Chapter 395: Ascending (Patreon)

The sky is large and empty.

~~~

The sky is large and empty.

Liu Jin looks at it in silence, his body wounded and prone on the ground. Red earth dotted with small patches of grass spreads all around him. Black rocks like jagged knives rise in the distance. Still, it is the blue sky with not a single cloud in sight that remains reflected in Liu Jin’s eyes, almost overtaking his natural red. His face is calm, yet the way in which his fingers dig into the dirt and grip it tight reveals his true feelings.

It has been some time since he woke up. He’d been too wounded to move back then, needing to wait until his broken bones were mended and pushed back into place by freshly grown muscles. Once his arms were fit to move, he grabbed his spatial pouch and took out the mirror the Divine Frozen Palace gave him. However, no matter how much he tried to push his Qi into it, it only showed his reflection.

It is either broken or the other mirror is out of range, a possibility he does not like thinking about, yet he must. Liu Jin can still feel his connection to Xiao Shuang, which means she is fine. However, it is distant, very distant in a way that confirms his worst suspicions. The Qi flowing through the air and under the ground is not familiar to him in the slightest, which only adds to them. His mind has already compiled a list of thirteen different possibilities of where he could be.

As Liu Jin works on fixing his body, sealing shut his multitude of wounds, reality quivers, the echo of a fight between Divinities happening somewhere far away. It starts and stops almost immediately. It is another thing to worry about, but it is also not immediately relevant to him.

Liu Jin stands and dusts himself off. His Qi flares to life. His body is whole once more, though his robes are barely holding together after everything he has gone through.

The House Without Corners.

The Barrier.

Xun Huwen.

His Qi spikes. Anger colors it crimson and makes it swell, his aura growing from a small flame to a roaring inferno that engulfs the land for hundreds of yards. Dust rises, blown away by the strength of his Qi. It swirls and rises into the sky, creating a whirlwind visible for miles.

Liu Jin knows he should temper himself. An uncontrolled display like this when he isn’t even certain of his location is the height of stupidity, but facts and logic are powerless in the face of overwhelming anger. The image of Xun Huwen summoning Nine-Headed Snake God’s needle is burned into his retina.

All along!

He could have done that all along!

Xun Huwen had been holding onto that needle since the Dead Plains! From the moment he was allowed into the tower, it was already too late. There was no need for him to kill Green Shadow. He had just been amusing himself! All his plans. All his calculations. All that time spent locked in the palace! All of it rendered pointless in an instant!

Liu Jin screams.

The sound that comes from his mouth is not human. Deep and guttural, it is nothing more and nothing less than a dragon’s roar. It sunders the earth and shakes the heavens, impressing his supremacy upon the very fabric of creation. His Qi rises even higher, his dantian shuddering. His Qi swells.

…

No!

Liu Jin tries to stop it, but it is too late. His three dantian thrum with power, and his meridians enlarge as his Qi overflows. The breakthrough overtakes his body, and there is nothing he can do to stop it.

The skies turn dark.

Clear blue is suddenly covered by ominously rumbling dark clouds. The dragon has screamed, and the dragon has raged. The Heavens have heard, and the Heavens have witnessed.

Now, they must punish his daring.

Divine lightning falls from the heavens, fast, furious, and utterly fulminating. Liu Jin is moving before the bolt touches the ground. His breakthrough was unplanned. He is in no condition to try to endure or harness the lightning. The ground turns into molten rock and glass as the divine lightning hits, the light blinding in its intensity.

That is merely the first bolt, impossible to dodge for one who has just freed himself from the shackles of the Earth Realm, but not so much for one with experience in the Heaven Realm. However, that is exactly why the punishment from the Heavens increases as one grows in cultivation. One bolt for the First Level of the Heaven Realm, ten for the second.

A hundred for the third.

Liu Jin can already see lights forming in the sky. Qi bursts from his body, propelling him as fast as his new power can carry him to avoid the tribulation, but it is of no use. One cannot hide from the Heavens by merely being fast. The second bolt falls inches away from him. The energy unleashed knocks him off his feet.

Liu Jin lands on his shoulder. Something pops out of place and is immediately reset. Qi spills from Liu Jin’s body like a river overflowing after heavy rain.

[Ground Contraction]

Liu Jin becomes a comet chased by celestial light, barely avoiding bolts three and four. His body is ripped apart and made anew by his own energies. His control is too poor like this. His own reinforcement is wounding his body. A moment of peace is all he needs to bring his power under control, but Heavenly Tribulation refuses to grant it.

More lightning comes down. Liu Jin keeps moving. However, that’s no longer enough. His eyes widen as divine light falls on the spot he’d just been about to occupy. His muscles tear as he forcefully switches direction, but the lightning does not fade away. It chases after him, demanding to be endured. Liu Jin blurs as he steps back, his skin burning just from being so close to the lightning, which finally fades millimeters before touching him.

He is going to die.

He is not even a tenth of the way done, and the difficulty is only increasing. Calling on the dragon’s permanence might help him survive one or two bolts, but that will not be enough. He needs to master his energies.

He needs to get rid of everything that isn’t working.

He needs to [Shed].

Nine-Headed Snake God’s veins come alive inside him. They are the highest possible grade of meridians. Never once have they been overwhelmed by his breakthroughs. It is the rest of his body that is the problem, and that makes this simple. Instead of being cautious and trying to control everything, he needs to trust in his meridians. Anything that cannot keep up with them is not needed.

Liu Jin dashes, kicking up a trail of dust behind him, which divine lightning instantly smites. Five quick jabs to his acupoints dull his sense of pain, making the tearing of his various muscles extremely painful instead of excruciatingly so. His blood stains the ground as his skin opens, and even his bones become visible for an instant as they crack, break, and are mended in the blink of an eye, but Liu Jin does not stop.

[Shed]

The dragon side of him rebels as the damaged flesh is tossed and left to the mercy of tribulation, but Liu Jin tells it to be quiet. Permanence is no good if he’s a corpse. His regeneration creates new blood as fast as he loses it. Newly grown flesh and scales endure what his old skin could not. Muscles and bones work in concert to better handle his new power.

Nine-Headed Snake God’s veins sing.

Five bolts, faster than any of the previous ones, finally reach him, but Liu Jin’s body is finally strong enough to endure. His consciousness expands, and his Qi roars as he plants his feet. Lightning surges around his body as he grabs the divine light and throws it back at the Heavens.

The Heavens boom as if angered by his defiance, clouds glowing with power about to be unleashed. It is the world’s largest bow, armed with multiple arrows of light. Liu Jin takes a deep breath and readies himself for what is to come.

The thunder roars, and the lightning smites.

Liu Jin endures.

The air is saturated with energy left over by the various bolts, and Liu Jin uses it to harmonize with the tribulation lightning. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. When it reaches him, he can interact with it as though it were his own and redirect it elsewhere. Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Fifty-three. He never stops. He never rests. Seventy-six. Seventy-seven. Seventy-eight. He keeps counting. He keeps harmonizing. Even as the thunder ruptures his eardrums, he does not stop. If he does, he is dead.

One Hundred.

By the end of it all, Liu Jin stands in the middle of a smoking wasteland, red earth turned into molten rock and black glass. His body is untouched by the heat. His eyes look straight into the sky.

“You could have done that from the start!… For what purpose?!”

“Because that wasn’t what I wanted to destroy!”

“I am not broken,” he declares.

~~~

In many ways, it is a good thing the dimensional distortion did not drop him near a populated area. All the devastation his breakthrough would have caused aside, it would also have made it impossible to go unnoticed. Even now, Liu Jin is not really sure whether anyone sensed his breakthrough.

He takes some comfort in the fact that it takes him several hours of walking to find the first sign of civilization. It is a small village, a bunch of wooden houses all clumped together around a river that barely looks deep enough to swim in. Liu Jin can sense a few hundred people living there.

Most seem to be in the Nascent Realm, with a few in the Spirit Realm. Harmless, yet their Qi feels unlike that of anyone he has met. The closest that come to mind are Su Daji back when Daji was still in control and, though it is a little annoying to admit it, himself. However, they cannot possibly be demons with such low power. Liu Jin still remembers his master’s teachings. A newborn demon is supposed to be in the Earth Realm.

So what are these people?

Liu Jin reaches into his spatial pouch and takes out a cloak to cover his body and tattered robes. He wills his scales to rise over his flesh, taking over his right cheek as his eyes become snake-like. He could use Art of the Roaming Thief to make himself effectively invisible, but he keeps his Qi low instead. He wants to see how people will react to one like him here.

Small farm fields surround the village. Nearly all of them are growing spirit grass, though it is a variant Liu Jin has not seen before. A little richer than he is used to. The village has no walls, making it simple for Liu Jin to just walk in. As soon as he does, Liu Jin becomes an object of attention. A place like this is not bound to get many visitors.

“Halt, stranger!” someone calls out. “What brings you here?”

Liu Jin does not answer right away. Not because he is thinking of a lie to tell, but because his mind is busy taking in every single face around him. He noticed it as he got closer, but having them in front of him confirms his mind isn't playing tricks on him.

They are animals.

Liu Jin does not mean that in a metaphorical or insulting way. The people in the village literally look like animals. The man in front of him looks like a rat, with grey fur covering his body, round ears on his head, and a long snout where his mouth should be. He even has a long, hairless tail wrapped around his waist. He wears robes like a man and has armor that seems to be made of leather, marking him as some sort of town guard. Even his face has something vaguely human-like about it. However, he is clearly not human.

The other people are the same. Many are rat people like the guard, but there are also lizard people, bodies covered in scales and mouths full of sharp teeth. A turtle man lies by the side of the road with an empty bottle beside him. As Liu Jin looks at them, fully realizing he is not in the Vermillion Continent anymore, words Old Jiang told him a long time ago come back to him.

...only one in a million will gain enough sentience to properly cultivate. Out of that small group, only one in a million will become smart and powerful enough to take humanoid form, and fewer still will be able to take a proper human form. The result of that process is what we call a demon.

A newborn demon is as strong as a cultivator in the Earth Realm, but that is not where the evolution of a demon starts. There are three stages to it. Awareness is the first, and after that comes the ability to assume humanoid form. These creatures must be in that stage. Liu Jin never considered that in a continent of demons there would be people who simply never reached that level.

In hindsight, that was foolish of him. Most cultivators never reach the Earth Realm. Why would it be different here?

“I am just a traveler,” Liu Jin says, realizing he has been silent for too long. His voice sounds tired to his ears. “I separated from my group due to a Spirit Beast attack. I do not seek to trouble you. I merely wish to rest my feet before I go on my way. A map to look at, if you have one, would be appreciated, but not necessary.”

The rat man considers his words. The other people in the street stay silent, but they are all paying close attention to their conversation.

“Well, stranger. If that is all that you need, let it never be said we are poor hosts here in…”

A gust of wind chooses that moment to knock Liu Jin’s hood back, revealing his face to the crowd. The rat man drops his spear and looks at him slack-jawed. Someone gasps. Someone faints. Liu Jin is already opening his mouth, trying to figure out some excuse to say, but he never gets the chance to say anything.

“Oh, blessed day!”

“Ascended one, you bless us with your presence!”

“Let me serve you!”

“I have food at my place! Please, come eat!”

All around, the people’s heads touch the ground as they bow before Liu Jin.

~~~

“I know we have had our differences, mostly because of you. You are quite rude and stupid. I don’t like you.”

Her listener squawks in outrage after hearing the truth. Su Daji ignores him.

“However, this is no time for petty grudges,” she says. “The Boss is gone.”

That gets him to quiet down. He looks at her with intense interest and a little wariness.

“That’s where this little guy comes in.” Su Daji kneels and picks up Marrow from the straw-covered floor of the stables. The dog lets out a little yip and raises his paw, as if saying hello. It’s adorable, but Su Daji will never let the Boss know it. “He can sense where the Boss is.”

Marrow barks in affirmative and points his paw eastward.

“Unfortunately, he keeps pointing east,” Su Daji says. “So unless he happens to be on the coast and somehow hasn’t come here yet, it likely means Boss landed on one of the demon continents. Or the ocean. That probably would be safer for him, so it’s unlikely.”

Her listener sighs, reluctantly agreeing with her.

“I’m going to go get him. I’m the only one who can,” Su Daji declares. She points to her ears. “I can probably still pass for a demon, so it’s no problem if someone sees me there.”

As useful as having someone as strong as Xiao Shuang would be, the Divine Frozen Palace would never allow it. It is also why Xiao Shuang doesn’t know she is going to do this. No one does, really. Only Lu Mei. Somewhat. Su Daji implied it in conversation, and she left a letter in her room so people would find it after she already left.

“There is just one problem. I cannot fly. I also don’t have time to wait until I’m in the Heaven Realm. I need a set of wings now.”

He looks at her very dubiously. Her ears twitch.

“Look, I can use my Qi to negate most of the Earth Realm’s pull, and you are supposed to be able to fly fast and carry heavy things,” Su Daji says, pointing at him. “Boss needs our help. Are you in or not?”

Soaring Feather lets out a fierce cry and spreads his wings.

~~~

Mini-Character List

Liu Jin: Our Protagonist. Everyone’s gangsta until tribulation lightning hits. 

Rat Guard: Village guard. His dad’s the major. Will one day teach a group of turtles to be ninja teens! 

Su Daji: Once Daji. Totally not sneaking out to rescue Liu Jin. 

Marrow: Dog. Mythical bonds formed by Dao are nothing compared to the bond between man and dog. 

Soaring Feather: Proud eagle. Proud airbus.