V4C73: Encirclement, Part 5

“Now… light!” the Chao Patriarch exclaimed, punching the air to release a great quantity of blinding energy that replicated the beacons he had seen at the east. He did not have the same techniques, but with brute force, certain things could still be replicated.

With this particular move, he focused on creating a stable source of light that could be supported by anyone of a lesser cultivation realm, meaning that his troops could take over while he hastened to the middle of the district, where the great Endless Monolith was barely visible through the darkness. There was clearly something amiss there, so his participation might be necessary to guarantee that this assault would end well.

As a Patriarch, he was naturally not fond of someone else taking over the authority that he possessed and commanding the districts as she saw fit. If times were different, and if her cause was different, he would prefer to get rid of her and do things on his own, as he saw fit, but the issue was that the self-proclaimed Ascendant, who did have some form of the Ascendant physique at the very least, might be the only person with the power to truly challenge forces like the Greats, or the other Patriarchs without being in the seventh realm herself. She could say a lot of complicated things at times, but she also spoke in the universal language of strength and power, and that couldn’t be ignored.

Once things were over… well, he might not even have the chance to take back any authority, but if that was the case, then perhaps things would be better off even without his influence and presence.

“Patriarch, we have found another gang leader, who was… in the middle of sleeping with a man as we intruded,” a soldier suddenly reported as he was gazing into the distance, prompting him to glare at the man for a moment, “Did I intrude on something, Patriarch?”

“No, nothing significant. Carry on.”

“Should we take her out, or-”

“Obviously. Do you not remember the instructions that we had given you? The bandit leaders die unless there is an exceptional reason to keep them alive. Go, and fetch some men to support the light.”

The soldier nodded and quickly rushed off to fulfil those instructions, leaving the Chao Patriarch to shake his head at the soldier’s potential intentions before looking back to the centre and hastening off towards the only beacon visible to him and his divine sense at this moment – the great anchor of the Ascendant.

At the south, the Luo Matriarch threw out another light talisman to brighten several streets, clearing a way for her troops to take care of the enemies that could be found within on their way to the centre.

Unlike the other two Patriarchs, Luo Na decided to prioritise bringing her entire force to the centre rather than going herself, for the simple reason of the primary strength of the Luo District’s forces – the ample quantity of talismans capable of doing nearly everything that one could imagine. With them in hand, even the weakest soldier was effectively in the fifth realm at the least, since there were talismans at five stars in quality within the bags of all soldiers, and the likes of the guardians were at the peak of the sixth realm or near the bottom of the seventh with the talismans in their hands.

By coming alone, thanks to her particular state, she would be far less effective in assisting Wei Yi than those who could make use of their energy freely. Quite a few of the talismans that she and the Ascendant had helped to make – with the latter kind not yet being put to use due to the power that they were supposed to have – were spread out throughout the bags of their troops, so they were the ones that truly held most of the power in her forces.

Rushing over would still be a bad idea, so that was why she had chosen the approach of a directional clearing of the southern region of the Ping District. With her forces clearing out people as they travelled to the north, they would be able to fulfil both of their missions at once, with the squads at the east and west being able to search out the rest of the places that they weren’t able to clear with the indicators left behind by their talismans. At the moment, all of the district was also covered in both shadow and the projection of the Subterranean Shell, so chances of escape were also at their lowest, meaning that it would be a bit of a waste not to protect the one keeping things this way.

“Everyone, ready the cosmic talismans in a few minutes. We might need to face a Patriarch, so you should have a number of protective talismans prepared at the least,” she reminded her forces as she quietly slapped a dozen such talismans onto herself.

With those layers of protection and plenty of offensive potential at the ready, they continued to advance and did so quickly. If there was one thing that the Luo District’ forces knew how to handle well, it was the efficient and precise practise of completing a specific task, since nearly everyone in the Luo District had tried out and succeeded in talisman creation at one point or another. Acting precisely, quickly, and correctly was necessary to create a talisman, and it was a skill that could be applied nearly everywhere.

“I’m not entirely sure how she expects us to clear all of this out without destroying too much,” Long Huang admitted as she struck down another thug that attempted to defend themselves, each word being spoken at a precise rhythm in order to not interrupt the current perfect state of her planar energy and bloodline power being synchronised in an exact beat.

While she was able to act outside of that beat, it would result in the decrease of speed at which the two energies passed through her meridians, which would in turn lower her strength and speed in combat, and would require more time in order to be built back up. In a way, she was currently experiencing the troubles that a Bai family legion would encounter with their necessity for synchronisation, except that she had no one else to follow and copy. She needed to keep her own body functioning at its best instead.

That was easier said than done, so, in order to adhere best to the heart-like beat and prevent it from damaging her, she had to follow every beat with every part of herself. The current speed of her energy pulse permitted her to act in an almost ordinary fashion, although it would need to match the speed of her thought if she truly wanted to be acting exactly as she had been prior to the cultivation of her new technique.

“The western portion of the district is the smallest… It is only half of the southern territory that the Luo are attacking… and has fewer criminal elements,” Great Dark explained.

“It doesn’t feel like that in the darkness, does it?” Mo Zhouquan noted, glancing up at the searing marks on the core surrounding them. At the moment, only twenty-eight were vibrant. “We need to find a method to lure the rest out if we want to finish this in time, but this darkness doesn’t align well with my abilities, unfortunately.”

“Hm… Wait, that thing in the distance…”

“Great Dark?”

“There is a certain chance of the district suffering a great deal of damage… It will mean that the destruction that we do cause is rather irrelevant… but do take care nonetheless. If the destruction does occur… we will need to find some form of protection.”

“That-” Long Huang began, but her mouth froze mid-sentence as a knife appeared right before her, heading right for her eye out of the darkness.

The knife was held in a gloved hand, connected to a figure in a dark cloak with a large hood that covered all but the chin, which showed traces of stubble on skin displaced by some distension of the mouth, although it hard to tell exactly what this figure’s expression was beneath that hood. All that was certain was that he was not going to stop before his knife was inside of her skull, piercing her brain and taking her life.

Great Dark, Mo Zhouquan and Jia Rong alike attempted to intervene, but the first was furthest away and distracted by the distant black sun, the second relied mostly on various tentacle and corruption-based methods that were inherently slow and were only made slower by her current drowsy state, and the third only had physical attacks at the moment, as she was unable to manifest energy in the usual manner. As such, Long Huang had a moment in which she was afraid that her life would end right there and then, cut off unceremoniously and before she could complete and perfect her grand project.

That was when an invisible force suddenly crashed down on the knife and pressed down upon it, diverting its course, a moment before it was split in half. One part of the blade flew past her in the space between her arm and body, just an inch from her armpit, while the other remained in the hand of the assailant and was also forced down, cutting into her side.

Still, that cut was shallow and insignificant in comparison to what could have happened, prompting her attention to her saviour.

The attackers also turned their attention to the one that intervened, but all that they found was a dagger made of black bone out in the darkness. It had only remained still for a single moment before rapidly moving again, slicing through the air several times without any clear purpose at first.

It was only when those slices manifested within the world, cutting apart the cloaked figures that were attempting to attack with the same ease that a knife might slice through the air. The black dagger vanished into the darkness and reappeared in another place only moments later, stabbing and slashing at more of the attackers without a hint of difficulty or exhaustion, although they had yet to see whether the dagger wielder even had a body that could get tired.

There had been traces of a hand gripping the knife, but it was as shrouded in darkness as the rest of the figure’s presumed body, it was impossible to know whether the hand was physical, covered in skin, whether there was any blood that flowed through the limb, or if it was even attached to anything. For all they and the thugs opposing them knew, the only thing that was present was that hand, gripping that dagger, swinging it at their foes with some limited degree of intellect and merely acting in accordance with whatever instructions had been given to it prior to being released into the wild.

“Well… We’ve an ally on our side!” Long Huang exclaimed as she took a leap back and willed her planar energy to rush to the small wound on her side as to cease the slow flow of blood, “Great Dark, could you give me a moment?”

“Understood!” the twin of Great Earth replied, appearing beside her and projecting a barrier with his energy in order to stop anyone else from getting near her while Long Huang’s heartbeat stabilised once more. At the same time, he threw out several of his inscription plates out in order to intensify the barrier and lash out at those that attempted to get too close while he might be distracted with other matters.

Meanwhile, the entity shrouded in darkness – since there had to be something causing the dagger to move around, even if it didn’t have a full human body – advanced at one of the larger squads of hooded and cloaked men that had similarly appeared out of the darkness in order to attack them. Although the majority of the attackers were in the fourth realm, able to use both an innate movement technique from their own understandings and insights of their primary methods as well as powerful techniques achieved through solid planar energy, they found themselves incapable of resisting the mere movement of a dagger that did not appear to be backed by energy of a particularly high realm.

As such, even though none of them cared in the slightest who they were killing, the hooded thugs found themselves attempting to comprehend who it was that they were dealing with.

“The more you fight, the more energy I will build up! You cannot defeat me!” the Ping Patriarch exclaimed, more and more shadows gathering around him as he carelessly shot them at everyone and everything in sight.

“You could be attacking me with all of the energy you’re spending, but that works too,” Wei Yi found herself muttering as she kept hearing his various exclamations and dodging the smoke serpents repeatedly being thrown at her. Her occasional attempts to blast the smoke-shrouded Patriarch with her own attacks were met with limited success, with even her most successful mark-backed attempts were only able to knock him back down into a building. “If you’re going to keep spouting random shit in this direction, can’t you say something new at the very least?”

For whatever reason, incredibly resilient enemies that she had met in her life so far were very keen to shout everything, starting from the kids she had tangled with in the Yi District, to the Kong District’s echo, to the overly proud otherworldly demons that she came across in the Kong Prison Realm and the Planar Continents alike. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more this Ping Patriarch reminded her of the demon she had slain in the Silver Side’s Sanctuary.

That person had also been summoning various spirit-like entities from the air, and he had also intended to plunge the place he occupied into a state of death and torment for his own gains.

“I have nothing else to say to you, woman! You have been given plenty of time to comprehend your own mistakes, and since you insist on forcefully interfering with my business, I shall ensure that you will not obtain peace- ah!”

A sudden enormous fist struck the shadow colossus, throwing it down into yet another nearby structure. The energy composing the fist was clearly in the seventh realm, empowered by a mark in order to amplify it beyond the passive amplification of the linked channels connecting the Oblivion Halos and give it the chance to damage the person cloaked by the shadows. Although it was at this level of strength and power, the fist clearly didn’t slay the Ping Patriarch, but the shock to his body was clearly more than sufficient to prevent him from standing up for a short while, allowing the Chao Patriarch to make it onto the scene and join the Bai Patriarch and Wei Yi.

“Greetings, Ascendant. Bai Patriarch, I greet you as well,” the Chao Patriarch said quickly, “I am not familiar with arrays. What is the current situation?”

“Chao Patriarch, I am concerned that this array may go beyond simply shrouding the district and empowering the Ping Patriarch, so I would like to stop him as quickly as possible. The best way to break it so far is with the black sun that I have created over there, so, if you could, throw as much of your energy into it as possible,” Wei Yi said.

“Black sun? By the heavens… that is a black sun? A spatial tear?”

“No. That is not a spatial tear. Just shove your planar construct fists into the fucking sphere, keep it growing until it starts growing quickly enough to become dangerous to you if you stand near to it. At that point, fuck off and let me kick that guy’s ass!” the Ascendant shouted, raising her voice for a moment as her killing will state arm was infused with a greater degree of killing intent, “Ahem… Just feed the black sun!”

Her commands were harsh, and hardly fitting for interacting with a Patriarch, but if one wanted to find some problem with her words the best place to look would be in the very commands that she had given them. If she had been some unknown individual randomly giving out instructions, then her demands for the Patriarchs to simply loose all of their planar energy into a random supposed spatial tear while their opponent was only getting more and more powerful by the moment would seem rather odd to say the least. Most wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriarchs deemed her as some kind of agent working for the Ping District and attempting to intentionally weaken the two attacking Patriarchs.

However, the fact that she was the one leading the assault, as well as the one that had the biggest personal issue with the Ping District and the Ping family, very few thought that she ever had the possibility in acting in such a manner.

As such, although the Chao Patriarch didn’t appreciate the way in which he was talked to, he did also realise that there was something odd with the current state of her left arm, as well as her condition in general, so he concluded that it would be unreasonable to say anything now, instead turning his full attention to the black sun. It still looked like a spatial tear, but if she stated that it was some kind sun that could absorb her energy – which it was clearly doing with the energy of the Bai Patriarch and the array on the ground – then that is what it was, no matter what he thought about it.

Gathering his energy at his hands, he directed all of it into the black sun, restraining a gasp as he found the black sun growing noticeably with just a little bit of his energy.

“There, see? Now… I really am being a bit of a dick right now, aren’t I?”

“A little bit.”

“It’s something I’ve done before, so I’ll tone it down for today. Just make sure you don’t decide to get distracted and either let the black sun grow more than necessary, or not grow sufficiently before the Ping Patriarch gets too many shadow serpents to throw in our direction. Get it?”

“Understood,” the Chao Patriarch said, his gaze having remained on the black sun all of this time, “I have less energy than would be ideal, but I can regenerate it quickly enough for the moment.”

He was referring to the current field generated by the combined Conqueror’s Eye territory and the effect that the projected Subterranean Shell and Endless Monolith had upon the people of the district that were acting in favour of Wei Yi. Although he wasn’t aware of this, the field was affecting even those that had only become known to the Ascendant a short time ago, like Yi Bai, allowing her lower cultivation attainment to match against significantly greater opponents due to the high grade technique she had cultivated that worked well with the White Echo designed with her on the Ascendant’s mind. In fact, the weapon and the woman suited one another surprisingly well.

In his case, the benefit of the sealed off area meant that the greater quantity of planar energy induced by the two manifestations could gather within the Ping District and be supplied to him and the other Patriarch due to their near proximity to the Endless Monolith, whereas the Ping Patriarch would be prevented from feeding upon that energy as freely, needing ten times the effort to get ten times less.

With the additional effect of the Energy Pylon and similar physique abilities being spread by the manifestation of the Endless Monolith, that rapid recovery of energy was only amplified. The likes of the Vitality Syphon were also benefitting the Patriarchs on Wei Yi’s side, although to a far lesser extent, since their vital energy was significantly greater than that of regular people, but the moment that their physical and mental exhaustion got beyond their ability to control and overcome, they would be able to replenish that with the lifeforce that was still plentiful inside of the Ascendant’s body.

That part in particular was present within her to a certain extreme. With the constant growth of new life within the Kong Prison Realm, with all of the grass, trees, animals and whatever else that people were managing to grow and rear within that spatial realm, within the physical portion of her mental domain, and the constant absorption of a portion of that growth, she was able to constantly get more and more lifeforce with which to feed herself and the world around her. It was incredibly fast and efficient, and with the constant development of the prison realm and the slow acquisition of domains in the complete Planar Continents, the amount that she was able to harvest grew with every single breath that she took.

If lifeforce alone could win battles, then she would be able to win every single fight she participated in, since her particular circumstances were likely unique in all of the world.

‘Then again, if I do that, does the heaven’s will, an entity with the Dao that we merely peek at, not do the same? Logically speaking, any entity that rules or presides over others will necessarily need to develop the land it possesses in order to benefit itself, if nothing else. Whether that entity is human, a demon, a Primordial Deity or the heavens themselves, whether they practise physique energy, bloodline power, space or the base planar energy that is the foundation for the rest of the forms of energy, they need a powerful domain in order to develop themselves,’ Wei Yi had a sudden realisation, ‘Perhaps some even possess the ability to directly transform development and prosperity into power, and therefore become stronger. It may not be the best path, but it is undeniably a path… Planar energy follows that. With stronger presences in the world, the planar energy quantity and density also increases.

‘Back when the Master of Yi City was present in the world, the ninth realm was attainable by the clever, the persistent and the wealthy, but now, that has changed to the sixth realm. It is because the world was sent into a state of decay by the Great Families, wherein the heavens were not able to be as powerful as before. Perhaps even their attainment of the Great Dao fell, although that would be even less favourably received if I suggested such a thing… Planar energy is not a lifeless force, then.’

All of a sudden, the space around her exploded with intense energy, a vibrant violet expanding to cover the entire district for a moment.

That radiance surged out and simultaneously converged upon the Ascendant, shifting in an organic yet organised manner as it was first compressed into a large sea, then an uncountable series of thin layers stacked upon one another, and finally seemed to transform into a crystalline state that aligned with the whole world and momentarily seemed to freeze it, as if it had been enveloped in amber and frozen for anyone else to see.

It collapsed the next moment, all of that violet surging into the Ascendant and, primarily, her head.

Her eyes filled with sudden understanding, and another thin and vague circle appeared within them as the structure of the world suddenly gained another facet. In addition to Law and the Absolute, the third vision state permitted her to see how planar energy existed within the world, how it interacted and flowed, how a great mass of it gathered beneath the ground in the array of the Ping District and spread out across the battlefield, amassing primarily within the centre where it shrouded the Ping Patriarch and manifested the great serpents that he used against them.

They were also elemental in nature, as was the ground, the air, the darkness, the Endless Monolith, and the Subterranean Shell. Just as the five elements made up the Dao of the Elements, the Dao of the Elements made up the Planar Dao, although she suspected that there were far more aspects to it that she had yet to comprehend.

‘In one step, the Great Stride stage of the Planar Dao was attained? Had I simply failed to understand some vital aspect to attain the other stages prior to this, or was it that this aspect, that of development and the power of civilisation, was extremely integral to the Planar Dao?’ she questioned silently.

Of course, Wei Yi couldn’t just ask the heavens themselves about this, so she instead looked back to the Ping Patriarch, who had just stood up and had not been able to observe the phenomenon of the comprehension of the Planar Dao. Even if he could, it wouldn’t do him or her much good, since there was a far superior concept at the heart of the hidden array of the Ping District, as well as at the base of Wei Yi’s abilities.

It did offer her a bonus no matter how she acquired it, so she didn’t hesitate to infuse an Obliteration beam with the five elements and fling it at rising figure of shadow.

The odd mixture of the blackened crimson that typically pervaded everything relating to the Obliteration energy and the five colours of the elements, that being red, blue, brown, silver and green, struck the Ping Patriarch’s defensive layer of smoke and, for once, visibly caused the smoke to recoil upon collision, an even circle being nudged aside as the beam passed further inwards.

However, even if it did touch the edges of the old Patriarch’s skin, the beam did not pass far enough, as the array within the ground actively glared with even greater intensity as if it was merely incited by the black sun feeding upon it. In conjunction with it, the smoke colossus gained a great degree of depth and intensity, the power hiding behind it rising to the seventh stage of the Oblivion Halo realm. Alongside it, the various smoke serpents that had been gathering around them bulged and grew, with even the smallest becoming larger than any of the people present.

“Was this array made by the Master of Yi City?” the Ascendant muttered to no one in particular, her Vision of the Planar revealing that the array was barely suffering from the growing black sun.

It was amazing in that regard, so she couldn’t help but think of the strongest figure to inhabit the Planar Continents within the last two million years. There might have been others with great attainment in arrays or other great arts that might be capable of establishing the array, but to resist such an unusual method of attack with such success – or alternatively that it might have so much power that it was still able to reveal more despite the drain upon it – the creator must have been someone incredible.

“Patriarchs, Wei Yi… what is that thing?” Luo Na’s voice reached them, prompting the three to glance back and find the Luo Matriarch approaching with a large group of Luo District warriors. Out of the guardians of the district, only Luo Ru Qiu and Luo Long Meng were present, with the other three being elsewhere in the Ping District, but they alone carried a vast quantity of talismans which they were holding onto and more than ready to throw out for any purpose and at any target. Together with the other warriors from the Luo District, they were radiating the energy of the seventh realm overall, with Luo Na seeming to only assist it.

“Which one?”

“I am not familiar with that spatial tear that looks like a black sun, but it appears to be far less significant than that monstrosity in the distance. It stands in a field full of tormented energy, and leers at us all…”

‘That must be how her particular vision is interpreting this. Interestingly enough, my three vision states are currently showing something similar, at least if I view this in such a fashion, so I can understand how she has come to the conclusion without the ability to look at this in the usual fashion,’ the Ascendant appeared beside the Luo Matriarch, “That is the Ping Patriarch enveloped in the energy of the array that we’re trying to destroy. Now that you’re here… Can you get Jia Rong for me?”

“Jia Rong… The woman from out of time? Is she capable of resolving the situation and dispersing that man’s energy?”

“She is able to interfere with planar energy as a whole, so, in theory yes,” Wei Yi confirmed, patting her on the shoulder as she sent her off while she turned to the rest of the Luo District’s forces, “Now, everyone, if you could direct all of your planar energy into the black sun, that would be great. The sooner this happens, the sooner we have a chance of wiping that fucker out.”