The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

The heavens changed, as I reached out with my power and reached out to the empire as a whole. What I’d done before paled in comparison to what I was doing now. There were no chains to break from the heavens, as I fundamentally altered their nature.

I felt the divine tree manifest, a massive tree reaching up into the sky, as if its branches were holding the sky up, and its roots went deep into the earth, spreading out into the world. I felt my connection to the people, to those I knew, but many who I didn’t know either. I felt their will, felt their faith in me, felt the ties that tied us together in a way that tied all people together. I felt that bond, felt it feeding power into me, changing me, morphing me into something greater, something more than just who I was, and so I rose, a vessel of true divine power and will, as the four spirit ring in my soul blossomed and I reached the edge of transcendence.

I moved my hand, and the world obeyed my command. The ground moved shooting towards Yang Shen. The demon blocked the strike by his own profusion of will. I called upon the heavens, as clouds swirled in the skies, and lightning strikes struck down. Yang Shen rose his hand and commanded them to stop, and the bolts froze in mid air, breaking the laws of reality. Be grabbed those bolts by his hand and then shot then back at the heavens. The heavens rumbled, and I felt a surge of rage rise from the divine power above, but I moved past it.

The world was a canvas, and we were two gods spraying color on it, trying to outdo one another in our vision for how the world should look.

One moment we were standing, another we struck. The strike tore the world, but our imposed will fixed the gap, the weight of our presences weighing down reality, making it more durable than it would be on its own.

I no longer stepped, I simply moved and the world obeyed, moving me from one place to another. I stepped across mountains, jumped through the skies, as we fought, our strikes sending shockwaves that altered the weather.

I punched a mountain, shattering it, using the cracked rocks and directing them to strike at Yang Shen. The demon burned the rocks into nothing, and then redirected a river to try and drown me. We continued to fight, continued to move till eventually we hit the ocean.

A strike sent me into the water as Yang Shen followed behind. I willed the water around me, commanding it, as a tsunami rose into the air, threatening to swallow. Yang Shen willed the wind around him forming a tornado that sucked up the water, sending it into the skies as it filled the clouds, before falling down as rain.

I rushed towards him, the collided forces of Void palm shattering reality and summoning the void itself as I strike at him. He blocked with an opposition to void itself, with pure creation made energy, as the two seemed to nullify each other, leaving just the forces of our fist. The strike between the two of us parted the ocean across a straight line, before the water resorted itself from the receding shockwave.

Yang Shen turned and hit me hard, sending me high into the skies, I shot above and he rose with me. I blocked his next strike as we fought in the skies above, moving further and further upwards.

I punched him, carrying the force of the power of the entire empire. I felt the pulsing power even from here, every living thing in the empire was connected to me in this moment, connected to where I was and this fight, and I let that power manifest. I struck Yang Shen and he blocked my strikes, pushing back. We continued to rise till the world began to darken around us and I vaguely took note of the world curving beneath me, as I felt the primordial Qi… no, the primordial Chi of the beyond.

I called upon that as well, let that unknown chaotic power give me strength, little slivers and strands of it that I could not truly contain and I rushed towards Yang Shen.

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I felt the moon and the sun, the entities of reality around me burning with celestial power. We moved at a scale beyond this world as he danced across the edges of the planet, fighting each other.

Moment after moment, punch after punch, I felt the blows landing, and I felt them land on me. The world itself shivered, witnessing the battle as I drew upon the night infinite power I seemed to command, pulling it all together.

We both knew this battle would never end, not until we both gave it our all. I drifted at the edge of space and looked at the world underneath me. This was absurd, all of this was absurd, and I felt it, here, there was reality greater than this out there, but in this moment, this was the place I was in, the home I needed to protect and so I did my part.

I drew upon the power, I drew upon each leaf, each plant, each bug, each child, each mortal, each cultivator, I drew upon the seas, I drew upon the earth, I drew upon the sky and the clouds, I drew upon the sun and the moon, I drew upon the stars and the cosmos and the distant things that created the primordial power that all creation existed within. I drew upon it all and let me fill it for all I was, I let it become a part of me, and a part of my being and I manifested in into a single strike.

I did not have a name this time, there was no name for it. It was all I had, all I was connected to, all I meant to preserve.

I roared, screaming as I shot forward and our fists collided.

The world shook beneath us, as the light from the impact blinded me. I felt myself being shot backwards, I felt myself tumbling as I crashed though the world, burning up like a descending meteor before smashing through mountain peaks and landing into the earth.

I came to a stop at the place I’d begun when I had first started. In the centre of Azure city, within the royal palace. And that was indication enough of the difference that existed between us.

I had nothing left, not enough enough to lift a finger.

I watched Yang Shen descend from the skies. He was injured, quite heavily so, his prosthetic arm was gone, and a part of his body was missing entirely. I realized belatedly that there was a hole in my chest, but I was alive, I did not know, but in this moment I could not feel any of it.

The demon looked down at me, huffing, spent from the fight as much as I was. His lips pressed into a thin line, and then he reached out to my soul. I felt it happen like a severing, a pull that cut off something that had become a part of me. I screamed then, from the pain of that severing, as I felt the two spirit beasts that existed inside of me be pulled out.

Xuanwu and Qinglong appeared, both roaring but their power was spent too, I’d used all I had and more. I watched Yang Shen’s domain spread out, a demon with red skin and four arms manifest behind him as Zhuque and Baihu appeared. The Black Tortoise, The Azure Dragon, The Vermillion Bird, and the White Tiger. All four of them were gathered here, and all four of them found themselves bound by Yang Shen’s chains.

The divine beasts resisted, but it was not to be, as whatever technique the demon used took hold, and a shudder of power passed over him.

I felt it happen, felt the divinity snap into place, felt it change and morph as the four divine beasts and the demon, the asura was pulled into Yang Shen, and then, I saw the demon change.

His body changed, his features altering. He grew taller, his skin turned a shade of red as two are arms sprouted from his back.

It was a gruesome thing, and yet there was the touch of divine within it.

And yet there was something wrong, something deeply and fundamentally wrong with what was happening here. I saw a brief moment of panic on Yang Shen’s face, and then I saw something twist and break.

The world shook all around me, the heavens rumbled in the skies, the earth shuddered beneath me, as something was born in this moment. Something new, something different.

The creature took a step, walking closer to me as I felt the last vestiges of divinity fading from me, and as my body began to realize that it was not supposed to live in the conditions I was in.

But I only saw one thing, as a horrifying realization sank my gut.

“Who… are you?” I asked the demon, the asura that stepped towards me. The creature looked at me curiously, paused, and its mouth contorted upwards as it gave me a smile.

“God,” it said, and I saw one of its hands move, I felt something touch my neck for a brief moment as the world spun around me.

And then everything went dark.