One
Ash chewed at his lower lip even as he peered at the portal to the ‘middle realm’.
A place where everyone was supposed to travel to once they become an Empowered Mortal.
Where they were supposed to remain until they became a Sovereign Immortal.
Or so it was supposed to be according to the Emperors rules.
Or I guess the false Emperor.
He didn’t have the ring, seal, or approval to do anything that he did.
Nor is he even the first false emperor.
I wonder how long he realms lacked a true One Emperor.
“I am most pleased that I’m going home, but I am also frustrated, and concerned,” murmured Jia from Ash’s immediate right.
When he looked to her, he found that she was dressed in a blue martial artists robe. It didn’t show off her slim and trim physique, or did much of anything for her.
Her midnight black hair was bound and braided in a way suitable for a woman of a modest mid-realm clan. Her dark black eyes has a brightness to them that was clearly all for the idea of seeing her family again.
As an equal.
“This should be quite entertaining, Dear Jia,” Mei murmured from Ash’s side. She had his left arm trapped between hers and against her breast. Much as she would always cling to him. “I do like the braids you put in my hair for me, though I’m jealous of the ones Xiuying gave you.”
Ash glanced at Mei’s hair at the mention of the braids.
Her blue-black hair was bound upward behind her hair and a series of braids took care of the rest. She also looks like some clan’s child, despite her clan being wiped out other than herself and her cousin.
Her light brown eyes as ever seemed to glow in the light and they flicked to the side, catching Ash watching her. Which caused her to grin, then pull Ash closer into her rather ‘abnormal’ and very full figure.
She didn’t fit the realms standards of beauty as she had too much up top and too much below.
Those beauty standards favored Na, her cousin. Who was considered far more ‘beautiful’ than Mei.
She shared many of the same features as Mei, just with a far more slim body. Much more in line with Jia in fact, though Na had cut her hair quite short as of late. She and Mei now looked radically different.
He didn’t have to look at Na behind him to know her gray eyes would be boring holes into the back of his head and spine right now. Mostly because he had forsworn her from treating him like Lord Sheng for a time.
They needed information about what was going on in the mid-realm.
Needed to know what the False Emperor was doing and why the ways had been shut.
For this mission, he would be going as nothing more than a powerful Cultivator, as would Mei, Na, and Jia. They would be looking to pass to the next gate, as, surprising even to him, all of them had crossed over into the Immortal class.
Tala and Moira would be joining as ‘slaves’ to them since they still bore the slave-mark.
Though it’d been long over-written by Ash’s carving.
Or as Xiuying would call it, Immortal, Rank one.
Ah… Locke, my sweet-heart, how’s Xiu?
She seemed to be hiding from me this morning.
“She’s fine. I don’t know why she was avoiding you, but she clearly was. If I had to guess… you’d have taken her to bed if you saw her. You tend to do that with her when you’re leaving for somewhere and you find her alone.
“In fact, isn’t that why you were looking for her?
“By her hiding, you ended up finding Eira instead. If I don’t miss my guess… Eira probably just had a swim-meet and someone got the grand prize.”
Swim meet? The hell are you… are… oh.
Hm.
“To be fair, she needs a pregnancy as she’s the last of her line here,” locke put in with a laugh. Then made a shooing noise. “Now, run along my love. I’m working at assisting with settling Eira and the Langye family into neighbors. Because there’s… a lot to handle there.
“A lot to handle. You don’t just magically end a war between two peoples and erase enmity. Eira and her people are all being relocated to the Prison Realm’s outter area since there weren’t many people but lots of land. Since it’s an entire world.
“She’ll take up her duties as a realm lord there and defender of the capital since… well… the capital of the One Emperor is there.”
Ash mentally sighed.
There was so much politics going on and he didn’t want to deal with any of it.
Not in any way shape or form.
Eira and her people moving to the Prison realm, once the Upper Realm, and it’s capital was a good thing.
Ren was the Bridal Realm Lord of the Sheng fort, once the prison itself, in that realm. Thankfully her realm was almost entirely settled. It didn’t need much from him at all other than to show up and take the beautiful woman to dinner every so often.
Liu’s realm, the Langye realm, was now settled because he’d ended the Eira situation and was actively moving the barbarians out of the realm.
Si’Sha and her modern realm was the most likely one that would need his help. Especially since she’d managed to talk the Joseon people into selling them more modern weapons. Armored vehicles, machine guns, and even a nuclear reactor which was already in the process of being built.
Having people from the modern realm come over into the Langye realm had needed to happen.
Almost immediately hidden footage made it back to the modern realm of the Langye realm. Of people’s that looked like they were a historical throw back to the ‘modern realm’.
There were more than a few things that he’d have to step in and handle at some point.
Ash knew he’d need to go to the modern realm at some point to deal with it. There were a number of leaders who hadn’t signed the Sheng agreement before he handled the situation for them.
As if thinking about the modern realm and all that’d happened was a cue, a number of the ‘Emperor’s Guard’s’ moved to surround the portal.
Decedents of the guards who had once defended the One True Emperor who hid in the modern realm. All of them becoming Fire Qi users while living in the deep caverns of the world.
Somehow, they’d strong-armed their way into the Knights and Brides circle, and were often around Ash in a defensive guard unit, with the Brides, and Knights.
His constant Qi-push to the decedents of the guards, along with the Bonds of Sheng that’d he’d forcefully stuck on every single of them, had granted them all a great deal of strength.
They, a group of Knights, and a group of Brides, were all spread out around him and out of sight. Just in case something happened as soon as the portal opened.
Rather than stand there and think about the Barbarian invasion, the Emissary who had likely killed or caused the death of the One Emperor, and the modern realm as a whole, Ash reached out and touched the signet ring of the One Emperor to the portal.
He wanted to move forward with his momentum, not get bogged down in the minutia.
The portal made a whining noise and snapped open.
Laid out in front of Ash was a large platform of stone, trees, and bushes. It was clearly a receival area that’d received a great number of people over the years. There were impressions on the first step that looked worn in from the never-ending first step of people arriving.
Yet Ash saw no-one.
There was nothing there.
It was eerie, quiet, and still.
“Hm,” Ash murmured and peered through the portal.
Before he could step through, Na did it and moved to the other side. A jade spear forming in her hands and spreading out in both directions.
“I should be crossing over,” whispered a voice from the left. “Or you should, Chunhua.”
Looking away from Na who was slowly turning in a circle and looking around, Ash looked to the speaker.
His strategist, Hui Sheng.
Standing there in her Bride uniform, she was a beautiful woman.
Her rich dark hair was quite long and brushed out.
Her deep, wide, and dark eyes that were akin to liquid and reflected back light were watching him. A frown furrowing her delicate brow.
Next to her was Chunhua, also in her Bride uniform.
The white eyed and stunningly gorgeous sorceress looked equally annoyed.
Her long brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail as it often was anymore.
Their uniform did a good job of hiding a figure that was equal to Mei’s in many ways. Those three, and a number of others, were able to share clothes since they shared a body type to a degree.
Siu, Locke, Chunhua, Hui, Mei, and Xiuying all had a clothes sharing club. Though he was starting to suspect their clothe’s sharing club had grown. Including likely Si’Sha, who had somehow increased her bust size, and Ren, who was changing to become the ‘Best Bride’ per her own Dao and wish.
They were different compared to the vast majority of the realms.
“It’s empty,” Na reported, and looked back to Ash. “This is unexpected, but there is no one here. It’s a large plaza. There are many buildings. There’s sign it was populated by a great many people but… there is… no one here.”
Ash hesitated, thinking on that.
This was an opportunity. One that could grant him a chokehold on the way out of the ‘middle-realm’.
“Hui,” Ash began then looked at his strategist. He planned on ordering her to bury the portal deep beneath the ground, defend it, and keep it protected. So that no one could cross without their permission.
“I’ll take the portal, hide it deep underground, and turn it into a fortified position,” she said, performed the Bridal salute, clearly reading his mind before he could order it.
“I can start the hole,” Chunhua offered with a quick nod of her head. “Go collect an Earthen Bridal Party, Hui. That way we can transfer it to them quickly once I drill downward.”
Ash nodded his head at that, then moved forward.
He crossed the portal out of the ‘lower-realm’ and into the ‘middle-realm’.
It felt no different at all to the realm he’d just left, though he did stop to wonder if there were veils here.
Locke?
“No veils. It’s… I don’t even know what to say. This is so strange.”
“There’s no veil’s here,” Ash reported even as he looked around.
Everything he saw looked exactly as Na had described.
A rather large complex that clearly was ready to receive individuals from the ‘lower-realm’ after they’d reached a strength that’d prohibit them from remaining.
Yet no one was here.
On top of that, Ash had the distinct feeling that it’d been abandoned for a while now. There was shoots of grass growing up between the stones. The trees nearby had shoots coming up from their base and the bushes were clearly over-grown.
“In this realm, the cultivators who are born with low-talent, or can’t grow up to a higher level, are the citizens, yes?” Ash asked, looking to the edge of the compound. “Those born without a Dantian are normally sent to the lower realm?”
“Yes,” Jia confirmed. “I had… had a younger sister that was born without a Dantian. The Emperor’s rules forbid anyone without a Dantian from dwelling here. She was sent to the low-realm family branch. She was not there when I went for a visit, she had fled and… and no-one saw her again.
Bounty now up to find Jia’s younger sister.
Make it worth while so that she’s found.
Alive or dead.
“Done.”
Mei clicked her tongue while holding onto Ash’s arm and looked around as well.
“I imagine Ash just ordered Locke to put a bounty out to find your sister,” she murmured, then glanced at Ash. “Much in the same way he put a bounty out to find Ying-Yue. I will wager your little sister is found in a week. One way or another.”
“I… ah… yes. I see your point,” Jia conceded with a sigh, then a laugh. “Mm. What’s our first order of business then since Hui and Chunhua will handle the portal?”
“We exit. Quietly. Act as if we belong. Go to a market, purchase some things, see if there’s anything we can find out,” Ash begun. Part of him wanted to go find an information broker. That would likely require going to a brothel.
It was well known that courtesans traded their bodies, but also heard and inferred a great deal. You didn’t go to a brothel without becoming part of the information they’d sell to someone else.
Because even in asking a question, you gave them information that could be sold to someone else.
“If that doesn’t work, a tea house would be our best bet,” Mei suggested. Which was just a more flowery way of saying ‘Brothel’, but it wasn’t wrong, either.
“A tea house? My cuddly-bunny wife self doesn’t like the idea of her husband going to such a place,” murmured Tala, coming up tot stand beside Mei’s left hand side.
Her long black rabbit ears were on full display, and her dark black hair was pulled back behind her in short bright red ribbons. The base of each ear also had a red ribbon wound around it.
Her rather pretty and delicate features were set in a full pout that didn’t match the rather brilliant abilities as a physical warrior. Her green eyes spent only a fraction of a second looking around, before looking to Ash.
She stuck out her lower lip, lift her right shoulder, and peered at him over it.
“You wouldn’t want to upset your cuddly bunny-wife, would you?” she asked in silky-soft tone. “I promise to give you anything you want, Darling.”
“Tala, he must go where he must. That is likely a tea-house,” argued Moira who joined the group on the right side of Jia. “If not a tea-house, then… an auction? I’m not sure how money works here, but do we not have a great deal of it?”
“Money is very similar but… I am afraid it it is not as easy as it will be for us now, as it was previously,” Jia began to explain. “Instead of Spirit Stones, they use Awakened Stones. The level of power is significantly greater. We will still have wealth here, but… not as we did. That and the stones themselves are different as well.”
Ash chewed at his lip and looked from Jia to Moira who was just beyond her.
Her white and black hair was drawn back with small blue ribbons tied throughout her hair. It’d shifted her strange coloring but not enough to cause superstitious people pause.
Her overly large, if not giant, yellow eyes roamed over the area then slid to Ash.
She gave him a smile and the alien beauty that was Moira was on full display. Her wings were currently laid against her back and she was wearing Cultivators robes, just as Tala and everyone else was.
“Well, let’s try the market first,” Mei said, then sniffed. Only to laugh. “We can perhaps find out if we can go to an auction. Mayhap some transference papers? I imagine they will be just as useful here, as they were in the lower realm.
“If not more so? Did you not say you’ve gotten much better at the art? We could also buy cores here at the market for cheap and turn that around into those papers.
“While the currency is different here, I bet there will be merchants willing to take Spirit Stones or Sheng Stones at a depreciated value. No?
“I mean, if I was a young woman of moderate wealth, I wouldn’t mind trading at two for one. And… it isn’t as if we lack resources, we just lack their currency.”
“That is true,” Jia agreed, looked at Mei, and smiled wide at her. Then reached over and patted Mei’s hands with her own. “My Dear sister, I am blessed with you as my partner. I saw only the problem as someone from this realm. You are always helping me through my rigid thinking.”
“To be fair, Dear sister,” said Mei, catching Jia’s hands in her own and holding tight to it. “Your systemic and order based thinking has helped me a great deal. Now, please, Jia dear, won’t you lead us? This is your home-land, not mine. I claim ignorance and a lack of awareness here. I think it’d be best if you led our group in this time.
“And… as the acting Mistress Sheng, I order it of the First Bride. Won’t you please be the Mistress Sheng during our time here so that we can benefit from your wisdom?”
Jia laughed, patted Mei’s hands, then released them and looked to Ash.
At the same time, Mei released his arm, grabbed Jia, and bodily pushed the other woman up to Ash’s side. Then she took Ash’s arm, pushed it to the side of Jia’s breast, and forcibly put Jia’s arms around his own. She nodded her head, then took up the spot on Ash’s right.
“Then… ah… we will go to the nearest market,” Jia suggested. “From there, we should be able to get more information. My own family is five or six days by coach from here. Two if we ran as a cultivator would, or even fly.”
At the mention of flying, Ash looked up.
There were a number of people flying to and fro in the air above them. As if it weren’t that big a deal to have people moving about through the air above a city.
This is a truly new realm. They are all at teh later stages of the Mortal realm, or external Qi users like Chunhua.
“Chunhua already put up a shield that bends light away from the portal. She and Rou discovered that light was what allowed something to be seen, and have been experimenting. Those books we’ve been handing out have been quite helpful.
“That and the Outworlder Brides are quick to assist, help, or explain. Information is spreading quickly.
“Speaking of Outworlder… your Divine Brides have put in a formal request for you to come see them at their new building. It was… erected at the valley you found the ring at. They took it over completely after negotiations with Siu. They’ve fortified it, turned it into their own place, and wish you to visit.”
Well that’s interesting.
Before he could consider exactly what he was doing, Ash turned his interest and his awareness inward. Toward his middle-dantian and what it held.
Which was the Sheng Plane now.
It housed the Hall itself, the Bridal Manse, the Knights Castle, the Prison that was empty at this time, the Garden between the Manse and the Castle, and the Arena. Where duels were performed.
He did notice something new though.
The last time he’d looked here, the golden pillar had been missing. The pillar that was his Dao and had been interspersed with the statues of everyone inside of it, or just outside of it.
At the dead center of the plane was the golden pillar. It was massive and reached up toward the sky.
Toward the upper-dantian that was slowly forming in the distant heights above.
Yet no sooner than his awareness touched the middle-dantian than he felt every one in the plane, gain an awareness of him.
As everyone seemed to realize he was watching, he made sure to not reach out and grab the fresh-Brides who were around the dao-pillar. They had clearly only recently pledged but didn’t yet have Bonds of Sheng connecting them to the whole.
Surprisingly, everyone had turned to look at the Dao pillar. As if that were the source of his awareness and where they knew he was.
“Lord Sheng!” called out more than a few voices. Followed by the entirety of the plane.
I’m not longer mortal.
This is my deity plane. It’s fully formed into what it would and will be, but even then… it’s still expanding. Ever larger.
As he looked outward, he saw that there were more buildings than he’d seen previously. He wasn’t sure how they were formed, or placed here, but they were here.
Then, shockingly, he watched a group of Knights trooped out of the Castle, crossed over from that to the Garden, then to the Hall. All without ever shifting in or out of the space.
They were all connected now.
“I hear you,” Ash offered to the plane, then retreated.
“Thank you for not sending those poor women into their black day. They’re not ready for it.”
Yet as he moved his consciousness away, he felt a bonfire of attention being flung at him from something in his plane. Looking back in, he saw a rather large building at the outskirts of the plane.
It stood in a strange contrast to all the other buildings around, in the same way the Castle did. It didn’t quite belong and seemed ‘out of time’, to Ash.
Looking to it, he felt an eager and immediate response. The bonfire of attention now became a conflagration suitable to a forest-fire.
The building looked akin to a large a large and fortified feudal monastery. Large walls, fortified gates, watch towers, murder-holes, and a great many bell-towers spread throughout it.
In looking at it, Ash realized it was his Divine Brides. A group of women he’d accidentally torn into the fullness of the cultivator life too early. Though somehow, they’d all become extreme talents in the doing of it.
“We have adepts for you to bless, Lord Sheng!” called a voice Ash didn’t recognize. “Your Divine Bridal Lord calls upon you for your blessing!”
Uh.
“Yeah… that’s… yes. They do not consider themselves part of the Bridal hiarchy. They serve as priestesses to you. They’re all versed in medical arts, logistics, and child rearing. You named them Divine Brides, they took that as permission to form their own faction. They’ve done so.
“They listen to Hui and Na primarily. They do listen to Siu if she puts the request in as a way to benefit you.
“They recruit people differently than we do but they bind them to you in nearly the same way.
“I was against it, until I saw how much Qi they throw your way.
“Because it isn’t just Qi, it’s also… faith, I think. Faith in your divine being.”
He had a good idea what this ‘blessing was’, given how their order had been founded.
Ash had grabbed at them and flooded them with absolute pure Qi, sending them spiraling and screaming to a point no brand new Cultivator should arrive arrive at.
He saw in the courtyard of their monastery, which he suspected was in the valley he used to hide in near his home, held a few hundred young women.
Their uniforms were all bright red with white accents. Yet the same uniform as that of the Brides themselves.
Should I expect the Knights to come up with Warrior-Priests at some point?
Or is it already happening and I’m asking a bit too late.
“The… they’re at… they’re at the Ice-Lake of the Knights. They’re Warrior-Priests, but they didn’t want to leave the Knighthood. Different uniforms, however, and different roles. They’re still constructing their building but I’ve already taken one of the module artifacts you made and have been starting to work it over to accommodate them.”
Yes… this is what I need to do, to become Lord Sheng in truth.
Fine.
Reaching out, Ash greedily grasped at all the ‘adepts’ that the Divine Bride had asked him to ‘bless’.
Grasped at them, and flooded them with enough pure Qi from him directly that it’d match what he’d done to the original group. Something that would likely kill them, or shatter their previous lives completely.
One and all, they all collapsed.
He didn’t sense any of them dying, but he did note that around twenty had their Dantians shatter.
They would never Cultivate again.
“Ah, we’ll… patch them up. They won’t die. Knowing what I know of Sisui, she’ll immediately end up taking those that had their Dantians broken and take them in as assistants. They’ll serve in a similar way tot he medical personnel for the Knights.
“Don’t worry over it. Though that’s a much better success rate than making Knights!”
Ash knew that name.
Sisui was a woman he had done nearly the same thing to. One that’d had their statue appear at the bottom of the Dao pillar, trying to hold Locke and the pillar as a whole up on her own back.
It all made more sense now.
Even knowing that, Ash grimaced and released the adepts he’d taken to hand.
“Our thanks, Lord Sheng, our prayers, Lord Sheng, our lives, Lord Sheng,” called out the same voice as last time. It sounded firmer this time.
Stronger.
“Continue, my Divine Bridal Lord, Sisui. You have my thanks and care,” he instructed, then left the plane. In using her name, and invoking a title she’d been using but hadn’t been reinforced by him yet, he felt it when her faith in him grew exponentially.
A fierce and jubilant response from her that was wordless yet all encompassing.
He accepted it without misgivings.
Because realistically, he would need ever larger momentum if he was to take hold of the fullness of the realms. That meant more people.
More losses.
It was his duty to minimize those losses while shouldering the dead.
He was Lord Sheng.