Daoist Bleeding Horizons stood in the air above East Saffron, still in sowhat of a state of shock. He… the attack had been so brazen. Too brazen. A Middle Sundering cultivator, in the heart of East Saffron— and such a powerful Mid-Sundering cultivator, too. He couldn’t imagine a single one of the Elders in his entire sect standing up to such a man and erging victorious. Maybe not even any two Elders.
Maybe, terrifyingly, not even himself.
Geo floated off to the side, dressed in his casual hoodie, as only per the usual— though his usual scowl had been usurped with an entirely different and far more thunderous expression. That he hadn’t imdiately dispatched the threat and left was a bit surprising. That they’d had to call for him at all was surprising, too.
Then again, what other Mid-Sundering cultivators could slip so seamlessly from the grasp of an Immortal Ascension cultivator that they could make it look effortless? The eyes— those blazing eyes— of him would live in his mory for a long ti; the way they looked so utterly bored, so dismissive of everything around them. As if everything was beneath him.
They offended . He rembered the man’s words, and shivered. What a terrible thing to say. As though they were still in the pre-imperial tis, that ancient history before the Empire of Twelve Constellations had unified the realm and brought a halt to the barbarity of cultivators doing whatever they wanted for whatever petty reason they pleased.
After a long mont, Geo sighed; he did not look pleased, either. “I can find neither hide nor tail of whatever technique he used to get away from .” Of course he would be disappointed— it must rankle, to have lost to a cultivator so much weaker to him, in any way at all. “Despite the… opticsI have my suspicions that he wasn’t a part of the Empire of Nine Sunlights.”
Daoist Bleeding Horizons blinked, a faint and tenuous hope flickering into him. “Truly?” If this didn’t an war… if they could push the war back just a short while longer, and he could give his disciple the chance to ascend to Sundering, where he’d be much safer… he would seize onto the opportunity with both hands, feet, teeth and his sword too.
Geo nodded. “If the Empire of Nine Sunlights had such a surpassingly powerful formation that a Mid-Sundering cultivator was able to effortlessly bypass both the relic wards of East Saffron and escape an Immortal Ascension cultivator, then we’d have known about it. Or, at the least, they wouldn’t have used it to kill a few worthless mortals in the city of East Saffron. No offense, of course.” He did take so offense to the categorization of mortals as worthless… but Geo was not wrong. He did not know who had been targeted— and it was certainly targeted, for whatever spell the man had used had been precise— but they hadn’t been anyone of particular note. The man could have done so much worse, with that kind of power in the middle of East Saffron.
He shivered again.
“The technique, too,” Geo continued. “It isn’t a standard imperial technique. It isn’t even one that I’ve heard about amongst the various noble clans and political powers of the empire— and I’ve studied those well.”
“The… beam attack?”
Geo shook his head. “Not the important part. That, at least, I believe is a pure energy release technique controlled with surpassing finesse.” With enough energy to rival a cultivator a full step above him. That was… again… sowhat terrifying. “No, it is the threads. That… that was a technique that I think any Immortal Ascension cultivator would upturn heaven and earth to get their hands on.”
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “How… so?”
“The… you cannot see it. Of course, you cannot see it. There is a certain level of… reality, of unreality, when it cos to the Realm and the Chaos Sea. It is reflected in every attack, in every action, in every part of a high rank cultivator.” That, Bleeding Horizons had heard of before. The most sacred records of the sect ntioned as much, passed down from the Bloody Saffron Immortal. The less sacred records shared to them as part of the information available to mbers of the Aurelian Alliance of Sects also ntioned as much.
Yet, for Geo to ntion it now… “the threads were imbued with that.”
“More. They were. I don’t know how to describe it. They were almost more of an Immortal Ascension-rank natural treasure than they were constructs of qi, imbued with the feeling, the utter sensation that they could weave together anything.” That was mildly… no, that was very terrifying. That a Mid-Sundering cultivator could use a technique more profound than that of Immortal Ascension cultivators.
“Definitely not the Empire, then.” At least there was that. Yet, that begged the question— “but, who?”
Geo shook his head, expression dour. “I don’t know. But whoever it is…” he was silent for a long mont. “I fear they seek to start a war.”
………
REPORT: As the Reeds Blow, and Heaven Decrees, so To Does Man by Virtue Ascend
In the 532nd Year of the Fourth Generation (Accounting by Post-Imperial ti)
Transcription (by ans of record/functionary formation, later transcribed into logoform by inner disciple Ur-Ha Elioel of the Ever-Joyous Harmony of Bells Sect; Submitted via courier to the Alliance of Sects (representing, the Aurelian Alliance of Sects.)
Daoist Sunrise Within the Light of Virtue— a loathso na, in his opinion, and his opinion ought to have so import, given his position as one of the single most powerful cultivators in the entire realm, and certainly on Aurelia— knelt on the burnished tal floor of the Holy Land, head bowed in penitent supplication.
Those who knew him well called him Geo. A strange thing, to hold so tightly to that na, when so many of his fellows would rather lean into the authority, the splendor of their position. Then again, he was a strange man. All of them were, he supposed, those who had ascended so far.
He wore simple robes— not the overly casual wear that he was fond of, though even this was already a concession to his position. Were anyone else to try the sa thing, unless they were amongst his fellow Grand Elders, they would probably be subjected to one of the many various arcane, outdated, and barbaric punishnts that the sect still technically upheld in regards to its various and most holiest of places.
The tal was cool against his skin, even through the cotton-fabric of his robes. According to commonly accepted legend of the sect, it was made of the sa tal as the One Thousand and One blades of Zhongshi. He knew that was a lie. Mysterious and powerful, and shining like natal gold yet possessing the resonant properties of the most exquisite tempered bronze… it still paled in comparison to the heavenly material of those blades. It was still mortal.
For exactly three minutes, he waited in silence. Then, as the man who sat at the center of gold stood, face veiled beneath a sheet of exquisitely fine, golden scales— one of the sect’s greatest treasures— the entire place rang. It was an ethereal sound, a terrible sound, a trembling in the ground as it shivered around him and pressed him down with the sort of force that could boil seas and flatten whole mountain ranges, and if it were any fiercer even damage him, despite his cultivation. Yet, despite the awe-inspiring power of the pure tone, the disciple standing off to the side managing the recording formation wasn’t instantly turned into a fine mist of pulverized cultivator.
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A marvel of an age gone past.
And, as the ritual went, he bowed three tis to the Sect Master, who in rang a bell— a much simpler bell, this ti, yet still a transcendental relic of the sect— a flicker of sound, of golden light and qi that felt heavenly, like the very faintest touch of tribulation, wrought into a wreath. “Daoist Sunrise Within the Light of Virtue. You are summoned to recount your actions this day past, may the sect hear your wisdom.” Again, it was only because of his position as Grand Elder that it wasn’t ‘may the sect judge your cris.’ Even if there had been no cris. Tradition…
He fought the urge to sigh. Even he knew that would’ve been improper. Still… “I was summoned to East Saffron by their Sect Master, at utmost urgency— the token was broken.” The very slightest reaction from the sect master— and a wide-eyed, stunned one from the disciple. The tokens were valuable. He rembered so few thousand years ago, before a clever Grand Elder— may the cycle of reincarnation be kind to his soul, body now ash to a failed ascension— had rediscovered the thod of their making, they had been irreplaceable. “There was an attack of incredible power ted out against a specific clan living… forrly living, as of just recently, within East Saffron.”
“Describe the attack to .”
“Like… I did not see it. I felt it, though, even in the Chaos Sea as I approached. It was…” it was hard to describe. All techniques that carried that taphysical, that weight of the uppermost realms were hard to describe, and the attack had been amongst the greatest of them. The shield more obviously, but as he’d investigated further with Bleeding Horizons, it quickly beca apparent that no part of the strange assailant was free of that echo. “To describe it, to grasp it…” to but touch on the enormity that was it— and for a Grand Elder to pronounce sothing as enormous, that ant it truly was sothing incredible indeed— “it was Boundless Radiance.”
“Then it is the work of the Empire.”
“I do not think so…” he went on, then, to explain his theories and speculations and worries, slowly. Painstakingly, even, because in the realm of such powerful cultivators, it was the work of seconds to slip the fate of millions into years, even decades of bloody, ceaseless conflict. Lesser cultivators wouldn’t know— even they did not, not truly— but to them it was not a distant, forgotten thing. Only four generations past, to the ti of utter barbarity and chaos that had culminated in the collapse of the Empire of Twelve Constellations, and bare-laid truth of what depths of depravity cultivators could push mortal society to. It had only been four immortal generations since the War in Heaven.
It was sothing that they could not forget. It was sothing that he feared was ever more slowly coming upon them, as— with the fleeting pace of advancent, as mortal technology raced to catch up with the slow monster that was cultivation, as the Empire of Nine Sunlights leapt on that and sank both teeth into that, and rode it for all it was worth for minor nobility squabbling over the remnants of imagined imperial ambition to a real, actual threat nearly equal to the entire rest of the Alliance of Sects…
As war— true war, cultivator’s war— only ca faster and again, centuries to fractions to now re decades, re years.
At the end, he was silent. Both of them were, the Sect Master and him, and the only sound that echoed in the holiest of places was the silent, too loud breathing of a disciple that had yet to master the subtle art of that.
“I see.” Finally, the Sect Master responded— though, not with the typical pomp and ritual of the mont, which was always a bad sign. Whenever the Sect Master acted more like Qing Jinmo, it ant that things were actually important. “To … hm, it reminds remarkably of the tales of hidden masters.” Geo thought for a mont, then reluctantly nodded. It did sowhat make sense, if in a stupid, anachronistic sort of way. The Empire of Twelve Constellations, while it had yet existed, had made a point out of opposing Hidden Masters of any sort— those sorts of random, unpredictable powers waiting in the shadows of civilization were of course not very conducive to proper governance, but there was no real way to get rid of them completely. One could control cultivation materials, one could impose limits, but no governance— not mortal nor Immortal, could truly end enlightennt.
Still, they had beco less common, and the thought that such a powerful master had managed to arise… and, moreover, that they had been completely unknown until now… Ah. He saw now. “You’re leading sowhere with this.”
“It reminds you of a certain other individual, does it not? Of Egress IIb, and the man who destroyed it.” It did. By the Heavens, it did. There was sothing utterly terrifying about that, sothing he could not even begin to grasp the significance of. That the calamity was not alone. That there might be a sect— in the secretive, cultlike sense, and not the typical sense— out there, of cultivators of surpassing power. A sudden third player in their ga.
He sighed, suddenly weary.
When could they ever have good news for once?
END OF RECORD
Blessed be the bells of Zhongshi.
May the Alliance of Sects persist forevermore.
………
Rr’an saw the light.
Rr’an saw the ending, the scouring, the terrible flash, as a crown of molten rays for a brief mont adorned the face of East Saffron, slicing through the air and cracking, with the retort of thunder that felt heavenly. He snapped his gaze skywards as all around him cats scattered, so diving for cover, others cowering in place, others stunned. The most intelligent ones leapt to stand beside him, knowing full well that if the sky fell upon them, he was the one who would hold it up.
The barrier over East Saffron— a barrier that so very few of the cats present had even seen in its semi-active state, much less its fully active lockdown, burst into stark visibility over the city, crawling with sigils and seals. Secondary, brief echoes of power followed the first— elders from within the city, the Sect Master, even one of those terrifying existences that were the human Immortal Ascension cultivators…
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.
He could sense the fear in the cats around him. The ones that wondered if East Saffron was to be the staging ground for the first strike of the next war, decades ahead of schedule. The ones who had lost so much, and were terrified of losing more.
He simply stood there, though, unaffected by it all— a rock of stability in the storm that was their whirling emotions. Fearless, even if that battle had been beyond him and he knew it.
Yet… despite that, he really was fearless. Or, at least, he did not fear the calamity that had visited its wrath upon East Saffron, and left so quickly— no, he did not fear them, for he recognized. No… no, he was relieved instead. Now, only now, did he realize just how close he had co to killing himself with the stunt he’d pulled against Avyr’s teacher.
The sundering cultivator who’d beat him as a mortal with a formation imbued with no qi. If he’d been able to do that… he tried not to show the flicker of fear that raced through him,from the tip of his nose to the pads of his paws, to the end of his tail— electric. What power, what aweso, what terrible power could he have, imbued with all the divine force of a Sundering cultivator?
That, clearly.
To have faced him at his peak… if he had gone for the girl, like whoever had angered him had… there would have been nothing left of him. That he had nearly brought himself to ruin— that he had nearly brought the cats to ruin, for he was in many ways, their future…
He had not felt this thrill since the war.
However… however, it was a power that— by whatever twist or circumstance or jest of fate, was more intimately tied into the matter of cats than almost any human was, much less humans of consequence. They had a connection.
Perhaps… perhaps, he would be able to make of Mingtain an ally, and when the ti ca for war— for it would co— his people could for once co out ascendent.
He smiled. That they might finally have their vengance…
How wonderful.
Light faded from a thunderous sky, and left in its wake only the echo of boundless radiance.
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