Fatherly Asura

Whenever Fu gained some semblance of understanding, the Heavens sought to make him a fool once more.

Hua had severed her [Spirit].

Her soul.

How such a thing could come to be- it was unimaginable to Fu, and yet, the [Cherry River Sage] had done so.

To free her [Spirit] from its vault, attached or sequestered as it was from the spire of her [Primordial Law], he would need his own. It was merely the how of it all that vexed him, for such things were surely more profound than he might manage.

A night passed, and in the morning the [Primordial Realm] welcomed him back.

The spires were as they always were. Shifting titans laden with the silhouettes of those that stood upon them.

Claimants of law.

However, this visit was novel in that he did not need to search for what he sought. It seemed that with an affirmation in his heart, he could readily find it. Such was the oddity of this realm of [Spirit] and Heavenly energies.

Hua’s voice came as a guide, but offered no suggestion. “A [Primordial Law] is beyond the [Dao]. Where individual [Dao Principles] draw from the highest [Pool] of insight, these control the fundamental rules of this reality. A [Dao] is understanding, bent to one’s whim, where the bearers of a [Primordial Law] are those that establish authority over the concept itself. Is this understood?”

All three nodded firmly.

“To reveal Heaven’s secrets this way is distasteful. Bah, a thing of this scale ought to be earned. From what I know of your concept, oaf, this lecture must ring distastefully. Hmm. But no delays must be had when the Gao clan walk blind,” she continued. “Heed this, and commit it to memory. Three forces exist to push against those that walk this path.”

Surely these words were among Heaven’s most hallowed. Indeed they demanded a respect that Fu could not grant. In place of it, he swept aside rising spires that he might better taste their resonance.

Many bodies littered the spire of… weather.

Yes.

The [Primordial Law of Weather].

Beyond that of the [Dao of Storms], or so his [Spirit] sang. To preside over that Law would grant a rule over storm and calm skies both, denying the touch of any others.

“When fresh souls begin their ascent, all upon it are aware. It is the first, mundane danger, for these intrepid talents are no [Karma]-rich fools. Old monsters that escape even the ken of this [Cherry River Sage]. Timeless fiends, millennia old Matriarchs, [Demonic] Emperors and those of an ilk with any Pillar.”

Hushi’s [Spirit] impressed a great unfathomable cold aside the [Primordial Law of Seas]. It yearned to consume them, promising ruin and treasure in equal abundance. One might get lost among its [Spiritual] waves, ebbing around the myriad silhouettes that gathered near the base.

“Second comes the [Primordial Judgements]. Unique to each spire. [Tribulations] for each step, the likes of which are tailored to the Law you will seek. No more might be said without your selection.”

The [Primordial Law of Endings] loomed ahead.

Fu and Shuidi held independent thoughts on its use. Half-warring thoughts, for while it promised a definitive strength - the Fatherly [Asura] felt this was no full cycle. A Law of [Beginnings] would bring similar worries.

“Thirdmost is the burden. I know not what intricacies cultivation has revealed. Yet, Gao Fu, how Qi and [Dao] shape the [Spirit] is inconsequential against the impact of [Primordial Law],” called Hua, and on this her words grew quiet. “This blindness cannot reveal to me how you have tempered yourself, thus the [Cherry River Sage] will share but one wisdom. A [Primordial Law] must be claimed, do not allow it to claim you.”

In the following silence, four spires rose.

Most prominent was the [Primordial Law of Change]. Again it held enough souls that one might assume it could crumble beneath the weight of their bodies, and through some strange resonance his hand rose to touch it.

A prideful thought.

Would this not be a worthy test? It is dense, and unprofound, yet are all things not achievable?

Hushi calmly dissuaded this notion. “The petitioners are too great in number.”

Fu’s hand lowered, and in doing so the spire wisped back into nothingness. He broached the second within moments, feeling there a sensation that held strange connotations.

Joy.

No.

Again he could only parse slivers of its true nature, but he thought it more than this. Not that Joy was mere, but it grew beyond that concept. To near the spire brought recollections of sweet moments; of Yuling’s first steps, far swifter than Yuqi or Feng; of he and Hushi’s first equilibrium, wherein they felt the other’s soul with greater clarity than before; Mei’s first kiss, shared upon the bow of his vessel; the quiet whisper as she announced what she then carried in her womb-

The douli shook vigorously.

“One might get lost in this. Gladly,” he said, his smile bittersweet. “If this Law is not of [Memory], it is of [Love], surely. Though foolish, I would stake my heart on it. The [Primordial Law of Love].”

A single figure stood high there, enshrouded by four serpentine partners. That the figure was clear conjured much ponderance, and although this was no time for such things he promised to revisit this connection later.

He rejected this spire, thus came the third to be dealt with in the same fashion.

Easiest of all choices.

For what more could the [Primordial Law of Winds] offer that the [Shrine of Final Skies] could not?

It did not come without consideration, for in their [Spirit] they had warred over thoughts of this ilk since their first venture into the [Primordial Realm].

Wind alone was limiting.

The fourth called out, ecstatic and damning.

One of Hushi’s arms probed its fumes, recoiling as if bitten. The sensation was of a dumpling’s burning oil on the roof of one’s mouth; a jian-pierced shoulder, bandaged taught when above the corpse of one’s enemy; cultivation’s pain in [Impurities] and the agony of emptied [Channels].

Three figures crowded the spire’s base, as though no progress had been made in deciphering more than a single step.

“Grandmother?”

“To question is wise,” she hummed. “An oddity, yes. The [Primordial Law of Tribulations]. A fool’s choice.”

The smirk that grew upon Fu evoked much of Long then. “A fool’s choice?”

“Ponder the [Worldly Dao], for it is not unlike it in concept. How some, as you have, chase sideward insight. How the [Dao of Reach] touches the [Dao of Gusts], but so too touches your [Dao of Wayward Breezes]. The true [Dao] is not one [Dao], yet [Primordial Law] is solely [Primordial Law]. It does not bend.”

Shuidi clacked. “Those that wield a [Primordial Law] can bend.”

“Bah. Think thus - a [Tribulation] used in fondness becomes a [Boon]. Used twice, it is a kindness. The [Tribulation] used in anger becomes a weapon, used twice it becomes a siege. When granted to an ally, it is a blessing. When withheld from foes, it becomes a curse. Is this understood, Gao Fu?”

The three lacking silhouettes upon the spire drew much attention despite their stillness.

“Does the Jianghu’s pride prevent true use? Many would use this for their own benefit, and yet, that cannot be the Path if one is to comprehend it? Selfish use would undo one’s authority?”

Faint was Hua’s surprised twitch. “This son-in-law is far greater than the son-in-law of Divine Clouded Mountain. Indeed, Gao Fu. By the Cherry River… it is as you say.”

“Then we have chosen.”

Hushi and Shuidi became well poised, eager upon their partner’s limbs.

As one, they reached forth.

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[Imperial Realm 1,542] was of lower grade than those that pierced the Heavenly Roaming Prefecture, but held a danger far greater than any that had come before.

As if a font of unnatural blight, the [Demon Scar] there looked to have chewed the surrounding land and spit it out upon manifestation. Greying tones seized the grassland about it, decolouring- or perhaps paling in vibrancy - as the Gu from this portal eroded Heaven’s bounty.

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Fu Gao’s blade tore the third limb from a lesser [Asura] as his [Dao of Frostfall] erupted a great burst of icicles within the wound.

Trite.

The three blurred distant to see what effect this held on the slaughter at large. On this… rampage of [Demons] as they ground this Blue Imperial City into visceral paste, devoid of life, Qi and any vestiges of hope.

Elder [Gleeful Viper] should not have to trouble herself over the stain of these aberrations. Look how they bring ruin to her lands.

A cloud far above allowed them to hang in obscurity, watching as some thousand strong force emerged from the yawning scar. Hosts of [Pischaca] and their prideful [Might] formed the great jaws of this rushing beast, the first, but enough.

Shuidi clacked at the growing sickness.

Hushi impressed a desire to leave this realm to its fate.

For all the myriad [Mystic Realms] they had travelled, sacked and collapsed, a [Demon Scar] was beyond their ken. However, Master Bingbai could not reap a barren realm.

Fortunate that there were those that unwittingly guarded his will.

Banners emerged from the realm’s solitary [Paifang] with a leader that cared little for their presence. A cultivator’s [Senses] tempered one’s eyes into that of an eagle’s, and yet Fu Gao did not need them to know the expression on [Dour Faced Strategist’s] face.

Her bellow cut across the vastness of this falling city.

“We are not of Sects nor Halls,” it came, quaking the very foundations. “We care not for pride. We are the first and final cut of Heaven’s might. Imperial citizens, if you are not of sufficient strength - begone! Those that feed these depraved fiends with their arrogance will be cut down first!”

Divisions of her retinue thundered into the skies, suspending there as they unveiled a sky-darkening quantity of martial weapons from spatial treasures, poising them across the skies. But these were the first among many, and further divisions emerged.

[Array Masters] soared skyward behind, propagating such a weaving of [Dao Fields] that the weapon-darkened sky glistened with golden tides of [Profundity].

True martial experts bearing no hint of Heaven’s energy swarmed the grounds like the guardian lions of a daoist temple, resolute and unflinching.

Not a droplet of Qi was spent save for [Dour Faced Strategist’s] next words, amplified that an entire realm might hear it.

“Descend!”

A mundane marvel detonated across the Imperial Realm.

With perfect orchestration did the sky-blotting weapons fall like the javelins from a thousand, thousand throwers, projected by [Dao Fields] that multiplied, launched, accelerated and grew in concert, and…

To whistle or gasp seemed most appropriate. Was Fu Gao’s heart not of ice, he might well have gaped.

“This Gao Shuidi applauds the strategist’s prudence.”

The [Spirit Crab’s] words were a vast understatement. Mere prudence could not recount the annihilation present across this Imperial city: the pox-marked craters that bit some many li into the earth where a sky’s tide of weapons had landed, nor the rushing of underground rivers broken free from their stony bones, the broken [Arrays] that shattered to produce unprecedented backlashes of Qi and [Profundity] nor-

Hushi spied hands scraping from the wreckage. Eight-a-piece on each of the dozen forms.

[Asura] of the greater realms. Can such an onslaught not end those beasts? Even as an ally of Yongwu Long, [Dour Faced Strategist] cannot be allowed to fall. Her stability ties much of the Phoenix Melody Coalition together, keeping the errant factions at bay.

Broken stumps remained of the myriad [Pischacha], and in fresh heartbeats the [Demon Scar] thrummed with the arrival of another emerging host.

Our other half plays the martial hero. This cannot be our part.

Still, they waited. [Dour Faced Strategist] would hold means to seal this looming tragedy, and surely was not in need of a ghost’s intervention.

The three held the [Dao of Four Horizons] upon their lips and an oddity chimed throughout their [Spirit].

Fu Gao blinked.

Shuidi and Hushi stilled.

Use of the [Dao] did not spend one’s soul. To call upon insight was an exercise in mental energy, in how the mind could fathom and translate portions of these boundless [Principles].

Why then, did their [Spirit] now-

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As though a leaf alight, the [Primordial Realm] ashed before them in flames of gold.

What rose from the fumes struck the three as if an immortal’s peerless fist had entered their gut.

A still golden sea with a pressure equal to the Heavens.

Fu, Hushi and Shuidi began in the waters and crumpled further. With lungs that held no need for air, they felt themselves drown. Be it Qi-rich organs, ephemeral flesh or purity of [Core], all suffered beneath a crushing weight of something.

The danger to their being furthered by the heartbeat- whatever strained thumps might be managed.

Does the [Primordial Law] manifest itself here? Or is this… is this something else?

It was Hushi that acted first, gathering motes of [Primordial Qi] from their [Constellation Seeds] to suffuse their [Channels].

However, they did not hold this in abundance.

[Half Cloud Step] offered no reprise, nor their [Dao of Four Horizons]. The engulfing gold reacted to naught but this trace amount of [Primordial Qi], and Fu pondered if they had indeed embraced this realm too early in their Path.

The profound nature of it was too dense to convert using the [Hundred Immunities Fruit].

And so they gasped.

Sank.

Struggled.

In moments they had reached a depth that promised ruin, although there was a small solace in the steady beat of pressure in that it did not intensify.

Are we to prove ourselves to the [Law]? Or is this merely the stage upon which we must survive to reach it?

“This Gao Shuidi thinks it matters not. To struggle like this is beneath us,” she declared, and somehow found the prescience to sneer.

But more followed her defiance.

In this place of [Spirituality] and meaning her will responded to an inner force, shifting her appearance to better reflect who she had become. From the rear of her hermetic shell enlarged a gleaming, granite mass.

One as immaculate as the [Constellation Seed] she demanded manifest.

The [Hollow Ivory Splinter] spread, radiating an aura of what little [Primordial Qi] they could muster. Thus went her legs and claws in this same fashion, though these implements were slender compared to the mass behind her.

Gentile, and oddly demure in how mists trailed from her chitinous body as if the cladding of a silken sleeves.

Fu and Hushi rose atop her shell, warded by this manifestation. “The [Constellation Seeds] are essential. Treasures of [Primordial Qi] itself, full whereas we might only draw a sliver.”

They followed their sister’s example, and further manifestations rose. Hushi willed forth the [Hundred Immunities Fruit] to dangle from one arm, held as if a beacon against encroaching darkness. Lightning from the [Heartplume of Clouded Schisms] spread thread-like within the fine fibers of Fu’s hanfu.

Now shielded, this realm’s pressure grew bearable.

[Ink] burned.