Chapter 412 - A Slightly Less Normal Day In A Hidden Realm (Patreon)

Hi hi! We're back! Sorry it's a little late today, I got kinda sidetracked- buuuuuut, this chapter turned out alright! One, maaaaybe two more and we're back to a more traditional POV.

_________________________________________________________________________

The higher into the upper realms one travels, the more intense the effect they have on the world around them. 

While it’s profoundly difficult to notice at lower realms, past the point of the Nascent Soul stage, each cultivator or otherwise empowered being starts to have a direct, radiating effect on existence. This can often be missed in those with conventional or underdeveloped abilities, but the more esoteric the nature of their power, the more easily it can be differentiated from conventional wisdom.

The most famous example of this is Honorary Researcher Tan Wen’s experimental notes on his family’s inherited technique, most notably his notes now titled “On Flammability Of Matter In The Presence Of Elder Tan Liuxian, Originator Of The Incandescence Beyond School Of Techniques” (quite the name, but useful for those who require this as a reference point). Here, over the course of six years of intensive, exhausting, frankly excessive testing, Honorary Researcher Tan Wen (awarded posthumously for his diligence) tracked the altered levels of flammability found in a dizzying list of subjects and materials. While it does seem like said materials were chosen with some intentionality later on, at first, it seems to have been a journaling of “how easy it is to burn stuff when grandpa is around”, before sparking the much more conscious journey towards discovery that characterized the Honorary Researcher in later years. 

The findings of said notes are quite simple. Things are easier to burn when grandpa is around. 

When in the presence of a cultivator in the fifth or higher stages of power (rare as that might be), one will find that their nature, their beliefs, and the concepts they have tied themselves to or which they have themselves birthed will start to have an effect on their surroundings, their actions, and their self-perception. 

Exceptional control is a major factor in whether or not someone in the fifth realm of cultivation is allowed to operate near centers of population. It’s a factor in whether or not they can interact with the world at all, or if they simply form their own world around wherever they reside, piece by piece. The extent to how much this occurs seems to vary according to the willpower, focus, and relationship with power that the higher-realm being possesses, but remains present in all recorded instances of study, no matter how small.

Powerful enough beings don’t just shape the world- they create it. Shaping it is the least we can expect. The greater one’s power, the more it radiates when uncontrolled, often creating self-referential loops in space around it. 

In fact, we might theorize that all concepts of Fate are simply the weight of future decisions made by future demigods or higher beings, their theoretical presence reaching “back” through time to influence things towards their own existence. Whether or not this is the case is entirely unconfirmed as of yet, but it seems like a plausible theory.

-Personal ramblings of Grandmaster Errath, Head of the Division of Research and the Division of Altered Cultivation, recorded by his scribe-legion.

_________________________________________________________________________

The first thing that strikes Geng He is the pressure of the space he’s in.

Every breath feels harder to take, every inhale against a thicker air and every exhale against denser resistance. He feels like he’s suddenly experiencing wind-shear, in spite of how his technique protects him from that sort of thing. The world itself seems heavier, more real, in a way that makes his head hurt, only adding to the disorientation. 

And yet every breath is so much more than it was. The wind-shear seems to almost hum against his meridians, pushing against his spiritual layer rather than directly against his flesh or mind. 

The Qi inside the fold in space is simply that rich. 

The second thing that strikes Geng He is a staff. 

The long, gold-capped rod clips his chin and sends him spinning, and for a moment, his addled faculties don’t have the ability to catch him. By the time he’s managed to stop flailing and has his sword out, ready to defend himself, he’s fallen several feet straight down.

He appeared in the sky. 

He’s not the only one, at least. He can see other bodies falling through the sky below him, some of them in active combat with each other. Every now and then the landscape shifts like it’s made of sand and someone’s opened a little pinhole for it to drain out of, only to suddenly snap back into place. Tracking one of these moments, Geng He sees another wandering cultivator materialize, followed a half-second later by a man in a sect disciple’s uniform, only for space to reassert itself and unbend, throwing them miles away from each other. 

The sight is repeated now and then as he falls, and he is almost distracted enough by it that he doesn’t dodge the second swing of the staff.

Luckily, it isn’t aimed at him, which does make dodging it a bit easier.

Some idiot activated an artifact to make his staff extend and is using it to try to bludegon someone he’s fighting with down below. That, or using it as some sort of flight-aid; the wood is long enough to catch air resistance as it’s swung around, which does add some unique gales to the area around it.

The staff swings by him again, and some of the wind off of it winds around the air right in front of his face. He idly notices it as he prepares to face the fall properly and defend himself upon landing, and-

A hand grabs him by the back of his robes an instant before a Cut made of wind reaches out to where his head just was. 

The hand lets go, the sound of wind devouring spoken words foll

Flailing again, he swings his sword around, ready to defend himself-owing after it. Still, it slows him down enough that when his swing turns him around, he doesn’t follow it up right away.

Yu Guanyu waves, his eyes focused on the ground below. Behind him, the other two members of his team are close behind, though Lei Hai looks to be wounded, her arms coated in blood up to the elbows and some staining along her torso. All of them made it through behind him, meaning that he still has an alliance to work with. 

As close to a best case scenario as could be had, at least for now. 

He turns his face back to where Yu Guanyu is facing, staring down at the world coming up at them. 

It feels like there’s some sort of weird visual distortion in the world, something that makes it hard to see properly. It feels like he’s falling through open sky, but down below, rather than a whole world open to either horizon, he just sees a single point, which seems magnified and like it’s shrinking the more he stares at it. 

The world bends inwards, an open sky juxtaposed with a single patch of land down below, and they all fall towards it. 

He waves a hand at Yu Guanyu, who seems just as lost about things as he is. His ally is currently floating a bit back upwards, rejoining the rest of their group, and Geng He reluctantly follows. 

Closer up, the windfall continues, but the ground never seems to approach. None of the other cultivators look like they’re bracing to land yet, either. 

Dai Yuhan, the other “outlier” of their group besides Geng He himself, arrives a moment later, speeding up to match how they’re slowing down, and in a few moments, they’re close enough back together to be able to actually speak to each other. Mostly.

“What do you think?” Geng He asks, using Qi to augment his voice loud enough to be heard over the wind. “A trial?”

“Must be!” Lei Hai says, shaking off her hands. Notably, a lot of the blood on her wasn’t from wounds, though there are some cuts open on her arms as well. “Maybe there’s somewhere hidden to land on?”

Dai Yuhan shakes her head, her hair dissolving into rain behind her as they fall. “I don’t think so!” she yells back to them. “It’s not that far down! If we were actually falling, we’d reach it in seconds! I think we need to find a way to push further down!”

Yu Guanyu doesn’t say anything, just raising an eyebrow at her- but apparently it’s enough to make her get defensive, because her posture shifts, even in freefall. 

“Look at the fighters! The ones fighting are all lower down. Either there’s some sort of condition that needs to be met which fighting can meet, or they’re literally pushing each other down. Look- everyone falling is doing it in groups.”

Sure enough, she’s right. In fact, lower down, Geng He sees some folks who seem to be actively using each other to create platforms and techniques. Different sects seem to have had some forewarning, and those who have managed to get back to each other from the random starting points they’ve dropped in from are having the easiest time, with some of their groups already landed on the ground and starting to spread out. 

“Can anyone make a platform?” Geng He asks, already looking around for something (or someone) he can kick off of to start going down. No way he’s letting some little physiks puzzle stop him, not when he’s so close to getting the real rewards. 

“I can! Does anyone have a rope?”

“The Bleeding Mother’s gifts provide!” Yu Guanyu says, pulling his spiraling, too-alive whip out from his hip. It flexes and makes a hissing sound, retracting its spikes as its wielder sends a pulse of Qi into it, making it less immediately deadly. “I should be able to connect us all! If one can take us, and one can provide their footing, I’ll be the anchor.”

Geng He nods. “My technique has explosive velocity, I should-”

“Yours makes you partially intangible!” Lei Hai yells at him from where she is. “Mine is based on strength! Tie to me, I can get us all down directly!”

Geng He goes to say something, frowning, but before he has a chance to protest, Yu Guanyu has already sent out his whip. He sighs, then accepts it as it circles around the other and then to him. 

Dai Yuhan waves a hand, forming more  water out of Qi and some of the waterfall flowing off her. In a moment, it’s formed into a chunk of ice, which gradually starts to get larger as she adds more to it. At first, the added weight drags it down, but it seems to reach a terminal velocity not long after- and then rise up to hover right alongside the rest of them, equally “trapped” in this falling sky.

Lei Hai plants her feet upside-down on the ice, which Dai Yuhan starts to hold steady, the two of them aiming down at the ground below. In an instant, Lei Hai’s loose robes draw taut as her body morphs into a larger form, muscles forming until she seems like she’s mutated to three times her previous mass. Even as he watches, she closes her eyes to focus, and her legs actually break, adding a new set of joints which balloon out with more muscle mass, now evolved specifically for leaping. 

“Ready!” she yells, the strain clear in her voice. 

“Ready!” Yu Guanyu says.

“Ready!” says Dai Yuhan.

“Ready!” says Geng He, feeling a little extraneous. 

Lei Hai leaps, and the ice shatters into shrapnel behind her as she vanishes down. Dai Yuhan seems briefly pained, flinching at the breaking ice like she actually felt it- but Geng He doesn’t have time to examine that right this moment, as Yu Guanyu’s whip goes taut. 

One by one, they each get yanked down, each one slowing their progress a little more, each one falling a little further. 

Not all the way to the ground, but… probably further down than Geng He could have gotten them.

Without needing to communicate further, they’re already forming the next ice-block by the time Geng He arrives. 

Another leap, then a third- and then they’re in alongside some of the active fighters. 

The staff-wielder is still putting up a hell of a struggle against whoever they’re fighting, but they’re not the only ones. A half-dozen other fights are happening in their level of the “atmosphere”, and Geng He gets to feel a little less useless as his sword arts deflect a shower of black spikes thrown towards them. 

He starts to act as their defense, with Yu Guanyu helping cover the angles he can’t. The whip seems to move him with muscle strength alone, letting him swing all about their little space without disrupting the others, and whatever Geng He’s sword doesn’t block, the stranger cultivator takes on, small pulses of sun-yellow energy tinted with crimson flaring up as he does. 

Then another leap- and they’re in the “lower” percentile now, the last “busy” space before the ground. 

It draws attention. 

A small group that seem derived from an alliance of lesser sects is near enough to start throwing attacks at them. Stones at first, easy enough to block- but they keep aiming for Dai Yuhan, disrupting her ice-based technique. 

“How much longer?” Geng He asks, his blade ringing with dozens of small impacts as he keeps blocking. 

“Just a few uninterrupted seconds would be nice!” she yells back. He, magnanimously, doesn’t comment on just how ridiculous it is to need a few uninterrupted seconds in the midst of battle, growling as he continues weaving a pattern with his blade. 

“Any ranged attacks?” Geng He asks, hating the fact that even asking reveals that he’s lacking such a thing himself. 

“Some, but I can’t get them back easily!” Lei Hai yells, still locked into her stance for the following leap. 

“I’m busy!” Dai Yuhan screams. 

“Though mine are also a bit tricky, perhaps I could-”

“Do it!” all three of them scream at Yu Guanyu.

He sighs, but the indulgence doesn’t stop him blocking more projectiles. Nor does it stop him from flicking up his wrist, unfolding it from within his robes as-

His arm opens. 

A half-dozen slender spears of bone shoot outward like missiles, moving fast enough that they make little cracking sounds against the air. Half of them miss, flying off to nowhere- but those that hit, even those that are blocked, explode into bright red clouds, disgorging massive explosions that throw multiple people out of the smaller group, making them tumble. 

Geng He stares at the cloud of red coating where the outer disciples are tumbling away from, then back at Yu Guanyu. That… did not seem like a Foundational Realm technique. Certainly not one that could be thrown out on a whim. 

“Was that an artifact?”

The question slips out before he can stop himself.

“She has many gifts!” Yu Guanyu says with a laugh.

And then Lei Hai leaps again, and they’re falling away from the next closest group, and-

Abruptly, everything feels heavier. It was hard to notice before, but suddenly it becomes obvious that they hadn’t reached terminal velocity. They accelerate forward, with Lei Hai dragging the rest of the group down with her before her added weight burns away, turning to steam as it seems to escape from strange holes tattooed into her skin. 

They have a half-second of the ground rushing up to meet them before they react. 

Geng He activates his movement technique, launching himself laterally to burn off more energy and fall from a safer height. Whatever techniques his allies use go unnoticed- another flaw to the movement technique is that he’s blind while he does it, only half-realized in the midst of all the energies he’s casting about. Powerful for explosive speed and abrupt dodges, but like everything he’s ever had, it’s second rate at best. 

And then he’s out of the cloud of Qi the wasteful technique generates, falling another few feet.

He lands hard, rolling into the ground, which is-

Too soft. It feels like he’s sinking, and he tries to launch himself upright, only for strings of it to stick to him. 

It’s warm. It’s hot, actually, feverish, and sticky, and he tries to wipe it off of him only to find himself already sinking. He tries to get up, putting his sword into it to try and find a third anchor point to stand on.

The fluid moves beneath him. Part of it changes color. Something approaches from beneath the surface, rolling towards him fast, too fast-

It’s not a fish. Not some predator moving too-fluidly through the strange ooze. 

A pool of pitch dark rolls towards him in a sea of translucent, vitreous… gelatin. 

The pupil of the eye knocks him aside, starting to drag him under. It’s almost like a lily pad, except it’s pulled taut, and there’s a sense of frenetic panic to how fast it moves, how it tries to bludgeon him.

A dozen cuts later, he’s carving his way out of the shore of the pit, covered in vitreous oils and dripping long strings of slime. 

All three of his companions look to him, having only just emerged- all of them drier than he is. 

“A successful landing all around!” Yu Guanyu says, his smile as obnoxiously loud as his voice. “But we should probably move, seeing as-”

The eyeball behind Geng He explodes as yet another cultivator lands. And then another. 

Other impacts are sounding out, joining the symphony of combat already in progress all around them as dozens of different sects and alliances immediately fall onto each other- or onto their closest rivals. 

“Seeing as we will not be able to remain!” 

Geng He groans. And then his blade is back up, and he’s carving his way forward.