V4C88: True Automaton

When Lan Mei Xing awoke, she realised that she had turned over to the side and wrapped her arms around Wei Yi’s chest, with her head resting beside one breast while one of her hands shamelessly rested on the other.

“Good morning. I see your body had ideas other than simply resting,” the Ascendant commented, her head still resting on her hands as she had kept staring at the ceiling and observing the planar energy from night to dawn, “I’d not be opposed to letting you take a closer look, but this is not the right time at all.”

“My apologies… Are you attracted to women, then?”

“I am. Judging by the familiarity with which your sleeping body was doing its best to grope me, I suspect that this applies to you as well, or, at the very least, had applied to you. I’ve viewed the memories of men before, but I do not quite know how much the body impacts upon the mind, or the soul, in this instance. Has your change and reincarnation given you different interests, or is the influence of the body rather minimal?”

“Well-”

“To be fair, I shouldn’t say that. A female body does not guarantee a certain sexual preference, with me and the oddly large number of women in my Ascendant’s Arbiters being perfect proof of that, so I should instead say… You know what I mean, so feel free to answer at any time.”

“… Well, with everything I’ve done so far, I’ve not had much of a chance to experiment – not to mention that I’m only… huh, I’ve lost track of my age. What year is it?”

“The last three digits are 523.”

“Then… Nineteen!”

“You are not. You looked like a young girl the last time that we had met, so there is no way that you could have possibly grown that much in so little time.”

“The people of the Lan family are late bloomers, Wei Yi. We tend to mature late, but mature incredibly quickly, leading to those kinds of transformations. Look, I have large boobs now!” the woman untangled herself from their sleeping arrangement and propped up her breasts as to show them off, “I thought that you might grow some too, but I guess not…”

“A number of women with flat chests may be very keen to beat you up for that, just saying.”

“Right, I hadn’t considered that. I hadn’t spent much time around people back in my original life, and I may have done the same if I kept searching for Kong Shi Meng…”

“Indeed. By the way, would you like a proper set of underwear? Even with physique cultivation methods, it would still be better to prop them up with something if you don’t want to deal with the inevitable sagging,” Wei Yi said, although she had already retrieved some appropriate items in accordance with the blue-haired woman’s body sizes.

“You seem like the expert here, so I’ll trust you!” Lan Mei Xing exclaimed after a brief moment, her voice clearly intending to recapture the previous cheeriness that she had possessed, “I hadn’t spent too much time or effort on figuring out things like clothing, so if I am doing something entirely wrong and am in danger of ruining something about myself that I can’t even imagine, then please point it out to me right away!”

“Will do, although, so far, you’re doing well enough. Here’s the underwear, by the way,” she openly removed it out of the air and gave the bra and panties to her, “Most of this is simple enough to put on, but I can help if necessary.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to manage.”

“Women are complicated.”

“Now, you get to be complicated too. Considering that you’ve slept with women in your past life, have you only ever done so as a one-time thing, without ever bothering to get to know the people you were with?”

“I never really had time for it. Kong Shi Meng may have done a lot, but he and I had only lived for so long. We didn’t have the time for that, while he seemed a little averse to it, in fact. I suspect that he was not confident in his own status, likely believing that behind all of the power and otherworldly knowledge, he was still whoever he had been in his original life, in whatever strange world he had come from,” Lan Mei Xing replied, putting on a new shirt over the top of her brand new, Fu Zan-brand underwear.

Since she had gotten half of her wardrobe replaced with something of far greater quality than rags and scraps of cloth, it only seemed natural to exchange the rest of her outfit for something reasonable. As to not push too much complexity onto her at once – Lan Mei Xing struggled with the concept of a strap, tying something behind her back, and even the notion that she should wear more than one layer of clothing, so anything excessive wouldn’t bring her much benefit – she was provided with a fresh white shirt and grey pants. They did not work together too well, but anything was better than what might as well have been some random pieces of fabric placed atop her skin.

Even with such a subtle change, she still looked far more presentable, which was fortunate considering the guests that were coming towards the building.

“I see his mother was not the only one to know. That being said, you may want to stop talking about that for now,” Wei Yi explained, looking over to the door, “The person we’re about to meet should be sent by the local leader, but even if they are fully ready to cooperate with us, you may not want them to know your or Kong Shi Meng’s true identity.”

At this point, the more limited spiritual perception of the blue-haired woman was also sufficient to observe the approaching figure, so she nodded and made herself look as presentable as she could.

Given that Wei Yi had helped her by fixing up her hair and by specifically selecting clothing that perfectly suited her figure, thus minimizing the chances of her possibly messing anything up, this was accomplished rather easily, and just in time for the figure to ascend to their floor and head to their door. They then paused before it, likely considering the time as to conclude whether it was suitable to knock and enter or not, but eventually decided to do so.

To spare them the trouble, just as their hand was about to touch the door, she dispelled the barrier.

“Come in.”

After a moment, the door was opened, and an average looking man entered the room, looking at the two of them for a moment. He appeared to recognise Wei Yi after that moment, and thus directed his words at her.

“You have been invited to visit an area of the district. Are you available at this moment, Ascendant?” he said, bowing slightly.

“I am. Is it somewhere that I could find directly, or must I follow your lead in order to locate it?” she asked, as the answer would give an indication of the readiness of the Lan District’s leadership to allow her to make use of their spatial stabilisation point. Of course, if they thought that she wouldn’t be able to locate the point on her own, that would be a slightly different matter, but it would still indicate a certain view of her and her abilities.

“There is someone that wishes to speak to you. It would be best to follow me.”

“Very well then, lead the way.”

The man nodded, turned around, and began walking slowly, allowing the two of them to follow him with ease.

They left the building and proceeded through the streets, with them not drawing much more attention than they had the previous day. Some naturally looked towards them due to the oddity of the three, as one was clothed in simplistic attire, the second wore a refined black robe, and the third was presenting the most blatantly regal clothing, gold and silver trimmings making his clothing look significantly more valuable and pristine than the rest of their outfits. It wasn’t unusual for people with different amounts of money to walk together, of course, but the very obvious differences between the three of them did inspire curious and imaginative minds.

So as to not overwhelm herself with their nonsensical ideas, Wei Yi only glanced at a few of their thoughts, and then promptly stopped looking at any more of them. The journey, from what she was able to detect in the Lan District, was not going to be long, and there were plenty of other distractions.

“By the way, what exactly is it that you’re going over to see?”

“Ideally, it will be a spatial stabilisation point,” she answered the blue-haired woman, having put up a thin barrier around themselves as to block her voice from getting too far out, “As you might know, Kong Shi Meng and the few generations after him had set up a number of them throughout the major districts, and, as it turns out, they connect into a Yi City Web that allows for greater freedom in transportation and the like. I’d like to connect it to the nodes I already have, if possible.”

“Right. Are those people going to let you use their spatial stabilisation point, or is there still going to be some negotiation happening?”

“The Jiang District let me take theirs, so the Lan District should follow up soon after. There may be some delays, but, ultimately, the sooner their spatial stabilisation point is linked to the rest of them, the sooner we will be able to obtain more power against the Great Families that are still sitting around somewhere in the dark, waiting to pounce on us…”

“I think I understand… Wait a minute, he called you the Ascendant, right? You are also fighting against those old fossils that were born from the previous leaders of the clans, right? I think I’ve heard about you before!”

“You probably have. The War of Ascendancy is easily the biggest one in quite a few generations.”

“Yeah, it is, but I didn’t think that you were the one to be leading all of that! Aren’t you eighteen or nineteen, like I am? If this is your second life, then that might make sense, but still…”

“I am not nineteen, nor is this my second life. I simply got locked in a spatial realm for twenty years, and came back with a little more mental maturity and certainty regarding what has to be done in order to rebuild, strengthen, and free Yi City from the Great Families, as well as the many other treats that Yi City might face. The Primordial Deities, the Hunger of the Beyond, whatever is responsible for all of the otherworldly demons pouring in constantly…”

“We will soon arrive at the destination,” the man announced, not having noticed their conversation, “It will be best if you proceed without me, as I have other matters to attend to. Another figure of importance is ready to greet you.”

With that, he stopped before a large but empty warehouse, waving toward it. There were a few crates and boxes inside, but the newest had been placed there several hundred years ago, and the contents were unlikely to be of interest to anyone, especially due to the various signs and labels on them being dedicated to people that didn’t exist. Since the warehouse stood right over the spatial stabilisation point, and the Lan District’s leadership clearly knew of this, the structure was likely put into place in order to cover up the location without preventing them from making use of it if they ever got their hands on a spatial realm.

If she hadn’t been able to detect the spatial stabilisation points and hadn’t noticed the curious nature and placement of the warehouse, then she would have still been aware that she would likely get to speak with a leader of the district due to the presence of someone at the peak of the sixth realm inside of the building.

“Very well, we can proceed on our own. Thank you for your guidance so far,” the Ascendant said.

The man nodded and walked away, not even bothering to bring up his name from the start to the end of his guidance. All the way to the warehouse, he had been quiet and content to let them think whatever they wanted, so he was either informed only about the bare minimum regarding the upcoming meeting, or he was not expecting to come into contact with them again. Whether this was a good sign or not would be seen later, but it was not too concerning.

Together, they entered the warehouse and approached the centre, walking past a number of supporting pillars and low walls that were scattered around and not currently in use – although that only applied to the latter. If the warehouse was to lose its support pillars, it would certainly collapse.

On their way, they crossed the borders of several arrays, all of which were intended to obscure random intrusion and prevent the observation of that which sits in the middle of the warehouse. Each individual array was mostly insignificant, but when put together and overlapped, their effects grew significantly. At the centre, if someone attempted to enter without proper preparation or permission, they would likely suffer a great deal of mental harm and potentially end up with permanent mental damage.

They were permitted to enter, so the most that either one had to endure was less than one percent of the total effectiveness of the arrays. Wei Yi didn’t feel a thing, likely benefitting from the combination of the Assured Soul and her high killing will cultivation, whereas Lan Mei Xing looked to be shrugging it off with only a slight hint of effort appearing once they reached the primary focus of the arrays.

Finally, after crossing a certain threshold, they were able to meet with the person within.

He was clearly a member of the Jiang family, as one could tell from his blond hair and blue eyes, although the former was darker than usual whereas the blue of his eyes contained a hint of grey. As befitting the leader of a district, even if it was one that was subservient to the Jiang District for the moment, he was wearing a set of traditional robes that were based on the Patriarch’s clothes in the Jiang District, except that they lacked a number of typical ornaments and golden threads that were typically woven into the robes. Other than that, the wood-type energy surging within his body at the ninth stage of Linked Channels was about what both of them expected.

“Greetings, Ascendant. My name is Jiang Qiu Hu, and I am the custodian of the Lan District while the Lan family is… oh, I see you’ve brought a guest from that family to our meeting. I am not familiar with you, I’m afraid,” the man interrupted what must have been a prepared speech, “Your name?”

“Lan Mei Xing. I’m here just incidentally, so no need to pay attention to me. Wei Yi’s the one that knows what she’s doing.”

“I see, I’ll not distract our attention then,” Jiang Qiu Hu said, “I have been informed by the Jiang District that you wish to assume control of the spatial stabilisation point at the Lan District. This is, obviously, permissible for allies of the Jiang District, but, as a result of certain circumstances that we are told you may be aware of – the occasional skirmishes near the district being one of many – there are certain things that need to be discussed first.”

“To put it a little more simply, you want to negotiate over something so that you can feel that activating the spatial stabilisation node is in your best interests. Am I right?” the Ascendant asked, not that she needed his confirmation.

“Of course. The Jiang Patriarch must have explained some of our general troubles to you, so I wouldn’t need to clarify it too much, but-”

At the edge of Wei Yi’s spiritual perception, at the border of the Yi City Web connection between the Chao District and the Ping District, she suddenly saw a great tide of strange energy approaching, and doing so in enormous numbers. Strange figures made it into her vision, albeit in a limited state due to their distance from the web and the limited degree of light entering her gaze, but she was able to tell that there was a large quantity of orange and black colours on the wave. Whether that was part of some natural phenomenon, a unique type of armour, or even the energy colours of cultivators, it was undeniably approaching from the Ju District.

“Too bad, then. We cannot have negotiations now.”

“What? What do you-”

“Shut it! There is an enormous tide approaching my current territory, and whatever conditions you have, I highly doubt that they cannot be determined after the gateway is open!” Wei Yi exclaimed in a single breath, taking a step towards the spatial stabilisation point, “I can guarantee that it will not cause a noticeable phenomenon, and I can close it back down the moment that I pass through, but this is urgent!”

She did not intend to flood her voice with her killing will, but even without the unintentional transformation of her arm into the killing will state her every word was still infused with her powerful will. It struck the custodian directly, and he couldn’t stop himself form taking a few steps back.

As he was unable to present any further arguments within a few moments, caused almost certainly by the shock caused by her killing will more so than the lack of such arguments, she immediately rushed forward and stood above the spatial stabilisation point, reaching out with one hand and taking just a moment to focus her energy before shooting it into the point on the ground. Previously, this procedure would take far longer in order to allow her to build up her energy, but now that she had a comprehension of the Planar Dao at the Full Success Stage, it became a little quicker than the previous time.

All that was needed was a blast of cosmic light impacting the centre of the stabilisation point, causing the entire structure allowing it to function to ignite and open a silver and crimson opening.

The speed with which it occurred barely gave any time for people on either side to react before the Ascendant grabbed Lan Mei Xing’s wrist and brought her along as she leapt into the gateway. As she did so, she naturally observed some of the connections sought out by the spatial stabilisation node, but she noted that down for later contemplation and comprehension alongside the many other things she had noted in the district. Before any of that could be thought about in any detail, she would first need to know that the Chao and Ping Districts weren’t in danger.

Once they were in the spatial realm, it took the blue-haired woman only a little while to recognise it, causing her to call out, “The Kong Prison Realm? The place Shi Meng made? Wait, is this where Yi Shi Ming is?”

“Yes, yes, and yes, but this is not the time,” Wei Yi said, turning slightly before raising her voice, “Everyone in the fifth realm and above, come with me! There is a wave approaching the Chao and Ping Districts, and we must investigate immediately if we are not to be consumed by it! If you are far away from the centre, then ask Yi Shi Ming to move you here!”

Quickly, numerous figures appeared out of the air, having been moved through the spatial realm via the powers of the spatial spirit. This included those who were in Paragon, as it was closest and most connected to the Kong Prison Realm, so Great Dark and Great Light were both able to be brought along despite being on the walls and in the mines respectively. Alongside them were the Patriarchs of the Chao, Ping, Bai and Luo Districts, with the Jiang Patriarch still hiding their relationship and thus not being brought over just yet. Finally, the stronger members of the Arbiters showed up alongside the guardians of the districts that still retain them.

Without any further explanation, for her spiritual perception only had so much power, she called upon the Yi City Web to open up a gateway to an area one kilometre away from the walls of the Ping District, roughly in the middle of the area between the Chao, Ping and Ju Districts.

They all poured in and carefully looked out into the distance, quickly finding that exact orange and black wave appearing in their vision.

“What is… Those don’t look humanoid, and the planar energy around them doesn’t seem to be the result of any cultivation technique I can imagine, so…” Wei Yi muttered, turning around again and pulling a number of figures out of the prison realm, “Alright, otherworldly demons, you’re up. Do those things look like anything to you, or are they just as incomprehensible in your eyes as they are in mine? Let me just share what I can see, and…”

The moment that the otherworldly demons received her memory, their eyes widened.

“Is that a robot army?” Fu Zan questioned.

“Those could be mechs, or enormous walkers,” Sarah offered, “Good design, too.”

“Do you think they sell toys of these things? I’d love to have that big one on my shelf, to the left of the knife I had used to repeatedly open up my wounds…” Min Shi’s chipper words quickly mellowed out by the end.

“So, if I understand correctly, this is something that you lot have a concept of, at the very least? This is not a new sight?”

“Well, they didn’t look like that when I last watched anime, but this does make more sense,” Miyu answered, “I’m not sure most Antanorden mech designs made much sense.”

In any other situation, it would have been an excellent opportunity to marvel at the fact that the Ju District appeared to have been employing otherworldly demons just as readily as the Dimensional Domain, but now, due to the nature of the encroaching force and their sheer quantity, all focus had to be on their exact natures.

At the front of the tidal wave of orange and black, and seeming to be present in largest numbers, was some kind of automaton with thin limbs and body, standing at around two metres tall. Their arms ended in three-fingered hands, but she could see a faint glow emanating from behind them and suspected that the fingers could be moved away to allow for whatever was behind them to be used. Their heads looked to be constantly turning left and right to gaze upon the world with one large eye in the middle of their heads, and what look to be two more at the sides, allowing them to observe everything around them with minimal rotation of the head.

In slightly smaller quantities, an entity that was similar was also present. Their height was half a metre larger, and instead of two arms they had four, with two lacking any trace of hands or fingers, only showing the bright orange glow that hid behind the hands on their other two arms.

The next most common automaton was three metres in height, had four legs supporting a torso placed roughly in the middle of the extended lower section. On the upper body, one hand was mounted with a larger weapon like those that the other entities all had, while the other had a large cylinder with a number of circular holes inside of it, which was connected to a thick ribbon which went into the torso of the robot, as the otherworldly demons had called it. The head had three eyes all facing forward.

If all of these could be described as humanoid, the next most common entity could not be. In place of legs, it had a pair of treads mounted onto the sides of the primary body, then atop that, an enormous cylinder akin to the glowing arms of the other robots was placed onto a small segment that looked separate from the rest of the body, suggesting that it could be rotated in order to attack any enemy.

After that, an automaton with a similar lower segment and size was also present, but in place of the singular cannon – she got the word from one of the otherworldly demons, who was imagining that the glowing regions within the arms of the first robots were meant to be plasma cannons, whatever that was supposed to mean – there was something that Fu Zan instantly recognised as an artillery battery, so she was forced to quickly confirm exactly what that meant, whether he was right or not. Apparently, the numerous holes were likely to be able to figure out individual projectiles, whether they were the plasma that the otherworldly demons thought of or a self-propelling physical projectile they called a rocket. Either way, this particular entity had the potential to be incredibly dangerous.

Then, the next automaton looked much like a spider, with the treads and small numbers of legs of the previous ones being replaced with eight pointed ones. Atop it was a single weapon that began at the back and stretched out all the way to the front, looking to be a pair of rails surrounding a smaller tube which was connected to some kind of box. With her understanding of the weaponry that even seemed to be advanced in the eyes of the otherworldly demons, she was hardly able to identify this, but as if to answer her many questions, one of these robots suddenly released a bright glare of orange as it stopped and aimed the top-mounted weapon at them.

“Well, demons, you get back into the prison realm,” Wei Yi opened up a gateway behind them and moved it forward, pushing them into the spatial realm and then transformed it into a purely visual window, “Everyone else, support me with my barrier.”

She reached out her hand and created a bright barrier to further draw the eye of that robot, quickly receiving the assistance of all of the Patriarchs and the lone Matriarch who directed all of their energy towards the centre of the barrier, resulting in an incredibly dense layer of cosmic light forming behind them, further amplified by the Planar Dao’s Full Success. Against someone in the sixth or even seventh stage, this could hold out for an hour or so, depending on how much of their energy the enemy used.

Only a few seconds after stopping, the two rails atop the robot lit up with a slight orange slight that was only the precursor for a great blast of orange, from which a streak of light burst out. It travelled at an incredible speed, to the point that the sound from the explosion only reached them a moment before the projectile did. Even then, it was a brief sound that she had no reference for. It sounded nothing like anything that she had heard in this world before, and the attack was certainly deserving of that label as well.

It struck the barrier with enough force to destroy every dune within the nearest hundred metres, flattening them with the sheer power of the collision, and yet the small projectile kept going. With each moment, more and more cracks formed in the barrier, and after a breath, the incredibly dense sheet of light burst, the projectile shooting past and striking Wei Yi’s body.

Before she could take a single action, her left arm was separated from the body all the way up to the shoulder, a vast torrent of blood covering the ground beside her.

“Ow… Fuck. That hurts,” she said, prompting her regenerative abilities to quickly reconstruct that arm.

“Are you alright?” Miyu called out from the Kong Prison Realm, her voice being muffled slightly by the barrier between reality and the spatial realm, not that it stopped her from shouting loud enough to hurt the ears of those standing next to her.

“Fine. I’ve endured worse before… I think. Hard to compare injuries. That being said, the arm is mostly back already,” Wei Yi said, showing off the fresh arm, “They need to work on their aim if they want to kill me in one shot… or so I’d say if there were not at least two more larger and more dangerous entities charging upon us! What the fuck even is this? I would have guessed that they would have been able to make guns or something of the sort, given how long they’ve been sticking to their ideal of not using planar energy, but this is completely over the top! Ah… So as to not have our districts obliterated, I suggest that we immediately set up defences. I’ll begin, you join in, and we’ll hopefully survive…”