Path of the Ascendant

In only a month and three days, there were changes to their appearances, though that was more likely to be due to her rarely glancing in their direction of the three for longer than that.

Chao Ru was eight months into her pregnancy, and it showed. Her chest had grown even larger than it had already been, something that had previously seemed like an impossibility, and her belly was as large as one might expect. Thanks to her strength and plentiful vitality, she wasn’t struggling with her pregnancy, though she would hardly be able to fight as she had once done until the pregnancy was over and she got some training done.

Shun Liu Min and Miyu were both around twenty days behind, provided that there were no irregularities – with planar energy, bloodlines and whatever else, they were possible and couldn’t be alleviated as easily as the kinds of things that those with no planar energy would face, in this world or another – but they were also staying away from any excess physical labour.

At the moment that the Ascendant gazed at them, they were being kept company by a few of the phoenixes, who shared various tales of a surprisingly chaste nature. For once, they were acting more like common folklore would describe them, and might have fooled her had she not come into contact with their leader and became very familiar with their thought processes. It was especially odd given the kinds of conversation she had seen Shun Liu Min, Miyu and Chao Ru get into before, but she was hardly going to complain.

She couldn’t exactly relax and do whatever she liked, so it was good that somebody was able to do so, at least.

‘What are they even, in relation to me? None of us have married, they’re not exactly concubines or anything… Yeah, I can’t think of a proper word for this, so I won’t bother. It won’t matter anyway, so I ought to finish my observation here and head off to Primordial Corruption’s current territory.’

After making sure that the three were alright, she shifted her attention to her children, growing within their bodies and standing out as beacons if perceived based upon planar energy. The reason for that was simple enough, as her children possessed her five cultivation paths, whereas those that bore them did not. Although they wouldn’t obtain a high cultivation just like that, they were still the result of those paths, and they were enhanced by it before they were even born.

This was the advantage of having powerful parents, even if one never knew of their name, appearance or gender, in this particular case.

If her mother had the bloodline of the Great Leeches but not their hatred, Yi Wei would have attained the seconds stage days after reaching the first, and perhaps the second realm within a year, even with no other support at all. Alas, this was not the case for that innocent girl, but she knew her three children would have a better fate and a better youth.

Interestingly enough, her current observations suggested that at least two of the three were carrying whatever property had granted her hermaphroditism. All three would be girls, that much was certain, and she knew that even if she couldn’t peer into everything around her with divine sense and the natural perception of energy that came from her dantian. There were some theories on this in the Planar Continents, but the otherworldly demons summed it up best: men had XY chromosomes, and women had XX chromosomes. If two women had a child, unless that biological fact was somehow subverted, there would be no chance of a boy being born, regardless of the child’s other features.

She couldn’t predict what the future would be like, so it was hard to predict how the children would fare if some of her abnormalities were passed onto them. Assuming that she remained and her power was maintained, then nobody would dare to harm her children in any way, though that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Children ought to have some challenges and tribulations so that they would grow up with a better character and more life experience, among other things.

There were a number of people she had come across in her youth that were perfect examples of why this was so important. Many had gotten the idea that they were far more significant than others simply due to their parents and the resources they had been given due to their heritage.

‘Eh, all three of them have gone through plenty of difficulties, and I understand some of the things a parent ought to do, so if one half strays, the other should still make sure that they are raised properly… And here I am getting distracted again. These three are doing fine, and I can always show up to throw some of the overly rowdy phoenixes or dragons away, whereas the qilins aren’t going to be getting near here in the first place,’ she finally decided to distance herself from the situation and return her attention to the south, where the Primordial Deity of Corruption resided.

Using Omit Movement, she appeared on the western walls of the Yi District, looking out onto the purple-tinted wasteland that was Primordial Corruption’s territory. It was hideous to behold and perceive in any manner for anyone other than the otherworldly demon tentacle fetishists, though even they were likely to be overwhelmed.

When it had been contained by a dome, it was still somewhat bearable, but now it bloomed and spread out like the infection that it was. Some tumours rose to the heights of small trees, others nestled in the ground, but everything produced an endless moisture and unbearable stench that could stain the world for millions of years to come. These same phenomena occurred when Mo Zhouquan had been infecting the space around her in the Brotherhood of Power.

From this, Primordial Corruption’s Dao Branch was not impossible to guess. Most likely, it had some perverted, sexual nature, which might mean that her Dao of Lust would influence it, but that was just an aspect of some Dao of Corruption that the Primordial Deity wielded. It would be insufficient even if the branch was related to the Dao of Law, in which Wei Yi was most proficient. To truly overwhelm a Primordial Deity’s innate authority, she would need a True Dao, something she had yet to truly reach, and something she could only guess at.

The source of the corruption resided within the centre, and it was looking right at the Ascendant, despite the latter not making her presence known to anyone.

Looking at it from where she sat, the thing looked vaguely humanoid, almost attractive, even, but her divine sense made it abundantly clear that this was a front that the entity would only maintain from a single direction. From any other perspective, it was a complete mess of tendrils and disgusting shapes, and all of it constantly spat out putrid air flooded with the same noxious gas as the ground around it.

Regardless of the front it presented, Primordial Corruption was absolutely disgusting to her.

“I had been waiting for you, mortal thing. Are you ready to join me and turn this world to its most beautiful form? To fill it with the thick scent of-”

“Nope, not doing that. It’s time for you to finally perish, along with your fellow Primordial Deities,” the Ascendant interrupted her, as she knew that the entity would begin spitting out all kinds of unpleasant things she didn’t want to hear.

To be more precise, she didn’t consider some of the lustful tendencies exhibited by Primordial Corruption to be entirely reprehensive, as she had her fair list of fetishes and what not, but the Primordial Deity took everything to an absurd and unnecessary extreme. This was the case with all of them, so it was no great surprise, but she would have much preferred the Primordial Deities to have a more human and reasonable side to them. Even if it didn’t change their threat – though it would be very likely to do so – it would at least be possible to properly deem them to be villainous.

Like they were now, all one could see them as were natural forces twisted beyond reasonable imagination, and little more.

‘No matter how much I wish they were different, I won’t find that the world changes itself to suit my desires, so I ought to just take care of this here and now,’ Wei Yi concluded, bringing out Moon Splitter and infusing Obliteration energy and cosmic energy into it and its surface, readying it just in case, while her actual focus was on the power that gathered around her since she had appeared on the wall.

The primary method for ending corruption was to incinerate it. Devastating it and ensuring that it has no chance of survival was the only way to be sure unless she developed a greater understanding of it and could get at the very root of the matter. If she understood the true nature of Corruption, then…

‘Wait, figuring that out is exactly what I should be doing!’ she paused, then sent out a few waves of flame anyway, as it wouldn’t hurt anything anyway, ‘I am to be the Arbiter of Law… I’ll think of a better title later, but what matters is that I need to comprehend everything and everything that I see. Is Primordial Corruption wielding the Dao of Corruption, or is this an instance similar to Primordial Inferno, where the name does not directly reflect the Dao utilised by the Primordial Deity? What might be the evidence for either option?’

“You appear distracted, sweet mortal fruit. Should I pluck you?”

“What does corruption even mean? Why would the corruption of the natural world produce something natural, yet incomprehensible to most?”

“… Come again, mortal thing?”

“Corruption, as I see it, doesn’t fit into the Dao of the Heavens. There’s no inherent aspect of corruption in reality, for corruption in both a political and physical sense are embodiments of different things. The corruption of people and institutions in a political sense is merely the preference for one’s own benefit rather than the wellbeing of others, manifesting itself in those who possess a great deal of authority, and is not contrary to the natural order in the slightest. In fact, it is Law,” Wei Yi proclaimed, managing to confound Primordial Corruption enough for it to remain still and not attack, “Physical corruption is also something else. It is mutation, an excess or deficiency in an aspect that manifests greater change.

“However, that’s not quite what you represent. Sure, there’s an element that could be attributed to mutation within the products of your power, such as Mo Zhouquan, but it is almost incidental. Instead, I see a deliberate contortion and perversion of all that you touch. A deliberate effort to manifest something… Eldritch.”

Within her mind, she could feel a sealed Dao attempting to break loose of its chains, but she held it back and gazed upon the situation before her with new understanding. This was another manifestation of the Eldritch Dao, the same one that she had involuntarily obtained when fighting against an entity with many similar characteristics to Primordial Corruption. In hindsight, she should have known exactly what she was dealing with the moment that she laid eyes upon the Primordial Deity itself, if not her work with Mo Zhouquan.

The world contained many things that could be termed eldritch, incomprehensible to the human mind, and Primordial Corruption amplified those aspects in its territory, making them the only prominent factor. Driven by the Branch of Lust, or perhaps even the Branch of Corrupting Lust, it enforced its vision.

Unfortunately for Primordial Corruption, this vision was repugnant to most of the world, and the few that shared it were already affected by the Primordial Deity’s power. They were eager to bring out and amplify all oddities of the human form and the natural world, and in doing so produced absolute monstrosities no matter what they touched. All things had a hint of warmth, of life, so they forced life into everything, making everything twitch and grow in horrid ways.

In their eyes, the most complex and irregular patterns were best, so all that they touched gained more and more convoluted internal features and structures, turning mortal men and women to agglomerations of tendrils and various growths that maintained the mockery of a human form when it suited them.

This was actually rather intriguing in her eyes, as they often sought to resemble the very things they mocked and ruined, like the human form. What purpose did it serve?

‘Ultimately, I won’t find out here, as Primordial Corruption is hardly the best conversation partner from my observations so far. I’ll just take it down, seal off as much of its Eldritch Dao as I can, and then move on to looking for Primordial Blood in the two most obvious places I can think of,’ she decided, lowering Moon Splitter and instead focusing her energy upon her vision states, attempting to decipher Primordial Corruption’s influence.

An issue that came up as soon as she understood the Dao she was facing was that the very definition of eldritch implied oddity and abnormality, deliberate and convoluted in this case. It was like untying a knot made only to be obtuse and not effective, wherein simply tearing it apart would be easier.

She would be seen as a maniac for wanting to untie it the normal way, and then even produce something else entirely, but she didn’t need or want to explain herself to others. If she was able to successfully unravel the Eldritch Dao fully, she would gain her own view of it, overriding the previous branch forced upon her, and a partial understanding would still let her use Law to break down the Primordial Deity’s power without the need for a harsh battle and the destruction of a lot of the terrain. She could even convert the transformed lands back to their proper form.

“Come to me, mortal thing! Stop running away!” Primordial Corruption had begun chasing some time ago, not letting the Ascendant think quietly, but the latter evaded most of its attempts.

Although various tendrils and limbs broke out of the ground to reach for her, their movements were predictable specifically due to the nature of the Primordial Deity’s Dao. When chaos and distortion was deliberate, it tended to produce consistent results, hence all of Primordial Corruption’s lands sharing the same characteristics and properties. Even if she couldn’t perceive the tendrils moving beneath the ground, it would still be easy to evade them.

This made it possible to attack Primordial Corruption from a slightly different perspective than usual.

“You follow an order despite being an entity of the Eldritch Dao, thus you must be weakened by my perception of Law.”

To her pleasant surprise, the Primordial Deity actually replied in a proper manner, “To be eldritch is not to violate the natural order, but to exist within a state other than the world’s natural order. Order is still present, but not in a manner that will be understood by most mortal things. You, a wondrous pungent flower, may be different.”

“Except everyone can understand it. Everything is absurdly straightforward, actually, to the extent that everyone simply perceives your Dao as the Dao of Corruption, whereas such a thing doesn’t even exist, not in you. This conflicts greatly with your apparent nature. Explain yourself,” Wei Yi said.

“Why do you think you have the right to question me? I act in my nature, and so do you. Perhaps some aspect of you would understand better than your own mind.”

“Are you speaking of my sealed Eldritch Dao? I think it will stay that way, thank you very much,” she shook her head – though it has to be said that the conversation was nowhere near as calm as their words alone might suggest – and crossed her arms, relying on a Titanic Conqueror to attack in her place, “The fact that we can communicate with such ease is an excellent example that you are failing at your own purpose. Therefore-”

“Now, now, look here. Your Law is-”

“THEREFORE! Ahem, you cannot retain your current level of power!”

A wave began to ripple through the chains of Law around them, but that was interrupted the moment that Primordial Corruption’s expression changed, and it moved with absurd speed, the vaguely humanoid form completely breaking away into a horrific mass of tentacles and shapes that were impossible to name.

That whole mess lunged at the Ascendant, each limb and equivalents thereof specifically prepared to restrain her limbs and cover the majority of her body in whatever unpleasant substances coated the tendrils of the Primordial Deity. What made it notable was that the movements resonated greatly with the Eldritch Dao, and thus had an odd imprisonment effect upon her, restraining her ability to employ Omit Movement or Chain Resonance for once. If not for the nature of her foe, this might have even been a welcome surprise, as it would present room for learning and improvement.

Here, any room for improvement was risky to exploit due to the possibility of being corrupted by her foe. She was still uncertain whether the Primordial Deity could even affect her to a sufficient extent to truly harm her body or mind, and it was rather risky to experiment with.

As she was grabbed by the tendrils, she felt Primordial Corruption’s power attempting to sink into her, slowly succeeding at penetrating the surface of her skin and touching her flesh and blood. In theory, the outcome would be decided the moment that energy touched her dantian, where the matter would be decided in either side’s favour, though she was currently advantaged greatly given how every other Primordial Deity had lost in this aspect.

‘Hm? Something around me has changed… Not Primordial Corruption’s influence or typical state, so-’

A blazing white light suddenly fell from the heavens, exactly where she had perceived the change in the world’s state. It struck the form of Primordial Corruption and separated its main mass from the many tendrils it had released, letting Wei Yi release all of her energy and blast the Primordial Deity directly. With that combination, the entity’s form was already greatly harmed, and before Xu Shi Meng had the chance of doing something more, she drew upon the Dao of Law and forced Primordial Corruption to unravel, combining the entity’s affinity towards the Eldritch Dao with its contradictions to force it to fall apart.

During the process, she naturally didn’t miss out on a form of outside assistance allowing her to employ Law more easily.

As soon as Primordial Corruption was dispatched in such a manner, a great quantity of energy poured from it, expelling not only the standard volumes of planar energy and its authority, but also a strange number of anchor energy, filling the air with gleaming lights only for the Ascendant. She did not absorb everything immediately, instead clicking her fingers to will Law to raise the energy into a large wall.

“I think I know your true identity, Xu Shi Meng,” she said, turning to the figure that had descended alongside its attack. It looked just like it had all along, with no clear changes or flaws, but she believed her observations over the façade.

The figure did not show a change in its expression, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. I am not sure of the proper name to use, so I will simply mention a title – Heaven’s Will.”

Again, there was no change, as if she had said nothing and it was simply waiting to hear her accusation, but that was not going to deter her. Otherwise, she would have never called it out as Xu Shi Meng in place of the name it attempted to approach her with, and she would have simply continued receiving whatever help she could obtain for as long as possible.

However, the more she thought about the matter, the less she could accept it, so she decided that now was as good a time as any.

“Want me to present all of my evidence? That’s not difficult at all… yet, at least. While I’m calm enough to speak rationally, that is,” her very act of elaborating went against her claim, but Xu Shi Meng didn’t challenge her on this, “You cannot be Kong Shi Meng, that much is clear. You do not know the proper arrangement of his Four Cardinal Beasts array, which he would be very familiar with due to its connection to his world’s history and mythology, not to mention the fact he created it. Additionally, you seemed unaware of the fact that Yi Shi Ming is a spatial spirit, something that, once again, Kong Shi Meng would not forget.”

“Kong Shi Meng could have lost his memories, and might simply be attempting to help.”

“Kong Shi Meng would not speak of himself in the third person, and wouldn’t have conveniently lost nearly all of his memories that weren’t obtained beneath the open sky of the Planar Continents. There are way too many differences between you and him in other stances, but you’ve already admitted the truth, so there’s no reason to go on.”

“Making your original claim will require more proof, however. I could be anyone else, using Kong Shi Meng’s name for my own reasons. Why label me as Heaven’s Will?”

“Because you’re oddly defensive of the heavens, and you happen to know of the Truth of the Universe. You knew it was left for someone, and you seemed sure that it had come to its intended recipient. When producing the Four Cardinal Beasts array, you used the wrong layout, yet manifested something powerful regardless, as if the appearance of the array was merely a cover for the truth – and it was,” Wei Yi said, “You used the power of the world, the planar energy that is everywhere, both the actively allocated quantity and the maximum that can exist within a space. Hence, you produced the strongest force you possibly could, and repelled the Great Leeches, showing yourself as you had not yet decided what face to wear.”

“That is-”

“Only the beginning. Do you think I haven’t been paying attention to you? From the start, I should have noticed your true nature. In place of violet energy, you wield heavenly white, forming domes and beams from the pure energy of the world dyed by your colours alone, and beyond that, you even manifest the property of luck in the same manner as the world’s will could. In fact, it is only through an entity as overwhelming as Heaven’s Will that luck could be imposed, and that is why it vanished whenever you descended in mortal form and had to expend your attention upon your disguise.”

Again, there was no comment, though there was some change in its expression. It was subtle, to the extent that she had no clue what it meant, but it was something, and she knew that she was onto something. It might well be different from what she presumed, but she knew that the entity before her was inhuman, and very likely to have a similar nature to Heaven’s Will.

“Presumably, you had overexerted yourself at first, and so with every next step you had to reduce your involvement to prevent intervention from some outside force. Perhaps the source of otherworldly demons, or some aspect of nature that you do not dominate. After all, there are clearly things that are not under your full control. The Primordial Deities contradict the Dao you force onto the people of the world, and they appeared to not comprehend your nature, simply not seeing you the majority of the time,” she proceeded, “But the Hunger of the Beyond lacks those characteristics. It is as natural as disasters can be, so you have the power to stop it. You didn’t do that for Kong Shi Meng, though.

“You appeared now, you lent me strength, you contributed with constant luck and images of things I could never have seen. Elysian light, the Dawn technique series, both of them came from you, not from Kong Shi Meng. Clearly, you have intentions other than what you have outwardly displayed, what with the whole Ascendancy Dao, so I demand that you reveal your true intentions.

“Drop the mask of a person that was far better than you could ever be, and face me in your true form. I still have a great number of punches specifically reserved for you. You should know that well.”

While her right hand had been clenched into a fist so tightly that her nails easily cut through her hand and penetrated to the bone, it was difficult to continue providing actual evidence and not simply rush out and deliver those promised punches directly to the false face of the figure before her. Fortunately for her, once she had very little more to say, the figure finally appeared to give in and give up the attempt at a disguise.

As a soft wind blew through the area, it seemed to take the visage of Kong Shi Meng with it, leaving only a glowing humanoid figure made of pure while light. It was exactly what she had seen when the Kong Prison Realm had been saved, but the figure was not the only thing that changed.

Her surroundings were also worn away, and they were left standing in a void, amidst stars, looking out upon a large ocean, within which two large continents stood out amidst the water. Clouds floated lazily above the land and sea, appearing a short distance from either continent and vanishing once they went too far, where none would observe them upon the world below. A small golden point above the pair of continents shone down and illuminated all of them in their entirety, and a silver point had its own orbit around the land and ocean.

The figure composed of white light spoke with a different voice than before, “I am, indeed, Heaven’s Will.”