V4C70: Encirclement, Part 2

Ping Zheng’s chain was caught by Chao Dongtai, whose clawed hands easily held onto the red-hot metal. Meanwhile, the Chao Patriarch appeared beside the guardian and struck his face with a simple punch, breaching the layers of defence that he had manifested around him during the battle.

The strike used only the barest amount of energy necessary, and yet it was empowered by the ethereal anchor in the district while the guardian himself was brought down to the lowest he had been in many years, meaning that the power of the strike was even greater than any attack that Ping Zheng would have been able to manifest against another foe. His skull and jaw barely remained in place, but cracks spread through the bones while his consciousness momentarily vanished as his body was unable to endure the sheer force of the punch.

As soon as his grip on his weapon was no longer supported with a conscious use of planar energy, it was torn out of his hands by one of the other guardians of the Chao District. The Patriarch, meanwhile, struck at the man’s abdomen and dispersed Ping Zheng’s cultivation, handing him over to a different guardian of his district so that he would have free reign to do as he wished.

At that moment, the ethereal anchor in the distance suddenly solidified, as had been planned, prompting the Chao Patriarch to turn to his men and exclaim, “Rush into the district!”

The ground beneath them had already been raised by the cultivators of the Chao District, and so they were able to rush onto the walls and over them without too much difficulty. Just before the enormous core solidified and crystallised around them, the army of the northern district made their way inside, and soon they were locked in with the rest of the district’s people. Unlike others in the area, however, they knew exactly what to do next, as they and the other attacking forces were fully prepared for the exact outcome that they were currently experiencing.

With one guardian defeated, they now needed to handle everything that was occurring within the district, like all of the thugs, bandits, thieves and assassin groups that were residing within it. As they worked on the north, the others would obviously handle the other parts of the district.

At the east, the wall was broken into with Ping Liu Yang as the primary siege weapon, and the many planar constructs and the soldiers that were manifesting them were the primary source of the force that pushed her through, even detonating some of their construct soldiers in order to provide enough force against the defences.

They did this just in time for the core to surround the district, with the wall effectively shutting behind them as they rearranged their legions inside of the Ping District.

Obviously, their foe wasn’t going to remain still, and the moment that she had the chance to influence her forceful flight into the district and into the pile of rubble that had been formed after the collision between her and the wall, she ensured that she would land on her feet. Her ribbon blade was still in her hand, albeit in a poor state and being kept there mostly by the planar energy linking it and her hand, as her fingers lacked the strength that they would have needed to hold onto the weapon for as long as she did.

She tried to raise her head, finding her neck struggling to hold it up. Blood flowed down her face, covering half of her vision in crimson, while the other side of her face was obscured with the black hair of the Ping family. If not for her spiritual perception, she would barely have a clue of where she was, as her nose was blocked by blood or one of the many impacts she had sustained, her ears only delivered her a constant ringing that barely brought across the situation occurring around her, and her whole body felt numb, to the point that someone could grab her neck and she might still fail to notice. For someone in the sixth realm, it felt like a massive insult.

There was little that could be done about it, however, as what little she was able to perceive in her current state made it very clear that her foes were rushing at her with their full strength, if not more than that due to the empowerment of the strange anchor that had formed in the district.

What she wasn’t able to perceive – both due to lacking practise and a general lack of attention on it – were their words, which were spoken in a relaxed manner and completely unlike the words that someone in a tense battle might share with one another. The majority of soldiers were quiet as they focused on keeping up their resonance, but the few lone warriors, including the Bai Patriarch, were more than ready to speak up whenever they wanted.

“Do you think we should spare this one?” one of the generals asked the Bai Patriarch, readying two techniques for either reply.

“What for? What do you even mean by that?” the Bai Patriarch asked back.

“The Ascendant is fond of women, from what I hear. Maybe she’d like a prisoner from the battle, rather than a disabled woman with little life left in her,” that general answered, keeping those techniques readied and aimed at Ping Liu Yang, adjusting for even the slightest motion that she made as she attempted to attain stable footing and a proper view of the surrounding troops.

One’s cultivation was the source of their lifespan, and once it was dispersed, the lifespan that one had would rapidly decrease. The longer one had lived with the benefit of their cultivation, the more quickly they would suffer and the weaker they would become in the end, eventually decaying into dust if they were a million years old and had managed to remain in a relatively youthful state due to a quick ascent through the realms of cultivation. As a result, anyone whose cultivation was scattered and whose dantian was destroyed would naturally be weakened and would decay physically, with the most unfortunate cases leading to mental harm as well.

For most people, reaching the sixth realm required a minimum of sixty years of their life in total, from the first to the sixth realm, although the far more common time was one hundred and above. As Ping Liu Yang appeared to be no older than forty when looking at her appearance, the gap between her true age and physical age would cause far more damage than if someone like Wei Yi lost their cultivation and was forced to confront their true age.

“I don’t think that the Ascendant approves of enslavement,” the Bai Patriarch said curtly.

“No need for that. She can be captured to just look pretty, or something like that,” the general tried again, “I’ve also heard that she favours women with larger breasts, so this one might be just right in her eyes.”

“General… are you attempting to obtain favour with her?” the Patriarch asked, his eyebrow rising in a displeased manner, “Fine, capture her, but as a prisoner! Don’t try anything stupid!”

“How many talismans do you fuckers have?” Ping Yin Wu cried out as she ran from another tidal wave of yellowed papers, all of which finally broke down the wall and forced her to retreat a short distance into the district to avoid their activations and, in the majority of cases, some kinds of explosions. “You’re insane!”

“Keep at it, people of the Luo District!” Luo Na instructed, glancing up at the crystallizing anchor that overlooked them all, “Rush inside and clear out the filth!”

The guardian of the Ping District had no time to consider whether that was intended to refer to her or to anyone else, as she had little choice but to swat away the weakest talismans that approached while having no choice but to flee the strongest. In direct close combat, her immense physical prowess and the mighty axe that she carried with her might have been of some use, but now both seemed to only slow her down in her attempts to evade the constant barrage. If not for the natural properties of the Planar Continents, causing all materials to recover one way or another, such a flood of talismans would have drained all of the necessary items for the rest of all eternity from the face of the continents.

That, and the talismans could be stored for many decades without decaying, especially those that were made of high-grade talisman paper. With materials measuring more than five stars, as well as the energy of a powerful cultivator infusing a high-grade ink, a talisman can last for longer than the talisman creator, especially if the creator was to be slain in battle while the talisman was preserved in a perfect environment to maintain it.

Some of the yellowed papers that were being flung at Ping Yin Wu right now were many decades old, and some of their creators were no longer present in the world of the living to witness their creations.

‘I can’t keep going like this… The district’s sealed, there is at least one major force assaulting us, and I am facing some girl in the seventh realm. The only good thing is that she hasn’t flung any techniques my way yet, although that is also the case for every other Luo warrior,’ the guardian thought to herself, steeling herself as she turned to the weakest of the guardians that accompanied the Luo Matriarch, ‘If this is where I am going to be defeated, then I must at the very least take one of their guardians with me!’

Again, she waited for a wave of talismans to fly past before she roared with all of her might and used her full strength to practically vanish from the spot, appearing beside Luo Ru Qiu and swinging down at him with everything that she had.

Her axe radiated with immense power, flames wrapping around the outside of the axe while the inside seemed to fill with a dark fluid that shimmered beneath the rays of the sun that were able to breach the core that now surrounded the Ping District. As it descended, it caused space itself to shimmer, although it could hardly penetrate the stable space of the Planar Continents, and even the minor disruptions that it did produce were rapidly corrected by heaven’s will.

With the roar that she had produced prior to her attack, her opponent was not caught off guard by the attack, meeting it with the famous flames of the Luo family. The bright blue fire that Luo Ru Qiu produced was further elevated past his current fourth stage, bringing his combat prowess all the way up to the sixth stage at the very least, but his opponent was forced down from the strength of the fifth stage to that of the second at best. In ordinary circumstances, their battle might have been a close one, requiring significant strategy and luck on the part of one to win over the other, but now, the gap between stages made itself apparent.

A single burst of flame was able to force the empowered axe to cease in the air, and the second that quickly followed engulfed Ping Yin Wu’s chest, shredding through her tough muscle and forcing her back by a dozen steps.

“Ru Qiu,” Luo Na asked, her intention obvious from the talisman in her hand.

“I can take her down alone. Fighting in this state should make it easier for me to break through in the future, so I am not going to throw away the opportunity. Thank you, Matriarch,” Luo Ru Qiu replied as he rushed at the Ping District’s guardian with all of his power, displaying the full prowess of his blue flames.

The other guardians, as well as their Matriarch, lingered there for only a moment before spreading out across the southern portion of the Ping District, seeking out the foes that they had come to deal with. There were plenty of opponents for them to face, but there would be even more in both number and strength if they did nothing and allowed them to congregate and find ways to overcome their current handicap, so even the laziest among the Luo District’s troops wasn’t keen to stand around and let the Ascendant take care of things.

All of a sudden, Ping Wu was forced to leap away from what would have likely been a powerful strike against his foes, as countless tendrils seemed to manifest beneath his feet. He had no idea where they came from, or what their purpose was, but he wouldn’t allow himself to be caught by them easily.

In place of attacking him, Long Huang’s twin pulses of crimson and metal struck the wall, finally causing it to cave in after the damage that Jia Rong had already inflicted upon it, and allowing the small number of warriors accompanying her to enter the district before the dome of the marked core could descend behind them and seal off their ability to enter. Although it might have seemed coincidental, the Arbiters knew that the plan had to take into account the actions of all of the other groups as well, meaning that it must have been carefully calculated to ensure that none of the groups would be caught outside of the district.

With the Ascendant’s Endless Calculation, this wasn’t an impossible feat, especially not with seventh realm mental energy boosting every single one of her mental processes, but what it did show quite clearly was that she had a sufficient understanding of the warriors on each side, whether they were for or against the current Ping District.

Ping Wu didn’t know that, but he was becoming more and more worried with each moment. The red-haired woman was bad enough, but the demoness had strength that was fitting for someone in his realm, and the woman with hair akin to tentacles was clearly also capable of far more than she currently did. They were only three women in lower realms than he was, and yet he was struggling more and more as each one looked to be growing stronger with each breath they took.

In the case of Jia Rong, that was almost literal. Right before the guardian’s eyes, her cultivation had risen all the way to the ninth stage of Planar Pool, and when that was combined with her unusual strength, he was almost convinced that she was actually rising to the seventh or even eighth realm right there and then. It was absurd, and yet if he knew the truth, he might be even more shocked despite the lower gap between stages and realms at the lower realms of cultivation. To simply advance from stage to stage in the middle of battle was simply unheard of.

“You are mad!” Ping Waqing cried out, tossing fist construct after fist construct with one hand while his other removed a sabre from his belt.

All of the fist planar constructs that had posed a significant threat to Wei Yi during their first battle were now almost trivial to deal with, and she had more than enough options when it came to doing so. If she wanted, she could stop them all with the power of Law, although she would need to tone down her command to something that only weakened the fists, or that destabilised them without outright stopping or destroying them to avoid internal injuries. She could also strike them all out of the air, using the raw force of her physique energy, or allow her bloodline power to wash over them and weaken them to the point of the attacks being utterly insignificant.

On the topic of bloodline power, just as her planar cultivation was effectively reaching a boiling point, so was her physique and bloodline power, causing her body to be surrounded by the radiance of all of them at once. Dawn and moonlight, the cosmic crimson of her bloodline, and the chained cosmos of her planar energy surrounded her in a strange yet cohesive layer of light, making her look ethereal.

“I’d say the same about your Ping District. So many people acting as thieves and thugs that extort money from others can’t possibly result in a healthy economy. Does anyone even make money normally in the Ping District, or is it always stolen from one person to another?” Wei Yi asked calmly, looking up as she saw a series of eleven more marks slowly being cut into the core projected from within her dantian, “How do you lot survive here with such a state of things?”

“This is none of your business! The Patriarch will end your intrusion the moment that he is able to, so cease-”

“Let him try. The Luo, Bai and Chao Districts would like to have a word with him, as would I,” the Ascendant interrupted him, “Still, since you are trying to push responsibility onto someone else, you are clearly not powerful enough to do anything, are you? Do you only have the fists, or have you stolen a few techniques from the other people of the district as well? Show them all to me, so that I can put you down once and for all, and finally begin the reconstruction of Yi City without the plague of the Ping family’s criminal deeds.”

The guardian wanted to say more, but as he saw even more energy surrounding her, with some seeming to wrap around invisible chains that flooded the space around her, he knew that if he was to ever have a chance at beating her, he would need to strike now. Her breakthrough might be unusual, but any breakthrough put the cultivator in a vulnerable position, while the outcome was always positive for the people of the Western Continent. Those who practised the techniques of the Daoist Continent would need to face tribulations, but those of the west would, at worst, reach a half-step stage, at which point the advantage that Wei Yi already possessed would only grow larger.

She already had eleven marks, and could still break through a stage, meaning that she had to have received more than one per stage, and the slow manifestations of marks above them seemed to suggest that another eleven would appear after the breakthrough. This much in the hands of a capable combatant – which Ping Waqing did consider Wei Yi to be – was more than enough to turn any tide.

With the sabre in hand, the guardian rushed forth, manifesting two dozen more planar fist constructs in order to provide himself with some further assistance that his warriors were unable to provide as their attention on the enormous anchor and the core that enveloped the district only increased with each passing moment. If Ping Waqing was to obtain knowledge that he couldn’t know from standing in the middle of the district and fighting her, he would have been aware that the more successful the combined intruding forces were, the more powerful the Law that currently pulled attention to the anchor and core would become, and the more powerful everyone in the field of the Conqueror’s Eye would be.

The best thing to do would be to act against the invaders, warding them off to weaken the power of the Conqueror’s Eye and to decrease the strength of Law, but he felt that he had no choice but to rush at her with everything he had.

He was right about one thing – Wei Yi couldn’t personally strike out with as much force as she usually might, as that would have negative effects on her breakthrough and could lead to a lot of effort being wasted on correcting the damage that some mistake in the process could cause. Something external, like the Dao of Law, however, was entirely unaffected by this limitation, and so she naturally had something that she could easily manifest against her foe.

As the Ping District’s guardian charged, a looming figure rose from behind the Ascendant, with four outstretched hands that each contained a force of their own, although they were tinted by the power of Obliteration. The Titanic Conqueror needed only a moment to stabilise, and was immediately ready to throw out chunks of ice, banners to further weaken the guardian, large masses of noxious toxin and the runes to further amplify the danger of remaining near the ground. It did so readily, instantly obscuring Wei Yi behind the onslaught of all kinds of projectiles and dangers.

Ping Waqing desperately attempted to evade, dodging to the sides each time anything neared him, but as he found out the moment that one of the toxin spheres crashed into the ground beside him, most of the attacks were dangerous even if one merely stood in their vicinity.

As he stood in the range of a banner, he felt his body slow down just enough to throw him off, causing him to stand right next to the point of impact for an enormous sphere of green poison. Just as one might expect from a great mass of fluid, it exploded in a great shower of noxious green, coating half of his body in the substance that rapidly ate through the bronze-like defensive layer that covered him. He wanted to throw it off of him in order to prevent his skin and flesh being burned off, but his momentary pause only gave him enough time to be struck by an enormous chunk of ice that threw him all the way back to the puddle of toxin.

He fell onto his back, the green melting rapidly through his robes, but what he noticed far more quickly was the bright righteous light shining from beneath him, intertwined with the blackened crimson of Obliteration. It rapidly rose and grew in power, with a secondary circle appearing within the square he currently occupied.

In just one moment, his life flashed before his eyes.

Everything from the first moment that he had in his memory to the current moment passed through his mind, including the random games that he had played with fellow children at a young age, before he had much care or knowledge of cultivation, to the first time he had won a fight via the techniques bestowed unto him by his family, and even a casual trip to a merchant that he had remembered as a result of something that he happened to oversee as a result, was brought to the forefront after years of dismissing it and pushing it to the back of his mind.

There was a lot for him to contemplate about it, but one question floated ahead of all of these thoughts – was everything he had done so far really worth it?

From everything he had concluded in the past, that question shouldn’t have needed any contemplation, but all of a sudden he found himself questioning whether some of the viler acts that he had committed had truly achieved what he had wished them to. For example, the criminal powers that he had consistently encouraged within the district in just the same way as his predecessors had done so much, and they seem to have earned the ire of the other districts. Was that the right choice?

On one hand, it had kept the Ping District a powerful force for a long time, so if the Ascendant hadn’t gathered powerful forces to strike at them, the district may have remained in power in the region for plenty of time.

It could have allowed plenty of generations to keep their power, and it would have been sufficient for the many assassin organisations to potentially hold their own against either the Arbiters or the Greats, depending on the kind of stance that they would have portrayed to the outside world. In fact, they may even be able to resort to their usual methods and turn the war between the factions into something beneficial to them, allowing them to profit from the battles of the opposing parties while also maintaining the peace, or possibly even advancing their power by essentially offering their protection to districts most affected by the battles.

For the people he cared about, including the remnants of his immediate family and some of his close friends, the power that he holds meant a far better life, not to mention the greater length of their lifespan due to the cultivation that they were able to do with less time wasted on other matters and more resources at their disposal. So far as he was concerned, that should have been the perfect outcome. His family was powerful, his immediate family and friends were in strong positions in the district, and they were able to get whatever they wanted easily enough.

However, the words of the Ascendant seemed to force themselves into that view. Indeed, the streets of the Ping District were rife with crime. For each alleyway and street, there were a dozen gangs and thieving organisations attempting to profit from travellers and residents, and businesses had to constantly pay up if they wished to remain in their place.

Perhaps that was part of the reason that so many weren’t looking upon his struggle against Wei Yi at this moment. They may simply be uninterested in any chance of his success, and would only turn around the instant that he lost in order to congratulate his foe. After everything that they had been forced to endure under the Ping family, it may only be natural for them to seek the aid of another, even if they are an unknown force from another district that had barely been able to survive the last time.

Had he been in their place, he wasn’t sure that he would act any differently.

That was the most difficult thing for his to accept, and yet it was also the most obvious one. Whatever he had ended up accomplishing, he had done so without a single care for the district and the people that lived within it. At the time, it seemed like the only path.

It was a lie, and he knew that well. There were other things he could have done, other things he could have encouraged the other guardians and the Patriarch to do, and countless actions that he could have taken to improve the Ping District to heights that even the Master of Yi City would have been impressed to witness in the golden days of Yi City. Countless opportunities had laid at his feet thanks to his status and power, and he may have been one of the few that would receive the power to make them, and yet he had thrown every single one of them away as if they were some kind of lethal toxin to him.

As if response to his understanding, a figure appeared before him, cloaked in radiance and surrounded by chains. It looked upon him, raising a gavel into the air with a neutral gaze.

“I judge you…” a voice that was both familiar and unknown entered his mind, “Unworthy!”

In an instant, reality returned to his vision, and he found himself enveloped by the righteous light of the rune beneath him. With the absolute power that it possessed within the manifestation of the core above them, it tore right through his weak and injured body, obliterating his cultivation, shredding bones, and turning him to naught.

Only a moment after his soul was extinguished, a figure burst out of the ground, their body surrounded by blackened flame that completely obscured their physical features. All that could be seen was their energy, and that energy was undeniably in the seventh realm, being at least in the second stage while radiating enough power to match someone in the third or fourth stage of Oblivion Halo. With his realm and cultivation technique, there was only one reasonable guess to be made in regard to his identity, prompting the Ascendant to smile nervously.

“Ping Patriarch. Good day.”