Path of the Ascendant

She didn’t pay attention to how much time passed while she stood in silence in the middle of the battlefield, but she did notice when her right hand’s nails pierced her skin and caused scalding blood to pour out.

At some point, she had clenched her hand into a fist so tightly that even her own defences were penetrated. It hurt, but she knew that it was essentially nothing. If given a moment, it would heal, as would any of her injuries that didn’t sever reality or kill her in one go, and even then she had a suspicion that some aspect of her body and cultivation could permit her to recover from such a thing. With everything else that had happened, it wouldn’t even be that much of a surprise.

Still, she let it happen, and she did her best to feel the pain, because she knew that she had made an error at some step. Despite her efforts, she had merely repeated Kong Shi Meng’s sacrifice, and one commitment of hers had been to do better, to prevent the same needless deaths and destruction, to allow the world to advance, not crumble.

As she failed, she had to let herself feel something as a punishment.

Wei Yi wasn’t going to let herself get critically injured as a punishment, since it would simply prevent her from accomplishing anything else, whether well or poorly, but a bit of pain was deserved and easy to resolve the moment it got in the way. Unfortunately, that time came nearly instantly.

Her blood carried great power, as she knew from the otherworldly demon with no name, so it would be reckless to simply let it drip all over the place. It would give rise to the chances of something similar happening once more, and that would far outweigh any benefits from beating herself up mentally or physically over a failure from long ago. Strictly speaking, it was for the better that she moved on to doing something more productive, but it didn’t feel entirely right to do while so many had just been turned to naught.

The Wu District was one that she had more command over thanks to becoming the Matriarch via legitimate means and through a standard process, as opposed to her status as Master of Yi City, which was mostly thanks to everyone lacking the strength to challenge her, so it was her duty to speak to her people after the loss of their main protectors.

After taking a moment to calm her energy and collect herself, she rose into the air with Chain Resonance and flew off to the north in a more traditional manner.

Even then, she reached it quickly, and lingered in the sky above the district for a little while as she contemplated what to do. It seemed simple enough on the surface – tell everyone what happened, inform them of her intent in the future, and pledge to work hard to avert such misfortune whenever possible – but finding the right way to phrase it and the right direction to approach from was rather difficult.

In the end, she concluded that it was best to simply be brief, straightforward, and honest, since there was no point in cloaking herself in words now. Hence, she reached out, sent a pulse of her will to all the people of the districts that were awake, and gave them a moment to step out of their homes.

“People of the Wu District, there are three things I wish to say to you,” she began quickly.

She used her means to spread her voice around with just enough clarity for everyone to hear and understand her, and continued on without much of a pause, “First of all, Primordial Invader, the Primordial Deity that had emerged just outside of the Wu District, is gone. The Heavenly Masters had held it back, and I have slain it. You may have noticed the moment.”

This wasn’t some attempt to highlight her own significance, as if everyone had to pay attention to her every move – to a certain extent, they ought to, as her deeds would decide the future of the world – but rather due to how much the earth shook after the railgun bolts landed.

“The second matter is that the Heavenly Masters that had stood guard fell, not due to Primordial Invader’s attacks. Rather, it was the error of a method used to empower them in the lengthy battle to suppress the ancient entity, and although I was not the one that created it, I approved its use without proper consideration for the side effects. That is my fault, and I intend to not repeat my errors in the future, so I will proceed to take down the other Primordial Deities and all that come in the future while using as much of my own strength and my own methods as possible.”

As usual with talks addressed to an entire district, she couldn’t possibly wait for everyone to react and respond to such reactions, especially when they had a variety of those, so she didn’t cater her speech to any particular response. Everyone could chat among themselves later on, and she might share more information with someone else that would have the time to speak to individuals, so she would only focus on knowledge everyone needed.

“Finally, I wanted to say that the one responsible will be confronted, once the threat of the Primordial Deities has been handled to an appropriate extent. That is all. You’ll be safe for now.”

She left even as she knew that there was a great deal that she should address. For instance, the Wu District relied on the Heavenly Masters for a lot, and now they were all out of the picture. Even if they tried to develop new experts to take their place, it would be a long time before they were ready to fill the shoes of their predecessors.

Wei Yi knew that very well, but she only had so much she could do. Her deeds might have helped Yi City in some cases, but it also meant that it relied upon her greatly. By empowering the people via the method applied to some of the current Patriarchs and Matriarchs, she would inevitably tie herself to the very process of progression, and even though she believed that Kong Shi Meng had clearly made some errors, he understood this as well. His disciples and the leaders he chose rose with his aid, but primarily due to their own talents and abilities.

There were some that fit the requirement among her Arbiters, but they weren’t part of the Wu District. Even if it was all about attaining strength and mastery in a particular field, rather than their origin, the positions of the Heavenly Masters suited those that did belong in the Wu District.

Once they had some time on their own, she would make sure to send someone to inform them that they were free to train with her forces, and that they should recruit people according to their own requirements. Her people would protect them in the meanwhile, just to ensure that the absence of powerful figures from the district wouldn’t cause any significant problems. Later on, she would step in if things weren’t going well at all.

For now, she would go into a brief retreat and grow accustomed to her improved energy, and then she would go after whatever Primordial Deity was best dealt with immediately.

At the moment, Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang were still unseen, Primordial Corruption remained in one place, and Primordial Blood was somewhere to the south-east, but her divine sense lacked the reach to perceive it beyond that. Since it wasn’t attacking her lands yet, it wasn’t particularly important where it was, so long as it didn’t grow beyond a point that she couldn’t overcome.

That left her with Primordial Energy, and it appeared to be the most suitable target.

‘Not sure if it will be able to get me straight to the sixth stage, but the fifth stage is guaranteed given the nature of that Primordial Deity, and that will be bringing me close to breaking through regardless…’

She settled down in a quiet corner of Yi City and shut her eyes, digesting all of the energy she had gained in recent times. Additionally, she needed to accommodate the constant recovery of energy from her Imperfect Rift, which was growing the more she transformed it into crimson. With the sixth stage, it would be guaranteed to reach the point of producing only oblivion essence, and that would mean that she had a significant quantity entering her body at any time, which would lead to potential complications.

It would take a while, but it was necessary.

 

She barely had a day to herself before she felt the world’s power change, signalling the appearance of further powerful entities. Given the fact that the Primordial Deities were the only ones that could reasonably be appearing in the world’s current state, and the type of energy that was produced, she knew of only two entities that could be appearing.

One originated at the extreme north, within the Glass Wastes, and radiated pure yang, and the other emerged at the southern end of the continent, sending a chill throughout the homes of all the people on that half of the continent.

Their appearance was the reason that she had made sure to stabilise her body before heading out to fight some other Primordial Deity – not directly, of course, as she wasn’t sure when they would finally appear. Rather, she was expecting a foe to appear that she hadn’t already accounted for, and so made sure not to do anything that would take longer than a day, though she had actually completed her stabilisation within nineteen hours, and spent one more cultivating before the emergence.

Now, she believed she could handle the Primordial Deities individually, so them being so far apart was almost perfect. As soon as one crossed the boundary – probably Primordial Yin, which was nearest to a district – she could go there, take it down, and then use its power against its equivalent on the other side of the world.

“I doubt it would be that simple. There is a dangerous property to these two Primordial Deities, especially now that they have few adversaries,” the voice of Xu Shi Meng appeared beside her, as did the man himself, sitting by her in a similar pose with crossed legs and hands on his knees.

“Elemental resonance of sorts, I suppose.”

“You are correct. Yin and Yang meets and produces a greater outcome, and now that the other Primordial Deities are fewer in number, they will have fewer interferences.”

“So taking them down one by one isn’t going to work? Did you read my mind, by the way?”

“No, I had merely guessed what your thoughts were likely to be. In this situation, I can see few good options, and this one appeared to be the most optimal. Therefore, you would select it, and so I offered my advice based upon it. Perhaps I should have inquired as to your thoughts first, but time is of the essence,” he said.

“A shame. Had you been able to do that, I would have simply shared some opinions with you very directly.”

“It is best to focus upon the Primordial Deities right now. It is very likely that you will need to fight the two at the same time,” Xu Shi Meng seemed to ignore her, “They will attempt to converge, for it is their nature, even as they seek opposition and separation. Also, you will see their oddity.”

She just barely managed to supress the desire to provide some much needed harsh commentary, and let him set the flow of conversation for now, “You still haven’t explained what makes them odd.”

“You will see shortly.”

“I’m guessing that you’re still unable to help me? Your powers are restricted or something along those lines?” she didn’t wait for an answer before she proceeded, “I’ll take care of it, and you can sit at the back and look on, as you usually do. If you can still boost one of my attacks, then I may request that at some point.”

Afterwards, she used Omit Movement to place herself at the centre of the land, above the Yi District, and gazed out towards the north, then south.

With her current level, her vision reached far enough to perceive their waves of power, the light that breached the fog of distance hurting her gaze and forcing her to glance away. The heat from the north was different from the flames of Primordial Inferno or the magma of Primordial Earth, which were both mixed with an element of some kind, as it was pure agitation of particles, generating faster vibration which in turn led to the perception of a greater temperature.

Similarly, the cold of the south was devoid of other elements, simply slowing down the very same vibration and bringing it to an absolute stop. It roughly matched the properties of the extreme north and south during more average times, so it was possible that this was also due to their influence.

The Bao District had been made by the power of Primordial Earth, the Chu District was made by Primordial Nature, and it was very likely that the Primordial Deities had shaped much of the world while they were roaming the world freely, and then afterwards with their remnant energy influencing their surroundings.

It was impossible to know just how much of the Planar Continents were made by the works of humanity, but she would handle any problems caused later. Their end was her first priority.

Once the Primordial Deities on either side of the world completed their emergence, a process that seemed to shorten for every single one that appeared, their energy immediately began to converge, targeting some point in the Yi District. The moment their movement began, it would cut into every district in the path at least, damaging them greatly even if the two didn’t pause in each district, and once they came upon the Yi District, that would be guaranteed to wreak havoc upon the centre of Yi City.

She addressed that first by finding the concept of the location of their meeting and forcefully raising that up into the air, rising beside it until the central point was high above the Yi District. With some instructions quickly sent to the district’s people, as well as her Arbiters, and a simple barrier built up to avert any damage that might occur before they are ready, she waited for the two Primordial Deities.

Her adjustment appeared to be sufficient to prevent significant damage to the Qiang District, the one closest to one of the edges of the world, while she couldn’t care less about the damage to the Glass Folk and Qilin’s Temple, two outside nations at the north that were affected by Primordial Yang’s flight. They travelled quickly and advanced at a pace that she would not be able to match in territory she hadn’t mapped out and fully understood, as that was what gave her Omit Movement its speed. In an unfamiliar space, without outright removing distances from the equation, she could not traverse the world as quickly as those two.

It took only a few minutes for nearly half of the continent to be cleared by each of the Primordial Deities, and thus they were both in sight, and raised an unexpected question.

Given Xu Shi Meng’s previous commentary of the two, she was expecting them to be extremely disconcerting to behold, in some different way from the typical Primordial Deity style, but so far as she could tell, neither of those were true. The two shared a general design sense, if one was to call it that, in that both represented the pinnacle of yin and yang without extraneous concepts, just like their energy.

Primordial Yin had the shape of a very feminine woman, with a seductive figure, large chest, wide hips, and even a surprisingly human face, though hints of the jagged teeth were still present. If one was to limit themselves to looking below the neck only, most would likely find it highly attractive. The fact that it was entirely exposed, wearing nothing on its body, made that all the more likely, though if she ever found herself near that entity in bed, she would never risk getting involved with it, whether she limited herself to lips or fingers, or attempted to satisfy her dick.

On the other hand, Primordial Yang could easily be summed up as the most masculine and muscular man that could ever be, and the only trace of inhumanity being those same teeth. Given her minimal interest in men and men’s appearances, she had little more to add.

The form of yin was a blue silver, and the eyes were pure glowing orbs of silver, whereas the form of yang was a flaming gold, with pure blazing gold for eyes. Both radiated energy that was similar to the shades of their eyes, tinting the sky with their light, and both gazed upon the Ascendant with an indifferent gaze.

The only significant difference from the others was that they were currently not much larger than she was, though she had no clue as to why this was the case. Primordial Deities were often enigmatic.

“You are in our way,” the two spoke together, and went into action immediately.

Both flew around her, and to the left, and rushed in at the same time, using only their fists to strike her with a speed that completely surpassed her own ability to move, failing to overcome only the speed of her mind, which was left staring at the punches landing.

Their strength was also absurd, instantly causing numerous fractures and tearing her muscles with ease, as if they simply took a sheet of paper each and ripped it in half. As she made use of her every type of energy to reinforce her body and seek a way to deal with them effectively, the thought that these things weren’t even using their specialisations yet crossed her mind, and she realised that their resonance clearly made them extremely dangerous.

When they moved back just a little, raising their other hands to attack once more, she hastily released a wave of her five energy types, letting the physique energy and bloodline power in particular be spent mostly within her body as to recover from the injuries more quickly. It wouldn’t hurt either of the Primordial Deities unless they had absurdly fragile bodies in comparison to their strength, but the main goal was only to obtain a moment’s respite and make way for her to produce literally any other attack, depending on what proved to be most effective against her foe.

Her wave met the two Primordial Deities and, without even having the chance to stop them, and only managed to slow down their second approach just a little, meaning that they struck just an instant later than they might have.

Primordial Yin manifested a ray of freezing light upon its left hand, forming a kind of sword light that headed straight for her heart. On the opposite side, Primordial Yang used a palm instead, empowering it with a vast blunt force that was headed straight for her right lung and spine, and if the previous punch shattered a number of ribs easily, this was certain to devastate both of it targets.

With all of the energy she had scattered, she forced the creation of several brands, imbuing each with an individual function so as to see which would prove to be the most effective.

They locked onto their targets and began their first descent at the same time as the strikes of the Primordial Deities landed upon her, though she also used the moment to perform a quick manipulation of Law. Instead of the force being concentrated on vulnerable regions, which might destroy them completely in a single go, she made it spread across her whole body – avoiding her nether regions so as to minimize unnecessary pain – and then plotted out numerous spatial coordinates and points for her movement method, though she could not use it to avoid the strikes entirely as it simply took too long.

The Primordial Deities appeared unperturbed by their precise attacks somehow tearing her whole body, but just a little, and backed up as their light gathered before them, with the differences that one may expect between their styles. Primordial Yin’s sphere of light was calm and collected, following a clear structure that softly illuminated the world, while Primordial Yang conjured a raging mass more extreme than the brightest of stars, but she could tell that it wasn’t the spheres she’d face.

Rather, it was simply the form in which they collected a relatively small amount of energy.

‘They are absurdly powerful if this kind of seemingly casual attack is able to exceed twenty percent of my planar energy pool… Hate these things already,’ she noted, glancing at the brands that fell upon her foes.

Some struck simply and released force on impact, but it seemed to be as insignificant as the previous wave of force that she had released. Others, which contained Obliteration energy and arced crimson blackness across the surface of the Primordial Deities’ bodies, were able to produce small marks, but they were purely surface-level and recovered within a breath.

More importantly, it just meant that they were not stopped from producing their attacks, and unleashing them in the moment after.

The cold energy of Yin burst out into several dozen small beams that flew with great precision and targeted various points around her body, some going for the meridians and others going for obvious outer weak points, including the eyes and nether regions, neither of which were appreciated at all.

Primordial Yang’s sphere of absolute heat didn’t break up into something complex, instead being released in a straightforward raging beam that headed straight for her spine again, as if this entity had some grudge against it. Had it been as thin as the rays produced by Primordial Yin, that would have been better than the previous hit, but the infernal beam was wide enough to completely separate her upper and lower half, removing half of her internal organs at the same time and evaporating at least thirty percent of her internal energy all at once.

She wanted to move herself out of the way, she wanted to save herself, but at the last moment, it was as if her mind simply forgot to function for just a moment. Despite her every desire, she had to watch herself die.

Then, the world moved. All of the energy drawn out by the Primordial Deities and launched at her suddenly twisted out of their control and turned to a pure heavenly white, before flying right back at them, throwing the two back. Even that didn’t appear to be enough to handle the two entities, as they produced a thousand masses of energy just as easily as the first one and attempted to release them.

Before the beams themselves could be produced, they were also taken over, and in addition to the energy accumulated within them, the planar energy within the air was also gathered into two masses before each of the Primordial Deities. The heavenly light seemed to move extremely slowly, yet it reached its destination in moments, and then exploded in the direction of their respective Primordial Deity, launching them far away.

Although the energy of Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang remained prominent, it did not approach again, instead beginning to orbit around their current position at a steady speed.

When Wei Yi managed to take back control of her body, she saw that when each entity attempted to get near, they were instead pushed to the side, forcing an orbit akin to that of a moon around a planet, or a planet around the sun. From her knowledge, the celestial bodies of the otherworldly demons behaved exactly like that, falling inwards with sufficient sideways momentum to exist in a stable orbit.

Based on their extreme continued efforts to proceed inwards, they did appear to be making some progress, but it would be a day or two before they had the chance of converging fully, re-establishing whatever resonance they had possessed.

Hence, the Ascendant had to turn towards the one that had saved her for the second time, a figure with long black hair and silver eyes that gazed out into the distance, away from her, with no discernible expression upon his face. This appeared to be the same Xu Shi Meng from before, but the extent of his abilities clearly differed, a fact that was especially notable when he had previously asserted that he could not exhibit any significant abilities other than his domes. The kind of thing that he had just done should have been utterly impossible if he had been entirely truthful.

She already knew that wasn’t the case, as Xu Shi Meng was very unlikely to be Kong Shi Meng, even with the potential of him losing his memories at some point since his disappearance, but with this second and more significant factor, she had to consider what other matters might have been lied about, and what she had been misled in.

For instance, the method of containing Primordial Invader could have easily been proposed with malicious intent, and the suggestion of relying on his protective domes over other means may have also been part of some plan.

It also meant that she didn’t know what to trust even more so than before.

Xu Shi Meng began, “I-”

“Primordial Energy is the best target for me at the moment, so that is where I will go. Don’t follow me.”