Path of the Ascendant

“I’ll be out in a little while. Take good care of the district, or else there may be a little collateral damage you won’t stop in time,” Wei Yi warned the Patriarch as she stood at the passage down, “Just in case that wasn’t clear, I’m not saying I’ll ruin your district deliberately, but instead that I’ll likely do some damage in the fight and you ought to protect it to minimize harm.”

“No, I wasn’t assuming that at all…”

She ignored him and proceeded down the stairs, getting further and further down until the gilded walls became even more golden, and the stairs changed from something sensible to pure gold. It wasn’t even immortal gold, since ordinary gold was significantly brighter and more vibrant, meaning that her every step left the slightest of marks upon the surface. The Great Leeches hadn’t left any prints as obvious as her own, but there were faint marks and traces of dirt on the gold belonging to the bare feet of the Great Chen family.

Simply walking down the steps took quite a while, since it was a lengthy trip that she couldn’t skip particularly easily due to the low ceiling and minimal space for the application of movement techniques, but she did deliberately avoid the use of her fourth realm movement method.

Unlike the Great Leeches, that might have done so out of arrogance or the like, she was instead more interested in observing the reaction of the Leeches to her destruction of the barrier for as long as she could. There was a lot to be learned from what they did, and she would be a fool not to pay attention while they left themselves as open as the two Great Chen Family members were at this moment. Even if she had a good notion of what they were attempting, it didn’t hurt to confirm it.

Unlike before, there was something else that she had to note about the Great Leeches that appeared in the Chen District. Those in the Ning District had clearly been present in full at the spatial stabilisation node, but the two here were less so. She wasn’t sure how she’d even explain it if she had to, but the simplest way of going about it would be to state that only a certain fraction of both mind and body was present in the Chen District, with a clear link flowing through the spatial stabilisation node to the physical placement of the spatial realm she had to presume to be Testament.

Judging by what she had understood about the Leeches up to this point, it was likely that this was due to them requiring their first generation to reside within Testament and keep that seal of theirs strong.

The Great Ning family’s first generation member that she had fought with initially, Ning Huang, had emerged in full to fight her and have a chance of success, but he was weakening said seal by doing so, and his sister emerged likely due to the effect being lesser than if the member of another family came out. Now that they were gone and they had no chance of supporting Testament’s efforts, the Great Leeches wouldn’t be stupid enough to waste everything they had by throwing out pairs of their first generation just to end up weakening themselves and benefitting only her and those who are currently on her side.

Instead, these strange malformed phantoms of the Great Chen’s first generation was what she had to contend with, and it was clear that the Yi District had a similar force by their spatial stabilisation point. Within Testament, she would then need to face at least forty of the Leeches at the seventh realm, but there was a possibility that the phantoms were just that and the Great Chen and Great Yi would survive.

This was unfortunate, but there was something else to be considered. The first generation of the Great Leeches were no older than three hundred years, which left a major question unanswered – what happened to the previous first generation, and all the ones before that?

Their lifespan, even if it was unable to properly progress into the territory of the seventh realm, should have remained at six thousand and four hundred years, meaning that there should have been sixty-four generations in total present at any one time. Obviously, that would mean that a single family could release sixty seventh realm combatants on a whim and not harm their seal all that much – unless it somehow required the presence of all but one or two to even barely function – and this was not something that was ever done.

Something needed to be forcing their early end, or unavailability, and it was likely to be connected to Testament. Her reasoning was that the phantoms conjured prior to her meeting with the dragons, as well as the two she was about to see, couldn’t be formed without something to form them and provide their power, or else all would fight with conjured combatants instead of true ones.

Even her own technique was very lacking in comparison to an equal number of combatants that had cultivated to the same realms that the cosmic entities had exhibited. The fact that they were able to explode themselves and benefit one another as a result was very impressive, and she was proud of this function, but she knew that a prepared and competent force would be able to handle it after understanding the principles of her technique, whereas she would need to modify the technique itself or infuse it with uncertain elements in the form of Obliteration energy or the like to make it sufficiently different and avoid such an outcome.

‘Anyway, it’s a good thing my mind might as well be a hundred times faster than the rest of the world all of the time, or else I would have been standing near the bottom of the stairs for an hour simply thinking about everything,’ Wei Yi noted as she finally completed her descent.

Both of the Great Leeches turned towards her at the exact same moment, their total of eighty anchors surrounding them in a grid to maximise protection. Their cores manifested a moment after that, while the two pulled out large sacks of coins that they let loose, their energy grabbing onto them and sending them into the air to act as extensions of their favourite basic technique, the point beam that each of the Great Leech families knew.

However, their faces were devoid of emotion, their eyes were dull and partly filled with the ghostly green light of the Yi City Web barrier, and the anchors around them were partly spectral in the true sense of the word, rather than simply being difficult to comprehend for those that did not know of their nature.

“I’m guessing you are much akin to the shadows within the Deadly Martial Colosseum, then. A shame I won’t get to kill you in your proper states,” she remarked, bringing out Moon Splitter.

They didn’t respond, not that she expected them to, and instead acted at the same time, which did demonstrate far more cohesion than the majority of the previous Leeches had been able to show. Both thrust a series of coins forth, just past their cores, before putting their hands together and condensing a planar construct in between themselves, putting in all of their power to form it as soon as possible so that it had even the slightest chance to actually collide with her. Of course, Wei Yi did not intend to let them get on with that, even if she wasn’t too afraid of their attempts.

Their overconfidence had previous led to her enduring twenty years in the Kong Prison Realm before emerging to fight and succeed against them, so although she could act with a degree of certainty regarding battles like this, effort had to be put in or else she would simply throw away her life for no good reason. If she was taken out by an attack she simply couldn’t comprehend, then she would have nobody to blame but herself.

Since their beams were shot at the same time, Wei Yi met them with a spin of Moon Splitter, using a technique derived from the Eight Great Changes’ Repealing Spark to divert their energy, then rushed in, bringing along some of the energy that the fragmented blade was able to catch.

Her attempt to strike the combined cores was met with an onslaught of immortal gold coins. They acted in the same defensive manners as the anchors, forming a tough barrier that did match up with what they were mimicking almost exactly, being a little sturdier due to the doubled quantity of coins in comparison to their total number of anchors.

It was still easy to cut through immortal gold with a weapon that was made with enough power to harm Primordial Deities, and so she breached that layer and struck the core. Cracks spread out from the surface, but with their combined efforts to strengthen the defences of their cores, as well as the ignition of a total of eight searing marks, the damage was far lesser than she might have preferred. To correct that mistake, she boosted her output of Obliteration energy to the blade and stabbed it into the core instead.

Then, with the Shard of Warfare acting as the conduit for her power, she allowed it all to surge out of the tip of the blade, instantly making a small hole in the core and piercing through the phantasmal flesh of the entity acting as the mortal, ordinary Leeches. The effect was disappointing, for it only removed part of the false form and didn’t appear to impede movement in the slightest, but it was enough that the outer portion of the core was broken and the searing mark should have been removed.

She deemed this as being sufficient due to the fact that the searing mark did remain, and there was still a semi-transparent layer of light where the core should have been. In other words, both existed in reality before her, but their true forms were only in whatever place the two of the Great Leeches were truly residing. It was safe to presume that said location was Testament, but she couldn’t discard the possibility that this technique was instead performed from a separate location in order to conjure the pair of phantoms with a greater degree of accuracy or power. As such, she was going to figure that out first.

Using the blade that was already plunged into the broken core, she thrust it further in and sliced through the core, opening it up further while also grabbing onto as much of the energy that was released as a result.

This was done literally, using her free right hand to gather it within her fist, and she then suffused it with her Obliteration energy and threw it back onto the blade, coating it in a strange mixture that released the pure aura of death. She found it to be extremely fitting, given what she intended to provide to the Leeches, and proceeded to perform a single sideways slash.

That extreme power cut through the cores with ease, separating their cores into two alongside their very bodies.

With that, the cores were brought to a stage near collapse even in their phantasmal states, for the powerful energy between them prevented them from recovering or maintaining proper stability, and this extended to the pair standing within, as well as the planar construct that they had begun to create. The amount of work they put in was significantly greater than expected, again showing their impressive coordination, but it wasn’t enough when a further stroke of Moon Splitter was sufficient to fracture it into naught but ash and mist.

“Alright, I’ll give you a chance to talk, just in case that’s even something you can do.”

Obviously, she was also beginning a deeper trace of their energy at the same time, as one function that the oddly mechanical phantoms before her were bound to have is a form of self-destruction in the event of capture and investigation. Provided that their bodies were being controlled from afar, whether by a single mind or many, this would be done deliberately once they saw that they couldn’t handle the Ascendant, and if there was no mind, only a certain process that couldn’t be interfered with by the Leeches, then there would already be a function prepared in the event of capture.

It wouldn’t even be a waste of the energy that they were composed of, for a powerful explosion of raw energy done without any care whatsoever for the wellbeing of the user of the technique could be utterly devastating. Even if the Ascendant endured it, she might well be unable to protect those around her, and she’d still have to deal with the fallout.

Contrary to her expectation, again, both did respond at once, “You are damaging the world and going against the will of the heavens.”

“Well, that’s just great. I’m sure that I’ve done far less damage than you lot, so don’t even try to argue this. Either inform me what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and exactly how to stop it, so that you are even slightly helpful, or else shut it and make things simpler for me either way.”

“Your deeds shall not go unpunished!”

“Like I care. If the heavens come down and try to take me down, then I welcome their challenge.”

“This is the wrong path!”

“No, really, do you think you can convince me, and do you think that I care about the potential threat? I think I know what your seal keeps away from us, but I will break it if I have to.”

“This is nothing but folly!” the male and female phantom exclaimed, “Do not think that you are above the world! You are bound by it, by its rules and principles, and your actions will harm everything around you, even if you do not care for what you do to the Planar Continents! Because of us, both continents have been kept safe from horrors you could never comprehend-”

“No. I believe that this is something the otherworldly demons have labelled as projection. You care only for yourselves, for your strength, for your position at the top of the world, whereas I am taking steps to elevate the power of everyone in my alliance as to ensure their ability to face that which comes for us. Instead of cowering from such threats, I will defeat them, and if I fail, if we all fail… why exactly do you think that your methods are necessarily superior? If you purge planar energy as a concept, what stops that seal of yours from shattering and everything being released? What stops the heavens from doing whatever the fuck they want, same as usual?”

The two didn’t respond, nor did she need them to do so. She had already confirmed that their presence stemmed from the spatial stabilisation node, and Testament as an extension, so she simply brought forth her now empty left hand and released her oblivion essence to dominate the spatial node.

As her power had risen since last time, she needed significantly less effort to do so.

Thus, the node was claimed, the two phantasms vanished as they decayed into raw energy that the Ascendant happily grabbed onto the moment that it was set loose, and the remnants of the ghostly barrier around the Chen District went in much the same manner, first into the air and then right into her bottomless dantian and planar pool.

She knew that although this was incredibly easy relative to some of her previous battles, the Great Leeches had clearly improved from last time, even if it was purely accidental. In the Ning District, she had actively defeated the last of the Great Ning, meaning that they had no chance of maintaining the seal in Testament despite the time taken to get rid of the two of them. That time would have been relevant if not for their barrier lacking any and all ability to withstand her, as well as her interest in observing their attempts to reform it and ruining them at the best time to waste as much of their energy as possible.

In other words, they could have not protected their spatial stabilisation nodes at all, and would have just as much time as they did now.

The Yi District seemed to have another instance of the phantoms she had fought here, which might or might not expend any significant quantity of energy of the Great Leeches, but they were unlikely to remove them until she got over there and took care of them. Any energy spent was already used up, so dissipating them now wouldn’t have any positive effect, and would only increase the chances of the Yi District deciding to rise up against them in favour of the forces of the Ascendant.

Of course, that depended on whether the people of the Yi District were siding with the Greats simply because they had occupied it in full force and positioned Testament near it, or if they were truly aligned with the goals and ideals of the Leeches. The latter would allow the Great Leeches to depart without worry, but the former required a degree of constant pressure on the district.

‘Still, that doesn’t really matter for me. With this new gateway, travelling between districts is even easier, so I will need to make sure that the Chen family don’t try to take over everything they can think of. Other than that… I may wait for another few days to confirm this, but I believe that their recreation of the barrier is merely to make use of its framework to focus the energy of the Yi City Web onto their seal in Testament instead,’ the Ascendant concluded from the fact that there were signs of a weak barrier rising around the Yi District once again, despite the complete uselessness of it, ‘Maybe I could observe more about the seal itself, and figure out whether it can be dealt with or maintained in some manner, since I don’t necessarily want to let out every major threat to the world if I don’t have to…’

However, she wasn’t naïve enough to think that this would be likely at all. The world and the entities within were tied to the level of planar energy density, meaning that as the latter rose, there would be more and more threats that people would need to face in order to retain their place in the world.

Even if the seal of the Leeches was sufficient at the moment, the growth of the world would be able to elevate the level of all natural phenomena associated with it, including the things within the seal. When the eighth realm is within reach, and certainly when the ninth realm is no longer an impossibility, then the seal will have no chance of holding up against the endless power that the ninth realm is able to use.

In fact, there was a guarantee of the seal breaking upon the world being able to sustain the ninth realm, for that realm was the closest thing to absolute infinity that could be attained in the Planar Continents. Once such an infinity was present in the world, then everything could benefit from it, rising until the infinity became standard, and whatever lay within the seal would benefit just the same.

The ideal thing to do would be to release the seal earlier than that, end everything within that was truly hostile, and then have sufficient room to deal with the threat of the Hunger of the Beyond, which is bound to come once the world grows in power. If there’s something they hunger after most of all, the high density of planar energy attained in the best years of the Planar Continents was likely to be it. So, unless the Ascendant find some method of effectively hiding the development of planar energy from anything outside of the continents themselves, a confrontation with them was inevitable, and a dire prospect for the world as it currently was.

Frankly, she wasn’t even sure whether it was possible for such a thing to be done, nor whether the people of the world would be able to fight the Hunger of the Beyond no matter how much she attempted to assist them.

This was due to the power of the lone Beast that lay in the Kong Prison Realm, which she had only been able to glimpse at this point. A single beast could pose a significant danger to one of the strongest cultivators that had existed prior to her, Kong Shi Meng, and reaching his realm was incredibly difficult due to the effect of the Truth of the Universe. It allowed him to rise to the top in a matter of decades rather than hundreds and thousands of years, which is the amount of time one might normally expect to wait between the first and the ninth realm in the ancient years of the Western Continent.

The Eastern Continent was apparently faster at progressing through realms, but they compensated for that with the high death rate of tribulations. Many that might have been able to reach the seventh realm safely in the Western District would perish during one of the earlier tribulations due to a lack of preparation or excessive and misplaced confidence in their strength. For this reason, there were fewer who attempted to cultivate beyond the first two realms, but more higher realm cultivators on average.

‘Tribulations don’t really work here, so even if I could guarantee their safety, that wouldn’t help much either, and that’s without even mentioning the fact that simply rising in power wouldn’t allow them to fully use it as well as if they headed up to that realm on their own…’ she paused and turned just as the Chen Patriarch came into view, “What?”

“I was simply coming down to inspect the situation. You appeared to be done far more quickly than you had suggested you would be, so I wished to be sure that you and my district were alright… I assume that you succeeded?”

“Of course I have. They had only sent in some phantoms of their true selves, so I could dispel them by claiming the spatial stabilisation node, which I have right here. Feel free to check out Paragon on the other side, as well as the Kong Prison Realm if you want, but before then, I want to remind you that you are within my territory now,” she stated, checking his response before explaining, “You may want to bring your business to the rest of the districts with the newfound access, but don’t you dare go beyond that. I will stop you, and I may well force the position of Patriarch to move to another. I do not need your greed getting in the way of Yi City’s development.”

“You are asking for a lot, Ascendant, for greed is in our blood… but I understand your meaning. You are concerned that our endless pursuit of benefits shall damage the city’s ability to progress at a normal pace, and that our fighting for profits may do similar damage…” the Chen Patriarch was surprisingly understanding, “I will avoid such things, at least while conflict lasts. After that-”

“We shall have another discussion then.”

“Yes, that would be best. Between then and now, many things could change, especially if the conflict does not come to an end as soon as the Greats are gone.”

“Presumably you’ve heard their mentions of a seal, then. Do you know what it is that they aim to restrain, or should I provide you a hint of what I and a number of knowledgeable others have concluded?” the man shook his head, so she didn’t reply, whether or not he truly knew, “Yes, the fight might last longer than it ideally would, but that is almost the Law of the world. Nothing comes on its own, and wherever there is one problem, there shall always be two… Of course, that’s no specific binding of the world, but simply how things tend to go in any complex situation.”

“As a man of business, I can understand that more than a number of Patriarchs that I’ve personally met. In that case, I shall leave you to continue your assault on the Greats while I scout for business opportunities that shall benefit the both of us. I am sure you can reach me if you must, Ascendant.”

She nodded, for she had a method to reach everyone within the reach of the Yi City Web segment under her control if she so wished, and let him depart through the gateway while she remained in place for a little while. There wasn’t much to be done near the spatial stabilisation node, but it was easily the most convenient place to converse with the spatial spirit residing within, and the underground golden chambers did remind her of the library conceived of by Kong Shi Meng.

“Wei Yi, I understand you intend to wait for the barrier to be rebuilt again?”

“Yeah. They have fewer Leech phantoms to work with, but also a smaller area to cover, so it might take a similar or slightly longer period of time. It should be enough for the Chen and Ning Districts to get integrated into the rest of the Yi City Web’s community, and enough for people to be prepared for an attack on Testament, if they are needed.”

“You must make sure to not give them the chance to do something that you wouldn’t be able to undo,” the mother of the Master of Yi City advised sternly, “I know you understand, but-”

“But the manner in which I easily defeated these two phantoms might make me somewhat complacent. Yes, I understand that all too well, but this might give me the opportunity to observe their seal in greater detail, now that there is little else to pay attention to. Maintaining the seal via the Kong Prison Realm and my own power could allow for a more controlled release of the things restrained by it, even if fighting them will almost be necessary in the grand scheme of things, and even if it is broken, I could slightly delay its full opening for a little while.”

“This isn’t something that I would normally say, but… might this not cause more problems?”

“You mean that people will see that I could stop the opening of the seal, but didn’t? Aside from me simply needing not to mention it to avert that particular problem, the negatives far outweigh the positives. People require some time to prepare, and even if they are all asked to start at this very moment, without care for the Greats, only the current Patriarchs and Matriarchs even stand a chance, simply due to the gap in realm being far too vast to be bridged by skill and talent.

“By delaying the appearance of our next foe, we can give everyone some time to learn and adjust, and to grow with the increased planar energy density. Furthermore, once the Yi City Web has the Yi District, and possibly Testament as well, it might be possible to employ my strategy of forcing the refilling of planar energy outside of the normal pace to accelerate cultivation for everyone in our reach,” the Ascendant explained, “I can always stall one threat at a time, regardless of relative power, so as long as we’re able to maintain no more than one unmanaged foe at a time, it will all be as fine as it can be.”

“I certainly hope that you’re right. After all this time, for us to fail due to what the Greats have been keeping away…”