Path of the Ascendant

‘- Now, all I need to do is to circulate the killing intent in this pattern, and…’

The crimson energy gathered within the third set of meridians and travelled through her body in a way that almost resembled a perfect circle, with each revolution somehow causing the killing intent to thicken and grow in volume. The first few revolutions were smooth and perfectly pleasant to endure, flowing as smoothly as planar energy did, but despite the gains remaining the same, the difficulty of it grew until it felt like she had been allowing a sword to pass through her meridians, but she did not stop there and only accelerated the flow of killing intent.

It grew more and more unpleasant by the second, first elevating to the point of feeling like a flaming sword, then a river of earth flame, then concentrated lightning, but she persevered not just because she had gotten used to experiencing such pains time and time again, but because she was aware that to progress in the Ascendant’s Gathering technique and to form the endless battlefield of killing intent that she was aiming to create, she could not use anything but the purest killing intent she can muster.

So, she continued, not considering her work done until visible cracks appeared within both her mental and physical forms, caused by the overwhelming pressure of the killing intent.

‘Now, form! Condense!’ she shouted in her mind, forcing the crimson light to gather inside her heart.

The endless red energies flooded into a single point and then filled the entirety of the heart, forming a large yet miniscule battlefield that resembled the one she had seen within the Kong valley, except for the combatants there being formed from cosmic energy, with one side also handling physique energy while the other used killing intent.

With every breath, the battlefield grew denser and more real, each combatant solidifying and gaining a degree of false sentience, beginning to fight amongst one another. Whenever their weapons collided, a thin wisp of killing intent was generated, flowing into her meridians and then circulating over and over again until it gained the same thickness and density as the energy that composed the battlefield, which it flowed into and formed more warriors that did the exact same thing, slowly growing her pool of hatred.

Her killing intent stage rapidly grew, from what might have been the very first stage to the peak of what she could achieve in the first realm, flooding every aspect of her being with crimson light. As she opened her eyes, the grey of her iris was backlit by deep crimson, and there seemed to be a hint of the enormous battlefield within them. It almost felt as if she could pull someone into it with a single misplaced glance.

‘I may not have that ability at the moment, but if I stretch out my killing intent, I should be able to pull people into an illusion of the battlefield,’ she contemplated, assessing the final effectiveness of her technique, ‘Even if that was to only last a single second, the distraction combined with the great pressure of the concentrated killing intent should make dispatching a single enemy rather easy.’

She examined her battlefield of killing intent briefly and found that she had no chance of ascending into the next realm any time soon.

The issue was not her technique, though it could certainly be improved with her own experience and that of others, but the quantity of her killing intent. If it was easy to accumulate killing intent to progress onto the second realm, almost anyone who hated someone but could not cultivate planar energy would have long stepped into the Fine Piercing realm. No, that required a great quantity of killing intent that could only be found within the air of the prison realm, and the amount that she needed was vastly greater than most of the people in this world due to how concentrated the killing intent battlefield was. In order to reach the next realm, she would need to accumulate the quantity she now possesses multiplied by a vast amount, for that was the key of killing intent cultivation – concentration and quantity were key.

Wei Yi willed her killing intent to surge out and focused it in a small sphere around her, for she was unable to control it any more precisely than that, and watched as some random loose pages from some of the books she had read were disintegrated by the crimson energy.

Although they were old and were already crumbling, it was still an impressive display of her prowess.

‘I don’t think that I have managed to step into any perfected stages or realms, which is truly unfortunate, but the immense concentration of killing intent appears to be above that of the average cultivator,’ Wei Yi assessed, withdrawing the crimson light, ‘Furthermore, the tests I have performed on myself while creating this technique has further strengthened my body which, in combination with the muscle growth from… well, from not restricting it as much as before, means that even if I had no particular plan for the upcoming battle, I would have a minimum of a 76.2% chance of success.’

She took a deep breath and exhaled a lungful of turbid breath from her mouth, quickly dressed and undressed to cleanse her skin with physique energy, then took one of the stacks of papers that were outside of the range of her killing intent and began to write the contents of the only floating tome outside of her Augur’s Library.

To be safe, she wrote several copies, shoved one into her robes and split up the other ones before exiting the room.

Outside, she found Meng Chu sitting on a chair, calmly drinking a cup of tea.

“How is the situation with the bandits? Are they still there?” she asked, holding out one of the copies of her final plan, “I wouldn’t want to revise this for attacking them while they’re travelling.”

“They are still present, but there are rumours that they might be packing up soon, so your timing is good,” he replied, taking the stack of papers with his free hand, “This is your plan? I see… Very interesting. I must say, if that mental technique of yours is not as effective as you claim it to be, this plan will explode in a matter of seconds.”

“That is why I will be going. Since the situation has somewhat changed, I will examine it first-hand and prevent any uncertain variables from affecting the situation in a negative way. As your two vice-leaders know, my ability to sneak past people unnoticed is more than sufficient to go undetected by almost two dozen madmen that have gone completely insane due to the torture of the Great Bone Lake – which I want to visit someday and investigate how effective it is – and prevent the theft of the items of value on the ancient battlefield.”

“Huh,” Meng Chu made a quiet noise and finished the rest of his tea before flipping through the remaining pages of the plan, nodding after he finished, “Indeed, that could work. I will bring the group over and tell them that you will be taking charge. If they refuse to follow orders, feel free to hit them.”

“I will keep that in mind. Do you have any means of rapid recovery for your troops?”

“Do not hit them to the point of significant injury,” he corrected himself, “I am well aware that it was a simple question, but please do control yourself. I am aware that you have practised your killing intent while in seclusion, and it is common for those who have reached a new stage to experience emotional outbursts and general irritation. It should pass in a week’s time.”

“I will keep that in mind, but I do not expect to succumb to something like that so easily. My past experiences with emotional outbursts should allow me to see them coming.”

“Whether or not that is true, it will be your loss if you fail to control yourself,” Meng Chu stated.

He stood up and placed the teacup onto the armrest of his chair, departing into one of the many passages of the underground chambers. Meanwhile, Wei Yi took his cup and took a close look at the traces of the tea that remained within. Since he drank it so often, she was rather curious about what made it so special in his eyes. It was, as far as she understood, ordinary blood tea – for nothing that wasn’t made of the Beast’s blood could be found within the desolate lands of the prison realm – and appeared to have no specific superiority to any of the teas that he had allowed her to drink.

From the scent of the tea, there was nothing that made it stand apart from the things she had previously tasted in this prison realm, and neither did the energy within appear to be in any way unusual.

‘Could it be that I have no understanding of the intricacies of tea and other fancy beverages?’ Wei Yi wondered, moving the cup to a table before leaving the room and heading for the food storage.

There, she found a servant and asked them to bring out three teas that were as different from one another as possible, then made them prepare each one correctly as to ensure that her inexperience in the matter wouldn’t interfere with this experiment. When he was done with this, and before he had a chance to question what was happening, she sent him away and grabbed a few more random items of food to expand the scope of the test further.

She took one of the teacups and tried to ignore the hint of blood within its smell while tasting it.

‘This is… interesting. Sort of… flavourless. I might actually have lost my ability to taste things properly at some point…’ Wei Yi thought, trying the other two cups with similar results, ‘I think that there is something wrong with the parts of my head responsible either for detecting taste, or interpreting it… I suppose that if I had ever had the hopes of settling down and tasting all the foods I can, I should abandon it right here and now.’

Just as she feared, the rest of the food she gathered provoked a similar response from her taste buds, that being an extremely faint hint of something, but nothing noteworthy.

If not for her ability to burn away any poisons or toxins that she consumes, intentionally or otherwise, this would be significantly more concerning to her than just being slightly disconcerting, for she had not done anything at all that should have removed the sensation of taste from her mouth.

What made this even stranger was the fact that, while her nose struggled to tell various foods apart from one another, it could still perceive all too well the difference between newly cut wood and ancient stone. She could still smell faint scents within the rooms that the vice-leaders of Meng Chu’s faction had used for their private interactions, and all sorts of faint things that someone without any ability to tell two extremes of blood tea apart from one another shouldn’t be able to notice.

“There you are,” Meng Chu walked in at some point, “What are you doing here?”

“I have just discovered that I have no sense of taste.”

“Uh… Noted?”

“By that, I meant that I have, at some uncertain point, lost my sense of taste and smell when it comes to food and drink. I don’t know how it happened, nor why, but it was a slightly shocking experience.”

“Although that has not explained much, there is a theory that those with particular sensitivity to energy tend to temporarily lose their ability to perceive the taste and smell of food, and it should pass if you exit the prison realm, or locate a place that is not filled to the brim with the Beast’s killing intent,” Meng Chu said, “However, we have no means of confirming this, so think of it as you may.”

Wei Yi nodded, “I will. Have you gathered the men that will be under my command?”

“I have… Did you, by any chance, make your plans in the first day and then spend the rest of your time exercising?”

“I only spent roughly an hour per three days focused on working out, and that was to supplement my physique energy in keeping my body from atrophying. The primary reason for my muscular development,” she glanced down at her arms, where the muscle had grown even more pronounced since the time she had entered seclusion, “is that I had altered a part of my body cultivation technique as to allow for the expansion of muscular tissue and the additional strength that it will provide. This is roughly where it will stop for now.”

“The reason behind my question is that my men can be a little simple-minded at times, so I had the slight concern that they would not be intimidated simply by a tall woman. With that amount of muscle, however, it may be less difficult than I imagined,” Meng Chu said, “Come with me.”

She followed him through a series of corridors and chambers that was clearly far larger than the area of the brothel through which she entered.

“How large is this underground network of yours?”

“As the one that is responsible for the guard network for the entire town, it is important to allow my men to travel through the town without being bothered by anyone, so I made use of the network that had previously been built to allow for an invasion into Beast’s Rest after my ancestor’s fall on the battlefield. I connected every brothel and establishment I had to a chamber that allowed me to meet with others calmly,” he explained, pointing towards one of the walls, “The secret entrances were made due to the excess of tunnels that prevented a proper layout from being constructed, so I deemed it wise to make it more difficult for most to navigate throughout the areas they are not meant to be in.”

“That appears to be a wise decision. By the way, could you ask a guard to investigate that particular passageway? Someone in the Condensed Shot realm, preferably.”

“A guard… Did someone sneak into a place that they were not meant to be in?”

“Much like I did, except I suspect that this person managed to do so via a random guess to the absence of spiritual will around them,” she said, quickly scanning the male intruder that was currently struggling to get out of the plain, square chamber he had somehow trapped himself in, “This person has a strong physical body, so I advise that the guard attacks from afar, preventing him from moving as quickly as possible. Don’t kill him, however, as it ought to be interesting to learn why he snuck in.”

“I will follow that advice the moment that I introduce you to my men,” said Meng Chu, “Do inform me if there are any more unwanted intruders, for the fewer people there are that understand the layout of the passages, the better.”

“Very well, I shall do that.”

On their journey, they found two more such intruders, both of whom lacked any particularly powerful hatred blades, but did have strong bodies, leading to Wei Yi positing the theory that they were acting under the orders of Shi Luo Feng, for they would not be the troops under Meng Chu and Ding Wen’s forces would typically act with no fewer than three artefacts or hatred blades.

Meng Chu stated that he would investigate this before finally arriving at a large hall, where twenty-six troops gathered in a loose formation composed of several loose and vague lines.

Upon their entry, they turned to face them, saw her following Meng Chu, and closely examined her from head to toe, checking out every single part of her with excessive focus and attention. A few looks were clearly filled with desire, but the rest were purely focused on her combat potential.

“Men, this is Wei Yi. She will be leading your mission, so show her the same respect that you show me.”

“Wait, Boss, we don’t show you any respect!”

“Shut it, Ah Qiu,” Meng Shu briefly raised his voice, lowering it a moment later to address the rest of the team, “Cooperate with your full ability and don’t even dare to intentionally mess up, as Wei Yi will hold a position above you after this and will have as many chances as she needs to exact whatever punishment she deems necessary. Now, I shall leave you to it.”

He returned through the doorway and vanished into the underground passages, gathering a few spare guards as he did so to apprehend the intruders, leaving Wei Yi all alone with the twenty-six warriors.

For a little while, she replied with the same kind of attention, visually inspecting every single one of them to confirm that there had been no inaccuracies in the information she had received. She spent almost two minutes doing so – a long time for someone with spiritual will and a complete mental library to refer to – before concluding that every deviation that she did spot was acceptable to her plans, some of which needed a very specific build and physical appearance for them to work out.

“Hello, everyone. Are you capable of following orders properly?”

The response was a mix of various non-comital noises and grunts, none of which inspired confidence.

“In that case, I shall show you why it is of the utmost importance that you do not, under any circumstances, attempt to go against any of the orders that I give you,” she sighed, putting aside the spear on her back and holding out her hands in an inviting manner, “Attack me all at once and let me demonstrate.”

None of the previous hesitation was shown. All of them leapt forward, releasing their killing intent with as much focus as their realms allowed. With so many different sources of spiritual crimson light filling the space she occupied, she felt a little uneasy, but she did not extend her own killing intent to combat it, for she wanted to demonstrate what a body cultivator could do against a great quantity of killing intent cultivators.

Her understanding of the typical combat style of the physique cultivators of the Great Bone Lake was limited, but what she did know was that it was simple and focused on the use of raw strength combined with the unique properties of their physique.

Wei Yi met force with force, lunging at the thickest collection of warriors with her full strength and without any hint of restraint. With her physique energy-infused palm, she struck a large man’s chest and caused him to fly back, hitting a couple of other men behind him and throwing them onto the ground with enough force to incapacitate one and cause several minor injuries to the other two.

Their fellow combatants took advantage of her momentary distraction to surround her, clearly intending to flood and overwhelm her.

‘If I was a common woman, this would be troubling, but physique energy has a method of dealing with this,’ she smiled, waiting for them to get just close enough before she released two handfuls of physique energy around her hands and struck out, causing them to flood around her and congeal a great sphere of blinding sunlight, which, under her influence, thinned out and spread out, washing over everyone around her and searing their clothes and hair.

More importantly, however, their vision was momentarily disabled by the blinding light, which gave her the perfect opportunity to utilize the Eight Directions Kick, a technique that converted a single kick into a dozen through the diluted physique energy, executing them all simultaneously.

All that were struck were thrown into the wall, throwing most of them into unconsciousness.

Thirteen were now unconscious and thirteen more remained, with them realizing that the tactic of throwing themselves onto her wouldn’t work. The man that was in the Initial Well realm remained near the front, as he would not be too helpful if his killing intent also affected his allies, the few in the Fine Piercing realm positioned themselves around her in a circle to bombard her with their crimson light all at once and those that were within the Condensed Shot realm stood in between the previously mentioned individuals, condensing their killing intent and firing it at her.

‘Such basic tactics… At the very least they’re guaranteed not to stray from the plan once they figure out that it is far beyond their understanding, while someone who is a little smarter may get some silly ideas that they think are superior,’ she thought, shutting her eyes for a second to establish a model of the underground chamber within the Augur’s Library, ‘Alright, this will be easy.’

Without bothering to protect herself with physique energy, she ran straight through the bolts of killing intent, not wincing even a little when they passed right through the crimson robes and struck her skin, for none of the bolts was able to leave behind more than a shallow cut or wound.

Those that she was pursuing attempted to evade her and keep her within the encirclement, but she caught up to them by exerting just a little bit more strength through her legs, lightly cracking the ground beneath her as she did so. As she appeared beside one of the men in the Condensed Shot realm, she kicked him with great force, making sure to do so without damaging him significantly, for her focus was on launching him as far away as possible.

His body flew towards the back wall of the hall, colliding into another person and throwing him off his feet. Together, they struck a tall support beam that led to a number of planks and wooden blocks falling from the ceiling, hitting nine of the eleven remaining guards straight on the head and trapping the last two in between large piles of debris.

“Alright, this is enough. If we go any further, then Meng Chu might be slightly annoyed at me,” she said, easily pulling the remaining two out of the piles of wood and stone.

They did not object, instead assisting her in waking up the rest of the warriors with a variety of medicines. When they were up, they were rearranged into a formation and were given copies of her plan, with each one being given only the parts that were relevant to them. Although some were visibly confused by certain parts, as Wei Yi expected them to be due to the occasional esoteric and seemingly contradictory ideas she had invested into it, they read through anyway and did the best they could to memorize it before putting the paper away.

“I probably don’t need to say this, but I am not the average physique cultivator. However, you will not be facing one body cultivator, but twenty-one, all of whom are physically superior to you and can ignore basic mental influences, like that of killing intent. Thus, you must follow every single instruction that I have written for you without any hesitation, or else you will be removed… from existence, that is.”

“Eh… boss-”

“You were called Ah Qiu, correct? What is it?”

“This part ‘ere, and ‘ere… Well, I dunno what any of ‘is says. I can’t read.”

“… Do you mean that you struggle to understand the things that I have written, or that you are completely incapable of reading?”

“I get some of the words, just not most of them.”

“Right. I am disappointed by you, Ah Qiu. I thought you were someone capable, someone who could prove to be an outstanding individual, and yet you have greatly disappointed me – and, I expect that you have also greatly displeased Meng Chu a number of times, considering how annoyed he sounded at your earlier question,” Wei Yi said, sighing, “Very well, since I intended to instruct most of you anyway, I shall pay more attention to those of you who struggle to understand my words. Who does that include?”

A man and a woman raised their hands, causing her to breathe another sigh, this time of relief. If the majority of the group lacked the ability to read more than the simplest words within her vocabulary, she would need to spend far more time than she had intended to explain things to people.

“Fine. Before we do that, let me explain that our priority is not the death of every single bandit, though my plan does intend to lead directly to it, but the acquisition of the things that had been left behind after the battle of Meng Chu’s ancestor, Meng Qi, namely the killing intent cultivation technique that he had used there. If you observe someone attempting to escape with things like this and are concerned that I lack any scheme to deal with them, which can indeed be a possibility, then launch your killing intent into the sky. I will be observing the mission and will step in to correct any of your mistakes when I observe them. That doesn’t mean that you can relax and do what you like. Is that clear?”

“Yes, boss!”

“Alright then, then let me begin the description to the illiterate lot…”

 

“… and thus, we shall be leaving in twenty-four hours. Get yourselves to the peak of your ability, whether that involves eating, training or ‘eating’, if that’s how you lot describe things.”

“Understood, bo-”

“Wei Yi, it seems that those that we have apprehended were coming after you,” Meng Chu appeared within a doorway, interrupting his subordinates, “It will be best if you are present during the interrogation so that you are able to solve your own problems.”

“Alright, I’ll go. Could you request that Ah Li makes herself available afterwards?”

“Naturally. As a member of my faction, you receive a fifty percent discount on all trades made within my establishments. Now, follow me,” he said, turning around and leading her to a small prison chamber.

There, two men and one woman were bound to the wall with thick chains and their arms and legs were restrained with black bone cuffs, one side of which was buried within the wall. All of them looked rather drained, pale and tired, like they had been drained of blood, energy and their very lifeforce incredibly thoroughly.

“What did you do to them?”

“I did nothing, but certain brothel workers are trained in exhausting more than just your energy.”

“Sounds very helpful. What else have they said?”

Meng Chu waved to the three prisoners, “Nothing much, besides confirming that they had been working under Shi Luo Feng for some time. Since they were sent after you, I think that it is best for you to deal with them, unless you believe yourself to be completely incompetent at interrogation.”

“I can’t say that I’ve experimented with it before, but I have previously read thirty-nine books on torture, physical and mental manipulation and interrogation, so if previous experience with applying theoretical knowledge to practical situations is applicable here, then they should spill everything they know within an hour, giving me more than enough time with Ah Li.”

“When you speak of previous experience… was your first visit to the brothel one such experience?”

“Well... I suppose you could say that,” Wei Yi shrugged, “Does it matter?”

“Your one visit led to Xi Wen Li no longer providing any services to men, so, yes, it does. Whether you will end up serving me, or I you, I’d advise far more restraint than that.”

“I’ll think about it, so get out of the way now,” she said, approaching one of the restrained prisoners.