V4C72: Encirclement, Part 4
The four sides of the district lit up only moments after the darkness began to flood them, with the strongest part of each force providing their assistance in the matter.
To the north, the Chao Patriarch and his strongest warriors used their energy to burn at the shadow. Over at the east, the Bai District’s troops collectively made use of techniques for the exploration of abysses, with the Patriarch contributing power to all of them to increase the resulting effectiveness of their techniques. At the south, the Luo family’s forces liberally threw out their talismans to light up their surroundings and to prevent any of the gangs they were attacking from escaping at the opportune moment. While the east lacked anyone in the seventh realm, the individuals present were odd enough as they were, and so Great Dark could produce an inscription of sufficient power while the others relied on their own unusual means to keep the light in their proximity.
Some of the groups had caught sight of the smoke serpents that had wormed their way over to the Ping Patriarch, others hadn’t, but all of them knew that this was a unique method of the Ping District and their ruling family. It was meant to be used in emergencies, with some such methods only ever having one or two uses, but now was most certainly a suitable time for such a thing.
The Patriarchs of the three invading districts, as well as the small forces over at the east, didn’t rush off to help right away. They couldn’t be sure of the exact power of the Ping Patriarch at this moment, as the darkness also had obscuring effects even on their divine sense, but they were aware that such a thing had been expected. Before running off, they needed to complete their tasks at their respective invasion points, and only then would it be safe and helpful to their overall plan to take over the Ping District.
As such, they urged their groups to hurry up and to deal with various prisoners and enemies more efficiently, then proceeded to do so themselves.
“Witness the Ping District’s foundation!” the Ping Patriarch exclaimed for a moment as he seemed to be getting used to the power that he had acquired, “I shall be benevolent – one chance to submit and admit your crimes.”
“Do fuck right off, Ping Patriarch. Before you, I might as well be a saint,” Wei Yi replied.
The Patriarch snorted, then rose a little further into the air as the smoke around it manifested into a humanoid shape, wrapping tightly around his body as it appeared to replicate it on a larger scale, surrounding the seventh realm cultivator in an additional layer of defence while also providing more scale and mass to the various attacks that he could make use of.
Against most foes of the modern world, such a thing would have been incredibly unnecessary, but when facing someone like the Ascendant, it would have been foolish not to guarantee success.
Still, Wei Yi smiled when she got a look at the final result of this transformation of smoke.
She hadn’t been driven mad by the towering replica of the Ping Patriarch, within which the Patriarch resided, but she was able to see a number of flaws within this amalgamation of energy, ranging from those on a fundamental level to those that couldn’t have been foreseen. The more obvious one was that the individual serpents creating this smoke monster were still partly separated, meaning that the overall stability of the figure was lower as a result, although even that was less fundamental than the nature of the smoke entity itself.
It was a huge figure, and that meant that even the most precise and masterful usage of it would leave one with less room to manoeuvre and far more room to be struck and damaged without the proper ability to retaliate.
‘I think I can take this on even more easily than the Patriarch in his usual state. The empowerment of the smoke is the only thing that concerns me, as it doesn’t seem likely that this is the only thing that he can do with it,’ she thought, glancing up to find that her pool of Obliteration energy and the searing marks above were still visible, but only barely, ‘The larger size is going to allow me to hit him more easily, so I should be able to prioritise evading anything he can throw at me without needing to pay as much attention to my aiming. If he can throw out those smoke serpents, then that might require more than just evasion, but the rest might be affected by my Dao of Law and pose little threat as a result.’
Even with the aura on her finger preventing her from healing it as quickly, that wound was already closing up, so the worst that she could expect from the strengthened smoke and darkness was an effect with doubled strength. That much could still be overcome, with a searing mark if absolutely necessary, and wouldn’t do much while she was still able to circulate her energy.
In fact, the lengthy state of injury would only contribute to the perpetual development permitted by her cosmic energy.
Before the humanoid mass of smoke could advance upon her, with the other mass of darkness still remaining free to act on its own, Wei Yi manifested and threw out a dark sun, the darkness that it created quickly merging with the shadow manifested by the array beneath the ground, causing both to blend into one while still remaining a threat. The black sun was not similar in nature to the shadow, but that was not something known to the strongest figure in the Ping District at this moment.
So long as the Ping Patriarch was certain that the black sun had the same power as his own secret method, the Conqueror’s Eye would amplify it appropriately. Even if it didn’t have the ability to add on the dark power that he believed it to have without requiring the invocation of the power of Law at a significant level, the sheer improvement to the speed of growth and the total energy encapsulated within the black sun would be more than sufficient to put enough pressure on the Patriarch to achieve that which she wanted.
Indeed, the moment that the sheer draining force of the black sun appeared, the enormous figure retreated once again, waving its arms as countless small wisps of smoke fell away from it and flew away from him, heading around the current radius of the black sun’s effect.
These wisps initially looked to be meaningless, but the moment that they headed far enough away from the black sun as to not be swallowed up, they accelerated and turned back around to fly towards the Ascendant, twisting into smaller serpents that coiled within the air and glared at their target with white eyes that stood out on their dark bodies, even through the absolute shadow that enveloped the central portion of the district.
Since they kept flying right at her even after she took a few steps back, she was able to confirm that this wasn’t something that would be dodged by simple repositioning, so she called for the Obliteration pool above them to fall down while she rushed forward, seeming to run right into the black sun before her.
Just as she was about to come into the dangerous region around the black sun, she made use of her fourth realm movement method to bypass the space and energy around the mass of all-consuming energy, appearing on the other side and promptly leaping right towards the towering figure of the shadow that covered the Ping Patriarch. In her hands, she gathered a vast quantity of flaming phoenix energy that she wrapped around the killing will claws of her left hand and the star metal gauntlet on her right, and as she neared the figure, she slashed down with both hands, the flames stuck to them erupting out in the form of an enormous phoenix.
With the power of the fifth realm behind the combat art of the Scorching Blades, a group of assassin that were incredibly powerful in comparison to some of the weaker organisations due to their imitations of the dragons and their features, as well as the crystallised and vastly superior state of her cosmic energy, it was able to manifest the full force that the Draconic Claws in the Phoenix Transformation state were meant to possess.
The phoenix slammed into the shadow figure and struck at it with its own claws, the force of her own claw strikes being further amplified by the manifestation of the ancient beast, cutting into the layer of smoke with a blaze forcing open the gashes in the physical manifestation of the district’s power.
“Cease your insolence!” the Ping Patriarch exclaimed, punching the enormous phoenix with a fist covered in the same energy that he had previously used against the Ascendant.
It pierced right through the flaming construct, tearing it to shreds, but the energy that it had been composed of remained, crashing onto his body and wrapping around the smoke of the towering figure, concentrating around the claw marks and using it to further spread and grow on his body flooded with smoke. The fire consuming smoke looked odd, but that did nothing to stop it from being incredibly effective, the smoke being eaten through more quickly than the large serpents could emerge from the array on the ground.
On that topic, while she did wish to tear through the smoke in one go, ruin the array on the ground, and take him down before he had the chance to damage anything that would be better off undamaged and intact, it seemed that this was not something within her current ability due to the array rapidly recovering everything that she did, while her casual placement of the black sun had yet to overpower the array, meaning that the only thing she could count on for now was the Obliteration beam.
That beam descended the moment that the phoenix was unleashed from her claws. She dodged away the moment that she could, throwing all six of the bone dice that she had on her to throw out her vast killing will at him without needing to be in his immediate proximity.
Her Obliteration energy wouldn’t be as effective against her, but it would still be unnecessarily painful.
“Hey, Ping Patriarch, how many battles have you personally participated in?” she called out, in order to catch some part of his attention and distract it from the descending beam and the incoming dice, “All of your combat techniques appear to be rusty and weak, and you clearly seem to be lacking the proper practise necessary to fight against someone that is able to stand up to you in terms of their cultivation.”
The Patriarch did not appear to be phased, seeing and swatting the artefacts away with a single powerful slap. It was a powerful strike, and it easily overwhelmed the rough artefacts that had been produced without the typical necessary powers and experiences to produce anything beyond a vaguely mid-tier artefact, although it was neither equivalent to low-tier or mid-tier artefacts in truth. Against someone in the seventh realm, empowered by the district’s shadowy array, an item being pushed to the brink by her incredibly powerful energy coursing through every channel within it, the Beast’s Dice were shattered into small pieces of black bone.
That didn’t stop the killing will from bursting out towards him, piercing the smoke and shooting into the Ping Patriarch’s arms and body, bypassing the robes on his body and the layer of darkness that he had attempted to hide his identity with.
“You bitch-”
His words were interrupted in an instant by a scorching beam of blackened crimson falling down upon him, completely devouring the enormous smoke figure and obscuring it from the Ascendant, who took a few further steps back in order to prepare a few more techniques while monitoring the black sun to one side while looking out to see what happened to the Ping Patriarch on her other side. The Obliteration energy did not prevent her spiritual perception from reaching in, but the combination of the smoke, darkness, and the divine sense sticking close to the Patriarch made it difficult for her to accurately establish his current state. All that she could determine with absolute certainty was that he was still standing tall, meaning that his legs weren’t yet entirely turned to a crimson mist that could diffuse into the air and vanish from sight to never be seen again.
That was disappointing, but entirely understandable, as he was currently being supported by something the size of a district, with darkness enveloping most of it without any difficulty. For him to perish that quickly from any attack, even if it was the strongest form of the Obliteration beam, she would need to suspect some kind of sabotage from another party.
In some ways, that would be significantly more concerning than the current situation, as anyone that had the ability to kill or weaken a Patriarch to such an extent would be a great risk to Wei Yi as well, depending on their intentions and allegiances. Even if the faction or person responsible was someone that was currently on their side, the sheer possibility of them turning against her and the Arbiters would force her to act significantly more cautiously in every regard in order to not accidentally encourage them to shift sides.
The problem of having powerful allies being relied upon as the primary force of the faction was that these allies would essentially take over the leadership of the faction, so if the Ascendant was to somehow find a group of former disciples of the Master of Yi City and add them to the Arbiters, then they would quickly obtain a far larger degree of control over the group than she did. When she reached the seventh or eighth realm, that degree of influence would naturally drop, but if the disciples wanted to change the ways that she went about freeing the world of the Great Families, she would have little ability to ignore them if she wanted to keep them on board.
For that reason, Wei Yi made sure to keep everyone else at a reasonable level beneath her own, where they could still contribute without there being any risk associated with their growth.
‘Not relevant right now, though,’ she warped back via her fourth realm movement method and gathered some Obliteration energy within her hands, aiming it at the black sun and then unleashing several delayed pulses to flood it with more of her energy as to accelerate the entity’s expansion. If the Patriarch wasn’t going to be defeated in one go with the Obliteration beam, then she needed to have something else that would be able to strike him down.
She was able to loose several delayed pulses into the black sun, causing it to grow to a one metre diameter and reach the ground with its all absorbing influence, the lines of the array finally being twisted and distorted just a little as the black sun was draining whatever aspect of planar energy was powering the array and growing even more rapidly as a result. When the blackened crimson beam started to clear, she was intending to release another pulse of energy into the black sun, but an instinctive reaction of her spiritual perception prompted her to leap even further back, avoiding an immense blast of smoke that suddenly shot out of the blackened crimson and struck the spot where she had been standing.
It tore through the ground and created a hole that was several metres deep, all of the stone being shot up into the air and scattering into a vast cloud. However, the smoke remained, and instead floated up and formed into another large serpent that didn’t fly right back to the Patriarch, instead remaining into the air and screeching at her with the same white eyes that the smaller serpents had.
“There’s nothing that you can do against the seventh realm!” he exclaimed, a dozen more of these enormous serpents appearing out of the cracks in the ground that had been formed by the array.
Wei Yi frowned. He wasn’t necessarily wrong in this case, as the trump card array appeared able to regenerate with such enormous speed that it wouldn’t be destroyed with most of the attacks that she currently had at her disposal. In order to take him down, the array needed to be destroyed, and to destroy the array, she would benefit from a lengthy period of time to attack it without interruption, which would mean stopping him from acting for some time. Fortunately, her plan had accounted for such forms of inconvenience, so her expression was displayed intentionally.
Indeed, only a few moments after she paused as if stunned by his success, a bright light suddenly exploded from the east, a few distinct shining beacons rising into the air and covering the entire eastern region with their pale white light.
There was no need to question the cause of this light, especially when the leader of the Bai District, the Bai Patriarch, appeared out of the darkness and shot out a blinding beam of light that pierced the darkness and shadow alike, slamming part-way into the cover of shadow and imparting a great deal of force onto the Ping Patriarch’s body, causing his figure to be thrown back into one of the nearby structures, the exact identity of which was difficult to identify due to the darkness. The smoke had travelled with him, crashing into the structure as if it was solid, completely knocking down the building and falling into the rubble.
“That’s not going to finish him off, but thanks for the entrance,” Wei Yi said, surrounding both of them with the greatest intensity of the Conqueror’s Eye field, “Helping the black sun grow would be better.”
The Bai Patriarch turned to the black sun and was about to turn back when he froze, his eyes widening as he stared at the manifestation of something that shouldn’t have been feasible within the stable space of the Planar Continents. It resembled a tear in space, one that was not just consuming the parts of the world that it touched but was also actively sucking things into it, only to be transformed to energy to further grow the tear.
“Is that… a spatial tear?” the Patriarch questioned, his voice unsteady.
“No, of course it isn’t. I can make one right now, but the heavens will simply shut it right back up. This is… something different. Just throw some of your planar energy into it in one form or another, and I will handle the Ping Patriarch while he tries to interfere,” she replied, “Stop the moment it damages the array.”
She did not explain why this was the case, but she suspected that someone in the seventh realm would be able to notice the acceleration of growth. After a certain point, the black sun could, in theory, devour the entire world and transform everything into energy, which would then be projected out of the black sun in an enormous quasar, at which point she had no clue whether the energy would find some other world where it could settle and benefit the people. Whether or not it could, that did not matter to her, as all that she wanted was for the Planar Continents to thrive once more – something that couldn’t happen with the world transformed into raw energy.
Letting him handle this, she rushed over to the building destroyed by the Ping Patriarch, but before she could get into the structure, she found a person standing just inside, at the edge of the ruins.
“W-Wait a minute, you?” she found herself freeze up as she witnessed a person that she had not expected to find here, nor anywhere for that matter, even if she had escaped alive the last time that she had seen her, “Yi Bai?”
The figure turned to her, but her eyes were blank and she wasn’t even attempting to reply, looking as if she wasn’t even perceiving the existence of the world. For a moment, she was concerned that something had been done to the woman that had accidentally become an assassin, but then realised that this state was akin to what she had looked like while being manipulated by the Weaver of the Dark technique she had cultivated.
As such, she shifted her planar energy slightly and radiated the aura of the Binder of the Dark. Almost instantly, a slight degree of comprehension appeared in the blond woman’s eyes, who promptly bowed.
“I have followed your instruction and escaped from the Kong Holy Grounds. The safest location I was able to find was the Ping District, so I had settled down here and awaited further instructions from the Weaver. Are there any further commands for me?” Yi Bai asked, her voice sounding even more unnatural than when she had been within the spatial realm, which, when combined with the lacking degree of humanity within her eyes and the mechanical nature with which she spoke, suggested that her normal mind had gotten even further from her assassin state than before.
“…” Wei Yi glanced over to the rubble, finding that the Ping Patriarch was still standing up with audible groans, so she returned her gaze to Yi Bai and focused, ‘I should be able to bring her out of the assassin state… but is that the right thing to do?’
She was not keen to control someone’s mind like that, of course. For her, it was extremely antithetical to her intentions, and it was rather unpleasant to simply think about doing something like this to a person that she had some friendly connection to, but there was a problem that applied specifically in this case that she couldn’t overlook. While others might have a particular life and particular tendencies, which might make controlling their minds even worse than in other cases, like if the person was someone that had gotten to know and love her for whatever reason, and that was specifically the technique used to generate a second mind within her mind to begin with.
Yi Bai’s mind was split into two. If her original, true state was brought into the world as it currently was, in the middle of this conflict, amidst destruction and darkness, she would likely be forced to participate in the battle to some extent and then adjust to the fact that her companions from the expedition were dead, the world was full of terrible things, and that she could be controlled at any moment.
On the other hand, if she was kept in her current assassin state, she would be able to keep going and follow Wei Yi’s commands, as her true Binder of the Dark aura was likely superior to any random tokens that would be found around the world, and once things were over, the world was freed, the Greats were removed and she had the ability to freely return and walk around in the Yi District, then she could be brought back to her regular state and be allowed to return to whatever remained of the district. If her family, friends – other than those that perished in the Kong Holy Grounds or the former Kong District, of course – and acquaintances were still there and still well, then they could pretend as if they had simply vanished for a while and return to a mostly normal life after a while.
In fact, Yi Bai herself had likely not taken any lives nor done any deeds that she would deem particularly terrible, meaning that she wouldn’t have any memories haunting her after her return.
For that reason, Wei Yi did not want to force her out into the world as it was, as that would only make the situation worse than missing out on a year or two of active life in the Yi District, which she would have had if she had not gained an assassin technique and yet was able to return to the district with her life.
Then, there was also the fact that she currently had a fourth realm cultivation, managing to acquire it despite her seeming inactivity in the Ping District. Presumably, she had spent most of her time cultivating and finding food for herself while waiting for further instructions, with her mechanical and focused mind resulting in lengthy and focused training sessions that could have been akin to the state that the Ascendant could enter if she leapt into the Realm of Potential while cultivating, increasing her benefits significantly without requiring any more resources than another cultivator.
“Wei Yi, you are struggling with this, are you not?” Yi Shi Ming’s voice emerged from the mental domain, “If you would like my input, I can help with any difficult decision.”
‘That is true, but I don’t think that I will need that. From the start of my attempts to get rid of the Great Families and restore the Planar Continents to what they once were, to rebuild Yi City and bring our cultivation back to its peak, I have done everything I could to achieve it. In the future, my actions may be seen as vile or villainous, but even if I am slain and torn apart to the glee of the world, it is irrelevant so long as the world benefits from my actions. I will not throw this burden to you.’
“In that case, I shall not pressure you to act differently. Just remember that you are not alone.”
‘Of course. There is nobody in the world that doesn’t wish to see it restored to a greater place, but far too many believe that it will come at a cost that they would be unable to bear. I will ensure that this is not the case,’ Wei Yi stated in her mind, ‘Perhaps this will cost me greatly, or perhaps it will be incredibly simple to achieve – no, that’s a silly notion to even entertain – but no matter what happens, I will ensure that my objective is complete. The Greats will fall. Yi City will rise. The Primordial Deities, if they decide to appear once more, will not hinder that, and if the Hunger of the Beyond dares to hunger after our world, I will ensure that they are promptly kicked back as well. Now…’
As the figure in the distance was slowly rising, even with the rate at which her mind could function, Wei Yi sighed and finally made up her mind, turning to Yi Bai as she also looked about with her spiritual perception, saying, “Assist the western forces with their clean-up efforts. Come back when you’re done, and don’t unnecessarily risk yourself.”
If her original self could still perceive what was occurring, just as she had been able to say some things to Wei Yi back in the Kong Holy Grounds, she didn’t show any signs of it, simply nodding and rushing off right away. Just before she vanished into the darkness, cloaking herself in the combination of the district’s current cloak of shadow and the Weaver of the Dark energy, she took out the same weapon that she had utilised in the Kong District, a knife that had been the inspiration for the design of White Echo, prompting the Ascendant to remove that weapon from the House of Gold and throw it towards her, using her fourth realm movement ability to make it appear right before the assassin.
Although it was faint, there were traces of both spiritual will and killing intent within her, just as there were such traces in other people who had utilised either ability more intensely than others. Yi Bai might not be able to do as much with the dagger as Wei Yi could, but it would be better than nothing.
Seeing the woman depart, the Bai Patriarch began, “Was that-”
“None of your business. Focus on the black sun,” the Ascendant stopped him and focused on the rising figure made of shadow, coalescing the Titanic Conqueror and prompting both to gather more Obliteration energy. As she held out both hands, she found that her left had transformed into the killing will state once again. “All of this isn’t helping my mood…”
She did not revert her transformation, but instead allowed it to fully take hold, stabilising the transformed state to amplify her energy.
While she lacked the ability to change the past, or to undo the things that had been caused by the Ping District, the Ping family, and all of the groups and factions associated with them, she could at the very least make sure to end their reign today. She could wipe out the Ping Patriarch, clear the district of the thieves and assassins, and guarantee that in the future, there would be few that could repeat the things that they have done.
V4C72: Encirclement, Part 4
The four sides of the district lit up only moments after the darkness began to flood them, with the strongest part of each force providing their assistance in the matter.
To the north, the Chao Patriarch and his strongest warriors used their energy to burn at the shadow. Over at the east, the Bai District’s troops collectively made use of techniques for the exploration of abysses, with the Patriarch contributing power to all of them to increase the resulting effectiveness of their techniques. At the south, the Luo family’s forces liberally threw out their talismans to light up their surroundings and to prevent any of the gangs they were attacking from escaping at the opportune moment. While the east lacked anyone in the seventh realm, the individuals present were odd enough as they were, and so Great Dark could produce an inscription of sufficient power while the others relied on their own unusual means to keep the light in their proximity.
Some of the groups had caught sight of the smoke serpents that had wormed their way over to the Ping Patriarch, others hadn’t, but all of them knew that this was a unique method of the Ping District and their ruling family. It was meant to be used in emergencies, with some such methods only ever having one or two uses, but now was most certainly a suitable time for such a thing.
The Patriarchs of the three invading districts, as well as the small forces over at the east, didn’t rush off to help right away. They couldn’t be sure of the exact power of the Ping Patriarch at this moment, as the darkness also had obscuring effects even on their divine sense, but they were aware that such a thing had been expected. Before running off, they needed to complete their tasks at their respective invasion points, and only then would it be safe and helpful to their overall plan to take over the Ping District.
As such, they urged their groups to hurry up and to deal with various prisoners and enemies more efficiently, then proceeded to do so themselves.
“Witness the Ping District’s foundation!” the Ping Patriarch exclaimed for a moment as he seemed to be getting used to the power that he had acquired, “I shall be benevolent – one chance to submit and admit your crimes.”
“Do fuck right off, Ping Patriarch. Before you, I might as well be a saint,” Wei Yi replied.
The Patriarch snorted, then rose a little further into the air as the smoke around it manifested into a humanoid shape, wrapping tightly around his body as it appeared to replicate it on a larger scale, surrounding the seventh realm cultivator in an additional layer of defence while also providing more scale and mass to the various attacks that he could make use of.
Against most foes of the modern world, such a thing would have been incredibly unnecessary, but when facing someone like the Ascendant, it would have been foolish not to guarantee success.
Still, Wei Yi smiled when she got a look at the final result of this transformation of smoke.
She hadn’t been driven mad by the towering replica of the Ping Patriarch, within which the Patriarch resided, but she was able to see a number of flaws within this amalgamation of energy, ranging from those on a fundamental level to those that couldn’t have been foreseen. The more obvious one was that the individual serpents creating this smoke monster were still partly separated, meaning that the overall stability of the figure was lower as a result, although even that was less fundamental than the nature of the smoke entity itself.
It was a huge figure, and that meant that even the most precise and masterful usage of it would leave one with less room to manoeuvre and far more room to be struck and damaged without the proper ability to retaliate.
‘I think I can take this on even more easily than the Patriarch in his usual state. The empowerment of the smoke is the only thing that concerns me, as it doesn’t seem likely that this is the only thing that he can do with it,’ she thought, glancing up to find that her pool of Obliteration energy and the searing marks above were still visible, but only barely, ‘The larger size is going to allow me to hit him more easily, so I should be able to prioritise evading anything he can throw at me without needing to pay as much attention to my aiming. If he can throw out those smoke serpents, then that might require more than just evasion, but the rest might be affected by my Dao of Law and pose little threat as a result.’
Even with the aura on her finger preventing her from healing it as quickly, that wound was already closing up, so the worst that she could expect from the strengthened smoke and darkness was an effect with doubled strength. That much could still be overcome, with a searing mark if absolutely necessary, and wouldn’t do much while she was still able to circulate her energy.
In fact, the lengthy state of injury would only contribute to the perpetual development permitted by her cosmic energy.
Before the humanoid mass of smoke could advance upon her, with the other mass of darkness still remaining free to act on its own, Wei Yi manifested and threw out a dark sun, the darkness that it created quickly merging with the shadow manifested by the array beneath the ground, causing both to blend into one while still remaining a threat. The black sun was not similar in nature to the shadow, but that was not something known to the strongest figure in the Ping District at this moment.
So long as the Ping Patriarch was certain that the black sun had the same power as his own secret method, the Conqueror’s Eye would amplify it appropriately. Even if it didn’t have the ability to add on the dark power that he believed it to have without requiring the invocation of the power of Law at a significant level, the sheer improvement to the speed of growth and the total energy encapsulated within the black sun would be more than sufficient to put enough pressure on the Patriarch to achieve that which she wanted.
Indeed, the moment that the sheer draining force of the black sun appeared, the enormous figure retreated once again, waving its arms as countless small wisps of smoke fell away from it and flew away from him, heading around the current radius of the black sun’s effect.
These wisps initially looked to be meaningless, but the moment that they headed far enough away from the black sun as to not be swallowed up, they accelerated and turned back around to fly towards the Ascendant, twisting into smaller serpents that coiled within the air and glared at their target with white eyes that stood out on their dark bodies, even through the absolute shadow that enveloped the central portion of the district.
Since they kept flying right at her even after she took a few steps back, she was able to confirm that this wasn’t something that would be dodged by simple repositioning, so she called for the Obliteration pool above them to fall down while she rushed forward, seeming to run right into the black sun before her.
Just as she was about to come into the dangerous region around the black sun, she made use of her fourth realm movement method to bypass the space and energy around the mass of all-consuming energy, appearing on the other side and promptly leaping right towards the towering figure of the shadow that covered the Ping Patriarch. In her hands, she gathered a vast quantity of flaming phoenix energy that she wrapped around the killing will claws of her left hand and the star metal gauntlet on her right, and as she neared the figure, she slashed down with both hands, the flames stuck to them erupting out in the form of an enormous phoenix.
With the power of the fifth realm behind the combat art of the Scorching Blades, a group of assassin that were incredibly powerful in comparison to some of the weaker organisations due to their imitations of the dragons and their features, as well as the crystallised and vastly superior state of her cosmic energy, it was able to manifest the full force that the Draconic Claws in the Phoenix Transformation state were meant to possess.
The phoenix slammed into the shadow figure and struck at it with its own claws, the force of her own claw strikes being further amplified by the manifestation of the ancient beast, cutting into the layer of smoke with a blaze forcing open the gashes in the physical manifestation of the district’s power.
“Cease your insolence!” the Ping Patriarch exclaimed, punching the enormous phoenix with a fist covered in the same energy that he had previously used against the Ascendant.
It pierced right through the flaming construct, tearing it to shreds, but the energy that it had been composed of remained, crashing onto his body and wrapping around the smoke of the towering figure, concentrating around the claw marks and using it to further spread and grow on his body flooded with smoke. The fire consuming smoke looked odd, but that did nothing to stop it from being incredibly effective, the smoke being eaten through more quickly than the large serpents could emerge from the array on the ground.
On that topic, while she did wish to tear through the smoke in one go, ruin the array on the ground, and take him down before he had the chance to damage anything that would be better off undamaged and intact, it seemed that this was not something within her current ability due to the array rapidly recovering everything that she did, while her casual placement of the black sun had yet to overpower the array, meaning that the only thing she could count on for now was the Obliteration beam.
That beam descended the moment that the phoenix was unleashed from her claws. She dodged away the moment that she could, throwing all six of the bone dice that she had on her to throw out her vast killing will at him without needing to be in his immediate proximity.
Her Obliteration energy wouldn’t be as effective against her, but it would still be unnecessarily painful.
“Hey, Ping Patriarch, how many battles have you personally participated in?” she called out, in order to catch some part of his attention and distract it from the descending beam and the incoming dice, “All of your combat techniques appear to be rusty and weak, and you clearly seem to be lacking the proper practise necessary to fight against someone that is able to stand up to you in terms of their cultivation.”
The Patriarch did not appear to be phased, seeing and swatting the artefacts away with a single powerful slap. It was a powerful strike, and it easily overwhelmed the rough artefacts that had been produced without the typical necessary powers and experiences to produce anything beyond a vaguely mid-tier artefact, although it was neither equivalent to low-tier or mid-tier artefacts in truth. Against someone in the seventh realm, empowered by the district’s shadowy array, an item being pushed to the brink by her incredibly powerful energy coursing through every channel within it, the Beast’s Dice were shattered into small pieces of black bone.
That didn’t stop the killing will from bursting out towards him, piercing the smoke and shooting into the Ping Patriarch’s arms and body, bypassing the robes on his body and the layer of darkness that he had attempted to hide his identity with.
“You bitch-”
His words were interrupted in an instant by a scorching beam of blackened crimson falling down upon him, completely devouring the enormous smoke figure and obscuring it from the Ascendant, who took a few further steps back in order to prepare a few more techniques while monitoring the black sun to one side while looking out to see what happened to the Ping Patriarch on her other side. The Obliteration energy did not prevent her spiritual perception from reaching in, but the combination of the smoke, darkness, and the divine sense sticking close to the Patriarch made it difficult for her to accurately establish his current state. All that she could determine with absolute certainty was that he was still standing tall, meaning that his legs weren’t yet entirely turned to a crimson mist that could diffuse into the air and vanish from sight to never be seen again.
That was disappointing, but entirely understandable, as he was currently being supported by something the size of a district, with darkness enveloping most of it without any difficulty. For him to perish that quickly from any attack, even if it was the strongest form of the Obliteration beam, she would need to suspect some kind of sabotage from another party.
In some ways, that would be significantly more concerning than the current situation, as anyone that had the ability to kill or weaken a Patriarch to such an extent would be a great risk to Wei Yi as well, depending on their intentions and allegiances. Even if the faction or person responsible was someone that was currently on their side, the sheer possibility of them turning against her and the Arbiters would force her to act significantly more cautiously in every regard in order to not accidentally encourage them to shift sides.
The problem of having powerful allies being relied upon as the primary force of the faction was that these allies would essentially take over the leadership of the faction, so if the Ascendant was to somehow find a group of former disciples of the Master of Yi City and add them to the Arbiters, then they would quickly obtain a far larger degree of control over the group than she did. When she reached the seventh or eighth realm, that degree of influence would naturally drop, but if the disciples wanted to change the ways that she went about freeing the world of the Great Families, she would have little ability to ignore them if she wanted to keep them on board.
For that reason, Wei Yi made sure to keep everyone else at a reasonable level beneath her own, where they could still contribute without there being any risk associated with their growth.
‘Not relevant right now, though,’ she warped back via her fourth realm movement method and gathered some Obliteration energy within her hands, aiming it at the black sun and then unleashing several delayed pulses to flood it with more of her energy as to accelerate the entity’s expansion. If the Patriarch wasn’t going to be defeated in one go with the Obliteration beam, then she needed to have something else that would be able to strike him down.
She was able to loose several delayed pulses into the black sun, causing it to grow to a one metre diameter and reach the ground with its all absorbing influence, the lines of the array finally being twisted and distorted just a little as the black sun was draining whatever aspect of planar energy was powering the array and growing even more rapidly as a result. When the blackened crimson beam started to clear, she was intending to release another pulse of energy into the black sun, but an instinctive reaction of her spiritual perception prompted her to leap even further back, avoiding an immense blast of smoke that suddenly shot out of the blackened crimson and struck the spot where she had been standing.
It tore through the ground and created a hole that was several metres deep, all of the stone being shot up into the air and scattering into a vast cloud. However, the smoke remained, and instead floated up and formed into another large serpent that didn’t fly right back to the Patriarch, instead remaining into the air and screeching at her with the same white eyes that the smaller serpents had.
“There’s nothing that you can do against the seventh realm!” he exclaimed, a dozen more of these enormous serpents appearing out of the cracks in the ground that had been formed by the array.
Wei Yi frowned. He wasn’t necessarily wrong in this case, as the trump card array appeared able to regenerate with such enormous speed that it wouldn’t be destroyed with most of the attacks that she currently had at her disposal. In order to take him down, the array needed to be destroyed, and to destroy the array, she would benefit from a lengthy period of time to attack it without interruption, which would mean stopping him from acting for some time. Fortunately, her plan had accounted for such forms of inconvenience, so her expression was displayed intentionally.
Indeed, only a few moments after she paused as if stunned by his success, a bright light suddenly exploded from the east, a few distinct shining beacons rising into the air and covering the entire eastern region with their pale white light.
There was no need to question the cause of this light, especially when the leader of the Bai District, the Bai Patriarch, appeared out of the darkness and shot out a blinding beam of light that pierced the darkness and shadow alike, slamming part-way into the cover of shadow and imparting a great deal of force onto the Ping Patriarch’s body, causing his figure to be thrown back into one of the nearby structures, the exact identity of which was difficult to identify due to the darkness. The smoke had travelled with him, crashing into the structure as if it was solid, completely knocking down the building and falling into the rubble.
“That’s not going to finish him off, but thanks for the entrance,” Wei Yi said, surrounding both of them with the greatest intensity of the Conqueror’s Eye field, “Helping the black sun grow would be better.”
The Bai Patriarch turned to the black sun and was about to turn back when he froze, his eyes widening as he stared at the manifestation of something that shouldn’t have been feasible within the stable space of the Planar Continents. It resembled a tear in space, one that was not just consuming the parts of the world that it touched but was also actively sucking things into it, only to be transformed to energy to further grow the tear.
“Is that… a spatial tear?” the Patriarch questioned, his voice unsteady.
“No, of course it isn’t. I can make one right now, but the heavens will simply shut it right back up. This is… something different. Just throw some of your planar energy into it in one form or another, and I will handle the Ping Patriarch while he tries to interfere,” she replied, “Stop the moment it damages the array.”
She did not explain why this was the case, but she suspected that someone in the seventh realm would be able to notice the acceleration of growth. After a certain point, the black sun could, in theory, devour the entire world and transform everything into energy, which would then be projected out of the black sun in an enormous quasar, at which point she had no clue whether the energy would find some other world where it could settle and benefit the people. Whether or not it could, that did not matter to her, as all that she wanted was for the Planar Continents to thrive once more – something that couldn’t happen with the world transformed into raw energy.
Letting him handle this, she rushed over to the building destroyed by the Ping Patriarch, but before she could get into the structure, she found a person standing just inside, at the edge of the ruins.
“W-Wait a minute, you?” she found herself freeze up as she witnessed a person that she had not expected to find here, nor anywhere for that matter, even if she had escaped alive the last time that she had seen her, “Yi Bai?”
The figure turned to her, but her eyes were blank and she wasn’t even attempting to reply, looking as if she wasn’t even perceiving the existence of the world. For a moment, she was concerned that something had been done to the woman that had accidentally become an assassin, but then realised that this state was akin to what she had looked like while being manipulated by the Weaver of the Dark technique she had cultivated.
As such, she shifted her planar energy slightly and radiated the aura of the Binder of the Dark. Almost instantly, a slight degree of comprehension appeared in the blond woman’s eyes, who promptly bowed.
“I have followed your instruction and escaped from the Kong Holy Grounds. The safest location I was able to find was the Ping District, so I had settled down here and awaited further instructions from the Weaver. Are there any further commands for me?” Yi Bai asked, her voice sounding even more unnatural than when she had been within the spatial realm, which, when combined with the lacking degree of humanity within her eyes and the mechanical nature with which she spoke, suggested that her normal mind had gotten even further from her assassin state than before.
“…” Wei Yi glanced over to the rubble, finding that the Ping Patriarch was still standing up with audible groans, so she returned her gaze to Yi Bai and focused, ‘I should be able to bring her out of the assassin state… but is that the right thing to do?’
She was not keen to control someone’s mind like that, of course. For her, it was extremely antithetical to her intentions, and it was rather unpleasant to simply think about doing something like this to a person that she had some friendly connection to, but there was a problem that applied specifically in this case that she couldn’t overlook. While others might have a particular life and particular tendencies, which might make controlling their minds even worse than in other cases, like if the person was someone that had gotten to know and love her for whatever reason, and that was specifically the technique used to generate a second mind within her mind to begin with.
Yi Bai’s mind was split into two. If her original, true state was brought into the world as it currently was, in the middle of this conflict, amidst destruction and darkness, she would likely be forced to participate in the battle to some extent and then adjust to the fact that her companions from the expedition were dead, the world was full of terrible things, and that she could be controlled at any moment.
On the other hand, if she was kept in her current assassin state, she would be able to keep going and follow Wei Yi’s commands, as her true Binder of the Dark aura was likely superior to any random tokens that would be found around the world, and once things were over, the world was freed, the Greats were removed and she had the ability to freely return and walk around in the Yi District, then she could be brought back to her regular state and be allowed to return to whatever remained of the district. If her family, friends – other than those that perished in the Kong Holy Grounds or the former Kong District, of course – and acquaintances were still there and still well, then they could pretend as if they had simply vanished for a while and return to a mostly normal life after a while.
In fact, Yi Bai herself had likely not taken any lives nor done any deeds that she would deem particularly terrible, meaning that she wouldn’t have any memories haunting her after her return.
For that reason, Wei Yi did not want to force her out into the world as it was, as that would only make the situation worse than missing out on a year or two of active life in the Yi District, which she would have had if she had not gained an assassin technique and yet was able to return to the district with her life.
Then, there was also the fact that she currently had a fourth realm cultivation, managing to acquire it despite her seeming inactivity in the Ping District. Presumably, she had spent most of her time cultivating and finding food for herself while waiting for further instructions, with her mechanical and focused mind resulting in lengthy and focused training sessions that could have been akin to the state that the Ascendant could enter if she leapt into the Realm of Potential while cultivating, increasing her benefits significantly without requiring any more resources than another cultivator.
“Wei Yi, you are struggling with this, are you not?” Yi Shi Ming’s voice emerged from the mental domain, “If you would like my input, I can help with any difficult decision.”
‘That is true, but I don’t think that I will need that. From the start of my attempts to get rid of the Great Families and restore the Planar Continents to what they once were, to rebuild Yi City and bring our cultivation back to its peak, I have done everything I could to achieve it. In the future, my actions may be seen as vile or villainous, but even if I am slain and torn apart to the glee of the world, it is irrelevant so long as the world benefits from my actions. I will not throw this burden to you.’
“In that case, I shall not pressure you to act differently. Just remember that you are not alone.”
‘Of course. There is nobody in the world that doesn’t wish to see it restored to a greater place, but far too many believe that it will come at a cost that they would be unable to bear. I will ensure that this is not the case,’ Wei Yi stated in her mind, ‘Perhaps this will cost me greatly, or perhaps it will be incredibly simple to achieve – no, that’s a silly notion to even entertain – but no matter what happens, I will ensure that my objective is complete. The Greats will fall. Yi City will rise. The Primordial Deities, if they decide to appear once more, will not hinder that, and if the Hunger of the Beyond dares to hunger after our world, I will ensure that they are promptly kicked back as well. Now…’
As the figure in the distance was slowly rising, even with the rate at which her mind could function, Wei Yi sighed and finally made up her mind, turning to Yi Bai as she also looked about with her spiritual perception, saying, “Assist the western forces with their clean-up efforts. Come back when you’re done, and don’t unnecessarily risk yourself.”
If her original self could still perceive what was occurring, just as she had been able to say some things to Wei Yi back in the Kong Holy Grounds, she didn’t show any signs of it, simply nodding and rushing off right away. Just before she vanished into the darkness, cloaking herself in the combination of the district’s current cloak of shadow and the Weaver of the Dark energy, she took out the same weapon that she had utilised in the Kong District, a knife that had been the inspiration for the design of White Echo, prompting the Ascendant to remove that weapon from the House of Gold and throw it towards her, using her fourth realm movement ability to make it appear right before the assassin.
Although it was faint, there were traces of both spiritual will and killing intent within her, just as there were such traces in other people who had utilised either ability more intensely than others. Yi Bai might not be able to do as much with the dagger as Wei Yi could, but it would be better than nothing.
Seeing the woman depart, the Bai Patriarch began, “Was that-”
“None of your business. Focus on the black sun,” the Ascendant stopped him and focused on the rising figure made of shadow, coalescing the Titanic Conqueror and prompting both to gather more Obliteration energy. As she held out both hands, she found that her left had transformed into the killing will state once again. “All of this isn’t helping my mood…”
She did not revert her transformation, but instead allowed it to fully take hold, stabilising the transformed state to amplify her energy.
While she lacked the ability to change the past, or to undo the things that had been caused by the Ping District, the Ping family, and all of the groups and factions associated with them, she could at the very least make sure to end their reign today. She could wipe out the Ping Patriarch, clear the district of the thieves and assassins, and guarantee that in the future, there would be few that could repeat the things that they have done.
