V2C50: Challenging the Warlords, Part 1

The residents of the Great Bone Lake were currently participating in their so-called morning activities, the disorganised group of berserk madmen having somehow organised a more coherent and consistent system than the killing intent cultivators of Beast’s Rest.

Unlike the typical behaviours of those in the Planar Continents, the inhabitants of the Great Bone Lake were proud of sweat, dirt and hard work, and thus their first action of the day was one that expended a great deal of energy and invigorated them for the rest of the day. Perhaps to facilitate this more easily, the majority of the physique cultivators lived in male and female pairs, with those that weren’t in any particular relationships swapping every now and then to make their lives more entertaining.

Even more interestingly, their bedrooms – or whatever areas they chose to use for their morning workout – were placed in areas with a similar concentration of killing intent from the Beast’s bones to their most intense training areas and arenas, further increasing Wei Yi’s interest in their particular culture.

It wasn’t the morning tumble that truly interested her, due to not being a voyeur, but the dedication to training their bodies and physiques that all of the Great Bone Lake’s inhabitants seemed to have.

‘I may need to implement this in the future Beast’s Rest, so that everyone who lives within my city can become as powerful as possible – once again, not the sexual elements, although if some are entertained by the intense pressure of killing intent and decide that the best way to spend their time would be to exercise a very specific set of muscles, I wouldn’t stop them – and if it could be moved into the future reconstruction of Yi City, to ensure that nothing like the Great Families could rise again, it would be best,’ she thought, sneaking through the streets and bones while seeking out the most acoustically suitable area for her plan, ‘I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent of the Beast’s bones in the Planar Continents, but arrays could suffice.’

She travelled from the outer edge of the settlement, where there was no trace of a wall nor any obstacle to prevent people from entering other than the extremely jagged bones of the Beast, which had enough space in between most of them to allow for easy passage, towards the centre, as her intention was to reach as much of the city with a single shout as possible.

With her possession of the Lion’s Roar technique and physique at the same time, her voice had a significant reach, but it was still insufficient to cover the entire area of the city, and thus she needed to locate a place that would amplify her voice the most.

Fortunately, this was made easier for her due to the particular shape of the city.

The bones of the Beast stuck out of the ground in several circular and repeatedly growing shapes, with the largest bones being on the outside while the smallest were near the very middle, forming a small town square where the physique cultivators would occasionally gather and fight, if the many dents within the ground were to be interpreted that way. This particular layout made it so that if one was to stand in the very middle of the settlement and then yell at the top of one’s lungs, it was possible to reach those points of the city that were likely to contain the warlords of the Great Bone Lake.

Hence, that is exactly what she did.

As the common inhabitants of the Great Bone Lake were finishing their morning activities, with some even beginning to work out to further build up their strength and utilise their cultivation techniques, they suddenly felt the walls around them tremble as a voice, both loud and powerful, actively surged into their ears.

“WARLORDS OF THE GREAT BONE LAKE, I CHALLENGE YOU!” the booming voice reached them and continued onwards, expanding to the very borders of the city as it shook everything in sight.

Every one of them was forced to stop what they were doing, for no-one could focus on their basic activities when something this major – a challenge that was seemingly addressed to every warlord of the Great Bone Lake, something that most of them could not remember occurring for countless years – had occurred without any warning whatsoever. They could tell where the sound originated from, and thus they dropped everything they were doing and rushed towards it.

Meanwhile, the sound finally reached the intended targets: the five warlords of the Great Bone Lake.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?”

One of them shouted, their voice being carried all the way through the city but at a lower volume than the initial challenge. As if to make up for that, the other responses followed.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” an unpleasant laugh echoed throughout the Great Bone Lake, travelling at an extreme speed and seemingly originating from a number of places, as if this particular warlord existed in several areas at once.

From another direction, an extremely eerie and baleful sound emerged, cooling down the flames of passion within those that had kept going with their morning activities before somehow forming into  a voice, against all semblance of sense and logic that most thought that the world ought to follow, “A challenger? How exciting, for a lone figure to attempt to rival the great Demonic L-”

This eerie voice was interrupted by a loud howl of some kind of wolven creature. It was both the most natural of the cries so far, seeming to belong to a pure beast, and yet there was a quality of oddity within it, as if it was corrupted by some sort of vile influence. The mere sound of it could have easily broken the minds of lesser men, and even the physique cultivators, that were protected from most mental influences, felt an unpleasant sensation travelling up their spines as if they were about to be devoured by the creature that was capable of producing such a sound.

Despite all of those responses, the first warlord that turned up was none of these four.

Instead, it was a man with a rather average body, surrounded on either side by two pairs of other physique cultivators, with one pair being male and the other female.

The man in the middle seemed to be unimpressive on first glance, but Wei Yi knew that this was an incorrect assumption. Whether through her spiritual perception, physique energy or the basic sensory abilities of her killing intent, she could feel an immense amount of power within him, displaying a cultivation of the third or even fourth realm of physique cultivation while his energy was dormant.

“Are you the challenger?” he asked, speaking slowly, “You are no warlord. You cannot challenge us.”

Almost immediately, another warlord rushed in, this one resembling a wolf more so than a man. He crashed onto the ground after a large leap, landing on his wolf-like legs, then stood up on his hind limbs, raising his head into the air and releasing another howl.

“You… not… warlord!” the creature stated, seeing that Wei Yi had no-one supporting her, “You… not… worthy!”

The third to arrive was a woman, riding atop some kind of violet, spectral beast formed from pure physique energy. A thin strand of energy connected the creature’s head to the woman’s back.

“So, you are the challenger?” she asked, severing the thread with her will.

That caused the beast to suddenly turn incorporeal, allowing her to fall through it onto the ground, before it shrunk into a large ball of physique energy that then entered the warlord’s back and spread into her meridians.

“I must say, you are truly unimpressive. Where is your grand army?” she asked, her voice still filled with that indescribable eerie dread.

Even with three warlords, all of whom were in a similar realm of cultivation, staring down at her, Wei Yi remained silent, for she did not wish to waste her words. Furthermore, there was a certain degree of power in silence, and it allowed her to make a statement without even opening her mouth – whatever her plan was, she was not afraid of them, meaning that they either didn’t pose a threat, or that she had some means of circumventing it.

The next warlord arrived several seconds later, with this one seeming to be the most ordinary of the lot. He had a body that bulged with muscle and was covered with a significant amount of hair, and his strength could be felt from every minor movement of his body.

His vocabulary was also as one would expect from a physique cultivating barbarian, sparse and simple, “Look weak! You weak!”

Her next opponent entered the odd encirclement as not one, two or even three people, but as five individuals, with all of the figures moving separately and yet being connected with an invisible aura of physique energy. To the eye of a normal person, they would have seemed to be the same person, replicated four times, but through the Third Eye, the true form of the other four was revealed.

Four of the five were made with concentrated physique energy that somehow replicated the structure of the human body with a significant degree of accuracy, with each one of them radiating a cold mist due to the yin-type nature of the figure’s physique.

The true form of this person was a woman with a cold expression, ice-blue eyes, grey hair, pale skin and a general cold presence, fitting the general stereotype of someone with the Yin Physique perfectly. However, the presence of the four fakes made it incredibly obvious that this person was not in the possession of the more common yin-type physiques, as none of the common and average physique abilities allowed for such perfect replicas.

As far as Wei Yi could tell, this appeared to be the greater yin-type physique, Spirit Mirage. Typically, this physique would allow for the creation of one or two temporary figures that would naturally dissipate within a few minutes, but it appeared that these particular mirages had been present for a long time, with a higher quantity and greater detail than anything that could be achieved without physique energy. There was also the possibility of this being an advanced physique that had been developed beyond the initial level, reaching the Superior or Excellent Spirit Mirage stage.

The barbarian that had arrived before her matched a common man in many ways, but the meridians within his body were significantly larger and thicker than that of any other warlord. This allowed the physique energy flowing within them to be denser and more powerful, while simultaneously allowing for a greater quantity of energy to reside within them.

Based on everything she knew, it appeared to be an example of the yang-type absolute physique, Immortal Mortal, and it significantly enhanced the man’s abilities without making any significant changes to his body or mind.

Next, the woman with the strange voice appeared to be in possession of the Demonic Lord physique, a yin-type absolute physique. It caused her physique energy to be unusually mobile and fluid, and in return for a lesser degree of physical enhancement, allowed her to conjure subordinates or attacks from it, acting a little like planar energy. The strangeness of her voice was likely to be one of the abilities of the physique, though Wei Yi saw no good reason to use it constantly.

The fourth warlord was likely to own the Wolven Form physique, which was a yin-type greater transformative physique. It could be activated through one’s own will or powerful stimuli, and it granted a significant increase in strength while active at the cost of an impaired intellect and animalistic instincts.

Depending on the person, these instincts could completely prevent them from continuing with their day to day lives, but for the culture of the Great Bone Lake, these side effects seemed to be irrelevant.

Finally, the fifth warlord, the simple-looking man, had no obvious signs of any one physique, but Wei Yi had a few guesses, nonetheless. He came to the challenge with a small group of people, so it was likely that he somehow benefitted from either having allies, or just people in his proximity. Perhaps he was able to utilise the balance of yang and yin within men and women to enhance his own abilities, explaining the two pairs by his side, or their genders happened to be a coincidence that had no particular effects on his physique ability.

Nonetheless, she had no intention allowing any more than one person to fight with her at a time, and she would naturally ensure that any helpers were as far away from him as possible, disrupting any connection that they might form due to his physique.

‘What’s most unfortunate is that only one of these particular warlords seem to have a yang-type physique… The only one that I will be able to take is the Immortal Mortal physique, which will be immensely beneficial to me in the future, but if I could have gotten five high-grade physiques in one go, I would have been significantly more pleased with the situation…’ she sighed silently, waiting a little longer to make sure that there were no more warlords that had not announced themselves first.

When there were none, she looked directly into the eyes of the five warlords, one by one, then raised her head and used both the Lion’s Roar physique and technique.

“AUTOMATONS, RISE!”

Once again, her voice rumbled throughout the city, shocking those that had chased after their warlords in search of the sudden challenger, before passing by them almost as if it was a solid wall of sound.

It travelled towards the edge of the city, dying off as it passed the invisible border and only barely managed to reach the ears of those that were meant to hear it.

Nonetheless, they had heard it. Seconds later, the entire area of the Great Bone Lake trembled, as if the entire city had been lifted by a giant and shaken mercilessly, and those that were close enough to the borders of the settlement naturally looked out to check the source of this terrific tremor, one that they had never previously experienced within the prison realm, which lacked all seismic activity.

To the horror of the common physique cultivators, what they found may have been even more unsettling than the earlier giant analogy: a literal sea of hatred automatons. They surrounded their lands and radiated a singular wave of intense energy that absolutely dwarfed anything any of their warlords have ever been able to produce, and it seemed to have a heartbeat of its own, consistently gaining vitality with every single second.

Their power seemed so powerful that it reached even the centre of the city, engulfing the five warlords and stopping just shy of Wei Yi.

“You claimed that I am not a warlord. My army surpasses all of yours. Does that make me unworthy?” she said, with just enough volume to be heard by the five around her, using short sentences as to not challenge those with the weakest comprehensive abilities, “I wish to challenge all of you for your positions. Five duels, one against one, and the victor takes all, including the loser’s life.”

“Ooh, ooh, I’ve got a question!” the Demonic Lord woman raised her hand.

“What?”

“What if I want to enslave you and make you follow my every whim, like following me into bed and making sure that I-”

“I said everything, including the loser’s freedom. If you win and decide to make use of me in that way, it would be according to the current rules,” Wei Yi cut her fantasies short, mostly because she felt a little uncomfortable about the concept of being in someone’s possession, ‘I do like my freedom and my life, after all, and she and the Greats seem all too happy to take one or both without any reason beyond their personal whims and interests…’

She looked to the others, but they seemed to have nothing to ask of her, prompting her to continue, “We will fight here. You can choose the first challenger from amongst yourselves.”

In her eyes, there was no need to begin with any one of them, but she had left the choice up to them for a better reason than simple laziness. There was a possibility, albeit an extremely slim one, that upon being given the option of subjugating someone with an incredibly powerful army, these warlords would be unable to decide on the matter peacefully and would decide to use a more violent method.

If they did, she would learn a lot about their physiques and fighting styles simply from witnessing a single move, especially in the case of the fifth warlord – unless he was wiser than the rest and decided to give up his chance of being first in exchange for watching a few battles first to learn what she was capable of. Fortunately, such tactics did not work against her, for she likely had the largest collection of techniques and combat styles out of anyone local to the Planar Continents, especially considering the fact that most of her contenders would have had to properly cultivate their abilities and engrain them into their bodies, while she was just using almost every technique without it.

Thus, she could use a different set of moves and attacks against every warlord, then still have another set to combat some sixth or seventh enemy, if she needed to.

For a few seconds, the warlords stared at one another, with each one choosing a particular figure to look at, then collectively raised their fists, brought out their weapons, or, in the case of the fifth warlord, looked towards the people on his sides.

“Fight!”

“Let’s fight for her! I want to see her mouth on my-”

“You lot can fight,” the fifth warlord said, shrugging exactly as Wei Yi had figured he would, “If it is something you want.”

“Hey! Why do you lot keep interrupting me?”

“You… stupid!” the Wolven Form warlord barked, “I… fight… you… FIRST!”

Without any further warning, he leapt at the woman, who promptly responded with the summoning of a different creature to the first one that she arrived upon. At the same time, the other two also launched themselves into battle, with three mirages clashing with the one Immortal Mortal warlord without either side being at a disadvantage due to the latter’s surprising prowess and the former’s number advantage.

Exactly as she had expected when they first began, they stopped only a few strikes in. All of them had somehow concluded which one was stronger at this particular moment, and thus a basic order was formed.

“I… fight… FIRST!” the Wolven Form warlord repeated, this time yelling this at Wei Yi, “Weak!”

“Uh-huh. I’ll use this sword, if you don’t mind,” she said casually, reaching for the weapon on her back. She made sure to do so slowly, in such a way that one could almost assume that she couldn’t move at a speed greater than the average person, but when she grasped the hilt of the weapon, that changed.

In a flash, she pulled it out of the two cloth strips that she had used to keep it in place and casually slashed through the air on the way to stabbing it into the ground.

She had intentionally held back her strength, but even then, the amplification of the sword must have reached an entirely new level, for that simple movement pierced the air and shot out an enormous blast of slicing energy. It flew through space at a speed faster than sound, passing through the enormous bones that stuck out of the ground without any seeming harm to either side.

However, when she then pierced the ground with the tip of the blade, the consequent shockwave shook the ground once more and caused the ends of the bones to fall to the ground, one of them falling straight onto the Wolven Form physique cultivator. As someone with the instincts of a wild wolf, he would have naturally been able to evade it, but the sudden effect on the killing intent within the air and the active disruption that the falling chunk of the Beast’s bone caused made him unable to move his body in time.

Just like that, a warlord fell to the ground, his chest pierced with a large shard of bone.