Path of the Ascendant

Some time passed after their agreement to cooperation, and soon it was the first of the eleventh month. The end of the year was approaching, not that anyone cared much about it, and the armies of the Primordial Deity residing in the Empire of the Dawn were preparing to make another move.

They had done rather little against the Empire in the meanwhile, and it was specifically to bait out exactly this action, though that’s not to say that all of the talk of alliance had merely resulted in them lounging about and letting whatever the Primordial Deity wanted happen without intervention. Some attacks that had been attempted prior were prevented with rapid action, enabled by Wei Yi’s extreme range of divine sense, and Primordial Metal had been guided specifically into preparing the largest attack possible.

When it was about to begin, then the primary stage of the plan would begin, and then the forces of the two outside nations would step in and invade the Empire of the Dawn. The Ascendant would be absent from that front, as well as the front of Yi City, and she would let Primordial Metal consider what it would do upon encountering such a problem.

It would need to scatter its armies, or alternatively attempt to push in one particular direction to claim a different portion of lands for itself. The latter was very unlikely given the absurdly territorial tendencies of the Primordial Deities, this one included, so it was only a question of which side would need to deal with the greatest force. Whichever one it would be, the Ascendant would send the people of Paragon, including the likes of Great Light – who, at this point, seemed to have forgotten that there even was a world outside of his mining – and ensure that it could resist the attack with minimal losses and breaches.

Then, while her people were fighting in one place, she would head over to Primordial Metal directly, and kill it. At this point, such a thing was almost necessary, or else it would make no sense at all.

Even when she had been far weaker, she had slain several Primordial Deities and took in their energy like it was nothing, and while she still had little clue regarding the reason for her successes so far, it was something that seemed to be safe enough to take for granted.

With the strength she now possessed, it was vital that she met Primordial Metal, struck it down, then took everything it had so that nothing like it could reappear within the Planar Continents until the end of its days. It’s Dao, energy, and very essence would be hers, and all of it would be purified down to the necessary concepts that aligned with her Dao of Law. Only then would they be effectively destroyed, and only then would she fully hold the power that their demises had bestowed upon her.

During the wait for Primordial Metal’s attack, she had been attempting to study exactly that, but the barriers of Dao that were not truly her own manifested themselves once more.

When the fundamental aspects of Dao were filled in by someone other than herself, she needed to complete the initial steps without any feedback from the world, as it would otherwise default to the Dao she took from the Primordial Deities and the heavens instead of her own principles to fill out any incomplete elements. This was unavoidable, however, as she couldn’t take only the energy of the Primordial Deities and dismiss the Dao without potential significant damage to her own body and the potential of allowing them to be reborn elsewhere.

Both of those were conjecture on her part, but it was safer not to test it. The short-term impact might not be as severe as the worst possible outcome, and the eventual long-term benefits would be in her favour, as she could still benefit from the views of the world that the heavens had.

‘Oh, is Primordial Metal finally moving its forces? It sure took its while, but this has allowed me to gain a small advantage, at least.’

Among her forces were the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Yi City, and one of them, Chu Su, had been near the eighth realm even before the Primordial Deities had begun to emerge. Now that they were out and the energy she had taken from them permitted her to break through and also elevate the world’s planar energy density, he had managed to reach the eighth realm quickly, as only a day prior to this one, she stood by and supported him in reaching it smoothly.

Thus, he became the first of her forces to breach that barrier, and the second to reach the eighth realm in the entire world, though that was somewhat unlikely. The first to reach Imperfect Rift made a big impact, but Chu Su made a far smaller one, as the world had acclimated to the greater density of planar energy. There might well have been others that she didn’t know about.

What mattered more than that was the power of Primordial Metal and its fellow Primordial Deities, and they appeared to have gotten no minions powerful enough to challenge Chu Su and the Patriarchs that would follow him soon enough.

‘Let’s see… It appears that Primordial Metal still thinks that Yi City is the primary threat, and still intends to target it,’ she confirmed, expecting as much, then focused her divine sense on her forces to convey her commands, “People of the east, of the Heavenly Peak Court and the Coastal Lord’s Kingdom, begin your attack on the lands of the Empire of the Dawn! Make yourselves known and stride in like you own the place. Soon enough, you practically will.”

She would have kept going, as she felt a rambling mood coming over her today, but she subdued it quickly and threw it far into the depths of the Ascendant’s Library. This was not the time for it.

Although some of the combatants from the east were a little confused at the sudden exclamation within their mind, despite the preparation for exactly this, they managed to respond quickly enough and began their intrusion into the territory of the Empire of the Dawn. They didn’t move at their fastest speed, as that would needlessly exhaust them and ultimately achieve little, but even then, cultivators that were in the fifth realm on average could easily traverse dozens of kilometres in the time a normal person would barely be able to traverse one kilometre at the peak of their speed. That was the unfairness of the world, if one viewed it that way.

Having begun very near the border, they soon broke through the wall of shards that Primordial Metal’s power had reinforced. It was hardly necessary, given that the walls were only tall enough to prevent casual jumps over them, but it did send a message, which was exactly what was needed.

As soon as the Primordial Deity’s walls were damaged, it turned towards the invaders, and its forces turned also, hearing the metallic screeches that passed for their deity’s instructions. At first, it appeared to be considering sending every one of its troops out to the east, to protect against the intrusion and take more territory for itself before heading back to the west. This was also within expectations, so Wei Yi naturally instructed the people of Yi City to head out and protect their lands by attacking their foe in advance.

Of course, there was no point to the common folk heading out, but they were informed anyway.

Using some of her powers and authorities over the world, she was able to let them skip some of the journey, avoid detection at first, accelerate their movement, empower them, make every soldier more powerful, grant them a stronger weapon, reinforce the materials of their weapons, and far, far more. It was a larger list than she had been expecting.

‘Perhaps I can reach the level of a Primordial Deity when it comes to power over a Dao. However, I have a slight suspicion is that something won’t work very well,’ she noted.

In general, something that interacted with the heavens and the Planar Continents excessively was a danger to her, as it meant tying herself to it when the heavens themselves might be her foes, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t interact with the world whatsoever, and so she had a chance of figuring out some vital aspect of the world in the meanwhile. That would help regardless of the things she ended up doing in the future, and so it was another item on her endless list of possibilities.

Once the forces of Yi City attacked, Primordial Metal and its forces stopped in their tracks for a while, and it was clear that they were letting their leader make up its mind. Their deployment was settled only a whole minute later.

She made note of the division of forces, and their deployment, but aside from the exact specifics of army distribution, none of it mattered to her specifically. Primordial Metal did as she had wanted, staying in the centre while it was uncertain what to do, and with its forces gone, she could attack it easily and let the others prevent it from gaining any reinforcements in the process of the battle.

Given that the typical battle between her and a Primordial Deity lasts long enough for night to turn to day, and the date to advance, having as much time as possible would be ideal.

As she had been planning her attack for a very long time, she had identified the proper spatial coordinates for Primordial Metal’s location in advance, and made adjustments to them as she went to minimize the work she’d need to do once she could put them to use. With everything planned out and prepared, she was able to simply lift her right hand and snap her fingers to trigger the right resonance of chains of Law.

She vanished as quickly as always.

 

At the centre of any Primordial Deity territory, things were always in a terrible state in comparison to the outside world. Primordial Inferno turned all to glass and flame, Primordial Ocean raised the greatest storm to trouble Yi City, as far as she knew, and Primordial Metal manifested a land so filled with shards it was impossible to stand upon it without being cut by something.

Even her skin wasn’t tough enough to endure it, so she quickly rose into the air and steadied herself with the many chains of Law that flooded the world. Many of them were rather agitated at the moment, being indirectly touched by Primordial Metal’s power, but no matter how powerful a Primordial Deity was, it simply couldn’t distort the entire world. As such, for every agitated chain, there were five more that weren’t trembling at all, and she relied upon them to support Chain Resonance and travel closer to the metal entity.

“MORTAL. THING. BE. GONE!” a metallic screech permeated the area, and the ground beneath Wei Yi flew up, endless shards arranging themselves in just the right way to pierce right through her.

“Nope!” she exclaimed back, a wave of her hand turning the air beneath her into plasma.

It melted the shards instantly, turning them into a hot mess that no longer aligned with the Primordial Deity’s Dao. Thus, they – rather, the mass of metal that they had become – crashed to the ground audibly, splashing all over the place and melting quite a bit. The plasma was cooled the moment it served its function, as it was not influenced by any other cultivator or Primordial Deity and was easy to control, and so all that was left was to retaliate.

She didn’t bring out Moon Splitter, as it was composed of shards and would be subject to Primordial Metal’s control, and instead relied upon her own hands and Dao.

First of all, she applied the Fire Dao upon its form, in the hopes of being able to melt the entity enough to weaken it, and then rushed right in and punched the least sharp part of its metallic, armoured-looking form.

Her fist collided with the mass of shards, and a ringing sound broke out, as if she had struck a hollow suit of armour and accomplished little as a result. Nevertheless, aside from the typical imbuements into her strikes, she also made use of the Water Dao, letting it and the Fire Dao actively clash on the surface of her right hand, transferring that clash into the grey metal shell.

She suspected it was the reason that any sound was produced to begin with, as this entity was extremely tough. After all, the focus on shards did not prevent Primordial Metal from taking advantage of any other metallic traits, permitting it to unify the toughest of metals with the general power of the eighth realm, reinforcing that composite material into something that rivalled the toughest bark of Primordial Nature.

‘I need to weaken the material, prevent it from repairing it, and then ensure that there is a sufficient opening for me to take Primordial Metal’s power through it,’ Wei Yi determined the primary points of the conflict, and withdrew the Fire Dao’s power hurriedly.

In place of it, she condensed all of the liquid in the air and forced it all upon the Primordial Deity, while it still attempted to produce a series of shards with which to attack her, and failing rather badly. All of the liquid flooded into it, then surrounded it when the volume exceeded the entity’s internal capacity, proceeding to cool the liquid to the greatest degree possible. This employed the Fire Dao, and turned the walking shard of metal armour into a large chunk of ice, though she didn’t have the ability to maintain it for a long time.

Her intention wasn’t to trap it, but to let water do its thing, which she would need to permit through some more Dao of Law trickery.

‘This one will be a little more… absurd. Water dispersing or flowing uphill was only a little wrong, but forcing something superior to star metal to behave like common iron, rusting or what not, is very much a stretch. There is an enormous difference between the metals, between the various concepts, even, so…’

She raised both hands and brought them apart, her power bursting out of her hands and flooding into the world, grabbing onto every chain in sight and forcing them to be still. The first instant fractured a few bones in her right arm, and agitated the smoke of the left arm, and the moments after only furthered that damage, spreading throughout the rest of her body and forcing her to prop herself up with physique energy and bloodline power.

Stilling every chain was very much an excessive thing to do, but she did not have enough knowledge about Law to influence Primordial Metal in the right way. As such, she needed to take the harder way.

By obtaining a blank slate in terms of chains, she would be able to impose the state of rust or decay upon the Primordial Deity’s body regardless of what it truly was. She had observed the concept of rust before, and had some notions of how that affected the chains of Law, so she just needed to pick out the right ones and destabilise the entity’s form just enough to let her impact it without Touch the Heavens or something on that level. With sufficient instability, Obliteration or similar attacks would have be highly effective.

It did hurt far more than she had hoped, though only as much as she had anticipated, but the primary matter was that she didn’t expect to have enough time to come up with something before either Primordial Metal broke free, or she lost too much of her energy and had to drop the attempt.

‘Actually, there is one more thing I can try,’ the Ascendant thought, raising her head and forcing her clenched jaw apart, “That which is broken is lacking. Therefore, you are the worst version of yourself.”

Her commands functioned separately from the direct touching of chains, and thus it caused a different type of pressure upon her body, and permitted her to use her Arm to negate the damage. Unfortunately, it was currently in use to grip every chain in the nearest fifty metres, and so she instead had to spread out the damage that any command would cause throughout her body to ensure no one point was torn apart in an instant and ruined her attempt.

After the initial wave of destruction passed through her body, she gazed upon the frozen Primordial Deity and confirmed that the surface of its body changed. It wasn’t obvious, as there was no direct transformation, but where it was previously perfect in its imperfections, there were now flaws that even her Minor Achievement Metal Dao could detect, not to mention her divine sense.

Most importantly, the frozen fluid around it found its way into some segments that had previously been sealed, and had the chance of damaging them.

“The most inferior of metals can rust from the slightest touch of water. As you are the worst version of yourself, you must therefore be susceptible to rust!” she proclaimed, “As the most vulnerable of metals, you will oxidise and decay! As the most brittle of metals, you shall break from the slightest touch!”

She spat out word after word, and soon the pressure placed upon her by the commands exceeded the difficulty of holding the chains in place. Her flesh was torn and ripped most audibly, much of it being transformed directly into a crimson mist that burst through her skin, which was similarly damaged by the toll of her power. Simply standing for a moment led to the loss of half of her body mass, and the breaking of her Crimson Robes into a dozen small clumps that floated away, with one hopefully ending up somewhere that she would be able to retrieve without much effort.

This wasn’t something that she was able to worry about right now, as she had to pay attention to the Primordial Deity as its form shifted more significantly this time. Although she didn’t strictly modify any of the physical aspects of its body, the constant changes in Laws surrounding it forced the material to transform at least in part to accurately represent the impositions that she had set upon it with her endless proclamations.

The fine, silvery-grey metal that made up the entity’s surface transformed into a dirty, rusted mix of iron and pure rust, and the many shards cracked and twisted in a manner that made the entity even less flexible than it had already been before this.

Its inflexibility had been one of the reasons she had a chance to evade it in the first place.

With all of the water that now surrounded it, her Fire Dao changing all but the outer layer of the ice casing around Primordial Metal into liquid, she could focus her power on the manipulation of chains around it. She had partially accomplished her desires through Imposition of Law, but even if she turned the Primordial Deity into little more than a chunk of iron with no locomotive potential, it would still take some time to rust and decay into naught, and since she couldn’t genuinely accomplish this yet, she would have to contend with its power while waiting for it to fall apart.

Hence, she prompted the activation of her Astral Scars to provide her oblivion essence with enough power, and then forced her hands further up and apart, with both barely enduring the draw upon them.

“ADVANCE!”

 

On the outside, the Empire of the Dawn actively shrank as the combined of the forces of Yi City, Coastal Kingdom and the Heavenly Peak Court all invaded and put in their full strength to retrieve piece after piece of land for themselves. It was incredibly difficult to make any progress, but with as powerful a wave as the three forces were able to produce, the beginning of the rush earned a great deal.

They knew exactly when the Primordial Deity was attacked by their leader, as the forces of the Empire of the Dawn were suddenly stalled and thrown into slight disarray before their minds retook control and resumed their battle.

Most affected weren’t the common soldiers, as a few on the side of Yi City expected, but rather the Emperor of the Dawn himself, whose power was suddenly dimmed. He froze up for a good while, and it was then that Chu Su and a few of the strongest dragons rushed in. While the Emperor was still, the Chu Patriarch formed a fist with one hand and brought it up, the few remaining plants within the Empire’s soil responding to his will and rising from the earth and blooming at an immense rate, grass and roots and branches instantly occupying the region.

Under his control, they wrapped around the Emperor, binding him as tightly as low-grade materials could possibly restrict a seventh realm master, but he still remained still.

Only when the dragons – who had assumed their ancient beast form to amplify their natural strengths – swooped in and unleashed waves of elemental breaths upon the Emperor did he finally move, doing so with strange unfamiliarity.

Rather than attacking, he seemed more interested in gazing upon his own hands, burnt as they were.

He gazed up at his attackers, resisting the roots that tried to grip onto his head and neck, and there was something in the depths of his metallic form that moved, but it could make no sound. Whatever had become of the rest of his body, his mouth was gone, and the knowledge of how he might employ another method to communicate clearly didn’t remain within the consciousness that awakened. Primordial Metal had controlled it prior, and with it gone, only the human shell remained.

Nevertheless, the human shell had recovered its consciousness, and now all it saw was a force attacking him and his lands, so it saw no option other than to attack.

The screeching of metal somewhere within its form was all that preceded the eruption of flowing iron soldiers from the ground, formed with shards that had been packed close enough together that they were no longer considered to be part of Primordial Metal’s domain. All of them carried banners with rising suns, and they gazed upon the foes of their master with sheer fury.

It was then that the world broke, and a wave of unnatural, colourless light surged out from the centre of the Empire of the Dawn, swallowing everything around them. The shard-filled land was still visible, and the Emperor of the Dawn did not stay still, willing his summoned forces into action, but despite the best efforts of the Yi City forces, their attention was inevitably drawn towards the origin of this overwhelming light, from which a series of impact sounds rang out in rapid succession.

Many were metallic in nature, but others were fleshy, and others were wooden or rather dull and muted, akin to the sound of striking stone. They began at a rapid pace, to the point that the separate sounds were nearly impossible to distinguish from one another, but slowed rather quickly.

In the meanwhile, armies clashed and combatants met with metallic forces, both those that had belonged to Primordial Metal and the entities now summoned by the Emperor of the Dawn, with Chu Su and a few others focusing upon the man himself while the rest were occupied with the metal soldiers he so readily summoned. For a regular cultivator, the minions alone would have been enough to occupy their energy and attention, as entirely sentient entities were rather difficult to manifest – as Wei Yi can attest – but some aspect of Primordial Metal must have remained in the Emperor, or else he was simply a highly talented man that was incredibly capable.

With a swing, he could manifest a dozen blades, spears and axes in a mighty wave, as well as large layers of shields and obstacles after the weapons to guard himself. As the Chu Patriarch had to note, he wasn’t even at his finest, so the skill displayed could have been significantly greater in better circumstances.

Despite the rather phenomenal talent and the length that the battle should have had, if one was to ask Chu Su to describe it, he would find himself struggling to go beyond the surface. It was as if the very world had rushed past him, and when he came to, and the white light began to fade, everything was coming to an end. He, the troops under his command, and all others that had aided in the fight against the Emperor of the Dawn, were exhausted, but the Emperor had suffered a worse fate at the last moments of the light, when a wave burst out from the centre of the Empire and shook him to the core.

The moment after, he fell apart – literally breaking up into many shards – and left the mortal coil, his summoned armies following soon after, the people of the Empire of the Dawn crumbling later but far more quickly.

As the ground changed from a hostile mess of shards to something still filled with metal, yet smooth and somewhat more hospitable, all attention turned to the centre of the land, where the Ascendant and Primordial Metal fought one another with methods both familiar and unimaginable to all that had the spare energy to glance upon them from afar. For Primordial Metal’s forces to fall apart, Wei Yi had to have won, yet they sensed vast killing intent radiating from their chosen battlefield.

When they regained the energy to move and arrived, they saw a figure that could barely be described as human, kneeling upon the ground, its hand reduced to bones that barely stayed together.

Much of the figure’s body was similarly destroyed, but when they had another moment to look, they realised that the flesh was recovering at a slow yet steady pace. They would have paid attention to what it was recovering into – though the crimson hair gave enough of a clue to those that had seen the person in question – but a sudden burst of killing intent consumed them.

They saw a ruined world, flooded with warriors of all kinds of twisted forms, wielding at least five distinct forms of energy that broke the world with each strike, and even kept it in one piece due to the constant collisions. Weapons and shields, metal shards and torrential storms, breaks in space and rifts to the cosmos – all of it overwhelmed their perception and threatened to crush them with the mere thought of this landscape. Even the strongest among those present, Chu Su being one of them, felt his aging heart freeze for a moment as it simply couldn’t beat in an atmosphere as hostile as the one before him.

This sight vanished in the next moment, and those that retained consciousness realised that it had indeed been only a single moment.