It was all so confusing and wild.

It all started when I accidentally destroyed the Portal Nexus of the Brilliant Sword Sect. It was an honest mistake, but they were unreasonable in their demands to get my head as payment.

Using that as an excuse, they began poking the bear, I mean the Myriad Beasts Sect, slowly escalating the conflict. The young generation from both sides was used to poke and prod each other until they were ready to throw down for real. Even then, the young ones were used as pawns for the two Sects while the leaders just watched from afar, scheming.

But holy shit, in the end even the Sky Realm Cultivators from both sides were but pawns of the old ancestor. How much of it was real? Was he even close to death, to begin with? He certainly played his part well, pretending to be feeble and leaving the world for centuries so everyone would forget about him.

Still, even though some knew of his existence, they never would have imagined he would use his entire Sect as bait.

What a crazy man. And after luring the overconfident enemy into a trap, he won without having to do any heavy lifting himself. Thousands of powerful Cultivators died. Thousands! And what did he do? He used their death to power his Formation! What a fucking genius lunatic. I had to give him that, he was patient.

But holy fucking shit, why did I have to get swallowed by a portal?! Why were the badges on clothes?! Couldn’t they make rings or earrings instead?! Those would be so much harder to lose!

[Faaaaak!]

I roared through gritted teeth as most of my attention was on keeping my body in one piece. I tumbled through a chaotic tunnel, with the feeling like I was falling, getting squished, and torn apart, all at once!

Which way was I supposed to pull/push? My flesh just wanted to tear itself apart no matter how I tried to reinforce it. I had to focus entirely on keeping my cells connected, and even that wasn’t enough. My impossibly hard scales cracked and peeled off, while simultaneously cutting into my flesh like sharp daggers as they pushed in.

The opposing forces didn’t cancel each other out, they worked in tandem instead! What the fuck was that! The laws of physics didn’t make any sense! Down was up, up was down, and my insides wanted to become my outsides.

And the travel didn’t seem to have any ending in sight. I just tumbled through the void while trying my best not to get torn apart. Where the fuck did the portal even lead? The ancestor said it was random. Could it be in space?! On the moon even?!

I had to get out before my mind gave out. No matter how strong I was, the place was a prison for those much stronger than me.

I split my attention, searching for a weakness in the structure around me. It was fucking strong, impossibly so, and it was changing constantly. If I wanted to force my way through the shifting energies, it would be like crawling through razor wire, naked, while the wire was electrified and on fire. Oh, and it was spinning with the speed of a blender.

I pushed against the confines of my prison and felt my fingers get shredded. I pulled back and somehow reabsorbed my mangled flesh. The damage was insane, but at least it didn’t curse me, or attack the Soul. The old man didn’t lie about that at least. It was not an attack. It was just a portal, a dangerous one. Or maybe it was a wormhole, because it sure looked like one.

Anyway, I imagine if I was on the upper spectrum of the Sky Realm the travel might not even have been that bad. But as things stood, I was not made to deal with chaotic spatial distortions.

[Argh!] I focused inward and reverted my gigantic transformation, shrinking my body down into a more manageable, human size. It fucking hurt! I felt like I was going to explode. My stomach was bulging and I couldn’t hold it. I blew up and expanded back to full size. I had things to digest, I couldn’t transform before that.

While keeping my defenses topped up, I focused on absorbing the Essence. I had to be quick, so the efficiency was discarded. Black smoke began to escape my mouth and I absorbed the Body Essence of everything I ate, at extraordinary speeds. Faster than I had ever done it before. It was going to take a while to fully incorporate into my flesh and bones, but that wasn’t the problem. I just had to get the bulk of the material out.

I kept healing as my body tried to decay and the tunnel began constricting. The edges of my body began getting torn to shreds, so I shrunk down again and again, as fast as I could. I pushed the mass into my bones, reinforcing the defenses over and over again. It didn’t help much, but it alleviated some of the immediate pain.

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[C’mon…]

I tried searching for any weak points in the structure, or any mistakes, but there just weren’t any. I just really didn’t want to go wherever the portal was taking me, especially since the travel time was so long. Wasn’t it supposed to be instant? Or was that just for teleports while wormholes such as the one I was in took longer? Heck if I knew!

After some time I finally digested everything and burped out a big cloud of black soot. All the impurities were expelled. It was inefficient and I lost a lot of Essence that way, but at least it was quick.

Then I shrunk down again. I retracted all my muscle, all the blood and veins, all the sinew. It was all sucked into my bones. My black, obsidian-looking bones. They gained that glassy sheen after all was said and done. I was like a black crystal skeleton.

It felt uncomfortable, but it was the best idea I had. I took a moment to recompose myself and then did what I had to do.

I jumped.

I jumped into the embrace of chaos, into the chaotic energies that held the tunnel open, into pure carnage. My bones cracked, yet I pushed through. My entire body broke apart and turned into a puddle of black paste apart from the ever-expanding crystal on my chest which already took over my entire ribcage, and I kept pushing. I had to go through the barrier one way or another.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I found a pinprick-sized weak spot on the side of the tunnel. I pushed with everything I had, exploding all my Qi at once in a focused Disruption, and pierced through that tiny imperfection.

Instantly everything collapsed. Like an overinflated balloon, it popped.

The tunnel unraveled and the chaotic energies inside it destabilized, splitting itself open and spitting me out. I felt a sudden release as the pressure was gone, and was embraced by open space. My Soul was still bound to my bones, so I recalled every last fragment and began reconstructing my body.

Luckily I had done it so many times before so the process was easy. I just had to make sure I collected everything because I was basically out of energy. No mistakes were allowed, especially since I was getting really tired. All that effort was just too much and I just wanted to fall asleep. Didn’t let myself though. Not until I was certain I was safe.

I slowly restored my body with only minor damage sustained, and just as I regenerated my eyes and opened them, I realized I was falling from the sky the entire time, and smashed face-first into the dirt.

After the shock of a crashlanding wore off, I just couldn’t be bothered to care anymore.

[Guard me.] I mentally summoned Tiny and mumbled those two words, before finally falling unconscious.

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I woke up, not feeling exactly refreshed, but still much better than before, and yawned. Crawling out of the crater I noticed Tiny standing just outside it, with a few weird monkey-like creatures with large faces and sharp teeth, dead at the golem’s feet.

[Good job, buddy.] I patted him on the back.

The critters didn’t seem all that strong, but they would have been annoying to deal with in the state I was in. I was still pretty low on Qi despite the passage of time. Actually, I realized the crater I was sleeping in and its immediate surroundings were already nearly devoid of Qi while I recovered just a fraction of my energy.

[Damn wilderness…]

I moved about a hundred steps away and sat down, absorbing the Base Qi at a rapid pace. I actively pulled it towards me, compressing it hundreds of times. It was a trickle. Compared to the density of Qi that was previously on the battlefield, the air around me might as well be empty. There wouldn’t be much difference.

[Oh, god… This place fucking sucks.] I stood up and moved again, having already exhausted all the magical energies in the area. I really didn’t look forward to being a wandering Cultivator.

But then I remembered I had prepared for such a situation. I took out a Qi Pill and tossed it into my mouth. Soon it dissolved, filling my body with its stored power.

It wasn’t much, not even a tenth of my total, but it was much better than the alternative. I swallowed two more and then focused, spilling out and shaping my Qi. Soon a copy of mine formed, my doppelganger. I believe the name of the technique was Split Faces of the Crescent Moon.

Anyhow, we were at the foot of a small hill, so with a thought and a smidgen of Qi, I forced the ground open and created a shallow cave.

[Guard the cave.] I said to Tiny, and my twin also gave a nod and turned around, standing guard at the entrance.

Walking inside, I reinforced the walls a bit and then sat down in a comfortable spot, raising the earth around me for the best fit. I then closed my eyes and began to meditate. It had been a while since I thoroughly checked my Soul and considering all that happened, I had to make sure everything was in order.

I checked, and to say it was good, would be an understatement. While I slept, my Soul kept growing, absorbing all the other Souls still waiting their turn inside my Sea of Consciousness to be devoured.

Golden Core, Fifth Layer. That was my Cultivation Realm. And I was close to advancing again. How good was that? I grew stronger without even doing anything. Half a century of progress in a single day. Pretty good.

Of course, some of the Souls I had absorbed were pretty strong and survived the shock of death with their consciousness intact. An old man tried to take over and possess my body. How laughable. He was just at the Sixth Level of the Spirit Realm. He was too weak!

Trying to overpower my Soul was a futile effort. Despite being in a higher Realm, the density didn’t even compare. His Soul was like styrofoam while mine was tungsten. He could attack all he wanted, I didn’t even feel it.

[Alright ladies, settle down. Everybody will get their turn.] I spoke inside my mind. The hundreds of Souls tensed as I got to work. Such a feast was not easy to come by. I had to savor every morsel. And those Souls were oh-so delicious.

The feast came to a sudden stop as I felt my Soul being stuffed to the brim. A moment later I stepped into Golden Core, Sixth Layer.

[Okay… Let’s see if I can advance five Minor Realms in one day…]

I refocused and continued my accelerated Cultivation. Seventh Layer, here I come.