V5C86: The Path of Fitness

Perhaps it could be said that Primordial Deities are arrogant, for their behaviour would certainly suggest such a thing so far. They might be rather rigid in their behaviour and tendencies, for their very existence was a representation of an eternal, mostly unchanging concept. However, they weren’t simply stupid enough to let a foe do as they like in their own domain.

Primordial Nature directed its many modified entities to rush forth and besiege her in whatever manners they could, even at the cost of their own continued existences.

That was not enough to safeguard the flora, however, as the earth beneath them suddenly dried up and lost any semblance of the nutrients contained within, and soon the earth’s dry state seemed to reach an absolute point. It had to recover, and thus it reached for the nearest source of vitality and nourishment available to it. Everything it touched dried and decayed, the soil attempting to maintain the faintest semblance of equilibrium with the things that fed upon the dirt and its bounties, and with every moment this drain grew faster.

Those enormous behemoths formed of wood and plant-matter suffered first, and most obviously, their lush appearances quickly drying and yellowing. Beasts suffered far less, for they were not directly connected to the earth, but as their vitality flowed from the earth in much the same way, they weren’t entirely resistant to the sudden drying of the bramble dirt that took over their lands in the brief moments before the barrier had fallen completely.

“Ah, so this mortal thing carried poison in its defence! I understand you now, mortal thing, and I see hope in the species you are a part of!” the Primordial Deity suddenly unleashed a bout of praise, “Out of the mortal things, you must be the culmination of their adaptation to their inevitable fall! The greatest example of adaptation!”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“There are many mortal things that lived in ages past, but few had learned to use the earth to drain the endless sea of vitality that nature thrives upon. Their learnings obviously reside within you!”

It instantly took action once the words emerged from what could be considered its mouth, and the Ascendant did not sit still either. Both hastened forth and met in the rapidly drying land, numerous beasts and plants trying to move towards the Ascendant but declining so quickly that some outright shrank into naught. Thus, when they clashed, the Primordial Deity’s fist colliding with the tip of Moon Splitter, countless entities turned to dust and scattered in a great cloud of grey.

Wei Yi, despite attempting to cut into Primordial Nature, found herself flying back almost instantly, returning to the outer fringes of the drying lands until she managed to find footing and stick her blade into the ground, forcing herself to slow down.

She raised her head only to be met with the visage of Primordial Nature holding a bow and firing a great arrow befitting its own grand scale towards her.

‘Oh fuck, it’s also an archer… Fuck Yi Fenwu, in the worst way,’ the Ascendant had a vaguely related thought while she forced her body up and gripped Moon Splitter with both hands, forcing her physique energy to blaze with as much power as it could produce before the arrow came flying towards her, scattering even more entities into grey dust.

She met the arrow with her blade, not intending to sever or strike it down but only to force its immense momentum to be directed literally anywhere but at her.

The collision broke the structure of Moon Splitter – though the design of the blade nullified the long-term consequences of that – and knocked her even further back, the arrow itself flying off into the distance before landing in the distance, somewhere in the water between the primary landmass of the Western Continent and the lands to its left, connected only by the borders of the Shi District and a relatively small portion of land to the south.

Although the noise of the clash managed to shake her hearing, causing an unpleasant ringing to overwhelm most other sources of sound, she forced herself to rise once more and raised her sword at the same time as she checked what Primordial Nature was getting up to. Luckily for her, she was ready with Moon Splitter before she could even begin to look in its direction, for what she saw were a dozen arrows held within its fingers, ready to be loosed upon her on short notice. It had to be noted that she was indeed lucky even when it came to its tactics, as each arrow was smaller than the first one she had to deal with.

To prevent herself from being pushed back all the way, she dashed forward, aware that she would not require as much stability in her footing to knock the arrows aside, and stabilised the state of Moon Splitter just in time to meet the incoming barrage.

They were clearly shot one by one, aimed with great precision, but it might as well have been a large squad of expert archers that released an organised volley from a single point. She was able to deflect one more easily than the previous arrow, but the rest were more and more difficult to knock aside. Her body was forced to move with greater speed than ever before, for once matching the true extent of her capabilities due to fighting someone at the same level as her. By some miracle, it was only the last arrow that bypassed her rapid swings and stuck itself within her left shoulder.

It lodged itself deep in her flesh, the arrowhead completely trapping itself within her, but removing the shaft of the arrow was enough to neutralise its effect. Her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow did not rely upon her muscles, and so damage to the shoulder was the least of her concerns. Instead, she let her physique energy work on burning the arrowhead, and rushed back towards Primordial Nature.

Perhaps seeing that the first attack proved more successful, it prepared another larger arrow, loosing it more quickly than the first time.

However, this time, she was closer and no longer needed to concern herself with the Primordial Deity striking the Chu District if it missed her, and so she waited for the arrow to be released from his grip and instantly shifted her position to the side, evading the arrow entirely. It would have been a major part of her strategy, but she found that the arrowhead cost as much to shift with her as the rest of her body multiplied by ten. She could try to exclude it from her movement, but that would take mental processing time that she was currently dedicating entirely to figuring out the best strategy for drawing out the fight.

As Primordial Nature’s creations withered and turned to dust, its own body was also clearly affected by the grey dust, but the drying was nigh unnoticeable at the moment, and was progressing at a terribly slow pace. Hence, she needed to fight for much longer before she would have a chance to do anything.

She attempted to advance and was interrupted with each step, an arrow or some other projectile flying in her direction. No matter what was directed towards her, it forced her to evade or deflect the strike, slowing her advance as a deflected strike nullified her momentum, and a dodged one forced her to move to the side instead of forward, whether she chose to evade via her fourth realm movement method or more conventional means. Still, with her energy recovery, this was leaning in her favour.

This lasted for a good while, and only after an hour of evasion and deflection was she finally able to get close enough to Primordial Nature that she would have a good chance of hitting it with whatever methods she chose to employ. Additionally, the Primordial Deity was finally noticeably affected by the continued effects of her grey dust form of energy. The bark and natural material composing its body had become yellowed and dry, and all of its abnormal features were slightly less active than before, though that did not hinder it overall anywhere near as much as the Ascendant would have liked. At most, it had lost one percent of its greatest displayed strength up to this point, while she fared a little worse.

Her regenerative capabilities were excessive by any metric, and they were what permitted her to maintain her own combat prowess. Not all of the attacks targeting her were overcome successfully, and many arrows ended up being lodged in her body and slowly burnt by her physique energy. Furthermore, the occasional bouts of vitality that led to flora sprouting out to grab her were not helping.

All that time, Primordial Nature had maintained the assault of arrows, but in the same manner that she chose to alter her strategy in that moment, so did the Primordial Deity.

The bow split apart into numerous dry branches, leaving the Primordial Deity’s hands empty as two shapes burst out of the ground and occupying both almost immediately. Both shapes were curved knives, daggers with a sharp edge on the outer, longer side, but one was straighter than the other, a strange asymmetry that seemed to serve little purpose but aligned excellently with Primordial Nature’s own appearance.

Had Primordial Nature had the same size as her, or as any human, then the knives could present a disadvantage to the Primordial Deity, but the blades that seemed small in its hands were larger than two greatswords put together, making them incredibly formidable even if it was not skilled at all.

Unfortunately, not only was the Primordial Deity blatantly familiar with the usage of various weapons, perhaps relying on the trait of adaptation that it had mentioned, but it went into action instantly, swinging both daggers even more easily than if it was holding nothing at all. The mere swing of both weapons in her general direction produced a wave of force so powerful that light distorted around it, severing the air and producing a temporary vacuum on their path, smashing into the ground only an instant after she vanished from that spot.

“Is this enough to intimidate a mortal thing? Their fitness is truly lacking!”

She did not give it a vocal response, instead coming closer to him and forming Moon Splitter into a wider, longer blade, leaving a gap open in the middle of the shards.

In such a state, it was nowhere near the size of either dagger, but it was the most she could get while retaining the necessary stability to be able to face the kinds of attacks that it was obviously capable of producing without any effort at all. If she relied upon energy to maintain the state of Moon Splitter, then there would be an addition oblivion essence cost and lessened overall structural strength.

The transformation occurred just in time for Primordial Nature to arrive at her location and slam the longer knife down upon her, forcing her to support Moon Splitter with both hands so that it wasn’t used to smash her head in.

“Show the world your worth, mortal thing, and do what your fellows failed to do!”

“What do you mean by that?” Wei Yi asked while it swung both blades from either side, necessitating that she dodge at least one of the two, which she ended up accomplishing by using the momentum of the other swing to throw her to the side, “You know, you should be able to use words like ‘human’ without any problems, and yet you constantly refuse to do so.”

“Mortal things are mortal things, regardless of species. All mortal things have failed to grow, failed to adapt to the world, so you are lacking and require my infusion!” Primordial Nature quickly returned within range and swung the curved blade in reverse, aiming to catch her with the dull side while also swinging the other blade correctly, presumably to limit her movement before forcing a strike to hit, “One million years ago, when the mortal things fought, they earned a chance that they have clearly squandered!”

“Earned a chance? You don’t think that Kong Shi Meng was- agh…” she was interrupted by the blunt part of the blade striking her with enough force to launch her into a nearby hill.

“I know not of the identities of mortal things, for no hunter learns the name of prey. None of the mortal things then earned the right of avoiding the necessary changes of adaptation,” the Primordial Deity stated, “You have not done so either, mortal thing, so show me your worth!”

It didn’t give her the pause she would greatly appreciate and simply leapt onto her again, swinging both daggers downward while she was still partly buried in the dry dust that the land that transformed into. Since it used both weapons and had none of the limitations that humans would have due to their musculature and the like, it exhibited the full force that it could possibly use with both weapons, thus making them equivalent to an eighth realm attack through naught but physical force.

Still, it had to be noted that this was actually the Primordial Deity in an incredibly weakened state. Whereas most cultivators would use their own power to form planar constructs or outright enhance their strength, Primordial Nature appeared to be limited to manifesting its primary affinity – whatever Wood Dao it was a culmination of – and using it to attack instead. This let it use the planar constructs of Chu Su when they had first encountered it, but now that its domain was completely ruined by the Ascendant’s grey dust, that left it with only the body of an entity far beyond humanity, at least on the physical front.

In such a state, it would actually be far inferior to an eighth realm physique cultivator, or even a standard body cultivator that knew nothing of physique energy. Unfortunately, the eighth realm was only held by one person in the world, at they were somewhere to the north, likely not on her side.

‘It was two percent weaker a short time ago, and now it appears to be leaning towards three percent. Clearly, it is decaying, just too fucking slowly. Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve been this bruised since… I think pinpointing a time will take far too long, so it’ll just be a while back,’ she decided, not at all in the right state or mood to be browsing through her absurdly large collection of memories in the Ascendant’s Library, “You say that, but you’ve not been able to kill me either, you piece of shit! Why should you be the one to decide one’s fitness?”

“Ha! The mortal thing tries to be clever, but you fail to see that the hunter is but one of countless millions! What one hunter may fail to conquer, the rest shall learn from, and soon all mortal things shall be brought to a greater state! All shall display their utmost fitness!”

When it spoke, it did not sound fanatical, like those within the Blood-tinged Church or some other insane organisation, but it was simply proclaiming things in the boldest of fashions. Perhaps there was not even any malice or particular intent to its actions, but only an adherence to that which it does, and must do. After all, these things were either created by the heavens, or part of the world regardless of their desire, and they had adhered to a particular mind-set since their first recorded appearance.

It was very possible that they were effectively machines, or a form of natural laws, lacking the ability to think logically about their deeds and determine whether they truly wished to do what they did.

That was one of the things that made it more difficult to be angry at them specifically, as one could hardly be angry at a flame for burning someone if they stepped into its path. To a certain extent, it did dull the endless figurative flames of her killing will, though they could not be extinguished for so long as the world posed unreasonable threats to the people that lived within it. The Great Leeches, the Primordial Deities, the Hunger of the Beyond, and the otherworldly gifts that emerged from seemingly nowhere, all of them had to be dealt with one way or another, and even then the Ascendant suspected that she would simply learn of even more risks and dangers.

‘Actually, why should I care whether or not they are conscious of their misdeeds? Their deeds harm every human in the world, and they seek to transform everything into vile malformations that only barely resemble their origin… I don’t care whether they understand their mistakes! If they will not correct them, then the Primordial Deities will be destroyed completely!’

Her eyes lit up with killing will, smoke lit by crimson and silver, but a moment before she could act, their arena was suddenly enveloped in draconic flame. It flooded the small area that she had chosen as the battlefield, focusing her divine sense and all other forms of perception, scorching her clothing and completely overwhelming the Primordial Deity’s body. Vaguely, she could hear the exclamations of familiar draconic voices, clearly belonging to the few dragons that she had brought with her outside of the ancient cavers of the north.

In comparison to any of that, what she valued most was the slightest of openings that appeared upon the outer shell of Primordial Nature, something through which a faint mist of the purest planar energy poured out into the world.

Whatever had been the exact cause for the appearance of the injury, it was a kind of wound, and thus it was a weakness that she was able to target. It was a small opening, barely sufficient to insert anything through it, but if one directed force towards it, they would be able to strike the internal parts of the Primordial Deity. With that kind of attack, she would have a chance to do something greater, even if she had no clue how or what that would be.

She ignored the flames that burnt her Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival off her body, only a few strands remaining, all of which fell off her body and landed on the scorched ground that was now a mix of ash and dust, and gripped Moon Splitter with both hands. Using all of the energy at her disposal, disregarding any caution she still had, she adjusted her footing and opened her mouth.

“NOW!”

The dragons were out of reach by now, presumably – she was not paying active attention to them – but a single man could hear her regardless.

As she stabbed forth with her blade, a pure violet appeared first, but it was rapidly overwhelmed by a raw heavenly white that grew far beyond the current state of Moon Splitter’s shards. It stretched back, as if her weapon was wielded by the entire world alongside her, light twisting and bending as all reality was shaken and distorted by their combined powers. It took a single moment to accumulate, but she could sense without a shadow of a doubt that the power contained in this strike overwhelmed the domain of the Primordial Deity at its strongest.

Then, she stabbed forth, and that endless spear of light followed, colliding alongside her own power with Primordial Nature’s body. It touched that one spot upon its form and cut through a small part of its outer form, allowing the spear of heavenly light and the tip of Moon Splitter to cut through and strike something on the inside of its body.

A burst of wood-type energy exploded out, ending the flames and clearing the area, revealing the hardened earth that lay beneath what was one a lush and green region. They stood upon it, Moon Splitter’s shards temporarily separated and the chest of Primordial Nature temporarily torn asunder. Even more green flowed from within, spilling out of a series of vine, branch and root webs vaguely resembling flesh and muscle, and the mere contact with the ground caused it to liven up and bloom once more, grass and flowers sprouting instantly while saplings took a little longer to emerge and begin their growth.

Primordial Nature’s mouth was still, as was the rest of its body, but that did not mean that it was finished. It was a Primordial Deity, and they could not be slain, and even sealing them required a great deal of effort that could not be afforded in this moment.

“Mortal things… even now, they fail… to prove their fitness for this world-”

“Enough!” she exclaimed, surprising even herself as she dashed forward and thrust her Arm of Slaughtering Shadow into the gap in its body, grabbing onto its disgusting interior and forcing herself closer, “I’ve handled the energy of your fellow Primordial Deities, and I will take yours as well! If I can take all of your power as my own as well, then what right do you have to assess my fitness?”

She forced every drop of energy that she could find to flood into her body, her technique and meridians being pushed to their limits within an instant of this mad attempt.

Although the Primordial Deity lacked a true human face, a mocking smile could still be detected upon what passed for its features. There was no need to hear its words, for it would certainly mock her folly, proclaim the uselessness of mortal things, and that none are truly worthy.

At that moment, she could not see how that could possibly be true. Where Primordial Deities were forever stuck in the eighth realm, and the Great Leeches were stuck in the seventh despite proclaiming their constant adherence to the heavens, humans greater and lesser than her alike had reached far further. They could go beyond their limits, even if far too many were content to waste away after reaching a perceived boundary within their lives. Even with all of those wasteful men in mind, mortal life was able to go so far beyond the immortal that its very ideas seemed beyond insulting.

Unconsciously, she drew upon a greater quantity of energy from within its body, feeling it damage the very structure of her left Arm. Her meridians were stretched and pained, her muscles aching, her flesh burning with the foreign energy, and when it all reached her dantian, she expected much of the same. It would not stop her from committing to this act, even if it led to her end.

The green mist touched the crystalline walls of the dantian slowly, as if gently caressing a lover’s face. There was a strange feeling in her chest, a tremble of her mental library, and then came the storm.

All of the rampaging energy burst towards her abdomen, flooding into the dantian and overwhelming the crystalline surface with such intensity that it seemed to change it. Parts even cracked and broke away, but what should have been damaging her cultivation with each instant only made her sense of energy far stronger, meaning that she was completely incapable of missing what happened with the rest of its power.

It didn’t destroy her cultivation, nor was it placed aside from her main oblivion essence, but it instead flowed right into it, almost willingly mixing in and transforming into her own power. Each breath caused more energy to flow into her, and each breath allowed her to absorb more of it, until the rate of absorption overcame the energy that Primordial Nature could release.

“What are you… what kind of mortal thing are you to take this energy so freely?”

“I don’t care, just give me more!” she grabbed a side of the opening within its chest with her right hand and forcefully tore it open, the weakening of Primordial Nature and the strengthening of her own energy making it nigh trivial in comparison to before, “Give it all!”

She shoved her right hand into its form, allowing its wood energy to flow through and alongside both arms, the mist condensing into a liquid that poured down her naked form and covered it. The faint sensation of leaves sliding along her skin, old bark pressing upon her, soft fur of some unfamiliar beast, all of it were felt at once, and she sensed her comprehension of the Wood Dao increasing with each moment. After a few moments, she felt the transformation of her dantian complete, and looked inside herself as if she did not have one of the greatest threats to humanity right in front of her.

What was once whole was now broken, arcs of violet arcing in between the gaps, yet just as the planar anchor was inferior to the Endless Monolith, this form of the dantian seemed far stronger than what she had before. The shade of what could hardly be called dantian bone became darker, and it looked ever so slightly like the Truth of the Universe’s many characters.

Her mind could not come up with any other label for this than ‘primordial’, and thus she attained a primordial dantian.

It gave her insight as well, for she realised that the mortal form was flooded with imperfection, and that nothing that could be broken could ever be perfect or eternal. The shattering of dantian bone or planar anchor material was only reducing the solid, vulnerable components of her cultivation, making it advance towards some unimaginable perfection that was so close yet so far away from her, though an image of a single glowing point of infinite power did come to her mind.

That image in particular was hardly new to her, but this time it did bring out a force that had remained mostly unseen before. From her changed dantian, where so much more force gathered with each breath, she willed all of her power to emerge and wash over her foundation up to this point. All of the loose dantian bone shards that had been knocked aside when she had previously cultivated were touched, and the eroding power of Primordial Nature took hold within all of them, burning away the impure and imperfect shards that had once covered the surface of her dantian. All of them melted slowly, their power merging into her own directly.

As the oblivion halos rotated around her core, the phantoms of two more appeared around them, oscillating in turn and magnifying the power that filled her body. That burned away the dantian bone shards more quickly, and only accelerated the manifestation of her next stage.

“Mortal thing-”

“My name is Wei Yi!” the Ascendant gripped its substitute for flesh more tightly, exerting a power that went beyond mere physical force, “I don’t care if the Primordial Deities may never die, nor if you see us all as being beneath you! I will kill you and all of your kind, so that the Planar Continents may be free of you forever! Now, die, you mortal thing!”

With one final exertion of force, she did the unthinkable. She tore Primordial Nature in half, and all of its vast power burst out, with the majority flowing into her.

The rest exploded all across their battlefield, verdant grass and the beginnings of great forests sprouting out of the ground within a single instant. Even if she had maintained the power of grey dust, it would not have been enough to prevent all of the ash and dust from turning into the richest of soils.

Although the wood-type energy was contained here, a different wave of force still spread out throughout the Western Continent. It was the very antithesis of the surge of Law and Dao that had alerted Wei Yi to the emergence of each Primordial Deity, even though it was still attuned to the element of wood. It was an unfamiliar tone to all that were able to perceive it, but the faintest hint of rebellion mixed with an even fainter trace of freedom, though what was rebelled against and what kind of freedom was obtained was unknown to all.

From above, a drop of cool water landed on the Ascendant’s bare skin, followed by another, and then a steady downpour. The soil was further nourished, and the dried blood on her skin was cleansed.