This sight may not have been as gruesome as the removal of a heart in the eyes of some, but it was still certainly above what most cultivators would usually strive for with their own techniques. Such a large amount of blood and the remnants of brains staining the sand was hardly the most appealing thing to observe with any of the senses, but at this moment, they all believed that this was the end that the Golden Lords deserved.

After all, not too long ago, they had personally suffered from their attacks, and some of the groups even lost some of their forces to them. Naturally, some had even lost their friends in the battle, as brief as it had been from some of their perspectives, so they took some relief in the bloodshed instead.

For some time, they looked over the dead bodies and considered how quickly things had changed from a stable state to one of strife, but after some time, they scattered back to their camps, the time being more suitable to sleep than observing all of this madness. So long as no more battles broke out, they would be able to handle all of this the following day.

When they left to sleep, so did many of the Ascendant’s Arbiters under the instructions of Wei Yi through Great Dark, which was something that they maintained as often as possible to ensure that any hidden observers wouldn’t be able to notice such oddities. They had foregone that for a while when she had been furious at the Golden Lords, but that had occurred at a strange time that had captured the attention of the other forces on ensuring that any injuries were patched up before they could go and investigate, and there seemed to be no traces of recognition from them.

Their actions also confirmed that if there had been any intentions from them to ally with the Golden Lords, it had not been something that they had been counting on, since none seemed particularly concerned with their demise, nor were there any suspicious looks sent their way from most.

The only ones to maintain a careful gaze upon them was the 7^th Legion, but that had been going on from the start and hadn’t changed much after the demise of the forces from the Chen District, so whatever had been happening with them looked to be unrelated to that, at the very least. Given the way in which one set of forces acted so quickly after meeting with them, it was a little concerning to have another that seemed even more overt in their intentions, but they too had suffered damage.

As such, Wei Yi didn’t think that there would be any more attacks that day and could thus retreat with Great Dark to his tent to consider some other matters.

Before, and even during some the attack, they had been discussing the matters of tricking the other groups, so she had needed to emerge in quite the rush to be able to protect Chao Ru from the attack of the Golden Lords, all of which seemed to be permitted by the golden mask.

When she was in the tent, with the flap sealed, she reached into the air and removed it from the House of Gold, where it had been placed without any incident the moment that the House of Gold itself had assisted her with removing it. Curiously enough, this mask also showed her its name and description in the same kind of display that the otherworldly gift used, even when it was outside of it. At the moment, she was very highly interested in it for that, and the way in which it had evaded her perception.

At the time of the attack, she appeared to have been affected in much the same way to the others, and the only thing that had helped her to break out of whatever the mask, which was apparently called the Mask of Yama, had done was the sudden feeling of resonance with someone on the outside that had prompted her to observe matters in closer detail and allowed her to see through their veil.

Now she knew that it had been her bloodline that been placed within Chao Ru the day before, and that it had permitted her to enter whatever field the Mask of Yama had created and thus see past the usual imperceptibility of the otherworldly gifts.

If not for its obstruction of her senses, she would have gone over to assist her and Huang Yu Di – who had fortunately collapsed out of fear and had been placed back in his bed – the moment that she had noticed the situation. Wei Yi hardly enjoyed seeing the people she knew and cared about to some extent, a thing that she desperately struggled to control as to not cause issues for herself at a later time, suffer under the hands of others, or even themselves for that matter. So, while she might have waited until the ability of bloodline power to influence others was revealed if she knew that it would have happened, she certainly wouldn’t have permitted the Golden Lords to needlessly slash at Chao Ru so many times.

Nonetheless, that had been then, and it was not something that she could change now. Instead, she read the description provided by the House of Gold of the item, which was, ‘Mask of the God of Death. Those who wear it may be numerous, but they are unseen to the world and may act freely upon it for a time. The more is affected, the more champions emerge to divert the course of death.’

Aside from the vagueness bordering on that of the Arrow of Artemis, although this was still better, the way in which it had been removed so easily the moment that the House of Gold had touched the mask confirmed to her that the similarity between this and one of the many items she had seen within the House of Gold the first time that she had opened it, when it had been collapsing as a result of the removal of the azure light, was not merely coincidental. It was very likely that this was the same item that had not been shattered entirely but was instead spat out into the Planar Continents somehow.

Therein lay the problem, at least for her. She had earlier presumed, based on what was commonly heard from the Eastern Continent, that the heavens were unable to see into spatial realm for one reason or another. This also meant that things couldn’t just jump in or out without a proper gateway.

However, there had not been a gateway that lead out of the Kong Prison Realm at the time that the otherworldly demon that called himself Ding Wen had perished, and so it should have been rather difficult for an item like this to come out in a perfectly reasonable state and be put to use by a bunch of thugs looking to earn some more coin for themselves. If this item could, then her question was: are the entities responsible for otherworldly demons more powerful than the heavens?

Although they had been to force their influence into the world through their azure lights, if they themselves weren’t those strange sources of power, there was no guarantee that they weren’t simply hijacking some fault in a natural process to add a certain degree of baggage to the otherworldly demons. Perhaps reincarnation was standard for all, and when someone died in the Planar Continents, they would be reborn on Orbis, and then reborn on some other world where life, not necessarily human, existed. In that case, it would be that the azure lights are merely being taken along for the ride and may be assisting the demons in retaining their memories.

If the case was instead that the azure lights and whatever created them were able to simply transport bodies and consciousnesses from one world to another and surpassed even the will of the heavens, then it would be a rather scary concept.

As the Perpetuals of the Worm had said, men should fight men, and gods should fight gods. In her eyes, at least, this didn’t mean that men should never confront gods, but that most men could do little in the face of them. Rushing into battle nonetheless would simply be a waste of one’s life as all that a god would need to do to end it would be to will it to conclude there and then.

By men, she did not take this to refer to actual men, nor did gods refer to the Primordial Deities, although that could very well have been the original intention, but instead to entities of completely different levels, less like the difference between a normal human and someone in the first realm but rather a normal human and the very peak of the ninth realm. At that point, no degree of effort could stop limitless, bottomless power that essentially transcends all human understanding, and this would be even more true if she, an admittedly powerful fourth realm cultivator, sought to oppose one that was effectively in the tenth, eleventh, or possible something ridiculous like the fiftieth realm, whatever the power of heaven’s will could be considered to be, and the azure lights if they are superior to it.

Her actions so far might have annoyed them, and if she crossed some line or happened to be in a place where she could be killed in a convenient manner, a force that powerful wouldn’t be stopped by much.

The only thing that relaxed her about the situation was that nothing had happened yet. Something clearly stopped or delayed the power behind the constant flood of azure lights into the Planar Continent, and whether it was a self-imposed limit or one of the gap between worlds, she was not going to simply let them do as they like for the rest of her life. Besides, no god could expect a human to act in a certain way without announcing it, could they?

Furthermore, while Kong Shi Meng and his Truth of the Universe had not killed or obliterated a single one of the azure lights, and did not seem capable of such a thing regardless of how much energy she could provide, it could repel them. It proved that the lights themselves weren’t omnipotent, only more capable than the heavens are believed to be. So long as she did not fight true omnipotence, she did believe that she would have a chance, since she already had the work of Kong Shi Meng with her and thus didn’t need to start from scratch, as he had. She could use his work and develop it with her own ideas, eventually coming up with something better than just telling the azure lights to leave.

That the Master of Yi City had been able to do that much also showed that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, intervene as freely as they might have liked, even if they might have had a part in his eventual demise.

“So, what were those masks… or was it just a single one?” Great Dark asked after she had stared at it for some time, also having noticed that despite a large number of masks being removed from the assailants, she had ended up with only a single one.

“It’s something from the House of Gold, the otherworldly spatial storage gift I had taken from a man in the Kong Prison Realm. That thing had shrunk immensely when I got it, as the source of its power vanished, but it seems that not all had been obliterated by the spatial collapse. Some things remain, and once I touch them, they are returned to the control of the House of Gold,” she summarised for him, leaving out her speculation about the world, the power of heaven’s will, and that of the creators of the azure lights, “If you come across anything excessively golden, especially if it isn’t in the hands of the Chen family or the Chen District, it might have some relation, although not all things in the House of Gold were golden.”

“If they are also as difficult to observe, then I doubt I will be of much use… Even now, my spiritual perception tells me that there is nothing in your hand,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s part of the issue with them. Not even other otherworldly demons are able to sense these things, as I had found out with Fu Zan being unable to detect the House of Gold when I used it right in front of him,” Wei Yi agreed, “Fortunately, not all items should be focused around disguising or stealth. Some might be weapons, and they may be in the hands of allies or foes that are too weak to make good use of them. Then, it should be easy enough to take the item if necessary, although if I recreate the link with the House of Gold then lend it to them, it might be even better than taking it outright.”

“At that point… would you be able to take the item at any time you want?”

“In theory. Haven’t messed around with items like this just yet, since the last set of exciting stuff either got used up, or broke. By the way, you wouldn’t know any extremely good blacksmiths, would you? I need some help reforging a sword.”

She brought out one of the shards of obsidian that had made up the blade of Sharen e Mo for him to look at, although she didn’t expect him to be able to gather much from that alone. Even a blacksmith might struggle with that little to go off of, but someone who had mostly stuck to inscriptions and combat without the use of such weapons wouldn’t know much.

Indeed, after a few moments of observing it, he shook his head, “I do not know of any that would be able to repair something like that with certainty.”

“Not repair, reforge. I don’t expect the actual weapon to be remade as it had been, seeing as it possessed an incredibly powerful effect that made it extremely effective at tearing open holes in space, as well as killing those far stronger than me,” she said, putting the shard back into the House of Gold, “Perhaps part of it might be able to be recovered, but what I want is to get what endurance this has and make it be able to resist my planar energy.”

“Resist… your energy? In what way?”

“Well… Do you have an artefact on you, of any kind? I’d bought some at the Chao District, but they seem to be useful, so I’d rather not throw them away prematurely.”

To her slight surprise, he nodded and then removed a small metal bead from one of the few pockets on his current outfit. It was a small, smooth ball no larger than the tip of a finger, with little of note on the surface of it, but the inside of it contained a thin channel akin to those usually found in larger quantities, complexities and sizes in other artefacts, with the channel itself seeming to match that of middle-grade artefacts.

Prompted by her inquisition by way of a raised eyebrow, he said, “During the War of Yin, I had several ideas of varying outcomes… A weapon that would be easy to make, disposable, and effective in a different way to most… was my intention. It did not work as well as I had hoped.”

“So you just carry it around with you? Alright, I suppose that works too, so let’s go outside for a moment. I’d suggest we put on the mask, but that would just terrify Huang Yu Di entirely if he woke up again and saw us blowing things up in a bright and exciting fashion,” Wei Yi said, placing the item back in her spatial storage and exiting the tent.

He followed, and the two of them went to the outer edge of the camp, furthest away from their own tents and from those of the other camps as to not accidentally disturb anyone.

There, as to guarantee that the explosion which would undoubtedly be even stronger than usual due to her strengthened energy wouldn’t wake anyone else with either light or sound, she prepared a veil of the Binder of the Dark energy to minimize its impact and make it seem as nothing more than a shooting star, in the ideal circumstances. She couldn’t guarantee such a thing when she couldn’t be sure whether simplifying or making the artefact structure more complex would lead to larger explosions, nor was there necessarily a link between the size of the weapon and the explosion that followed.

As such, she added a few more layers atop that, just to be safe.

Once she was ready, however, she placed a small drop of her planar energy into the artefact bead and tossed it with great precision into the air, instantly covering it with the Binder of the Dark energy as to minimise the light from the explosion.

Even though Great Dark had not been informed of the exact nature of her planar energy explosion, and he hadn’t gotten to witness it before while she had been in the Deadly Martial Colosseum as Da Gang, he had already gotten a rather good impression of the kind of carnage that may be wrought by something like that if it had been tossed towards one of the enemy camps instead. In fact, it may have even been enough to frighten away one of the forces, although that would be less likely.

The moment that it left her hand, cracks began to form within the metal bead, bright cosmic light shining through it and threatening to illuminate the camps around them if not for yet another barrier created through the dark energy of the Binder of the Dark, shielding the very area from outside eyes in addition to everything within it.

It cracked and crackled just a little quicker than she had initially assumed it would, but almost as quickly as she had calculated it would, although even if she had been wrong here, she could have easily moved the field of darkness to cover the bead exactly where it would end up. However, just as most of the artefacts she had used prior to this, it retained its structural integrity all the way up, without a piece breaking off until it reached the peak of its flight within the layered barrier of absolute darkness, through which no light should be able to pierce.

Then, light did pierce it, and did so spectacularly. Countless rays of light, violet, crimson, silver and orange, among others, all cut right through the sphere of darkness, momentarily turning the area around them to day with all of the lights combining into something akin to the usual warmth of the sun.

A powerful shockwave emanated from the area of the explosion, but it was thankfully devoured by the sand and the many barriers they had put up together the moment that they saw it, with little spreading out beyond them. No pieces of the small bead followed, unlike an explosion that might emerge from a typical container, although Wei Yi was able to see a number of particles of something resembling ash floating up into the air and scattering.

The explosion passed, and she cleared the darkness around them, finding Great Dark looking at her with an alarmed expression.

“That… was more than I would have hoped for with such a weapon… It had only been intended to deliver a typical close-range blow across a long distance… How do you usually use artefacts if this is what you cause?” he asked, his widened eyes refusing to return to normal.

“It’s the issue, really. I can’t use normal planar artefact without things exploding for no good reason. Inscriptions, arrays, talismans, and all that are perfectly fine, but when it comes to artefacts, I have to make use of killing will or physique energy, or, more recently, bloodline power. It is more of a curse than a blessing most of the time, although I have made it work in my favour most of the time.”

“I see… If something like that could be contained… Every random soldier, regardless of realm, could guarantee an immense degree of damage to a foe…”

“There are some ways to store my energy, although I don’t know whether that can be done without making things a lot more difficult for another user. Fu Zan and Miyu might know of it, though, as their world had something called a grenade. It is a thrown explosive device of some kind, and it can apparently contain materials as volatile as my energy without exploding the instant that it is made,” Wei Yi said, removing a steel leaf from the House of Gold and quickly shaping it into a similar bead of a lower grade, “You can take this in that item’s place, just in case anyone noticed it, then we should probably not participate in any more experiments like that for now. There’s only so much that can be ignored or blocked.”

“Indeed, that would be wise… Do attempt not to keep the soldiers awake again…”

“Relax, I’m not some heartless bitch that can’t tell when others are suffering. Neither Chao Ru nor the troops require a night of staying awake for the moment, and I won’t overlook that just because I – or she, for that matter – have an excessive libido. Now, go and sleep on your own, if you care about that,” she said, waving him away as she also returned to camp and to her own tent.

Inside, Chao Ru was already deep within her slumber, most of the wounds on her body having healed completely or left behind only minor marks that would likely be gone within a day or two.

Just as they had the previous day, Wei Yi lay beside her in the bed, which had intentionally been made larger to accommodate their time together, although she made sure to face away just in case either one of them decided to be too active in the night. She wouldn’t be sleeping, since that was something that she needed quite a bit of effort to get into that usually didn’t work out anyway unless she had just done something that deserved a rest afterwards, but when her guard is let down and her body is a little more free to express herself, certain physical reactions can arise.

She instead kept her focus on the camp and on its surroundings, doing her best to prevent another attack regardless of her foes’ possession of some otherworldly gift or just extremely good stealth methods.

 

Fortunately for all of them, the night passed without incident. There had been no signs of anyone sneaking in, no attempts from Huang Yu Di to escape through some miraculous awakening, whether in general or to some power of escape, and all of the other forces also appeared to be rather calm, although the observation of all forces by the 7^th Legion didn’t go unnoticed by her.

Given that they had not previously showed much interest in anyone but the supposed Hunters of the Cosmos, she was mostly sure that this was simply a front for them to be able to observe her camp, but she also knew little about their intentions even now. Like most of the people present, the 7^th Legion likely came to handle threats to their district, with that being their primary motivation, but it could be that they had decided that the Hunters were somehow also threatening them, or that they were suspicious of them and didn’t think them to be true Hunters.

The issue with the wildly discrepant possibilities was that taking action to help one would instead worsen their situation if the other was true, so it wasn’t a good idea to act at all until something could be concluded with certainty.

So, in the morning, Chao Ru awoke and found that, at some point during the night, she had placed her hands around Wei Yi and snuggled close to her, enjoying the warmth of the Ascendant’s body combined with the cooling sensation that the plentiful yin in her body provided, resulting in the best parts of both experiences being combined. Her hand was positioned over Wei Yi’s breast, although there was little there that could be groped or felt up, accidentally or on purpose.

“How’re you feeling?” Wei Yi suddenly asked, breaking the silence, and nearly causing Chao Ru to leap out of the bed.

“Y-You were awake? Sorry, I hadn’t noticed at all.”

“That’s fine. I would have stopped you had I minded, or had I thought that you did still need to lie calmly for a little longer,” she said, freeing herself from the embrace and rising before kneeling at the side of the bed to get on the same level as Chao Ru’s face, “Only a few light marks remain, but they will go in almost no time. Your internal organs are all safe, too, so if there were any you were particularly concerned about, you needn’t worry about them.”

“Right, thanks,” Chao Ru sat up on the bed, prompting Wei Yi to rise completely to keep up, “By the way, yesterday, after I lay down, all of my newfound strength left me, but I felt like I had gotten a bit stronger. Could you check that for me?”

“Sure… Yes, your body has grown a little stronger, although, rather than simply rising in strength, it would be more accurate to say that your overall potential has grown significantly,” she explained, “Getting rid of impurities alone doesn’t immediately cause greater physical capability, but does allow for a lot more development and growth. As such, you should get back to training when we return to Paragon, and maybe you’ll find yourself far more capable than you had first assumed yourself to be… Also, I had noticed that yesterday, but I didn’t want to bother you. That, and your eyes have changed back.”

“Oh, that’s a shame… I wanted to see what I would look like with those… There is something that I have to ask, however. You were effectively able to make me stronger, both right away and in the long term, with a bit… no, a lot of sex, right? Wouldn’t that mean that you should go around and… supply everyone in the Arbiters with your bloodline power?”

“While I wouldn’t say no to some, everyone has a limit to what they and their body can handle, and I simply don’t think that it is a good idea to replace a training regimen with frequent orgies. As for providing bloodline power to others, that does not require any sex at all. If you remember its name, you should be able to think of the other source of that energy pretty much right away,” Wei Yi said, pointing to a blood vessel on her arm just in case Chao Ru was still exhausted from yesterday.

“Blood… Right, of course blood would have a lot of bloodline power. Fine, that was a bit silly. Would it work, though?”

“Depends on what you mean, and what constitutes success in this field. The danger with this, as with any other bloodline, is that the consumption of it, especially when one lacks a stronger or equivalent bloodline to nullify its unwanted altering effects, can lead to such results as the body transforming into the original source of the bloodline, even if it is just in part. This won’t happen with the method you learned of, as it is weaker and more inert in comparison, but blood does bring those risks with it,” she explained, “The Blood Alchemists or the Blood-tinged Church may know a thing or two, but reaching either one is a little tough at the moment, to say the least.”

“That won’t be something that you could do any time soon, then?”

“Unfortunately, that does appear to be the case. I would very much like to give everyone in the Ascendant’s Arbiters as much strength as possible to permit them to cope with the world around us, but that is not something that is always easy to do safely.”

Chao Ru didn’t understand much bloodlines, bloodline power or what Wei Yi could and couldn’t accomplish with the, but she nonetheless said, “I’m sure you will manage in the end.”

“Thank you for your confidence, even if I doubt that you or I see the full picture of bloodlines and their seeming nigh infinite complexity,” she replied, “Now, I think that it is time to get going, so if you want to lie around some more, I can leave you to it. Otherwise, carrying you is an option, though not one I will commit to for long.”

“I think I’ll try to sit around and cultivate, just to see whether I can make any improvements.”

“Alright, that is a good thing to attempt, so I’ll not be bothering you for a while. Whether you’d like to tell me of your accomplishments afterwards, or if expect me just to keep an eye on you as usual – which I do regardless – I’ll come back somewhere closer to the evening, so long as nothing else happens.”

Once Chao Ru nodded to show her understanding, Wei Yi considered giving the other woman a quick kiss on the cheek, but hardly needed to do much pondering to realise that it would only make it harder for the two of them to remain separate from one another in terms of their emotions and thoughts, so she just walked out into the sands, the sandstorm raging just as it had been doing for the past few weeks, and the other camps appearing to be waking up without incident.

Everything looked fine, but there was still that feeling of alarm that wouldn’t quite go away no matter what she did.

‘Something will go wrong again. The only question is, what will it be this time?’