Cultivating Chaos 5 - Ch 27- (Patreon)

The door rolled open completed and stopped, coming to a halt with a thd that shook the ground.

Beyond the entry was an impenatrable darkness. One that reminded Ash of the veil that’d blocked the way into the crypt, as well as the portal that’d hung over the battlefield.

As if realizing the same thing, Chunhua through her hands forward and a beam of golden light shot out of her palms.

Uh… hadouken.

The unwelcome and somewhat unhinged thought was a strange counter-point to the golden light striking the darkness. Everything blew apart in a kaleidescope of rainbow hues and broken fragments of the world.

There was also an etheral scream that made the world ring. A high pitched screeching that made Ash want to plug his fingers in his ears.

Everything seemed to freeze and come to an excruciating stillness in motion.

A horrible never ending squealing that reminded Ash of a busted door hinge crying out for attention at extreme volume.

Chunhua’s beam remained locked to the blackness. Burning it infinitely until it was suddenly gone.

A second after that, and when the screaming ended, her golden beam ended as well.

Standing in the door was, unsurprisingly, the horned man that they’d seen in the plane of deities. The black cloak that’d surrounded him was gone now and he looked more akin to a withered old man now.

The clothes he wore were nothing more than rotten threadbare patches of fabric.

“You, you, you damn mortals!” he shouted at the top of his lungs and clenched his fists. Then he threw them down at his sides. “I don’t have time for this and— and— just die!”

Qi of various colors and elements lashed out at Ash and his group.

Grasping his Dao, Ash kick-started it into a high-gear. To the point that he was fairly certain that this was going to be a money-shift and he’d have to pay a price on the back end.

Dumping half his Qi-Sea straight into his Dao it leapt from a somewhat flowing river to a white-water rapids with multiple skyscraper tall waterfalls along it.

Chunhua threw up a shield of Qi, Hui also threw one up that was a missmash of Life and Death Qi, even as Siu put her hands out to each side and a pink shield spread out around everyone.

Snatching up the Qi-Chains, and the statues, of those around him, Ash crammed them into his Dao directly. Pushing them into it and then dumping the other half of his Qi-Sea into the whole of it.

The Qi from the horned man tore apart Chunhua’s shield as soon as it touched it.

As if it weren’t even there.

Everything felt like it was moving infinitely slow.

That things were happening in a way he couldn’t even effect.

He could see the pain slowly coursing across Chunhua’s face as her Qi was forcibly demolished.

A slow, interminable time passed before Hui’s shield was broken down, taking all of a split second to occur.

Despite it feeling like a life-time in that moment.

Then his Dao quavered and shrunk at the dauntless approach of their oppponents Qi. As if they were but a candle existing in the eye of a tornado.

In but a breath they’d be blown out.

Gasping, Ash now knew beyond a doubt this individual was beyond them. He had once heard Far say that fate is like an unyielding shackle; once clasped, it cannot be undone, nor can it be evaded.

This felt as if that were true.

That their fate ended here and now.

Mentally railing against that thought, Ash grasped his Dao, and worked to force it into responding. To overcome the situation that they were going against at the moment.

Filling his entire being with his Dao.

Every Meridian, his Dantians, every fiber of his being was flooded with nothing but his Dao and he let it become who he was.

He was indeed the snowflake that’d landed upon the mountain and now rolled quite freely downward.

His very life was momentum and he now had the power to control it.

He controlled his fate.

Because fate, as well as time, had a momentum to it.

Some moments felt as if they lasted forever, others were agonizingly short as they could be. Time flowed forward in a steady pace despite that.

Even then, it was momentum.

“No!” Ash cried out as Chunhua’s skull burst apart and flung her brains about in every direction. A moment after that and Hui experienced the same fate. “I deny all of this!”

His denial of the world as it existed caused his Dao to shudder once again.

Then Ash dumped the entirety of the Hall’s Qi into his Dao in one go.

Emptying out an amount that’d been stored since the first moment that he’d picked up the artifact to the second before this situation occurred.

A resounding crack split the very world and time shattered.

It slid backward several seconds and Ash watched as Chunhua and Hui returned to being unharmed. That as this all occured even as his Dao began to violently churn and lash out at the deity.

Who stared wide-eyed at Ash and his companions as the very laws of the world were upended. Upended and tossed aside.

The massive and over-powered Dao pushed down on the horned man. Pushed down with incredible power.

Fighting him directly.

Fighting fate.

There was another boom as time began marching forward again.

The Dao of momentum literally tore something out of the horned man. Tore it out then was pulled back into a more normal, if still yet massive, disposition.

All the excess Qi had been burned away and it was now once more running at what Ash could gather from around him and others.

Shrieking wordlessly, the horned-man began attacking again.

His attacks were identical to how they were previously, but they lacked something Ash couldn’t understand this time. They didn’t feel as inhumanely imposing as they did only minutes ago.

Chunhua’s shield had returned, as had Hui’s and Siu’s.

The two former ones looked nervous and wide-eyed as the attacks came on. As if they had already experienced this moment and died.

“I have no idea how you did that but that was not a mortal thing! You tapped into a divine Qi somehow! Chunhua and Hui died, but you reversed time!” screamed Locke in a strange mix of glee and terror. “I’m-I’m trying to-to… I don’t know! I’m I don’t know!”

The Qi struck Chunhua’s shield and staggered it, but didn’t shatter it.

No sooner than the attack was stopped then Hui’s shield launched ahead.

Cupping, encircling, and pulling those attacks off to one side they were sheared off.  Torn off and thrown like one would branches on an overgrown tree.

Ash felt it when the attacks were broken off as their momentum went from against him to neutral.

Snatching up that Qi with his Dao, and that something without momentum would be easy to manipulate, he guided it into his Qi-Sea.

Siu’s pink shield formed into a javelin like shape then shot forward. Stabbing out at their enemy with a force that was unexpected to Ash.

Black shadow creatures stepped out from behind the horned-man and began rushing forward even as he himself was driven back a step.

Moira, Tala, Na, and Mei moved to the front and formed a wedge.

Behind them, Chunhua, Hui, Siu, and Jia finished the shape, creating a diamond.

A the center was Xiuying, Rou, and Ash.

Except to Ash and his Dao this didn’t feel right.

Reaching out he put a hand to Tala’s hip and moved her without much effort.

Her momentum was his and that gave him a great deal of control of where she should be. Even as he pulled at her waist, he’d exchanged her with Hui.

The former becoming the rear middle, the latter the front middle.

Combat descended on the group even as Ash managed it. Just by the barest of margins they’d fit the “momentum” his Dao wished.

Taking in a slow breath, he then realized he needed more.

He needed a particular thing right now and it wasn’t available to him.

The Knights of Sheng should be here to make this deity reconsider everything.

They weren’t available, but he did have the next best thing.

Weapons that cut right through Qi and made it problematic.

Moving quickly through the formation, he passed out the weapons they would need. Which forced him to intercede several times just to get a chance to swap with who he was trading with.

No one argued with him. Not even Tala when he gave her a one-handed sword to replace her big two-hander.

As each woman took the proferred weapon, the shadows became almost trivial to lay out. Blades that made short work of a Cultivator were even stronger against these creatures.

When we get the Knights truly spun up, we should give them armor enhanced in the same way.

“We already are! All the pattern work is being done by a golem that I comandeered from you. Just a matter of getting the materials for their armor. Guess I forgot again?

“Tee hee?

“I’m sure a naughty girl who could use a punishment? Maybe tie me up in our bed and use me however you like? Maybe put a bite-block between my teeth so I can’t close my mouth and—”

Ash tuned her out and put his focus back to the god at the back.

Siu’s attack had stunned him when added to the blow his Dao had made, forcing them right out of the doorway.

Now that Ash looked though, he couldn’t see them.

Couldn’t feel them.

They weren’t even here anymore it seemed.

Though the shadow people continued to pour out of the doorway and into the chamber.

Except Ash felt like that might end soon.

There was a change in the Qi heading his way from the tunnel the enemy had come from. A falling off of the turbulent echoes of un-life that these monsters were.

He felt neither life nor death from them.

They were almost akin to echoes of people. As if you could shout what a person was, and this is what you’d hear back.

Distorted, wrong, and hollow.

Ash was wrong though, his Dao made him aware of it before he saw any change.

What was coming down the tunnel now was people. A horde of people with weapons and armor that looked to be nearly random in their type.

One and all they reminded Ash of Demonic Cultivators though.

Or the people who had killed themselves to avoid being caught by Ash.

An abundance of Qi within them though having no seeming usage of it.

Ash realized they would need to change the way they were fighting. These were people who would think of their attacks and strategy rather than mindlessly attacking.

Reaching down to the ground Ash put his hands to it and then quickly used what Qi he had to form a partial enclosure. Sealing off their rear and a portion of their sides.

The front had gone from “all directions” to mostly what was directly ahead of them.

When Ash’s Qi reached the ceiling Tala pushed ahead and traded places with Moira. While Chunhua went and took the position behind Hui.

With a smaller area to work in, they would be locked in place but also better able to control their pace.

If anything happened at all, Ash would strip all the Sheng-Stones and Spirit-Stones just to put up another Qi wall and protect his wives.

Rushing straight at the group, these new enemies were moving with purpose and awareness. They were most certainly organized and ready for this fight.

No sooner than the one in front stepped across the threshold than the world once again shook. Everything shuddered and the very ground itself rolled about.

A giant that they’d been standing upon was waking was how Ash felt about it.

Numerous pillars and wall carvings began to glow.

Taking on a faint-light blue hue runes revealed themselves. Carvings that had been made on the inside of the stone pillars somehow.

In a way that didn’t reveal their purpose unless you’d been the carver, or had activated them.

“What in the heavens is going on!?” shouted Xiuying, grasping Ash’s hand in both of her own.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Ash conffessed.

He had been receiving Qi from all the members of the Sheng Alliance who had a chain upon them. He had been gaining strength every second.

Still holding onto his Qi with one hand, the other locked in Xiuying’s grasp, he modified his Qi again.

He folded the Qi that’d reached the ceiling inward, extended the walls, and locked his group inside of it. There were thuds, thumps, screams, and bangs echoing from outside of his box of Qi.

Even as he held it there, he constantly strengthened it and added thickness to the walls. Trying to remove any doubt at all that it’d stop an attack coming their way.

By the chamber, enemies, or otherwise.

Na collapsed to the ground after several seconds passed. Blood was running down the front of her chest in waves.

Mei had a hand pressed to her own thigh and Jia had a nasty gash along her brow that ran toward her ear.

Rou looked around at the three women.

“Anyone else injured? I need to know immediately,” she demanded as she moved over to Na. Her hands quickly ripped open the garment and she set to work on the other woman.

“I have a very bad headache,” Chunhua mumbled a second before she sat down on the ground. “I think… I think when my head exploded it hurt less.”

“It didn’t hurt at all,” whispered Hui. “I just… I died. It all went dark and… and yeah, my head exploded.”

Anyone who wasn’t tending to themselves, or wasn’t in immediate danger, was now staring at Ash. Crouched there on the ground and holding the Qi formation despite all that was going on outside.

“Ashely, are you a god?” asked Hui, turning to look at him. There was an intense devotion lurking behind her eyes. It reminded him of when she’d referred to herself as a weapon. “Because I died. I watched Chunhua die. Then everything went backwards and I wasn’t dead, but I knew I’d died. I felt you forcefully shove back time. Put-put me back into my body.”

Hui lifted her hands and flexed them several times.

“Yes,” Chunhua agreed, blood trickling down from her nose. She reached up and dabbed at it with her finger before realizing it was blood. She pulled a piece of fabric out of somewhere and then pinched her nose shut with it. “Yes, I died. I was very dead and my head exploded. I saw it happen. I wasn’t in my body anymore. I think I was… on my way to reincarnation.

“Ashley, you didn’t answer Hui. Are you a god? Are-are you more than we ever thought?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, feeding Qi still into the walls. He could feel things slamming into it, denting it, and even taking chunks out.

There was no way he could let the walls fall.

His Dao was holding it’s own for the area they were in, but what was going on outside of the Qi walls, was extreme. Extreme to the point that it’d quite literally sheared off any tendril of power his Dao moved past the walls.

At the moment, there was several forces in this small chamber. Two of which were annhilating one another. The third was his own which was tightly wound in on itself and hunkered down.

Like a stone holding out against the sea waves.

“Godlike, is godly,” Mei murmured, smiling crookedly while looking over at him. “If you were any other cultivator, I’d be afraid of being tossed aside like a used up wine-skin.

“Thankfully you’re just… you’re just a really good man, Ashley.

“Though it seems like I’m going to have to really push myself to get my Dao up to a level like yours. How-however… I do have to say, it really… it really is nice being inside your Dao.”

“It’s heavenly,” Siu purred, standing near one side and lightly fanning herself. Her pink shield had been expanded at some point and fit the interior of the Qi walls.

Frowning, Ash wondered what they meant.

He had certainly pulled them into his Dao to empower them, but he had done that in the past as well. They’d never mentioned something like this previously.

“Their statues aren’t pleading to the Dao, or you, anymore. Their statues, are inside the pillar. The pillar is now them. They are actively holding it up, and part of it, in the same instance.

“It won’t harm them, but it’ll grant them a great deal of power. You’ll gain power as long as they act in your momentum, so it works both ways. It’s just… I’ve never heard of it.”

“I have never experienced such a feeling as his Dao,” Jia was saying while pressing a piece of fabric to her forehead. “It is both enlightening and mildly terrifying. I am part of the whole, yet also an individual.

“It reminds me of when Ash once said that every drop of water is an individual unit of momentum, yet it is still part of the ocean.”

“It’s a good way to say it,” Tala affirmed, putting down the weapon Ash had given her and scooping up her large sword. “My Cuddly Bunny-Wife Self is happy to be part of the ocean. It’s enjoyable to have such close companions.”

“Agreed,” Moira stated. She was currently working at wrapping bandages around several cuts  along her arms. They were thin and not bleeding very much but looked to be numerous.

Mm, I get it.

They’re trying to do what they can without Rou or alchemy. To save or spare resources for later. They’re all becoming selfless for one another.

Normally, they’d all fight to take pills and demand Rou heal them first.

If they were normal cultivators at least, that is.

“Very much so. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to assist, but I’m still battling this-this… this damn godly Qi. When we tore it away from that monster we pulled it into the Hall but it’s hard to handle.

“I’m getting there though. I learned how to handle your libido after all and that felt endless. I’m sure I can make this work with time.”

“There,” Rou murmured and dragged Na over to lay next to Ash. “There’s your Husband, just as you asked. I’m sure he won’t mind babying you a bit.”

Rou smiled at Ash, then went on to her next patient, Mei.

Xiuying released Ash’s hand and went over to Na’s other side.

“Here, here. Take this,” Xiuying said brightly, holding a pill up in front of Na. “I made it out of snakes. Snake hearts, snake meat, and lots of blood. So much blood. I just went to the slaughter house and kept boiling it down. I think it’ll help?”

Na smirked with one side of her mouth, her face looking incredibly pale.

Opening her mouth she took the pill willingly and looked to Ash afteward.

After a moment Xiuying moved to follow after Rou.

With his free hand, Ash reached out and carefully arranged Na’s hair. Easing it away from her brow and face.