Fates Parallel Chapter 411 - Plea (Patreon)

The Demon Lord, Sovereign Longyan, was a bit of a mystery to Yoshika. By appearances, he was quite plain. He had short brown hair, dark eyes, and a grim expression. He wore simple silk robes without the kind of opulent adornments that many cultivators favored. If not for the oversized crimson and violet eyes seated in the middle of each palm, he might have passed for a regular human cultivator.

The reptilian pupils of each eye darted in every direction, as if urgently searching for something. Wherever those terrible gazes landed, powerful rays of destruction would follow.

She had no idea who he was or what he wanted. His domain was that of a conqueror seeking power, but she knew nothing else about him or his history. Knowing that he held a living world within his soul, she couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to live there.

Would it be a cruel, harsh world, twisted to deliver as much power as possible to a parasitic overlord? Or perhaps, he would take a more passive approach, allowing his people to grow or fail on their own merits. She couldn’t imagine him as benevolent.

What would happen to those people if someone killed him?

That was a far away concern for Yoshika. The Longyan in front of her was only an avatar—a pale reflection of the Demon Lord’s true power. And he was about to break through her shield.

Yoshika manifested before him with all four bodies. It was a risk, dedicating her attention entirely to one foe, but Longyan was too dangerous to ignore. His single-minded focus had already driven him right up to her doorstep faster than any of the other intruders.

He didn’t waste any time mincing words. As soon as Yoshika appeared, he pointed his crimson eye and launched a beam of raw destruction her way. Eui rushed to intercept it, deflecting the attack with Jianmo’s blade.

The sword shuddered, but held up under the attack.

“Ow! You’re lucky we’re both Destruction-aligned or that might have been bad. Be careful, girls—Longyan is all force and he never holds anything back.”

Meili and Kaede flanked him from the other side, but the violet eye snapped its gaze onto them and instantly obliterated their avatars with concentrated Void essence.

The backlash of the attack reverberated painfully through Yoshika’s soul. It wasn’t more than she could handle, but it forced her to reconsider the idea of swarming him with avatars to wear him down or buy time.

“Ancestors, Jianmo you weren’t kidding! How are we supposed to fight someone who just annihilates us with a glance? I hope Melati’s alright after facing that.”

“He hadn’t gathered as much power yet, so she should be fine. I wish I had an answer for you, but even Chou didn’t like fighting Longyan. Win or lose, he doesn’t leave his enemies unscathed.”

Great. Longyan was already whirling around to focus his attention on Jia and Eui, raising both palms and leveling his fell gaze upon them. Yoshika tried to dive out of the way, but a crushing gravitational force kept her in place while a thin ray of pure Force tried to slice her bodies in half.

Yoshika used the lessons she’d learned from developing Jia’s Lightspeed Traversal technique to reduce her weight to nothing, counteracting the Gravity, then turning her bodies into rays of light to escape the follow up.

It was a narrow escape, but she managed to get out just in time.

Unlike Yu Meiren, Longyan wasn’t much of a talker. Yoshika almost wished he would stop to gloat or monologue, just to give her a moment to breathe, but he was relentless.

His command over the elements was incredible, and through his dual cores he was able to manipulate multiple elements at once. On its own, that wasn’t too surprising—Yoshika was capable of similar things herself—but the sheer power behind each of his attacks was startling. And that was only a fraction of the power of one of his avatars.

Her only advantage was that his power was wasteful. The eye-like cores in his palms focused the power, but it was still just raw power. That had to be costly, and within her soul realm he could only rely on his internal reserves of power to fuel it.

She wasn’t about to rely on trying to exhaust an eons-old deity of essence, avatar or no.

Yoshika needed something more decisive. Her resources were effectively limitless, but as long as the Demon Lord could keep hurting her in their exchanges, he’d win a battle of attrition. Worse, if she took too long fighting him, the others might break through in the meantime.

Kaede and Meili manifested again, and Yoshika kept her selves spread wide so that Longyan had to target each one individually.

He continued to pressure her with continuous assaults, and it was all Yoshika could do to defend herself. Kaede escaped an explosion of corrosive decay with her Weightless Fist technique, but Longyan caught her with a petrifying blast of Stone essence moments later. Jia would close the gap with her Lightning God Transformation only for her avatar to be consumed in a cloud of toxic Miasma.

The Demon Lord would pick her avatars off one by one with brutal efficiency, and while she could create new ones as quickly as he destroyed them, each ‘death’ sent painful shocks through her soul.

If she could just find an opening—a chance to strike with one of her more powerful techniques—but Longyan left no such thing. His pressure never let up, and he would smash every attempt against him with contemptuous ease.

Yoshika was beginning to feel the difference that eons of experience made.

She decided she was taking the wrong approach. She didn’t need to defeat Sovereign Longyan, only delay him. None of her enemies knew what she was planning, so they wouldn’t realize the time limit they were on.

The very thing that made the Demon Lord such an implacable foe could also be turned against him. He held nothing back, and dedicated everything he had to crushing the enemy before him. Since she’d first engaged him, he hadn’t made a single move towards the shield.

What she needed was a way to distract him without letting him destroy any more of her avatars. She had an idea.

“Heian, are you busy?”

Her daughter looked up from the formation she was working on and shook her head.

“No. The hard part is done—Yue can do the rest.”

“Good. You have control over the formations that Chou used for the trials, right? Do you think you could use them with some of my essence to make constructs like the farmers and soldiers?”

“I’ll try.”

Heian stood up and brushed herself off, turning to Yue.

“Mommy needs my help. Please finish this.”

“Wha—me?! I’m terrible at arcane arts, how am I supposed to do this?”

“Just draw whatever feels right.”

With that, Heian vanished, moving her essence through the endlessly complicated labyrinth of essence that held the soul realm together.

Many of the functions Chou had created were irreparably altered by Yoshika’s takeover, their intent no longer carrying the same meaning in the context of her domain. However, Heian understood her mother’s intentions perfectly, and she could feel which parts of the magic could do what they needed.

With an effort of will, Heian guided some of the Tear’s boundless strength where it needed to go, borrowing just the tiniest sliver of Yoshika’s essence to serve as an outer layer.

In moments, a near-perfect copy of Lee Jia appeared on the battlefield, soon to be joined by An Eui, Li Meili, and Hayakawa Kaede. They moved and acted like the real things, used the same techniques, and would even feel as though they had the same aura to those that weren’t intimately familiar with them.

Since Yoshika’s domain was everywhere, it was impossible to tell that they didn’t have it, and Longyan wasn’t about to try talking to them either. A closer inspection of their souls would reveal that they didn’t have any, but that too was impossible with Yoshika’s domain in the way—a perfect distraction.

“I’ll let you know if he figures it out, Mommy.”

“Thank you, sweetheart! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

Heian preened under the praise, then refocused her efforts on creating new constructs. Longyan was very good at destroying them.

—-

“I don’t care what she said, Yan Yue, please do not just haphazardly start scribbling over that formation.”

Yan Yue crossed her arms and pouted. What did Hyeong Daesung take her for?

“I wasn’t going to! But there must be a reason she asked me specifically, no?”

Do Hye chuckled.

“It’s fine! The spiritual portion of formations like this are much more dependent on the feelings of the person drawing them than the true meaning. My apprentice is still thinking like a Goryeon mage.”

Yue frowned—Do Hye’s presence was uncomfortable for everyone involved, but he had advanced their progress by leaps and bounds since his arrival, and even Yue had to admit that there was nobody in the world she’d rather have helping to conduct a grand spell like this.

“I suppose you’re the expert, but I can’t help but wonder how and why you know so much about this. Last I remembered, you were still using Yoshika as your lab rat to learn more about unified cultivation.”

“That was hardly my only avenue of study, just the most productive one. It’s a subject I’ve been poking away at for some time, and these sorts of multi-dimensional formations were one of my earliest breakthroughs.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Eui appearing out of nowhere, looking unusually frazzled. Her face was paler than usual, and even her normally immaculate hair was a mess. Yue knew that she could have controlled her appearance to be anything, but Yoshika had presented herself as Eui—harried and exhausted.

“How much longer?”

Do Hye stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Not long now. An hour? Maybe less.”

Eui didn’t even respond. She just vanished again. Yue swallowed hard and rushed to the formation to get to work. If even Yoshika's indomitable spirit was breaking, then there was no time to lose. Yue hoped she was alright.

—-

Long Ruiling prostrated herself before the Dragon Lord. She was the only thing separating him from the shield that protected the inner portion of the demi-realm. She was alone, having ordered Karto and Mel to go on without her. They had hesitated, but they were loyal and trustworthy—they wouldn’t contradict a direct order like that.

The Dragon Lord glowered down at her with an expression of sheer contempt. He was in human form, resembling a tall and muscular man with a pair of antler-like horns. Ruiling didn’t have horns like that, and she couldn’t shift between human and dragon forms like a true dragon.

It didn’t matter. She was who she was, and nobody could deny her that, no matter how they tried. And oh, did they try.

“You dare stand in my way, half-breed?”

She shook her head urgently, keeping it bowed as she responded.

“Never, my lord! I only beg that you will heed my petition and forgive my failure.”

He sneered down at her.

“By what right?”

“By the right passed down to me by my mother, Long Yuying, from her mother, Long Jie, from her mother, Long Xiaofan.”

He paused, narrowing his eyes.

“The exile’s brood? Your grandmother was given a choice, child, and she denied the clan. It is not I who denies your birthright, but she.”

“Nevertheless, I beg you.”

The Dragon Lord sighed.

“Raise your head, child. You shame my sister’s line with your groveling. There is no failure to forgive, as no task was given.”

Ruiling raised her head, but remained kneeling.

“I realize that now, my lord. I was taken in by the Snake’s ruse.”

“As were we all, leading to the fiasco that I am here to correct. The Sovereign’s Tear must never return to the divine realm.”

“That is precisely the petition I wish to make.”

He pursed his lips.

“Out of respect for my sister, I will hear it, but be swift.”

“Yes, my lord! Lady Yoshika is kind—perhaps even too kind! She shows mercy to her most dire enemies, and dotes endlessly upon her friends. I trust that your aims are noble, my lord, but I believe that hers are as well. If you take the time to explain yourself, she will listen. I do not think that she is your enemy.”

“She works with the Snake—the traitor who caused all of this. She can’t be trusted as long as his corruption hangs on her.”

Ruiling shook her head.

“Please! Just give her a chance! She’s as much a victim of Do Hye’s manipulation as the rest of us.”

He worked his jaw for a moment, considering her plea. In the end, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, child, but this is far too important to take such a risk on. Stand aside.”

Ruiling stared down into her lap. She’d done her best, hadn’t she? It’s not as if she could stand against the Dragon Lord on her own. Nobody would blame her for yielding now.

She didn’t want to. If she backed down now, she’d never realize her dream. Being recognized by the dragon clan was only one piece of the puzzle. If she submitted meekly to their tyranny, then what was the point?

Long Ruiling stood and raised her head defiantly, but she was stopped by a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Yoshika gave her a tired smile as she stepped forward to address the Dragon Lord.

“Are you absolutely certain that there’s no way we can cooperate?”