V4C47: Contemplation and Hesitation

That wave of dots and sand moved at an insane pace, crossing distances that would usually take hours within several minutes, and so they soon changed from mere insignificant points in the distance to legible entities.

Only a little longer after that, the Chao Patriarch was able to make out just what it was that had led the charge towards the district, and who stood at the front.

As was already obvious from such a distance, this was a wave of an enormous number of people, and all of them were surrounded by an energy that almost resembled chains that held onto them and forcefully launched them forward, keeping them moving at a ludicrous speed. Beneath their feet was a dense combination of rapid wind, thunderous crackling and more that the Patriarch couldn’t properly distinguish, all of it further accelerating their movement. It also seemed that all of that energy was empowered by the single figure at the front, meaning that all of that energy and reach belonged to a single person of great power.

Crimson hair, crimson robes, a dark and light arm, and an immense aura was all that the Chao Patriarch could see from that distance, and it would be quite a while until his spiritual perception would be able to reach this approaching force, but he already had a certain impression of the approaching forces. They surely had to be in the sixth realm at the least, considering the range of the figure’s energy and the quantity that there was, and this was almost certainly the leader of those Ascendants.

Considering what she had been able to achieve against the Greats, the identity of whom he had been able to connect with the most powerful figures that he had noticed around the district every now and then, she must have been someone impressive, far more so than the two on the ground, although they were also most certainly capable in their own right.

“Still, a sixth realm Ascendant isn’t going to be particularly able to oppose me no matter what,” the Chao Patriarch commented, frowning when he saw a look from the twins of Great Earth.

“Our Ascendant is not in the sixth realm, Chao Patriarch. You might have heard of her when she passed through the Ping District and survived the attack of a sixth realm Ping family member while being at the third realm,” Great Dark managed a brief period of clear speech, slowing down a moment after that, “Since then, she has gotten much stronger… It may be that she will reach the fifth realm not too long from now.”

He looked down at Great Dark, but he couldn’t connect what he saw to what he was being told. There was simply no logic to a figure that wasn’t in the sixth realm being able to stretch their energy out far enough to include hundreds of people within some kind of movement technique.

It had to be remembered that there were distinct limits to every single realm. The first couldn’t externalise stable energy, while most couldn’t externalise it at all until the very peak of the ninth stage, at which point they could let it flow into their skin before dissipating into an unbound state. The second couldn’t condense energy into a liquid state on the outside of the body and couldn’t fully control their energy past a metre or two. Once one got to the third, they could liquefy their gaseous external energy, and had an anchor to place down to boost their planar energy.

All of that was nearly immutable, as was the fact that each realm had a limit to how far their energy would be able to reach. The first had no ability to release it past their body, the second realm couldn’t go past three, the third was limited to around nine, and so on. If the Ascendant was only at the fourth realm, then there should have been no possibility for her to reach out that far.

Even at the fifth realm, something like this was just too unrealistic, so he had naturally presumed it to be the sixth realm.

“I shall wait and see. Chao Zhi, take care of Chao Dongtai. I will see if these people are worthy of our attention, or if this is some irritating farce that we must end as quickly as possible before going out to take down whatever’s in the north,” the Chao Patriarch said, leaping down from the wall and landing on the ground without a single particle of sand being knocked aside as a result, as if he had no weight at all.

He remained within the district’s defensive inscriptions, but headed to their edge in the direction from which the people of the Bai District approached, their figures partly covered in energy acting as a replacement for the curtain of their district.

With how quickly they were travelling, he wouldn’t need to wait long.

“I see the Chao Patriarch up ahead. You aren’t on bad terms with him, are you?” Wei Yi asked the patriarch by her side, smiling when she saw him shake his head, “Good, that means that we’ll be able to approach him with you on our side, giving him less of a reason to go against us. We’re also arriving far earlier than planned, so whatever is happening there will not have devolved into anything dangerous just yet.”

With the aid of all of the naturals laws and the techniques that she had in her possession, allowing all of the fighters from a district that were in the fourth realm and above to travel at an immense speed alongside her was not a particularly challenging task, not even when she was rather distracted.

The cause of that distraction was exactly that conversation that she had with Yi Shi Ming when she had set out from the Bai District an hour earlier.

‘… What? What do you mean they don’t have four ancestors? There are clearly four there. Each one has a distinct story, set of abilities, a message for the younger generation, all that necessary crap. I fought against them in some illusory space, or whatever that was,’ Wei Yi had relayed that to the spatial spirit, manifesting parts of her memories within the Kong Prison Realm to further display her evidence, ‘Were these four nor present in the past?’

“I do not recall seeing a single figure like any of those four, nor do I have any clue what the fifth figure portrayed on the side of their Ancestral Hall is. I had seen it in its completion, and while the style was similar, it had portrayed the actions of my son more so than any other figure,” Yi Shi Ming had said, having examined those images carefully.

‘With the contents of that realm, the rewards it gave – partially from the Bai treasury, admittedly – I cannot presume this to be some action of the Greats, so who or what would be motivated to do this?’

The spatial spirit hardly had an answer for something complex like that. She had spent too long within the Kong Prison Realm, sleeping and occasionally losing memories within the two-coloured landscape of the realm as it was then, so she would not have any recollection of anything that happened after the Greats had begun to achieve power. As far as she was aware, nothing of the sort had appeared upon the Bai Ancestral Hall during her human lifetime, so that was all that she could provide to the Ascendant in terms of information.

For that reason, Wei Yi had been forced to ask the Bai Patriarch about these matters.

“Do you have any record of what had happened to the Ancestral Hall since it was first constructed? I had not expected to come across the four ancestors when I had attempted to enter, so it would be great to learn more about that place,” she had said.

“We keep a clear history of the entire district for us, the Patriarchs of each generation, to browse through and remember. I will not share it with you in its entirety, Ascendant, but I can tell you that the Bai Ancestral Hall is one of the oldest structures in the district,” the Bai Patriarch said proudly, “It had suffered a few small damages over the years, but everything had been repaired nearly seamlessly. That being said, nothing in the records had mentioned that exact circumstance. You wouldn’t learn anything even if you looked through the whole thing with great care, checking every single minor character, so I have no reason to provide it to you.”

He hardly needed to give it to her even from her perspective, as her spiritual perception had naturally looked through everything she was able to find and found no records explicitly stating anything about a complete replacement of the Ancestral Hall’s exterior or anything else of the sort, so she didn’t need to cast doubt on his words. The real question was whether the records were true.

If one of the past Patriarchs had decided that something within them wasn’t to their tastes, then it wouldn’t be too difficult to destroy a portion, remake it, then forcefully age the material within by condensing a temporary spatial realm with a far quicker passage of time. It would only require a spare drop or nugget of spatial metal, and especially further back in history, it would be available to a district Patriarch. Such a method didn’t consume the spatial material, nor was it particularly expensive or challenging to temporarily create a spatial realm wherein a single item ages far more quickly.

Depending on the particular tendencies of a Patriarch, it wouldn’t even be impossible for the entirety of the records to be copied and remade, with all undesirable information being removed while all desirable matters being intensified or left as they were.

As such, written documents weren’t the most reliable, and they would be even less so if these were the documents of the Ping District. There, every single paper and scroll was likely a fake copy of a fake that was faking a fake, intended to replicate a forgery of a duplicate of a counterfeit journal initially created by some drunkard for the purpose of tricking one of his friends at the bar, so nothing there was trustworthy at all.

‘Still, for something like that to happen without a single obvious matter sticking out… Could there be greater forces at play?’ Wei Yi pondered both to Yi Shi Ming and herself.

A Patriarch may be unable to completely fool all of their descendants and herself, but if something at the eighth realm or above attempted to do that very thing, they might very well be able to accomplish it. The seventh realm could interact with space through spatial metal and significant preparation, but the near limitless power of the eighth realm could go far beyond that, allowing more complex, detailed, and powerful spatial domains to be created by cultivators. If a ninth realm was involved, then one could be nearly omnipotent in the eyes of other cultivators below the eighth realm.

For them, changing history wouldn’t be impossible, even if they couldn’t alter the past.

The problem was that the only member of the ninth realm that was widely known within the world was Kong Shi Meng, and when he vanished, it seemed that everything that was on his level vanished with him. The dragons, phoenixes, qilins, Primordial Deities, ancient beasts, and demons; nothing was left, with some having been defeated, while others just seemed to disappear into thin air.

This was not an instant process for the species that didn’t strictly oppose humanity, but the last dragons to be seen were mere corpses that had already been rotting for decades – figuratively, since dragon flesh and scales could endure for a very long time before decaying to any significant extent – and even those weren’t as powerful as the strongest dragons known to humanity. For instance, the dragon blood that Chao Jianhong, the Lady of Ashes, had consumed, came from a weak dragon of the Half-Step Linked Channels realm, while the strongest realm that dragons could reach was the peak of the eighth.

Since dragons were born in the fifth realm, the progression of only a single realm was pathetic for a dragon, and clearly displayed that they weren’t able to achieve the same heights as they could in the past after the Master of Yi City either vanished or died, and the Greats began to rise in his place.

The decrease in planar energy density certainly didn’t help, although it was now back to the level of a few thousand years ago. With more planar anchor energy being used up, more energy would spread out, and perhaps any more dragons out there might be able to reclaim their ancient fame and power, or perhaps humanity would overshadow them entirely and they would thus pass from history once and for all, disappearing alongside many others.

‘Wait, I was thinking about the matters of the strongest entities out there, wasn’t I? Got off track again…’ Wei Yi had sighed to herself, ‘If it wasn’t something in the ninth realm, then… the Hunger of the Beyond? Otherworldly demons? The azure lights? Something worse than that? Or is it simply Yi Shi Ming being old and forgetful?’

“Spatial spirits don’t age in the same manner, Wei Yi. Still, I will admit that many memories are absent. Amongst them, a phantom or false memory wouldn’t be amiss.”

‘And yet, as I’m sure you’d agree, such a specific and particular false memory sticks out rather significantly, doesn’t it? To go through the rest of the list, though, the Hunger of the Beyond shouldn’t have been able to get into the Planar Continents, nor would it have any reason to give me any kind of benefit like the token and the wealth of the Bai. The otherworldly demons have their own ideas about things, and guessing their exact natures and motives is difficult, but it still doesn’t seem right for some otherworldly demon to have modified so much for no clear reason or benefit to him or herself,’ the Ascendant continued to ponder, ‘Unfortunately, I know the equivalent of fuck all about the azure lights, and if there’s something worse than them out there, I would hardly stand a chance… Do the four figures resemble anything or anyone else that might be significant? Perhaps it’s related to some other matter?’

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen the exact methods used by those four figures in any other situation. The scythe user had a very particular set of techniques that I have not come across while accompanying Kong Shi Meng, the one wearing a glove also didn’t use any skills I know of, the one with the tentacles did resemble Primordial Corruption to an extent, but not sufficiently to let me conclude their connection,” Yi Shi Ming said, “As for the last entity… Maybe it was based on you, somehow?”

‘Yeah, there’s some similarity, but it is just too odd. The techniques are close enough, but yet far apart, and many of them aren’t ones that I’d ever used or thought of using, so it would have needed to be able to calculate possibilities even more effectively than the Truth of the Universe and the Realm of Potential combined,’ Wei Yi pointed out, ‘If that is the case, then it is either a ninth realm creation or something belonging to an otherworldly demon, but, as we’d already discussed, there’s no real reason for an otherworldly demon to change the world and then not make their story prominent, regardless of the story’s origin and purpose.’

“Even with my time besides my son, my comprehension of otherworldly demons pales in comparison to your own, so I will not attempt to guess further as to not inhibit your own imagination. Instead, I would report on the state of the Kong Prison Realm.”

‘Is there something going wrong within it?’

“On the contrary, after the resurgence of planar energy as a result of your actions, there have been a few major changes to certain fields. The fields of low and medium grade planar flora appear to have spontaneously developed several new types of herbs and plants that are of higher grades, quality, and some that I and the portions of the library you have permitted me to view have no knowledge of.”

‘Spontaneously? Even with you looking over things, the spatial realm still produced something without you noticing…’

“I believe this to be a change caused by the nature of the world itself. When the world lost a great deal of planar energy density, the herbs that had relied upon it must have withered and wilted. Now that it is returning to earlier states, those plants are able to return through the energy influencing the weaker types of herbs during their growth. Once the quantity and density of planar energy rises sufficiently, the high-grade items will likely change in a similar manner.”

‘No, I can understand that, I was just amazed that something of the sort can be overlooked. I’d have imagined fireworks going off as the superior variants of plants occur within the gardens. Is the same happening in Paragon and in the mines beneath it, or is it limited only to the Kong Prison Realm?’ Wei Yi asked.

For a moment, the spatial spirit smiled at her comment, but her expression quickly returned to normal.

“The same is occurring in the fortress, and, likely, once the quantity of planar energy rises more within the rest of the world, the same changes will occur if they haven’t already. The other forces of the world will get access to the kinds of things that you had been able to produce with your energy.”

‘That was obviously going to happen, although the fact that it occurs right in our gardens is not ideal for capitalising on it more quickly than the other forces. Fortunately, our theoretical ability to grab up the Chao and Bai Districts quickly, then potentially get to the Luo and Ping Districts as well means that we will have the advantage of numbers, since no other individual district – save for the Fu District, perhaps – will be able to accumulate that much in such a short amount of time,’ Wei Yi thought, although she quickly brought up the negative side to that, ‘The moment that they figure it out, they will be that much less keen to join in.’

“Indeed. One, two, or three districts can be managed, but the larger the number, the riskier it will be. Allowing for an extremely dominant force to rise will scare the Patriarchs, who will then have the thought of siding with the Great Families just to balance things out. In theory, taking more districts more quickly may not even be a positive option.”

‘It depends on how strong and united we appear, and really are. If it looks like the alliance of the Chao, Bai, Ping, Luo and the Ascendant will break at any moment, joining in just to be able to rob our treasuries the moment that the alliance goes south may seem like a good idea. Otherwise, it would seem better to stand aside or to join the other side, as to not allow a strong alliance to grow stronger,’ she thought, looking towards the Chao District.

At that point, they were finally getting close enough for the majority of their forces to be able to make out the walls of the district in the distance, as well as glimpse of the situation that was occurring at one of the walls.

For Wei Yi and the Bai Patriarch, the sight was even clearer, as the former could make out that one of the people on the ground was clearly staring right towards them with his hands behind his back, standing tall and proud as he waited for their arrival. Judging by the clothing of the figure, he was likely to be the Chao Patriarch, and thus his realm would be the seventh realm, making him the figure that Wei Yi needed to either converse with, or best in some fashion. Considering how the Chao family tend to be, the latter was more likely, but she did know that the Chao weren’t simply idiots.

It was for that reason that she made sure that the Bai Patriarch had no bad relations to the Chao, since that would affect the optimal approach.

Speaking of the approach, with just a single question and reply, they had made it far closer to the Chao District than they had been the moment before, and thus the time nearly came for Wei Yi to stop, which she did as soon as they were a few dozen metres from the small group outside of the walls, throwing up a large wave of sand that headed directly towards the Chao Patriarch.

He didn’t bother with it, only with scanning Wei Yi with his spiritual perception.

To his surprise, the moment that he tried to get too close to her specifically, his spiritual perception was met with a strong wall of crimson and silver, which he could push and press against, but that he couldn’t simply breach. It was sturdier than his own purified energy, giving him no choice but to withdraw due to his lack of alternate methods for utilising his spiritual perception and the spiritual will that supported it.

Wei Yi, meanwhile, suppressed a frown as she realised that when a seventh realm expert attempted to investigate her, his energy proved notably stronger than she had been expecting. The Bai Patriarch had also looked over her, but she had mostly shielded her own body only with the assistance of her other forms of energy, but she decided to stop the spiritual perception of the Chao Patriarch some distance from her, without making use of her other forms of energy. Thus, she got to see that his energy was far purer, stronger, and partly golden in appearance, whereas the spiritual energy of the typical sixth realm cultivator was far weaker.

That alone gave her a hint of the change between it and the seventh realm, ‘Spiritual perception is strengthened with each realm, so the seventh must be particularly special in that regard…’

She didn’t pursue it right now, instead walking forward to meet the Chao Patriarch half-way from her current position, keeping the sand away from her and her Bai District forces with some more of her killing will.

“Are you the Ascendant, woman?”

“I am Wei Yi, Ascendant, Conqueror, and so on. The Chao District likes straightforward matters, so I had asked my Arbiters to provide you with one. Were you dissatisfied with it?” Wei Yi asked back.

“Simple matters, you say? If that is what you were going for, then you should know that we have a particular belief about leadership. When a leader wishes something done, they must participate in it themselves. Despite that, you sent out some abomination of nature clearly infused with a demonic technique-”

“Don’t start with that. Simple matters don’t require needless accusations, or, in other words, bullshit. If you want to fight me, or to repeat the same test of strength with me, then just say so, you ancient thing,” Wei Yi did frown then, one hand reaching back for a chain but stopping short of it.

She could also put her understanding of the Dao of Law to use in this situation, but as the primary ability of the chains to restrict her foes was currently actuated through the principle of the God Burial Sea, all she’d be able to do was hinder the man before her for a single moment. Even though her cultivation had risen, it wouldn’t be enough for her to take him down in some convincing and defining showcase of her strength and would thus not be effective.

Also, a glance from Jia Rong and Great Dark, first at one of the other Chao members followed by a look towards the Chao Patriarch and her, confirmed in her mind that this was likely not the first attempt to randomly insult and accuse another person for the sake of some personal advantage, of perhaps just their entertainment.

“That’s the kind of behaviour I’d expect from the Ping District, really.”

“Then tell me, woman, are you qualified to attempt any kind of test with, no, against me? You’d be putting your faction on the line, so I don’t think that you’d want to throw it away.”

“Qualified? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Simple. What is your realm, and do you really think that any part of your body could compete with my weakest finger? If you are not as strong as the thing that you had brought out of some primordial pit of monstrosities, then I see no reason for me to care about this or about the initial bet that you had attempted to make,” the Chao Patriarch said, straightening his back further, “Judging by your spiritual energy, you-”

“Do shut your mouth, oh moronic Patriarch. Must we check your lineage to confirm whether you originate from the Ping District? No? Then stop playing at clever deductions and contemplations. You are clearly not very good at them, and I would suggest that you stop before you embarrass yourself.”

Despite the tone she had spoken with, she was anything but polite, nearly prompting the Chao Patriarch and the two that stood on the wall and in the sand to outright attack them. Before they had the chance to move, she dispelled the barrier of energy and simultaneously activated her physique and bloodline power, supplementing it with her killing will and then further amplifying her strength with her cosmic energy. Altogether, none of that left her body or even attempted to harm the Patriarch directly, but he had still felt it.

At the moment that all of that power began to flow through her body, the sand around her had been thrown apart, as if a heavy object had just fallen from the sky upon her position. A sudden and immense force surged out of her, and her very presence transformed from one that he couldn’t help but see as weak to one that blatantly radiated might.

“So, Chao Patriarch, are you going to showcase the strength of the district, or have you lost your nerve?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she acted first, slightly raising one finger of her right hand to cause her spiritual will to raise a table out of the ground, which she instantly reinforced with the Shaper’s Grasp and cooked into glass with her yang physique energy, amplifying it all with law.

Unlike the simple block that the group including Great Dark and Great Light had been able to create, this was undistinguishable from a normal table that one might find within the home of a reasonably affluent individual, and even included convenient places for them to rest their elbows while they attempted to push down one another’s hands.

Without caring about his reaction, she went up to the side of the table and waved towards it.

“If you think that I’m trying to cheat, then you can pick whichever side you want. All I care about is that you get on with it, so that your district may finally prosper without you slowing it down.”

The Chao Patriarch was grinding his teeth together in frustration, since his typical intimidating aura not only had no effect on her but was also overwhelmed entirely by the mad combination of energy within her body, and decided to occupy the spot that Wei Yi might have been at had she approached the table directly from the front rather than the side. If one of the sides was more likely to be unbalanced in some way, presumably to her favour, it would be this one.

“Fine. Any other complaints you might want to throw out before you end up losing and throwing them out then? If you don’t say it now, there are two armies here that can confirm your own frailty and inability to accept a loss – twice if I win. At that point, even if I don’t get to work beside the Chao District, I would suspect that some members of your family would be very keen to replace you.”

“Just stop and get on with it! Come on!”

“There we go. That’s what I’d been hoping for after interacting with the Hammers, so it is quite amazing how long this took,” the Ascendant muttered, taking her place and grasping the Patriarch’s hand.

He stared at her for a little while, she just shut her eyes and didn’t bother staring back. She could have done a number of things to push matters in her own favour, but Wei Yi understood her own strength well enough, as well as knowing that just as she could take advantage of the words of others, the Chao could also take offence to her supposed pursuit of simplicity before involving treachery. It, like many things, wouldn’t help her get along with the district.

Instead, she waited for him to apply any degree of force, and the moment that she felt his planar energy flow throughout his body, she gripped his hand even more tightly and directed all of her energy throughout her arm, applying all of the force she had within her body to overpower him before he had a chance to attempt the same.

Only a moment later, the sound of yet another hastily created piece of furniture breaking was heard.

Wei Yi had forced the Patriarch’s hand into the table with such force that she had broken the glass despite all of her own reinforcement to it.