V3C37: Brotherhood of Power

After a sufficient length of time had passed, after which the normal person would be able to gather their power and unleash it for long enough to affect the stones, she opened her eyes and unleashed her energy.

Her silver eyes ignited with flame, traces of her planar energy surging from them, as her entire body was surrounded by an outline of a golden and crimson inferno.

An invisible force burst out of her body, causing her robes and long loose hair to flutter in a wind emanating from her, the entirety of her power being released in a formless, shapeless and unseen form of energy that was unlike almost every other form of energy in the planar continents, for it was unbound to any form of cultivation and couldn’t be used for anything other than blindly releasing one’s force for all of the world to see and marvel, or mock, depending on its total power.

From what Yi Shi Ming remembered, even the aura of someone at the ninth realm would not be able to do much in true conflict, only having an effect against the weakest of common men, and if not for the extremely feeble stones used in the testing process, the outburst of aura wouldn’t even be able to shift the sand in the platform.

Due to her condition, she had several forms of energy that would likely all contribute to her aura, so she made sure to restrain herself so that she wouldn’t display anything that would immediately cause others to ask excessive questions, for there was only a certain level of power that could be reasonably reached by someone in the third realm. The moment that she revealed it, she could expect to be under constant observation of all three factions present – that being the two mercenary groups and the people who worked at the arena – in order for them to decipher the exact reason behind her rather significant ability, although how they would act next was not something that could be as easily predicted.

If they assumed that she wasn’t someone with a significant presence or background, and if they thought that her power relied on an item that could easily be taken from her, with or without taking her life, they would almost certainly kill her and take it, just to be safe, as leaving her alive could result in her sharing some information about her abilities to other factions to get them to help in stealing the item back at some cost.

On the other hand, if they determined that all of her ability came from her, rather than from some outside source, they would continue monitoring her in order to attempt to replicate her ability while doing their best to recruit her and learn as much as possible about her, at which point they would either keep her on a tight leash or perform some experiments on her to try and extract this ability from her, or otherwise replicate it. This wasn’t too unusual of a matter, so long as the target had few risks associated with capturing them. When she had encountered Great Dark and Light and received their aid even after they figured out that she had managed to reach every perfected stage on her cultivation progress so far, that was something rather fortunate, although they were technically pursuing the exact same kind of method, hoping to have her on their side as she developed and became more powerful.

Such things were cruel and greatly unfortunate and unpleasant, but many found that such methods were necessary in order for them to be able to compete with others, for they believed the world to be a suitably cruel place where the weak had to bow down to them.

Naturally, Wei Yi disagreed with that premise, but she couldn’t comfortably stand up to someone in the sixth realm, not to mention the seventh, which was the realm that most patriarch and matriarchs of the districts of Yi City were in, so she was still at danger from the common factions of the world.

She knew almost first-hand what happened when someone too weak showed something too valuable to someone who was too strong, as with the case of the Broken Sky Brand and a certain member of the Yi family, and it had been one of her many motivation to avoid similar actions at first, before later changing to be the reason why she desired the world to change, or, rather, to change the world and to prevent such things from ever being seen as necessary, and to ensure that all who persisted in such behaviour would see their just punishment.

Still, she wouldn’t make herself look like an absolute weakling, as that would entirely defeat the point of her entering the duel in the first place.

In moments, the closest stone near her began to be eroded, grey dust flying off towards the Gang Hong Clan’s group, causing their attention to move unanimously towards her, the interest of the Brotherhood of Power following only a moment later, when her aura reached the second stone and also left a mark upon it.

“She might be suitable,” a person from the latter group muttered to another, their words slowly spreading until the leader standing by the platform noticed giving them a covert glance alongside a subtle nod to indicate their agreement.

The other side had a slightly different response, with the leader heading straight to the rest of the group and asking, “Can any of you sense a strong presence of yang within her? Is she secretly a man?”

“Her yang… is slightly higher than usual for a woman, but not too outstanding. In fact, it seems like her yin and yang might be balanced,” one of the group responded, a man who she quickly identified to possess a yang-type physique that had few effects beside granting one the ability to perceive yin and yang much in the same way that superior physiques do, “As for her being a man, while her breasts are small enough, nothing else about her would suggest that.”

“Tch. We can’t recruit her permanently, then. Might as well raise her price, then let her go.”

“Understood, boss.”

‘I mean, the small boobs were a conscious decision, of course, but can you not go around making that kind of comparison?’ Wei Yi mentally shook her head, ‘Their policy is fitting for their name, however, so I can’t blame them for that, at the very least.’

She allowed a little more of her aura to emerge, rapidly affecting the second stone to the same extent as the first and reaching the third one with the edge of her aura – a highly admirable result for the particular setup provided to her, according to what she understood of these stones, without making her seem like some sort of superhuman madwoman.

Once her aura remained in place for a moment, she allowed it to recede, pretending to be slightly drained as the flame in her eyes vanished and she let out a breath of turgid air, rising from the sand and glancing around at the stones as she pretended to check how much her aura had been able to affect, as if she was too concentrated to observe them at the time. Quite a few found it difficult to use spiritual perception and any other form of strength or energy at the same time, as she was seeing more and more within the Planar Continents. The lack of spiritual will cultivation was likely responsible.

“So, when do I get to hit things?”

“We’ll take her!” the leader of the Gang Hong Clan group immediately said, looking sternly towards the leader of the other group in a very convincing manner.

And yet, the woman opposite him wasn’t persuaded in the slightest, quickly saying, “Shi Taihao, we both know what you’re doing. Your Clan never accepts women, rarely doing so even for a few minutes, so unless you’re so frequently surrounded by dicks that you’re starting to see them where they clearly aren’t, it is clear that you will let us have her.”

“Not at all, Luo Lia Kun, that’s not the case at all. This woman is clearly exceptional enough for us to have her, so we will-”

“You want to extort us, is that what you’re saying? Go on, name your price. Maybe we’ll let you.”

“How shameless you are to throw around such wild accusations. Her contribution would be so valuable that we could only ever even consider possibly letting her join your side if we received fifty Yang Surging pills, one hundred and twenty-one Yang Bursting talismans, sixty-three Yang Sprouting talismans, and your attendance to our Great Yang Enlightenment Ceremony as our most honoured guest.”

‘Unless the names over here are different, aren’t all of these-’

“I would never appear at a literal dick-measuring contest, and I’ll spare the city by not supporting your unhealthy obsession with such things,” Luo Lia Kun immediately refused, confirming Wei Yi’s guess regarding the nature of the talismans and pills at the same time, prompting the latter to comment.

“You lot have trouble keeping it up or something?” she asked straight to the man’s face, “So much for the name of your Clan.”

Shi Taihao’s smile twitched for a moment, but quickly returned to normal as if she hadn’t just questioned the very basis of their mercenary organisation without even attempting to hold back. “You must be solely mistaken. These pills are used to bolster our natural yang and further demonstrate its majesty-”

“Sounds like the same thing with more euphemisms.”

“Very well, Luo Lia Kun, since you would refuse such a kind offer, I will rescind my invitation to the Ceremony. Everything else must still be provided, or else we will accept her service for today,” the man wisely ignored her and returned to the initial back and forth with renewed energy.

Luo Lia Kun pondered his offer for a while, neither of them speaking for quite a while, until she finally came to a conclusion and looked back towards the rest of her group, silently mouthing some questions to them and, so far as Wei Yi was able to understand, confirmed that they would be able to afford a payment of that nature to the Gang Hong Clan without needing to compromise their own operations for any length of time.

With that being certain, the woman turned back, looked at Wei Yi with narrowed eyes for a moment, then finally responded.

“Very well, the items shall be delivered before the beginning of the duels. You, get over here.”

Seeing as Shi Taihao walked off with a satisfied smile and had nothing more to say, Wei Yi followed the instruction and walked up to the Brotherhood of Power group’s leader, who leaned over to be able to whisper to her.

“What’s your name?”

“Wei Yi.”

“You were quite frank and straightforward earlier, so tell me: was that investment worthwhile, or did I throw those planar shards away?”

“I highly doubt you will be disappointed.”

Luo Lia Kun nodded, “Confident, but not unreasonably so. Good. If you had said that you would absolutely best any opponent, I would either be highly disappointed, or greatly impressed if you managed to prove your words with action. Have you any familiarity with either of our groups, these duels, or even the district as a whole?”

“I’m new here, but I have some knowledge of the first and third matter.”

“Then I’ll be more comfortable with assigning your foes. In a little while, the recruitment phase will end, then you and I will go to a private room and you can show me how you fight. The possibility of the Gang Hong Clan spying on us is slim, but it does exist.”

“Got it,” Wei Yi took a step back and stepped around her, joining the large group of the Brotherhood of Power and taking advantage of the pause to take a closer look around.

As expected of someone with her name, Luo Lia Kun had most of the standard features of her family, including the green eyes and the chestnut brown hair. She was tall, reasonably fit, with long hair that had the bangs trimmed in order to minimise the chances of them obstructing her view during battle. Her primary combat ability clearly lay in talismans and talisman-like attacks, for she had a large collecting of ready talismans within many of her pockets, in two pouches near her hips and in a few more areas, with some being more hidden than others. In addition, the vague aura of planar construct marks was present within her legs – roughly near the knees – her hands – near the wrist – and inside her chest, where a single one of these marks lay near the heart, almost entwining with it.

Most of her skin lacked obvious blemishes or flaws, as one might expect from someone in the Marked Core realm, except for a large horizontal scar on her forehead that was just barely obstructed by her hair, presumably also being the reason why she hadn’t cut it shorter to begin with.

The people that represented the Brotherhood of Power in this set of duels had a variety of appearances, combat styles and cultivation, although it was fortunate that there was a roughly even split between the third and fourth realms on either side, meaning that her presence didn’t ruin the balance in a way that might have been disruptive to the team or the duels themselves.

On the other side, Shi Taihao appeared to correspond to most standards of male attractiveness that she was aware of, as inexperienced as she was in assessing such a thing, with a body that had clearly been developed through a larger than average quantity of pure physical exercise for a cultivator, a sharp, perhaps chiselled jaw, short dark hair and confident eyes, also matching the typical description of someone of his family quite well.

‘Come to think of it, I wonder where Shi Luo Feng’s Magnanimous Leech had originated from. She and this man have similarly impressive features, so could there be more to it than I had thought?’

Such a thought was idle, unfounded, and likely entirely incorrect, but it was something to keep in mind. Apart from the abilities and gifts of the otherworldly demons, nothing appeared in the world without an origin and reason, as vague, uncertain or obscure that reason might be. So, if the Magnanimous Leech wasn’t something that was limited to the prison realm, where there appeared to be no more copies of it – fortunately enough – it would necessitate a great deal of attention from her due to the raw ability of that technique.

To be able to actively steal everything good from a person and absorb it for oneself was unimaginably powerful, especially if it was silent, invisible, and if the person using it was surrounded by talented individuals, as they would be able to grow quickly without any obvious impact on their companions.

She could sense no such aura from this Shi Taihao, so even if there was a connection, he might not have been involved.

The group behind him was made up entirely of men and highly masculine women with a great quantity of yang within their bodies, all of them possessing either a form of a yang physique or some technique that was able to tap into their yang despite their inability to use it fully as someone cultivating physique energy might be able to.

Curiously enough, the most feminine amongst them was actually the man that had reported the yang within her, who lacked the same muscular build that the others had and dressed in a way that could, had he made a few slight changes to his appearance, almost make him look like a woman, much like the possibility that they had been debating regarding her. Perhaps that is why they thought to ask him regarding the possibility of her being a man, although she didn’t care to consider this further.

Instead, she just sat around and waited for the recruitment period to end, seeing only two more people arrive and attempt to affect the two stones with their aura, with one person failing to affect the second stone while the other succeeded and joined the Gang Hong Clan.

He was not as muscular or as filled with yang as the others, but he did have a curious outfit with two banner-like lengths of cloth on each shoulder, all four of which were marked with several symbols of unknown meaning. However, she was able to tell that they also followed the nature of talismans and would have some effect in combat that she would need to watch out for if she ended up facing him.

After a little more time passed, the two groups separated into separate rooms below their current one, with most of who she assumed to be the regular members of the Brotherhood of Power standing off to the side to partake in regular practise while some of the individuals recruited today being assisted by the rest to help them get used to the team dynamics and whatever opponents they may have been selected to fight.

Luo Lia Kun also assisted them for a moment before she looked over to Wei Yi and gestured for her to follow.

They entered a small, isolated chamber, which was sealed from typical spiritual perception and other common forms of spying and observation through the activation of a talisman on the wall, and then Luo Lia Kun turned to stare at her for a few lengthy moments.

“You’ve done remarkably well for someone in your realm, you know that? As such, Wei Yi, I truly hope that you aren’t going to be someone thinking that you’re better than you really are.”

“That is not the case. I am able to confidently fight anyone within my realm, and I have no issue with proving that to you or anybody else within your Brotherhood of Power whenever it is needed,” she stated, earning a curious look from the other woman.

“My Brotherhood… Oh, you must’ve made a slight mistake. I am only the vice-leader of the Brotherhood of Power, although the piece of shit from the other side is the Gang Hong Clan’s actual leader. You might meet the leader of the Brotherhood of Power eventually, although she doesn’t tend to come out of her seclusion very often,” Luo Lia Kun said, pausing for a moment before she continued, “Now, here and in the arena itself, you can injure anyone as much as you want, but so long as you don’t kill them, they can be healed very quickly. Is your combat style one that inflicts a lot of harm on others?”

“I can easily tear out someone’s heart with these claws.”

“That’s a yes, then. As the vice-leader, I give you permission to tear out the heart of anyone that you fight with, and I will cover for you. Avoid killing the weaker ones if you fight more than a few.”

“Understood.”

“Simple to talk to. I like that. Now, we’re going to fight. Don’t kill me, though, even if there’s ever a moment where you think you can. Somehow, it feels like this is something that needs to be explained to you.”

“I’d not kill you. You’re cute and on my side,” Wei Yi shrugged.

“Uh-huh. As fine a reason as any… I guess…” Luo Lia Kun said, “Let’s begin with pure physical force, and I’ll judge what you’re good at.”