Chapter 1023: A Rude Welcoming
The forty-odd days of idle time left Wei Wuyin the agility to inquire about a wide range of topics. Unfortunately, besides certain aspects of cultivation, the Heavenly War Spirit's knowledge was very erratic. Her memories and knowledge were partially sealed, and while she knew things far beyond most, she was still in her development stage, and only bits and pieces awakened by specific stimuli can be properly recalled.
This restriction was due to its egg-like state, and the core reason why she was nestled in Wei Wuyin's Sea of Consciousness siphoning off mental energies was to further expand what she can remember and communicate. Perhaps it was the design of its creator or simply a flaw in its creation, but this was the unfortunate reality of its existence.
That said, the Heavenly War Spirit huffily complained that Wei Wuyin wasn't supposed to be the intended target for her owner. A prodigious elite being amongst elite beings at the Demi-Mortal Lord Phase, bordering the Earthly Saint Phase, should've acquired her, or at least should've had seniors at the peak of the Mystic Ascendant Realm. As an item valued at five million War Souls, it was unrealistic to expect that Wei Wuyin, a mere mortal, could fully utilize any of its abilities—abilities that it doesn't remember.
While outwardly frustrated that the Heavenly War Spirit was classified for both Soldiers and Commanders of War in the available listings, and the Heavenly War Spirit's selective knowledge, Wei Wuyin wasn't too vexed by the situation. He was still a Mortal, and quite a few profound details vastly exceeded his current level.
It did, however, inform him that when his mental energies transform on an intrinsic level, entering the mystic-grade, it should be able to rapidly nurture itself, shatter this egg, and be properly born for usage. While Wei Wuyin's mental energies were terrifying, they were severely limited in usage due to their mortal-graded quintessential nature.
While the Heavenly War Spirit could now use it to openly communicate, a feat it could barely do when he was at the Gravity Emission Phase, it was still unable to properly grow.
Only left with a sigh, Wei Wuyin learned what he could. Except for topics of the Mystic Dao, which was almost exclusively in Mysticism, the Heavenly War Spirit was fully knowledgeable in aspects of war.
Wei Wuyin was taught a lot about a variety of tactics and strategies for war, such as the value of an army in an age of cultivators, where supreme beings can slaughter billions with a blink of an eye, and a variety of combination tactics. It had even given tips on how to train soldiers, promote commanders, establish strong, principled rules that will become a creed for any army, and how to spot traitors, identify bad habits, and nurture loyalty.
The overall discussion was extremely educational and lengthy with an excessive amount of questions that left the Heavenly War Spirit siphoning his mental energies for weeks. Unfortunately, things like arts, spells, formations, arrays, and alchemy were topics it was unable to delve into.
Wei Wuyin looked at the City of Guardians teeming with anticipation. °Let this bait be delicious and juicy enough to sate my appetite.° He could only pray that Liu Yinlan's preparations to secure his position as the True Destined Voyager were worthy of a Worldly Saint and a World Sect.
At the tall, daunting gates of the City of Guardians, Wei Wuyin caught up with Liu Suyin, who was waiting there with three armored cultivators by her side. They were two men and one woman. They resembled the first guard he met before at the City of Endless' gates, with slight differences being their helmet's design.
Their Ascended auras were robust and vigorous, firmly established within the Soul of Mysticism Phase. They curiously eyed Wei Wuyin as he arrived, not an inch of his body was overlooked. From one of these guards, a bulky male human revealed an astonished expression.
"I can't sense his depths," the guard pointed out. Without warning, his eyes unleashed a surge of spiritual light as he executed an Ocular Spiritual Spell. Wei Wuyin's body was instantly swept by its brilliance. The light was invasive, intending to enter through Wei Wuyin's orifices and pores to gather information regarding his internal conditions, bypassing any concealment tools.
The act was incomparably rude. Yet despite his actions, none of the Ascended present, be it the other guards or Liu Suyin, leaped forward to admonish the guard for his actions. The Vice-Sect Master of the Void Voyage Sect simply looked on indifferently.
Wei Wuyin had held back initially, seeing how she would react to this invasion of his personal space, and he felt greatly disappointed. Then, as the spiritual light swam within his body, excavating all sorts of details, Wei Wuyin subtly tapped into his four Astral Souls, galvanizing the entirety of his spiritual strength.
BOOM!
With an explosive thought, Wei Wuyin retaliated with a precision pulse of his spiritual strength. It surfed the wave of radiance like a formless divinity, deeply hidden and terrifyingly god-like. It sped towards the guard who held a faint smile, and then suddenly, that smile froze.
The guard felt a foreign strength enter his body through his left eye. Instinctively, he resisted, and as a result, his left eye exploded in blood and juices. He staggered back. The others were stunned, but the guard howled in extreme pain as the foreign strength pierced through his esophagus, silencing him unnaturally, and then entered his dantian like a stealth missile.
When it reached his Dantian, his right eye bulged. The others acted at this point. They shot towards and grabbed the guard, sending out waves of their spiritual sense into his body in the hopes of figuring out what was wrong. They hadn't seen any attack or fluctuation of power.
Was the guard undergoing a spontaneous bout of cultivation deviation? Seeing that his ocular spell had backlashed, it might be conflicting with his Spiritual Cultivation Method. Unfortunately, Wei Wuyin's spiritual strength had already entered his Dantian, and his Mystic Soul vibrated intensely, instinctively sensing the threat. But the spiritual strength was merciless, smashing heavily against the Mystic Core!
Wei Wuyin's Spiritual Strength might not be at the mystic-grade on an intrinsic level, but in terms of raw power, it was unquestionably at the apex of the Mortal Dao at his cultivation stage. As an amalgamation of the pinnacle of physical energies, mental energies, and essence energies such as elemental energies within him that his body allowed at his stage of cultivation, the resulting spiritual energies were unimaginably powerful, and the byproduct, its Spiritual Strength, was even more so.
After all, it was multiplied by four!
CRACK!
Wei Wuyin's silver eyes watched as his spiritual strength crashed against the guard ruthlessly. The subsequent howl of his Mystic Soul was harrowing to hear, and the spiritual sense of his allies was rebuffed instinctively by its survival instincts. His Mystic Aura raged in absolute dreadful chaos. They were thrust out forcefully, shooting back thousands of meters with blood leaking out of their helmets. Their eyes were wide with shock and horror.
"He's experiencing deviation!" The female guard shouted. She didn't hesitate to run. With a spin, she flew off into the distance. The male guard, however, gritted his teeth. He looked towards Liu Suyin, about to ask her to interfere, yet she was nowhere to be seen.
Wei Wuyin was carried off by Liu Suyin, brought a hundred miles away in a blink of an eye. Her eyes which contained no emotions felt unbearably cold to the guard. In the end, he kicked off backward with clenched fists.
Clutching his head, the guard felt his entire body was in turbulence, and his Mystic Soul was on the verge of collapse. In his Sea of Consciousness, transmitted by his Mystic Soul, was the image of stern, glacial eyes. They were silver, like the most beautiful moons in a painting. A wave of regret surged in his heart.
"...!" Unable to scream, his Mystic Core began to emit scintillating mystic light. From inside his flesh, his arms, legs, neck, and face, it was as if an aurora borealis was swimming within them.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!!!
The Mystic Core was ravaged by foreign spiritual strength, unable to resist the terrifying and impossible to pinpoint strength as it caused unimaginable havoc. The body of the guard became bloated. It grew and grew. And it grew and grew. Until…
It could no longer grow.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
An explosion of epic proportions was unleashed, containing all of the guard's cultivated energies, uncontrolled, unfocused, and freely released! The explosion was massive, sweeping tens of miles in an instant. The walls glowed with a faint light, shielding itself from harm. But after it reached roughly thirty miles, the surface of the World Between the Fold began to ripple.
In the blink of a mortal's eye, all that untamed energy and power was sucked into a vortex. It came and went in an instant. There was no damage to anything, not even the ground. It was as if there was only one less person in existence and nothing more.
Wei Wuyin's eyes were calm. The guard's actions were taboo to cultivators, and if he was allowed to continue, his secrets could've been exposed. Liu Suyin looked his way, her eyes flickered. "What type of talisman did you use?" She had kept her eyes on Wei Wuyin and felt no fluctuation of any kind. If Wei Wuyin had a protective seal of Wu Yu or that armored Commander, she would've felt a mystic power signature, but there was nothing that happened.
To an outsider, the guard genuinely suffered a backlash and experienced cultivation deviation, an extremely rare type of event for Ascended but entirely possible. The cultivation method to cultivate a Grand Convergence Spatial Resonance had its own backlash that could devour a cultivator using their own power.
Wei Wuyin innocently blinked, "Talisman?"
Liu Suyin tried to glean something from his expression. Unfortunately, she found nothing. Moreover, there was no evidence that Wei Wuyin was responsible. She would never guess that the guard had allowed Wei Wuyin the opportunity to end his life by invading his body with his spiritual power, giving him a direct line to his Mystic Core without setting up defenses.
In a real battle, Wei Wuyin's spiritual strength might be terrifyingly impressive, but it could be passively resisted by Mystic Aura, instantly reacted to using spiritual sense, or dodged effortlessly. He was, after all, a mere Mortal. But even a bee, if given access to an elephant's brain, can use its stinger to kill a grand beast.
"Is it safe to enter the city?" Wei Wuyin looked at the spot where the guard had vanished.
"...Yes." Liu Suyin brought Wei Wuyin back. The two guards returned, their expressions ugly, and the male guard was seething in anger. But he only glared at Liu Suyin for the briefest of moments before hiding his expression under a guise of melancholy and loss.
He didn't blame Wei Wuyin; that child was under a hundred, a mortal at the Realm World Phase, and hadn't revealed any fluctuation of mystic power. However, Liu Suyin as the Vice-Sect Master could've saved him! The rage in his heart stomped with the ferocity of a thousand horses.
Under the two gazes of the guards, Liu Suyin said: "He's a Destined." Then, she gestured towards the crescent moon necklace hanging from Wei Wuyin's neck. The female guard sighed and nodded. The male guard gave Wei Wuyin's neck a look and similarly nodded.
Woosh!
The gates opened.
The two walked through the gates without looking back, entering the City of Guardians. However, the male guard gave one last fleeting look at Liu Suyin's back. The fire of hatred within his eyes blazed violently.
Boosh!
The gates closed.