Path of the Ascendant

Yi Wei forced her arms up, grabbing onto the nearest remaining wall to pull herself back to her feet.

The sight before her was a dismal one, and if she had seen it when she had first entered the hidden grounds, she would have had to assume that they were on the brink of collapse.

In the middle of the great icy maze, there was now an absolutely enormous hole the size of a lake, and it wasn’t simply a pit in the ground, but a hole in the reality itself. Beneath a layer of ice that was precisely four metres thick was a great void, with distant star-like glints peppered amongst the darkness.

Naturally, the similarity between it and her cosmic energy did not evade her attention, but one thing she was sure of was the fact that it was not a good idea to attempt to interact with the void outside a pocket reality without preparation or the Oblivion Halo realm.

She looked around with her spiritual will, found no immediate threats, and looked into her planar aperture. As she had noticed earlier, the quantity of energy within her dantian had increased after the last usage of the Light of Divinity, and that new energy felt curiously pure, despite both the new and the old being completely clean of impurities.

There were a few possibilities in regard to this matter, but after consulting the tome one more time, the most likely one seemed to be linked to the unique focus of the Kong family. While the vast majority of families focused on cultivation, whether planar or physical, the Kong seemed to prioritise the mental arts, which, as impressive as they could be in terms of learning or observation, lacked any notable benefits for typical cultivation or combat. As a result, they should have been behind most other families in terms of power and cultivation, and yet, until they suddenly fell one day, they were one of the more powerful groups in the area that would eventually become the Yi City.

As it turns out, they had a somewhat different method of cultivation. Instead of actively drawing in energy via focused meditation and cultivation, they fought.

During their battles, through some method that was not entirely clear to Yi Wei, the four skills that she had access to were able to draw in a certain quantity of energy towards their user, likely varying based on the user’s mental cultivation, which would explain why only two attacks – even if one of them was used with every drop of her mental and physique energy – were able to bring her half-way to the next realm.

‘While that is good, I can’t see any sign of Yi Fenwu, Yi Tai or Yi Bai.’

She peered into the distance, only to see nothing of note yet again. A less cautious individual might have assumed that the archer was dead, but she knew all too well that Yi Fenwu had an excess of life-saving methods, and that the strange effect that allowed her to escape the first Light of Divinity was still on-going when the Yang Light of Divinity fell upon her.

As a result, there was no guarantee that it killed her, nor that it was even able to damage her. It wouldn’t even be too surprising if, after the Light of Divinity fell upon her, Yi Fenwu used yet another trinket that was able to transport her away from the range of the attack.

‘I have previously blocked the Light of Divinity used by a far more powerful opponent, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she or Yi Bai were able to do the same for a little while, with the added help of the arrow-spear, cloak and shawl… really, how many things can one person have? I still can’t get over it…’ Yi Wei recalled how the archer was able to activate one item after another without blinking an eye (nor doing much of anything, for that matter), ‘If she is alive, then she should be heading towards-’

Yi Wei looked towards the entrance through which she and Yi Bai entered the ice maze and assessed the overall structure of the hidden grounds briefly before deciding to view this segment from a slightly higher perspective, which she found by jumping to the top of one of the still-standing frozen walls in the nearby area.

‘No trace of the cave we originally came from, so the gateways aren’t purely for show,’ she noted, seeing as a void took over the moment the icy cliffs of the maze ended, ‘not to mention the nearly endless sheet of ice above, which I hadn’t seen in any of the other open areas within the Kong Holy Grounds. However, this place seems to be close to a square in shape, and the exit in right in the middle of that side, which is consistent with the first open area I have explored. Thus, it can be guessed that if there is another gateway, one would be on the opposite side of the ice maze block, and two more could be on the other two edges.’

To confirm that theory, she traced the number one on her neck and leapt up, as high as she could.

As she soared into the air, a large chunk of the wall she had stood on cracked from the sudden force she had released. To her surprise, that one jump, without the augmentation of physique energy or the bone talismans, was sufficient to let her oversee the entire maze from above, letting her peek into every passageway and corner of the labyrinth with ease. Although there were a few interesting scenes for her to observe, she primarily focused on the four edges, where, after confirming the location of the passageway she used to enter this section, she looked to the other three centre points.

The entry gateway was on the right, so she first looked forward, and immediately saw a hint of a dark shadow and a rapidly appearing and falling barrage of stone. Looking to her left, she was nearly blinded by the shine of a golden weapon in a woman’s hands. Behind her, there was no hint of a door.

‘Well, that’s nice. So far as I’m aware, the Touch of God has no restriction on range!’ she smiled, pulling back her fist while aiming it at Yi Fenwu.

Unlike before, all that gathered at her fist was blue energy, with no trace of dawn light in sight. As expected, due to the origin of dawn light being her yang physique energy, now that it was completely spent, the Touch of God had no choice but to manifest in its original, intended form. Unfortunately, that also made the technique noticeably less powerful, but so long as Yi Fenwu did not have yet another layer of defence, it would be enough to injure her into immobility.

The light burst from her fist and flew at the archer…

… and just before it struck, she ducked, spun around while brandishing her bow, and aimed a common arrow-spear at Yi Wei.

‘I didn’t shout the technique name that loudly, did I? Did she hear the energy approaching and dodge just at the right time to avoid it?’ she wondered, slowly falling right into the path of the incoming arrow, ‘Still, don’t think that I will be easy to kill this way.’

For a moment, she considered whether it was worth it to punch the spear directly, but quickly concluded that it wasn’t worth risking something like that while her physique meridians were dry, and instead looked downwards and used the Floating Whale Lungs to push herself back up into the air. Only seconds later, the arrow-spear flew past her, far below her present location. She fell to the ground smoothly, and landed on her feet, before charging in the direction of Yi Fenwu.

She planned to rush right past the great hole in the ground, but as she stepped into its vicinity, the outer rim of the hole suddenly collapsed inwards.

Then, the cracks spread, and more and more chunks of ice fell apart.

In just a few seconds, the one-hundred-metre hole within the world slowly gained another ten metres within its diameter, and it clearly seemed to be growing rapidly, with the eternal void within spreading across the icy maze.

Her eyes widened slightly, and she hurried far more so than she otherwise would have done.

 

“That beam is bad news. It’s certainly trying to pull us in – again! – and I will not fall for it!” Yi Guanyu exclaimed, to the nodding and praise from his followers. They had all suffered far too long within that illusory swamp, and if there was even the tiniest of chances of falling back into such a realm, they would never get close to it, not unless that place also contained the method for forever freeing themselves from such encounters. “I say that we go as far away from it as possible, find the exit and pretend that we were never here. Who agrees?”

This time, there were fewer nods of agreement, as some could not justify such a cowardly action to themselves.

“Young Master Guanyu, couldn’t we ignore the beam, and explore?”

“What, are you stupid?” he retorted, “What kind of a trap would only have one place of entry, and one lure? Obviously, the beam is intended to lure us into the first entrance, but then, if we go away from it, we will also be trapped!”

“But, wouldn’t seeking the exit be the same?”

“That… by the heavens, I nearly missed that! Thank you, Yi Fat, your input was absolutely genius! Alright then, new-”

Out of nowhere, he was overcome with a sudden urge to throw himself to the ground. It was extremely unusual for him to be so certain of something, anything, to the point that he was concerned that he had unwittingly gotten himself into yet another illusion that he would then sit inside of for years, but since he could already be within a mirage, he trusted that instinct and launched himself face-first onto the floor.

“Yo-” the first follower who had spoken began again, but his speech was suddenly cut short.

A great arrow, no smaller than a spear, suddenly pierced his flesh, got caught on something midway through his body, and pulled him alongside it as it flew into a distant icy wall.

The impact caused both the ice and person stuck on the arrow to explode, blood and freezing water mixing together in a great explosion of red and blue. It instantly covered anyone who stood within its proximity, and a few drops of crimson fluid even splattered onto Yi Guanyu’s back, marking him with that figure’s rapidly fading heat.

He stood up immediately and saw the archer standing in the distance, a faint smile on her lips.

“Yi Fenwu! What in the heavens are you doing?” he shouted, raising the ice around him with the power of his Crushing Ice Falls into a great wall, no smaller than those that lined the maze, “Have you completely lost your mind?”

“Not at all, Yi Guanyu. Now, before I get carried away, lie down and die for me.”

“Brace for another arrow!” Yi Guanyu shouted to his followers, prompting them to strengthen the wall with their own techniques and energies, adding all sorts of fire, water, earth, metal and wood reinforcement to it with various qualities and styles, causing the icy wall to transform into the likeness of a nonsensical mountain that didn’t belong to this world.

And yet, no arrow impact followed. It was almost like she was laughing at them from behind that great barrier whilst having to do nothing on her own.

Since the majority of Yi Guanyu’s followers were in the second realm, the defences they put up fell quickly, dissipating into nothingness while some of those who had created them dropped to the ground out of exhaustion. Clearly, some had not considered the ramification of wasting all of their energy on a single, temporary barrier against an attack that may not even come, and were thus emptied of planar energy completely, with their dantian struggling to refill itself in time.

A little more time passed, and even Yi Guanyu’s wall could not sustain itself without the support of the planar anchor, which still rested within his planar aperture. As a result, it too began to melt, slowly disappearing into the air.

It was then that Yi Fenwu struck, not with her bow and arrow, but with a magnificent golden spear, with which she thrust through the remains of the barriers before landing on the other side and slashing the air with its tip. That slash travelled through the air, almost forming into the shape of countless swords as it did so, and cut into every nearby man and woman, splitting some in two while others got away with a shallow wound. An attack from those who stood further away quickly followed, but all the archer had to do was raise her spear and every strike, whether hot or cold, large or small, was nullified by the barrier that it generated.

“This is how it was meant to go. Can you believe that a single girl proved so troublesome?” she asked nobody in particular, dashing over to a distracted woman and unceremoniously stabbing her in the eye.

“E-Everybody, get behind me!” Yi Guanyu called out once he recovered from the shock, congealing more of his energy into a wall on either side of himself, leaving his position as the only passageway onto the other side of his walls, “Whatever your plan is, Yi Fenwu, don’t think that I or anyone else in the family will allow you to do as you please!”

A great shard of ice formed in front of his hand and flew out just in time to block another spear thrust.

Yi Fenwu wasn’t too perturbed by her failure to eliminate the target, who quickly ran past Yi Guanyu and hid behind the icy wall, “I get that a lot as of late, darling. I didn’t need to hear it again.”

She narrowed her eyes as she prepared to execute some great technique, which was heralded by a great gathering of metallic energy around her and the spear, creating a corona of silver, when an echo finally reached them.

“-of Divinity!”

“Oh, fuck-” Yi Fenwu flooded her legs with metal-type energy as she looked down upon the ground, charging away the instant she spotted the faint blue line of the circle.

Another beam crashed down upon the ground, though anyone could tell that it was notably less powerful and impressive, and the overall strike area was one hundredth of the great beam that began the collapse of this segment of the world. Nevertheless, now that Yi Guanyu had an opportunity to see it close-up, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would have been injured heavily had he stood directly under it.

Once the beam vanished, it revealed Yi Wei’s figure in the distance, with a singed crimson robe and a blue glow slowly dissipating from her hand. However, even before that energy settled, she lowered her hand, gripped the air and threw her fist up, yelling with flushed cheeks, “Ancestral Call!”

Four groups of strange totems burst out of the ground around her, with faint dawn light glowing from within and coagulating into spectral figures above them. Each one only had one point in the middle of their heads that could be described as an eye, and two strong arms that looked ready to crush anyone or anything that got near them.

However, there wasn’t anyone within range of them, causing both Yi Guanyu and Yi Fenwu to furrow their brows – were these things also able to move, they questioned silently.

“Ancestral Eyes!”

A fierce orange light suddenly appeared within Yi Wei’s eyes, and spread to every figure above the totems. In perfect synchronicity with one another, they raised their hands in a motion that was very familiar to the one who had suffered from it most.

“The Touch of- Storm Blade Wreathing!” her words changed mid-exclamation, and the posture of all of the figures changed as well. A terrifying net of lightning burst out of their arms, flickering each second between gold, white and violet. Each figure, Yi Wei included, lowered their right hands and switched their left from a fist to a palm, around which a great quantity of white, calming energy gathered, with its nature seemingly being more suitable for a healing method rather than an offensive one.

But then, it merged with the lightning, splitting it into two unique strands of gold and purple.

As it sparked across their arms, it almost seemed to be alive, behaving in a manner too unique to possibly be a coincidence or sheer chance. They grew and linked together, forming one great storm, with clouds seeming to appear in between the lightning bolts.

 

‘Elysian Palm.’

In her eyes, Yi Wei saw four dozen and one pairs of hands flood with cosmic energy, draining her planar aperture almost entirely even as she activated yet another dantian bone talisman in order to increase the effectiveness of her planar energy without using as much of it. Once the structure of the Elysian Palm was set, she pushed her palm forward.

Despite her simple movement, the lightning coiling on every single one of the ancients’ hands surged forth like a sea through a broken dam, covering a great segment of the maze in lightning.

It latched onto the ice, the water, the loose planar energy in the hidden grounds, onto the proximity of the Yi family’s disciples, but the vast majority of the lightning went straight for Yi Fenwu, flooding her sight, even through the blindfold, and for once she was almost able to make out their true colours.

Even from afar, Yi Wei could tell that the archer’s whole body was shaking as she reached for her other pocket. She produced a strange, smooth orb, which was no larger than her thumb, and crushed it in her fist, producing an ugly green mist that quickly covered her body. Before it could produce any clear effect, a strand of purple lightning burst into it, dispersing it in an instant whilst also striking her robes, which produced its guarding light again.

It, too, was interrupted as twin gold and purple hit her on either side of her body, surging into her clothing and instantly shattering whatever inscription was allowing her to protect herself.

Four more wild bolts of lightning struck her immortal gold spear, and just as they were about to pass into the ground without causing much harm, Yi Fenwu felt a terrible premonition. The entire atmosphere transformed as the orange and gold glow within Yi Wei’s eyes transformed into pure purple.

The lightning storm changed with them, as both the gold and violet merged into one, with the cosmic light of the violet transforming into a more primal, more violent purple, with no sight of the stars within its shadow.

Its power seemed to double with that change, and the energy that was previously harmless to the spear now melted through its surface, causing the immortal gold to crack and shatter into slowly melting pieces. Her robe was shredded into pieces, the prestigious fabric turning into ash upon an instant of contact with the magnificent lightning, and once it locked onto the countless arrows on her back, it seemed to spell death for the overly rich archer.

Her hand reached into yet another pocket in the brief moment that she had and took out a small pebble. She dropped to her knees and seemed to pray to something unknown.

Just as the first bolt surged right through her body, forcing her to throw up a bucket-full of blood, the space around her suddenly froze, and every strand of lightning passed right through her. No matter how many bolts of lightning Yi Wei tried to direct at her, they were all harmless until her figure blurred and became transparent, vanishing completely the next moment.

When she saw that the archer was gone, whether under the observation of her eyes, spiritual will or any sort of natural sense, she allowed the lightning storm to disperse and the totems to fall back into the ground, vanishing to dust.

“Yi Wei, how… how did you-”

“I… may tell you… not now…” Yi Wei mumbled as a steady stream of blood slowly poured out of her facial orifices, and her vision darkened, “Slightly… overexerted… myself-”

The last thing she saw was the icy ground, and her face burying itself within it.