Eclipse Reversal Island.
A storied place for the Clan, and singularly responsible for one of
Archegetes Manuel Konstantinos' greatest triumphs since taking control of the clan shortly before she was born.
Only Pleuron could be considered a more revered site of hope for the modern Clan than the great source of victory that drove the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect from the desert. Drenched in the inverting Shadow, it had taken a great trap laid by Sun Dixiang in the city of Fu Tong; a snare intended for his longtime rival, with an obscene amount of Light Qi intended to blind and hobble the leader of the Golden Devils and give Old Cannibal free rein on the battlefield. However, Old Gold had foreseen this, and laid a trap on that very island.
Empowered by the Dao of Heavens Shadow, the formerly nameless floating island had been turned into a facsimile of the moon - flying before the sun, it had created an eclipse enough to fuel the empowerment of an array passed down from Old Gold's own mentor for just such an occasion. Heaven's Shadow had stretched over the battlefield that day, inverting all into strength for the Grand Elder.
Strength which had been turned to immediate purpose, and Old Cannibals utter defeat. The near one hundred thousand deaths that day had broken the Battle Blood Cannibals strength as a unified force. Between starvation that had been revealed by the depopulated Blighted Lands and the breaking of the inherent promise of any Sect's Grand Elder, the pile of sand that was the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect fell apart, no longer able to act in coherent fashion.
And thus easy prey for the Golden Devil Clan's many strengths.
Uncounted numbers of desperate Cannibals threw themselves upon the teeth of
Optimatoi defenses in the hopes of feasting upon the mortals safely ensconced behind them. Nearly all had fallen.
It had been less than a century since that auspicious day, and so the Dao Emanations of that nation-shaking Eclipse were still in effect. Floating in the sky was an unceasing cloud of inky darkness, ever turning brightest day into deepest ebon.
From Inversion, Strength.
There was only a single problem, aside from the obvious obstacle of the Tribulation itself: Reports of the island from surveyors after the battle noted the presence of a peculiar Spirit Beast. An owl that was theorized to have made its nest on the flying island before its transformation, and one which had in turn been affected by the Dao effects that had emanated during the Battle of Shadow-Over-Sun. Extraordinarily potent - yet completely mad - the surveyors who had seen it claimed it possessed cultivation at only the first Heavenstage, yet seemingly slaughtered any that dared to approach it including a Centurion at the peak of Foundation Establishment.
Named Oelivert - after some obscure legend about a castle which empowered the weak and cursed the strong - the spirit beast terrorized any that had attempted to investigate the site. Given the ever-demanding situation for the Clan between the end of the War, the settlement of the new territories, and then the preparation for the Trials, no Core Formation Elders had been able to find the time to clear out the creature.
Reverence for the site itself kept any bands of Clan members from arriving in force enough to strike the beast down with a Hoplite formation as well.
Aretaphila knew it for a fact. The mission to exterminate the Owl had been on the Contribution Board for 40 years, and the number of Cultivators that had signed up for the group never exceeded the single digits.
In a way, it was the height of selfishness for the Myia scion to disturb this cultural landmark for the Clan. But she did not do it for base amusement.
Beneath the seared ruins of Arcocrinth, Aretaphila Myia had risen to the Thirteenth Heavenstage. The first among the Golden Devils to do so since Rina Callista had nearly a century ago. The Clan needed power.
She needed power. Even if there were sticklers and naysayers who would complain…
Aretaphila knew Old Gold well enough to confidently say that he would be, if anything,
glad this place would be sacrificed for the sake of raising up a second King in service to the Clan. The way to the island itself remained unchanged. A mysterious barrel that remained equidistant from the landmass itself, even as it had moved across the sky towards the fateful battle at Fu Tong.
As the older woman hopped into the weathered wooden vehicle, she began meditating on the trials to come.
...
Within the inky blackness of the island itself, Aretaphila Myia gripped the handle of her reliable Kettleblade - a treasure carried with her since that fateful trip into the Yuan Man-As-Mountain Array over a century ago. While possessed of no great skill with the awkwardly crafted weapon, the security of its edge in close quarters was still reliable even after so many years.
Darkness defined the landmass, with no light to speak of. However, Aretaphila had long become inured to the shortcomings of mere
vision. The darkness beneath the earth of her first mission. The invisible grasping hands hidden within sandstorms. And most recently the agony caused by the destruction of one eye and the near-blindness of the other. Fortunately, she had access to just the tool for handling the environment. Near her breast was held a mysterious totem. A molded lump of iron in the shape of a snake fang, carrying the faintest traces of its own Qi.
A gift from a dream, left by an old friend now dead.
"If I'm going to be bringing you along," Aretaphila spoke to an unseen ghost, "The least you can do is pull your weight in getting us there."
The Melodious Bat Contralto Art was an easily learned sensory art possessed by the Technique Palace. Ordinarily Aretaphila would rely on her own family's arts, but the sonorous techniques in the Myia archives were far too expensive and covered too wide a range for use in mass combat. By contrast, this Qi Condensation art was intended for the personal scale, to explore closed areas of low visibility. Cheap and limited, by channeling the Contralto first through her physique and then through the Venomsteel Fang Areaphila was able to strengthen the effects enough to be useful even in the midst of the Dao Emanation induced darkness around her.
There was a pit in the center of the island, where the Dao Emanations were at their thickest, according to records. Presumably the place where the Array had been activated. Normally when dealing with Tribulations, the common sense was to seek out the highest place possible to weaken the Heaven's fury by even an infinitesimal amount. But like all other things in this mad endeavor over two centuries, Aretaphila was more than willing to buck the conventional wisdom in her pursuit of strength.
A pit of the deepest darkness tainted with the power of reversal would doubtless give the Dao Emanations the greatest amount of time to make their work upon the Tribulation Lightning. The Princesses records of her own breakthrough showed that each five element cycle began with a burst of Tribulation lightning before proceeding through the typical cycle, meaning that each cycle would have just that much power stripped from it as it came for her.
The island was not particularly large.
It was only a short walk before Aretaphila's song revealed the edges of the crater in question. Standing on the edge was a large creature, it's shape somewhat obscured, it's unique properties weakening even the waves of Demonic Tunes that would otherwise wash over it. There was no great secret to it. There was only one Beast worth mentioning that made the floating island its home.
A muffled
hoot accompanied the song, the blurring mosaic to Aretaphila's senses shooting through the air at speeds far greater than it's apparent cultivation should be capable of. Closing the distance before landing before the Myia scion with a brush of stagnant, filthy air.
Aretaphila opened her eye. In the darkness two pools of toxic yellow glowed, a fel light that twitched and swiveled, lambent pupils that contracted, expanded, and split to look into the unknowing distance at near random.
A beak clicked at empty air before hooting.
Whatever intelligence the vast creature had had was assuredly long gone now.
"I know
just how to deal with you," Aretaphila muttered, the sea of her qi pulsing as she prepared herself.
As if sensing the threat, the strange owl named Oelivert hooted once more, one of it's puissant eyes glaring at the smaller woman with utter
loathing and a hint of recognition. In an instant, it bent in half, it's beak lurching forward to snap up the diminutive cultivator in a single movement. Not for hunger, but for the sake of hatred. A grudge against those it, even through the madness and ever-looping self contradictory thoughts that often forgot,
knew were responsible for its current state!
If only, if only, if only it could
leave the accursed place that had once been its nest, Oelivert surely could have wreaked vengeance against those bronze-skinned devils that had cursed it so!
But first, it would settle for returning to its previous strength. One. Bite. At a time.
A purple-veined beak came to rest against a still palm, exerting no force. Even if Oelivert was possessed of a strange Dao Magic, it was still of the first Heavenstage in terms of strength. Before one who had reached the thirteenth, that small hand represented an insurmountable barrier to overcome.
The strike was halted,
The owl struggled. Straining against the absurdity facing it. The frustration and despair of loss filling its fractured mind anew, knowing that it had been cursed with weakness when it should have been
strong!
It was all the fault of those interlopers! That foolish girl! One death hadn't been enough! It should have drawn it out longer, made it experience even a fraction of the anguish that was this existence!
Then came a note. Like a clear ringing chime, it traveled from the outstretched palm, fingers now delicately gripping Oelivert's beak, and traveled into the larger body of the owl. Where that resonance traveled, many things which had built up in that frame over time
shook. For the first time in a long time, Oelivert felt its fractured mind
focus into a single, coherent thought.
Whatever curse had overwhelmed it, infecting it, destroying and recreating its identity down to it's very base essence was now recognized as an invader by what little identity the majestic creature it had once been had left.
Therefore, the warped Beast Core
churned. Beast Qi rising up to purge the unknown elements, shaking off that which did not belong. Like every other venom that had infested it from its prey had been defeated eventually. In that short-lived moment, the once-fractured mind of Oelivert relaxed. Surely, it's suffering was at an end.
The Note intensified. Empowering the Beast Qi that struggled to flush out the cursed essence which had twisted its very being. It grew stronger. Shook harder. But so relieved at this temporary reprieve of sanity, that the dulled and overworn instincts of the Owl did not react to the abnormality. That which was "normal" having long been forgotten. Proud wisdom long since lost.
Cursed flesh stubbornly refused.
The Beast Core strained, empowering the oscillating wave of purging Qi far beyond its ordinary limits, the organ instinctively realizing how dire and deep reaching the rot of the body and soul was.
Still the Brown Note rang, and with it the Owl's Beast Core
strained, a loud
crack the first sign of success in its purging.
A wing fell to the darkened earth with a deadened thud.
But Oelivert did not notice, the euphoria of sanity and the ringing of the Note overwhelming the deadened sense of pain that transmitted from the atrophied limb.
The veined beak of the owl cracked down the middle, the oscillations now easily visible on the creatures body even through the shape-obscuring shroud around it.
Owls parted and fell, blackened ichor pouring from a tear in the Owl's front, and still it's Beast Core
churned, for there was so
very much work to be done. As the tainted liquid was purged from its body, the Owl felt a sense of euphoria, a blockage and strain it hadn't even realized now undone. For the first time in nearly a century it felt true bliss, the Note ringing through its mind with buzzing clarity.
The second wing fell with the latest pulse of Beast Qi, part of its beak breaking off from the oscillations as well.
Impassively, Aretaphila watched as chunks of the bird shook themselves free beneath her light grip. The owl kept shaking, harder and harder as if in the grips of a seizure, it's puissant orbs closed in genuine peace and tranquility.
Another crack, this one by far the loudest issued through the darkened air. The majority of its body fell limp, and yet it's core still kept pouring out Qi to fuel the purging process. Between Aretaphila's fingers, Oelivert's beak shook itself into dust, but by now it was too late.
A final crack arose from the owl, it's head splitting itself in two.
Finally, the owl was free of its long nightmare.
Sparing only a short cyclopean glance to the fallen creature, Aretaphila Myia proceeded into the depths of the crater to make her preparations for the trial ahead.
...
With the monstrous owl dead, Aretaphila had climbed down into the crater at the heart of the island. A pitch-dark pit, from which even the Qi for her enhanced Melodious Bat Contralto Art was unceremoniously consumed, leaving her the cultivator truly blind.
Here, far more than anywhere else, space was twisted by the Dao Emanations of Heaven's Shadow. One's worst secrets laid bare. Hidden truths revealed. Wild, uncontained, uncontrollable. Tendrils of metaphorical shadow clawed at Aretaphila's soul again. And again. And again. Each strike inducing immense agony on that tenuous connection between her body and that mysterious thing.
If it had been the remnants of any other Nascent Soul, perhaps, it may have been enough to reduce her to a gibbering mess like Oelivert had been. But it was not. Alone among all Dao, this was one which Aretaphila was already
fairly familiar with. It was an assault which - even if it had been measured - she had survived before.
The lessons of twenty years ago were not so easily forgotten.
And so the Myia scion delved deeper and deeper. One step at a time, as shadows sought to embrace her. Harrie her. Drive her mad. Each grasping assault from the mindless echoes of the
Archegetes Dao was endured, finding no purchase. For no matter what else, Aretaphila Myia would not falter beneath a trial which she had already passed through once before.
Space warped. Time lost meaning. Blindly, she climbed ever downward. After a mysterious amount of time the slope came to an end at the terminus of the abyss. Evening out into a rounded bottom from which little enough sensation was possible. Still, enough feeling remained that the young woman could reach into her spatial ring, and guided through the faintest sensation of touch drew out what she knew to be a chain of bells strung together.
One hundred and eight silver bells in all, the chain could be resized at need, for their true intent was to create a partitioned space. Each link and each bell were inscribed with infinitesimally small arrays intended to dampen outside influences and strengthen the Demonic Tunes of a Myia Clan cultivator. The 108 Chimes treasure was either a weapon of last resort for Qi Condensation, or a tool to assist in breaking through to Foundation Establishment.
Here, at the bottom of the inky abyss, the spatial warping effects from the rest of the crater were absent. It was simplicity itself for Aretaphila to trace a circle around the bottom of the crater, looping the chain back to itself before enclosing herself utterly.
Once the circuit was complete, the inky blackness shifted. The atmosphere changed, ever so slightly. And so Aretaphila Myia walked towards the center of that territory to lay down her second tool to assist against the Tribulation to come: The Zhong of Deep Waters. A long time companion, having been with her for nearly two centuries and the valuable treasure that had enabled her to come as far as she had. However, the scroll left behind by the Zhong's creator had made it clear that it was a flawed prototype, incapable of aiding the cultivation of those above Qi Condensation. So, Aretaphila had considered.
Would she save the treasure for those who came afterward? Or would she, once again, decide to bet on her personal ambition? For the first time in a long while, she had come to the conclusion that, at the very least, she would push at the limits of what she could reach. A King is not timid.
She'd bet it all here.
One final trump card was held in reserve, however. This land would surely weaken the fury of heaven as it came down. The bells would weaken it further, and strengthen her Demonic Tunes. And the Zhong itself would harmonize with her constitution and the 108 Bells as well as her final card for the final phases of the Tribulation.
She came to the realization that she stood upon the precipice of the rest of her life. To either end here, and now. Or to move forward into an uncertain but glorious future.
Static rose from her bronzed skin, and the dead flesh of her destroyed eye twinged in forgotten pain.
There was nothing left but to cross that threshold.
So it was, in the depths of the abyss, that Aretaphila Myia sat cross legged and took stock for perhaps the final time. With another expression of will, a bottle of the Three Millennium Turtlemaple Brandy appeared from the storage ring - a holdover from the aperture of the Myia Ancestor who's soul had gone into forging the ring. Her family had granted her the ring - and its contents - in the expectation that she would want to hold a private celebration after this was all over.
One way or another, once she became a Single Pillar King -
if she became one - Aretaphila would be Clan Elder in truth. But the Myia were rebuilding, even if not in blood, in wealth and legacy. Aretaphila's Father and Grandfather would ensure that Waycastle Myia would fulfill its role while Aretaphila would take on the duties expected of her potential station.
That's why Aretaphila resolved to drink first.
Because she would not get another chance to. Not for a long, long time. Not until she had secured her family's legacy beyond her. Not before the Myia name was known far and wide again on its own merits, not merely as one of the Indomitable Thirteen.
A jade cup appeared, cracked on one side but still carrying an incredible dignity and weight of age.
In the darkness, the diminutive woman blindly poured the rich, amber liquid into the cup. With a half lidded gaze, she stared unseeing into the abyss, seeming to draw from it two centuries worth of memories. The death of her mother. The suffering beneath the desert at the hands of a mere formation establishment bandit. A decade fleeing her grandmother's enemy and then slaughtering those who were left victims in passage of her flight from him. The people who she had saved. The many faces of those who she could not.
Avenging the Fecundity Storks suffering, and finding that badge of their legacy. Arcocrinth. Pleuron.
Ahead of her, even in the darkness of the
Archegetes Dao, she saw golden hair marching steadily. Falteringly.
Like a clumsy fool.
"It's been a good life," Aretaphila Myia reflected, the scars and the triumphs both sending the Qi Sea within her dantian to boiling. Ripples forming within her metaphorical center as actinic shocks began running through her body.
Aretaphila Myia drank deeply from that priceless treasure, wondering if this was what that Princess had felt like sixty years ago.
Something broke.
Unseen above her, the Heaven's roared in challenge.
...
For the third time in a century, a 13th Heavenstage had committed to heresy within the Organ Meat Desert. The fourth time in the Virtuous Flipper Region. Though Aretaphila Myia had considered her ascension to be a crossroads for the destiny she yet sought to embrace, the guiding intelligence of Heaven's Wrath saw in her act a wholly different thing:
Another threat to the balance. Though the squabbling heretics had culled one another, holding a precipitous balance understood through time and the rivers of causality, alone did the Golden Devil's ever subvert and wear down the Heaven's strength through base cunning and utilization of any means.
Only a few scant years ago, the strength gathered to strike down a heretic King of the Fifth Sea had been diverted, a fraction of that deadly tribulation used to serve as a proverbial step leader for the strike against an ever greater heresy: The most senior, sole remaining Single Pillar Key in the region had began to drink deeply from a Heavenly Star, taking strength not meant for her.
Now drained, the Heavens had no intention to allow a comrade to rise and join her, the
en between Aretaphila Myia and Rina Callista having been a firm one for over two centuries. Enabling the nascent World Lord further could not be risked.
Thus, what strength could be spared would be brought down, even as the Song hid deep within the echoes of the Shadow. This destiny would end here. The aberration burnt out before it could metastasize and become a new cancer upon reality.
Pitch black clouds gathered over Eclipse Reversal Island. An inky darkness which drowned out the sun, and brought an end to the inversions power. A darkness deeper than the shadow enveloped it, and in so doing weakened those Dao Echoes which had been counted on to blunt Heaven's wrath.
Within the darkness which rumbled, sounds like hammers and tongs clashed endlessly, rumbling through the skies for dozens of
li around. Heard even from within Fu Tong, the lingering curses and scraps of light qi from Old Cannibals gambit were snatched by otherworldly force. Strength torn from the surrounding area, repurposed and compressed, warped into a single killing strike of metallic Qi.
Hungering winds swept across the desert, sands drawing echoes of a song which had hunted their target so long ago. Their experience would be incorporated into that perfect lance, to ensure that it struck without err.
The strikes came to an end, the gathering storm quenching its weapon in the skies above the one who possessed such heretical temerity.
A burning white lance of metallic qi fell from heaven, striking the flying shroud of darkness and piercing it with immense strength. Plumes of Shadow were scattered, wisps that dissolved within the greater darkness cast by the storm above. Wind howled, and yet even as that first lance burrowed ever deeper some instinct
intrinsic to the Shadow struck back. Echoes of Inversion tore off base strength from that bolt, and reduced a certain-kill for any cultivator within the Core Formation Great Realm to something merely astonishingly deadly for an individual within Foundation Establishment.
There was a clap of thunder, and Aretaphila stoof back up, her sole eye narrowed in a glare at the coming tribulation.
In her hand was the sole weapon she needed. A cunningly worked bronze hammer, seemingly shaped from the scales of a fish.
The Zhong of Deep Waters was struck, the vibration of Qi ringing and harmonizing with the ease of long practice. Echoed and amplified by the Clear Summer's Bell Constitution, that singular note synchronized with the wordless Song deep within Aretaphila's dantian.
Unflinchingly, the Myia scion stood beneath the pillar of tribulation as it finally tunneled through the pitch darkness of the abyss.
As the lightning descended, she screamed defiance.
The wide pillar slammed down, dead on target, but what had been an unbroken pillar
flickered, becoming a jagged, natural thing. In that instant the crash of thunder was broken by the haunting note released by Aretaphila. Not part of some secret Demonic Tunes Art, it was a purest expression of her Qi.
The lightning ceased, the metallic Qi temporarily robbed of its overwhelming killing intent. But the wound that the first strike had dealt to the island did not fade away immediately, forming a tunnel that revealed the roiling storm if only one had the eyes to spare.
Nine Cycles she would need to hold. Nine cycles, each more powerful than the last. Only then would she complete her ascension.
Aretaphila's eye shifted too and fro, attempting to grasp the location of the avatar of pure water that would be sent after her next. Too reliant upon the experience of her fellow, she failed to consider the most important advice Rina had left behind.
An arm of pure stormcloud descended upon her, the splayed fingers of Awakened Storm Lord. Brought to life by the metal Qi above, and charged with express purpose to hurl the spear that would end her hubris. Violent and violet ripples of rain clouds, the wind-that-was-flesh threatening to flense her hard-forged flesh from her bones.
The 108 Bells around her lit up with the light of their arrays, activated by the abundance of metal qi scattered into the air by the thunderbolts dispersion. Aretaphila's note of defiance shifted in pitch, and she began to sing in truth. A song of sunny days under a sun so hot as to be fit to bake clay, of a desert so dry as to lay to rest the very
idea of rain.
Actinic fingers closed around the Myia scions throat, trying to seal her Song.
But all her body was a bell, and so the song reverberated. Water was something which freely carried water after all.
The Awakened Storm Lord's grip faltered, wavered, and then dissipated as its body evaporated violently, seeping into the shadows around her.
Aretaphila fell to the ground, gasping desperately as she sensed the cleansing properties of the storm, destruction and rebirth, seep into the hidden depths of the Abyss.
Within the desert, only the hardiest of plantlife can survive. A droplet of water enabling life to sustain itself for potentially eons in the absence of rainfall. On the flying islands, endlessly subjected to the headwinds that scoured the surface clean of all life, another layer of evolutionary crucibles were laid out to be survived against.
Though rain did not fall upon those islands, other sources of sustenance did. The lifeblood of those creatures which set foot upon those strange lands would seep into the earth of them, from which little by little did those deeply hidden roots drink so desperately until the day they could rise from the surface in strength enough to survive that harsh environment.
Purged of the curses of Inversion by the rejuvenating storm, tendrils and rootlets burrowed out around Aretaphila in a frenzy, and so she scrambled to her feet as those plants drank deeply of the Storm Lords flesh, growing into copse of Corpse Crucifixion Pine Trees, darting towards her like spears, the needles on their branches ready to flense her into so much meat.
There is a hiss as from the Myia's side she draws her Ketteblade, the heavy Qi in the air beginning its signature ability. Desperately Aretaphila swung, chopping the growing and grasping trees that sought to tear her apart.
Her song changed, even as she desperately dodged and hacked at her attackers; an imitation of a much more powerful, much more horrifying song. A thing of great, ravenous hunger. Which rendered all as puppets compared to her.
Though not of the Blood Path, ten years of practicing against the Devil's Music was enough for Aretaphila to understand its most basic principles. The cursed Tunes echoed within her body, and the echoes of
Consumption that those notes carried stopped the grasping, ravenous trees cold. Though their growth had been explosive, the Storm Lord's rejuvenating Qi had not been infinite, and as the Devil's Music aligned itself with the Kettleblades on ravenous properties, the assault of the Corpse Crucifixion Pines began to falter. The lush evergreen growth losing its luster, rotting into a dried and dull brown.
Snapping, the trees could no longer bear their own weight and crashed to the ground as dry kindling.
She didn't have much time.
Hammer in hand, Aretaphila ran back towards the Zhong of Deep Waters as the already dying Pines spitefully burned, summoning forth an echo from the memories Aretaphila had struck them with.
The embodiment of the deserts heat, stripping the unworthy traveler bare with immense heat. A harbinger of death, and the slave-forgers said to lie at the heart of the Shattering Glass Javelin Arrays flash-forges. The sands of the desert carried knowledge of fires untempered, wild and murderous, only ever needing the barest of fuel to rise up in apocalyptic conflagration.
Here in this twisted realm the sand carried up by the howling storm held memories and slumbering embers, waiting for an opportunity to avenge fallen and enslaved kin. The deserts where it had reigned as emperor over the long-dead Shanqu were once their unyielding Domain, save for the Arrogant Father and his sons until the Golden Devils came down from the mountains and bound them in chains. Forever ending their rule.
Drawn by this chance at vengeance, to strike down a hope of those vile invaders an Illusionary Haze Efreet took form, radiating death as the Darkness around it baked and rippled from the heat of its presence.
The air is filled with the ringing of a bell, and the dog-faced spirits snout turned towards the source in recognition. A cool, calming tune. Deep waters, hidden beneath the sands and immune to the heat of the desert.
But the hated Devil did not release the note. Instead, she stood ready as the echo of hidden grottoes grew more and more powerful within her. Seeing this chance for what it was, the Efreet leapt from the edges of the crater, diving towards the diminutive girl with outstretched claw.
The edge of the Kettleblade met the Efreet's strike. It's edge turned cherry-red with the heat of its flame qi. Barely held at a stalemate as the Myia grunted and strained, refusing to give ground to the monster's charge.For a moment, she held before her wrist began to shake. The Myia were no great Body Cultivators, after all.
A shrill shriek filled the air, drawing the Efreets eye. Steam hissed out from the hilt of the blade, and rejuvenating Qi blasted into the arm of the one-eyed woman who turned a fearless smirk towards it. The fire-aspected monster growled, realizing the trick just as a song of deep pools and flowing grottoes washed over it, dampening the hungering flames of its existence even as its flames were drawn deeply and hungrily by the sword in Aretaphila's hand.
It had been a lucky gambit that the Kettleblade could withstand the power of a fire elemental of that level. One that Aretaphila wasn't sure would continue to hold true for so long as the trial continued. But this was something she had resolved to deal with. For now, the Kettleblades' rejuvenating properties filled her body with stolen Qi, restoring her stamina.
Even if it wasn't quite as effective as the war banner that the Princess had used during her own breakthrough, the trick of turning the Tribulations own Qi into her strength was one she didn't mind borrowing liberally from. As the Efreet dimmed into cinders, it's unclaimed Qi sinking into the earth beneath her feet, Aretaphila held her hammer at the ready, preparing for the Earth-aspected part of the cycle.
A hoot caught her off guard, her cyclopean gaze turning towards a puissant set of eyes, glazed over and unseeing. Enshadowed gravedirt providing a shape to hold together the broken parts of the body. Shadows and ichor pooling beneath the looming form of Oeilvert; returned in death to exact vengeance upon its killer.
"Shit!" The Myia cursed, smacking the Zhong of Deep Waters to empower another Song with which to crush the fowl revenant even as an avian claw grasped her, slamming her much smaller form into the bottom of the crater.
Heaven's Wrath had not been blind to the Golden Devil's preparations.
When Aretaphila had slain the mutanated owl, it's mind was for the first time in many decades its own. And even through the euphoria it felt at the return of its sanity, at the very
very last moment it recognized its doom.
Cursing the Golden Devil Clan, and the one who had murdered it
in particular. Barely enough to form a grudge, Oelivert had been unable to gain the strength to rise up from the dead with its depleted and cracked Beast Core. However, the Five Element Tribulation had strength to spare.
And a need for one who would not hesitate to dispense justice in its stead.
The Metal Qi that had been scattered by the resistance of the Heaven's Shadow had sparked some semblance of life to the ruined Beast Core, freshly dead, and in doing so nurtured the grudge it had left behind.
Showers of the storm had come next, washing away the rot and weakness, and offering rebirth to the fractured creature.
Wood Qi had come next, seeking sustenance from the corpse and ichor of the Owl, the beating undead core had taken control of the myriad rootlets that infested it, turning its hunger and growth against it.
Finally the ash fell, an offering of fire and incense upon the gravestone that was Oelivert's home.
With the infusion of earth qi that followed into the gravesoil, it was simplicity itself for Oelivert to revive as an Engrudged Soil Revenant, a type of undead that used the dirt of its grave in place of a body when it was too rotted to otherwise hold its own form. No longer living, the shuffling mass of soil and hatred dragged Aretaphila back towards its main body, its shattered beak replaced by meaty rootlets which twitched and snapped hungrily.
The note echoed, and with a triumphant grin Aretaphila Sang once more, that same note which had brought about Oelivert's death.
Now empowered by the Zhong of Deep Waters and the properties of the 108 Bells Array in addition to the two prior elements, the Brown Note sank deeper and with more intensity than Aretaphila had ever before used it.
But there was no living flesh to react. To recognize
impurity. Rather, all that was, was a mass held together by Qi and the Echoes of Inversion.
Where once the gravesoil flaked, it firmed up into solid grey stone. Austere. The hungering rootlets of the Revenants beak firmed, becoming a set of cruel wooden carapaces. Feathers of pure shadow defined themselves.
With a blink, the glassy and filmed eyes cleared. Now, brimming with intelligence, the Corpsesoil Revenant Oelivert stood. Brimming with malevolence, the beast stood triumphant. Instinctively, it knew.
Once it slew and devoured the heretical cultivator beneath its feet, the Heaven's would reward it with true Life. Power to break through back to its previous peak, and now with the added strength of its
new form. Even if it had become an abomination, it was still less of one than this overly arrogant Golden Devil.
Without hesitation Oelivert leaned down to enjoy this first and most fulfilling meal.
"Inversion, right?"
Another note sang through the air, stabbing deeply into the Owl's breast.
The equal and opposite of what had struck it dead. This was a Clear Summer's Sky. A wide and Blue expanse which calmed the heart and brought inner peace. In horror the revenant realized it had been too slow, it did not understand its new body. Too late to stop the reflexive interaction of the Heaven's Shadow within it, inverting the effects of the Blue Note.
Aretaphila dragged herself up to her feet as the monster above her hooted indignantly as it fell apart. It was common sense, really. The Blue and Brown Notes were her oldest held techniques, and she knew them to be equal and opposite.
Obviously something which turned the Brown Note to medicine would turn the Blue Note to poison.
As she collected herself at the center of her array once more, she looked back up to the sky where the funneling storm was still visible through the drilled open Abyss.
One cycle down, and she was
already feeling the strain on her reserves.
Still, she had a final trump card aside from her overall strategy. It was a pain that the Tribulation had been able to so adroitly turn her prepared ground against her, but the One Hundred Eight Bells Array still held strong, and the Zhong of Deep Waters had been effective along with the enhancements afforded by her Physique and the Prince's black Dao Pillar.
Bronze hammer in hand, Aretaphila stared back into the forming funnel cloud, the thundering hammering of immense metal qi in the storm. Preparation for a new lance to begin the cycle anew.
Once again the bolt fell. A pillar of purest white, steeped in killing intent. Defiance alone may be sufficient, but this time there would be little and less of the Shadow to strip power from the Tribulation Cycle.
Still, the initial strike had used up far more of the gathered energy than had been intended to make that opening. From thereon, the rules of the game would stick to the level established by what had first truly stuck the heretic. Such was the mercurial nature of Heaven.
A single hammerstrike released a loud
gong equal and opposite to the roiling thunder, drawn in by the unique strength of the Myia clan and multiplied endlessly in that split moment. When the array script around Aretaphila flared, they empowered an old story-
Two hundred years ago, a woman who lacked talent and fame was blessed with happiness. Last inheritor of a doomed line, she and her sole remaining parent knew that their line would end in their generation. There was no Despair to be found there, however. The fortunes of their line had declined for many centuries before then, and over the course of Millennia they had seen so very many of their peers vanish into the dust of history. Thus, unlike the last breaths of Iron which grasped endlessly, the Myia decided to accept their conclusion with a smile.
And were blessed with a miracle. A skilled blacksmith, who held no formal backing, had been nearly crippled. Saved by the daughter, he had inexplicably fallen in love and so chased her relentlessly. The father had been the same, and in joy at the serendipity - for is that not the story which had begun their line? - they had accepted the young man with open arms.
Even as Heaven sought to grind them into dust, they smiled.
Even as she was left alone at the end of a century of happiness, she sang.
But it had been enough. By living, by defying the cruelty visited upon them and pursuing happiness, a chance had been born.
Once again, the white pillar of metal qi
fractured, the song breaking the fallen lance of power into a shape of natural lightning and in doing so dissipated it.
Once again, the funnel descended. The Storm Lord gripping a long funnel-spear, it's tip jagged and white, frothing endlessly with storm-water churning to a singular point. With the howl of a hurricane, the lord of the skies thrust at his intended victim. It was not a strike with any kind of skill, for such a being had no need for it. Skill was the invention of the weak, intended to cross the gap between themselves and the strong.
Easily predicted. Easily telegraphed.
The sharpened whitecap of the spear was met by a curious talisman: A set of seven bells, fused together without sound. Churning purple arms
flexed, brightening with actinic might, seeking to push aside the obstruction. But Aretaphila Myia did not move from where she had chosen to stand.
A hammer struck a gong once again, and two shadows narrowed in consternation.
Once more, the heat of desert sands was sung of. An encounter that had been unasked for. But for those that lacked the creativity and adaptability of its own element, was there any need for something more complicated?
With a terrible moan promising of retribution, the Storm Lord dissolved into wisps, evaporating once again and seeding the Abyss with life,
For the first time, the loamy scent of earth after a summer's rain overpowered Aretaphila's senses. The sensation overwhelming to her who had spent so much time in the desert. In that instant of overpowering distraction did the wooden aspect of the cycle assert itself.
Closing in from all directions, the odd talisman she had used would be unable to save her.
The Kettleblade, summoned forth and swapped with the bronze hammer for the Zhong, was brought out to ward the ever-thirsting limbs of the Corpse Crucifixion Copse arose, its limbs stabbing endlessly, sap attempting to dull her blade through drenching it in the lifeblood of so very many ephemeral trees.
But the Stormwater had not been infinite, and as dull as the blade of Aretaphila's weapon became it was still one which drew deeply and hungrily from its opponents. Qi hissed unto the Singer's arm, rejuvenating her once again even as the explosive growth reached its nadir.
Time was up, and the lush greens gave way to dried out browns, the color of dried blood. Aretaphila sighed, hands still gripping her weapons as dying trees still grasped for her.
Before exploding into flame, and revealing the form of the Illusionary Haze Efreet, its grim countenance sneering blazing glass-teeth. Rather than opting for a contest of strength like those before it had, the monster blazed, its radiated haze of heat obscuring its form for brief moments as it flickered around the battlefield, seeking weakness.
The Myia grimaced, desperately turning around in order to keep it within her vision.
Malevolent intelligence burned, and whatever will guided the beast moved to test something out.
From one side, she held the odd fused bell talisman, the awkwardly shaped bulwark effortlessly warding against any strikes the Efreet laid against her. From the other side, the one with the facial scar, her weapon sliced in wide, sweeping arcs. Intended to meet the Efreets and force a deadlock rather than cut. To drain from its strength to empower the heretic before it. Just like its previous incarnation.
Yet vengeance would not be denied. The weakness of blindness was not something easily hidden. With both hands occupied, the Devil could not ring that accursed Zhong! The Efreets cowls raised, and with a flare of flame it burst into the Myia's blind spot, swinging powerfully where she could not see.
The Kettleblade swung awkwardly to meet the Efreet's strike, but it did nothing as she was blown away.
Right.
In front.
Of that
accursed Zhong.
The fused bells vanish, replaced by that damnable bronze hammer. There is another ring, but time is not yet lost! It descends, mouth slavering embers, fangs reaching towards the woman's neck when-
A desperate, near death plea echoes through the deep places of the earth. Seeking succor, salvation from danger. There is no answer. She is alone. But at the end of the path is the crisp, clean smell of the strong and hidden grotto.
Beautiful and serene, even in the darkness it brings light and life.
Once more the Efreet is assaulted by a Song antithetical to its existence. A thing of flame and death and shadow. The Qi which binds it frays, and one more leaves behind a smattering of fine ash that scatters into the earth around the Myia.
There is no sound. No hooting. No indication of the next step of the cycle.
The Abyss is as silent as the grave.
Cautiously, scanning her surroundings, Aretaphila reaches to swing the bronze hammer once more as she feels the displacement of air at the back of her neck. Chilled earth clasps her torso in a talon, and with a beat of mighty wings she begins to be carried upwards, out of the bounds of her Array.
The Revenant Owl hoots in triumph, and Aretaphila meets it in kind with her Blue Note - the frequency anathema to its Inversion nature. But as the sound begins to proliferate her body
jerks, along with the disintegrating limb holding her.
Oelivert's puissant eyes stare back triumphantly, the leg holding her having been torn away before Aretaphila's attack could proliferate through the rest of its body. But the momentum of the Revenant's flight carried her away as the larger creature switched directions, diving directly towards the center of her chosen battlefield; The Zhong of Deep Waters.
"No!" The Myia calls out in frustration, desperately shoving and hacking the disintegrating talon, and after a moment is free enough to leap from it to try and intercept the undead manifestation of Earth Qi.
Oelivert flips in midair, wide wings spreading to arrest its dive as its sole remaining talon reaches for its target.
With an incredible cry the Songstress falls upon the outstretched limb, her blade severing it with a mighty
crack of split earth and bone.
A wooden beak clacks in annoyance, and the owl tries to retreat, buying distance. But it isn't enough. If it gets enough distance, if it can retreat into the darkness of the shadows, it can just do the same trick again, only this time leading with its beak and bulk!
Aretaphila leaps, the point of her weapon stabbing deeply into the gravesoil flesh of her quarry. With bright, clear note the collapse of the Oelivert begins again. But those yellow eyes, brimming with fel intelligence, capture her gaze.
Reflected in them is victory.
"The Zhong!" The Myia cries out, a report of thunder heralding the beginning of the Third Cycle.
She is too late. The spear of white falls upon her treasured tool with finality, the Zhong of Deep Waters vanishing beneath the pillar of lightning.
Stormclouds encircle it, then
wrench it from the earth. The Storm Lord now wields a guando of Tribulation Lightning, his limbs now muscled and defined with roaring water.
Two shadows meet her cyclopean gaze, and in that instant Aretaphila understands.
She had been had, a trick that Callista had mentioned from her own experience - the intelligent exploitation of the cycle to suppress or destroy the tools brought to even the odds between the would-be King and the Heavenly Tribulation.
The Stormlord touched ground for the first time, whitecapped feet driving wet divots into the bottom of the crater before charging forth with a skilled thrust the envy of any
Centurion.
Almost as if the Tribulation could have brought such technique to bare at any time. Clearly taunting her into trying to repeat the previous exchange.
Fine then.
Hands gripped a bronze hammer in one hand, and a glistening blade in the other with a firm enough grip to evoke the shrieking of stressed metal.
Aretaphila would give the Tribulation this much: Forcing her to use her trump card on only the third cycle was something she hadn't thought possible. And for the first time since the lightning had first come down, the Myia felt fear.
But not doubt. Even with the aches and pains brought by the Owl and the Efreet, she still did not doubt.
For in her breast, was carried the desperate inheritance of the Myia. Their last great paragon who attained the highest levels of the Sea Conquering Army. Driven from the Third Sea, she had struggled mightily against those who had denied her, but at the end of the end she would not be able to overcome this Turtle Child's Dao Protectors.
And though the Myia never saw her again, they still carried a fragment of a fragment of a fragment of her legacy. A legacy that had faced the mightiest the Third Sea could bring to bear, and found itself equal to them.
"Before the Song, there was the
Law." Aretaphila murmured, and this declaration rose into a wondrous, stupendous, transcendent note,
rocking her Cultivation Base far beyond the limits of a mere Qi Condensation cultivator.
A letter, sealed deep within the heart of the Myia estate once said;
Little Bell,
This legacy is intended to only be carried by the Elder of our family. Your grandmother's notes indicated that it was beyond her to carry, even in Foundation Building, but from what we know it was something wielded by the last true Paragon of our line before the Myia never again left this land.
However, I know this much: The world has changed much since we began to become diminished. Before the Gate of the Blood became our sole pride. It's possible that if it's you, who has cultivated and refined her physique to the very limits of Qi Condensation and the Olympian Keystones, you may be able to survive.
So I leave this with you. A last gift to try and overcome Heaven's Wrath and reach the status of Single Pillar King you've pursued for so very long.
Whether you survive or not, you are the only one fit to receive this, as Family Matriarch.
We look forward to your return.
The fragment of the Law shook the air, and caused the natural Qi of the land to freeze in abject shock for but a moment. Blood spurt from the mouth that had uttered the Song as the constituent parts that made up its body
rejected it, the memory of its trespasses held even after so many uncountable centuries.
Water Qi fell apart, splashing the earth, and with renewed intensity the Corpse Crucifixion Copse arose once more, spearing hungrily towards the twice-over heretic. But this was a known trick, a solved problem, and even without the Zhong Aretaphila croaked out the song of the hungry desert. Wood was reduced to kindling, ushering forth Fire which drank deeply from the rich offering left to it.
Malevolent eyes met Aretaphila's cyclopic gaze, and narrowed in hate and resolved. The Efreet swelled, the fire qi composing it rampaging wildly before detonating into a new conflagration. The crater they stood in
deepened, fine ash scattered to the shadows in a thick, gray haze.
The final part of the Third Phase began with the rustling of many wings, and the hooting of many foes.
Five sets of eyes glared hatefully at Aretaphila, the Revenants multiplied by the weight of sin. The Songstress cursed.
Five immense owls swarmed the smaller woman, ten grasping talons slashed and tore at her body, and even as she swung wildly she was unable to stop them. The fragment of Law was not something her body could easily bear after all, and the Oeliverts had no intention of allowing her to use it either.
Again and again and again Aretaphila was struck from her blind spot, sent tumbling through the softened dirt to the delighted hoots off the undead owls. Even as she attempted to purge one with her regular song, the creature would always tear away the affected area before seemingly drawing up a replacement from the ground beneath their feet.
Once more, Aretaphila was cast into shadow. Ten lambent eyes gazed down upon her in joined hatred and hunger.
If
only she still had the Zhong, she wouldn't need the full power of the Law to overcome this! If only she had some way to
carry the Song without having to originate it from that power entirely!
But she did, did she not?
Aretaphila's Cultivation base
churned, the cracks introduced by her previous effort groaning without inducing agony. Or at least, so little agony compared to the rest of her tattered self as to be unfelt.
A wooden beak snapped downward, aimed for her center of mass.
It struck up a plume of dirt, as Aretaphila barely rolled out of the way. And in that bare instant before the remaining Oeliverts descended, she swung the weapon that overturn the situation.
The hammer for the Zhong of Deep Waters struck Aretaphila squarely in her lower stomach, the impact rocking her
Clear Summer's Bell Constitution, and sending a clear, beautiful ring into the depths of her Dantian.
Four wooden beaks struck, but that was irrelevant.
It was too late.
What arose from the depths of Aretaphila's soul was a single note, ringing wonderfully. Transcendent, the Myia understood that this was the beginning of
her Song.
And so she Sang, empowered with the fragment of power she had carried within it.
A song of struggle. Of strife. Of pain and the happiness that is found in between. The ache of climbing the mountain and the overpowering joy that comes from seeing the sight at its summit. A wonderful, beautiful life.
Five hoots became screams of anguish, as the cores of the constructs met their anathema. Death before Life, and the Earth before Everything Beyond It. The screams faded, coming to an end as the Song overwhelmed and cast them into the wind.
The third cycle ended, but Aretaphila still sang even as she put away her sword.
She had nothing else left, and so would bet everything on mastering this new Song before the next six cycles completed.
As Aretaphila sang desperately, the storm above Eclipse Reversal Island
pulsed and roiled with anger and fury. No longer were the previous preparations sufficient. But, the rules had been
set and too much energy had been expended. Two more Heresies awaited in the very near future, and there was only so much strength to be gathered in the Organ Meat Desert.
But what strength could be found, would be put to use all the same.
Like grasping limbs, funnel clouds descended upon the lands around Fu Tong city. Where the Heaven's Shadow and Cunning Cannibal had clashed were Dao emanations, but none so strong as the ones on the floating island. A hundred thousand grudges. Despair and hunger. Anger and curses fueled by greed and futility. Heretical ghosts, perhaps, but there was a strength to them. And it was only right that they repay their debt to the world by working towards erasing a far greater sin.
The Light Qi had been scoured from Fu Tong, but still there were a great many mortals there living. It had been 60 years, true, and many of those who had been victims of the Blood Cannibals had passed on.
But what of those who had immediately sided with
worse criminals, hmm?
They, too, were heretics for aiding and abetting. Rather than spending their lives to overthrow the alien, they meekly accepted succor and sustenance, merely because the monsters had ruled them with the gloved hand over the crack of the whip!
Heresy! Abomination!
In the wrath of the storm there was no allowances for things such as mercy!
Dark clouds extended even to the reinforced walls of the city, and the storm's limbs touched down. Drinking deeply from the soulstuff of the apostates who served the alien. Their grudges. Their lives. Their legacies and histories.
When the winds withdrew, there was ruin and destruction. Though not absolute, it was toll enough for the crimes Fu Tong had committed.
Empowered with new fuels and new strength, the hammer-blows within the dark clouds began their work of converting strength to Qi. A forging of a mighty spear, fit for a god. Even as the wind screamed and the thunderbeats did their great work, the Song beneath the storm refined itself endlessly.
The notes were repeated, the life that had lived them enriched them. Verses added, the story of over two centuries of life adding deeper and deeper context. A great work, an epic fit for the ages took shape. A mother who died to pay back the happiness she had been given. A grandmother who had been the equal of all who stood against her. Legacy provided weight and tenor, for this tale did not begin with one life, not truly.
Storm forges cooled, flashes of white qi ceased to cast shadows. Tribulation had built itself within the darkness, been refined and sharpened to a point that would sunder even this dead world.
All to silence that accursed Law which even now reverberated in their deepest, smallest, constituent particles. The very Qi of the land quivering with the memory of the tyrant which had sought to suppress them under its Song.
The new Song rose to a crescendo, telling of an unknown future.
Tribulation fell, denying it.
Eclipse Reversal Island
shuddered under the weight of the killing intent that had been tossed down, a firm and mighty spear of white light. Wielded by a noble countenance, armored in Royal Purple clouds. The Storm King descended in a peerless thrust from his throne, and where his head would be was an open faceplate revealing a great beard and moustache that were the churning waves, above which were a pair of eyes that were as clear and blue as the depths of the sea.
Grim with purpose, narrowed in intent, the mere echoes of a Shadow were cleaved in its passage and revealed the bare stone of the floating for the first time in a century. Stripping away the protection which the Song has sought to hide behind.
Two great feet alighted upon the center of the island, set shoulder width apart.
Two titanic arms flexed, raising the blazing white spear, even as its haft still extended from the clouds. Actinic light and sound screaming against the realm. With a mighty heave and kiai that was the scream of winds laying low the world, the blazing Godspear was stabbed into the pit, where no thing lay hidden.
However, there was no longer a need for secrets.
Aretaphila Myia sang - of a bright future where she and her fellows struggled. Normal days interspersed with danger. Fell beasts rising from a dying world to take them down with it, even as they too battled against the forces that had brought such rot.
Smiles that shone brightly for NInety-Nine Years out of every Hundred and were no less bright for it.
Effort to oppose cruel heavens, cruel fate, cruel circumstance. And the breakthrough of Legions, obtaining strength. How every sacrifice mattered, blood never spilled in futility. A great bronze bulwark against the trepidations of the universe.
And in this, the echoes of Law resonated. For it was with purpose that the World would be brought to heel. For it was the Directive that the Turtle World be yoked. For it was for the Imperator that they came to this world, grinding down all evil in the service of his majesty.
In the face of that inexorable march ever forward, base lightning was but a feather before the mountain that was Duty.
The haft of metal Qi once more
bent, the spearpoint
flattening against the fiercely vibrating Qi in the air. The Killing Intent losing coherence, losing itself within the Song.
As the Godspear broke upon the Song, a Violet Fist raged, carrying the frozen waters that dwelled at the extremity of Heaven. Churning endlessly they met their match against the ever-oscillating future, a Golden Dawn parting stormclouds, and scattering the Storm King with a scream and howl, drowning the flying island with a deluge of rain water.
Enriched, the rootlets drunk deeply and greedily. Grasping white pillars corded about the flying landmass, joining and squirming against one another to form a great mass, sheathed in rich red bark. A titan took the place of the Storm King, beneath an evergreen crown the Dracul Sequoia Ent narrowed its knothole-eyes, pits that flashed with intelligence.
Born of the land, the mass of wood-aspected Qi raised up a pillar of its very self, one of its two base trunks that would appear as legs on any lesser creature. Chunks of earth rose, rich and loamy as grasping white roots ascended with it. With a great, creaking movement the limb moved as if taking a step, and a shadow was cast over the pit at the island's heart.
It is the business of the Legions to be ever industrious. To take from the land and create tools. Implements. That which will provide shelter or succor or safety for those who fell under its command or under its aegis. The blood of the Turtle Child is fuel to power arrays and Cultivation. The beasts that wander the desert are pets, food, or raw material for tools. Even the natives of the land, mere mortals, are another resource. The source of the strength of their posture. The source from which all Cultivators are sourced and the purpose for which the Legions fight endlessly, the Imperators Directive long forgotten. Bronze axes flash, bringing a forest to heel, kindling for fire. Charcoal for writing. Lumber for housing. Shafts for spears. Materials for carts.
A place for shade, to relax in the heat of the sun.
The grabbing rootlets seek to use the Song for sustenance, but make no purchase. It's story consumes them, reduced to raw material for the ever marching war machine of the
Optimatoi. The trunk descends, seeking to end the interloper with base strength, the Ents bark furrowed in consternatio.
But this tree was a greenhouse flower.
Drunk off the lifegiving rains of the storm and heaven, it can not survive the desert. Can not thrive in a harsh environment.
The tree from which the Ent was descended are said to be nearly truly immortal, able to shrug off any lingering damage so long as it was not truly immortal. But the
Optimatoi are different. Where bark crusts over and scars, forever marring the growth and appearance of the tree. Bronze does not. It does not tarnish. It rends. It tears. It shatters and breaks. But all bronze is reforged, and once again serves.
A million years of legacy, unyielding and fighting endlessly, carrying scars and death and growing back ever stronger.
The trunk encounters the resistance of the Song, but it is a heavy, fragile thing. The Song does not buckle, its voice unflinching beneath the threat of violence. But the force can not be shifted; it is too late. Between the Heavens and the Song, the Drakul Sequoia Ent buckles, the massive trunk exploding into white splinters, precipitating a creaking and slow fall. With a crunch and a shaking of the island, the great wood-aspected entity collapses in full, the impact of its landing tearing it apart with the forces at play.
Truly a greenhouse flower to the end.
With a groan, the lights that marks its intelligence fade, will o' wisps dimming before
exploding into a new conflagration!
Ash and smoke rise, the stone of the island turning cherry-hot as a mushroom plume connect the island to the storm. Actinic bolts fall back town, striking the corpse of the Ent and burning it away all the quicker to fuel this latest manifestation of Heaven's wrath.
Flames burn bright orange, then intensity to form a ghostly azure. Blue fire, an auspicious thing. The King of Flames, not seen since the Golden Devils had been driven to the Organ Meat Desert, where the bandit kings which dwelt there called upon their greatest protector and totem at incredible cost.
For the first time in millennia fire that burned from the deepest pits rose in a plume, forming limbs and great head, shaped unlike any beasts ever recorded. Save one other. With a great screeching, hissing, and popping cry is born the Hellfire King Ifrit, its azure claws rending all the desert to glass, and everything else to fuel for burning.
Cloaked in smoke and ash, it raised hackles in recognition of the kin that it had been brought forth to fight, terrible in majesty and wrath. Prismatic fangs glistened, bared in rage and vengeance.
Where its feet moved, the earth bled molten stone. Where its breath hissed, plumes of actinic smoke issued forth. Blue flames arced, tracing a psychedelic haze as its arms stretched, moving experimentally. Like those who had come before it, the spirit was born with explicit, heavensent purpose.
Vengeance, for the unknown twin that lay beneath the Golden Dawn Fortress. Reduced to an ever-burning source of heat to power the many formations there. And before it, was a hope for this Clan. A would-be King, seeking to grasp beyond her station.
Like a supine dog, the Ifrit crouched above the pit from where the Song issued forth. Though it nor its forebear had ever encountered it, the fuel which they burned for life ever quivered with the echoes of that Law and thus recognized that undying heresy.
An intrinsic hatred, brought forth two fold. The beast knew it had come to life because of a great need, and so sought to ensure its success. Great limbs like trowels dug around the pit, sculpting the molten earth like clay, reshaping what had been a deep crater into a raised bowl.
A furnace.
Even as the magmatic heat glazed over the air, and rendered light impassible, the
sensation in its constituent Qi drew the Ifrit's aim unerringly. Preparations complete, the King of Flames stood to its full height, wild and energetic, two limbs raised up. Great, massive bolts of lightning struck the outstretched hands, even as blue flames rose and consumed all around it for energy. Roiling, feeding, growing ever brighter in intensity as the lightning eventually dyed the flames white with intensity it clasped its hands together.
Two fires became one, forming a false sun that illuminated Hell.
The great beast howled and bent forward, slamming its limbs forward and dragging its blazing construct with it. Sized perfectly, the sphere of flame passed the lips of the raised earthen pit with no spillover. A perfectly contained flagration.
But bronze does not melt easily once hardened. An alloy that is easy to make and smelt, once unified of its constituent ores bronze is equal in hardiness to any other harder metal, and more malleable besides.
Thousands of years ago, the previous King of Hellfire discovered this to its detriment. A similar flame hurled at Nascent Soul strength, that broke harmlessly against the mightiest Hoplite wielded by the clan in untold generations. The Song told of this tale.
Of a great bronze Centurion who did not falter, carrying all the hopes and desperate will of the Clan to live! And so the merely angry beast fell against the unshaking Dao Hearts of the Golden Devil Clan. Even if they were to be driven from their homes, they would simply make new ones. Derived of their treasures, they shall simply craft new ones.
All forges need a flame, after all.
On the day that the King of the Desert was overthrown, great bronze chains lined with countless array inscriptions were flash-forged and carved even as the Nascent Soul-level Hoplite contended with the creature, all the Clan's remaining Legions struggled to secure the life they needed to survive. A mere beast would not be the end of the Optimatoi.
A great bronze spear pinned it in place, and the Flame knew fear. Where the desert around it melted to glass, the bronze did not tarnish. Did not warp. Its strength was as nothing before the Hoplite, and then came the chains.
The entity of flame shrieked in terror, animal instinct causing it to rear back as the orb of white flame halted where it had been planted. Fire is not something that burns without fuel, and as bright as it burned there was no fuel to be found within that pit.
All had been claimed by the Song.
And with that realization, the Hellfire King Ifrit simply…
burnt out. Ash scattering, burying the entire island beneath a layer of purified, life-giving ash.
There was no pause. The ash had been enough. The island shook, the magma cooling rapidly into pitch-black obsidian, smokey and reflecting naught but shadow.
The layer of ash
rippled, and then vanished. Drained in an instant to reveal long, thick veins of volcanic glass. Earth
shook and there was a great scream, as rock tore and reformed itself. The floating island shifted, now naked beneath the stormy sky, illuminated only by the bolts of lightning that struck it, filling it with ever more energy.
From death, to the earth. From the earth, life.
Outcroppings of obsidian
flexed, and in so doing reshaped themselves. What had first appeared to be twisted glass reflected the actinic light, revealing cunningly worked plumage. Rocky ridges
shifted, dust and pebbles falling apart to reveal a characteristic shape to their formation. Not of stone, but ridges of an
entirely different kind.
The kiln that had been raised over the crater shook and
cracked. The perfect round stone split evenly down the middle, the stone themselves raised and tilted over the crater like precipitous ledges.
Two thick pillars of lightning, shining yellow with qi, descended beneath the ridges. Stabbing deeply, and finishing their work. What was left behind were two great mounds of amber, blood of the great Ent, perfectly rounded and encapsulating a deep and dark glass within.
Baleful Light Qi, repurposed from miserable Fu Tong, shone within those mounds of amber. Giving the shaped eyes a grim countenance and imbuing them with a malicious intent.
The Flying Colossus Oelivert returned to life with a grim and resounding
hoot, it's cry heard for hundreds of
li across the desert. In exchange for size and power, it had been purged of the Dao Emanations which had infected it previously. Cleansed by Heavenly Tribulation and granted Wisdom, it did not seek to act as its predecessors had done and crush the Song with brute strength. Rather, it sought to fight Song with Sound, and as it called it clashed endlessly against the Song being sung deep within the crater that had become its gullet - long since swallowing the abominable would-be King.
Noise, noise, noise. The inexorable march forward strained against the interference. The world coming down, and matching the Song if not in quality, then at least in raw strength.
Meaningless, the Whale knew nothing, and so it was taught despair. Yet still it flew defiant. Empowered by the World, Law could only reach so far, grasping into the innermost nature to contest the Turtle Child.
Blocked at every turn, the Law had matched the Third Sea blow for blow, even to the point of exhaustion. For that was the nature of the Song. Easily a match for all things, at the fullest of its strength. Even if it could not overcome. At the end of all struggles, it would not lose either.
The Song continued. The Song endured. The Song did not rest. Did not align. It always reverberated defiantly. Resisting all things until the very, very end.
Expended, the hoots of the transmutated island fell silent. The lambent light dimmed from its eyes. The animate stone once more became inanimate.
Fourth Cycle, completed.
Even as she sang, Aretaphila Myia realized something quite critical: If she kept this up, she would run out of strength long before the Ninth Cycle, and almost assuredly die here. The Myia family's final trump card had not been enough. If anything, it had somehow...provoked an even
stronger response from the Five-Element Tribulation. Massive titans of elementals, this early? The Princess hadn't experienced anything like that until the final cycle!
Whatever it was, and whatever history that Song had with the Third Sea, even in the Myia's records it was known that it had not been enough to overcome the land when sung by one of the family's Paragons in antiquity.
It was a dead end, Aretaphila realized. An echo from someone long dead, who had failed, could never hope to become the foundation for the Dao she sought.
Above, the storm roiled. Thunderclaps ringing out again and again and again, drinking deeply from the Five-Element Augmentation Cycle to prepare an ever more powerful series of blows to end her life and her Song.
There had been something there, the Myia scion realized. Something she had only begun to notice when the echo of Law had been added to her singing. There had been a resonance, between it and the forces of nature that had been arrayed against her. Perhaps…
that was the key?
It made sense, based on the notes and insights left behind with the Zhong of Deep Waters. All Qi resonated to a secret rhythm, unique to the form the Qi took. The implications were strange and confusing, and Aretaphila had never
truly grasped them. But hadn't that just been her own maturity?
She hadn't
needed to understand them.
Even if she was a two century old lady, she was still a child when it came to understanding the Dao.
She didn't need to know the bits and bobs of
why she just needed to understand it. Intrinsically. Things like overthinking everything? That was for folks like the
Princess. She was Aretaphila Myia! The woman too stubborn to deviate from the path she wanted to walk, who waded into danger and made mistake upon mistake not because she deliberately chose wrong, but because she refused to be brought down no matter what!
Because the world is
wro-. No.
No, that wasn't
right.
(The storm churned, a new Godspear nearly forged.)
She didn't keep going because the world was
wrong. She kept going because the world
was rotten, cruel, and unfair down to it's very core.
(The echoes of Law begin to fray. How could the world be inherently cruel? All was as the Imperator desired it to be, the Heavens merely corrupted creation in turn.)
But Aretaphila
knew, she knew
down to her very core that even with all the suffering inherent to the world. You could still make it a better place. You couldn't conquer the world, but you could carve out a small slice of it for yourself. Make it right and to your sensibilities.
(Such selfishness was antithetical to the Directive. It is not enough that one Man live free while he is surrounded by Slaves. The Vision is for All, not merely a select few. To live and die and sacrifice for the Directive was the truest justice of all.)
You didn't need to destroy the world and make it anew.
(The Song shifts, echoes of the past fading more and more into the foreground)
You just needed to make it
yours.
(Something within the young woman, unseen, shifts
inextricably. The Sea of Qi churns. One verse ends. A new one begins.)
Aretaphila Myia's eye snaps open for the first time since she had begun singing unceasingly, the blue eye tinged silver in the light of the storm.
(The hammering ceases.)
"Hey! Assholes!"
(Fists clad in a storm fit to swallow the world grasp the embodiment of Heaven's Fury.)
"I know you can hear me!"
(Lightning sparks across the gaze of the Storm God, gazing downward.)
"So!"
(The finely worked Godslaying Spear is aimed at its only target.)
"
LISTEN TO MY SONG!"
(In a flash of light, weapon and wielder descend in an instant. The winner is he who strikes first.)
A new note is sung before the light finishes flashing. Though the Heavens move faster than sound, the Song is irresistible.
The Stormgod stands, spear shoved into the gullet of the land, but it can not bear to finish its strike. A new sound echoes from within it, and though there is no resistance the feeling of revulsion and hatred has passed, replaced by a sensation of belonging.
The edge of the spear dulls, now simple lightning. It strikes, the flash and boom casting a deep shadow where the Songstress stands. Stormclouds touch ground, beginning to beat a rhythm in line with this new sound. Bereft of the intent which had shaped it until now, the Stormgod falters, the rain that filled it scattering across the island.
Two trunks rise from the earth, shoving aside the loamy flesh of the land. Reddish bark creeps up, forming a new wood elemental. Where once its visage conveyed wisdom, now its loamy bark and branches show an expression of monstrous intent. The Nosferatu Sequoia Ent turns towards its intended target, claw-like limbs extended towards the pit.
The hunger and thirst that drives it vanishes. Contentment, the feeling of the refreshing breeze after a storm brushes against its canopy. The smell of loamy earth is carried and imparted, the natural counterpart to enduring the harsh winds that would otherwise test even its venerable trunk. After lightning and winds, the knowledge that its nuts and children had been carried into unclaimed land, to fulfill their intended purpose.
The memory of once
being that seed, cast into the wind and carried through a strange and unknowable journey to this tiny island flying above the Organ Meat Desert. The great wood elemental pauses, the feelings of nostalgia, of a home long traveled from filling its form to the brim. The ent turns east, limbs pondrously stretched outwards.
Lightning strikes it dead in a thick bar, carrying hatred and killing intent, and in so doing the pacified creature is unresisting as it becomes kindling for the next stage of the Cycle.
Blue flames erupt, rapidly consuming the ent. The wood elementals eyes dim, as if closing them in preparation to take a well-earned rest. But as its body cracks and shrieks, from its corpse rises a being blazing a purest white, consuming the large elemental near-instantly. Rather than a king of hell, the canine-monstrosity holds the same coloration as the stars, its long limbs a jet black glass fit to match the void.
The Starblaze Emperor Ifrit descends, born with the memory of its kins suffering and last moments. An obsidian maw opens, breathing deeply to draw air towards its iron core. If bronze would not falter before the light of the stars, then perhaps it shall perish before the fires of their death instead!
But as it draws in the air, so too does it breath in the qi already inexorably affected by the Song.
Carried by the grains of sand that had been drawn by the storm, infinite memories of the spirits of the desert are drawn forth and conveyed. Not just of the long dead Shanqu who worshiped them, crafting elaborate bonfires to safeguard the nights of their individual towns and camps, flash forging the beginnings of the Scorpion Road. Times spent fighting alongside them. Granting wishes to those who paid a price, and left all smiling afterwards.
The existence of those same smiles being unchanging, even with the Shanqu long gone. More of them, even, despite the Golden Devils not holding the Ifrits in the same esteem as those they had conquered. Those the Shanqu were gone, those who had
made up the Shanqu had not. The traditions endured. Even as the flames burned out, they were kindled anew. The fire was carried on. In the memories, it caught sight of bronze skin and golden hair leading the new festivals, smiling just as brightly as those long past.
They had just wanted to survive too.
With that realization the Starflame Emperor Ifrit gasped the death of stars dying on its own lips. Guttering out, and falling to ash once more. The flames of hatred are no longer able to sustain it.
The fifth being awoke, thick bars of lightning slamming down into the island, reviving the dormant spirit of it once again. From the sides of the island two obsidian wings spread. Crags flexed, revealing sharpened talons of firmest granite. Amber eyes shone heaven's brilliance, visible far and wide through the shadow cast by the storm.
For but an instant, the Soaring Castle Oelivert hesitated. Aware of the previous four elementals failing, it turned its immense intelligence towards understanding
why. In so doing, it chose, and with that choice the Song continued unabated.
Singing of a time when it was all alone aboard the island, its sole home for as long as it could remember. Feasting on those foolish enough to ride the barrel up to it or those strong enough to fly there. Upon encountering its first true equal, a second owl, scarred and haggard. It had been stronger in presence than the owl Oelivert had been, once, but even in the absence of its full intellect it understood that an injured rival would prove sufficient.
The other owl had not had a chance to even rest, upon preparing to roost on its island. Oelivert had struck with talon and beak, an ambush from shadows and preying upon weakness. It had been too weak, too exhausted to fight back. All Oelivert ever learned from its origins had been that it smelled nothing of the desert.
But then it had eaten its core, grown stronger. Strong enough to consume all other life on this floating island, leaving it all alone. After consuming the other owl it had become strong enough for its mind to mature, and its intellect to come forth.
Deep within its earthen gullet, a sense of melancholy and loss struck the revived earth elemental. Perhaps if it had not been alone, that child would not have succeeded, and the two would be keeping one another company even now.
Despair struck, for life is not merely about experiencing fortune unending.
Silently, the light left those great amber eyes.
Fifth Cycle complete.
Deep within the islands gullet, Aretaphila saw none of this. She had closed her eyes, and merely sung what her Dao Heart told her, empty hands guiding her as she danced alone on an unseen stage, the sea of her Qi churned endlessly.
Lightning struck again. Illuminating her as a backdrop. The storm provided a rhythm, beating endlessly and tempering. Wood provided fuel, allowing growth and progress. Fire came, and with it heat and drive, pushing herself. Last came the earth, who was the foundation beneath her feet, the only one who could endure the Song in full.
The sixth cycle concluded, the seventh began almost immediately. A note of desperation entered into the Heavenly Tribulation, but at Aretaphila had finally hit her stride. Each cycle now enriched her dantian, striking deeply and firmly with the five element Qi. Empowering her and her Song just as the cycle had sought to empower itself.
The Eighth Cycle was richest by far, the gullet of the island having become a kiln, a forge. Something which under any other circumstance, with any other individual, she could not have hoped to survive. Let alone continue her song.
But here and now, at this time and at this place, she continued singing unabated. Qi, thick and rich, sank into her blood, drenched her physique, filled her dantian, and as everything else burned away…
By the Ninth Cycle, the Heavens truly did Shake. The final spear was massive beyond imagination, viewable for hundreds of
li around. The Austere Hurricane Patriarch wielded his weapon with transcendent skill, but that did not matter. For the Song had captured him, and even as he carved open the earth she merely shined the brighter for it. In its place rose the Laputian Heavenly Tree, and hands which grasped angrily wound up offering her a flower that wilted all too quickly.
A self consuming fire that collapsed in on itself followed, the Gravitic Abyss Demon looked upon her with callous eyes, coveting her for himself. But in that instant of comprehension it knew that she would not sing for him alone. The storm fell one final time upon the island, infusing all its remaining strength and in so doing restored all it could.
Dao-Cancelling Castle Oelivert looked upon Aretaphila Myia, shining upon its breast. To cancel out her powers would be simplicity itself, but it had already gained wisdom. The Mountain that it was had already been moved by her Song. It was too late.
The storm passed. Heaven's Tribulation, complete.
Where before had been an island wreathed in a perpetual fog of shadow and horror now lay a verdant, soaring castle in the sky.
Alone and empty-handed, Aretaphila sang the end of her song.
Yet not alone.
Every blade of grass. Every moss covered stone. Every spark of flame and drop of rain. All sang back to and with her.
Shining silver-bright, Aretaphila bowed to her audience, thanking them for listening.
Within her Sea of Qi, a pillar arose. But not a pillar.
The hammer of her Zhong of Deep Waters had been smelted into her Cultivation Base by the pressures of the Five-Element Tribulation, and now ensconced in Silver it was no longer a set with the now-destroyed Zhong.
It matched the shining Silver body that Aretaphila had grown into. The first evolution of the Clear Summer's Bell Constitution - the Silver Summer Bell. Completing its sounding was a necessary step to prepare the benefits of her physique to adapt to the strengths of the Blood of Gold, at which point it would be equal to any of the other Great Physiques of the clan.
With one hand, she held out a singular piece of dark iron. The "Pillar" of the Ninth Prince had assuredly endured the Tribulation alongside her. And so, for her temporary partner, she provided a short explanation of her Dao as he had asked for such a short yet long time ago.
"The Heaven-Shaking Song is not something which resists the heavens. It's something that carves out from them a place for oneself and others."
A beautiful, ringing note carried through the clear summer sky.
The Clan's Silver King had been born.
A.N. Hollllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy shit this Omake was a labor of love to write! But damn am I proud of the result! I can't believe this came together so well, everybody! Thanks again for reading, and thanks so much to @Occipitalobe for putting together such an awesome quest that inspired us all to churn out novel-length stuff for!
Almost a solid 15 thousand words, man. Wow! I can hardly believe it myself! Let's hope its enough to make the difference for this turn!
But yeah, for those who just want a tl;dr on the functionality of the [Heaven Shaking Song] I hope that between the allegory of the earlier omake and the way it was expressed at the end when Aretaphila began to face smash her way through the various cycles made it pretty clear. But I understand that tl;drs are for folks who dont read anyway! So with that said, let me go into a bit more explicit detail.
Aretaphila uses her Demonic Tunes as a memetic carrier for her Dao effects. Now given that Demonic Tunes are actually an extremely versatile form of Art, one which can go into esoteric effects more easily than the normal elemental wizardry stuff. What this means in practice is that Aretaphila is basically compounding that element of Demonic Tunes by compounding it with an anime physics understanding of harmonic theory, brute forced by her Dao magic.
And since this is done via Dao Magic, that means she can either align those vibrations with the properties of the Qi as its already shaped, which translates into a variety of buffs. Alternatively, she can use different frequencies to forcibly alter said Qi. At lower levels this would just be shaking of Qi constructs, or letting her various Demonic Tunes Arts hit way harder than they ordinarily would. At higher levels we get into applied Dao Magic with literally singing shit into existence, with her Songs forcibly making ambient Qi harmonize. This can be contested, ofc.
Strictly speaking, a Dao Emanation like that emitted by Rina would be a hard counter to this kind of Dao simply because its a brute force unga bunga type deal, so the usual clash of wills that Aretaphila cheats to win would be taken off the table. Which coupled with the general squishiness of a Demonic Tunes user, and Rina not likely to be vulnerable to Soul Attacks by a peer means that this is a match she loses.
But if you aren't a very explicit brick, there's pretty good odds that in a straight up fight she'll screw you over if you require any kind of set up time, barring a means to resist her Dao Emanations. Or her Soul Attacks.
Or if you happen to catch her alone rather than in a Formation, in which case you're kind of just screwed anyway.
But yeah, in Mass Combat Aretaphila's basically supreme for her level. I'm very pleased with how she's turned out! 
The return of Boss Bai, who'll undoubtedly get up to his own shenanigans. A nice little way to show some stuff happening elsewhere that may or may not end up being related to the main Janus' story thread. Also, the return of cultivator trading cards. Since she's Bai's idol, I figured it made sense for Minervina to get the card. She also is of a higher rarity, so shinies! I compressed it to the point where any more artifacts would give me a stroke, but it's still around 14MB. 
