his face.

“Get back! Stay away from me!” he shouted, tripping on himself as he attempted to retreat.

‘Ugh, what an enormous disappointment this man turned out to be. I hope his companions are a slightly more useful lot.’

She had noticed the presence of others quite some time ago, and thus, when two more figures in white, one male and one female, emerged from beyond the hills around them, she was prepared for whatever they could throw at her.

As it turned out, their attack was also incredibly simplistic. Both of the figures in white released a total of ten strands of spiritual will, one from each of their fingers, and launched them towards her in a simplistic square grid that could easily be predicted and evaded by a common person. Naturally, the threads themselves couldn’t be withstood by most low realm cultivators, but Wei Yi did not intend to allow them to hit her.

With a certain quantity of her killing intent, she formed a sphere around herself for protection, then charged towards the second male figure in white.

By their outfits, it was difficult to understand their relationships to one another and whether they were equal to or superior to one another, and thus she decided to check this by seeing how any of them would react to their allies being captured. In theory, if one of them was the leader of the group, then they would be far more inclined to assist them than if the captured person was on the same rank as they were.

Just as she had predicted, the second that she grabbed that man, the woman processed the situation and stretched out her hand to launch spiritual will threads at her, clearly deciding to risk the life of her hostage to gain the upper edge.

‘Even if she isn’t the leader, she ought to have the information I want… and interrogating someone that is more attractive is a natural positive,’ Wei Yi reasoned, throwing the man straight into the path of the spiritual will threads. The woman’s eyes widened for a second as she tried to revoke the threads before they could injure her comrade, but the moment that her efforts failed, she was forced to ignore those spiritual threads and create a new series of them to be able to attack freely. Just a second before that could happen, the woman in white found her entire body freezing up as baleful crimson energy filled her meridian network, stopping all movement and circulation of energy.

As the second man in white fell to the ground, six holes in his body slowly leaking blood, Wei Yi restrained the woman and forced her to the ground, keeping her in the dirt with her leg while keeping a hold on the woman’s neck with one hand, keeping the other one empty so that she would be able to deal with anyone that came to threaten her.

“Listen to me. That man is bleeding out quickly, and your other ally is probably going to trip over a rock and cause himself similar injuries. If you want to be able to save them, or perhaps even get my help to completely seal their wounds, then you should comply with all of my instructions. Do you understand that, or should I hurt you as well? With my killing intent, I can easily tear apart your meridians and end any hopes of advancing in your cultivation, perhaps completely eliminating any existing traces of it…”

“Savage, how dare you-”

“Wrong. Answer,” Wei Yi shook her head, tightening her grip on the woman’s neck, “You’re not exactly in the best position to be rude to me, if you haven’t noticed already.”

“…” the woman in white remained silent for a while, gritting her teeth in frustration, then, with disgust and anger audibly filling her voice, she let out a quiet sigh and said, “I can do that… What do you want, you sav-”

“I’ll cut you off there, just so that you don’t give me a reason to get rougher with you. First of all, tell me about every single one of your techniques and how to use them, alright?”

“That… that will take too long-”

“So get going, you idiot, unless you want your friend to die while you’re wasting our time. Furthermore, it would be in your best interests to be as truthful with me as you can possibly be, otherwise the time that I take to confirm your words and get a second explanation of the things you lied about will bring that man closer to his death.”

“You… Listen closely! If you don’t listen, I-”

“Shut the fuck up and move on. I get it. I have no reason to want you lot dead, so if any deaths occur, it will be due to you and you alone. Do you understand that?”

“Y-Yes…”

 

“… and that’s the Concentrated Blade technique, though most of us use the spiritual concentration blade in place of it,” the woman in white finished her list, providing a total of six techniques in full and mentions of several more without being able to give a proper cultivation method for them.

In full, the list included the Decapitating Net, Mental Intrusion, Pearl Barrier, Strike Deflection, Sword Will Arts and Concentrated Blade techniques. The Decapitating Net was an art to form a literal net out of spiritual will and, typically, decapitate foes. Mental Intrusion was a powerful sounding method, but all it permitted someone to do was send a thread of spiritual will into the mental landscape of another, viewing some parts of it until the target realises their presence and removes it with their ultimate control over their own mind. Pearl Barrier was a basic defensive technique, forming a basic sphere around the user with slightly more stability and strength than simply gathering one’s energy. Strike Deflection was used to retaliate with force against force, weakening or outright eliminating attacks by meeting them in mid-air with similarly powerful strikes.

Sword Will Arts and the Concentrated Blade technique were a little more interesting, as the former was a swordsmanship technique that permitted the creation of sword light, being most effective when channelled through a spiritual concentration blade or a weapon former via the Concentrated Blade technique. Furthermore, they even surpassed some of the common sword techniques from the Planar Continents, unlike the hatred blades that were significantly worse than any artefacts from the outer world.

The issues with these techniques applied to every single one of them: they were far, far too rigid.

So far as Wei Yi could tell, every single one of these were created for a few very specific situations and movements, thus leading to them being entirely impractical in true combat scenarios. If this was how every skill was designed, then it made perfect sense that the previous men in white were lacking in battle – their techniques simply didn’t allow them to properly adapt to the situation.

‘All of these have a set of movements, but have invested no thought into putting them together into a cohesive whole… I will need to adapt these techniques before using them myself, and I should make sure to learn this lesson in my own techniques in the future. Something like the Elysian Palm is a good example of what I should be attempting to recreate in the future, as it is not only incredibly powerful, but also very versatile, being usable in combination with seemingly every single other skill in my arsenal,’ she thought, her hand still gripping the neck of the woman in white as she briefly analysed the techniques to confirm that none of them had any kind of trick embedded in their design to cripple her whenever she attempts to use them.

When that did not appear to be the case, she softened her grip and said, “Alright, you’ve done well. Next, tell me when you are going to be returning to the right side of the prison realm.”

“Two years! It’s going to be in two years! Now, heal-”

“Don’t try to make demands. I’ll do what I want, when I want, and it will be your fault when your friends die,” she was forced to interrupt the woman in white again, “Since your answer appears to be consistent with your friend over there, let me offer you a deal – you stay near me, don’t try anything dumb and then bring me alongside you through the storm wall, then I will not only ensure you lot survive, but I will also pretend that I had nothing with you when we cross over. If the authorities on the other side question me, I will claim that you had no awareness of me, and that you are innocent of any transgressions against them.”

“… Who are you, sav- who are you? What is your position in this side of the prison realm?”

“Why do you want to know? Are you trying to establish how much of a threat I will be to you if you escape my sight?”

“…”

“I don’t really mind, to be honest. It only makes sense to want to be aware of who your captor is. My name is Wei Yi, and I am the current leader of Beast’s Rest. I am also the person that appears to be the most likely to breach the boundaries of the prison realm itself and escape into the Planar Continents.”

“What? That… weren’t there three leaders in that place?”

“There were. Now, there aren’t. I think that the city is better off for it, frankly.”

“Well… how do we know that we can trust you?”

“You can’t. Unless you want me to attempt to swear some kind of oath to you, then you will just have to believe me. However, let me remind you that I have no need to end your lives, so it would be in your best interests to go along with me. Afterwards, regardless of what happens with me, you will be free to continue with whatever it is you’re interested in doing, so don’t be stupid in your decision making.”

The woman in white looked around, glancing first at the bleeding man on the ground then at the confused man in the distance, though she could only see his legs from his perspective, taking a few seconds to think before nodding, “Very well. I am Hao Gang, and I expect you to honour your word.”

“Sure, I can do that. Before I let you stand up – and breathe, since I suspect that you need that – let me remind you for the last time that if you try to run away or do something stupid, you will fail. I am faster than you, stronger than you, and, it seems, smarter than you as well, so regardless of what you attempt to do, you will suffer as a result,” Wei Yi said, grabbing and easily crushing a nearby rock to prove her point, “Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I do.”

Wei Yi nodded, and stood up from the woman’s body, finally allowing her to take a proper breath for the first time in a long while.

After making sure that she wasn’t intending to attack her from behind – though she naturally kept watching with her spiritual will, as there was no reason to let her guard down – she headed over to the injured man in white and forced a pill into his mouth, using some of her killing intent to activate it in order to allow him to recover from the spiritual thread wounds.

‘Hm, unlike killing intent, which is always a single form of energy, spiritual will can be split distinctly into spiritual energy and spiritual perception… So that I don’t confuse myself, I think I should change what I call the energy I cultivate into spiritual will and the sensory form of it into spiritual perception.’

While she thought, she also removed the killing intent from the first figure’s arms, allowing him to recover from whatever was causing him to act like he has lost his brain.

“Once you’re done with recovering your breath, I will lead you to Beast’s Rest.”

Hao Gang nodded, silently rubbing the bright red marks on her throat when she thought that Wei Yi had turned away. While the latter kept watching in silence, the woman in white made no attempts to heal herself via some kind of spiritual will technique nor with any pill, showing that this was either insufficient of a concern to warrant the use of such things, simultaneously suggesting that either one of these methods would be costly, or that she lacked either of these methods, implying a very similar set of circumstances.

Eventually, the three figures in white were ready to go and formed a line behind Wei Yi, remaining on guard while bidding her to proceed.

 

When Beast’s Rest came into view as they climbed over a particularly large hill, the three figures in white were astounded. It was not difficult for Wei Yi to have figured out that they had some awareness of what the world on this side of the storm wall looked like, especially after their earlier comments on the number of leaders in Beast’s Rest, and their expression of surprise made that even more obvious.

What they saw was not the eponymous Beast, as they undoubtedly expected, but an enormous framework of walls, buildings and roads being carved into the crimson ground of the prison realm. A large group of builders were carrying an enormous quantity of carved stone and wooden pillars from the town itself to these new structures, with others setting them into the ground and building up the basic foundations and frameworks for the expansion of Beast’s Rest.

Despite the fact that they had begun only a few days ago, the rough shape of the city was already obvious, with one of the eventual brothels already being mid-way through construction.

“How is this possible? That’s not what the Sensory Scanning array showed at all!” Hao Gang presumably tried to keep her voice down, but her surprise turned that into a cry that was heard by some of the closest construction workers, who looked up and kept their eyes on the group.

‘Sensory Scanning array… I recall something that could match that description in Bai Hao’s memories, so it is clear that she isn’t making something up to appear more shocked than she actually is, though I doubt that she is capable of such a thing – just like all of their techniques are incredibly rigid, all of them seem incapable of lying or faking their emotions,’ Wei Yi noted, lightly striking the woman on the back of the head so that she would stop making so much of a commotion, “I only took over recently, and made a major decisions as I did so. Whatever that array of yours is, I’m not surprised that it couldn’t show you the future.”

“What in the heavens-” the first figure in white began, but he was interrupted when a group of soldiers approached them, urged to do so by the busy construction workers.

“Halt!” those soldiers said, drawing a series of weapons and hatred blades as they partially surrounded them, “You lot look suspicious. Why are you using this route?”

“We’re just passing through,” replied Wei Yi, “Do continue working and protecting the construction site, and I may give you lot some personal instruction after you return to central Beast’s Rest. For now, get out of the way.”

For a second, it seemed that the person in front of them didn’t understand who she was – but only for a second, as his comrades immediately grabbed him and whispered a few words in his ear, explaining who she was and some of the things that she had recently done, instantly making the man take a step back and bow down to her.

“Boss Wei! Sorry for getting in your way,” he said, immediately turning around and fleeing with the soldiers.

“Wait, you’re actually-”

“Welcome to Beast’s Rest. I’ll make sure that you enjoy your stay – forcefully, if I have to.”