Path of the Ascendant

The walls of the Wu District were shattered when that rift, a thing that should not be yet was, appeared and shattered the world. Most did not recognise it, for even their distant ancestors had not lived when it last appeared within the world, but certain tales and legends did remain, especially among the Heavenly Masters.

Primordial Invader, a rift in reality, a thing from some other world, stood at their doorstep for the second time in two million years, and they were far weaker than last time.

Fortunately for them, they had someone to stand at the forefront and protect them.

The Master of Yi City, someone that was effectively a god among men – though not in a bad way, as the Primordial Deities were – stood at the front lines, ready to fight for them and prevent anyone from falling before they did

Most likely, nobody had anticipated that a situation would repeat itself for a second time, with a completely different person acting in the same role, with a similar level of power despite the gap of a realm between them. As good as that was, the fact that Primordial Invader had returned did dampen that enthusiasm quite a bit, and the realisation by those who knew their history that Kong Shi Meng couldn’t defeat the Primordial Deity on his own did not bode well for the Ascendant, who, despite her power, was not in the eighth realm. Her energy was more limited than Kong Shi Meng’s, and some attributes unique to the eighth realm were also absent.

Nonetheless, this was what they had, and they had to let Wei Yi fight for them.

She wasn’t feeling too good about the entity either, for she discovered that it not only didn’t respond to her divine sense, but also that it behaved much like an otherworldly gift. In other words, it had partial resistance to everything that wasn’t otherworldly in nature, and that included all of her powers. It was what made Primordial Invader so difficult to handle.

Even with the Truth of the Universe, Kong Shi Meng had a limited array of skills that could be employed. Some could be borrowed, and the rest needed to be invented on the spot.

Primordial Invader did not have the same issue. Its various abilities were likely not used in full even when it opposed the original Master of Yi City, so she couldn’t rely purely on things like that to plan her strategy.

‘Whatever. I shall damage it until the barrier can be constructed, at the very least, and I hope that I will not need to invoke the same kind of method as Kong Shi Meng had used when he made the Shard of Warfare,’ Wei Yi thought, having already decided that she would wield Moon Splitter in a form similar to the old Master of Yi City’s sword, as was only fitting. It would also make it easiest to copy his techniques with the limited knowledge she possessed about them.

She would have liked to have the first move in battle, but even with the haste with which she arrived, Primordial Invader had already begun spitting out rift-like spheres and projectiles.

Some were slow, and others weren’t, but the ultimate conclusion was that she had to prevent them from opening up into larger stationary rifts anywhere near the Wu District, where the current Heavenly Masters stood near the front and were prepared to fight for their district after their Matriarch fell, or had to retreat. Most of them hadn’t yet decided which one they’d prefer, since one meant the slow destruction of Yi City by the rampaging Primordial Invader, who seemed to lack a traditional territory, and the other still offered Yi City a chance but doomed the Wu District while the Ascendant recuperated elsewhere.

While they were thinking, Wei Yi shifted her position forward, manifesting a number of phantoms near some of the more distant projectiles, and infused her power into Moon Splitter and the phantoms she created. Then, with every blade she had placed onto the battlefield, she first attempted the technique that she had been able to reconstruct from observing the memories sealed in the Shard of Warfare.

Every strike had been times to catch the rift-like orbs just as they approached, and each one struck exquisitely, matching the best of Kong Shi Meng’s strikes in terms of the general execution of the technique, if not necessarily the power or outcome yet.

The collisions were difficult to perceive, even when relying upon her own weapon and not that of the phantoms, but she could tell that she had succeeded in something when the explosion of energy forced the sphere to erupt into the stationary variant. It seemed that any significant collision was able to cause such a thing, but the Ascendant wanted to completely remove such projectiles from the equation, as it would make things significantly simpler for her, especially when it came to protecting the Wu District, and keeping the battlefield tidy.

‘What would cause these to be damaged? Energy being released isn’t enough, and physical collisions, like with railgun bolts, should have the same result,’ she stopped herself there, ‘I should just test it.’

Primordial Invader’s roars continued as they had, numerous orbs emitting from it while it seemed to watch her, the living rift in reality maintaining a vaguely humanoid form for now. Nonetheless, its numerous potential wriggling limbs and what not made it a far more disconcerting sight than she had remembered it from Kong Shi Meng’s memories.

Manifesting a number of railgun bolts was incredibly simple with the amount of experience she had with it, so the moment that a few of the spheres were produced from within the body of the Primordial Deity, she fired the bolts at them.

As expected, the orbs burst into the larger rifts, and the railgun bolts were swallowed with great speed, sheltered for only a brief moments due to the energy she had imbued into them based on the technique she had used with her sword, and the phantoms used with theirs. This meant that the method was lacking if she did wish to do more than delay the projectiles. She would have liked to continue her experimentation, but Primordial Invader did not linger in the distance, waiting for her to act.

Instead, the Primordial Deity’s arms – one pair of many, or perhaps the only ones that were initially visible – split off from the main rift and formed into smaller figures, each one producing a dozen more arms that spread out and pointed towards the Ascendant. Their legs, of which each one had only two obvious ones, bent and the figures soon leapt forth.

Wei Yi had to meet them with herself and a phantom to which she kept a greater connection than usual, straining her mind as it was forced apart. It was only enough for her to endure two moves, rather than the usual singular action of a phantom, but against an entity as maddening as Primordial Invader, she suspected that such a thing could make a world of difference. To it, she also gave her current form of Moon Splitter, and thus the two of them stood right in the path of the split forms of the Primordial Deity, swords raised and tips gleaming with a crimson sea of stars that pierced reality in a manner not dissimilar to Primordial Invader itself.

Her hands fell just in time, but the entity before her did not move as one might expect. Both stopped in mid-air, one simply jumping in another direction while the other manifested a dozen of the rift orbs that it then threw at her.

Thus, her phantom merely struck one of the orbs, causing an eruption of a rift that swallowed it before she could attempt to perform a second move, and she was forced to quickly move to obstruct the other figure. Fortunately, the removal of the second phantom yielded a great increase in her ability to think and act efficiently, and so she managed to conserve the force of her strike and still have it land upon the figure. Glowing and vibrant, Moon Splitter sought to split the thing that could so easily devour the moon if it ever touched it, but no significant cut was produced.

There was something, sure, but it was nigh insignificant, and it began to heal in moments, the size halving itself in just that time. To make it worse, Moon Splitter was close to being damaged just by that.

‘Shit,’ the Ascendant thought as the main body of Primordial Invader also moved forward, appearing right in front of her within an instant, just as it had done to Kong Shi Meng. Its arms sought to wrap around her, perhaps to devour her or to transport her somewhere that she did not wish to end up no matter what.

Rather than let that happen, she made use of her Dao of Law, a thing that the first Master of Yi City did not have, and forcefully shifted her position and rotation so that she would appear behind the entity, Moon Splitter already raised and covered in a layer of energy to minimize the contact of the actual weapon with her foe. She swung down again, seeing no particular reason to change the technique to anything more advanced when this enemy was not one that tended to use techniques or any proper tactics in general.

It didn’t turn, but instead seemed to flip its limbs in such a manner that they pointed towards her once more. Still, it took just a little longer than if it continued grabbing at her from its original front, so she had just enough time to bring down Moon Splitter.

Her blade was able to reach it without coming into contact with the rift directly, and cut open a larger gash within the Primordial Deity. The impossible ichor that she had seen in Kong Shi Meng’s battle dripped out just a little, the narrow opening barely allowing for more than a few drops to gather in between. The wound was clearly shallow, if depth meant anything to the entity that didn’t conform to any dimension in full, failing to be three dimensional and two dimensional at once.

That would be fine if Primordial Invader had appeared a great distance from the Wu District, as even the smallest injury would allow Xu Shi Meng to manifest the barrier around it and prevent its escape for some time, but it had not moved any further from the Wu District during their battle. On the contrary, this terrible thing just kept moving closer and closer.

It forced her back with every movement it performed, and it had to be noted that she had managed to wound an incomplete portion of Primordial Invader, not the whole. She had struck the largest and strongest portion of it, sure, but that was nothing when compared to the overall entity, with all of its power concentrated into one place, which was what Kong Shi Meng had been able to take on in his battle against the Primordial Deity. Once again, she was unfortunately lacking, and without defeating one of the Primordial Deities, she would not be able to advance to a sufficiently high stage to win.

 

Before she knew it, her back was pressed against the Wu District’s walls, and the moment after, two things occurred at once. First, a number of figures leapt down from the walls, each one carrying a particular weapon, with some having none at all. These people, the Heavenly Masters, were mostly in the sixth realm, with two having reached the seventh realm only recently, but they still leapt forward in the attempt to protect their district.

It was, in a way, admirable, but it was also completely and utterly stupid. They were guaranteed to die.

Only when the second thing occurred did the meaning of their actions change slightly, even if they themselves were not yet aware of this. The voice of Xu Shi Meng came from the heavens, right into her mind, “Wei Yi, these people… I could create a different type of barrier.”

His words reached her within an instant, and she processed them just as quickly, replying to him and beginning a brief exchange within the time that it took for the Heavenly Masters to go from being a millimetre above the ground to standing directly upon it. In other words, it might as well have been instant.

“What type?”

“If they stand together and keep Primordial Invader at bay, the energy that would make a barrier could be used to increase their strength. They don’t rely on realm-based techniques, instead using an overall understanding of combat to achieve their power, so lacking a true realm won’t disadvantage them.”

It was left unsaid, but understood by both, that there would be no requirement to weaken Primordial Invader prior to starting the barrier.

“They… Fuck, I hate this kind of thing! But… I will ask these idiots, but I know what they’re going to say already,” Wei Yi stepped away from the wall she had been pinned to, and spoke out loud, “Heavenly Masters, are you willing to protect your district until the death? If given the chance to die to prolong the safety of the Wu District for just a little longer, will you-”

“Of course we will!” the Heavenly Spear exclaimed before she could finish, “What else is the point of being a Heavenly Master?”

“Yeah, I figured…” she didn’t look down on them, but she wasn’t in the best of moods, so she just turned slightly and reverted to their previous form of communication to say, “Just do it already. With enough power, they’ll be able to contain it for some time, and by then…”

“The Wu District shall not fall for some time. They shall have endless vigour, stamina, and might, and so long as they do not err, they cannot fall. That much, as little as it is, I can promise,” the man that was unlikely to be Kong Shi Meng said with a voice tinged with the slightest hint of regret, for some deed so far unknown.

She had to trust that man once more, but she needed to make sure that it would be the last time, or as close to it as she could possibly allow. The next two Primordial Deities that she would need to seal, Primordial Corruption and Primordial Mind, when that one emerged, would be the last battles that she could leave without a complete victory, wherein the Primordial Deity was defeated and, possibly, their powers taken for herself or someone else that could use them responsibly and effectively. It had to be mentioned that she knew of no such people yet.

Despite accepting the fact that she would need to depart right away, lacking in success, she didn’t want to leave while having accomplished nothing at all.

Thus, just when the energy of the world converged upon the area, she forcefully commanded that vast congregation of power and performed a certain variant of the technique she had been using as her movement method. Rather than omitting the travel time and distance from movement, she omitted the necessary body and weapon with which one might attack a foe and simply declared that it was so. Omission of Law, a name that came to her just then, but worked perfectly.

If nothing else, it was better than calling it the Law-based fourth realm movement method derivative.

With it, she was able to perform several strikes with Moon Splitter despite it remaining in her hand, many metres away from the conflict. Despite that, the sword trembled with the strikes, and the marks left upon the Primordial Deity’s form were obvious.

The cost was the dissipation of her Arm – which would soon recover, as it always did – and a good portion of her energy – which would take a while longer to return. This was something she could use in a troublesome time, and she knew that it was superior to phantoms in a number of ways, but there was a long way to go before her invention of the Omit Attacker move could be considered as a proper and useful technique in battle.

Before she could do anything about that, she did need to depart, and track down the Primordial Deity that was yet to be sealed, which she did without looking back.

Every moment spent on looking back would be wasting the efforts of the Heavenly Masters, and that was not something she wished to do when the potential cost was half of Yi City being scoured before she attains the ability to properly combat Primordial Invader. It also wouldn’t be a good idea to inflame her killing intent while it was already a problem, as else she might lose control and do something stupid.

 

Although Primordial Invader was easy to describe as eldritch or indecipherable, for it was very foreign to the world in which it appeared, there was a completely different and, perhaps, an even worse incomprehensibility to Primordial Corruption.

It was born of this world, so far as the Ascendant could determine, and it seemed to take every step imaginable – and unimaginable, yet possible – to disturb and corrupt that which one could understand.

Despite emerging from its prison in the beyond merely half an hour prior to Wei Yi’s arrival, its influence had already stained the earth and twisted it, flooding the air with vile fumes and pungent mists that were a thousand times more intense than anything that Mo Zhouquan had produced when the Primordial Deity’s seed had been influencing her most greatly. The complete madness that the land had turned into was nigh impossible to describe, nor would she wish to do so.

Fortunately for her, she didn’t need to describe a thing.

The ground slithered, wriggled and writhed, innumerable masses of flesh twitched and breathed, some elongated and tendril-like while others were more like beating hearts and purposeless muscles, and all of it was tinted purple. Each and every thing had an extremely moist and slimy texture, and although most elements were rather arbitrary and unrecognisable beyond the fact that they were flesh of some kind – and presumably blood – there were just a few that had a significantly more sexual and erotic slant.

From Mo Zhouquan’s behaviour back in the Brotherhood of Power, it was clear that there was some connection between Primordial Corruption and the aspect of lust, but it had not been so explicit back then as it was now. She could see a number of elements that clearly resembled male or female genitalia, mostly human in appearance, and then there were some tentacles which were clearly tipped with penises. Subtlety was clearly not the strong suit of Primordial Corruption.

Of course, the Primordial Deity itself was no better. It was not made of those same tentacles – as far as she was able to perceive – but it was still a terrible thing.

An overall feminine body, with large breasts, sizeable bottom, and soft-looking flesh, long hair that fell most of the way down her back, but such an appearance could only be perceived at first glance and never again. Each of its hairs was abnormally thick, because they were made of tapered tentacles that wriggled around and constantly altered the form of its hair. Every part of the body was composed of numerous shapes that should not have been, and when that entity ‘breathed’, if that is what that process even was, openings within the body formed, noxious gases were exuded from within, and glimpses of internal organs that should not be there and muscles that should not move as they did were attained through those openings.

The entity was perhaps the most disgusting one she had come across so far. All of the Primordial Deities were mockeries of whatever Dao they were aligned with, whether they spawned the Dao or the Dao spawned them, but this was a mockery of reality itself, of the very concept of a living, breathing thing.

It might have been an even greater insult that this thing was as connected to sex as it was, for those that it was able to attract would be pushed into the same eldritch state as it, leaving those less fortunate than Mo Zhouquan as naught but husks that outwardly resemble their origin.

Primordial Invader might have the ability to destroy Yi City, but Primordial Corruption would forever destroy the Planar Continents if left unchecked.

Surely, then, it would be simple to rush in and give it a beating while the Ascendant had the chance, sealing it in and forcing it to recuperate while she sought the necessary power to end it, but things were not as simple for one single reason – the Primordial Deity, contrary to their typical natures, wasn’t attacking, or actively swallowing up a territory.

Rather, Primordial Corruption sat in one place, on a seat of undulating flesh that was cloaked in a thick mist containing just a hint of violet, and looked right towards Wei Yi, something that was meant to be a smile resting on its face. Its corruption spread, but did so slowly and almost lazily, making it all the more terrifying that it already controlled a circle one mile in radius after doing nothing to actively spread its influence. Furthermore, through some deliberate method or accidental decision made within a mind that could not comprehend ordinary thought, Primordial Corruption was not resisting its entrapment.

“I can contain it right now…” even Xu Shi Meng wasn’t sure about what to do.

“If I don’t hit her even once, then won’t it just consume everything in sight, and then, maybe, even begin changing the barrier itself? It’s possible in theory, so if this thing has the time, it will almost certainly attempt it.”

“You cannot resist its corruption.”

“We can’t even check that, since it could easily infect some vital part of me and send me on a downward spiral that I cannot stop… Otherworldly demons seem fond of that kind of thing, by the way.”

“… What?”

“They apparently have erotic games with those kinds of themes, and from what little I’ve been able to absorb via their memories and one that has an otherworldly gift of creating gaming computers, it seems like they would be excellent servants for Primordial Corruption without even needing to be physically or mentally affected,” the Ascendant commented, realising only after finishing the sentence that this was not at all the right time or place, “Fuck, the stench produced by the land is terrible, but it is very clear what it is based on. We need to come to a decision before I somehow get affected further. You’ve already said everything you mean to, right?”

“That is correct. I have little else to offer, I’m afraid.”

“Tch. In that case… Actually, I’ve got a way to speak with that thing relatively safely. Let me attempt it first.”

“Even your energy may be corrupted by that entity. Remember that.”

“I already know, and am keeping that in mind. I can stand to lose some of my energy if I absolutely must,” the Ascendant replied, for it would be incredibly easy for her to recover it once the Primordial Deities were once again fully contained, “You can, and should stand guard anyway.”

The man didn’t bother nodding, vanishing from sight the moment that she blinked, leaving her as alone as she could be. Primordial Corruption still sat in the same place, staring at her all this time, those orbs pretending to be eyes containing a hint of curiosity, or something of the like. It didn’t really matter, since she was going to make this attempt regardless, and then seal the Primordial Deity whether or not she deemed it necessary to fight right now.

She brought some of her energy outside of her body, a gateway to a crimson sea of stars encased within a perfect crystal, and forced it to expand, reducing it from crystalline to solid, and from the power of her seventh realm to a more ordinary level. This alone made it as large as she was, so she simply shaped it into a humanoid form and then used Omission of Law to place it beside Primordial Corruption.

Although the crimson gateway to stars and nebulae resembled her superficially, it lacked any internal organs, bones, or whatever else one might find in a human being. It was a positive when it came to resisting any form of corruption, as the only thing that could be corrupted is the outward form and her energy itself, and it wasn’t an obstacle to communicating with the Primordial Deity directly, as planar energy was about as much of an absurd contradiction with every theoretical natural law as an otherworldly gift could be.

The only real differences were that otherworldly gifts broke even the laws of planar energy, and that one had been a typical part of people’s lives for millions of years, whereas the other tended to appear with otherworldly demons, and often disappeared not long after they did.

As such, she could produce a voice from its mouth, and gaze through its eyes, more or less.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Primordial Corruption? Do you think that we will just let you spread your filthy tendrils all over the world?”

“Oh, mortal thing, you are just the most wonderful thing,” it replied, though it spoke through mouths on its left thigh, right shoulder, and the centre of its chin, “Do whatever you wish, and you will embrace my offers eventually. You will see the worth of my way, and you will be changed by me. You have already seen my form, haven’t you?”

“So, what would you want me to do? Block you in or let you roam free and be bombarded from the outside?”

“Why, of course I will spread throughout the world! Including this sweet energy of yours-”

The energy that she had used to communicate with the Primordial Deity was immediately severed from the Ascendant, very much deliberately, and with an additional command for it to explode if it could, before she glanced at Xu Shi Meng with a silent instruction to create the barrier.

Really, she had no choice but to establish a barrier, as the worst possible outcome of restricting Primordial Corruption for a while was not as bad as letting it go free and ravage the worst while the Ascendant continued to stare at Primordial Inferno’s breasts – not that she did that a whole lot, but she found it nicest to rest her eyes there when nothing else came to mind. As such, even though it was clear that Primordial Corruption was likely wishing for her to do exactly this, she had to play into the Primordial Deity’s hands this time.

Once Primordial Mind emerged and was also sealed, she would have to end the existence of any other Primordial Deity as soon as possible, if she did not wish to fail so quickly.