V2C48: The Invasion Continues, Part 2

Neither of them was waiting until any particular signal or indication, instead awaiting a suitable time to present itself to them and make itself known.

Whether that would be some gust of wind, the movement of someone in the corner of their vision, or possibly even the actions of some outside forces, they somehow shared an understanding that the moment this occurred, they would engage in the most glorious form of combat imaginable to the people of the prison realm.

Truthfully speaking, Wei Yi had two reasons for not going directly into the fight, with both of them relating to the Demon Killer, Sharen e Mo. Its acceleration of her energy regeneration meant that every second was more valuable, and the scanning process suggested that if she was able to hold off for long enough, the first effect listed within the House of Gold might finally manifest itself and clarify exactly why this weapon held a proper name while so many others were simply labelled ‘Golden Hooped Rod’ or ‘Cleaver’.

Unfortunately for that particular plan, the aforementioned disturbance happened too early, in the form of one of the soldiers on the side coughing once and doing so surprisingly carefully for a maddened barbarian. Nonetheless, the sudden sound was practically deafening.

The barbarian with the enormous weapon charged forward, pushing off the ground with so much force that it shattered the stone beneath his feet and launched an incredible quantity of broken fragments of rock into the air. Meanwhile, he crossed the gap between the two of them before the shards of stone even had the chance to land on the ground.

His weapon was raised, and he swung directly downwards, taking advantage of the immense weight of the weapon to empower his already impressive might.

As Wei Yi decided to confront the strike head-on, as it would spare her the energy that she would need to expend to evade the attack via the Lustful Warlord’s physique, she felt the weapon in her hand softly rumble again, but this time she was also able to see the blade becoming slightly sharper, the obsidian growing darker, and the handle somehow becoming a little more comfortable than before, while the entire thing somehow became both lighter and heavier at the same time.

That nearly threw off her control of the blade, but she still managed to position it correctly in time.

Metal struck obsidian with enough force to shatter the stone they stood on, break the windows of the surviving residences around them, and the actual blow that followed pushed Wei Yi several inches into the ground.

However, her arms and the weapon that she was forced to support with both hands survived, while the barbarian leader had clearly invested a little too much strength into his attack and was unable to react on time while Wei Yi flooded her body with the power of the Golden Form physique before lowering her weapon and stabbing the sword into the barbarian’s extremely muscular chest.

Just as she did so, the weapon once again twitched in her grip, a faint light appearing at the very tip of the obsidian blade only to be instantly covered by the warrior’s flesh as it pierced it with surprising ease, stopping only when it struck his ribs. In that moment, the barbarian recovered and began to swing at her once more, so she pulled the sword out of him and disappeared to his side via the Lustful Warlord’s physique, evading the horizontal slash that followed by a single breath, with only one of her hairs being caught by the blade.

Somehow, that one red hair survived, remaining attached to her head.

‘This is insane. Does every physique realm and ability somehow add endurance to my hair, even if it doesn’t affect the rest of my body? How will I cut it in the future, when I want to return to a simpler hairstyle?’ she wondered for a moment, the thought passing by quickly and not distracting her.

She took advantage of her position by executing Piercing River against the back of his right leg. It dug into his muscle, but he evaded quickly, and the blade slipped out of the shallow wound.

Although he dodged to the side and ended up having his back to her, he spun around and used the momentum to further strengthen his blow with yet another horizontal slash, showing his full range of skills and techniques as he tried to go straight for her neck, the force of the strike alone being enough to decapitate any common human, even any common physique cultivator.

Luckily for Wei Yi, not only was she not a regular physique cultivator, but she considered that she might not even need to evade.

‘The Lustful Warlord’s physique might have just been the World’s Echo physique, in which case, I have no need to move from my position whenever I use the ability. If I remain in place, I can just do… this!’ she waited for just the right moment, then activated her physique energy while focusing on her current position.

As the blade reached her neck, her entire body flashed out of existence, reappearing the very moment that the sword passed through her. The overly wide weapon knocked some of her hair aside, and when he wanted to swing the other way, she saw her opportunity.

Wei Yi shifted the placement of Demon Killer and, as the sword approached her again, she removed her left hand from the sword and threw it behind the brute’s weapon, accelerating the weapon further and throwing his entire arm aside, a bone within his arm cracking, then she used Ember Switch to advance rapidly and used the force absorbed from his swing to further amplify her own stab towards the figure’s heart.

While the weapon headed straight forward without any interruptions, she was more focused on the people around them, especially those that were clearly preparing to attack her at the right moment, ‘I am certain I can kill this man, regardless of what other tricks he can pull off with his physique energy, but in order to best handle such a large crowd… Yes, Endless Calculation can be used, and since they appear to have very simplistic combat styles, especially if this is their best combatant with the greatest understanding of his own weapon, it can be incredibly quick and efficient.’

The weapon struck the same point on his body, digging deeper into the existing wound near his heart, but when her sword pierced his ribs, he grabbed the blade without any care for the damage that caused and forcefully pushed it away.

Still, he lacked the same regenerative properties that Wei Yi possessed, and thus, so long as she struck him in the same spot for a third time, he would lose his heart and swiftly bleed to death.

It was so obvious that the others noticed this as well and placed their hands on the hilts of whatever weapons they had on them, their eyes clearly looking towards the perceived weaknesses of Wei Yi’s defences.

For this reason, before the barbarian leader had the opportunity to strike back at her, she leapt into the middle of the circle and briefly slashed behind herself, utilising Defensive Blaze to form a protective barrier with her physique energy, which she then stabilised with the power of her planar anchor to prevent anyone from having the chance of approaching her from the back. Then, as the weapon in her hands trembled yet again and seemed to become even better, she decided to attempt the second of the second of the three primary Scorching Blade techniques – Draconic Ember.

She channelled her physique energy into Sharen e Mo until it was filled to the brim, exhausting almost a tenth of her total pool of energy for this endeavour. Somehow, the weapon was almost entirely hollow, lacking the typical channels for the flow of energy usually found in other artefacts, and while that meant that it had more space to contain her power and thus required more of it, it also allowed her to replicate the necessary pattern of energy for the Scorching Blade significantly more easily.

As she rearranged the flow of physique energy, the metal slowly lit up with a warm glow, as if she had warmed it within a flame.

Before it could become any brighter, the invading leader attacked her yet again, though this time, the concentration of physique energy within his own weapon grew and his attack seemed to be weaker, yet more calculated, as if it had reached him that she would not be defeated by any random swings or strikes.

He struck diagonally, from top right to bottom left, and Wei Yi was forced to meet the strike with her own blade, her weapon connecting with the middle of his blade. Bright red sparks and embers exploded from the collision, flying off in the currents of the killing intent winds.

Another blow came down upon her, then another and another, each one being blocked by a collision with the very middle of his blade and a large gust of flaming sparks in the direction of the audience.

Within a single one of the man’s breaths, he performed more than three dozen basic strikes, each one slowly pushing Wei Yi towards her own protective barrier due to their extreme might, and when he finally chose to take a breath, it was a shallow one, done only to prepare for another extreme overhead attack, his intentions of finally landing a blow on her being extremely clear.

Although Wei Yi heard a faint ringing within her ears from all of the repeated sword blows and felt almost nothing from her arms, she had enough energy and awareness to realise that this was the perfect moment to witness exactly how effective this particular part of the technique was.

When the blade began to descend upon her, she suddenly slashed at his weapon far earlier than the last few dozen exchanges, although she aimed for the exact same spot yet again.

It was only at the moment of contact that the barbarian warrior understood that something was wrong. Their blades met, and yet, there was no sound fitting for such a collision, nor any of the same sparks. Instead, he saw that the very middle of his oversized weapon was as hot, if not significantly hotter than any part of Wei Yi’s sword, and when she hit it, her blade cut straight through the warm metal, splitting the blade in two easily.

Without wasting a single second, she leapt up and grabbed the severed half of the blade in her ascent, landing momentarily on the remaining half of the sword with her bare feet, using the second during which he began to lower what was left of the weapon to charge the broken shard with as many violent energies as it could possibly withstand without shattering before plunging it into his eye.

The very next second, she leapt down and wielded Demon Killer in both hands, stabbing it into the open wound on his chest. It went straight through whatever remained of his ribs and impaled the heart in a single motion, with the enormous heat of the blade instantly evaporating any droplets of blood that landed on it. She tore the sword out of him, threw any remaining blood off with a single slashing motion, then delivered a single kick to the man’s stomach to throw him out of the way and allow her to take her rightful place in the very middle of the encirclement, where more than a hundred physique cultivating barbarians were staring at her with such a large quantity of killing intent and hatred that it mixed with those of its peers and almost overpowered the Beast’s own energies within the circle without a single killing intent cultivator getting involved.

However, it was only when he landed that they threw themselves into action with one unified roar.

She stood still for a moment as bright sunlight emerged upon her chest, a vague figure of a titan’s upper half appeared behind her, a veil of Grim Mortality surrounded her and the light covering of the Concentrated Humanity appeared around her last, prompting her to turn to one point of the encirclement while the Titanic Demolisher turned in the other direction.

Sharen e Mo trembled in her hands once more, still continuing to change and become more powerful, almost inviting the battle.

‘The use of the Demonic Ire technique will not suffice here, so I might as well make full use of it.’

Wei Yi and the Titanic Demolisher phantom moved at the same time and in opposite directions, meeting the approaching waves directly with force. She began with a wide swing, the large arc being amplified significantly by the Cleaving Axe physique ability until the combination of her and the phantom’s attacks covered the entire area that was not protected by the Defensive Blaze behind her, slicing right through the front lines of the attackers without any difficulty whatsoever.

As those behind the charging waves pushed their separated allies aside and closed the gap between them and Wei Yi, it became obvious that she wouldn’t be able to swing her sword around without any difficulty without opening herself to a thousand attacks of opportunity.

Thus, she took a step back and converted all of the remaining power within the Demon Killer into the third move of the Scorching Blade – Ashes’ Echo.

It was named after the person that the Scorching Blades revered and based their pursuits on, and just as the Lady of Ashes was renowned for crushing so many with her flame and ash-based techniques and style, they could transform their collected energy into an overpowering cloud of ash. It could completely block the breathing of the weak and kill them, while the strong would be confused.

Regardless of the exact effect that would be applied to her current foes, it would still help her greatly.

The overpowering crimson glow from the blade suddenly faded, every slight movement of it leaving behind a thick trail of ash that quickly flooded the area, at first only proving to be a slight obstruction to the physique cultivator’s vision.

However, as it built up and expanded to cover the entire area of the initial encirclement, reaching the archers in the back that were still waiting for the right time to fire and had thus not yet made an impact on the battle, Wei Yi saw several of the attackers slow down and grasp their necks, desperately trying to breathe, and failing. The others either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, but their behaviour had also grown a little more erratic and uncertain, losing what little cohesion they already had.

Perhaps the only one that wasn’t affected was the leader of the other half of the invading forces.

It was yet another androgynous-looking figure – Wei Yi seemed to have some fate with people like that – although it was clear that they were female due to how little clothing the barbarians wore. Due to being made of more muscle than flesh, bone or fat combined, this woman was essentially the extreme of what Wei Yi could have become, with brown hair and a weaker mind.

‘Still, this woman had enough sense to stand back and is currently able to ignore the ash, so she is either somewhat clever and strong or lacks the mind to experience confusion…’ she concluded that it would be best to take the second leader down first, either to bring down morale, if they had such a concept to begin with, or to get rid of the greatest danger to her at the moment and reduce this enormous crowd down to ants that could do little more than leave a few temporary bite marks on her flesh.

Wei Yi shifted her grip on the hilt of the blade and used Crushing Flood twice, pushing the confused forces on her sides away so that they would not intrude doing her confrontation with their leader, who was hastening straight towards her.

After pushing straight through one of her subordinates, throwing them on the ground before walking across them as if they were some rug, the second barbarian leader drew two large axes that the regular person would not be able to wield even if they tried to lift one with both hands. She brushed the edge of one blade against the other and yelled, “Bitch, die!”

‘Do they choose leaders based on the limitations of their vocabulary?’

Wei Yi saw no reason to ask this question of the physique cultivating invader, instead taking advantage of her momentary distraction to use the World’s Echo physique and appear right in front of her, further increasing the speed of her movement via Ember Switch, before following up with Piercing River.

It was then that the voice within Demon Killer chose to reappear, speaking directly into her mental domain, ‘Detected level over 14. Increasing the second digit by one…’

All of a sudden, she felt the entire structure of the weapon rearrange itself within her hands, as if it had split into many individual shards that then flipped over while still in her grasp, with the surface of the blade seemingly flipping over to show something nigh identical. More importantly than that, however, the thrust that she executed somehow gained a significant amount of force and pierced directly through the axes that were hastily raised to guard against her, stabbing into the barbarian’s chest and piercing it without issue.

The effect of the Piercing River then showed itself, exploding the remaining force of the attack within the leader and carving a heart-shaped hole within her chest, blood and pure physique energy scattering everywhere.

Everything happened so smoothly that a part of Wei Yi was almost convinced that it was all a trick, prompting her to chop off the woman’s head in one go before draining her of physique energy.

‘What is this sword? What kind of power does it truly have, and why is it concealed behind some confusing label? Lastly, what does it even mean by ‘level’? None of my realms nor stages are that high – the limit for all forms of cultivation being nine stages, a possibility of some of them being perfected, and nine realms – and yet the scanning effect seems to continue…’ she frowned.

Unfortunately, she did not have much time to contemplate these matters, as her slash was amplified to such an extent by Demon Killer led to her forcefully dispersing the ashes that filled the air. As the physique cultivators came to, they saw that their leaders had both fallen, but instead of being intimidated in any way, their eyes simply became brighter and their eagerness to attack her grew stronger.

None of them possessed particularly powerful physiques nor weapons, and thus there was only one real tactic that she could use while most of her energy was still drained: wide, powerful swings to wound or slay as many people as possible in one go.

From afar, the hatred avatars of Automaton Point, names thusly only a day or two ago, watched as she rushed directly into the remaining forces. With every swing, she was able to significantly injure anyone within range, while those that endured to the blow to the heart, lungs or neck collapsed immediately, and this might and power impressed those who truly understood it.

However, after the first few strikes were executed without any damage to herself, the number of physique cultivators around her slowly grew beyond what she could manage.

At first, these wayward blows amount to little more than scratches on her cloak or otherwise perfect skin, but just as she was able to deepen a wound on the male barbarian leader with repeated strikes, so did the physique cultivators, although their efforts were likely unintentional and mostly accidental. By the time she had dispatched roughly one half of the forces that remained, there were several wounds on her face, chest, back, and even on her legs, with four of them bleeding heavily with a fluid of gold and crimson.

The avatars could not tell exactly which of these wounds was the motivator for her sudden change in tactic, nor if they played any part at all, but after the number of foes was reduced to a certain level, she suddenly threw her arms – and her physique energy – outwards. The sunlight-like energy inexplicably transformed into a series of tendrils as thick as her legs which threw the warriors around her away before floating right back to her body.

None of them had the opportunity to get back onto her feet before Wei Yi suddenly floated into the air and was surrounded by a strange crimson energy that exploded from her body, digging into the ground and carving an enormous circle around the entire invading force.

Every few moments, several bolts of crimson spiritual will burst out of her body and struck the invaders that came closest to standing up, causing the crimson circles to appear one after another within seconds.

When all of that power flowed back into her, she looked up at the cave ceiling and released an enormous burst of energy right into it. The beam struck the stone in an instant, exploding with enough force to push the stone ceiling upwards by an inch, before it cracked and violently fell, crumbling upon them.