V3C27: True Face of the Aberrant, Part 1

“You fool! Your actions have put my entry into the Ning District at risk, and for that, insect, you shall be crushed!” a powerful voice exclaimed, the conglomeration of spiritual will that relayed it floating opposite the man with a spot on his neck, who desperately kowtowed to it in the hopes of forgiveness.

However, it was not to come.

All of a sudden, the man and the spiritual will both vanished, and when they reappeared only moments after, the man was lifeless and the spiritual will was in perfect condition as it floated away into the beyond, fluctuations of pure anger and agitation pouring from it and resonating with the world around it.

As it left, the arrays all around the underground complex began to ignite with mirror-like energy, each thin line and space between nodes lightning up.

Despite how much of the underground complex was obscured through thick ceilings and mirror layers, Wei Yi was able to sense the slow growth of energy below the ground. It came about far more quickly than she had expected, but the growth was also slower than she had assumed it would be, roughly equalising the point on which the Mirror Plane would appear and stabilise, which effectively meant that her plans could continue unchanged.

She willed her hair suit to come apart, using that same control to tie her hair into a simple braid as to make up for its current and extremely excessive length, then hastened to the place in which she sensed Chen Jushu and Chu Huazhi’s energy.

That place turned out to be a structure that she had seen before but never entered, where a number of powerful combat cultivators often resided and where a number of weaker individuals entered to hire their services. As far as she understood it, that place was intended to allow merchants, store owners and various other people to recruit warriors to complete tasks in the short term for a single fee, effectively allowing the powerful to act like mercenaries without fully investing themselves into that particular lifestyle.

Although that was one more thing that she hadn’t fully anticipated, this was another welcome change.

Bursting into the building without any hesitation, she ignored the guard that began to charge at her and instead called out to the two that she was looking for, who stood in the middle of the room and spoke with a few warriors about seemingly unrelated matters, “Change of plans! The Aberrations are beneath us, and they are preparing to summon the Mirror Plane right now!”

The man that charged at her did not stop, likely too committed to the rush to even consider stopping mid-way, with his planar energy already moving through the meridians within his legs and arms in preparation for the execution of a powerful combat technique.

She noticed his approach and, as one of his feet rose into the air, she quickly created an Aerial Foothold beneath it, then created another and another in quick succession, allowing him to step right over her and then drop to the ground once he was past her, resulting in his charge bringing him to nothing but the wall.

Chu Huazhi, ignoring that man’s actions entirely, questioned her, “What are you talking about? I thought that this was going to take a long time?”

“Nope. They’ve uncovered some method of acceleration their efforts, and even with the superficial damage I was able to do to their many arrays, I suspect that it will be complete by midnight. At that point, the same abominations that appeared before will certainly appear once more, but this time they will have mass, and power, and the ability to truly injure us, while we will lack any power to disperse them at will,” she explained as quickly as she could, “At their weakest, I expect entities in the third realm, which would likely result in ten percent of the civilian population being killed before anything can be done about it, but at their strongest, they might reach the fifth realm, which would prove challenging even for you to take on while easily killing half of those below the third realm with the immense power of the Marked Core realm, especially if they have access to the searing marks themselves.

“This is if we do not act now, of course. So long as we take this into account, occupy the key positions from which the Mirror Plane ought to emanate, then hold the enemies that appear back while the Great Aberrant himself is searched for and destroyed, these casualties can be lowered to what I’d personally call far more acceptable levels, although whether or not a twentieth of the district perishing is acceptable is something I will gladly debate.”

“Has your hair grown?”

“Yes, but that has nothing to do with the conversation.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Chen Jushu admitted, her voice and expression becoming far more serious when she spoke again, “This is all happening far more quickly than you’d thought it would, isn’t it?”

“Trust me, not my fault, and not my choice. However, this is a positive for us, as they are not very well prepared and will thus be weaker than if they decided to create their Mirror Plane a year later, as they would then have the opportunity to strengthen their arrays and build up enough energy within them to easily manifest aberrations between the fourth and sixth realms, with their exact realm depending on their preference for numbers versus individual strength. I’m not sure what the exact power of the Great Aberrant himself is, so perhaps he would be able to strengthen them further,” she said, recalling the physique energy that she had been able to obtain.

She had never heard of the Mirrored Being physique before, and while it appeared to be the cause of his ability to condense mirror layers, she wasn’t clear about much else of the physique. It wasn’t responsible for the many mirror layers in the underground environment, so it was clearly not the only method of doing this, and the many arrays beneath the ground did not seem to be reliant on his power either, so there was very little for her to work from when deducing the Great Aberrant’s exact capabilities. In such situations, caution was best, thus her extreme warnings.

In actuality, she did not think that the Great Aberrant had the ability to manifest monsters above the fifth realm, if he could even reach such a level, due to his cultivation seeming to be in the fourth realm, but due to their previous tendency to overestimate the enemy – especially in the case of Chen Jushu – she wouldn’t give them the chance to do so again.

“Have you any method of recording the exact locations in which you found the arrays?” Chu Huazhi asked.

“In fact, I can tell you exactly where they were, but we must hurry…” as she spoke, she also scanned through the entire establishment in the hopes of finding an easy way of recruiting all of the warriors around them to her side, as they were generally in the fourth realm and would prove incredibly useful regardless of the actual power of those from the Mirror Plane, finding it only a short while later in one of the rules that those who sign up to work as mercenaries here had to agree to, “Furthermore, all of you who work here as combatants, your rules bind you to protect this district in the event of any threat that had the potential to cause significant damages that exceed the span of a single major street or seventeen normal streets, so you must come with us!”

“Since when’s that a rule?” the man that had charged into the wall behind her thought to call her out, but she retrieved a copy of that page of rules and quickly gave it to him so that he could take a proper look, “Shit, when did I agree to all of this?”

“When you signed up, presumably. Read all of your contracts in the future if you don’t want to assist in the maintenance of architecture in the case of a major natural disaster, or anything of the sort.”

“That’s hardly the worst thing on those rules...” Chen Jushu muttered, clearly having consulted them in the past, before raising her voice, “Alright, you’ve all heard her. Those are the rules that you comply with, and as such, all of you must go to protect this district. In the case of this being a false alarm of sort, you should be very well aware of my identity by now, so you can trust that you will be repaid handsomely…”

Her words veered off the moment that she observed a shifting presence in the streets outside, bringing the attention of everyone else to it quickly. A thin fog crept along the ground where she looked, so pale and soft that it was almost imperceptible, but what brought attention to it was the myriad of mirror-like surfaces that seemed to exist within it, causing light to dance atop it and distort.

“This is only the beginning, and a fortunate one. If I’m not wrong, the fog will grow denser the greater the presence of the Mirror Plane, so it will be easier to judge when foes will appear and how powerful they may be,” Wei Yi took over, simultaneously testing a few of her less obvious attacks and techniques upon the fog to confirm its nature and whether or not it posed any threat to her or any of the other combatants that would be involved, “Also, if any of you lot were present during the Refiner’s Duel, then don’t get your hopes up for the Extreme Yin Decomposition pill this time. The Mirror Plane and the mirror layers appear to function differently, and while you will be less likely to suffer an invasion of yin, you will have more regular threats to combat.”

“Understood!” a small group of people near the back of the building suddenly rose to their feet and declared, coming closer to the middle and revealing their scarred faces and bodies, as well as the ambient energy of searing marks, “We usually take charge during larger operations, so if there are any specific instructions that we all must follow, give them to us right now!”

Wei Yi provided these immediately, as she was once again uncertain that the two other individuals with some authority would be able to accurately judge the potential threat of the Mirror Plane, “Don’t let the abominations of the Mirror Plane escape from you, focus on holding them back rather than killing them – since we don’t know how many there will be – and don’t exhaust yourselves in one go! This could last a few minutes, an hour, or maybe even an entire day.”

“Got it!” one of their number, a woman with one eye and such a heavily scarred head that she could only grow hair on the left side, stated, turning to a number of the other combatants in the area and quickly issuing orders, while the others followed suit.

‘It’s like this lot were trained in some military force. Convenient and fortunate, so I’m certainly not going to complain,’ Wei Yi thought for a moment before approaching Chen Jushu and Chu Huazhi as they also got to their feet and prepared, “I can’t be sure of exactly where the Great Aberrant will appear, nor when, but there were a few areas in which the arrays were denser and more powerful, suggesting to me that it would be an excellent place for him to use if he wanted to fight at his full strength – which, given the fact that I have weakened the entire Mirror Plane for now, is very likely.”

“In that case, take me there!” Chen Jushu ordered, glancing in the direction of the alchemist beside her, “You’d better focus on making us and the other fighters some pills. Make a few for my daughter, as well, since I’ll personally punish you if she gets hurt.”

“I can fight just as well! You’ve seen it yourself-”

“With all due respect-”

“The little that he deserves, you mean.”

“- I would suggest that you do exactly that. Everyone here will require pills to replenish their energy and heal their wounds, and you are the only one with authority to use all of the ingredients at the Chu Alchemical Store freely, while also being able to make the most pills in the shortest amount of time at the highest quality,” Wei Yi said, earning both a groan and a nod of understanding from the man.

“Fine, but I’m joining in the moment that the fighting starts! I won’t be able to focus sufficiently to make pills at that time no matter what I do.”

As he left, Chen Jushu’s attention came to Wei Yi, with a gaze that asked an obvious question.

“You might not believe it, but I am also a capable combatant with a lot of energy to spare. The pills that I produce won’t be of sufficient quality to help those in the fourth realm and above, so it would be far better for me to remain on the battlefield, especially considering the fact that I have the best idea of what the Great Aberrant might look like and how he may fight, both of which is bound to prove incredibly useful,” she answered the silent question and did not wait for the woman’s approval, heading straight to the nearest map of the district – one lay atop one of the tables beside her – and releasing several small sparks of planar energy, “Everyone, these places are where I found the arrays-”

“Alright, we’re going to the southern points!” one of the leaders quickly decided, him and his party rushing off immediately after.

“We’ll take the west. They have some great beer there!” another followed suit.

“These central points are most concerning. My house is near there,” the one-eyed woman took action with similarly self-centred reasoning.

“The north is for us. We should also warn all of the sentries on the walls and the guard force, so that we won’t be fighting alone.”

“I have a friend in the guard at the east, so I’ll speak to him.”

“Hey, is that how you keep getting away with…”

“Yes, now shut it and run!” the last of the leading group chose his destination and headed towards it with a force of a dozen people, meaning that they would have no more than four per major array point, much like the other groups.

However, the weakest in these groups was in the fourth realm, while the strongest had no fewer than fifteen searing marks already, so, alongside the assistance from the guard and any other bystanders with an impressive cultivation, it was figured that they would have enough power to hold back the monsters of the Mirror Plane for a sufficient length of time to make a difference, while gathering more people from this organisation would be difficult without putting in a lot of inefficient effort.

As Wei Yi also left the building, she did not head to a random point, but instead towards one particular mirror anchor location that she had recorded while she had been searching for them beneath the ground. Despite what she had told the mercenary warriors, she did have a clue regarding where the Great Aberrant would be likely to appear, and that was due to her intentionally weakening one array far less than any of the others, meaning that if he had any sense or ability to think tactically at all, he would be forced to choose that point, where she would be waiting for him.

To give her as much room to do whatever she wanted at that point, she also claimed that the spot wasn’t a significant danger to the district, thus avoiding a single one of the mercenary forces being sent to it.

If she mistook the true power of the Mirror Plane, the Great Aberrant and his forces, then this could result in the entire city being overrun from her location, but she considered that she had the ability to deal with the most likely possibilities so long as she did not receive constant observation and attention that would limit the number and variety of techniques that she could use. With a combination of physique energy, killing will and cosmic energy, enhanced by her planar anchor and the dantian bone shards to maximise her power, she had the potential to unleash force at the power of the initial fifth realm, which would be sufficient to handle the primary cause of the Mirror Plane and disperse it regardless of the other forces that it could summon.

‘Since there is a possibility of failure, I should do everything to ensure that it doesn’t occur, of course. I have roughly three hours before anything should be appearing, so if I create a basic inscription there, an array there, shift the geography a little to force anything to walk through a very specific path there… The amount of work I will actually have to do afterwards may be significantly reduced.’

As soon as she got the point where the Great Aberrant was most likely to appear, she got to work, manipulating the streets of stone and brick into her envisaged battlefield, mostly by blocking certain roads and pathways to ensure that anything that walked would need to take the most complex route possible, while also setting up a few arrays to limit aerial movement as much as was possible without an incredibly specific, expensive and complex array that specifically targeted only creatures from the Mirror Plane, as the alternative would also affect the movement of allies with some ability to fly, resulting in an overall negative impact on the Ning District’s chances of success.

‘It is really unfortunate that I do not have a higher-grade technique for formation arrangement, as there is only so much that I can do using only my killing will, no matter how powerful it is,’ she sighed.

All of the great arts, their techniques and products were split into nine grades, or nine stars, and while it was not impossible for someone within the second realm with one-star techniques to complete a two-star item, it was impossible to go far beyond that grade, and it was entirely impossible to create something that had six stars or above, due to the massive difference between realms that caused the gaps between them to grow with each realm. Something that only had a single star could be made as powerful as something that had two, but it would essentially be substituting quality and craft for raw power, forcing as much of it into a product as possible with an extremely poor return in exchange for the effort, which made it so much more preferable to instead improve the number of stars to achieve the same effect at such an immensely greater efficiency that none could afford to go down the other route.

For example, if a one-star item was boosted to five stars, it could require a hundred thousand units of planar energy, perhaps requiring ten average cultivators in the fifth realm to contribute their power, but a five-star item with the same effect would only require a hundred to a thousand units of energy.

At the moment, Wei Yi had the energy to spare to empower her arrays and inscriptions in such a manner, and she was attempting to incorporate some of the techniques she had seen within the Ning District and the underground chambers of the Mirror Plane Aberrations, but without a proper technique and understanding of it, she would not have the opportunity to bring it up to the same standard as the majority of her crafting techniques.

Her Cursed Talisman arts could complete talismans at the fourth realm at a high quality, and the fifth realm with a decent quality, the Hammer Semblance art was slightly lacking in comparison but was enhanced significantly by the Red Shaper’s Grasp while still producing items up to the fifth realm at an above-average quality, her Cherry Revolving Blossom art was far superior to both due to incorporating an aspect of the Great Dao and could be replaced by the Antithesis method to significantly overpower all crafting techniques combined, and the Earthen Heart art was also incredibly good for something she had incidentally obtained from an attempt to earn some money, so the array arrangement art was something that stood out as being the least optimal for her rising realm.

Fortunately, with the map obtained from Master Yi Yi’s last breaths, she knew that the technique that could be combined with the technique there to form something greater, but for now…

‘For now, if I am to improve… Hm. My killing intent proved incredibly helpful in pill refining, my physique energy is especially useful due to the Red Shaper’s Grasp, my blood and cosmic energy can complete talismans quickly and efficiently, so could I not make use of spiritual will in arrays?’ she looked upon the arrays she had created through her killing will so far, then selected one almost at random.

She purged it of all killing intent, leaving only the dense silver light of her spiritual will to form all of the individual nodes of the array. It did not appear too different from before, the colour excluded, but now that she had something to look for, a goal that she sought to pursue in the little time that remained before the first foes could appear from the arrays beneath the ground, she wasn’t going to overlook a single thing, no matter how insignificant it appeared.

A minute passed in absolute silence, as she even stopped creating more arrays within the air to focus.

‘The flow of spiritual will differs from killing will and killing intent, it seems. It is slightly different from planar energy as well, so perhaps I should alter the structure slightly…’

Wei Yi did so, not altering the structure or nodes in any significant manner. If an ordinary array master observed the modified variant of the array, they would be unlikely to notice much of a difference, but together, these changes shifted the position of every single node, every single flowing line between them, bringing a second topic of interest to her attention.

The exact weight and density of spiritual will, especially her own, differed from cosmic energy, but it was not something that she had not addressed before, continuing to use her existing techniques and known array layouts due to it not appearing to impact the overall quality of her creations, nor the time that she needed to complete them. This was something that she absolutely had to avoid now, since every array of note was already complete and all that they would require would be a moment of adjustment, but did need the power that could be obtained from seeking perfection with a crafting method such as this.

‘Now, if I enhance this with the stabilisation of the planar anchor… observe wind flow and landscape texture to further greaten longevity and decrease persistent energy decay… re-add killing intent not to combine, but to imbue, to focus on spiritual will as the conduit of energy within the arrays… increase the general density of energy to significantly reduce outside influence upon the spiritual will… modify individual node height to allow for more rapid flow of energy… contribute my understanding of the Kong Prison Realm and the structure of spatial realms to further empower everything…’

As she considered various options and implemented them within that killing array, she also looked upon a book within the Ascendant’s Library and added everything that had any merit whatsoever to it, the label on the back not yet filled, not necessarily attempting to compile an entirely new technique, but instead hoping to memorise absolutely everything that could prove successful in the future.

Time passed quickly both inside of her mind, where the book consistently grew in thickness until she was tempted to split it into two or three, and on the outside, although the difference in the progression of time was still significant, meaning that in the time that a man could take a single step, she was able to go through dozens of different theories within her mind and on the arrays that she had already created at once, with some ideas being thrown out the moment that she came up with them due to them blatantly failing within her mind, whereas others proved unsuccessful within reality, although some other attempts also proved to have some value that could be uncovered after a lengthy period of refinement that she could not engage in now.

She had so much to consider that she did not even realise when the first foe from the Mirror Plane began to coagulate within the empty square that she had created the killing array over, with any citizens being scared away either by the fog that was slowly growing in density, the arrays that she was putting up all over the place, or the fact that it was currently night time and there was no reason for most to stay up in the same manner as in the prison realm, where days and nights were simply societal ideas.

A large quantity of the mirror-like fog rose from the ground, quickly being shaped into the figure of a thin, tall humanoid creature made from countless mirrored shards that reflected and refracted light in maddening ways, with countless white eyes all over its body, five arms with blades and sickles on the end of scrawny limbs, and a gaping maw from which more fog spilled forth.

It had a moment to unleash a roar before a spot in the sky, beside a roof on which Wei Yi decided to stand in order to focus on it and empower it to the best of her abilities, lit up with pure silver light and condensed into a single bolt of pure power that shot out and pierced the mirrored flesh of the monster, crashing into the ground and exploding the bricks into a burst of fine dust. The monster froze, the fog that spouted from its mouth being dispersed entirely by that singular blast, after which it suddenly scattered into nothingness.

There was no remaining anchor energy after it, but she was sure that the foe that was just defeated was in the third realm, meaning only one thing of note to her – she successfully enhanced the array.

‘And significantly enhanced it, at that. It was incredibly effective at tearing through the creature despite originally being at the quality of two stars, so it appears that I have succeeded and bringing it up to three stars at the very least, meaning that all of my changes combined have resulted in the successful generation of some type of array arrangement method. Let’s call it…’

As she thought, another monster congealed from the mirror fragment fog and was obliterated with the energy that the spiritual will array was able to build up in the brief gap between the appearances of two enemies, indicating with perfect clarity that this was not the best time for her to ponder such things when her imagination when it came to the naming of techniques was already mostly exhausted from the excessive number of skills and arts she had created in the past, and decided not to bother.

With the Spiritual Flow arts compiled and stored in a prominent part of her mental landscape, named after the initial factor that caused her to reconsider most aspects of the array arrangement technique she had been using up to that point, she quickly rearranged every single other array to fit into her new design criteria, with some of the more complex arrays taking a little longer than others, although she believed that the invested was more than worth it. Besides bringing every single one of the arrays used up to the third realm or above, it also strengthened them to a significant extent that she wouldn’t be able to achieve even if she simply doubled the number of arrays, which was considerably more than she had expected to achieve when she began.

‘Assuming a gradual increase in the rate at which the monsters appear, and the power that they possess, I might be able to get away with creating a few more arrays at other key locations before I need to return here, so… Why not?’