When her power rushed forth, the simple wave of energy released from her body was enough to shatter the planar constructs that had been created around her.
Her cosmic light flooded out of her form, coating the skin and transforming her into a perfect constellation that stood upon the mortal world. Her Endless Monolith appeared around her, towering into the heavens and glowing with the subtle yet boundless light of Touch the Heavens at the very tip, where it did seem to come into direct contact with the wondrous sky above.
An immense core with a hundred Astral Scars glowing upon each interlocking scale surrounded the army of the replicas Leeches. Nine sets of chains surged from the Endless Monolith and linked with each the Astral Scars, weaving around one another as they did so. That much was completely standard for the cultivation of the Ascendant, but the soft glimmering chain that went directly from the anchor and core without wrapping around any of the other chains. It felt illusory and ethereal, as if it did not even exist, but none of the replica Great Leeches could be bothered with contemplating such a thing, for the thing that came next forced their attention away.
The magnificent celestial light that surrounded the Ascendant, tinged with crimson but hardly consumed by it up to this point, burst out as if to flood the entirety of the core with energy in the same way that it was in her dantian.
At the same time, in the most contradictory of manners, the energy seemed to get denser and thicker, multiplying in quantity by such a significant degree that the many false anchors around the replicas were shaken and nearly broken by that simple expansion, which travelled mostly along the linked channels that travelled out of the Endless Monolith. As it did so, blatant crimson flooded in, and the celestial image that could be seen through it deepened greatly.
From a relatively straightforward combination of nebulae and stars in relatively unexciting arrangements, combined with the distant images of chains far, far away, the energy transformed blatantly and extremely. All of that rushed forth and multiplied, chains most of all, for they covered the middle layer of the sky as well as the layer that was furthest to the back. Nebulae grew denser and more vibrant, their quantity growing with each breath, and the stars formed clusters and galaxies, all of which revolved around the black suns that the Ascendant had mastered long ago, even if they still had the tendency to do collateral damage.
This seemed to be the manner in which galaxies worked in the worlds of the otherworldly demons, but Wei Yi naturally pushed it forward and modified the arrangement.
All the chains that were able to reach linked to some of the distant galaxies, passing through them, wrapping and weaving around various celestial objects, not to mention countless other elements. They forced the movements of the stars, the rotation of the galaxies, the clouded shapes of nebulae, the acts of gravity, and numerous other properties that Wei Yi had not yet learnt the names for, yet began to comprehend the more that she viewed the world and the way in which it functioned. All that mattered was that she knew one force, and the rest could be extrapolated from it to a sufficient degree.
This energy was ultimately the creation of the heavens, and that much she could not change without completely tearing herself out of the system that existed within the Planar Continents, but it did not stop her from making her own path clearer within it. It was a way for her to make her existence clearer in this vast and vicious reality, and she would take that way for as long as it was available to her.
She didn’t care if her name was known to the heavens, or any entities beyond, but she wanted to make it absolutely certain that they would see her actions and her impact on the Planar Continents. Even if she died in the next moment, even if all traces of her existence other than this clarification of existence were removed from reality without a single trace, then she would have at the very least brought the Dao of Law to the forefront within what might well be the very first manifestation of oblivion essence, and anyone that attempted to step onto the same path in the future might develop the same kind of oblivion essence as her own.
It was hard to say how effective such a path would be, but she knew that there was something about this that just felt absolutely right. With how limited such a feeling was, it was difficult to be certain of what type of intuition even brought about such a feeling, but she had yet to be waylaid by her intuition, especially not when it came to the Dao of Law and the path she wished to take. Until she saw a good reason to distrust it, she would side with it for the moment.
Once all of that boundless power reached the outer edge of the Subterranean Shell and flooded it completely, it was as if this illusion simply popped, and the crimson returned to her.
A single instant was all that was needed for all of the energy in the entire battlefield to be drained alongside the ebb of that oblivion essence, as if the essence was in control of all the free, unbound planar energy in her surroundings. It was so striking that it completely sapped the power of the Great Leech replicas, leaving their cores and anchors but with almost no energy to use either one, save for the minimal quantity that remained deep within them and that couldn’t be grasped by the powerful gravitational pull of the Ascendant’s oblivion essence.
What it revealed was a figure standing tall, with two stars in her silver eyes, clouded with crimson nebulae. Her hair fluttered in an invisible wind, even when her robes did not. Throughout her body, a clear light of oblivion essence shone through the flesh and skin unlike any other power within her body, even through her robes and scale armour.
All of that was insignificant to the Leeches when compared to the sheer pressure she now emitted. It completely overwhelmed a similar level of pressure manifested by their anchors, and was enough to cause both their bodies and their anchors to tremble, slightly but visibly.
“I was right about it remaining usable, then… which one of you replicas wants to die first?”
As she spoke, however, she saw clearly a far greater degree of information than before, and it was clearly a combination of some progress in her Dao and the development of her oblivion essence. It must have had an effect upon both her spiritual perception and other forms of energy, for it was intimately connected to her bloodline, partially with her physique energy, and formed the initial manifestation of killing intent and spiritual will, and its nature inspired killing will to a certain extent.
With her current state, she was able to perceive the Great Leech replicas as clearly unnatural, in a manner that she had never witnessed before. It was just as minimal as her intuition in regards to clarifying her existence, but in this case, it was clearly accurate, for she knew the truth.
It was still something, and even if she believed it to be a mere figment of her imagination, then she would still not permit the Great Leeches to reply, as she did not care about that whatsoever. All of them will be destroyed, whether immediately or after a brief battle, and she would be absolutely certain to destroy whatever their source was as well, which was likely to lead to the destruction of any that she had ended up missing during the battle, by some miracle of the heavens trying to do exactly as the Greats claim they would.
As her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow had reformed during the breakthrough, she was easily able to raise it once more and will the power within to condense into the lance of the Elysian Blast.
It did so with unbelievable speed, to the extent that she barely managed to recognise it by the time that she was able to fire it at the Leeches, which she did naturally and immediately. The soft white of the beam was gone, however, and in its place was an overwhelming power that a monarch over the heavens themselves might possess. White remained to some extent, but it was tinged by the colour of oblivion essence and its power was obviously affected in the same manner.
That much was clear as the moment that it hit, the Great Leeches that she had targeted, their cores and anchors, the wall that they stood upon, and many of those in their surroundings were simply wiped out in a flash of power.
‘This… Fuck me, it is five times more powerful than my previous planar energy… With the halos of the seventh realm, that will be an additional multiplier of fifty atop that… I think I see why the seventh realm is so immensely powerful on the battlefield, and why the upper three realms are so different from the other six… This is where the peak of cultivation finally begins.’
She did not hesitate to hold out her right hand and bid fifty ancestral totems to emerge from the ground, finding that the glow of the ancestors was affected just the same by the oblivion essence. All of them lacked the power of the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, but it was still enough for a wave of their spectral arms to produce a dozen railgun bolts each, every single one not only crackling with the power of Obliteration energy, within which the crimson now stood out significantly more than the darkness, but also glowing with the raw might of her oblivion essence. The Great Leeches might have been stunned from previous events, but they knew enough about the railgun bolts to attempt to flee.
Of course, she would never grant them the opportunity. The very instant that the bolts were ready, far more quickly than usual and incredibly convenient, for it occurred moments prior to the first of the Leeches jumping down the stone walls and getting into some vague semblance of cover, she let them loose. Each one burst out at once, within the exact same instant, and struck before she could take a single breath. Eruptions of vast power occurred with every single collision, and it flooded the battlefield with blackened crimson.
After a moment, the stone slabs slid back down into the earth, the Ascendant’s Earth Dao’s effectiveness seeming to have multiplied alongside the power of her oblivion essence.
Most of those around her were gone, but the Leeches were still out there, a trail still travelling from the Chen, Ning and Yi District, merging into a single army and besieging her at the former forest some distance from the Chu District. She could kill them, and so she had the duty to do so while chasing them down and discovering their origins.
‘The Ning or Chu Districts would make for good strongholds for my Arbiters, and so I could capture one of them while I’m at it. Weakening the Great Leeches to such an extent will bring the war to a far earlier end than it originally might have done,’ she concluded, conjuring the Titanic Conqueror to bring out a few Obliteration beams to finish off the remaining replicas before she turned towards her territories in the north, bringing her Arm forth and forcefully stretching a spatial connection to this area.
A gateway, extremely small and feeble, but a gateway nonetheless, manifested before her, and before it could collapse, she brought her voice through it, amplifying it so that the people of the Ascendant’s Arbiters would hear.
“I have repelled an attack by the Great Leeches upon the Chu District, and I now intend to strike at the Ning District. Come with me, and we shall see what the Leeches try to do against us!”
Her words were simple, but she hardly needed more than that. The people within her faction, and those that she had allied with, had a dislike of the Great Leeches for various reasons, some that she shared, and others that she had not yet learned about – otherwise, she would very likely share them, given that the Greats are excellent at making poor first, second, third and last impressions no matter which one of their families and generations are considered. Now that there was a chance of moving against them and winning, few wouldn’t take the chance.
With her view of the districts within the range of the Yi City Web, she could see an army appear at the Luo District, the closest one to the Ning District and most easily traversable in order to then rush at the district of blacksmiths. Out of the two options, it might seem riskier to attack the district walled off by an ancient structure the craftsmanship of which is unmatched in the current world, but she knew the layout and standard techniques of the Ning District. Meanwhile, the Chen District was essentially unknown to her, and she could not be certain that they did not have a method that would perfectly counter one or many of her primary methods.
The oblivion essence she had should make it far easier for her to overcome certain restrictions of the world, but there was no guarantee that she would be successful in every regard, so it was best to minimise risk within this instance. She wouldn’t lose her oblivion essence if she failed, presumably, but it would ensure that the Great Leeches could be prepared the second time.
So, within only an hour, with the combination of group movement techniques, oddly efficient planning, and a whole bunch of additional methods like talismans and pills, they were approaching the Ning District. Giving them that much time was the most that the Ascendant could afford, for she could tell that there was something gathering within the Ning District, but she needed to provide it for them as she would otherwise be near incapable of limiting the collateral damage from barging into a district and obliterating all threats.
Even before, the difference between a lethal strike and one that wasn’t was incredibly small. Going from one hundredth of her full power to two hundredths could cross that gap, and with oblivion essence, that was now the gap between two and four thousandths, which was immensely difficult to regulate in a dangerous situation. If that did not describe a fight with one of the first generation of the Great Leeches, if not multiple, then she wasn’t sure what the point of the word would even be.
Alongside her Arbiters, she charged into the territory of the Ning District, seeking the exact source of that powerful aura that she had felt from a long way away.
Numerous guards stood atop the walls, some clearly related to the forces of the Great Leeches themselves, whereas others appeared to have been recruited from the existing guard forces and lacked the same enthusiasm. The latter type of people were exactly those that she wished to keep alive and relatively well – some injuries couldn’t be avoided in warfare, even with extreme and excessive levels of precision, so she wouldn’t attempt to do so – and those were going to be handled by the Arbiters while she took care of the Great Leech replicas and the first generation, as well as whoever was left from the other generations.
She planned to strike then and there, but before she could do anything, that terrible aura that was present in the region pulsed with a hundred times the power, and it clearly surged within the area of this district in particular.
‘What is… No, since I called the others here first, I ought to take care of them,’ the Ascendant thought, turning in the direction of her forces and amplifying her voice with the standard combination of the Lion’s Roar physique ability and technique, “Don’t approach yet! They may be attempting to use the district’s unique defensive methods!”
Her spiritual perception would have only reached some of the people present, and none of the most significant ones, so this type of approach seemed most suitable to her. There was some delay in the sound reaching her troops, but it did end up doing so, and it also functioned well enough as a method of attack. As she was very close to the walls of the Ning District, the guards and Leech-aligned combatants were practically hit in the face with the sound, barely being able to perceive what she was saying but needing to deal with the impact of the sound waves nonetheless. Some were instantly incapacitated, but most endured due to their constitution, physique or realm.
As it turned out, her instruction was given at just the right time, for in the next moment, a vast quantity of a sickly, ghostly green burst out of the ground.
It surrounded the district, shone through the ground within, and clearly came from the outside, from the south-west. The many beams and wisps of light came together into a dense shield, the spaces between them being protected with the shine of individual components coming together into an array that was clearly within the seventh realm, if not standing on the precipice of the eighth realm, albeit a step from it and thus significant weaker in comparison.
She could tell right away that the source was a series of channels beneath the ground, illuminated by this energy, extending to all three districts within sight and putting them into a singular barrier, which connected to a point in space that glowed with almost heavenly light.
The point stood between the Ning and Yi Districts, closer to the Chen District than what remained of the Kong District, meaning that it was still well within the boundary of the barrier that its power created. From an outside perspective, this might be anything from an otherworldly gift to some kind of ancient, incredibly powerful artefact, but the Ascendant had enough experience with the snaking channels within the ground and the glow behind it, or the kinds of things that produced such things, at least, as well as some alternative uses of them.
Due to that realisation, she quickly used her fourth realm movement method to quickly place herself beside Great Dark and some of the others who would understand her, before explaining the situation.
“The Great Leeches have managed to make use of the Yi City Web via what I can only presume to be Testament. I don’t know if this barrier is a usual function of the web, given that I’ve only used the spatial connection that it creates, but given the way in which their energy does not appear to be very natural in appearance, I suspect that they’re doing this forcefully.”
Her words, the ghostly green barrier and the situation in general led to a slight delay in Great Dark’s response, but he managed to respond reasonably quickly nonetheless, “Are you able to confirm this with absolute certainty?”
“Yes. The reaching strands of the Yi City Web that I can usually feel have been forcefully parted the moment that the barrier formed, and I suspect that this is because they decided to experiment with the spatial stabilisation nodes at their end. Their initial plans had clearly been to stay under the radar – otherworldly term, a radar being a thing that can detect other things around it according to a certain signature, level of heat, motion or any other property – but since we had forced them out, now they are going all out,” Wei Yi said, “At least, that’s what it seems like. I think that point in the distance is Testament just because it is the only spatial realm that I know of which belongs to the Great Leeches, and would be in the vicinity and have enough power to stimulate such a barrier.”
“We do know of few spatial realms that even exist in this age…” Great Dark paused, making up for the pause he had failed to include in his last sentence, “This would make sense… Can you do anything?”
“Don’t know. The great quantity of power contained within my newly obtained oblivion essence may or may not be enough to defeat the great quantity of power contained within the Yi City Web, Testament, and all of the energy they’ve condensed here and now. Either way, we should make sure that they can’t stop this and move onto some kind of offensive actions, so,” she turned to the rest of the army, “Everyone, surround the districts of the Leeches, and stand guard for anything that they may attempt to do!”
Since she was now amidst her forces, she didn’t repeat her method of deafening those near her, using her spiritual will instead to deliver her words more efficiently and clearly. Once her forces – that she hadn’t managed sufficiently to identify their squads and organisation – began to move, she went towards the barrier and faced the people on the other side.
None of them seemed certain of what had happened, and so most lacked clear confidence in their eyes. The forces that were loyal to the Leeches had more confidence than the regular guards, who weren’t certain whether they ought to flee or stand their ground at all. As soon as the Ascendant allowed her oblivion essence to flow out from her back, casting a vast shadow of absolute power, she gave them a look that prompted most to back down or outright run away, ensuring that they wouldn’t be hurt quite as easily as those that she had no problems with killing in violent and terrible ways, since they had already made their choice.
She raised her right hand and concentrated some oblivion essence at her palm, spreading it apart into numerous small points that the Great Leeches would immediately recognise as a derivate of the point beams that they loved to use far too frequently.
Out of all of her methods, this was perhaps the weakest due to lacking development and partial reliance on her anchor shards, which did advance alongside her Endless Monolith but insufficiently, so if this was successful in breaching the barrier, then she would not need to invoke any other technique. It would allow her to target only those that she wished to strike down due to the fine scale of the beams. Otherwise, her other attacks would cover larger areas, and could not be aimed quite as precisely, but she would need to invoke them in order to bypass a stronger barrier than expected.
The points condensed into their final state within a breath, demonstrating once more the rapid speed with which oblivion essence appeared to be able to complete techniques. It was extremely powerful in a battle on relatively equal footing in other respects, for it would ensure that she could perform any kind of attack, defensive technique or movement five times as quickly as her foes – more if her other abilities were taken into account – and thus do five times as much in the same amount of time.
She released them swiftly, letting each point beam collide at the weakest spots of the barrier that she was able to see after a glance. Each one struck, but there wasn’t so much as a wave on the barrier.
The barrier had clearly needed to expend energy in order to prevent the technique from passing through, but it was able to do so without any visible ripples or exhaustion of energy, meaning that the total power stored within the Yi City Web that connected the Yi, Chen and Ning Districts was currently far greater than the little energy she made use of to attack it.
Meanwhile, the guards on the other side weren’t yet sure what to make of this, for most were clearly able to recognise that this was not even close to the overall power she could display, but that didn’t stop some from getting a slight glimmer in their eyes. If the great Ascendant herself could not get through their barrier, then whether they were on the side of the Great Leeches or not, they would be safe for some time, and would not need to fear their demise. She couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, for her spiritual perception and hearing alike were blocked by the barrier, but their lips gave her enough of an idea.
They were muttering to one another various bets regarding how long it would take her to break through, what she would end up using for it, and whether it was a good idea to flee now or once she does manage to breach the barrier. Many appeared to be of the opinion that they would need to flee soon enough, and even tried backing away right now while putting someone else in their way, as to let them be hurt first while they escape.
Great Dark had remained near, and began, “Are you unable to-”
“It was a test. The barrier isn’t just a paper sheet blocking our way, so now I will step it up a little. Stand back.”
He did so right away, and then she stepped up her attack by going straight to an Obliteration beam. If it wasn’t enough, she would need to attempt something significantly more extreme, which she did not wish to do for aforementioned reasons. Still, if Obliteration at its full power wasn’t sufficient, there were few methods that she could apply that would have a good chance of success.
The problem was that she couldn’t make use of the majority of those methods without seriously risking permanent damage to the world. Something like Touch the Heavens might seem like it was relatively harmless when compared to the Reality Severance, which left a visible trail in the air for all those that looked for it, but that did not mean it wasn’t dangerous. Just like Reality Severance created a permanent separation of the world that couldn’t be truly amended without a great deal of hard work on the part of something that might not even be sentient or intelligent, Touch the Heavens would do much of the same, except that its impact was not immediately obvious.
Her blackened crimson burst out and surged into the sky, forming a sphere of energy there that coalesced into a greater and greater size and vibrance until the entire region was illuminated only by its power. Once she invested the most energy that she could reasonably control into that sphere, she willed it to strike down upon the barrier, targeting a similar spot just in case there was unseen damage to the barrier that she could exploit.
It fell with a quake that rippled throughout the outskirts of the Ning District, tearing apart the ground and forcing the stronger individuals within her Arbiter force to step in to safeguard the weaker ones. The sheer might of essence-empowered Obliteration could be said to be nigh unrivalled in even the seventh realm, so it was only natural for everyone to have high hopes regarding its success.
There was no change, however. The barrier remained as it had been once the blackened crimson cleared.
“Everyone, step back one more time. There’s one last thing I wish to try.”
She didn’t wait for the people to respond before she provided them with an excellent reason to do so. As she raised her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and pointed the tip of her index finger’s claw up to the sky, an overwhelming heavenly light shone upon all that saw it. Instinctively, they all looked away.
The Ascendant did not bother paying attention to the reactions of those within the Ning District, and simply invested all of her might into the Arm so as to get the most possible out of a single strike. She used her Dao of Law to focus upon all that she understood about the heavens and the earth, as well as reality as a whole, latching onto it with her sharp claw as soon as she found it. Finally raising her eyes to look at the top of the great metal walls of the Ning District, she grasped that notion with the whole of her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and unleashed it upon a barrier.
A crack in reality formed, and multiplied. Numerous sources of light and dark, entropy and growth, expansion and contraction, progression and regression, acceleration and deceleration, and countless concepts that made up reality as a whole, manifested within the endless cracks that followed, spreading rapidly towards the barrier around the Ning District.
When it came into contact with the light of the barrier, the latter shook and trembled for the first time today, the patterns of the array channels distorting and barely being able to maintain shape – but they did so nonetheless. There were several visible cracks, but in the time that it would take to repeat the use of Touch the Heavens, it was nearly guaranteed that these cracks would correct themselves by the time she was able to do so, but the cracks within reality…
“Wei Yi, you ought to-”
“Look at the air,” she interrupted Great Dark, using her reforming Arm to indicate the most notable point in space, “Just like Reality Severance separated reality itself, my Touch the Heavens fucks up every single Law I can get my hands on. One attack is fine, but two, three… There may be a spot of permanent damage to the world, one that the heavens may struggle to deal with. As such… I would like to find an alternative approach. Provided that I am, say, in the seventh realm, I should be able to use a technique that doesn’t ruin space, time, and reality as a whole.”
“But… are you capable of cultivating to such a realm… quickly enough to defeat this barrier in a reasonable timeframe?” he inquired.
“Well…” she dragged out the word, sighing as she did so, but before she was even able to finish, her attention was grabbed by something in the distance. It was much like her exhalation, except that it did not come from a living thing, but the world itself, made all the more prominent by her ever improving understanding of it.
She might have dismissed it for the moment, if it hadn’t come from the mountains where the oldest living human, Jia Rong, had been discovered, within the timeless passages and caverns of the great peaks.
When her power rushed forth, the simple wave of energy released from her body was enough to shatter the planar constructs that had been created around her.
Her cosmic light flooded out of her form, coating the skin and transforming her into a perfect constellation that stood upon the mortal world. Her Endless Monolith appeared around her, towering into the heavens and glowing with the subtle yet boundless light of Touch the Heavens at the very tip, where it did seem to come into direct contact with the wondrous sky above.
An immense core with a hundred Astral Scars glowing upon each interlocking scale surrounded the army of the replicas Leeches. Nine sets of chains surged from the Endless Monolith and linked with each the Astral Scars, weaving around one another as they did so. That much was completely standard for the cultivation of the Ascendant, but the soft glimmering chain that went directly from the anchor and core without wrapping around any of the other chains. It felt illusory and ethereal, as if it did not even exist, but none of the replica Great Leeches could be bothered with contemplating such a thing, for the thing that came next forced their attention away.
The magnificent celestial light that surrounded the Ascendant, tinged with crimson but hardly consumed by it up to this point, burst out as if to flood the entirety of the core with energy in the same way that it was in her dantian.
At the same time, in the most contradictory of manners, the energy seemed to get denser and thicker, multiplying in quantity by such a significant degree that the many false anchors around the replicas were shaken and nearly broken by that simple expansion, which travelled mostly along the linked channels that travelled out of the Endless Monolith. As it did so, blatant crimson flooded in, and the celestial image that could be seen through it deepened greatly.
From a relatively straightforward combination of nebulae and stars in relatively unexciting arrangements, combined with the distant images of chains far, far away, the energy transformed blatantly and extremely. All of that rushed forth and multiplied, chains most of all, for they covered the middle layer of the sky as well as the layer that was furthest to the back. Nebulae grew denser and more vibrant, their quantity growing with each breath, and the stars formed clusters and galaxies, all of which revolved around the black suns that the Ascendant had mastered long ago, even if they still had the tendency to do collateral damage.
This seemed to be the manner in which galaxies worked in the worlds of the otherworldly demons, but Wei Yi naturally pushed it forward and modified the arrangement.
All the chains that were able to reach linked to some of the distant galaxies, passing through them, wrapping and weaving around various celestial objects, not to mention countless other elements. They forced the movements of the stars, the rotation of the galaxies, the clouded shapes of nebulae, the acts of gravity, and numerous other properties that Wei Yi had not yet learnt the names for, yet began to comprehend the more that she viewed the world and the way in which it functioned. All that mattered was that she knew one force, and the rest could be extrapolated from it to a sufficient degree.
This energy was ultimately the creation of the heavens, and that much she could not change without completely tearing herself out of the system that existed within the Planar Continents, but it did not stop her from making her own path clearer within it. It was a way for her to make her existence clearer in this vast and vicious reality, and she would take that way for as long as it was available to her.
She didn’t care if her name was known to the heavens, or any entities beyond, but she wanted to make it absolutely certain that they would see her actions and her impact on the Planar Continents. Even if she died in the next moment, even if all traces of her existence other than this clarification of existence were removed from reality without a single trace, then she would have at the very least brought the Dao of Law to the forefront within what might well be the very first manifestation of oblivion essence, and anyone that attempted to step onto the same path in the future might develop the same kind of oblivion essence as her own.
It was hard to say how effective such a path would be, but she knew that there was something about this that just felt absolutely right. With how limited such a feeling was, it was difficult to be certain of what type of intuition even brought about such a feeling, but she had yet to be waylaid by her intuition, especially not when it came to the Dao of Law and the path she wished to take. Until she saw a good reason to distrust it, she would side with it for the moment.
Once all of that boundless power reached the outer edge of the Subterranean Shell and flooded it completely, it was as if this illusion simply popped, and the crimson returned to her.
A single instant was all that was needed for all of the energy in the entire battlefield to be drained alongside the ebb of that oblivion essence, as if the essence was in control of all the free, unbound planar energy in her surroundings. It was so striking that it completely sapped the power of the Great Leech replicas, leaving their cores and anchors but with almost no energy to use either one, save for the minimal quantity that remained deep within them and that couldn’t be grasped by the powerful gravitational pull of the Ascendant’s oblivion essence.
What it revealed was a figure standing tall, with two stars in her silver eyes, clouded with crimson nebulae. Her hair fluttered in an invisible wind, even when her robes did not. Throughout her body, a clear light of oblivion essence shone through the flesh and skin unlike any other power within her body, even through her robes and scale armour.
All of that was insignificant to the Leeches when compared to the sheer pressure she now emitted. It completely overwhelmed a similar level of pressure manifested by their anchors, and was enough to cause both their bodies and their anchors to tremble, slightly but visibly.
“I was right about it remaining usable, then… which one of you replicas wants to die first?”
As she spoke, however, she saw clearly a far greater degree of information than before, and it was clearly a combination of some progress in her Dao and the development of her oblivion essence. It must have had an effect upon both her spiritual perception and other forms of energy, for it was intimately connected to her bloodline, partially with her physique energy, and formed the initial manifestation of killing intent and spiritual will, and its nature inspired killing will to a certain extent.
With her current state, she was able to perceive the Great Leech replicas as clearly unnatural, in a manner that she had never witnessed before. It was just as minimal as her intuition in regards to clarifying her existence, but in this case, it was clearly accurate, for she knew the truth.
It was still something, and even if she believed it to be a mere figment of her imagination, then she would still not permit the Great Leeches to reply, as she did not care about that whatsoever. All of them will be destroyed, whether immediately or after a brief battle, and she would be absolutely certain to destroy whatever their source was as well, which was likely to lead to the destruction of any that she had ended up missing during the battle, by some miracle of the heavens trying to do exactly as the Greats claim they would.
As her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow had reformed during the breakthrough, she was easily able to raise it once more and will the power within to condense into the lance of the Elysian Blast.
It did so with unbelievable speed, to the extent that she barely managed to recognise it by the time that she was able to fire it at the Leeches, which she did naturally and immediately. The soft white of the beam was gone, however, and in its place was an overwhelming power that a monarch over the heavens themselves might possess. White remained to some extent, but it was tinged by the colour of oblivion essence and its power was obviously affected in the same manner.
That much was clear as the moment that it hit, the Great Leeches that she had targeted, their cores and anchors, the wall that they stood upon, and many of those in their surroundings were simply wiped out in a flash of power.
‘This… Fuck me, it is five times more powerful than my previous planar energy… With the halos of the seventh realm, that will be an additional multiplier of fifty atop that… I think I see why the seventh realm is so immensely powerful on the battlefield, and why the upper three realms are so different from the other six… This is where the peak of cultivation finally begins.’
She did not hesitate to hold out her right hand and bid fifty ancestral totems to emerge from the ground, finding that the glow of the ancestors was affected just the same by the oblivion essence. All of them lacked the power of the Arm of Slaughtering Shadow, but it was still enough for a wave of their spectral arms to produce a dozen railgun bolts each, every single one not only crackling with the power of Obliteration energy, within which the crimson now stood out significantly more than the darkness, but also glowing with the raw might of her oblivion essence. The Great Leeches might have been stunned from previous events, but they knew enough about the railgun bolts to attempt to flee.
Of course, she would never grant them the opportunity. The very instant that the bolts were ready, far more quickly than usual and incredibly convenient, for it occurred moments prior to the first of the Leeches jumping down the stone walls and getting into some vague semblance of cover, she let them loose. Each one burst out at once, within the exact same instant, and struck before she could take a single breath. Eruptions of vast power occurred with every single collision, and it flooded the battlefield with blackened crimson.
After a moment, the stone slabs slid back down into the earth, the Ascendant’s Earth Dao’s effectiveness seeming to have multiplied alongside the power of her oblivion essence.
Most of those around her were gone, but the Leeches were still out there, a trail still travelling from the Chen, Ning and Yi District, merging into a single army and besieging her at the former forest some distance from the Chu District. She could kill them, and so she had the duty to do so while chasing them down and discovering their origins.
‘The Ning or Chu Districts would make for good strongholds for my Arbiters, and so I could capture one of them while I’m at it. Weakening the Great Leeches to such an extent will bring the war to a far earlier end than it originally might have done,’ she concluded, conjuring the Titanic Conqueror to bring out a few Obliteration beams to finish off the remaining replicas before she turned towards her territories in the north, bringing her Arm forth and forcefully stretching a spatial connection to this area.
A gateway, extremely small and feeble, but a gateway nonetheless, manifested before her, and before it could collapse, she brought her voice through it, amplifying it so that the people of the Ascendant’s Arbiters would hear.
“I have repelled an attack by the Great Leeches upon the Chu District, and I now intend to strike at the Ning District. Come with me, and we shall see what the Leeches try to do against us!”
Her words were simple, but she hardly needed more than that. The people within her faction, and those that she had allied with, had a dislike of the Great Leeches for various reasons, some that she shared, and others that she had not yet learned about – otherwise, she would very likely share them, given that the Greats are excellent at making poor first, second, third and last impressions no matter which one of their families and generations are considered. Now that there was a chance of moving against them and winning, few wouldn’t take the chance.
With her view of the districts within the range of the Yi City Web, she could see an army appear at the Luo District, the closest one to the Ning District and most easily traversable in order to then rush at the district of blacksmiths. Out of the two options, it might seem riskier to attack the district walled off by an ancient structure the craftsmanship of which is unmatched in the current world, but she knew the layout and standard techniques of the Ning District. Meanwhile, the Chen District was essentially unknown to her, and she could not be certain that they did not have a method that would perfectly counter one or many of her primary methods.
The oblivion essence she had should make it far easier for her to overcome certain restrictions of the world, but there was no guarantee that she would be successful in every regard, so it was best to minimise risk within this instance. She wouldn’t lose her oblivion essence if she failed, presumably, but it would ensure that the Great Leeches could be prepared the second time.
So, within only an hour, with the combination of group movement techniques, oddly efficient planning, and a whole bunch of additional methods like talismans and pills, they were approaching the Ning District. Giving them that much time was the most that the Ascendant could afford, for she could tell that there was something gathering within the Ning District, but she needed to provide it for them as she would otherwise be near incapable of limiting the collateral damage from barging into a district and obliterating all threats.
Even before, the difference between a lethal strike and one that wasn’t was incredibly small. Going from one hundredth of her full power to two hundredths could cross that gap, and with oblivion essence, that was now the gap between two and four thousandths, which was immensely difficult to regulate in a dangerous situation. If that did not describe a fight with one of the first generation of the Great Leeches, if not multiple, then she wasn’t sure what the point of the word would even be.
Alongside her Arbiters, she charged into the territory of the Ning District, seeking the exact source of that powerful aura that she had felt from a long way away.
Numerous guards stood atop the walls, some clearly related to the forces of the Great Leeches themselves, whereas others appeared to have been recruited from the existing guard forces and lacked the same enthusiasm. The latter type of people were exactly those that she wished to keep alive and relatively well – some injuries couldn’t be avoided in warfare, even with extreme and excessive levels of precision, so she wouldn’t attempt to do so – and those were going to be handled by the Arbiters while she took care of the Great Leech replicas and the first generation, as well as whoever was left from the other generations.
She planned to strike then and there, but before she could do anything, that terrible aura that was present in the region pulsed with a hundred times the power, and it clearly surged within the area of this district in particular.
‘What is… No, since I called the others here first, I ought to take care of them,’ the Ascendant thought, turning in the direction of her forces and amplifying her voice with the standard combination of the Lion’s Roar physique ability and technique, “Don’t approach yet! They may be attempting to use the district’s unique defensive methods!”
Her spiritual perception would have only reached some of the people present, and none of the most significant ones, so this type of approach seemed most suitable to her. There was some delay in the sound reaching her troops, but it did end up doing so, and it also functioned well enough as a method of attack. As she was very close to the walls of the Ning District, the guards and Leech-aligned combatants were practically hit in the face with the sound, barely being able to perceive what she was saying but needing to deal with the impact of the sound waves nonetheless. Some were instantly incapacitated, but most endured due to their constitution, physique or realm.
As it turned out, her instruction was given at just the right time, for in the next moment, a vast quantity of a sickly, ghostly green burst out of the ground.
It surrounded the district, shone through the ground within, and clearly came from the outside, from the south-west. The many beams and wisps of light came together into a dense shield, the spaces between them being protected with the shine of individual components coming together into an array that was clearly within the seventh realm, if not standing on the precipice of the eighth realm, albeit a step from it and thus significant weaker in comparison.
She could tell right away that the source was a series of channels beneath the ground, illuminated by this energy, extending to all three districts within sight and putting them into a singular barrier, which connected to a point in space that glowed with almost heavenly light.
The point stood between the Ning and Yi Districts, closer to the Chen District than what remained of the Kong District, meaning that it was still well within the boundary of the barrier that its power created. From an outside perspective, this might be anything from an otherworldly gift to some kind of ancient, incredibly powerful artefact, but the Ascendant had enough experience with the snaking channels within the ground and the glow behind it, or the kinds of things that produced such things, at least, as well as some alternative uses of them.
Due to that realisation, she quickly used her fourth realm movement method to quickly place herself beside Great Dark and some of the others who would understand her, before explaining the situation.
“The Great Leeches have managed to make use of the Yi City Web via what I can only presume to be Testament. I don’t know if this barrier is a usual function of the web, given that I’ve only used the spatial connection that it creates, but given the way in which their energy does not appear to be very natural in appearance, I suspect that they’re doing this forcefully.”
Her words, the ghostly green barrier and the situation in general led to a slight delay in Great Dark’s response, but he managed to respond reasonably quickly nonetheless, “Are you able to confirm this with absolute certainty?”
“Yes. The reaching strands of the Yi City Web that I can usually feel have been forcefully parted the moment that the barrier formed, and I suspect that this is because they decided to experiment with the spatial stabilisation nodes at their end. Their initial plans had clearly been to stay under the radar – otherworldly term, a radar being a thing that can detect other things around it according to a certain signature, level of heat, motion or any other property – but since we had forced them out, now they are going all out,” Wei Yi said, “At least, that’s what it seems like. I think that point in the distance is Testament just because it is the only spatial realm that I know of which belongs to the Great Leeches, and would be in the vicinity and have enough power to stimulate such a barrier.”
“We do know of few spatial realms that even exist in this age…” Great Dark paused, making up for the pause he had failed to include in his last sentence, “This would make sense… Can you do anything?”
“Don’t know. The great quantity of power contained within my newly obtained oblivion essence may or may not be enough to defeat the great quantity of power contained within the Yi City Web, Testament, and all of the energy they’ve condensed here and now. Either way, we should make sure that they can’t stop this and move onto some kind of offensive actions, so,” she turned to the rest of the army, “Everyone, surround the districts of the Leeches, and stand guard for anything that they may attempt to do!”
Since she was now amidst her forces, she didn’t repeat her method of deafening those near her, using her spiritual will instead to deliver her words more efficiently and clearly. Once her forces – that she hadn’t managed sufficiently to identify their squads and organisation – began to move, she went towards the barrier and faced the people on the other side.
None of them seemed certain of what had happened, and so most lacked clear confidence in their eyes. The forces that were loyal to the Leeches had more confidence than the regular guards, who weren’t certain whether they ought to flee or stand their ground at all. As soon as the Ascendant allowed her oblivion essence to flow out from her back, casting a vast shadow of absolute power, she gave them a look that prompted most to back down or outright run away, ensuring that they wouldn’t be hurt quite as easily as those that she had no problems with killing in violent and terrible ways, since they had already made their choice.
She raised her right hand and concentrated some oblivion essence at her palm, spreading it apart into numerous small points that the Great Leeches would immediately recognise as a derivate of the point beams that they loved to use far too frequently.
Out of all of her methods, this was perhaps the weakest due to lacking development and partial reliance on her anchor shards, which did advance alongside her Endless Monolith but insufficiently, so if this was successful in breaching the barrier, then she would not need to invoke any other technique. It would allow her to target only those that she wished to strike down due to the fine scale of the beams. Otherwise, her other attacks would cover larger areas, and could not be aimed quite as precisely, but she would need to invoke them in order to bypass a stronger barrier than expected.
The points condensed into their final state within a breath, demonstrating once more the rapid speed with which oblivion essence appeared to be able to complete techniques. It was extremely powerful in a battle on relatively equal footing in other respects, for it would ensure that she could perform any kind of attack, defensive technique or movement five times as quickly as her foes – more if her other abilities were taken into account – and thus do five times as much in the same amount of time.
She released them swiftly, letting each point beam collide at the weakest spots of the barrier that she was able to see after a glance. Each one struck, but there wasn’t so much as a wave on the barrier.
The barrier had clearly needed to expend energy in order to prevent the technique from passing through, but it was able to do so without any visible ripples or exhaustion of energy, meaning that the total power stored within the Yi City Web that connected the Yi, Chen and Ning Districts was currently far greater than the little energy she made use of to attack it.
Meanwhile, the guards on the other side weren’t yet sure what to make of this, for most were clearly able to recognise that this was not even close to the overall power she could display, but that didn’t stop some from getting a slight glimmer in their eyes. If the great Ascendant herself could not get through their barrier, then whether they were on the side of the Great Leeches or not, they would be safe for some time, and would not need to fear their demise. She couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, for her spiritual perception and hearing alike were blocked by the barrier, but their lips gave her enough of an idea.
They were muttering to one another various bets regarding how long it would take her to break through, what she would end up using for it, and whether it was a good idea to flee now or once she does manage to breach the barrier. Many appeared to be of the opinion that they would need to flee soon enough, and even tried backing away right now while putting someone else in their way, as to let them be hurt first while they escape.
Great Dark had remained near, and began, “Are you unable to-”
“It was a test. The barrier isn’t just a paper sheet blocking our way, so now I will step it up a little. Stand back.”
He did so right away, and then she stepped up her attack by going straight to an Obliteration beam. If it wasn’t enough, she would need to attempt something significantly more extreme, which she did not wish to do for aforementioned reasons. Still, if Obliteration at its full power wasn’t sufficient, there were few methods that she could apply that would have a good chance of success.
The problem was that she couldn’t make use of the majority of those methods without seriously risking permanent damage to the world. Something like Touch the Heavens might seem like it was relatively harmless when compared to the Reality Severance, which left a visible trail in the air for all those that looked for it, but that did not mean it wasn’t dangerous. Just like Reality Severance created a permanent separation of the world that couldn’t be truly amended without a great deal of hard work on the part of something that might not even be sentient or intelligent, Touch the Heavens would do much of the same, except that its impact was not immediately obvious.
Her blackened crimson burst out and surged into the sky, forming a sphere of energy there that coalesced into a greater and greater size and vibrance until the entire region was illuminated only by its power. Once she invested the most energy that she could reasonably control into that sphere, she willed it to strike down upon the barrier, targeting a similar spot just in case there was unseen damage to the barrier that she could exploit.
It fell with a quake that rippled throughout the outskirts of the Ning District, tearing apart the ground and forcing the stronger individuals within her Arbiter force to step in to safeguard the weaker ones. The sheer might of essence-empowered Obliteration could be said to be nigh unrivalled in even the seventh realm, so it was only natural for everyone to have high hopes regarding its success.
There was no change, however. The barrier remained as it had been once the blackened crimson cleared.
“Everyone, step back one more time. There’s one last thing I wish to try.”
She didn’t wait for the people to respond before she provided them with an excellent reason to do so. As she raised her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and pointed the tip of her index finger’s claw up to the sky, an overwhelming heavenly light shone upon all that saw it. Instinctively, they all looked away.
The Ascendant did not bother paying attention to the reactions of those within the Ning District, and simply invested all of her might into the Arm so as to get the most possible out of a single strike. She used her Dao of Law to focus upon all that she understood about the heavens and the earth, as well as reality as a whole, latching onto it with her sharp claw as soon as she found it. Finally raising her eyes to look at the top of the great metal walls of the Ning District, she grasped that notion with the whole of her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow and unleashed it upon a barrier.
A crack in reality formed, and multiplied. Numerous sources of light and dark, entropy and growth, expansion and contraction, progression and regression, acceleration and deceleration, and countless concepts that made up reality as a whole, manifested within the endless cracks that followed, spreading rapidly towards the barrier around the Ning District.
When it came into contact with the light of the barrier, the latter shook and trembled for the first time today, the patterns of the array channels distorting and barely being able to maintain shape – but they did so nonetheless. There were several visible cracks, but in the time that it would take to repeat the use of Touch the Heavens, it was nearly guaranteed that these cracks would correct themselves by the time she was able to do so, but the cracks within reality…
“Wei Yi, you ought to-”
“Look at the air,” she interrupted Great Dark, using her reforming Arm to indicate the most notable point in space, “Just like Reality Severance separated reality itself, my Touch the Heavens fucks up every single Law I can get my hands on. One attack is fine, but two, three… There may be a spot of permanent damage to the world, one that the heavens may struggle to deal with. As such… I would like to find an alternative approach. Provided that I am, say, in the seventh realm, I should be able to use a technique that doesn’t ruin space, time, and reality as a whole.”
“But… are you capable of cultivating to such a realm… quickly enough to defeat this barrier in a reasonable timeframe?” he inquired.
“Well…” she dragged out the word, sighing as she did so, but before she was even able to finish, her attention was grabbed by something in the distance. It was much like her exhalation, except that it did not come from a living thing, but the world itself, made all the more prominent by her ever improving understanding of it.
She might have dismissed it for the moment, if it hadn’t come from the mountains where the oldest living human, Jia Rong, had been discovered, within the timeless passages and caverns of the great peaks.
