Chapter 18 – Catastrophe Begets Creation

  The Carcass Grotto, being the large cavern that it was, had walls. Diyuan had kept flying north and west with his newly acquired flying sword. Directly west of the central castle was the Skeletal Cloud Bone Cliff, which Diyuan had left behind already. North of the central castle was the Ghostlight Grove, a place full of bioluminescent plants and fungi. Even the water would glow. The lights would create a hypnotic trap, luring unsuspecting creatures into its beauty. Diyuan had no counter to it, so he had intentionally flown even further west, attempting to avoid the glowing paradise.

  He went around a canyon that was in his path, filled with trees that sparked lightning from the top. That would be the settlement for the Stormfur Demon Monkeys. Some looked like they wanted to chase after him, sensing his spirit artifact, but their direction was off. Either it was because of the miasma or because the flying sword was weakened due to its crack.

  It was easy enough to avoid all of them. Once he finally reached the Carcass Grotto’s wall, he followed after it, looking for a spot to rest and recuperate. He reached a sort of dead zone. No demonic beasts, bones, or plants. Well, there was plants, but just weeds. He flew high now, looking for a ledge on the cavern’s wall to perch on.

  The urge to sleep started to come over him again. His broken body demanded to rest and recuperate. One time it seemed like he might have fallen unconscious, if him crashing into the wall with the flying sword didn’t shock his senses.

  He found a good spot, where a ledge jetted out, giving him coverage from below. If anyone flew up high, they might see him, but they would need to see through the miasma and track him through other means. That Pan Mumo only had one Clearlit Sight Pill, so Diyuan wouldn’t need to worry about that. The ledge itself was wide enough that he could lay and roll around a bit before falling over.

  Diyuan landed his sword and groaned as he rolled. He continued to fight the urge to sleep, focusing on the healing. He blinked a few times and looked up at the darkness above. The weeds would keep him company up here.

  Ting.

  Diyuan snapped his head to look at the sound. Floating in the air was a skeletal serpent, or eel-like creature, which tapped once on the cracked flying sword. It was a small thing, only as thick as his arm and as long as his forearm itself. Like the others, its bones glowed a green hue. It wasn’t an avian creature and had no wings, but it seemed to belong to the Netherwind Crane’s group of skeletal party.

  Had it followed him the entire time? Diyuan couldn’t defend himself if it looked like it wanted to attack. Hopefully it wouldn’t try to drag him back. It looked small and weak, incapable of carrying something as large as him.

  It tapped at the flying sword again and again, focusing on the cracks. It flew up a bit and then charged at the sword. On impact, the sword broke. A puff of spirit energy filled the air as the artifact died. Diyuan wanted to mourn the loss of his flying spirit artifact, but was worried the bone creature would do the same to him next.

  The skeletal serpent went into the smoke of spirit energy. It spun in place, making the energy whirl. It flew out and opened its mouth. Several threads were pulled out of the whirl of energy. The skeletal serpent absorbed it, leaving the rest of the energy to dissipate into the miasma. When it was done, a small light formed on its back. Small and pathetic looking wings appeared.

  It turned its attention to Diyuan.

  It hovered above his head and tapped once. It was a gentle tap, but Diyuan had a feeling he knew what it wanted to do. He had some movement of his limbs, but not enough to do anything worthwhile.

  “Here, try this instead,” Diyuan said with a groan.

  He made a spirit artifact appear, one that he had taken from the bone nest. The skeletal serpent tapped it once and twice, then flew up and slammed into it. A puff of spirit energy came out as the artifact died. Once again, the skeletal serpent made the energy whirl before absorbing only specific parts of the energy. At first, he couldn’t tell why it only absorbed some energy but not others. But as he brought out the fourth and fifth artifact, he realized some of the spirit energy was purer than the rest.

  However, he also realized he was going to run out of these half-broken spirit artifacts. Soon enough, it’ll be his head it wants to break open.

  He made a paper talisman appear from his storage ring, one that had belonged to the headless Honglie clan member that had died outside the pocket world. Maybe it would have an interest in that instead? It poked at it once, then looked at Diyuan. It began to fly up, preparing to charge down—its target this time being Diyuan himself. Diyuan was prepared to warp in order to dodge. Part of him lamented how he couldn’t just activate the paper talisman as a Spiritweave cultivator. He willed for it to work, knowing that it wouldn’t.

  The skeletal serpent reached the peak, turning its head to slam down. In his desperation, Diyuan used limitless Mesmer’s Echo with the intent to activate the mid-grade talisman. He had no expectations, but if this random arte allowed him to use sound transmission, then maybe it could help him here.

  An earth stalagmite shot up out of the ground, right where the talisman had been located. Its purpose was to pierce through defenses, and the skeletal serpent had none. The spike tore right through it, shattering it and causing the bones to break apart, landing on in pieces beside him.

  Diyuan blinked at what just happened. “Of course Mesmer’s Echo can activate mid-grade talismans. Because why wouldn’t it?”

  Diyuan looked around to see if there were any other skeletal creatures nearby, but there were none. Finally feeling safe once again, he closed his eyes and switched his internal arte. He previously had the normal Bonegrit Dreadflesh active, but figured he may as well have both the normal and limitless healing artes operating at the same time.

  With just the limitless healing him, it was going to take a full week to completely recover. If he added the second healing, perhaps it would cut that down by half.

  After he swapped to Benediction Balm, he began meditating while also using the limitless version of it. But it wasn’t just an additive effect. It was like going from using one hand to two, a dramatic increase in efficiency. He felt the weave of energy working and healing his bones and body. His senses to the outside world were cutoff during the process, but that was just how it was with his family’s healing arte. It kept working, healing what it could. Diyuan suspected that instead of 3 days with the combined arte, it would instead take only a day to fully recover.

  Of course, his limitless Bonegrit Dreadflesh would still be in its exhausted state. He would need to keep that in mind the next time he went out. At least there would be no more Dharma cultivators when the first real day finished.

  Hours passed. The miasma would thicken and thin out every four hours, acting as the pocket world’s personal day and night cycle. Diyuan’s senses would remain disconnected from the outside world as he kept healing in peace.

  ***

  Nearly a full day came to pass. Diyuan opened his eyes. Exhaustion left as he breathed out air from his lungs. There was still a little bit left to heal, but that could be done by the limitless Benediction Balm as he walked about.

  He looked down on the destroyed spirit artifacts that remained, along with the stalagmite that stayed after the mid-grade talisman was used. That tickled his brain for a bit and he wanted to figure out more about Mesmer’s Echo. Was it simply an arte that allowed him to use Spiritweave abilities?

  The arte itself was described as something that could tell the owner how to dodge after learning how the attack would hit. That description was so useless that Diyuan decided he would ignore it entirely. He would try to see what else Mesmer’s Echo could do.

  So he tested other Spiritweave abilities. One ability was to pick up objects from a distance. He tried using Mesmer’s Echo to make that happen. Nothing. He then tried to create runic wings, but nothing came out. He then tried to use the amplified omnipresent speech that Spiritweave cultivators could do.

  “Testing, testing,” Diyuan said.

  Nothing. It wasn’t amplified.

  And yet, what it couldn’t do gave him the clue he needed to help figure it out. He suspected he knew a portion of what limitless Mesmer’s Echo did. It could all be summed up in two words:

  Information exchange.

  Spiritweave cultivators had a bit of divine in them when they created their second core using celestial essence. They could use their energy to do things they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. However, there were things they could do that required zero spirit energy.

  Even on their deathbed, with no strength to move, a Spiritweave cultivator could send a sound transmission. They could also activate a talisman. None of those activities actually had an energy cost. That’s what limitless Mesmer’s Echo allowed him to do.

  Runic wings, moving distant objects, and speaking with an omnipresent voice did have an energy cost.

  But one thing that was unique with limitless Mesmer’s Echo, that Spiritweave cultivators couldn’t do, was that it could also receive information—specifically, hearing other people’s sound transmission. None of this made sense in the context of the original description, where it was about dodging after knowing an enemy’s attack. Diyuan had tried to use the arte back when he was training outside the pocket world. There was no special information he gained using the arte.

  For now, since he figured it was a sort of information exchange, he could try to see what other information he could glean from random things. He temporarily stopped his limitless healing to begin some testing. The first thing he tried was a sensory type test. He brought out one of the half-broken spirit artifacts and made sure it didn’t touch him. For him to sense what the spirit artifact did, he would have to physically touch the object and pour energy into it. He suspected that this test would fail and he wouldn’t gain any information.

  He was wrong.

  Or, at least, partially wrong. Even from the distance,

  The Ashbark Lantern was a spirit artifact that released smoky energy, hiding spiritual residue within. It would make anyone inside immune to sensory detection. It wouldn’t block any of the physical senses, such as hearing someone walk or simply seeing the smoke, but it would work well enough in the Carcass Grotto. That same smoky energy would even block the demonic beasts from sensing the spirit artifact itself. It was a good tool to have. The original owner still somehow ended up losing it, however.

  What made Diyuan partially wrong about his initial hypothesis regarding Mesmer’s Echo was that the spirit artifact wanted to reject his ranged probing. But in its half-broken state, it didn’t have the ability to do so. He suspected the lantern could be used for a while longer before it broke entirely, so he was going to keep it on hand for now. It certainly was interesting to see how his information gathering worked.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He looked over at some weeds growing on the walls. He tried to collect information from them but that failed quite readily. It seemed like anything that wasn’t in a half-broken state would reject his probing. He couldn’t get anything, like if it was bitter, poisonous, or if it dried out quickly. It was a weak spiritual plant, not useful for much of anything, but its “defenses” were stronger than the half-broken spirit artifacts. What a curious ability this limitless Mesmer’s Echo was.

  Diyuan placed the Ashbark Lantern back into his storage ring and took out a less appealing spirit artifact. There was something else he was curious about. He broke the spirit artifact, causing the spirit energy to puff up into the air. He tried to gain information from the energy, to see if anything came from it. Nothing happened. He tried to identify the pure strings of energy within the dead artifact’s spirit energy smoke. He sensed there were many, but it was too cloudy to get a feel of it clearly. So he tried to pull them out, much like how the skeletal serpent did. But when he did so, the entire cloud of energy dragged with it, like a sticky substance.

  He realized that the skeletal serpent didn’t try to drag the pure strings out from the cloud by brute power; it first made it whirl. Diyuan made it spin at a speed faster than what the skeletal serpent had done. He then tried to pull the pure string energies out again. The whirl tilted a bit, but the rotation kept it mostly in place. A single thread came out, though much thicker than what the serpent had. And Diyuan knew that it wasn’t entirely pure; some of the normal energy had clumped with it but he couldn’t tell which was which.

  The bones beside Diyuan started to rattle a little. The remains of the skeletal serpent still had some form of life, it seemed.

  Diyuan brought the energy to one of the bones. As it rattled, the pure spirit energy started to split from his thick thread, entering into the bone and being absorbed by it.

  Soon after, the smoke of spirit energy dissipated. The rattling bones stopped moving.

  The entire sequence of events made Diyuan think of something. The whirling energy reminded him a lot of something he had seen quite a bit of.

  He focused inward, at the whirlpool vortex that should have been a Spiritweave core. The vortex was similar to the spin of energy he had just played with. Or even the miasma’s own whirl when it absorbed a person’s cultivation.

  Curious, Diyuan sent information that commanded only the purer parts of the vortex within him to gather together and form his Spiritweave core. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He had never heard of energy being pure or less pure, especially when it came to forming a Spiritweave core. He wasn’t sure if anything would happen.

  Something started to work.

  Three clumps of thick threads pulled free from the vortex and moved to the center, where the core should have formed originally. The threads collided, but bounced off like something was off. He tried again, gaining four clumps of thick threads again. But the clumps weren’t fully pure, he knew. He needed to pull out just the thin threads that the skeletal serpent could do.

  What Diyuan needed was practice.

  He took out several more spirit artifacts and broke them one at a time, using the smoke of spirit energy to practice. He would bring his threads to the now ratting bones, identifying and splitting off the threads to leave the pure ones.

  The more the bones absorbed, the less they needed and started to attach to another piece of bone. Diyuan brought out another talisman for safety, in case he would need it should the creature come back to life as a result of his experimenting.

  He spent the next few hours practicing. He got better, where he was able to pull out more threads, and they were thinner too, showing that he wasn’t pulling in the unpure threads as much. And more hours would pass, perhaps even up to a half day. Diyuan put more focus on this as it could impact how he handled his future Spiritweave core. In the end, the majority of the spirit artifacts he had stolen from the bone nest were all shattered on the ledge. The skeletal serpent’s remains kept rattling now, almost ready to come back to life. But Diyuan focused inward instead once more.

  He pulled thin threads out of the vortex. It was a dozen at first. Then it increased by several times as he kept pushing for it. Hundreds were pulled. Hundreds upon hundreds. It wasn’t a large force of a water stream, but fabric weave. Or rather, it was weaves of spirit energy. They all collided at the center of the vortex, pooling the power. Some clicked together, like they were meant to merge. Those that merged went and clicked with other merged threads. A sphere started to form. Not quite yet a core, but it kept getting denser. But then something went wrong. The threads failed somehow. The circle shrank and the threads broke apart, returning back to the vortex.

  “What in the…”

  Did anyone else know that celestial essence had pure energy? Did anyone ever make a core from just that, rather than the lump of power that would normally be drawn in? Was it possible to form a core with just the pure threads? It seemed like it, but he didn’t know why it failed the first time.

  He tried again, causing the threads to weave into the center. It failed again, returning to the vortex. He realized something when doing it the second time. So he tried again and again. And several more times.

  He came to the realization on what was happening. The speed of which the threads launched out of the vortex was always different. The limitless Mesmer’s Echo could identify which ones were pure, but it couldn’t control the speed at which it collided at the center. And he also knew that it had to hit just right in order for the condensation of a core to begin. Many threads failed to merge because they missed each other.

  But he also knew exactly just how impossible that was. To form a core with the vortex disrupting things was akin to building a home by throwing the necessary pieces into a tornado just right, using the force of the tornado to assemble the parts. The level of chaos and precision required was so unlikely that it was unfeasible to try.

  Even using the Void Grass wouldn’t help. With it, it could form the Spiritweave core normally by weakening the overall vortex, which would allow him to pull a large chunk of it and aim it at the center. That was the original plan. When the celestial essence began pouring in anew, the power of it would be aimed at the center without an exit, creating the core. But the pure threads problem was a different matter. A weaker tornado wouldn’t make it easier to build a house.

  And yet, maybe Diyuan could create a Spiritweave core just using the pure threads. He had only just learned about the information exchange of his limitless Mesmer’s Echo; perhaps he could learn more about it that would help him in this journey. And just how would that core differ from a normal Spiritweave core? The Void Grass was in the central castle, he knew, which would allow him to create the normal Spiritweave core. He would need to think about this up until he reached that spot. He would need to make a decision on whether or not he would simply use the Void Grass and make the normal core, or try to follow this path that had an unknown end.

  He would need to decide before he left the Carcass Grotto.

  The rattling bones wouldn’t cease. Annoyed, Diyuan took out another half-broke spirit artifact and shattered it. Using his more experienced knowledge, he pulled out far more thin threads than what the skeletal serpent had been capable of. The pure energy threads pulled at each bone, bringing it together to form the skeletal serpent once more. Diyuan would have to activate the talisman to break it, but at least it’d stop rattling.

  But something strange happened. When skeletal serpent formed together and came to life, it didn’t gain the green glow anymore. Instead, it glowed pure white, giving it a ghostly look. The wings it had formed earlier was no longer there. It was back to its eel-like look.

  The skeletal serpent was alive once more. It turned its head to look at Diyuan, but otherwise didn’t move or take action in any way. Diyuan tapped its head once, but it didn’t react or attack.

  Curious, Diyuan tried to gain some information from it, much like how he would when he peeked into someone’s sound transmission. And he indeed learned something about it.

  It was a puppet. More specifically, it was his puppet now.

  Diyuan blinked, confused. Wasn’t it a demonic beast?

  [Spin,] Diyuan commanded.

  The ghostly serpent spun in place. It stopped and look at Diyuan again, waiting for the next command.

  [Can you talk?] Diyuan asked.

  Nothing.

  [What can you do?]

  Nothing.

  [Can you scout the area?]

  The ghostly bone serpent left, roaming to the area below. Diyuan watched it leave.

  What just happened? Did he just gain a puppet by controlling pure energy into it? But this one had a white glow to its bones, rather than the sickly green glow.

  But if this was a puppet, then did that mean all the other avian type bone creatures were puppets? Who was the puppet master? The Netherwind Crane? Or was that crane also a puppet and not a real demonic beast?

  Diyuan shook his head. When it came to puppets, they were things that were made by rune masters, typically as toys. And they weren’t able to obey commands like the ghostly serpent had. Maybe the ghostly serpent had a certain level of awareness because it absorbed so many spirit artifacts? He would have to play with it to see what he could do with it. Once that was done, he would start his counterattack on the other clans.

  While he waited for the ghostly serpent to return, he looked up at the miasma, which moved and flowed similar to an ocean’s waves. Out of curiosity, he tried to see if he could get information from the miasma itself. It seemed to detect when a cultivator was nearby, absorbing their cultivation and parts of their artes. So maybe it was like a spirit artifact.

  What Diyuan didn’t realize was just how close that was to being true.

  Diyuan gained information in the same sense of a broken spirit artifact. In this case, there was a natural will to reject any observation, but that will was nearly nonexistent—like it was half-broken or sleeping. No name or information was given except for one thing: the miasma was being created by something for the single purpose of draining spiritual energy for its own use.

  And Diyuan was told exactly where this thing was.

  ***

  Xie Yanshuang stood with her arms slightly bend, giving just enough room for the horns coming out of the top of her wrist to rest on the ground. Almost two days had passed since their initial arrival into the Carcass Grotto and she was already drained down to level 4 Spiritweave. Considering her battle against the Netherwind Crane and other creatures that wanted to take advantage of the situation, she should have been reduced even further. But her energy stamina was unrivaled. The Ancient Onyx Behemoth was a demonic beast that could unleash powerful blows one after another, seemingly endlessly. The reason for that was the two forward horns it had, which absorbed the excess energy that blasted out. She managed to retain her strength and continue her battles because of that.

  Now that she was in the Spiritweave realm instead of the Dharma realm, those two same horns were resized and repositioned; energy based, instead of a physical growth. They jetted from her wrist like forward blades. They were long enough that she could walk and let them drag against the ground. But she didn’t want to be tracked so she would keep them lifted. Truthfully, this miasma was a boon for her. The horns were able to absorb energy out of the miasma, as if the miasma was an arte in itself. She didn’t know why it worked that way, but it allowed her to have retained a significant amount of cultivation when others would have been drained even further.

  In fact, if not for this “cheat” of hers, she was certain her entire party would have been wiped out by the Netherwind Crane’s attack. The idea of being killed because of a Foundation cultivator irked her to no end.

  The rest of her team was not as well equipped. She had started out with 6, where one needed to be replaced after having his head crushed, and a seventh was added to the team. That seventh member, Duan Chenshi, had never shown up. The Foundation boy claimed Duan Chenshi betrayed them but she wasn’t sure what was true.

  And now they were down to only two. Herself and Pan Mumo. Pan Mumo had split their team by chasing after the Foundation boy when he had been taken by the Netherwind Crane’s bone spawns. That split in forces left the others to fend off the Stormfur Demon Monkeys, leaving them to die. Or perhaps they lived; maybe the Stormfur Demon Monkeys dragged them away to their lair. Unlikely, as they had found their storage ring arms detached from the body, as if the demonic beasts knew they could be a threat. She had no intention of going after them. They had finally escaped the demonic creature’s chase themselves, losing another one when they lost their ability to fly due to the miasma’s effects. Right now, she stood alone and was waiting for Pan Mumo to return.

  She looked over into the miasma, hearing footsteps coming her way. Pan Mumo stepped into view and held up a spirit artifact dagger in his hand.

  [This is the Wind’s Edge,] Pan Mumo said. [We can use it as evidence that Yuhan Diyuan is dead.]

  [Perfect.] Xie Yanshuang looked around at the miasma. It was getting thick rather quickly. [Night approaches. We’ll find a spot to stick to for these next four hours, then we’ll leave the grotto. Send a message to the other groups and tell them we killed the Foundation boy.] Even with her behemoth horns collecting small bits energy from the miasma, it wouldn’t halt the big wave of the miasma’s absorption when the grotto’s night ended. She would be drained to level 3 Spiritweave then, but she had no intention of staying inside any longer. [No reason to have them risk death searching for him. What is their status anyway?]

  Pan Mumo took out several message talismans. He activated them and sent them flying, where each paper knew where to go. [Their cultivation is worse off than ours, though they didn’t have as many deaths,] Pan Mumo said. [Mostly fighting each other. When they fought for resources or parts, they agreed the loser was whoever lost a cultivation level first. Though, the Gu clan ran into the Malice Monarch Trees. Only a few are at level 3 Spiritweave, the rest are below that.]

  [Ha. Day two is almost over and no one is level 4 Spiritweave. Except the Lianhua clan, maybe. In any case, I can’t wait to see the faces of that Foundation boy’s father and sister when they hear he’s dead.] Xie Yanshuang would savor the feeling. It would also give her face, considering that her tribe demanded she stepped in to kill him. Other than the Honglie youths that tried to trespass into the Zhengyi clan territory and died for it, one of her cousin’s nephews had died several years back when the Administrator’s Archive last opened. She didn’t care so much. Each cultivator should be responsible for themselves.

  The upside for losing so many members was that they would split five million between just themselves. In four hours, when day returned, they would leave the Carcass Grotto, reveal that the Foundation boy was dead, and claim the Nether Mark.