Soul of Blades - Chapter 46: The BloodSeer’s Conquering Test Completion (Patreon)

Authors note: apologies for the delay guys. This chapter suffered from a case of perfectionism, where I wasnt  happy with the outcome and did not want to release it until it was ‘perfect’. It was originally intended to just be the cultivator wrecking a world but ended up becoming something a little more. To be honest I'm still not happy with it and wish I had the time to improve it, but I realise that's just perfectionism talking and would lead to paralysis and nothing being posted. It's 6k+ words but I think moving forward I will stick to 2k words for now just to get chapters to you guys on time and avoid release delays.

Anyways, thanks for your patience and Enjoy!

Chapter 46: The BloodSeer’s Conquering Test Completion

To Jin, water worlds were the cosmic equivalent of stepping in a puddle with wet socks, except the puddle was an entire planet and the sock was… every single article of clothing you wore. For Jin, navigating the trench layers of a water world was as disorienting as it was bothersome. The light and sound played tricks, distorting his senses and making every shadow a potential threat. He had to rely on his ability to sense blood to see, rather than his enhanced senses. Without solid ground, he missed the simple pleasure of standing firm; floating aimlessly felt like being perpetually swayed by forces outside of his control. The vastness bred isolation, it wasn't the isolation of nature, filled with beauty. No this was a realm of murky darkness where the only company was his ever-amplifying sense of solitude. Being eternally soaked added a layer of constant discomfort, increased a hundredfold by the fact that he was wearing robes. The dark below was another world altogether, where sunlight dared not reach, and where the cold seeped into his bones. But perhaps the most unnerving were the leviathans, the Kraken and the like. The ocean’s monsters could get so vast they made the concept of size laughable, their sheer size mocking practicality and making Jin question the audacity of nature's design in this watery realm. What was the need to make something so big? What was the point? It wasn't as though nature was in competition.

On higher worlds, The deepest trenches could bear pressures that even Jin would feel. Their denizens could bear physicalities that touched upon his own. It was fortunate that the grade of the world was set so far below his capabilities. It still would not have been dangerous if it wasn’t, but it would have been infinitely more annoying.

All of these thoughts idly crossed Jin’s mind as he faced a regiment of brave warriors that had foolishly hunted him down as he lay waste to the first underwater metropolis he had encountered. Jin's fingers twitched, and blood turned to blades. Countless blades shot forth, long and thick instruments of hardened blood. The blades were large enough to slay legions. None could stop or evade their sweeping route, slicing through water and flesh alike. Buildings crumbled in sweeps under his wrath, their once-glorious spires now debris, screams ended before they even began as the blades destroyed all. In seconds, the city lay in ruins.

The air around the warriors shifted, an invisible force gripping their beings. One by one, they crumpled, their bodies betraying them in the most intimate manner. Blood, the very essence of their life, rebelled at Jin's command. It seeped from their eyes, ears, and mouths, weaving into the air like macabre ribbons.

In the midst of the chaos, a child, hidden in the shadows, watched in horror. Jin turned towards the new witness, his eyes alight with a perverse curiosity. With a mere thought, he beckoned the child forward, manipulating the life within the young heart to draw him nearer.

The child, unable to resist the pull, stepped into the light. Jin knelt, bringing himself to the boy's level. "Do you understand power now?" he whispered, his voice a mixture of honey and venom. The child, tears mingling with the blood on his cheeks, nodded silently.

Jin touched the boy's forehead, a symbolic gesture. The blood from the fallen began to move, encircling them like a vortex. "This," Jin proclaimed, gesturing to the chaos around them, "is the true nature of power. Not to hold, but to command."

He left the boy standing amidst the ruin, a lone survivor in a city of ghosts. As Jin walked away, the ground behind him bloomed with crimson flowers, each petal a trap born from the lives taken.

The mer-child followed him.

Jin halted. He turned slightly, his eyes never meeting the Childs but aware of its presence.

He lifted his right hand, palm up, towards the mer-child. A single drop of blood rose from his palm, quivering in the water between them.  Blood, dark and thick, twisted midair into a sharp form. The drop transformed, sharpening into a dart of hardened blood.

Without turning, Jin flicked his wrist, sending the dart slicing through the water towards the child. It shot forward swiftly and the child saw the dart coming, too late to move out of its path. It impacted its chest, causing the sea-child’s steps to falter at the impact as it released an unheard cry and sharp gasp of air bubbles in pain. The sea-child fell, a trail of blood seeping from where the dart hit.

His form collapsed into the sediment. Around him, a cloud of red bloomed, dispersing slowly in the restless water. Silence.

Touching the deep wound in its chest, the child felt the mark, his fingers coming away with brief traces of his own blood that melded into the surrounding water. From the ground he looked at Jin, then at his bloodied fingers.

Jin watched the sea-child’s reaction, remaining expressionless. He turned away and continued forward.

Gathering strength, the Mer-child rose with his gaze fixed on Jin's retreating form. He pushed up from the debris-covered ground to cause rocks and coral to float away idly, determination etched on his face despite the pain. Jin's back was turned to him as if nothing had occurred. As if he had not just destroyed an entire city. Taking a deep, steadying breath of oxygen-filled water, the child moved faster, a determined set to his small shoulders. He followed, leaving a trace of blood in the depths behind him that dispersed quickly in the water, his hand pressing against the deep wound.

The merchild kept his distance, yet did not turn away, his steps were deliberate and cautious and his pained eyes never left the strange being that had destroyed everything he had ever known.

***

Jin's boot connected with a shard, the sound sharp in the underwater silence. The red light played across his expression, revealing nothing as he advanced.

The submerged city lights had long since faded and the radiance that remained was the glow from Jin's magic that light wove through the water in all directions, bathing the space in red light and drawing elongated maroon shadows across the ocean floor. It reminded Jin of the light of a blood moon.

Jin’s attention shifted, caught by the swift passage of a fish through the empty remnants of a window frame, disappearing into the darkness beyond. He could have flown off in a whirl of speed, leaving the child behind to bleed out, or drifted away quickly, or he could have even swam with such speed the child would have thought he had vanished, but he liked walking through the ocean's seabed. When he walked, each step caused the sediment to swirl and settle back down, it reminded Jin of his path's transformative nature, mirroring the cycle of destruction, change, silence… and transformation.

He considered the child pursuing him, the smaller and less assured figure who trailed behind him was a mere silhouette against the underwater ruins, moving forward despite bleeding from the deep wound he had given it. Jin had been drifting for quite some time through the city's waters which were bathed in blood. He detected almost eighty millilitres belonging to the injured child, around thirty percent of the blood in its body. The world was most likely beginning to spin and sway before the sea-childs vision. It was beginning to show signs of obvious confusion and disorientation. It’s intake of water through its gills- its breathing- was becoming more rapid and shallow.

And still it pursued him, webbed fingers pressing into its wound to stem the bleeding.

"What’s your name?" Jin’s voice came out cold and detached, demanding.

The child, dwarfed by the shadow of the destroyer, hesitated, his voice a mere wisp. Finally, he whispered, "Xers."

Jin's gaze, unyielding, bore into the mer-child. "Do you not hate me? I destroyed everything you know. Your parents."

The mer-child's eyes, reflecting the ruins around them, revealed a turmoil within. "I had no parents but…" His voice trailed off, the silence speaking volumes before he found the strength to continue. "I had friends." A beat passed, filled with the echoes of his loss.

"Yes, I hate you."

Jin, unmoved by the confession, observed the child, his expression unreadable in the dim light. "But you still follow."

Xers's answer was silence, filled with an absence that outweighed the very trenches in their depth—fear, necessity, and a haunting loss of anywhere else to turn.

Xers his lips moved soundlessly, a whisper lost to the sea. He was a small shape in the vastness, unheard.

"Louder," Jin demanded, his patience as thin as the red light surrounding them.

"…Nowhere," the Xer's voice barely trembled in the cold depths. He paused, his breath a visible intake in the cold water. "…There's nowhere else," he murmured, the words barely escaping his lips before dissolving into the ocean's vastness.

"Misfortune on your part," Jin's tone was as steady as the dark currents swirling around them.

A pulse ran through the water, but it did not belong to either of their heartbeats. There- Jin felt it again. One, two- no, hundreds of entities were converging on their location. Pulses of blood, drawn to them like moths to a flame. They were predators, schools of them honing on the lake of blood that filled the dead city's waters. The purest blood stemmed from the wounded child, fresh and undiluted. Shadows shifted beyond the red light of his blood magic within the seabed's depths. He felt them vividly, pulses of blood of all sizes. Schools of predators searching for the missed feast. One creature surged forward, its body elongated and sleek, cutting through the water with ease. Another followed, its form bulkier, adorned with spiny protrusions that seemed to hum with bio-luminescent energy. Hundreds of them charged, large and small, some with razor-sharp fins, and rows of teeth that led deep into their gullets, others with glowing bulbous eyes, all moved with a hungry purpose, targeting the bleeding child.

Jin stood amidst the swirling currents, blood racing towards him like a harbinger of doom. One attempted to consume him but bounced harmlessly off his protective shell. Its interest waned to turn instead toward the child with renewed hunger.

Jin moved without thought. His thumb twitched, and-

Blood surged, and red light swelled, eager to respond to his subtle command. A whip emerged, formed from blood. It was long and thick, sharp and gleaming, lined with barbs of crystallized red. It shone with the faintest light of Qi and a touch of Jin’s Dao.

It surged forward, cracking through the water to send a concussion wave.

A predator of the deep, with thick trench-resistant scales like daggers and bulbous eyes lit with intelligence and primal hunger surged towards the child, Xers. Jin glanced, and the tendril of liquid crimson shot forth, wrapping around the creature. It struggled briefly before being sliced in two, its halves drifting away in the current. At this, hundreds of forms- each unique in their predatory efficiency- abandoned Jin and surged towards the crouching child.

Jim simply clenched a fist, and the entirety of the surrounding blood converged into a rippling ball. Out of this ball stepped figures akin to men, but not quite. These figures, born of the blood itself, varied in size but shared identical features - sharp, angular faces framed by strands of dark, flowing hair, eyes blazing with an unnatural crimson hue, sparking with Qi. Their bodies were lean and sinewy, clad in sleek, form-fitting armour crafted from the same pulsating blood that birthed them. With each emergence, they wielded whips of coagulated blood, elongated tendrils snaking out from their hands with deadly precision. The sphere began to diminish in size, each reduction accompanied by a burst of crimson that took the form of something akin to men, a congregation. They struck with precision, each blow dispersing the attackers, turning the water around the mer-child into a maelstrom of chaos and bloody destruction.  The whips sliced through the water, cleaving through creatures with ease. Their bodies, bisected, floated away in a cloud of their own demise.

They protected the injured Merchild.

The congregation of summoned warriors became a deluge, countless deadly arcs of bloody conjured whips, each moving with a life of its own, following only the barest hint of Jin's intent to lay waste to the schools of predators. The endless tendrils constricted, bisected, and lashed out sharp as night to slice through water with a level of precision that turned predators into prey. Each crack of the deadly hemokinetic whips cleaved through the throng, their bodies eviscerated, leaving trails of disturbed water and fading light in their wake.

In seconds, hundreds became none, and the place became once again dyed in the red light of the fallen. The child's eyes were wide and took in the scene with a mix of fear and fascination.

Jin sighed. He didn't know why he did that, the child, Xers, was supposed to have died there.

He turned to the sea-child safe behind him. Their eyes met, and Jin's presence loomed large as he fixed his gaze on the small form before him.

His pursuer paused behind him, carefully stepping over rubble with its attention fixed on Jin's unmoving form. Eyes locked with his. A voice broke the quiet, reaching out towards Jin and sending ripples through the water. "Why?"

Jin stopped, surrounded by the remnants of what once was. He remained still and finally acknowledged the bleeding child’s question floating between them. "Why what?" His voice, even, returned to Xers without turning.

A few steps behind, the Mer-child hesitated, its gaze shifting from Jin to the debris-strewn path."Why all of this?" A  gesture made encompassed their desolate surroundings, a sweeping of tiny arms and tail. “Why destroy the city?”

"Because it stood in the way," Jin’s voice carried back, blending with the ambient sounds of their submerged world. his back still to the child. Jin's gaze lingered on a fractured column, his expression unseen as his fingers grazed its rough surface.

The underwater city’s sole survivor looked around at the destruction enveloping them, Its eyes moved across the remnants of buildings, absorbing the scale of loss, then back to Jin. "But what was it in the way of?" Xers’ voice was not pleading but bathed in confusion. He sought understanding.

Turning, Jin faced the dying child, the red light from the surrounding blood arts outlining his figure. "Everything. Nothing. It doesn’t matter." His words, clear and unforgiving, lingered in the ripples they sent through the water.

A pause. Xers absorbed Jin's words with his gaze shifting from Jin to the broken world around them.

Jin resumed walking, his movements smooth and unhindered by the water. "It's a cycle. Creation. Existence. Destruction." His low murmur blended with the soft sounds of their underwater environment.

"And what cycle are we in now?" Xers's query was soft, almost lost in the movement of the sea.

Jin paused to look back at his small pursuer, his silhouette striking in the red. "Transformation," he declared, the word dispersing into the water.

They moved through the skeletal remains of buildings, each step stirring clouds of silt that swayed like spirits in the water. Jin stopped before a vast, open plaza, its floor mosaic depicting the MerEmperer, a figure of majesty and might. He scoffed lightly, his gaze drifting to the boy Xers. "They believe their rulers are eternal, unchallenged by time or the tides."

Xers looked up, his expression one of confusion and loss. "Is that not true?"

Jin's laughter was a low rumble, dispersing the water around them. "There is only one emperor and he is not from this world."

Xers failed to grasp the meaning behind Jin’s words. More silence followed.

"Where are we going?" Xers’s voice broke the silence, small yet carrying through the water.

Jin turned, regarding Xers with a gaze that seemed to pierce through the dimness. "To understand power, you must first witness its absence," he stated, his voice the only warmth in the cold depths.

They approached the edge of the city, where the seafloor dropped away into darkness.

Jin stopped, looking out into the abyss. "Beyond lies the unknown, untouched by your people, feared and revered."

Xers, standing at Jin's side, peered into the depths. "What's out there?"

Jin's response was cryptic, a half-smile playing on his lips. "Opportunity. Challenges. True tests of power."

Without another word, Jin stepped forward, descending into the darkness. Xers, after a moment's hesitation, followed, leaving the ruins of his past behind.

Xers swayed, the strength draining from his small frame as he clutched at his chest. A dark stain spread through the fabric of his tunic in contrast to the pale skin beneath. His knees buckled, and he collapsed, the ocean's embrace slowing his fall.

Jin watched, impassive, as the child struggled. Then, with a fluid motion, he extended his hand, palm facing Xers. Jin placed a curse in the child’s blood, in the very heart of the wound he had inflicted. Blood curses could affect entire bloodlines if expertly enacted, to cause perpetual weakness, madness, or even partial control over the afflicted's actions. But Jin did not weaken the child, Xers. Instead, he gave him a boon. After all, blood and transformation could be used to create just as easily as it could destroy. The curse would form a weapon based on Xers’ intent to defend himself, and it would follow the child’s every whim once mastered. It would ensure his survival for a time, at least.

Then, a final act of healing. Crimson energy gathered, swirling between them, weaving intricate patterns in the water. The blood seeping from Xers's wound responded, drawn to Jin's call, halting the flow. The energy solidified, forming a bright, pulsating red crystal over the injury. It fused seamlessly with Xers's flesh, mimicking the lost tissue with uncanny precision. Xers's labored breathing steadied, the immediate threat to his life contained. Xers' eyes opened to stare at Jin's shadow looming over the fading red light of the ruins as they drifted into the darkness. Jin’s voice cut through the water's silence.

“Well, come then. This world isn't going to destroy itself now, is it.”

***

Two days. That was all it took.

On the first day, Jin obliterated four vast metropolises. The first city's defenders had attempted to fight back using strange workings of mana and artifice. These devices, large tubes of metal and magic that stretched for miles, channelled and controlled the currents. The world was completely submerged and filled with currents, having some currents that could span the breadth and width of the entire planet. Venturing into the smallest of them felt like bearing a powerful blow, and the largest could sweep away even the highest levelled beings. But Jin had no level. Encountering currents that could displace even the strongest of this world's beings, Jin dismissed their force with a thought. Their power while formidable to others posed little more than a brief hindrance to his movements. It slowed him down, yes, and It nearly shattered his defensive shell and forced him to reinforce it with his Dao. But that was all. To hinder him at all was an achievement in itself, he supposed.

Then, in the brief moment he had stumbled with the weight of an entire world pressing into him, Xers had cried out to the city's warriors, believing Jin had finally met his match. He asked to be saved. At the sight of the Mer-child’s altered physiology and the glowing red blood-crystal that formed a part of his chest, they turned their weapons on him to target and eliminate the ‘demon child.’

Xers, arms splayed in futile defence, cried out as the weapon Jin had cursed into his being sprang to life in response to the child's intent, making short work of his attackers. Whether intentional or not, Xers slew them.

In the aftermath they paused as silence enveloped them, the ocean's breath and the crumbling of structure the only sounds.

Jin broke the silence, his voice cutting through the water with ease, "You see the extent of what was done here."

Xers, trailing behind, absorbed the magnitude of his surroundings. After a moment, he ventured, "Yes, it’s... it’s all gone."

"There’s purity in destruction," Jin continued, not slowing his pace through the rubble. "An elegance in erasing complexities that builds space for the new." He spoke, his words slicing as sharply as his movements through the water. “A clean slate,"

Xers absorbed this, the concept was foreign yet fascinating. "And the lives? The history?" he pressed, unwilling to let the conversation fade into the watery abyss.

"Collateral," Jin stated simply as if discussing the weather and not the obliteration of entire worlds.

"Collateral..." Xers repeated, the word tasting bitter. "And me? am I not collateral?"

A smirk, fleeting and chilling, played on Jin's lips. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you represent the fact that in the vast tapestry of time, there are threads that refuse to be cut," Jin admitted.

"Time? But what does that mean?" Xers pushed, seeking clarity.

Jin sighed. "It means that even I am subject to whims of fate… and its threads," he turned away, then, and resumed his path through the darkness leaving Xers to ponder the cryptic morsel of insight.

Xers considered the label of ‘thread’ given to him. It was a label both isolating and defining.

"So I’m a thread, with no place in the world," he muttered to himself, more statement than question.

"Not quite, that is up to you," Jin conceded. "You could be destined to be lost and helpless, or maybe you are to carve a place for yourself amidst the chaos. Like I did."

Silence settled once more, a comfortable cloak around Jin, an itching shroud over Xers. The distance between them shortened. Xers, swimming alongside the path Jin illuminated, pondered his lesson. His thoughts were a tangled mass of fear, admiration, and a budding realization of the cruel realities of power.

"Will you destroy again?" Xers's question pierced the silence, tentative yet necessary.

“Yes” Jin's reply was devoid of emotion, a statement of fact as inevitable as the tide.

"Will you kill me too?" The mer-child's eyes, wide, searched Jin's face for a hint of his fate.

"Perhaps." Jin turned away, his figure blending with the shadows of the sunken city.

***

On the second day, hundreds of cities fell. The pair tore through them all. The land was flayed and the seas boiled. Some cities summoned behemoths, leviathans controlled by artifacts of the system. They targeted demonic cultivator and altered Child indiscriminately. They saw Xers as nothing more than an extension of Jin. Xers was forced to fight until the blood weapon that lay within his being became as a second body, encasing him much like the destroyer he accompanied was encased.

The behemoths advanced, mountains of flesh and hunger. Its jaws, capable of swallowing the moon, snapped shut on empty water. Jin's blood mist assassins, armed with tendril whips and born of blood and vengeance, circled the giants. The figures took shape, solidifying into forms both elegant and deadly, their movements as natural in the water as those they were created to slay. They were his wrath made manifest.

The behemoths faltered, and colossus were brought low by a thousand cuts.

A sudden shift in the water drew their attention. A lone figure approached where others fled, a warrior, moving with purpose among the ruins to unerringly head toward them. Jin paused, watching. The merman carried a single spear, its glow blazing with magic and flame beneath the water, lighting all in its path and burning any blood it touched.

Xers's gaze followed the figure, a mix of wonder and apprehension in his eyes. "Is he not afraid?" he whispered, more to himself than to Jin.

"Fear is a choice," Jin stated, his eyes never leaving the figure. Jin smiled. Conflict pleased him. He extended his hand, palm down, focusing. Beneath his barriers surface, the lifeblood of countless beings within the city called to him. It was an orchestra he was all too eager to conduct.

With fluid movements and a single spoken word, Jin summoned a blood construct beside him. This being was formed from the very essence of life and stood tall yet humanoid, its arms ending in blades of hardened blood. The construct moved forward, meeting the lone warrior head-on.

The clash was brief. The warrior's weapon shattered upon contact with the construct's arm-blades. He recoiled, attempting to dart away into the darkness unsuccessfully. A look from Jin was all it took for the construct to cut him down. The ocean floor, disturbed by their movements, settled slowly, dust and debris falling back to silence.

As if the floodgates of the abyss had opened, came the onslaught. A myriad of forms, each more nightmarish than the last, surged toward them. Armies to protect a single emperor.

Jin advanced, undeterred by the desolate silence of the underwater ruins. Xers followed in his wake, navigating the debris, a quiet observer to the path of destruction. Accompanying Xers were blades of blood and conjured entities, all bearing elements of Jin’s curse, imbued with materials of higher grades, as stronger as this world’s most durable materials, and all of them connected to the red crystal that made a part of Xers chest, connected by thin strings of blood.  His mastery over Jin’s curse had surprised even the cultivator. “Is this right?” He asked, uncertainty and pain straining his tired adolescent voice.

Jin slowed, then stopped, facing Xers directly. "I doubt many things, child. The morality of my actions is not among them."

"Because you believe yourself above morality?" Xers's gaze on the impending army was unwavering.

"Because morality is a construct, as malleable as the waters we swim in," Jin explained, turning to proceed to the final bastion of the planet's civilisation, and the settlements he sensed along the way.

Calamity ensued.

Jin’s attacks were relentless, fueled by frustration that burned hotter than the suns of his homeland. The seas boiled under his fury and the very currents themselves turned red. Xers was attacked at every turn, forced to fight to defend himself or die. By the seventh city, Xers was no longer defending his life, he was taking theirs. He could see the hatred in their eyes, the fear and disgust. They would try to kill him no matter his actions. It pained him, but he was simply removing the option. Jin had called it ‘Kill or be killed,’ another law of power. Cities continued to fall, and great underwater Metropoli were reduced to ruins in their wake. The mer-tribes fought valiantly, their warriors and mages sacrificing everything to defend their home. They were not enough.

In the aftermath they traversed, Side by side.

Until a palace deep within the sea stood before them as the last beacon of hope. They approached, Imperial and child, harbingers of its fall. The mer-emperor was surrounded by his finest warriors. Each was shaped like men- but larger, taller, stronger, and sturdier, with muscles and dense bones equipped to resist the deep trenches, and gills arrayed to survive the depths of the ocean. A group of warriors who faced certain death and did not look away. The greatest warriors of the merpeople faced Jin in the ruins of their once-glorious capital. They fought with the ferocity of those who had nothing left to lose. Jin, however, fought with the cold efficiency of a god. He asserted dominance in a manner only a cultivator of his stature could conceive. They stood no chance. His ability to see through time, to predict their every move, left them as mere puppets in a show of his design. A general emerged, courage in his eyes. Jin admired the defiance, brief as it was. Jin’s fingers twitched, but Xers raced forward. They clashed, general and cursed child, steel and blood. The general fell, broken, his blood joining Jin's crimson tide.

Jin watched the broken forms of his foes, unmoved. Xers knelt beside him, examining them with wide eyes. "They were good fighters," he murmured, more to himself than to Jin.

Jin nodded in silent acknowledgment of the child's observation. "And now, they are memories."

They rose, drifting through the water, and all that remained of a vast capital was three combatants;  Cultivator, braced Emperor, and child.

The final battle was a spectacle of despair.

The emperor stood proud, a final stand. Jin admired the courage but pitied the futility. He saluted the proud leader, Xers watched the action without understanding. They fought in an exchange of death, with the emperor's blood singing a melody only Jin could hear. The battle ended and the emperor’s blood joined the chorus of the defeated. He fell, lifeless, drifting into the water. Jin turned away, indifferent. Xers lingered to watch the fallen emperor with the understanding of adolescence, and contemplated the fleeting nature of power.

Level 25, level 200, level 789—it didn't matter to the Jin, the imperial prodigy. Because unlike the denizens of this world, Jin didn't have levels. It would take more stats than could ever possibly be acquired in a single year to even hope to match him, and there had been steps put in place long before his time to prevent such an absurd impossibility. Like a storm sweeping through a silent forest, he tore through them all, as effortlessly as one would tear through paper. None could stand before his Dao, an unstoppable force that met no resistance.

Even among the empire's most gifted debutantes, Jin had always been the solitary peak, towering and unreachable. The Dao was a tool for elders, a wild beast that devoured inexperienced fools who dared to explore its depths. It was a forbidden realm, lethal to those who missed a step. It was not a thing initiates had ever been capable of handling, even among demonic cultivators.

The primitive mana users had the system to guide them safely through the Dao, but true power did not lie in safety. In this realm, barren of Qi and untouched by the true Dao, not a single being stood a chance against him.

As the ruins gave way to open water and they left their final destination, Jin halted, turning to face Xers. "What have you learned?" he asked, his tone devoid of expectation.

Xers, the merchild with scales that sparkled like the surface of the sea under the sun, approached Jin with innocence and curiosity unbecoming of someone in the presence of a destroyer. Xers met Jin’s gaze and a myriad of emotions swept through his eyes. "That power... is not in what we hold… but in what we let go," he answered, his voice gaining strength.

Jin nodded, a ghost of approval in his eyes. Without another word, he turned, leading them into the darkness,

Through it all Xers’ level increased to untold heights, encased in blood of his own to mimic his study. His class came into being, a world first; Xers, a Demonic BloodMage. They stood in the ruins of the world, its cities destroyed and its oceans bathed in blood, with only pockets of survivors remaining.

A clean slate.

At the water's edge, Xers swam in silence while contemplating his own identity in the wake of destruction.

"Why did you destroy everything?" Xers finally asked, his voice barely a whisper against the ocean's silence.

Jin stopped, considering the question. "Because power dictates that we could," he answered simply.

Silence. The pair watched the shades of red and blue that painted the oceans surface.

"Will you destroy more worlds?" Xers finally asked, a mix of wonder and fascination in his voice.

"When it suits me," Jin answered, his gaze on the setting horizon.

***

The vision ended. The system's protective sphere began to fade as Alex’s consciousness returned to his resting form.

Alex contemplated the actions he had witnessed. It had not been a quiet unmaking but a spectacle of violence.

One moment you're going about your day, the next, your world's literally turned upside down because some kid didn't like the way water felt, Alex lamented internally. It was the kind of thing you'd laugh at if it weren't so tragically absurd.

The water world, with its mysteries and marvels, had ceased to be, undone by the will of a cultivator who wielded power with the indifference of a god. The fissures that opened, the cities that vanished, the waters that receded—all were the outcomes of a teenager's fleeting interest, a momentary diversion on a cosmic scale. The cultivator's departure had been as unremarkable as his arrival. There was no triumphant exit, no lament for the lost, just the simple, unceremonious movement of one who had grown bored, ready to find a new distraction.

It seemed unlikely, given that the teen had apparently been a genius prodigy of unseen levels. But that did not indicate the capabilities of his peers. It was the depth of his boredom and not malice that spelt doom for the world below him. That vision had not shown his true capabilities, Alex was sure of it. What if the imperials intent on arriving in one year were as talented and powerful as Jin? How strong would Alex have to become?

Jin and Xers had been unstoppable. Alex had watched as one by one, the bastions of the merpeople of varying levels crumbled, their armies decimated, until nothing remained but a cracked seabed devoid of its pure blue  oceans, and skeletal remnants of their once-glorious civilization.

The imperials were unbelievably dangerous.

The year-long induction period no longer felt like a target, but a date of execution.

In the wake of such realisations, Alex contemplated the insight he had gained.

He focused on the Dao, it still surrounded and embraced him as the vision continued to fade. From experience, he knew this was a fleeting opportunity.

What had he just witnessed? Time, blood, and… transformation.

It had been hard to glean much from that insight, much of what he had seen was too far beyond him.

The cultivator’s power was vast in its scope yet limited in reach, it had allowed him a certain foresight, a chance to glimpse at the threads of potential futures with ease. But only the near future, Alex wondered how he could apply that to his understanding of the Dao.

Alex pondered the flow of time, and how its threads had intertwined with destruction and transformation. It's flux, he realised. It's all connected, Entropy and creation. Exchange. He destroyed the world to create Xers. How many more like Xers did the imperial’s actions unknowingly create?

It was beyond Alex, but one aspect of the Imperial’s understanding of time stood out to him. That it existed simultaneously. According to the imperial prodigy’s Dao-Trance, everything that had ever happened and could happen was all around them and it existed all at once. In Alex's vision time appeared as a multidimensional tapestry where past present and future coexisted influencing each other non-linearly. The imperial prodigy had seen transformation as a journey of personal change through deep interaction with universal forces. Destruction and creation had emerged as necessary elements for rebirth, shaping a cyclical view of existence. He had recognized the power of individual choice in shaping destinies and the role of knowledge and insight in achieving profound transformation. Through the vision, Alex was struggling to grasp the full scale of the interconnectedness of life and death within the transformative process.

It was hard to grasp, and Alex could only sense the truth's edges, aided by the insight. only the present moment truly exists, with the past and future being constructs of times tapestry. This realisation emphasized the impermanence and fleeting nature of existence, advocating for a deep appreciation of the present as the only genuine reality. By focusing on the present, individuals could achieve a profound connection with the essence of life, transcending the illusory constraints of time.

Alex rose in meditation, his eyes still closed. He tried to do the same with a swing of his blade.

His blade split into two possibilities, swinging in two separate directions, and flickered in and out of existence as it passed through states of flux. An impact, and the floor beneath his feet bore two long scars the size of men, where his Dao had torn through the arrayed stone.

His head pounded and his world swayed from the single action, it led to a state of overuse after his prolonged battle. He could hardly move from the blinding pounding that assaulted him. He considered what he had just achieved. That's not something a person can block, he thought through the pain. The attack would pass through their defence and strike from two angles. He wasn't sure, but it felt like it wasn't just a simple double attack. His Dao would seek a potential future where his strike landed, so even if you blocked it, somehow… you didn't. 

He could only use it once, but it was an attack that was destined to hit his opponent. 

“Whoa,” Alex muttered in surprise.

[Dao: ‘True Immortality’ - Progress 0.06 > 0.1%]

He opened his eyes at the notification.

That was significant. He felt pleased with his progress, more than pleased. Considering 100% progress in his Dao would presumably mean he could utilise its capabilities without feeling like his brain had been used as a basketball and the pounding drawbacks that made it hard to see and his head feel like it would explode would be completely removed. Not to mention that 100% progress in his Dao could also mean he would gain godly power that eclipsed anything he had seen in his vision. He was ecstatic, it was good progress. 

But Alex couldn't celebrate because three things had caught and captured his attention.

The first was that the slain queen's large and immensely dense mana core was missing.

The second was that John was no longer dying and was whole with two legs. John’s legs resembled the drifters; human on the outside, and on the inside… something else.

And the third, was that Mira looked different. Wildly so. Although he could sense her internal workings, she had transformed to resemble someone he had never seen before.

“What did you do?” Alex spoke a question, an edge of concern creeping into his tone unbidden.