Path of the Ascendant

As it turned out, the man had not been paying attention to the outside, and a single demonstration was enough to make him reconsider his previous stance of... whatever it was he intended to do without the rest of Yi City. She did also go through some of the district’s books in that time.

To learn an entirely new field in a few minutes would be impossible, but she did confirm her initial suspicions about the effectiveness of resentment against the victims of the Huang District and the Blood-tinged Church. They perceived it to be some unique form of energy, but it was most likely a transformation of spiritual will or killing intent, perhaps both, amassed upon the death of a human or another intelligent being. It would also be built up when one was subjected to torment that resulted in the loss of their sanity and identity.

Perhaps she was misunderstanding something, but it appeared like the blood fiends would be absolutely clouded in resentment.

In theory, that resentment could accumulate to become something the Ling District termed as ghosts, but she had not observed that phenomenon around the blood fiends. The resentment might have needed more time, or it might require a more stationary object to anchor onto than a moving, raging monster that had once been, in some small part, a human.

This was a problem that the ghost seekers of the Ling District had run into as well, causing them to be increasingly competitive with the other district that focuses on mental energy and the soul, which did produce results that they could not. It led them to go further and further into their chosen field of study, and each time the Xin District obtained something else, like the impartation of vision states onto most of their main family members, they simply though that they should invest more and more of their focus into the matter.

As one might imagine, the result wasn’t ideal. The rags worn by the Patriarch, for instance, were an attempt to get closer to the unseen spirits, and attain communication and rapport with them. Similarly, the greyness of the land was the product of many rituals with similar intentions.

Whatever the truth was, she was going to bring out every man and woman capable of utilising the resentment in the world and bring them to the front lines, then let them push onwards until they surrounded the walls of the Huang District. After that, they would only need to maintain the outer encirclement, and Wei Yi and others with significant strength would proceed inside, and handle whatever came their way.

Ideally, it wouldn’t take too long, and then everyone could return to their lands and build up strength for the inevitable challenges of the future.

‘Right. Yi Shi Ming, I have some ideas for a barrier around the entirety of Yi City, so could you share them with everyone who could contribute? The sooner that we get started on that, the better,’ Wei Yi said in her mind, knowing that the spatial spirit of the Kong Prison Realm would hear her regardless of where she was.

“Have you thought of this while in that strange domain of Primordial Yin and Primordial Yang?”

‘In part. The inspiration should be obvious enough to you.’

“This is… the Four Cardinal Beasts array, greatly altered and expanded, yet functioning on the same framework… Do you intend to use the existing structure in the Kong Prison Realm to empower this new array in the outside world, like Testament was able to interact with the outside world through an inner arrangement?”

‘Yes, essentially. Use the Yi City Web, the existing Four Cardinal Beasts array, and then the new structure to complete something that could protect the land from intrusion. Hopefully, it would be enough to give us more time if we need it, and it is likely that we will.’

She had no intention of cowering when the Hunger of the Beyond arrived into the skies of the Planar Continents, but rushing straight into danger was not a wise approach by any measure. It was vital that the Planar Continents built up their strength as much as possible, and while she didn’t have much influence over the Eastern Continent, which had still not gotten back to her since their offer of support, she could do a great deal on the Western Continent. As she could do something, she would, and whether it won the world a day or a decade, it would be a worthwhile investment.

With the plans being given out to Yi City – all but two of the districts, as one had not yet come into her control and the other had not had the time to get acquainted with the Yi City Web and Paragon – she was able to return to the front lines. To begin with, she headed to the space between the Ling, Bao and Xin Districts that had been the reason she went to the Ling District.

During the time spent at the Ling District, some blood fiends got into the area and were making it difficult for everyone else to push in and form a tighter defensive line that would make their numbers sufficient to counter the forces that the Huang District is able to produce. It was possible to presume that she wouldn’t have to face an infinite swarm of enemies this time, unlike when she had invaded the lands of the Ju District, where her enemies were literally being manufactured.

The foes that had gathered within that space were destroyed the moment she threw out a few basic attacks, and the moment she had gotten rid of enough of them, she manifested a large wall of energy that she pushed into place at the edge of the initial encirclement line, blocking numerous blood fiends that had attempted to get past it again. It seemed like such an insignificant thing for her to do, yet it showed just how far she had come from the time that the most she could pull off was a slightly more complex punch than normal.

‘I’m still only in the eighth realm, yet I can dominate vast swathes of land as if it is nothing. If not for Primordial Blood and whatever the Blood-tinged Church still has on them, I could have conquered the entirety of the Huang District just like that,’ she thought, reaching out with the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and willing her focus upon the land before her, just behind the line she had created.

There, she willed the Kong Prison Realm to join with the outside world, doing so using the insights she had obtained from the confirmation that the Planar Continents weren’t just like a spatial realm, but literally identical, containing a kind of spatial spirit and a limited size that could be intruded upon from the outside if one put in the necessary effort. Unfortunately, the Hunger of the Beyond were entities that existed within the realm but outside a different border that would open up on its own, provided she understood things right. It was also possible that there was no barrier at all, and the Hunger of the Beyond was simply waiting, but that would just be silly.

Since it was silly, it meant it was likely the case, which was concerning, yet impossible to change given that the heavens had performed their equivalent of ‘fucking off’.

Their blessing of fortune remained, meaning that they were still looking around as they usually do, but that was fine. She had no hope for them whatsoever, but Yi Shi Ming was giving them way too much credit and seemed to believe that they were either doing their best, or have the potential to do so if encouraged. Although this wasn’t something she believed in at all, she was not going to object to it continuing to do its duty.

After all, Heaven’s Will expressed that it wanted its world to be safe, so the least it could do was assist her and prevent the world from being dominated by Primordial Deities or the Hunger of the Beyond, whichever one managed to do the most damage.

With the infusion of some of her energy into the gateway she wished to manifest, the fabric of the world shifted and permitted the Kong Prison Realm behind it to emerge. Within her lands, the gateway opened up not far from the opening to Paragon, and she willed all of the gateways in that fortress to point in different direction, angling them in such a manner that the gateway at the front lines would be brought to prominence. Naturally, she also sent out a message to everyone relevant with her divine sense, but it seemed best to make the right place to go as obvious as possible.

Provided that the fight went on for a while and she had to visit several parts of the front line, she would add in more gateways, letting the rest of the Yi City Web maintain their presence so that her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow would only be expended in order to open one up. Otherwise, she could only keep a spatial gateway open for an hour or two, provided there were no other interruptions.

“Ascendant- I mean, Wei Yi…” Great Dark was the first to come through the gateway, stepping through slowly and casually, “Could that wall be… enhanced in some manner?”

“Meaning? Do you want me to create some steps up, defences, that sort of thing?” the man nodded, so she glanced over to the walls and changed their structure with a wave of her right hand, the changes coming with ease as the fundamental nature of the planar structure was identical to before, simply with more features, arrays, inscriptions and what not. It was so simple she almost didn’t need to invoke the power of Law.

However, that was her primary field, so without it the wall would have remained a simple planar construct, albeit a powerful one. Against foes of high realms, it was effective, yet an offensive by a Primordial Deity might be able to destroy it in one go.

Thus, she imbued Law into the obstacle, and joined it with the concepts of numerous defensive walls, aligning it with various aspects of materials that might not otherwise be suited for the purpose if taken as a whole. Everything was unified into a single stable concept, and with the Kong Prison Realm and Planar Continent’s assistance, she was able to set it into place as if she had built a physical wall in front of herself. It was sufficiently stable to withstand several strikes from a Primordial Deity at its strongest, at least from what she had observed so far.

“Is it a good idea… to stabilise it right here? You intend to push onwards… am I correct?”

“Yes, that’s right. Fortunately for all of us, I don’t need to follow the typical rules for anything, and I’m using a planar construct anyway, so moving it is simple enough,” she said, “I’ll adjust the position of the walls and expand them once I cover more ground, and if I tie the spatial gateway to it, people could always emerge to the nearest position to the walls.”

Luckily for her, the way in which spatial gateways worked didn’t rely on a perfectly stationary space, so it was possible to quite literally attach the gateway to the wall and leave it be as it moved.

From what she knew of the ideas of other worlds, the gateways could best be compared to wormholes that connected two points in space – or multiple spaces, when spatial realms were taken into consideration – and wouldn’t move the space between them, meaning that the only effect of a moving gateway would be the equivalent of one end being a treadmill of sorts, another otherworldly invention that she had considered making before realising that certain arrays and inscriptions provided far better functionality.

Technically, a pair of spatial gateways made into a loop would also work, but that tended to be a little beyond the usual feasible methods for cultivators interested in training their body with something as mundane as sprinting about.

While she was considering all kinds of random nonsense, which could be applied in peace time yet not at all useful at the moment, the warriors of Yi City ascended to the walls via the convenient sets of steps on the inside, and took their places and figured out suitable arrangements among themselves. Wei Yi’s mental energy may or may not have helped them even without her deliberate intervention, but they didn’t need to know that, nor did she intend to tell them.

All she cared about for the moment was that their actions were effective, and with everything she was contributing, it would be possible for even the most useless of men or women to perform great feats, though their own capabilities couldn’t be neglected. Without those, they wouldn’t be able to withstand the bloody tide.

Again, she left them to it and flew off into the air, resisting the world’s attempt to pull her back down, and looked over the land as the clouds above got nearer. With her current strength, flying past them was possible, and she even began to see the blue of the sky fade before she found that the cost of rising into the air was simply too great to maintain flight if she went any further. Even standing of a chain of Law would not work, as it would also cost her an extreme amount of energy to maintain a position that was too high, so she instead directed that energy into her primary intention.

From such a high point, anything that carried physical force – or would be amplified by it – could be permitted to accelerate a significant amount before striking the ground, thus delivering an incredibly powerful strike with far less investment.

She formed a mass with a similar nature to her railgun bolts, manifesting a physical structure and ensuring it would maintain stability, then affected a chain of Law in such a manner that the object would attain kinetic energy as if it was falling, even though it did not move at all. The efficiency was a little lower than if she simply let it fall, but it could accumulate speed up to a terminal velocity without anything below having the opportunity to interrupt it, so a small delay was acceptable.

Then, she set about imbuing it with just about everything she could fit into the large meteorite. In addition to the principles of techniques most similar to what she was attempting to perform, such as Flame Storm, she added in the principles of various arrays to strengthen the effects of her creation. To some extent, there wasn’t a single complete array within her creation, but at her current realm, there was no necessity to create a complete structure. Even if the heavens weren’t assisting her, she could incorporate numerous fragmented components into a unified whole that would hold together through little more than the power of Law.

Improvements were made rapidly, and in less than a minute, she had a very powerful technique in her hands, though one that the vast majority couldn’t even imagine using.

In the meantime, the people on the ground – and on her wall – were handling the incoming threat better than one might expect from a mostly disorganised group. Each district and each faction had something it could bring to the table, and in the minute they had managed to see one another’s abilities and adjust to them.

Those that came from the Ling District were the stars of the show, however. With all of the resentment that gathered around the blood fiends, and with none of the distractions of being attacked during their work, they were able to fully employ their capabilities and drive all of the resentment into a single powerful attack. It took the form of a reaper-like entity, with a large scythe gripped in nearly transparent skeletal hands, and slashed the blood fiends. A single cut completely ended the life of a blood fiend, bisecting some and simply causing others to drop dead.

Even those that weren’t ended in a single go were stunned by the strike of resentment, thus giving the rest of Yi City’s forces sufficient time to handle the weakened blood fiends before they were able to regain their mobility.

The difference in outcome appeared to be caused by the variation in techniques that were mostly untested up to this point, and so they would conclude on the most efficient way to use the lingering resentment when given enough time. They would get it so long as her latest technique was too effective, though she would first need to test it in order to determine that.

“Fortunately, the blood fiends are not especially resistant to significant amounts of physical force.”

With a click of her fingers, the large meteorite she had manifested began to fall, and did so in the direction of the Huang District’s lands. She knew for a fact that it would have defensive measures against attacks, whatever form they took, especially given that it must have been preparing for an offensive against the rest of Yi City for some time. Even if they imagined it to be far weaker than it truly was, whoever was in charge must have accounted for the possibility of an all-out strike against the heart of the Huang District by some desperate figure hoping to avert destruction by exchanging their lives for that of the rest of Yi City.

Wei Yi had no need to make such sacrifices, certainly not in this moment. Instead of some grand accomplishment, she simply wished to do some damage, no matter how minimal.

Having accelerated to its peak velocity before she released it, the meteor quickly pierced through the layer of clouds below and plummeted further, a layer of flame amassing underneath it, growing as it continued to fall. Half of the distance to the ground was cleared in moments, and only after did a response come from the District of Blood.

It was not quite what she expected, for it wasn’t some rush of blood or a barrier resembling a circulatory system woven into a dome or sheet. Both of those would have been just right for those working with the Blood-tinged Church, but it was instead a combination of two auras, both familiar in their own ways. One was fierce and filled with flame, akin to a powerful roar as it flew forth, and the other was bright and dim at once, with numerous spots of light forming a greater whole than any of the individual points could.

Together, these energies formed into the shape of a dragon’s head, and met the meteorite with vicious teeth that clamped onto it with an audible crunch. As though it had met an ordinary piece of rock, the construct broke the meteorite into numerous pieces.

Whoever had sent out the dragon head clearly failed to realise that this did not weaken it.

The many pieces would not fall towards a single spot anymore, and most wouldn’t go near the Huang District itself, but that still left the vast lands outside which were currently filled to the brim with a sea of blood fiends that were eager to invade the rest of Yi City. Each one burned with the same energy and flew with the same speed, and even a small pebble with no further enhancement could be lethal if thrown with sufficient speed and stable form.

For those watching from afar, it seemed as if the stars fell through the morning sky and into the land below, crashing into the earth after a brief while and quickly cultivating a sea of dust and dirt.

Before anyone could come to terms with the situation, they saw another dozen meteorites as large as the first fall from the sky, none of them following a complicated path. On the contrary, it looked as if they were sent out just for the dragon head – which still remained within the air after crushing the first meteor – to bite down on them as well.

There was little else that the Huang District could do if this was all that they would reveal, since a direct strike from a meteor that large and powerful, with everything focused into a single object as opposed to the many smaller stones, would easily demolish a large portion of their district. Clearly, they could not accept such an option, so they were instead forced to shower their own troops with a rain of energy imbued with all kinds of techniques of arrays, making each piece as deadly and unpredictable as the larger meteor.

With a single meteor shower, she wiped out thousands of blood fiends, regardless of realm, for none were able to produce the same kinds of phenomena as cultivators. They had strength, aberrant characteristics, and a strong intimidation factor against most, but they lacked the same methods as Wei Yi had developed, just to name one example. Whether they used bloodline power or planar energy, one needed some intellect to drive them effectively.

Blood fiends lacked it, so they could only circulate it throughout their bodies and empower themselves.

Something came to Wei Yi’s mind, and she stretched out her left hand, “By my authority… as this world’s supreme wielder of Law, I decree that the stars shall rain upon the fiends of blood until their end!”

The world’s Law resonated with her command, but she could sense that this was not entirely correct. There was room for so much more than what she accomplished, and she wasn’t even certain where the problem lay. Her words, an important factor of any Law-based invocation she had employed so far, were accurate, but they were not necessarily correct, and the sentence structure might also have been wrong, though she saw no obvious issue. This was difficult to resolve, though, as she wasn’t familiar with the source of inspiration that came to her this time.

She had used the first part of that incantation prior to this, in the Luo District, but she was sure that there was something different about it this time, though she would be hard-pressed to explain it.

‘At least the meteorite showers will still form with the world’s natural energy… Where did I get this incantation from, anyway? By my authority, as… as… as what? What exactly should I be saying in such a situation? Ascendant is… out the window, so to speak, Master of Yi City is not only a title belonging to another, but also fails to describe me in full, supreme wielder of Law is only accurate until I consider that Heaven’s Will still sets Law even if it fails to comprehend it in full, not to mention my lacking comprehension in the Dao and thus my state in the Great Stride stage, even now… I have even less of a clue about the rest of it…’ she sighed, the answer being out of reach for now.

The only thing she knew was that the heavens were very unlikely to be responsible, as their style differed greatly from what she was experiencing. Perhaps they did have some notions of the incantation, but its origin could not be the heavens, and therefore it was likely that it wasn’t even coming from the Planar Continents.

One might imagine that it would simplify things, given that there was only one known entity or group of entities from outside the Planar Continents, but the only thing that exposed was that she was relatively ignorant about such things. There were many potential worlds and forces out there, so she could never rule out the possibility of there being a conflict between the Old Ones and some other group, resulting in the latter intervening in a world the Old Ones had chosen to use for their own gains and contributing their own kinds of madness.

Then again, this might be entirely impossible, and she didn’t know how to verify it nor whether it should make any difference. She needed to overcome Primordial Blood for now, the Hunger of the Beyond later, and then the Old Ones if they appeared.

Beyond that, it was nearly impossible to account for all possibilities, especially when she couldn’t determine what was possible and what wasn’t, so she couldn’t plan any further without simply wasting her time and making herself look like a fool when she inevitably encountered something she had not even imagined to be feasible. In a way, she was currently in the same position as all those years ago, when she walked down a street and got hit in the face with a failed talisman.

Back then, she had no clue what could happen, and although the scale changed, the facts hadn’t.

‘Alright, shelve all of that, return focus to something I can actually influence,’ she thought, slowly falling back to the world below in a controlled descent, “People of Yi City, now is the time to advance! We will purge Primordial Blood from the Huang District!”

She could have framed it as a rescue of the Huang District from Primordial Blood and the Blood-tinged Church, but that was very unlikely to work out if the people of the Huang District bothered to reply to her people. A single person that wasn’t as mangled as one of the blood fiends might state that they were very willing to let the Blood-tinged Church do whatever they wished, and perhaps they saw no issues with their activities due to a difference in perspective that formed as naturally in that district as in any other.

Hence, she needed to create a cause that could be understood and would be impossible to question with ease. All she needed was a few days – presuming no significant disruptions – and the Huang District would be under her control, mostly or completely. Removing the Blood-tinged Church would come naturally, and she hoped to present a sufficiently compelling case to those that remained that following her vision for Yi City would be a superior option.

Although she instructed her forces to advance, she didn’t actually want them to move forward on their own. Her intention was instead to warn them as she moved the wall forward, and at the same time expand it to cover the areas that she had already assigned forces to and cleared with the meteorite showers. With the few minutes she had spent in the air, the wall had gotten more stable from a kind of positive reinforcement from the people that stood upon it, and those that ran into it, confirming to the world that it was indeed a wall, despite it coming into being rather unorthodoxly.

As the world acknowledged the existence of the wall, she could increase its presence without causing it to weaken relative to what she had intended, though it would be stronger if left entirely untouched.

From something that occupied roughly one tenth of the front line, the wall moved forward and grew to protect a third, then nearly two thirds of the line, with her current power being unable to force it to go beyond that while maintaining the necessary stability to remain effective. Hence, she chose to modify the design of the wall instead, adding small gaps through which those standing on the ground would still be able to contribute to the battle.

With that optimisation, nearly the entirety of the front line was sorted out, and she was able to simply let the walls close in around the Huang District, as all she needed to do was wait for the right moment to intrude and take them down.