When Wei Yi appeared before him in his office, Meng Chu wasn’t certain whether she intended to kill him or to provide him with the technique she had mentioned earlier.

The extreme quantity of killing intent pouring out of her only two hours earlier was still fresh in his memory, as was the phenomenon experienced during her breakthrough, where her killing intent had suffused the city and replaced all of the Beast’s crimson with her own, displaying a pool of hatred that was absolutely impossible to match even for those in his cultivation realm. If she had found any part of his performance to be lacking and decided that it was time for him to die, he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to put up any kind of a fight.

Fortunately for him, it turned out to be the latter possibility.

As she slammed a thin manual onto his desk, she looked into his eyes and said, “Meng Chu, that mysterious place that might be home to hatred automatons or the like – was the mark that you left on my map accurate?”

“We do not know the exact location of it, but it should be in that rough area. Are you interested in checking it out?”

“I think that it would be optimal to understand whether there is a faction there at all, or if it is a place that must be observed carefully. We have a basic understanding of all of the other factions, after all, so it is possible for us to attempt to work with or against them, but since we have no clue what pleases and displeases this theoretical group, we cannot do the same with them. I would like to fix this discrepancy,” Wei Yi explained, straightening her back, “Do you want to come along, or send any of my people to attempt to set up a brothel there?”

“Waiting for your exploration of the area would be wiser. If it is truly a settlement of hatred automatons, there would be no good reason to bother, since they all lack any semblance of a sex drive.”

“Fair enough. Take good care of the place while I’m away… No, that sounds like I’m leaving the house to go to the market and purchase some food. Make sure that Beast’s Rest doesn’t fall apart or get destroyed while I’m not here, as the journey alone will take quite a long time,” she said, nudging the technique manual closer to him, “Learn it by the time I return.”

He had no clue whether that would be possible, but he decided to nod nonetheless.

Wei Yi had no objections to this, turning around and heading towards the exit of the room. Before she passed through the doorway, she glanced back and said, “I mean that, by the way. It is absolutely vital.”

Before the man had any opportunity to do anything in response, she had already disappeared with a minor application of one of her many movement techniques. It was not difficult for her to notice the slight degree of fear in his eyes, and by providing him with a minor threat, she believed that it would serve as encouragement for him to progress significantly more quickly than he otherwise might. Even if it did not succeed, it would be unlikely to result in a negative response, leading to her trying it out.

Her first destination was not the exit to Beast’s Rest, but rather her room, where she took out the set of clothing prepared some time ago by the hatred automaton tailor. She wore them instead of the Crimson Robe of the Third Arrival, as the latter had some infamy around the region and would give her a lot of unwanted attention, especially if the people of the Automaton Point, as she decided to temporarily label the unknown settlement of the west, were as knowledgeable about them as Meng Chu was. For her first ever approach, she wanted to be seen as inconspicuous, nothing more than a strong and tall woman from some nearby camp of physique cultivators.

‘These tight clothes might also stand out, but their price isn’t too high, so it isn’t impossible for any random physique cultivator to have gotten their hands on a set if they saved up for them,’ she reasoned, looking in a rough bronze mirror while playing with a lock of her hair, ‘I wasn’t intending to disguise myself entirely, but since I’m at it, I could try changing my hair for once… I haven’t really done this before…’

 

Although her experience in this field was truly lacking, the natural advantages of being a cultivator allowed her to arrive at something half-decent within just a few minutes, not including the dozen or so minutes invested into experimentation.

To achieve the right kind of presence, she swept roughly two thirds of her hair to one side, allowing it to partially obstruct one of her eyes, while the rest was tied into a simple braid and allowed to rest on her shoulder. This sort of uneven style resembled something she had observed a bandit from the Great Bone Lake sporting on one occasion, meaning that it was entirely appropriate for her purposes.

‘I don’t like it too much, though. Feels really impractical, amongst other things. Perhaps I should find some kind of specialist on this subject and get them to come up with something for me, then never change it and simply keep myself clean with physique energy, as I already do…’

Regardless of her intentions for the future, she was satisfied with this result, so she made sure to use her stealth techniques to avoid any traces of the people who could recognise her, both within the underground passages of Beast’s Rest, as well as the people outside of it. This was not out of embarrassment or anything else of the sort, but in order to avoid any recognition and reports to the Automaton Point, just in case that was even a possibility. Even though such a situation would still mean that she would be recognised quickly – her overall appearance was rather striking, after all, and incredibly particular – not being reported ahead of time would give her a few more hours of time at the very least, if not days.

‘I’m not actually experiencing shyness right now, am I? What the fuck… That literally makes no sense! I-I regularly deal with both Qiu Sheng and Dugu Wei, so how does a random hair style cause this? Why are there all sorts of inconsistencies with the way my body and mind function as of late?’ she questioned, looking around anxiously once a certain thought arose within her head, ‘Am I still not resistant to the influence of the memory planes, perhaps? Did I stumble across some experience that Kong Shi Meng had during puberty?’

However, she was unable to find any hints of such a phenomenon within view, nor did there appear to be any intrusions into her mental domain, meaning that her current feelings were likely to originate from her own mind, or something that was a purely ordinary outside influence.

She couldn’t really decide whether or not that was better or worse.

On one hand, so long as all of her issues came from external sources, she would eventually be able to negate them and achieve some semblance of perfection, or otherwise lack any outstanding faults. If this was something that her very core was responsible for, it would mean that changing it would also involve completely modifying everything about herself. Such a thing, although it was theoretically possible, was not something she intended to attempt, no matter what.

At that point, she would just be doing the job of the various mental influences around her, and potentially shifting the very goals that she was intending to pursue.

To change her goals, wishes, dreams and intentions, it would mean negating all of her progress in the prison realm and the Planar Continents so far, and, in the worst-case scenario, losing all sense of the self. By that point, even if she recreated Yi City, destroyed the Greats once and for all, removing all traces of their techniques, as well as ensuring that the otherworldly demons could never interfere with the world without someone sensible keeping them in check and preventing them from trying to conquer the heavens, or doing something similarly exaggerated and moronic, it would mean nothing.

‘Certainly, that would be extremely unfortunate… and I doubt that something as simple as shame will be able to get into my mind with all of the negativity I have managed to manifest. If I ever end up in a world without any kind of energy to cultivate, I could work as an assassin, driving people to kill themselves through words alone…’

By now, she was far away from the city, and when she suddenly stopped in place, she saw nothing but an empty wasteland.

‘Come to think of it, what exactly makes me who I am? When I embraced my killing intent, it did come from me, but did permitting such a quantity of it cause me to change fundamentally and lose something that had been important to me? Then, if I did, should I seek to return to who I was, or is my current state the better one, that I should stick to? Shit…’ she realised that she might have been overdoing her attempt to ward off shyness, when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye.

Her head snapped towards it, with her mind identifying the image in an instant.

‘Perfect. Nothing better to deal with my personal confusion, worry and general overthinking than beating the shit out of someone.’

Although her goal was the mysterious Automaton Point, her first destination was the Great Bone Lake – or, rather, the outskirts of it, where the bandits continued to gather – as she desired to improve her travelling speed to ensure that she did not spend too much time away from Beast’s Rest so that no dissident factions rose up and attempted to conquer the city purely via the techniques taken from her.

In her eyes, the best opportunity to achieve that was by stealing the physique energy of another.

There was a lone male physique cultivator striding through the desert, wearing naught but a pair of ragged trousers, and the aura of a yang-type physique was radiating from his body with such intensity that he was either intentionally releasing it to show off or ward off weaker foes, or cultivating some kind of strange physique technique that caused a powerful aura to be released without his personal control.

Whatever the case was, Wei Yi only needed to know that she could be able to absorb the physique energy and vitality for herself, and there seemed to be nothing to suggest that she wouldn’t be able to do so.

Before that man could notice her presence, she leapt towards him and manifested a spiritual will Concentrated Blade within her right hand before enveloping it with Storm Blade Wreathing and using the energy to convert the Piercing River change of the Eight Great Changes into a blade move. She directed the point of the blade towards his lungs, as that would quickly disable him but give him enough time to live until she absorbed enough of his vitality to recover some of the energy she had needed to spend on Meng Chu, after which point she would then have enough physique energy to fully absorb his physique.

He finally saw her at the last moment, his expression changing several times within a single instant. At first, there was a hint of alarm, then his eyes darted to her face and the alarm was mixed with traces of attraction, interest and lust, though all of the above were tempered by fear when the blade heading straight for his lungs came to his attention.

Just before it pierced his flesh, his entire figure shifted to a slightly different spot within an instant, resulting in the calculated attack going through nothing but meat.

‘That might be some kind of movement physique! That is fortunate!’ Wei Yi exclaimed within her mind, conjuring a Living Spear entirely out of killing intent within her left hand and initiating Demonic Ire with the weapon serving as the focus for all of the energy within the technique.

She lunged at him with the spear, but he was able to evade this attack more easily, instantly moving several metres every single time that he used his physique.

“Woman, what do you think you’re doing?” he called out once he retreated far enough away for neither one of her weapons to be able to reach him, “To attack someone out of the red like that, are you an assassin sent to kill me?”

“I don’t have the slightest clue of who you are, but there’s something I want from you,” Wei Yi replied.

“There is? Ah~, well, in that case, couldn’t you have just asked to-”

His eyes suddenly widened when, perhaps through instinct alone, he realised what was occurring within the Living Spear in Wei Yi’s hand. He clearly wished to retreat, back away, and never see her again, but before that powerful physique could save him from this battle, the crimson spear collapsed into a single point, roughly within her hand.

Just as quickly, that tiny point of hatred shot out at an immense speed while Wei Yi used Demonic Ire once more, this time focusing it on her own body and permitting the entire channelling process to occur.

The first bolt hit the man in the chest, interrupting his attempts to use his movement ability and bursting his flesh, causing an immense quantity of blood to explode from his stomach. In the brief moment after that, when he stood still in a daze from the attack, Wei Yi stopped the build-up of Demonic Ire at the stage of three circles, unleashing it before the strange man had even the slightest opportunity to recover.

After the first blast, he was barely able to remain on his feet, so the second impact of a more powerful beam instantly threw him onto the ground, his blood and organs spilling everywhere, staining the crimson of the ground with his own colours.

“W-Why…”

“I need your physique energy, so I will take it. Is there any particular reason I shouldn’t do this?”

“I am… a warlord-”

“Not relevant to me,” she interrupted him, placing her foot on his neck so that he would stop talking, and to fulfil the requirement of physical contact for draining his vitality.

He tried to rise, to do anything to get away from her as he felt his life literally being sucked away from him in an extremely uncomfortable manner. When he found that he was incapable of doing anything, his head was slowly filled with ridiculous thoughts, going from dreaming about some miraculous saviour – preferably a beautiful woman who happened to fall for him and desired to claim him for herself – to hoping that the second she takes enough of his lifeforce, she would repay him with a different set of services… there was little in his head but lust, as was obvious from his face and where he was looking.

“Hey… are you seriously staring at my boobs?”

The man tried to nod, though the most he managed was a twitch of his head, “Yes…”

“…”

“Could you… please…”

“Now I just feel sorry for you… You said you were a warlord? How in the heavens did someone like you get into that position?” she said, but she did not wait for him to respond, instead shaking her head, “Even if this was to affect my decisions about what I’ll do with you, I’d never go along with whatever it is you’re imagining. Now, maybe if you’d been attacked by some other woman… I think they might.”

“Then… can you… let me go?”

“Hm… let me think about this for a second… Actually, whatever your name is, have you considered why I might be having such a long chat with you?”

“I’m… attractive-”

“No! I have no interest in you at all. If the rest of the warlords are like you, though, then it would be so easy to take over the Great Bone Lake… Right, I’m trying to delay you so that you don’t do anything reasonable while I’m draining your vitality. Had you actually done something during our chat, you might have prevented me from acquiring as much of it, but instead, you just spend all of your time staring at me…” she paused for a second, watching as the man’s skin slowly dried and all traces of life were extinguished, “Now, you can’t even lift a finger, can you? Since you have nothing more to give… Goodbye.”

She crushed his throat with almost no effort, raising her foot and burning off any traces of his dried skin from it with physique energy before placing it back onto the ground and squatting down beside his body. Holding her hand over the bare chest of the man, a bright stream of sunlight surged from the former, flooding his body and devouring the plentiful physique energy belonging to the warlord.

With every drop of energy that she took from him, she felt her cultivation advancing in small but not insignificant steps, rising swiftly to the middle of the first stage by the time most of his power was exhausted.

Then, with one final drop of his physique energy, she felt that same energy awakening within herself.

The same powerful aura that surrounded him appeared around her, changing from a mere aura of might to a covering of sunlight and absolute yang energy that overpowered the Beast’s killing intent and pushed it back, creating a small field where one could see the truth of the world, without their eyes being covered up by the endless crimson of the prison realm.

This was a mere side effect of the physique power itself, one that Wei Yi could show or hide at a whim, so she revoked it and focused on the power that she had obtained.

Since she had seen how it was used, figuring out how to utilise it herself was an easy task. With a single thought and a very particular movement of her physique energy, she saw the world flash before her, finding that she had moved slightly forward during the period of confusion.

Naturally, she attempted it again, and found that the distance increased, then increased again the next time. With every single usage of the physique ability, the duration of travel remained identical, but she was able to get roughly one step further without an increasing cost of physique energy, nor any greater strain upon her body. Unfortunately, this effect was not infinite, and when she manged to increase the distance of travel to two dozen steps, something that none of her techniques so far had been able to match even with the use of planar energy, she could no longer travel further.

‘Still, this is more than a little impressive. With the right combination of movement techniques, I could easily double or triple the speed at which I travel through the world, especially since the usage of physique energy is incredibly low for this kind of ability,‘ she thought, waiting for a few seconds to allow whatever was affecting her movement distance to reset.

Just as she theorised, after the physique ability stabilised again, her next attempt to use it resulted in only one step of movement.

‘During combat, I will not need much more than this, and if I need to escape, I can use this physique several times in a row in order to run away quickly and possibly surprise whichever opponent that believes that I can only travel a step at a time,’ Wei Yi decided, pausing for a little while to let her physique energy recover. With the improvement in her cultivation and body, every single physique ability consumed significantly less energy to achieve the same result, allowing her to practise the usage of the newly acquired power without forcing her to seek out something to nourish herself with before proceeding.

‘Although, speaking of nourishment and supplies…’ she looked to the figure’s ruined body and searched his trousers, scanning through them with her spiritual perception to ensure that she did not miss a thing, ‘He does indeed have a few things on him… Wonderful.’

She stored away the food and random things that she found within his pockets, keeping the former for later and the latter for both investigative purposes and authenticity. If they turned out to have a use beyond what she was able to guess or imagine, it would have been foolish to throw them away, and if someone decided to search her at a later point and she allowed them to do so, having random sentimental objects would make her character, whatever that would end up being, seem more believable than someone with nothing.

‘Or perhaps I won’t need any of that… I shall see…’