The atmosphere in the desert fortress of Paragon had changed slightly after Wei Yi departed.

Most of the more ordinary people weren’t as aware of the goings on at the top as those she had invited, since they were just able to live their lives as they wanted so long as they did something to contribute to the development of either the Kong Prison Realm or Paragon. However, the tension trickling down from above did eventually change their mood as well.

Previously, communication could be ensured and maintained with ease no matter where she was, and she did have the tendency of appearing in the prison realm either mentally or physically to ensure that everything was going well, but as confirmed by Yi Shi Ming, she had truly sealed off her link to the Kong Prison Realm. From what the spatial spirit was able to confirm of the seal, it could be broken at any time with the conscious intervention of Wei Yi, but it would entirely prevent her from feeling anything but the faintest notions of what was occurring within the prison realm. If necessary, the spatial spirit could try to damage it, but she did not wish to do so in order to avoid affecting her plans.

It was certain that the seal couldn’t be opened up while she was doing whatever it was that she had decided to do, since that could easily expose her to any particularly powerful or sensitive members of the Great Families, but after they had raised the question at the last minute, Wei Yi had also confirmed that she would avoid opening it until she was in the fortress with all of the obscuring properties that it possessed.

The reason was simple enough. If she had been spotted, and some method of remote observation was used, then it might be possible to detect the spatial fluctuations of the Kong Prison Realm within her. If that was then connected to the right spatial realm, then that would risk all of their lives.

Theoretically, so long as it could be confirmed that this is not an ability that the Great Families possess, the seal could immediately be lifted and if they happen to need help, Wei Yi could return to them at any moment, although it would be more difficult to say whether she could then get back to where she needed to be. However, it was rather difficult to be certain whether someone did or did not possess an ability until there was a time where there would be literally no choice but to use it, and they were unable to do so.

No matter what they believed Wei Yi to intend, they didn’t think that the tracking of spatial fluctuations was going to be the last resort of any group, Great Family or otherwise.

Furthermore, their Ascendant was only in the fourth realm, even with everything that she had done up to this point. She could potentially detect something due to her own experience and possessions, but if she had stumbled into a seventh realm member of a Great Family without being clearly aware of it – and possibly even if she was aware – it would hardly be a challenge for them to hide certain kinds of snooping. That much was made obvious by the fact that she had no clue that she was being watched when she had only exited the prison realm, and that was against someone in the same realm, albeit far more powerful due to their many anchors.

Someone in the first generation should easily be able to track her and observe her without her having a single clue about it, and so, with safety being the primary matter in her intended actions, she wouldn’t go against it unless absolutely necessary.

With no ability to keep track of her health and success, as the seal also prevented Yi Shi Ming from being able to determine anything beyond her state of life or death, if they did receive some suspicious information, they would hardly be able to do anything about it, whether to confirm it or to check exactly where she was.

Thus, several days after she had departed, everyone was just generally anxious and were hoping that they would hear something about her soon.

 

“… There, now this is set up. You said something about a massage parlour?” Luo Lia Kun asked, rising from the ground where the inscription had been buried in order to link it to the rest of the network that was being set up around Paragon, “I’m sure I could use it after these few days.”

“Well… I’m not certain whether it would be entirely suitable for you, vice-leader,” Zhi Qiu Ya said, blushing a little as she looked elsewhere to hide it, “I only realised it after they pulled me in, but it might be that the place is also… well, it’s in the prison realm, and Meng Chu dominates Beast’s Rest, and you know what he’s up to…”

“You mean it is a brothel as well?”

“Yeah… I… I hadn’t figured it out at first since I was brought straight to the massage table, without any other visitors…”

“That should be fine- not for that reason!” the perpetual vice-leader was forced to explain when the wolven woman’s eyes widened, “From my experience with it so far, it seems that pretty much everything in Beast’s Rest has a connection to a brothel, whether it is a meat skewer stall or another brothel. Since they’ve clearly not done another to you, I should be safe as well. That being said, it is quite amazing how everyone in that realm seems to have made themselves comfortable.”

“Perhaps that’s what happens when your authority figure brought you the sky, sun and moon, even if most of them are now fulfilled by that Monolith,” Zhi Qiu Ya guessed, “Yi Shi Ming is temporarily substituting that with an illusion, right?’

“From what she told us, but I struggle to tell them apart. Seventh realm illusions are too much for me, it seems.”

Having made sure that the inscriptions had been placed accurately and properly, as they intended to create a sort of array atop the existing one through the combination of more than a hundred different inscriptions as to provide them with a stable defensive barrier against any possible invasions, they stepped away from that point of the fortress and headed towards one of the spatial  gateways.

Without Wei Yi being present, most of the aspects of the prison realm itself, and the abilities that it bestowed onto the Arbiters like far more living space and instant transportation within itself, and perhaps the biggest difference was the void outside of the Kong Prison Realm. After one of her more recent breakthroughs in something or other, the background of the void was filled with incredibly distant and subtle chains, but once her connection was mostly severed, none of them remained in the sky. Only a few of the common residents had noticed it, mostly those that tended to gaze at the stars most frequently, but it was still unfortunate to have another reminder of her absence.

This feeling was part of what drove most of the people that she had called to inform them of her temporary departure to improve themselves as quickly as they could with what they had.

None of them expected to just be able to match Wei Yi after a night or two of training, but the more effort they put in to being as strong, wise and practised at everything they already had any practise in, and at times things they had never been forced to learn before, the more the chance of them being able to actually contribute something in the future would be.

If they were always too weak and could only fulfil the roles of common soldiers, they would be ashamed for themselves and fearful that the requirement for Wei Yi to handle everything on her own would eventually come at the cost of her very life. It did also bring to their attention that some of them had come to rely on their Ascendant to handle far too many different things. She had already participated in mining, building, crafting, arranging, inscribing, even farming and, at one point in the prison realm, cooking, and some of them were getting too reliant on her enormous range of abilities.

The ones to suffer the least from this were Great Dark and Great Light, given that they had joined the smallest amount of time ago and had the least time to be affected by this phenomenon, but it was hard to deny even for them that they were getting lazier.

During the peak of the War of Yin in terms of conflict and the number of battles, Great Earth would have spent an immense amount of time managing all sorts of minor and major things to ensure that the conflict would be proceeding smoothly. He could handle reports of battle, missives from spies, diplomatic and covert statements and allegations, as well as his own training and cultivation, but his preferred half currently needed to handle only the few spies that he had sent out, and even then, they were currently avoiding any contact with them as per Wei Yi’s instructions. Great Light got away from that a little more, as he was busying himself with mining and thus training that unexpected skill but digging through rock was also far less involved mentally than what his original self could do.

As such, they focused on finding something better for themselves to do in whatever free time they had, and brushed up on their inscription skills to create a few more inscriptions to bolster Paragon’s defences. Since their creations would be greater in realm but inferior in quality or stability to the combination of a Red Shaper’s Grasp and the inscription skill Wei Yi possessed, they would only add onto the defensive layer suggested by her, allowing their inscriptions to only reinforce the cornerstones of the defences.

Luo Lia Kun, meanwhile, had decided that she would try to assist with that effort, in addition to learning some of the vast range of techniques that Wei Yi had stored in the Kong Prison Realm during and after her forced stay there. On the side, she also tried looking into array arrangement, since it suited her own element while also being something that was not covered as fully by the people of the Ascendant’s Arbiters as some fields were, although she had not been able to get particularly far in just a few days. She had already known some of the basic principles of arrays, but to actually put that knowledge into practise and create even a pseudo array took far more effort than she had anticipated.

With Zhi Qiu Ya offering to help on the second day of inscription placement, technique training and array studying, she had done more than expected, but was incredibly tired as a result of all of it.

Thus, with the wolven woman by her side, Luo Lia Kun headed through to the Beast’s Rest gateway, and then followed the former’s direction to arrive at a decent looking place, one that she could distinctly tell was separated into two sections. One was far higher and more spacious than the other, judging by what she could see through the several rows of windows, where the walls were slightly thicker and less easily penetrated by sound. The other was far more reserved.

“You usually go to the right, I’d guess.”

“Well, I access it through a side door, but it is on the right… I’d never actually taken a proper look, since I usually go here quickly then leave satisfied…”

“Since we intend to do the same, there shouldn’t be any problems,” Luo Lia Kun said, approaching the door of the building, “Besides, Wei Yi likely watched over these places before, and I’m sure Yi Shi Ming is filling in for her right now. If anyone there was to have some bad intentions towards you or I, they wouldn’t be remaining there for long.”

With that, she stepped into the building, with Zhi Qiu Ya following right after her, which nearly caused the two of them to collide when she proceeded to stop right away, her gaze focused entirely on the person sitting behind the front desk.

“Chen Shifu? This is where you work now?” Luo Lia Kun questioned right away.

“Good morning to you too, vice-leader,” the brown-haired woman replied, brushing a loose hair out of the way of her vision, “To be more precise, I am currently employed to assist in the financial management of forty-nine establishments within Beast’s Rest that are owned by Meng Chu. There happened to be an absent receptionist, so I am currently filling in for them, and am therefore obliged to recommend the premium course to you over your original intention.”

“This… Zhi Qiu Ya, were you aware of this?”

“Actually… I’ve never been to the front, so I had no clue that there was even a reception area like this. The back door-”

“You must mean the employee-only entrance, intended for the departure of employees when they are seeking to attract outside customers into the establishment. Your persistent usage of it is partly against the establishment guidelines, but you are still a trial customer, in a way, so I shall not chide you for your behaviour. Do become a paying customer soon, though, Zhi Qiu Ya,” Chen Shifu said.

“I’ll consider it… Have you been working here the whole time?”

“If you mean since I had appeared in the prison realm, then the answer would be ‘nearly’. It had taken me some time to acquire my position, but that process was rather short considering the fact that they required the aid of someone capable of handling the sudden influx of potential customers. They also appreciated my support in integrating more ordinary businesses into every brothel slightly more effectively than before.”

“Well, I’m sure that you’ve got your work cut out for you, so we won’t be taking up too much of your time,” Luo Lia Kun said, approaching the reception desk properly, “We’d like… well, I think Zhi Qiu Ya wants more of what she was already getting, while I’ll take something basic.”

“Assuming that you are referring to massages and not our available choice of prostitutes – female, mostly, which might not suit your tastes, vice-leader – then there is an introductory course, as well as a VIP, premium version that is longer, more relaxing and in a vastly nicer room,” the secretary said, giving Luo Lia Kun a pamphlet with the list of options, amongst other things, “As previously mentioned, offering you the premium course is indeed my obligation as an employee and temporary receptionist, but as someone who is permitted to experience the services of certain businesses for free due to my position, I can highly recommend the premium version.”

“I shall trust your-”

Luo Lia Kun’s words were interrupted when Yi Shi Ming suddenly appeared on her side, her hand placed upon the vice-leader’s as she attempted to hand that pamphlet back.

In the small amount of time that she had known the spatial spirit, this was perhaps the most alarmed that she had seen her, although little of that could be gathered from her expression if one wasn’t already familiar with her more average look and the extremely small differences between the body language of her usual and current states.

“My apologies for the interruption, but Great Dark has asked me to request your presence in the keep of the fortress,” the spatial spirit said, her voice wavering slightly, “I would prefer to take you there right away.”

“Uh, in that case, Chen Shifu, I’d like to reserve one of those premium starter courses, if I could,” Luo Lia Kun said, turning away after the secretary nodded, “Zhi Qiu Ya, you can come with me, if you want.”

“The atmosphere just turned really… grim. I think I need to know what this is about, at the very least,” Zhi Qiu Ya stated, coming closer to the perpetual leader and the mother of the Master of Yi City, “I can just come back at some other time.”

Yi Shi Ming slightly nodded her head and then the three of them vanished from the spot, leaving Chen Shifu on her own as she leaned back in her chair and briefly stretched her arms. Such a sudden departure was naturally not within her expectations, and the oddity of the figure that took them away also caused her to worry more than she normally would. Had this been some other customers, she probably wouldn’t have cared about it all that much, but this was her former vice-leader – or perhaps current one, depending on exactly what the hierarchy of the Ascendant’s Arbiters was, since she had never taken the time to study it – and someone she was quite familiar with after the number of times that she had needed to report Zhi Qiu Ya’s actions in her wolven state to Luo Lia Kun.

As such, she raised and sipped from a cup of strong tea, feeling the maintained heat pass through her body and warm her up.

“Chen Shifu?” another voice, this time from the back, pulled her attention, making her glance back to find one of the employees calling out to her, “Was there a customer here just now? One with grey hair and this puppy-like look to her?”

“They’ve just left. Something important, I think.”

“Ah, that’s a shame. I had a feeling, so I started preparing things… Do you think they- she came with someone else?” the employee asked, although she quickly disregarded her own question and continued, “Do you think she will be coming back any time soon, or should I put everything away and prepare for someone else?”

“Don’t prepare anything else, but don’t put it away either. If it is something stressful, she might return here to unwind a little. She may even decide to let you take it further than usual.”

“Alright, I’ll do that. Man, what would we be doing without you? Your predictions with this kind of stuff are almost never wrong, to the point that I’m quite jealous. Imagine if all of us could be this aware of everything while on the job…”

 

Zhi Qiu Ya and Luo Lia Kun appeared at the side of Yi Shi Ming, finding themselves within the same meeting room that they had used a few days prior when Wei Yi had called upon them. This time, the primary seat was left empty, and most of the group that had been present then had already arrived as well, with all of them staring nervously at something.

In front of Wei Yi’s seat, a large oval shaped screen of light floated, bobbing up and down ever so slightly while it remained within the air. Through it, it was possible to see a large gathering of people, a stage, and several people on it who were bound with ropes and chains. All of them looked to not be in their best states, although their bodies were free of obvious injury and a barrier even prevented anyone from simply throwing things at them, with their eyes barely being able to focus and their bodies not moving beyond simply breathing. No clothing covered most of their bodies.

Before Luo Lia Kun and Zhi Qiu Ya had even a moment to question what that was, or why they had been asked to attend something that otherwise looked rather ordinary, they saw that reason.

Amidst that crowd, in the same chains and with as little clothing as the rest, with only a rag to cover her chest, stood a figure that they were hardly ever going to fail to recognise, even if her condition was exactly the opposite of the way in which they had seen her last.

Every feature was exactly alike. Her charming face, eyes with those two vague circles in each, couldn’t leave their memories even through reincarnation. The long crimson hair that was currently freely flowing from her head was as pure and clean as ever, causing her to stand out amidst the rest of the people on that stage. Just as they remembered it, her body was free of injury or flaws, with musculature that was just pronounced enough to be immediately notable while not so significant as to entirely distract from her tall, strong, yet distinctly feminine figure. Even the feature at her crotch that only some of them knew about was clearly there.

“W-What the fuck is that? What am I seeing? What is that?” Luo Lia Kun questioned immediately.

“This… using something left behind in the Chu District, I had been able to overhear something alarming,” Great Dark said, although his voice and hands were shaking while his eyes were partly glued to the screen of light, for he wished to remove his gaze from it and yet could not, “I had used that same method to give us a view of what was happening… and it appears to be this.”

“This is a fake, right? The G- fuck, They somehow learned of exactly what she looks like and are now attempting to trick us, right? Just how she said, right?”

“There is a possibility… that man is certain to be one of Them, but… Too accurate, I’d say,” he replied, finally tearing his eyes away and instead moving them to the ground, as he was unable to meet the gaze of the others in the room, “They would have been able to replicate certain features in mere days with the means at Their disposal… but I do not think that it would have been easy to repeat that exact set of characteristics.”

“The man that had come to the camp outside before everything happened would have seen her, right?” Shun Liu Min said, “That could have been part of his message. Also, the fucker called Ping Gangze might have set us up with a technique manual specifically intended to cause complications, and I might have just fallen into his trap…”

“It wouldn’t mean a perfect replica, I’m afraid… Listen to it as well…”

 

“Hm, the papers sure are vague about her captor. One of our children must not have wanted for fame, or perhaps one of the others wasn’t so fond of us,” a woman with vibrant green eyes and brown hair said, elegantly lifting a cup and taking a polite sip of what was within, “Judging by the one that first got the information to us, I would assume it to be Ping Wu, but he tends to be far more expressive about his actions… then again, it was about time for him to learn humility.”

“Sister, let us not bother with such unpleasant matters. We have such a wonderful show that we can enjoy. The Rebel is finally caught!” a figure with identical eyes and similarly coloured hair exclaimed.

With the hand that did not also hold a cup of identical tea, he lightly waved in the direction of the stage, and the crimson-haired woman that stood upon it, her eyes blank and empty, the brilliant glimmer that had filled them before being all but absent.

For a moment, there was a slight spark of something when their eyes seemed to meet across the great distance, but none of those that had even the faintest chance of understanding whether it had been a mere trick of the light or something greater. No matter how much they attempted to look closer at her, to detect another such glint, they saw nothing, even when one of the people at the stage, who were masked and clothed from head to toe so that their identities would not be revealed, decided to strike her with a whip.

She barely moved from the strike, even though it was a middle-grade artefact, and her skin was barely marked, but due to the effect of the item it had to have hurt. Despite that, her expression did not change, causing them to doubt what they had seen even more so than when they first observed it in her eyes.

“Now, look upon this monstrosity who calls herself Yi Wei! She slaughtered the people of the Ping District, caused havoc in the Yi District, invoked the monsters of the Ning District, and destroyed an entire organisation in the Luo District!” one of the men on the stage announced to the crowd, who booed and chanted various things at those in chains and ropes, none of them even approaching neutrality, not to speak of positivity, “She even hid this from the women she had forced into sleeping with her, defiling them while their friends and husbands knew nothing! This person is a beast, through and through, and yet she claimed to be some paragon of virtue! Look upon her now!”

 

A pair of hands slammed onto the table as Luo Lia Kun rose, “HOW DARE THEY!”

“Are you believing them, then?” Great Dark asked, immediately causing her to fall back into her seat, “Do remember what she had said… They might attempt to trick us, and this might be a greater attempt than we, or perhaps even she, had anticipated… Yi Shi Ming-”

“I am afraid that I cannot confirm or deny anything through the method that you are using. From what I understand, Wei Yi is still alive, but that is all that I can say,” the spatial spirit responded quickly.

“What if that is her? What if they have captured her? Are we just going to sit around on our asses and do nothing? She had done so much to get us here and you’re suggesting that we just abandon her?” Luo Lia Kun questioned, smashing her hand on the stone table once again without rising this time, “They are just standing there, abusing her, spreading all kinds of lies, and we can’t even stand up and fight? They aren’t even using the right name, for heaven’s sake!”

“Actually, that might be one of the few things that those people have gotten right in their declarations,” Great Light said, sighing, his typical irritating persona absent from his every feature, “She’s from the Yi District, and has the features of the Yi family, and went out on an expedition for them. Wei Yi even wore the robes that the servants of the family wear beneath her black robes.”

“Servant? The Yi family tried to keep her as a servant when she had done all this?” Chao Ru asked, “Didn’t she destroy a spatial realm while in the Half-Step Emergent Anchor realm?”

“The Yi family is very strict when it comes to their familial standings… With the way in which talent is usually passed down, they must not have anticipated anything like this… However, this should not change anything. Wei Yi had rejected her family, and if she is not interested in talking about it… we should not bring it up when she returns,” Great Dark said, “If… No, I will not contemplate such a possibility. She had warned us for a reason. Whatever the case, she must not have wished for us to go out and fight.”

“Then what are we meant to do?” Luo Lia Kun questioned, “Just sit and watch this?”

“Unfortunately… that is the most we can do, and we must do it. Depending on what this is… we must understand their intentions, what They think they know, and what they do not. Perhaps Wei Yi might use this to her advantage… or she might not even be aware that this is happening…”

The vice-leader struck the table again before falling back in her chair with gritted teeth. She did not expect to react just like this to something that should, no matter how she looked at it, be fake, but Wei Yi seemed to have occupied a far larger position within her heart than she had anticipated, for every strike, punch, whip and other attack and weapon was thrown at the crimson-haired woman shown on that screen of light, she felt her own body hurt far more than it would have hurt the real Ascendant.

Rather than only her skin and muscles feeling the pain, the thing to suffer most was her heart, as each hit seemed to go straight to it.

Glancing to her side, she found that Zhi Qiu Ya was not taking things any better, and that she had bit down on her lip to the point of drawing blood with one of her sharp canines. Some of the previously suppressed animalistic features had returned, although they were clearly concentrated towards the parts that could best wound whoever had harmed Wei Yi, since her ears and tail remained absent.

“I think… that we will go and get that massage after all. Since you’re so much calmer than we are, I’ll leave it to you to think this through… but this shouldn’t be shown to the people of the fortress and the prison realm. There’s no way we’d stay calm,” Luo Lia Kun said, rising again, “Maybe I should…”

She did not proceed with that line of thought, not directly in front of the others, but she was tempted to get more stress relief than initially planned.