The decision had been made ~ exiles would clear the way out and fight the battles if needed. The northern tip of the prison island stretched before us; a jagged road and beyond it lay the treacherous path to the Warden Race stronghold. Spatial travel here was suicide; the very fabric of space writhed with corruptible erasing water that could dissolve a paramita.
The path ahead was a cruel joke ~ barely wide enough for a single person, in a zig zag manner, carved between abyss that seemed to swallow light itself.
I stood at its edge, feeling that if my past self were here, he would have found this paralyzing. Back then, I would have been rooted to the spot for hours, trembling at the very thought of that first step. But the journey to Godhood had burned away such fears. Death itself had become just another obstacle to overcome.
An hour of careful progress brought us within sight of the Warden clan's imprisoning facilities, our ranks thinned by several suicide assassins from the smaller clans that had sworn fealty to our captors.
Strength Equalising
When we were just ended fending them off, the world exploded in azure light. Blue radiance erupted on the distant horizon, and in the time it took before a God could react, it engulfed us. No time to react, no moment to prepare ~ this was the dreaded strength-equalizing ability left behind by the ancient chaos god Xu.
My shield flared instinctively, repelling the energy, but I quickly retracted it. Standing out as the only unaffected sore thumb would invite questions I wasn't ready to answer.
The familiar sensation of vulnerability crashed over me like a tide. That same helpless feeling from my mortal days, when even a soccer ball to the head could prove fatal.
My mind flashed back to those Heart Will training sessions in the tower from Godly forbidden Lands. Death I could accept, but the hardest one I overcame was the indignity of being weak hearten seeing footballs flying over; by cyclists running past me... absurd as it sounds, that memory still stung.
Fortunately, my creation energy remained active. I began carefully devouring the restraining light, just enough to push my physical capabilities beyond mortal limits without drawing attention.
Around me, others crumpled under the sudden weakness. Luo Yan collapsed beside me, her legs giving out as divinity fled her body. While everyone struggled to adjust to their newfound frailty, Fu Chu and Xiao Yun drew their ordinary metal swords from storage rings for sending out.
I had my own preparations.
Modern Warfare
"Everyone," I called out, producing thirty peculiar objects from my storage. "I have these. Please, equip them."
The guns I'd recreated using elemental transformation. Ming Wei stared at them with obvious confusion.
"Tao, what are these objects? Artifacts? We cannot seem to equip them properly."
I could have brought vehicles too, but that would have raised too many eyebrows. Sometimes coincidences aligned too perfectly with one's preparations to be unbelievable.
"Master Ming Wei," I said, brushing dust from one of the crude iron devices, "these are not artifacts. Consider them... a hobby of mine." I let the silence settle before continuing. "In my internal world, when its inhabitants were still forming their first civilized nations, I conducted an experiment. I sealed an entire region from all true essence and law perception, curious to see how mortals would adapt in complete severance."
The silence stretched taut as everyone processed this revelation.
"In just over three hundred years of internal world time, they developed these weapons. No technique, no cultivation ~ pure mechanical force. They're useless against high-level martial bodies or forged shields, but against common folk..." I opened the weapons case with deliberate ceremony. "They've become the most effective tools available."
I lifted the first weapon ~ a handgun, matte black and angular, roughly the length of a forearm. "This one handles close encounters. Semi-automatic pistol, they named it. Pull the trigger, fire one round. Use it alongside your sword when enemies press too close. Don't waste ammunition with wild shots."
Setting it aside, I hefted a heavier weapon with a belt feed mechanism. "Named Light machine gun. One hundred rounds per belt, effective suppression up to six hundred meters."
The weight would burden mortals, but cultivators retained their peak mortal strength even under the equalizing effect. So no problem.
Finally, I indicated the largest weapon ~ longer than the others, with a massive barrel and integrated recoil dampener. "Heavy machine gun. Rounds large enough to punch through metal walls, capable of killing multiple targets in a line. Beastly recoil, but manageable with proper bracing. Each shot strikes like thunder."
I met Ming Wei's incredulous stare with a slight smirk. "They're no match for true divine bodies, but right now? They're apex predators. I recreated thirty different variants as an amusing challenge."
Demonstration time. I loaded the heavy machine gun, threading the belt and pulling the charging handle with a satisfying metallic snap. The crude iron sights aligned with practiced ease.
"No soul mark. No divine perception. Just weight, combustion."
I squeezed the trigger.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Muzzle flash tore the air apart. Brass casings clinked against stone as the weapon roared its deadly song. Smoke curled from the barrel as I let it fall silent.
"Simple," I said calmly. "Load, aim, shoot."
Luo Yan shook her head from beside me. "You are as weird as ever."
I distributed ammunition. "Reload magazines slide into the grip ~ they'll click when properly seated. Belt ammunition comes coiled. Feed from the side port, like this." Only twenty fighters accepted the foreign weapons. The remainder would learn their value soon enough.
I left the extras on the ground; since they couldn't be taken in with spatial rings now.
Wights, the beings formed after light of adjudication, were already shambled toward our position, and battle erupted. The exiles who'd taken firearms adapted with startling speed, their enhanced learning abilities making masters of them within shots. Even the conservative elders from the Chi You and Nuwa clans marveled at the weapons' brutal efficiency ~ no blood pooling on blades, no stuck weapons to wrench free from corpses.
Several fighters died after overestimating their abilities without cultivation, but the gun-wielding supporters dramatically reduced casualties. The weapons proved so devastatingly effective that those who'd initially dismissed them as toys ran back to claim the abandoned firearms.
We carved through enemy ranks with unprecedented speed, only to face an ambush from Xuanyuan race archers. Interestingly, they seemed to be targeting the Warden clans as well. Luo Zheng never needed to reveal his truth crystal ability ~ our momentum remained unbroken.
Luo Yan
Hours later, we rested like the mortals we'd temporarily become. An enemy arrow had found Luo Yan's hand despite my deflection attempt. Seeing her pain, Luo Zheng regretted allowing her direct participation instead of sheltering her in internal world. He attempted to heal her by channeling his special energy, but truth crystal abilities weren't designed for restoration.
After bandaging the wound and extracting the arrow, he made a decision. Taking only an short gun and spare ammunition alongside his sword, he ventured ahead alone to clear the path with abilities he preferred to keep hidden.
While Luo Yan endured her injury, I remained at her side.
"How does powerlessness feel, princess?" I asked with mock concern.
Her glare could have melted steel. For cultivators, such wounds were typically momentary inconveniences ~ complete body control allowed instant healing. But strength equalization had left her struggling with blood loss, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.
"Give me your hand. No jokes this time."
I gently took her injured limb, letting creation energy devour the blue suppression field in that localized area. Power flowed through the wound, rapidly healing tissue and expelling foreign fragments. Blood clots dissolved and dropped away. I carefully withdrew the ability afterward.
"Keep the bandage for appearance's sake. Before you ask ~ I can't maintain this for everyone. It's limited, reserved for emergencies. Remember that and help me by not demanding explanations. Otherwise, I'll put an arrow through your other hand myself."
She smiled despite the threat and rose as we prepared to continue.
"So you possessed this ability all along and chose to let me suffer?"
"Helping someone requires empathy to reach a threshold. Like wine filling a vessel ~ I waited until compassion overflowed."
"Is that so..." Her expression shifted to sudden alarm. "Wait, where's my brother?" Not a moment to flirt. Goddamn it.
"....." I need to stop damning myself.
"He ran off to avenge you."
"I need to find him!" There she goes again. She was already loading spare magazines when Luo Zheng reappeared.
"Path's clear. Follow me."
Her superhero had returned, though the trail of Xuanyuan clan corpses made it obvious to us following he possessed trump cards he wasn't ready to reveal. The other exiles noted this but wisely held their tongues.
Three days of steady progress brought us to the main tower. The now mortal guards, confused by the complete annihilation of their patrols, aimed crossbows at our approach. Such primitive weapons meant nothing against bullets. Even the Warden clan's blessed defenders fell within moments of their opening speeches. Luo Zheng charged ahead, pursuing fleeing enemies.
"Why must my brother always rush forward, leaving me behind?" Luo Yan muttered." I can't even keep up.."
"He kills easily because he has tricks he doesn't want us to know about," Ming Wei replied this time. "Makes him confident."
Final Drama
We found Luo Zheng in a precarious situation, forced to reveal his powers publicly. Our covering fire eliminated his immediate threats, and within another day we'd reached the equality altar.
Previously Yan Lai, the Xuanyuan race leader, lay dead with a bullet through his skull ~ Luo Yan's marksmanship at the residence entrance. Without his leadership, no one remained to disrupt the altar's function just like in the story.
The final standoff started with warden clan members and Exiles after a brief talk from Patriarch. During the final battle, Fuxi materialized without warning, engaging Ming Wei in single combat.
His blade moved with terrifying precision, severing her gun cleanly in half with one fluid stroke. Even as bullets streaked toward him, he flowed between them like water, his mortal form somehow defying the very concept of human speed. Ming Wei scrambled to adapt, switching to her circular blades in a desperate attempt to match his inhuman grace.
Around them, the Warden clan forces crumbled beneath our firearms. Their blessed warriors, so formidable in close quarters, found themselves helpless against the relentless barrage.
Luo Yan discovered the harsh limitations of modern warfare when her ammunition ran dry, forcing her to fall back on sword work with decidedly less impressive results.
Through the smoke and screams, I watched as Fuxi's battle tactics shifted. He had maneuvered Luo Zheng into position as a human shield, the two locked in what appeared to be some private interrogation. The tide had turned decisively in our favor elsewhere but here, yet no one dared take a shot with Luo Zheng caught in the crossfire. Fuxi had already proven his ability to dodge bullets or even split them apart with knife, even while under strength suppression.
I began moving toward their position, each step care free, despite Ming Wei's warning looks. Fuxi's blade swept backward without him even turning to look.
"Stay away," he commanded, his voice cutting through the battle's din. "This doesn't concern you."
Instead of retreating as any sane person would, I stepped forward. The blade whistled past as I twisted, and in that heartbeat, I saw everything ~ every flaw in his technique, every opening in his guard through LoHP. My hands moved on their own, snatching his weapon, reversing it in one fluid motion, and placing both edges against his throat.
His instinctive step backward only brought him closer to the blade's edge. He attempted the same maneuver he'd used on Luo Zheng, but the blade was already waiting where his neck would be in the next instant, faster than his reflexes could compensate. Two more attempts followed, each one anticipated and countered. He even tried to fake an opening, but who was he trying to fool? The growing realization dawned on his face ~ from beginning to end, every move he made had been under my control.
"Battle's over, big guy," I said, my voice steady despite the excitement. "Look around you."
Fuxi froze, genuinely stunned by reflexes that surpassed even his ancient instincts. More than that, he was struck by my restraint ~ I hadn't tried to injure him like the others had. The surrounding carnage told its own story. Warden clan members lay dead or wounded across the battlefield, survivors held at gunpoint by our forces.
When he finally released Luo Zheng, still managing to dodge a few stray bullets in the process, Fuxi turned to address the Warden patriarch with resignation heavy in his voice. "You've lost. I've fulfilled my agreement to assist you. Now release them."
"Stop the battle," I called out to Ming Wei. She nodded, though I caught her studying Fuxi and also me with new interest. The peculiarity of what had just happened wasn't lost on her ~ this man had been able to restrain Luo Zheng despite his Truth ability, yet my intervention could be dismissed as a surprise attack or assistance rather than dominance in others sense, but she was very close and saw the attempt in full picture. No fooling her senses.
The Warden clan patriarch released a weary sigh and ordered his remaining forces to deactivate their control mechanisms. Orange light began emanating from the altar as I casually returned to Luo Yan's side. The familiar sensation of everyone's strength flooding back filled the air.
Cutting of Curse Chains
After the immediate chaos settled, Fuxi approached me directly. "How did you do that, girl? What's your name?"
"Name's Tao," I replied with deliberate simplicity. "Just luck ~ you were distracted with him." I offered nothing more, noting how he couldn't sense anything unusual about me. That was definitely not luck, though. In all his billions of years, this would be a first for him.
Ming Wei immediately confronted Fuxi, demanding answers about his true identity before attempting to reason with him. Their exchange was brief but tense and respectful from Ming Wei's side.
Without further ceremony, Fuxi lifted Luo Zheng and flew away into the distance. Luo Yan watched with renewed worry, though she recognized the figure's importance as Human Emperor Fuxi. Best to hope for favorable outcomes. Her gaze returned to me, standing clean and unruffled while others bore bloodstains they were slowly cleansing away.
She approached with obvious questions brewing, but Ming Wei was already in front of her. "You have incredible reflexes, Tao. Did you know about him beforehand?"
"Just some luck," I repeated same as how Luo Zheng defended himself.
"Will my brother be safe?" Luo Yan asked, concern evident in her voice.
"He'll be fine,... probably," I replied with my usual smile.
But Luo Yan's thoughts churned with confusion. Throughout the battle, she'd watched me redirect countless attacks ~ many she hadn't even perceived were meant for her ~ while effortlessly eliminating blessed Warden clan members. When that blade had descended toward me, she'd been certain I was dead. Yet in the next heartbeat, it was pressed against Fuxi's throat instead. The talent displayed was beyond anything she'd witnessed.
8 Trigrams
While she pondered this, I was conducting my own analysis. I had already copied Fuxi's eight trigram artifact during our brief contact, and now inspected it within my internal world. I didn't bother attempting to learn any knowledge from his mind ~ I knew this was merely a clone of the original Fuxi in the Othershore.
The eight trigram artifact, or Book of Eight Trigrams, functioned essentially as an array generator. Its fundamental nature derived from yin and yang principles, capable of transforming and restructuring all things back to chaos. The artifact possessed its own spirituality and knowledge for manipulating complex formations ~ it needed only to receive intent, and would generate the required arrays independently. Its capabilities included enhancing senses, creating soul space, deconstructing any observable event under chaos, and even creating specialized Bahua seals with tremendous destructive power.
After understanding its applications, my LoHP immediately began altering energy channeling pathways in formation patterns for the techniques I currently used. I had already adapted divine dao abilities into virtually every useful ability and technique imaginable. The artifact's inlaid knowledge provided new concepts for inherently manipulating thoughts into necessary actions.
From cultivation techniques to sword attacks, divine dao and merging dao, true meaning ~ even the arc light energy divine dao Sanskrit I'd obtained was being studied directly under a split consciousness within LoHP. I returned my attention to the outside world.
A day passed before Luo Zheng returned to us. The chains that had bound us were severed by Warden clan member Fu Chu, who wielded a special blade provided by the clan patriarch. The remaining clan members trickled back over the following three weeks.
Other Shore: Princess of Oneness Sky Palace
During this period, I took the opportunity to copy the entire Altar of the Chaos Demon God, ensuring no soul fragments of Xu remained within it before transferring it to my internal world. The altar continued functioning perfectly in its new environment, and I added it to my growing list of phenomena to study. The strength-equalizing ability particularly intrigued me.
With little else demanding my attention, and a month till everyone leaves, I spent time on the Other shore of True Meaning.
The next two weeks inside, passed peacefully as I walked, observing the variety of creatures around me. I was aware of several races trailing us from a distance, but I didn't consider them worth addressing and continued on. It wasn't until I reached the Fourth Heaven extreme that I felt something change within my soul.
A resonance awakened within me. My sprite fire origin grew excited for reasons I couldn't immediately identify. Looking around, I spotted another figure watching me intently ~ a woman in red robes with long, flowing hair that shifted from sunset-pink to golden-orange, styled elegantly with a topknot bun and secured with a dark feathered hairpin. Two men followed in her wake.
Souls are inherently difficult to identify by face within the Othershore, but characteristics like shape, color, voice, style and racial talents remain distinguishable. She approached me, and I felt the fluctuations of my divine fire intensify.
"You... are you a member of the Golden Crow race?" she asked, studying me carefully. "But you don't have their characteristics and you're a man. "
That statement alone provided the clue I needed to her identity.
"No, just a human with a special bloodline, but definitely not Golden Crow race," I replied. "Why do you ask?"
She channeled her soul power, manifesting a flame in her hand that became greatly disturbed in my presence. I mimicked her demonstration, producing a violet-blue flame that seemed drawn to hers. It appears my adaptable body had altered the bloodline of the Fire Crow's sprite fire somewhat, changing even the flame's color. "Even now for me to feel this disturbance, the potency of your bloodline must be similar."
She tossed a small portion of her fire toward mine, which my soul fire enveloped and began gradually devouring from within. I quickly reined in the power.
"Impossible," she breathed. "Your flame power is more powerful and bears striking similarity to that of the God Crane race. Who are you? You seem to possess a powerful Violet soul, yet only carry the aura of the Third Heaven. How is that possible?"
"Why would I answer your questions?" I countered. "Aren't we strangers?"
"How dare you refuse to answer Princess Feng Ge?" one of the two men behind her demanded, only now drawing my attention.
"So you're Feng Ge," I acknowledged. "I still don't know you. And you two haven't even reached the Violet realm ~ on what authority are you barking at me?" I shot back releasing my soul pressure for a moment.
I stopped it after she requested me to stop with a hand sign. Her soul treasure was protecting her but not others.
"Forget about them. They didn't mean it. The Supreme One Heavenly Palace, Eastern Emperor Taiyi," she interjected. "Have you truly not heard of them?"
"No, though you must be quite the important figure then" I replied with genuine disinterest.
"Are you not from the Mother World?" one of her followers pressed. "How can you not know the daughter of Eastern Emperor Taiyi and the Supreme One Heavenly Palace? Haven't you visited any temples before?"
"You answered your own question," I pointed out. "I'm not from the Mother World. How would I know? Yeah I have entered, got this storage ring from one place belonging to oneness sky temple, but I wasn't intent on learning about them, I paid for the soul ring and after that I continued my journey."
This revelation genuinely surprised them.
"It's extremely rare to encounter someone from outside our world," Feng Ge mused, "especially someone with abilities like yours. Are you willing to travel with us to the Fifth Heaven?"
"I was planning to enter through there anyway," I admitted. The area we occupied was terrestrial, requiring manual crossing. As we walked, she explained aspects of her true self while I shared my name in return but not admitting anything about my origin. We entered fifth heaven through the star ring.
When we reached our destination, I prepared to part ways. "So what now? I'm leaving ~ are you planning to continue?"
"You're leaving already?" She seemed genuinely disappointed. "I've been training in the Golden Crow divine nest until now, at my mother's place, and just ventured out to advance my soul cultivation. Your soul fire intrigues me greatly. Since you're from outside the Mother World, would you be willing to let me leave a soul mark on you? That way I could know if you return later, or you could contact me if you ever visit the Mother World and wish to join our mountain at the Supreme Heavenly Palace."
From her knowledge, I immediately detected that the soul mark she proposed carried positioning abilities extending beyond the Othershore. She clearly wanted to track me.
"No need for all that," I declined firmly. "You can continue alone from here. I don't particularly appreciate people who say one thing and do something else like including tracking in there." I pointed it right to her face.
" Hmph, I just what to know if you were telling the truth. Who wants to track you otherwise?"
" Is that so..then good bye!"
Without further discussion, I simply used an illusion-breaking charm to return to my realm. " Hey..wait" her last query reached no one leaving her questions unanswered. The only reason she was a bit more respectful is because of the strength of the soul I think. Otherwise her usual arrogance depicted in the story might have come out first.