Lipita Delphi 56: Hail the Seventh Devil-King! Hail the Dreamer who Duelled Fate!
TURN 15, OMAKE 14 [LIPITA]
Lipita Delphi 56: Hail the Seventh Devil-King! Hail the Dreamer who Duelled Fate!
Lipita Delphi 56: Hail the Seventh Devil-King! Hail the Dreamer who Duelled Fate!
Black is the marker of family, of kin bound by blood and legacy and damnation. It is eyes of purest darkness, a unifying vision captured in reflections for all members of the House of Delphi, from the prodigy of cultivation and little else bearing the quiet hopes of many fools to the broken marionette playing at being a puppetmaster of a motley collection of rejects who refused to go quietly into the night.
Lipita Delphi took two steps past the entrance humming with quiet menace from the lethal warding arrays inscribed across every visible surface of the doorway and bowed deeply as the portal closed behind her with an ominous click.
"This junior greets the honored arch-councilor Calliope and thanks the head councilor for the gracious invitation to attend her. May the wisdom of the ancestors continue to live on in the Voice of House Delphi," Lipita said respectfully, holding her head bowed even after she had spoken.
"By the Fates, I wonder who taught you how to be so polite. It can't be Chemos, that irreverent bastard never had the respect for proper manners," Clean-shaven and sky-clad as was her habit, Calliope Delphi smiled amusedly on her seat as she examined Lipita's bent over form.
"No, if I had to guess this is childhood training. Your mothers, Philomena and Augusta, were always prim and proper enough to have drilled you in polite behavior like a good daughter of the house," Calliope mused, tapping the iridescent nails of her right hand against the bare bronze expanse of her right thigh.
Standing up, the head councilor walked over to Lipita at a deliberately slow pace. From her seat to Lipita's position was barely a dozen meters but each step was a hammer strike against Lipita's senses, the full force of a Core Formation cultivator's aura beating with increasing strength against Lipita's spirit as distance reduced. Lipita bore the bludgeoning with stoic poise, showing no reaction and maintaining her bow even as Calliope came close enough to touch and the magnitude of her unfurled presence physically weighed down the air around their two forms.
Without warning, Calliope's aura vanished and she placed her hand on Lipita's shoulder to push her upright, smiling approvingly at the junior cultivator.
"Commendable discipline and poise. You don't know how many foolish scions of our house have pissed themselves or fainted from a little posturing like this from me," Calliope patted Lipita's shoulder affectionately, "I can see why Chemos is constantly talking you up."
Lipita stiffly responded, "This junior is pleased to have honored her old master's estimation of her capabilities."
Calliope snorted, the loud sound entirely at odds to the image she was projecting. "You can drop the formal speech. I don't need it and it sounds so forced from you."
Lipita hesitated briefly and then nodded, shifting to more casual speech. "The part about being honored to attend you wasn't mere formality. It would always be an honor to be invited within the Founder's Workshop."
"Indeed, this place becomes a little less impressive when you use it as your personal workshop but I can remember when my old master first invited me in here and showed me the place," Calliope said, some ancient memory turning up the corners of her lips unconsciously.
"Here, let me show you the place properly," Calliope said, snapping her finger and doing something indecipherable with her aura.
When Lipita had entered the Founder's Workshop, what she'd seen hadn't exactly been the contents of a legendary space spoken of reverentially by the members of House Delphi. Certainly the naked threat in the security system allowing access had leaned into the place's reputation but the visible material within had been a bit of a letdown. Only the space between the entry and Calliope's seat had been accessible, a space a bit over a dozen meters long and double that wide, which Lipita's casual examination upon entry had shown her contained high quality tools for a craftsman of many interests but nothing truly special. Bloodforged Pill Cauldrons were rare but only in the manner of being limited to buyers with the budget of Elders than anything else. That was the nature and quality of what was immediately visible from equipment to reagents and raw materials.
Lipita had not felt cheated by the invitation, however, because what was not visible hinted at greater mysteries. Behind where Calliope had been seated when Lipita had entered, the room vanished into a void of concealment. Neither sight nor spiritual sense had been able to penetrate that cloak of nihility but as Calliope motioned, the veil vanished and the heritage of a house of the Old Blood revealed itself as Lipita gaped unabashedly.
Orbs of Celestial Bronze hovered in display cases drowning in anti-theft wards to make the rogues of the vanished Three Stabs Sect stir in their graves for the challenge. A vial of effervescent colorless fluid sang out imperiously to Lipita's senses, carrying impressions of boundless possibility and surging growth. A Seven-Hued Earthflame Pill Crucible, cracked almost entirely in half, projected grandeur to surpass any alchemist's accoutrements Lipita had personally employed. A length of peeled off skin, unmistakably human in dimensions, hung suspended in a frame, faded ink covering every inch from tattoos that exuded the faint impression of once profound intent.
Lipita's gawp progressively transformed into a frown as she surveyed the full contents of the Founders' Workshop and noted the condition of the items within.
"Ahh, she sees it," Calliope whispered, gesturing towards the interior of the Workshop, "Here lies a great legacy of House Delphi, a museum to past glory and painful decline."
"Is this all that's left?" Lipita couldn't help but ask.
"There's a few things hidden here and there in various bolt holes around Clan territory and abandoned holdings in the Turtlebone reaches that could match what this room held in its prime but this is just about what's available outside of utter emergency," Calliope replied, "There's a reason House Delphi is not as influential or wealthy as other younger houses of the Clan."
Calliope sighed, "What weathering the death of the Third Sea didn't consume, trying and failing to defeat the Harrowing mostly spent. Even after the house was resigned to bearing our curse indefinitely, bridging the transition between what the Delphi had been and what they needed to become to survive began a slow spiral into irrelevance that has never been halted, only delayed for increasingly shorter periods."
Calliope turned to Lipita, her voice stronger. "But now, the winds of fate seem to be behind the Clan's sails and the house has not been left behind. The potential in trade eastwards with the Clan's new vassals is very promising, existing business among the Legions is on the uptick and then there's you."
What the ebon eyes of the Delphi hid in emotions, Calliope's spirit projected clearly. Interest, hope, fear; it was a mixed bag of unreserved feeling. The cynical part of Lipita whispered to her that faking emotional affect via aura would be simplicity itself for an experienced cultivator like Calliope. She shushed it and leaned forward, drawn to her Elder's words.
"A junior on the brink of leaping a most treacherous gulf, to become a Single Pillar Foundation Establishment cultivator," Calliope shook her head, "Unimaginable barely two centuries ago and yet eight others have already proven that an impossible feat was merely awaiting worthy talent. And to think that such talent would spring up from my very own house, precocious talent aiming to break all records in this madness."
Lipita could not find the words to respond so kept silent.
Calliope locked gazes with Lipita, shadowy eyes meeting each other. "The House of Delphi cannot entrust any junior with its future no matter how promising but a Single Pillar King… a Devil-King is another matter. So tell me, daughter of my shared blood, can you seize a crown from the Heavens and carve a throne for yourself among the legends of a Great Era?"
There was no hesitation in Lipita, a quiet declaration reaching Calliope's ear with unwavering confidence. "I can and I will."
"Then I shall eagerly lend you what strength I can. Come with me," Calliope said gravely, walking towards the depths of the Workshop, Lipita in tow, "I hear you have been seeking a solution to the Five Elements Magnified Heavenly Tribulation awaiting you if you attempt to break through at your current strength."
Lipita nodded from her position behind Calliope. Noticing that little movement without turning to look was nothing to Calliope and she continued speaking after receiving the confirmation.
"In this matter, I can be of assistance. You have Chemos' favor but there are some things even a wily old creature like him cannot provide, secrets of antiquity passed down only to the Voices of our house. It will be a pleasure to fashion you into a reminder to the Heavens that the ire of House Delphi is not yet spent."
***
Bronze is the complexion of Clan and Legion. It is the sign of the remnant abandoned on foreign shores, the promise of a portion in a world's neverending hate yet also the hope of shared sanctuary carved out by locked ranks of cultivators sworn to a purpose greater than themselves. Whether newly ascended Elder or tempered Junior eyeing breakthrough, all serve in the Legions of the Golden Devil Clan, bearing the standards and banners of the Imperial Optimatoi to the tune of an ageless cry: Bent but not broken, smothered but never extinguished.
"How is the acclimatization coming along?" Lihua Kokkinos asked distractedly, looking down at the array she was triple checking.
"Better than expected, actually, Kokkinos-laoshi," Lipita replied, her eyes fluttering beneath closed eyelids.
Lihua's disciple was lying on her back in a shallow bed of rock Lihua had carved and smoothed out with sunfire. Lipita's head was propped up on a wooden cylinder sculpted from pale gold peachwood. Warm pulses of soothing calm emanating from the wood stirred the cropped hair atop her head.
Lipita sat up and opened her eyes, cracking neck as she did so. "It surprisingly went faster after being exsanguinated. This place is no joke though. I thought I would be torn apart even when you were leading us through the safe paths. Even though I asked to come here, I had not expected the Dao echoes to be so intense. The natural alignments are unlike anything I've ever experienced."
Pausing her examination, Lihua turned towards Lipita. "Nascents' Fall is an uncommon locale. After all, it's not every day you get five Nascent Soul cultivators dying in pitched battle over such a small area. If I weren't an Elder of the Clan, there's no chance I could have gotten permission to bring you even this far into the shallowest areas of the effect or protected you while we made the trip to this safe zone. This place swallows up Experts without trouble, much less first great realm cultivators."
Lipita looked out at the land around them.
Nascents' Fall was a riot of madness. Massive craters and the burning smoke rising from their bowls were the most prominent signs of the ruined lands. Above the entirety of the scarred expanse, the very air simmered with emotion; rage, despair, hate and other ghosts of long past conflict were palpably borne on the winds. Beyond the emotionally charged atmosphere, certain areas in the sandy grounds outside the craters seemed dyed in vibrant color, space itself physically stained by lingering Dao intent. Those were the obvious dangers but certainly not the most lethal.
Clear space vastly outnumbered the coloured areas but that innocuous facade hid invisible death. Just a few hand spans away, a gust of wind briefly uncovered a grinning skull in the side of a dune. That patch of land looked like any other barren space in the Organ Meat Desert, but Lipita had been warned off by Lihua as they had made for the safe zone identified as suitable for their purposes by the irregulars of the 164th Legion. Three more steps forward towards the skeleton and the flesh would be turning to dust on her bones before that last footfall.
"I almost wish we were back south with those frigid ice cultivators. This idea seems increasingly insane the more of it we execute and I'm the one who came up with it," Lipita mumbled, feeling a low level headache building up now that she was away from the shielding presence of the Hell-Tempering Dreamcatcher. The headache didn't progress beyond that mild irritation though, evidence that her spirit was almost adjusted to the latent energies of the safe zone in Nascents' Fall without the need for active protection from her teacher or artifacts.
Lihua and Lipita had made their way north into Nascents' Fall, coming up from the Ice-Qi Caverns. The Ice Maidens of Hu Lin City were never the most welcoming of hosts even to their overlords in the Golden Devils but an Elder of the Clan meeting a contact from the Legions in their territory was the kind of intrusion wise women knew to give polite approval and stay well clear off.
Lihua chuckled, the Facsimile Lightkey bobbing behind her head. "Please, you were annoyed that none of the Ice Maidens bothered to pay any attention to you. You'd be running up the walls of their warrens within a day. Besides, this is one of those plans that is so crazy that it wraps all the way around madness to become genius. Where better to confirm a Dao based on a philosophy of unending conflict than a battlefield where the echoes of a life-and-death struggle between peak cultivators still clash. Even the 164th were interested enough in the idea to offer a path through Nascents' Fall."
Their contact, Fung Dixing of the Devil Stalkers, fit every stereotype of an irregular of the Legions to such an exacting match that it had to be deliberate. Not an inch of skin was visible beneath sandy brown robes, hood, gloves and mask. Their voice had been equally mysterious, androgynous and eminently forgettable. One could easily imagine the Expert they had met, appearing suddenly in the heat and sand to strike at foes and then melt back in the desert like a wraith, leaving no trace. The interaction with Dixing had been brief. The irregular had been waiting for them in the Ice-Qi Caverns and supplied them with the necessary details to find a location fitting the specifications Lihua had provided, and departed abruptly after receiving the Contribution Points Lihua had put up for this service. Lihua and Lipita had had to manage passage to the location themselves, the two-woman expedition guardedly making their heavily laden way following the route provided.
"I hope Astrape isn't too much for Erlitou and the rest to handle. Laying the foundations for a new Legion is trouble enough without that feathered menace interrupting. Fates know that trying to build an airship fleet is a difficult enough task on its own," Lihua said, casting her thoughts toward her bonded Lighthawk and the new senior command of her fledgling Legion.
"I'm sure they can handle anything that comes their way whether or not it involves that smooth-brained avian," Lipita said, then continued in heartfelt gratitude, "Thank you for going through all this effort for my benefit. I appreciate what it means for you to be absent from such a critical juncture in raising up a new Legion."
"What else is a teacher to do for her disciple? Besides, building a merchant fleet of airships that can service the entirety of Clan territory even with the Gravity Transit Arrays is going to be the work of decades so I'm not missing out on much," Lihua retorted, "If you want to be useful, get back to getting synched to the dragon lines around here while I finish up with this array."
"Your wish is my command, mistress," Lipita said teasingly and then she returned to her meditation using the Hell-Tempering Dreamcatcher.
Lihua ignored her disciple's antics and focused on the array that she'd painstakingly set up throughout the majority of the safe zone, an area large enough to hold a full muster of a dozen standard Legions comfortably. Setting up a Five Elements Celestial Warding of this size in the field a year or two ago would have at least a month's worth of prep work culminating in a strenuous installation that would have left Lihua wearied to the bone. Now it was still a complex task but one that merely stretched her abilities rather than emptied her out. Being able to substitute much of the element-neutral sub-components needed in the sprawling array with byproducts of her own physique had certainly not hurt either.
Satisfied with the array's installation, Lihua turned her scrutiny to the twin artifacts whose function her array had been designed to support. The Blood Scapegoat Effigy Lipita had recovered from her exploration of the Southlands with Victor Wulf was no longer in the shape of a mummified fetus the size of a closed fist, but it was now an exact copy of Lipita lying in a sunken pit full of her blood. A foot away from the bloody pit, a second pit had been dug. It was currently empty, and the pair of pits formed the central nodes of the pentagonal array Lihua had created, channels leading to each other and then to each of the five corners of the sprawling work Lihua had spent days slaving over.
Pride warred with apprehension when Lihua could find no flaw with her work. Everything she could offer her disciple without risking implication in the tribulation was now done and anything further would be up to Lipita to determine whether she succeeded in her Heavenly Tribulation or not.
Slipping out of the array's coverage and taking a seat close to Lipita's meditating form, Lihua used a precious Mid-Quality Spirit Stone to recover her strength and safeguard her disciple as she readied herself to risk her life against the Heavens.
Three days later, Lihua was once again watching over her junior reclining in the embrace of the ground. The Dreamcatcher had been packed away and the meditation trench swapped with the partner pit to that which still served as a womb for the Effigy and shared hub for an exceedingly ambitious tribulation mitigation array design.
Lihua hovered over Lipita, "How does the integration into the array feel? Are there any gaps in your awareness of the spiritual energy within the array's reach? What about lags in the array's response to your will? Let me check-"
"Kokkinos-laoshi," Lipita gently but firmly cut off her fussing teacher, "You've made an incredible effort for any senior caring for their junior, from delivering me to this location to constructing the magnificent array I am about to use. Thank you for all your contributions but there's nothing more you can do here. You know better than I do that the leap I must now take is a solitary endeavor. Please, do me the honor of standing witness to my Heavenly Tribulation as my Dao guardian."
"Tch, who are you calling fussy?" Lihua said in mock grumpiness, "I'm merely being meticulous like any proper artificer should be. I'd hoped I'd at least have taught you that much."
Her skin painted with hundreds of logograms in faultless calligraphy using absurdly expensive metallic ink made from Celestial Bronze as a base and mostly naked save for the bands of the Orienteering Compass and Spatial Cannon Ring around her neck and right index finger respectively, Lipita Delphi projected unusual vulnerability, an image immediately broken when she blew a raspberry at her teacher's words.
"Seriously? You're acting this childish just before beginning a Heavenly Tribulation that would make Experts think twice and then again?" Lihua said resignedly, "You're doomed. Your mothers are going to try to kill me for bringing ashes back to them, I just know it."
"What did you say to me when we were discussing how to pull this off?" Lipita retorted, "Oh wait I remember: "A Duel of Fates is a type of Heavenly Tribulation that must be forced to manifest and only by the greatest of dreamers. It requires supreme arrogance to abandon defending your physical body during the tribulation and wielding utter conviction in your Dao as a bludgeon to force the Heavens to confirm your Truth. You must be faithful to yourself in the fullest measure, unrelenting in vision and possessed by an obdurate spirit that defies all the world." Does any of that sound familiar?"
Lihua rolled her eyes, rapping her knuckles against Lipita's forehead, careful to avoid disturbing her handiwork. "Sure I said that and then we both did the research that led to more concrete means of compelling a Duel of Fates than dreaming big. There's a lot that you left out in your cherry-picked recollection, oh junior of mine."
"Meh, it got the gist across," Lipita shrugged, and made herself comfortable in her pit, "Today I present myself unreserved and unashamed to the Heavens. I am just as much the irreverent childish junior as I am the scion of my house, the veteran of my Clan's wars, the beloved daughter of my mothers and so much more. This is where I prove my fate greater than any death the Heavens wish for me."
"Huh, you actually sounded wise there for a moment," Lihua said, standing up, "Okay, that's enough time wasted. Let's start this show. Are you ready?"
Lipita's reply came in the sudden bronze glow of the script across her body. The air within the Five Elements Celestial Warding stilled as the will and intent of a Qi Condensation junior was magnified and focused through the craft of her master. Once the Delphi had used their Resonant Bronze Compass bloodline to seize the natural strength of vast lands and turn them against their foes. Such feats were now confined to the dustbin of history by the Harrowing but in that moment a pale reflection of the thaumaturgy wielded by the wizard-magisters of the Delphi was resurrected. A bridge between land and cultivator was formed, a new will quietly stepping to the side of the shadows of giants. Dao-echoes of those long buried Lords stirred at the new observer but there was no other reaction.
Lihua quickly backed away from Lipita, as her junior unhesitatingly moved forward with their plans. She set up a watch far enough from Lipita's breakthrough to avoid unfortunate interference, just into the danger zones where only a Core Formation cultivator could survive on their own. With a whispered prayer to the Imperator, she watched and waited.
The blood surrounding the Blood Scapegoat Effigy stirred, flowing upwards along a shallow incline to begin filling Lipita's hollow. Lipita had lost her body weight in blood over several days priming the Effigy and now a ceaseless flow of that sanguine fluid submerged Lipita herself, the level of fluid covering the Effigy never falling. It took mere minutes for Lipita to be wholly immersed, at which juncture the orphaned placenta dangling from the Effigy's abdomen wriggled its way across and latched its mouth onto her belly button, merging with the bronzed flesh there. A connection snapped into place in Lipita's spirit, the joining forming a bond between Lipita and the hollow vessel of the Effigy, a vessel into which Lipita could divert as much injury as would ordinarily ravage the undefended figure of someone attempting a breakthrough from the 12th Heavenstage.
Within Lipita's dantian, a second treasure
roused itself to readiness, this one from the arch-councilor of House Delphi. The drop of actual Sibyl's blood Calliope had given Lipita was a great sign of her family's investment in her future, especially when it came with unrestricted access to the family's archives on Duels of Fates. Only semi-physical, the droplet abandoned Lipita's body through the link she'd formed with the terrain around her and settled into the workings of the Five Elements Celestial Warding array. The living intent in that droplet became a servitor directing the natural alignments of the land through the array into an inhumanly capable defense that would sap, divert, ablate and outright block a full half of any tribulation energies that made it past the Effigy's ward.
Lipita exhaled, her resolve rock solid as her two tribulation treasures came into active use. There were no other tools to mitigate whatever portion of the Heavenly Tribulation broke past the twin shields of the Effigy and the Sibyl-controlled array. That was for physical conditioning to prove itself in the resilience of her unconscious body as her mind wrestled with the Heavens on another plane.
Lipita inhaled, tasting and smelling the coppery tang of the blood ensconcing her. It was time to take the final irrevocable step. A Duel of Fates did not begin like ordinary Heavenly Tribulations with the Heavens' move against the consolidation of a Dao-Pillar . They commenced with a cohesive Truth delicately bound by gossamer threads of utmost will in the absence of the tempering vitality won from tribulation energies and unfurled for all to witness. Such temerity pricked the Heavens who dragged that Truth into strident examination, leaving the physical manifestation of the suddenly appearing Heavenly Tribulation unguided from the reallocation of limited resources apportioned to each tribulation.
A promise to fight across eternity, against infinite possibility through unwavering will to claim the spoils of victory. That was the the Truth Lipita quietly projected from her heart. The Heavens' reaction was immediate and predictable.
A bolt of brilliant white lightning fell from the empty sky towards Lipita, earthshaking elemental energies blended into one immediate act of retaliation. Fast as lightning fell, the bolt did not reach its target unimpeded. Radiant wrath shimmered, splitting into two and the Effigy was consumed in an eruption of bloody steam as one of the bolts found it. The flight of the second bolt of lightning slowed to a crawl as it reached halfway between heaven and earth. Blindingly brilliant white faded to dirty gray as Heavenly Lightning stained itself in terrestrial dross crawling through the aegis of a short-lived genius loci. The bolt zig and zagged in mid flight pulled away from its ordained course by canny wiles. Color darkened as sparks of potency were stolen away during its passage and the clash between the final shield of the Sibyl's array-self dimmed the bolt to merely glaring before it made its way past and struck Lipita. From a mountain to a wagon's width, the much diminished bolt of Heavenly Lightning cooked Lipita's flesh but only to a light broil in a sauce of boiling blood. Defeated by the fortitude of Lipita's body, the bolt lingered atop her forehead, no longer an attack a bridge to a separate struggle.
Staring quietly from her vantage point, Lihua observed the first part of Lipita's tribulation move along swiftly as planned. The next part was the most crucial and the most obscure to external observers. All that Lihua could do as she resumed her distant vigil was hope and trust in her junior's ability to overcome.
***
Void is the color of nothing, the absence of matter and form. It is an infinite emptiness, an eternal separation from the substance of reality. What grander canvas existed upon which a would-be king could call forth that which was not as though it were? What greater arena could host a duel between mortal and divine in a defense of fated destiny?
<Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!>
Lipita would have screamed fit to wake the dead had she the body and breath to do so. Absent those, she screamed within herself, flailing at nothing with absent limbs.
Nothing existed beyond her perception of her self-existence. There was no ground beneath her feet, no atmosphere to caress her figure, not even the energy of the heavens and earth that tormented as much as it enabled. Every frame of reference she had to experience the world had been shorn off her. Her senses had all abandoned her, whether of flesh and of spirit. Unmoored from reality, the only anchor she had to ward off gibbering insanity was her desperate grasp on the purpose for which she'd made the lunatic gambit that had caused her present situation and the handful of accounts she'd exhaustively poured over purporting to be records of similar experiences in a duel of fates.
Time passed strangely in that not-space bereft of the normal indicators of progressing moments, so it seemed to Lipita that surely days must have passed while she adjusted to the transition. However every credible account of a Duel of Fate had reported that whether successful or failed, a Duel of Fate always ended after one sunrise and one sunset. Whether that perception was a product of a true time differential between the void and real-space or merely an illusion created by a mind disoriented by nothingness was something Lipita had not been able to resolve in her preparations.
<Plant the seed, grow the seed, defend the seed. Plant the seed, grow the seed, defend the seed. Plant the seed, grow the seed, defend the seed…>
An eternity and an instant later when her focus had returned enough for useful action, Lipita falteringly began to supplant the absence of the void with her Truth. It was hard, harder than she'd ever imagined. Her prodigious memory had been left behind with the ability to use qi to employ any of the arts of the [Erudite Sibyl's Stairway]. Likewise her emotions were distorted strangers without the nerves and hormones of her physical body. Yet the dream in her heart had not abandoned her, she'd not forgotten the answer she'd pieced together of what the was and what it should be.
It began with pain from within, blood and lymph fluid and muscle and skin and organs spreading out from her, replacing emptiness with a world that was a body. Caverns of bloody gristle flooded with vomit, acid and shit, while towers of bone and ligament held up a sparking net of neurons flashing with impulse and thought. It was a world at war with itself, flesh warring against flesh in endless hordes of tumorous cells devouring and being devoured in turn as electrified phantoms in serried ranks of conflicting thoughts battled in the air above. At the heart of the fray, an army of unified flesh and thought strove against the cancerous infiltration of inherited ire and conquered unruly base nature, a collective host made into a many-limbed colossus. The first battle was against and within the Self.
Perception fractured, and beside and above and through the world of the Self, another plane clawed its way into existence as Lipita delved deeper into her Truth. Mirror-faced creatures prowled a maze of invisible walls and endless white mists, an endless menagerie of shapes and forms wandering without cease. From the mirrors that replaced heads, kaleidoscopic visions of different worlds projected onto the world of confusion and separation. Above the maze hovered a giant bronzed hand with innumerable slender fingers which narrowed into tendrils that snaked throughout the maze, lifting above the maze denizens whose reflected visions welcomed the presence of the hand and strangling those that rejected. The Other is a second foe of opposed interests and the first ally of shared concerns.
<Huff.. huff… Why am I even panting when I don't have lungs?>
Lipita was heavily pregnant with her vision, straining to finish birthing the last of the trifecta that was her seeded Truth.
<Hold it all together.>
A third overlapping world manifested with a final push, completing a set of triplet realms.
Gleaming stygian black machinery loomed in the highest reaches of an oppressive sky layered in leaden gray clouds, a throne of light placed over everything. Hunched over figures formed of shadow crawled along chains larger than entire cities within the gloom of the clouds. From the clouds fell showers of molten lead upon the pitiful forms struggling to ascend, the scorching heat wringing screams from their touch and weighing down limbs as heated metal cooled. Whips of lightning crackled throughout the sky, scourging the backs of those who pressed upwards and reducing those who fell and could not rise to charred ash. Yet the shadows continued to press upwards, reaching for the peak of the ascent where glaring eyes of flame crafted laws to constrain and hungry mouths of abyssal hunger demanded submission. Endless streams of figures rose and were cast down, constantly advancing and retreating from the peak without ever conceding defeat. Strike the yoke of the World's Sovereign, for no binding is absolute.
<Finally it is done. Can you hear my voice? Can you see my Truth?>
Conflict raged unending. A story was told for all witnesses, saying, this struggle is the lot of every being. All are caught in a conflict against themselves, others and the world itself. Victory is not impossible, and where the will persists defeat is not final. Success is a prize won in struggle, each achievement an accumulation of strength to face greater challenges.
Lipita willed her Dao into being, a crude stitched together monstrosity of childish dreams and febrile faith. It was the madness of flame seeking to swallow the seas, a dream of [Victory in Struggle].
A great sigh battered against the boundaries of Lipita's dream, softening the definition of its edges and shaking the foundations of her vision. Denial was a tsunami of dissolution breathed out by the Heavens against Lipita, a fell wind gusting forth in the second clash of the Duel of Fates that fiercely grappled with Lipita's manifest Truth and sought to prove it hollow and without substance. Lipita firmed her convictions and affirmed her ideal against attempted negation, holding fast to prevent the Heavens from thrusting defeat down the jaws of victory.
The first move of the Heavens had been almost insultingly shrugged off, the nihility of void-space unable to wash away Lipita's fate and self-identity in the ocean of nothingness she had been thrown into. The second had been ably defended against, the denial of dreams proven ineffective against certain delusion. The third came swiftly on the heels of its predecessor, retaliating against Lipita's desecration.
Five armies marched against Lipita's Truth, five Daos that had been made known to the Heavens three times previously, resurrected in retribution for Lipita daring to use the echoes they had left behind to defend against the Heavens' physical wrath. Fallen heroes and genocidal foes of her clan alike became instruments of the Heavens' vengeance. The ghosts of their convictions breached the boundaries of Lipita's Truth, poisoning the clarity of purpose that held it all together and sundered the foundations of the the hope that struggle produced victory.
The spectres had only enough integrity for one blow but it had been a fiercesome one. The cavernous realm of mortal flesh had had its ceilings torn off, exposed to the freezing indifference of the void that stilled life. The dominating puppetmaster of society's maze had been infected with madness, dashing allies against the barriers and lifting foes to itself where their rejection vaporised holes in the orphaned limb. The celestial tyrant had been empowered to sweep away the defiant climbers, drowning them in rivers of lightning and burying those evaded obliteration in weighted coffins of molten law.
Lipita's manifestation of her Truth twisted in the void, shedding damaged sections with escalating speed. Breakdown accelerated breakneck until the whole edifice crumbled beneath its own weight. Yet the Heavens were denied their victory. In the crumbling remnants where the conjoined worlds had been, a single cornerstone lingered. A stretch of bronze skin, pale as through from a palm and polished to a mirror-like sheen, twisted in the void. A bloody handprint covered a section of the skin and in the reflection of the skin, a shambling wretch, weighed down by chains, crawled forwards, despite limbs blasted into charcoal. How long the wretch crawled was impossible to tell but it approached closer and closer to the mirror's surface like a fish rising to eater's surface. Eventually handprint and wretch met and blood began to trickle down the bronze skin, pooling around the skin fragment which begun to slowly expand.
The Heavens' had spent its retribution in one overwhelming blow and it had not been enough.
<My Truth does not die easily and where it lies undying, hope regenerates.>
[Victory in Struggle] was reborn after an interminable period, Lipita racing against the Heavens' hand placed against her. Every attempt to restore her conceptualization of her Dao was a fight against the Heavens' judgement. Each ideal recaptured and envisioned was as if she were carrying stones that weighed as much as the world to lay a foundation in the midst of a tumultuous in unrelenting caustic rain. It was a test of endurance to the truest measure, a single wavering thought or doubt shaking apart what she'd restored and forcing her to start over. Nonetheless, Lipita persevered in dreaming her Dao into realization, never losing enough ground to be forced to concede.
When the final capstone was laid and the manifestation restored, the sudden relaxation of opposition from the Heavens' was just enough warning for Lipita to play out her final stratagem. It was this very reason she had pursued the extremely difficult to realize Duel of Fates. The vanishingly rare Heavenly Tribulation proceeded in a regular pattern: survive the touch of physical tribulation lightning, then prove your fate in the void; after that overcome denial, then withstand retribution before prevailing over judgment; finally if you're somehow still in the fight, survive execution.
Lipita had not been able to find a way to parry the blow of karmic execution that concluded a Duel of Fate. No karma affecting treasures or techniques in the dead wastes of the Third Sea were going to block or parry the kind of attack coming her way. Dodging was an impossible option when in the void space where Duels of Fate took place. If blocking, parrying and dodging were impossible, taking the hit was the next best option and that's where Lipita's circumstances made opportunity out of danger.
When the silver blade of the karmic execution came sweeping across the void, Lipita did not flee. She stood her ground and let it fall upon her, pulling determinedly to present certain portions of herself foremost. The karmic execution arrived and Lipita had the distinct pleasure of noticing the Heavens' flinch when the supreme governing will of the Nine Seas ran into a problem.
A karmic execution was a repudiation by the Heavens' so total that mind, body and soul were snuffed out instantly and the strings of karma binding that existence into being were severed. Lipita had no defense that could stand up to such an effect. What she did have though was a divine curse that needed to acknowledge her to afflict her. For Lipita it was as though she'd fallen asleep and started awake, finding the manifestation of herself that existed in the void behind the edge of the receding karmic execution.
<Hahaha! I was right! A Turtle-Child's death curse trumps Heaven's karmic execution.>
Lipita was ecstatic as she felt herself snap back to her body, banished petulantly by a thwarted Heavens. That ecstasy transformed into almost orgasmic pleasure as jolts of tribulation lightning, expended of all killing intent flooded her body with tempering strength. The singular Dao-Pillar she'd conceived and nurtured throughout the Duel of Fate practically crystallized as it greedily drank from the vital force pouring through her flesh and spirit. Lipita felt the limits of her body expand explosively as she stepped past Qi Condensation into Foundation Establishment.
A thrill of hilarity ran through Lipita. She was focused on making sure that every part of her body received the nourishment of the expended tribulation but there were certain things noticeable in their absence. The presence of the Harrowing was practically non-existent to her senses. It would appear that defeating a karmic execution had demanded much of the curse's strength. Just as planned.
"Hehe! Hahaha!"
Lipita couldn't help but simultaneously laugh and cry even as she worked through the remainder of her ascension. For eighty years, her body had been host to an untiring enemy that had hobbled and tormented her. Perhaps, this would be a short-lived reprieve and the Harrowing would recover its strength but that was a worst-case scenario. At the very least, she would have the opportunity to push her cultivation as high as it could go while the curse was weakened. A stronger cultivation base that hadn't been parasitized by the Harrowing to match her development would give her the upper hand in any struggles with the curse. Lipita then realized that in fact, one reason the Harrowing seemed so faint within her body was that it was being suppressed naturally.
"[Victory through Struggle]," Lipita mouthed, feeling a heretofore unnoticeable resonance, when she focused on her Dao.
One another she could definitely confirm had changed was the range of her spiritual sense. Without deliberately looking, she'd noticed the approach of Kokkinos-laoshi at three times the radius she previously had.
"Here, catch," Lihua Kokkinos said to Lipita, throwing her disciple a bag of cleaning supplies and clothes.
"Ugh, thank you for that, I feel utterly filthy," Lipita grimaced and sat up, flakes of dried blood and expelled impurities crumbling off her.
"That was a surprisingly tame Heavenly Tribulation. After the one big blow, there was only a small channel of tribulation lightning. It turns out that while you can't join a Duel of Fate in progress, you can at least keep an eye on its progress by monitoring how much of the remaining tribulation lightning has been refined," Lihua said, as she examined the crater where the Blood Scapegoat Effigy had laid, "It was as if you'd rung a dinner bell for all the Spirit Beasts around, though. I might actually make some profit from the number of Beast Cores I was able to harvest. No wonder so few survive the Duel if that's what they have to deal with on top of everything else. Nascents' Fall is fortunately very inhospitable as locales go."
"Thank you for the protection," Lipita said, freshly cleaned and newly dressed. She joined Lihua at the rim of the crater, looking across what was left of the Five Elements Celestial Warding array, "I'm almost surprised this entire plan worked."
"Proper preparation works wonders, speaking of which, have a look at yourself," Lihua manifested the Facsimile Lightkey and projected an image of Lipita's face for the both of them.
"Oh my, are those my eyes?" Lipita marveled, spotting an immediate change, "My vision doesn't seem any different."
Where Lipita's eyes had previously been fully black from iris to cornea, now her eyes were like a moving night sky. Tiny lights in every color of the rainbow drifted across her eyes in hypnotic patterns.
"That's going to be a headache in stealth missions," Lipita groaned in sudden realization.
"We'll figure something out later. I don't know about you but I'm eager to celebrate elsewhere than this death zone. Getting used to Nascents' Fall doesn't make it look any prettier. So Centurion Lipita Delphi, what do you say we head to the Dawn Fortress to have your new rank recognized and celebrated?" Lihua asked, a grin on her lips.
"I dare say that that sounds like a fine idea. Please after you, Elder Lihua Kokkinos," Lipita replied, returning the smile.
AN: 7350 words. This could be so much better thought out but I'm tired of rewriting scenes, changing plot and still being unsatisfied. If it's a crappy tribulation Omake, at least it's one that I don't have taking up free space in my head.
Last edited:
