The emperor felt an impact that shattered the space around him. For a while, it looked like the boundary of the Eighth Heaven would hold his fall, but his momentum was too great.
If it was a simple momentum of a mundane cultivator or the momentum of a star, it would be a trivial matter for the boundary between the Heavens to arrest it and make the object stop. Obviously, that was not the case with The Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens, who in his poisoned state,
despicably poisoned, that should be mentioned thrice to point out this grave injustice,
who in his unjustly, despicably poisoned state had been accelerated by spacetime kvuantum-chi momentum acting on him due to the ultimate demonic finishing technique of the bad person who had so despicably poisoned him.
Another loud crash that shattered all the eardrums of even all the frogs residing in the Third Heaven and the Despicably Poisoned Emperor continued to fall into the Sixth Heaven.
It should be mentioned that the eardrums of the frogs in the Third Heaven were especially sturdy and yet, even those who lived in extreme depths of the deepest oceans were croaking with pain as their eardrums had been shattered.
In quick succession, the unfortunate, despicably poisoned and slapped emperor had shattered more boundaries between Heavens to the point only two of the Heavens parted him from exiting the Nine Heavens completely.
The thought scared him. What if he ended up falling outside of existence?
The emperor mobilized a fine trickle of his residual power and tried to slow down his fall by reversing time.
During his attempt, he heard another loud boom.
The boundary of the Second Heaven gave way and he was at this point falling through the First Heaven, leaving a blazing trail in his wake.
The emperor willed mightily and the time immediately became slower until it began to flow in reverse. Unfortunately, due to the briefly mentioned poisoning, the emperor forgot to switch off his resistance to temporal manipulation and his body slammed on top of the largest continent of the First Heaven with full force.
The impact to the time-shifted younger continent was as devastating as it would have been to its older version and his body had finally exhausted all its momentum.
The Godly Emperor of The Nine Point Three Heavens stopped moving at the bottom of a huge crater.
Then the mightiest emperor the Nine Heavens had ever seen had died because of the severe poisoning. Clearly, the impact itself was just a glancing blow for him.
However, at the place he struck, the imprint of his body was still felt in the fabric of spacetime and his lingering phantom of fear of exiting the Nine Heavens kept weakening the boundary of the Nine Heavens at that unfortunate place.
Aeons later, a city was build at the center of the crater and many more next to it. The settlements appeared at the bottom of the valley which the emperor had created. However, the valley was so huge it could be recognized as such only from space and naturally, no locals knew about it.
And the young city was named after another city from outer space, an irony of fate.
An Iron Fate.
* 9 * . * 3 *
A mass of black full plate armor moved through the dark overgrowth, purple runes glowing ominously against the glossy black surface. The giant of a man that wore the armor was the same as those that followed him, their faces forever hidden behind the black visors of their helmets that had never been lifted. The sameness of the gloomy knights was interrupted only by a small black gem that was strapped to the helmet of the leading knight.
Next to the marching knights, creatures of shadow were hovering left and right, their shapes blending into the dark night from time to time, occasionally disappearing from view. Deeper in the ranks of monsters, there were short, green figures mixed with walking skeletons. As the force trudged onward, even beasts and misshapen creatures learned to avoid it, the leading creature watching all life of the forest flee in his wake.
Despite that, he did not allow himself to relax. The forest was too vast and dangerous to get careless.
He liked the tension, it kept his mind from useless thoughts, memories of all that happened in Jinsheng, the city he did not want to see for a long time. He had too many conflicting feelings about the place. He conveniently reduced it all in his head to a single line that described what could be done dungeon-wise in the city.
"Void monsters, good attack capability,. A temple enabling extensive earth manipulation, but too restricted to be used globally." He tried to squeeze everything into a single sentence in his head and look forward to his next adventure.
He would learn from his mistakes and start better in the next city.
Karl looked to the right at the gnarled humanoid creature that walked not far from him. He wanted to find out more about Edo, but he ended up being interrogated by his companion who was greatly interested in his minions. It was time to pretend to pay attention to him again, before he discovered he had been ignoring his monologue for a good three minutes.
"That is amazing! You have an immortal army at your disposal!" Genji's eyes blinked from one minion to another, sparkling with desire. "Just imagine what we can do now, with all that muscle!"
"That is an overstatement. It is more like a company, their intelligence is limited and their bodies far from indestructible." Karl tried to cool off his excitement, not with much success.
"Bah! As if that mattered, you can take tremendous loses, if given enough time." The mildly glowing tree man was not losing his drive. Yet, Karl was not angry, he was happy that there was someone to take his mind off the unfortunate departure that left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Certainly not now. It is difficult to find a place that can produce these." Karl commanded his Void Knight to clap on its sturdy black armor. He could naturally return to his first base that was hidden deep beneath Jinsheng, but who would want to march back and forth all the way because of every single casualty?
"It is my turn to ask, tell me more about the situation in your city." Karl felt unpleasant not knowing much about Genji, who was too mysterious for his liking. He understood that he wanted to use his minions as cheap cannon fodder and the idea was enticing even for him if he excluded himself from the list of future victims. However, Genji's further plans were unknown, causing Karl to throw occasional glances around him, as if expecting ambush at every turn.
"It will be easier if you wait to see it yourself. You do not trust me anyway, isn't that right?" The amber eyes looked at him and Karl had nearly chuckled at the surprising honesty of his conversation partner.
"That will be for the best." Karl decided to not bother with doubts any further. He believed that exploiting him would be more trouble than worth, especially at this moment when there was nothing to blackmail Karl with as he had been abandoned by everyone.
They walked for a while, making their way through the dense forest, when Karl remembered a question he had been dying to ask.
"What's with the names anyway? It feels all mixed up."
"That is obvious. We .. well, I mean, I have a theory about it. There seemed to be multiple people transported here from different ages, This world almost seems like a god of reincarnation's garbage bin. I imagine that my guess is not that far off. " Genji laughed dryly before he continued. "The more successful groups imposed their naming system on the locals and with time, even that had been distorted."
"That son of a .. " Karl thought that when the kind sir during his reincarnation process had finally found a place for him, it might have been just a joke and he simply threw him into garbage together with all other troublemakers. "Dammit ,and I thought I have not crossed the line."
"I belong to those with a more pure heritage." A statement that felt too self-important tore Karl out of his grim reminiscence.
"So, you came from Japan." Karl stated matter of factly.
"My ancestors did, Karl." He said his name with a particular cadence and Karl guessed what he was implying. He was not one of them.
"I can see the walls, finally." Karl interrupted the unpleasant topic with his purple letters, the whole conversation being written on his part.
"Yep, we are here. You will sate your curiosity soon." Karl did not know why, but he was not looking forward to it anymore.
They walked through an enormous gate, similar to the one in Jinsheng, but this one was without the thick steel doors that barred entry to all visitors. There was only moss and vegetation in its stead. The great wall of Edo had been completely breached at several places, it was a miracle that the stone frame of the gate still stood.
The steel boots of the knights smashed against the pavement, the sound was loud and unpleasant in the total silence of the deserted city.
"There is no one here." Karl had an urge to whisper, realizing only a second later how silly that was, he was not talking anyway. Coincidentally, the letters he wrote were smaller as if to reflect on the urge.
"There is, but only alpha predators are allowed to be loud."
"That is reassuring." Karl immediately attached the said role to himself and his companion and felt more at ease.
"It is not, make those damn steel dummies stop the ruckus." Karl's mood changed when he realized that Genji had not been talking about the two of them and gave a mental command to his minions to walk at a slower pace.
"Do you expect company? It is high time you let me know."
"It will be alright, they do not hunt at night. We just need to be careful." Genji kept looking around, his amber eyes scanning the ruins of Edo around them.
"A beast?"
"Fortunately yes. It is some kind of a mutant. They have very good sight, but only during the day. We call them Razor Hawks, pray you do not see why."
"Are they the only predators that can pose a danger to us?" A Void Knight's finger kept pilling up question after question non-stop.
"Among the beasts, they are the only ones in this part of the city. It is too run down, close to rubble. They like it here, no trees in the way and a few high buildings still standing for nesting. Those with guts like to steal their eggs, but that is only for experienced survivors."
Genji looked at the black stone as if scoffing at Karl with disdain.
"Thanks, but I have enough of mine two." Karl quickly cracked a mindless joke among men, but immediately realized his mistake.
"Ha! You?! Where are they?" Genji chuckled, immediately receiving Karl's angry, lightning fast response in a font that was more rounded than usual.
"Mister wooden marbles has spoken. Do they even work?"
"Piss off stone!" Genji turned away from all the minions and continued to lead the way with Karl no longer at his side.
They continued like a line of geese into a narrow street that marked the end of the flattened part of the city that was the habitat of Razor Hawks.
After their line snaked through a few narrow streets, they entered a large courtyard which had all its other paths walled off, or blocked by barricades that served as checkpoints. They passed through one of those checkpoints without an issue. Some lean people looking more like vagabonds than cultivators waved them through, recognizing Genji on first sight.
Given the respectful bows they gave him, he was obviously not simply some nobody in the group of survivors that had a peculiar name, written above the entrance that looked everything but grandiose.
"Blood God Court? Doesn't it sound too ominous for a new group of young and hopeful cultivators?" Karl asked discretely his partner in small letters, to prevent anyone else from spying on their conversation.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"It was their pick, it fits the sacrifice it required and will require to move forward." Genji shrugged his shoulders while they were heading to a group of cultivators that were assembled in the middle of the communal space.
The buildings that were encircling the large courtyard were mostly deserted and in disrepair, but some of those in better shape were clearly housing the sect that was at this moment assembled in front of Karl and Genji. The group of lean young men in grey clothes with a red armband warily watched their line, slowly forming into a defensive formation as they drew close. Karl|s minions looked too dangerous to be left without attention even though Genji was an influential figure of the group.
"Elder Genji, please explain yourself before moving any further!" A person who had similar skin complexion as Genji stepped forward with a frown on his face.
"Elder Sato, let me introduce our new ally, Karl Gulden. He will help our cause greatly!" Genji gestured at the leading Void Knight and Karl made the minion nod in the direction of Sato, who looked at him while not hiding his distrust.
"Welcome to the Blood God Court, Karl. Be so kind and wait over there with your . . " Sato overlooked the diverse procession of monsters lined up behind Karl and his eyebrows rose and furrowed in a quick succession. ". . .your men while Genji and I discuss the details of our cooperation."
"Yes." Karl wrote three big letters into the air and headed to the shown empty spot under a pair of tall trees. The two Elders waited for him to leave before starting a heated conversation.
Karl looked around the dilapidated courtyard while waiting for his allies to find a common ground, as the act of hiring Karl had, without doubt, not been consulted with the entire Blood God Court beforehand. He also had not forgotten the question still lingering in his mind, the itch to find more otherworlders like him. He had to ask some serious questions the moment Genji's little squabble with his sect mates was over.
While waiting, Karl noticed an increasing commotion that broke out at one of the barricades blocking entrance to the court. The noise grew in intensity until a loud explosion shook the very cobblestones under Karl's feet.
"An attack! It's the Jing-Jang Palace!" He overheard a shout while trying to discern enemy figures among the grey clothes with red armbands and he indeed found them.
"Guess this ends the awkward welcome." Karl thought and commanded his minions to form a loose defensive circle with the Void Knights at its front.
* * * *
Yukikaze stared out of the broken window of his spacious room. Space, the one article they had aplenty in the empty halls of the Jing-Jang Palace. What they needed were more high-end forces and much more cultivation resources.
Absentmindedly, he watched the Mojo Condensation Stage cultivators gathered at the courtyard performing various forms of arts, or simply odd behaviors. Some were painting, playing music, exercising, but their actions were far from limited to the ordinary. There was a cultivator of a smaller stature licking walls and anything else that came his way, one talking to a tree, another dancing with a rabbit before it became his dinner when the Sun moved higher in the sky.
They were those looking for their Idols, a painfully large number of sect members still struggling with the first cultivation stage.
In most old sects, these would be the pureblood people that failed to fully inherit their sect Mojo and were searching for their own. Core members of such sect used a standardized procedure and had no need for licking walls and other odd behaviors. Unfortunately, the ancestral pastures of Jing-Jang Palace had been destroyed and with it their path to cultivate their ancestral Mojo. To awaken, it required blood of a rare animal that was not living freely in nature.
Sure, there definitely existed some alternatives to the blood, there was never just a single path to the top of a mountain, but the sect had failed to find it despite many desperate searches. In the end, they had to abandon the traditional patch and being a pureblood meant a curse, not a blessing. Their sect turned into a mortally wounded animal clinging to its last vestiges of life.
His eyes focused again, turning away from the central courtyard to a space in the corner where those of the Mojo Purification Stage trained. Those who had already found their Idols were the real future of the sect. There were also those of the third stage among them, the Mojo Crystallization stage , as the process of cultivating the two stages was intertwined.
Those who knew their path were the lucky ones, but those were just a minority. Yukikaze looked with envy at a cultivator with long, red hair of the third stage who was standing out, her beauty highlighting her presence, yet her talent and power scaring off most who craved her attention. She was feeding mice in a large cage. Sagine Yagi was an outsider that joined the Jing-Jang Palace just recently, but because she knew her mojo, Bloodthirst, she was able to progress quickly as the path to cultivate it was a common knowledge thanks to its wide occurrence among beasts.
Annoyed, Yukikaze turned his gaze back to a set of rusted swords and tools in front of him. He himself was at the third stage, building his Vessel for the fourth, Soul Binding stage. His Mojo was that of Steel, a well known, powerful Mojo that was considered a good luck to have.
However, that was before the cataclysm.
Although the method of cultivating this path was known to him, the way to perfectly purify the cultivation materials was closely guarded and not easy to find out. He had resigned and began building his Vessel from ordinary steel, despite knowing that he might not be able to reach the fourth stage, the ceiling of the third becoming his limit. He had tried for too long to forge steel that was considered pure steel and could be used to cultivate the Steel Mojo to the next stage.
Yukikaze forcefully closed his fist and a thin layer of steel appeared on its surface. It looked magnificent and powerful, but only until he turned his fist and saw patches of rust on the other side.
His smile turned into an ugly sneer and he suppressed an urge to shatter the nearby wall. The rust took away nothing from his strength, but signified what he had already known. His Vessel was not pure and would likely not allow him to cultivate the fourth stage.
"Yukikaze, we need you for a mission!" A sudden voice disrupted his bitter mood and a sinewy cultivator in camouflage walked briskly into the room.
"What mission?" Yukikaze barked, his voice still colored by his bad mood, but his conversation partner simply ignored it.
"There is a large commotion in the camp of the demonic cultivators. The scouts report significant reinforcements arriving to their camp. We urgently need more intel. "
"It will be a pain in the ass." Yukikaze groaned in the direction of the tanned cultivator in camouflage.
"No kidding." The man shifted his weight onto his other leg before continuing in a more serious tone. "Reina wants you there."
"Huh, guess they want someone who can take hits. Is she going?" He asked with squinted eyes.
"Even Yagi is." The scout said and the mood turned much more heavy. It was obvious that the situation was not simple if even their best fighter and de-facto leader, Reina, was tagging along. Not that she openly claimed to be a leader. After the tragic death of Elder Feng, they had no cultivator of the fourth stage.
If they had, the city had not been conquered by beasts, leaving them hiding where they could.
With time, they adopted the tactic of moving away when a serious threat approached. A stark contrast to defending their grounds when they had had the power to do so. It was a cowardly strategy, yet the only reason their sect still existed.
"Let's go!" Yukikaze slapped his knees and rushed outside, they could not leave the threat of the Blood God Court be. People were not beasts, they would actively hunt them down and moving was not an option.
* * * *
"Form a line! Fire!" Karl issued mental commands to his twenty plus Void Knights and soon a volley of deadly Void light battered the ranks of the invading cultivators. He was glad that the cultivators of the Blood God Court were not completely useless and covered the flanks of his force, enabling him to put all his knights to the front.
They were obviously wary of his force, but the urgent need to defend the base was the greatest medicine to cure their reluctance to cooperate with Karl's forces.
"Fire! Fire! Fire and charge!" Karl charged along with his knights towards the disorderly ranks of the enemy. To his right, he could not but admire a knight that was slightly taller than the others. It lacked the mystical aura of a Void Knight, evoking fear and disgust instead. Instead of a sword and shield, it held a huge two handed sword with a row of teeth on its blade. A blade to tear and cut the enemies unfortunate enough to taste the edge of the huge sword.
The giant knight was obviously the Dread Knight that would see his first combat and Karl was eager to observe his performance.
So far, he was not thrilled to find out that the Dread Knight did not possess any means of ranged attack, but he knew the mass of steel would not fail him in the coming melee.
A water blade unleashed by one of the intruders stuck the shoulder plate of the Dread Knight and made him pause for a second, but that was all it could accomplish, the undead monstrosity continued moving on as if nothing had happened.
"That's it, my boy! Crush them!" Karl laughed in his mind while observing more and more Soul Power attacks focus on the knight. He was the largest and most iconic of his forces, meaning he drew attention of the enemy fighters. Luckily, his armor was thick and the attacks could do little harm to him from greater distance. One lucky steel spike managed to embed itself in its thigh, but it was nothing to the dead flesh of the knight.
The enemy lines faltered. There was roughly two dozens of them and despite them all being higher leveled fighters of the third stage, they were greatly outnumbered. It looked like their probing strike would end even before Karl's forces managed to lock with them in a melee.
Carefully, the enemy started a quick, orderly retreat.
Karl could only growl, as it was a logical course of action. The enemy leader clearly had not even planned a head on clash, just trying to test the power of their combined forces.
"Yagi, pull back! That is enough!" A shout sounded and he noticed that a redhead fighter had not disengaged as all the others, rushing towards one of the Void Knights with her eyes burning bright red, her speed extraordinary even for a third stage cultivator.
"Let's have a little taste up close." The crazed woman laughed and traded a few blows with the Void Knight while retreating, her twin short swords clashing against the blade and shield inscribed with Void runes. One of her swords managed to slip into a seam of the knight's armor, but Yagi's smile froze on her face when her opponent showed no signs of discomfort.
Instead, the Void Knight flexed his arm, leaving one of the short swords stuck in between his armor plates.
"That is far from enough to take my boys down, silly girl." Karl snickered in his mind and was surprised by a large shadow flying over his head.
The Dread Knight had obviously been enraged by the enemy's clear attempts to avoid a direct confrontation with him. He lowered his center of mass and jumped in a way he should be unable to due to his great mass. Leaving all onlookers in shock, its steel boots left cracks on the surface of the courtyard and the Dread Knight jumped a great distance, landing behind the stupefied Yagi.
Karl guessed that this minion had no special power, just brutal might and resilience.
The terrifying combatant roared mightily, almost stunning the red haired cultivator, who realized too late that her sides had been also blocked by other Void Knights and she had nowhere to retreat.
"Yagi!" Suddenly, a figure of a man of steel, the skin of whom was literally turned into rusted steel, slammed into the Dread Knight's back, trying to open a path of retreat for his comrade. The giant staggered a step forward and quickly grabbed behind him with his armored hand, as he did not need his both hands to use his giant sword anyway.
The man of steel quickly dodged and started kicking the knight's legs, the blows resonating as if hammers were struck against anvils.
Usually, blunt blows were affective against armored opponents, dealing a lot of internal damage. Unfortunately, dead flesh cared not for such blows and the attacker had to jump back, narrowly escaping the teeth of the giant sword.
"No!" He roared, when he saw that several knights ganged up on the red head, unleashing a hell of Void and steel against the reckless cultivator. Judging by the horror in her face, she understood that even her Bloodthirst Mojo that gave her extra speed and resilience would not be able to compensate for the overwhelming numerical advantage of the knights.
After just a few seconds, her body turned into body parts that flew in all directions. All she could do was just slightly damage one of the Void Knights.
The result was to be expected. It was close to impossible to face melee in an encirclement, especially from minions that were not some uncoordinated rowdy group of hooligans. Karl had been coordinating the fight the whole time, exploiting any tactical advantage the enemy gave him.
All the knights turned to face forward, rearranging the formation with speed and precision of a machine.
That one moment filled all the spectators with more dread than the armor, stature ,or strength of the Dread Knight.
"You will pay!" The cultivator with steel skin turned away and ran while breathing heavily.
Or rather, he tried to.
The Dread Knight dashed forward, immediately building up an unstoppable momentum and the retreating cultivator found out in horror that he was unable to outrun the monster. It might have been possible in a forest terrain, but the courtyard was solid, paved with cobblestone, meaning the weight of the Dread Knight posed no issue for his footing.
In a fluid motion, the knight swung his sword and his target was able to dodge, but the cultivator did not expect that the monster would immediately follow his blow with a back swing of his armored hand. The steel knuckles hit hard against the steel skin of the cultivator's back and he was catapulted forward, towards his companions with a clear imprint left on his back.
"Enough!" A woman with long black hair that ran in the center of the enemies turned around and slammed her hands onto the cobblestone.
A wall of green flames erupted before the pursuers, blocking their path. The enemies increased their lead, closely followed by the visibly exhausted woman that had unleashed the green flame that still ravenously burned despite having no fuel. Karl noticed that two cultivators in the group carried the injured man who was no longer covered in rusted steel.
"Magnificent, Karl' Truly magnificent!" Genji came laughing, but Karl did not share his good mood.
"You bet, but I must have missed your fire arts, Genji." Karl stated dryly, it was obvious that the sect had deliberately held back to see what Karl and his minions were capable of. It reminded Karl again that Genji was not exactly his friend, just a business partner.
"I could not miss the opportunity to let you shine! These morons are weak anyway and do not pose a serious threat. Not anymore." Genji laughed it off as if it was just a game among fellow hunters. "Let's follow them into their nest! It is time to cull the radical remains of the celestial path!"
Genji slapped the shoulder of the Void Knight minion who was carrying Karl.
"You are right, let's leave the jokes aside and proceed with the real job I have been hired for. What monsters do you want to eliminate?" Karl wrote in response, he did not plan on being exploited by every Joe with only the cost of a cheap smile and a pat on his shoulder.
He was not that stupid.
"You are right, there are some Razor Hawks that nest too close to out courtyard and your shadow minions would work wonders against their young." Genji immediately collected himself after a brief pause.
"That can be done." Karl answered while watching the green flames die down. He commanded his minion to tear a branch from a nearby tree and stuck it into the flame. The leaves immediately ignited and burned with black flames, the wood of the branch meeting the same end.
The whole process seemed much quicker than with ordinary fire.
"What is this green thing?" Karl asked out of curiosity.
"DarkFire. It is very similar to ordinary flames, but burns especially fierce anything related to Mojo. It is quite dangerous. The Soul Power of their leader, Reina."
"The one with black hair?"
"Yes, that one."
"Not impressed." Karl wrote in a lazy font, expressing his attitude in his own way.
"Be glad she is not at Soul Binding and she will never be. A DarkFire Domain is a nasty, nasty crap." For a moment, Karl saw a hint of fear in Genji's eyes and decided not to inquire any further.
"Alright, let's go hunt some birds." Karl was sure that the Blood God Court did not need his help with the celestial cultivators anyway. He still remembered Genji's fight in the forest. DarkFire might be a qualitatively better power, but Karl was quite sure that Genji was on the Soul Binding stage and the volume of flames he could control was on a whole another level compared to the simple wall of fire that seemed to have exhausted the enemy leader greatly.
"Killing birds is pleasant, I never liked them anyway." Karl thought, he hated how noisy all birds were. They just could not simply piss around to mark their territory, but had to constantly make a racket.
Cats were much better, no useless noises. Except on some particular occasions.
With similar thoughts, Karl proceeded to head to the closes watchtower that used to be a part of Edo's outer wall, the nest closest to the sect's hideout.