[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 60 - Zi Zhen Walks Again Amongst Bakers

Zi Zhen bowed to the Second Calamity, lady of the Forest, Mythical Fox Spirit Beast Ascendant. 

A creature of myth and story tales that should not have been real. A fairytale just like the possibility of dragons taking human form, or white tigers and the golden crow. None of them should have been real. Spirit Beasts weren’t meant to have the ability to ascend to human heights. Limited they were in fundamental ways that prevented the Heavens from opening their gates and allowing them to the realm of their ancestors and forefathers. 

Yet, here he was bowing… 

Nah, scraping and bootlicking a fox Spirit Beast that walked with a human form and many large tails that swayed behind it in a mesmerizing staccato.   

“There you are,” the fox said, laying on his discuses after claiming them and his entire domain. 

Not a single member of his Dark Palace Gate had been allowed to leave, forced to swear fealty to her or die a brutal death. Just as he had always expected, none of them were truly loyal to him. 

What could I have expected? That is the way of our Demonic path and its ilk. Nothing but greed and unfulfilled envy. 

She snapped her finger and the thousands of delicate Qi threads that had surrounded him vanished as though they never existed. The miracle work she had done had no remanence in the physical world other than a single item. One that nobody would have believed him if asked. “Brand new arm. I was always the number one genius in our Medical Halls. No one in the entirety of the Frozen Palace could compete with my sheer potential.”

Frozen Palace, Ice Fortress of the Dead Tiger, Blizzard Fields of the Vibrant Valley, and many more named places escaped her by mistake. 

Locations he memorized for the future.

Lands he would ravish and ruin. Vengeance wrought upon her and her people. Meng Li, Matriarch and the greatest cultivator to ever ascend from her clan, would find the Ribbons of the Black Plague turning their vibrant valleys into desolate frozen tundras. Their fortresses crumbled into piles of boulders and stones and the frozen palace…

He would force her to bend the knee and propagate its halls with his spawn. 

Geniuses inheriting potential and power unbound from both parents.

That would be the true beginnings of his clan. A true Hu Clan–

No! Never a Hu again. A Zi Clan to conquer greater realms than this world could imagine. A Clan of Demons.

“Thank you, Lady Meng Li. Your medical prowess is unmatched under heaven.”

Meng Li preened at the compliment, simple and easy to butter up. Power and brawn weren’t the end all be all it seemed, plots and the long game would do him more than pure cultivation until he could match her. 

Zi Zhen had just reached this realm not even a few weeks ago. 

His age limit had been increased many folds, potential turned pristine, and future bright even under the yoke of a tyrant. 

“You may leave. I have… things to do in private.”

Zi Zhen bowed again. He spun on his heels and left Meng Li to her own machinations. Previously, he had assumed something of great measure had to have been occurring within his cavernous hall. Something worthy of a Calamity that had nearly killed him with nothing but a wave of her hand. Yet, he had made a discovery. 

Meng Li was not the Sage he thought she was. 

Her secret was… mundane. Simple. So simple it drove Zi Zhen mad.

She would pull out a makeshift oven and stove. Pull out resources that had scents wafting out and stirring his cultivation just being around. Creating something special, or so he had thought before he learned the truth. This was no cauldron of secret power. No hidden technique of immortals and True Sages that could conquer entire planets alone. It was not worthy of a powerful matriarch that was Meng Li.

Fucking baking cookies and cake?! Of all things that could have made me lose respect for such a powerful being, it had to be something so… human and mortal? Who the hell eats sweets anyway? What was the point in her frenzied focus to improve her baking skill anyway? What sense does it make?

Zi Zhen had considered that maybe her Dao revolved around such unremarkable aspects of existence, but that had been proven wrong. He had been touched by her Qi many times already. Healed, beaten, tortured, nothing from what he experienced indicated a Dao relating to cooking or baking. Rather an endless freeze and tyrant power were all he had ever caught from her. 

It is unbecoming to dirty your hands with… 

He shivered at the amount of sheer embarrassment he felt for any superior being to have to lower themselves to working with dough, sweet cream, ice and milk and sugar–

Zi Zhen tilted his head as he stepped out of the cavern proper to the ledge that led down into the Dark Palace Gate’s many buildings. A red burning flame filled the horizon, tainting the bright, cloudless sky that had been there when he entered to meet Meng Li. It was an illusionary swaying thing, he noticed quickly. A mirage that had somehow infiltrated his natal palace and mind–

The world in its entirety rumbled.

Lady Meng Li appeared in the sky with her hands raised. A dome of pale blue light surrounded the entire mountain as Qi, unlike anything he had ever witnessed flooded the very plane of existence they all stood upon. She screamed as it crashed into her barrier, shattering it as quickly as it arrived. Her form dropped like a meteor and cratered into the distant mountain ridges. Even her empowered form was nothing compared to the power that crushed everyone to their knees. 

Yet, no one died from its malevolent presence.

It was then that Zi Zhen learned what true power looked like. 

There wasn’t even an ounce of killing intent imbued into the Qi and Greater Dao. Nothing but pure unadulterated dominance promising annihilation and destruction if called upon even slightly. No one could stand before it. Nothing in this world could fight it. 

Not even a second Calamity. 

Zi Zhen raised his head and let his senses work with the presence that dominated everything to extend his sight toward the fog and crater that had been caused by Meng Li’s failed attempt to rebuff the warning threat.

The ascendant fox laid there unharmed, if scuffed up. Her hand raised as she stared at it. 

She must be questioning her own power and existence. Just like I had not too long ago. Oh how the tables have turned, you–

The Qi that pressed him down froze for a second before it began to reel back. Slowly pulling away like a blanket, but it had left its mark already within the air and lands. Even if that majority was used for something beyond his understanding. 

Zi Zhen took a deep breath as he heard a volcano erupt in the distance. A dormant thing that had not been activated in eons. 

Qi, pure and untainted, rushed into his body in quantities unlike anything before this. There had never been a time of such abundance even in the times of his predecessors during his earliest days. It was an abrupt change he could not understand. What had happened to cause this drastic event? Had the First Calamity done something or was this what the awakening of a primordial looked like?

There was no indication to one or the–

Zi Zhen dropped unconscious as the world began to rise and fall within the higher realms as the system errors and overrides began to occur around Yin Hu.

Not a single being remained awake as a new age was called forth. 

Not Meng Li, nor any dragon. Not the hidden true powers that lay dormant and have awakened for a few scant moments during the initial tsunami of Qi. Not even the isolated enclaves with Patriarchs and Matriarchs working to ascend and were the true peak of this world's human cultivators and Spirit Beasts.

They would not rise from their slumber until the system finally set the world into its proper ranking and allowed for an advancement to all bloodlines to prevent catastrophe from ending everything and everyone on the planet. 

Rising in the greater realm may provide better resources and potential, but it had its downsides as well. 

Void Creatures noticed. Things of destruction and chaos. 

Ancient Clans, Sects, Pavilions, Battle Halls, and more locked onto the hurtling globe from a distance. Wary of what could cause such a drastic eruption in Qi and power that made them tremble so far away. 

All the while Yin Hu was busy tucking his little girls into their sleeping beds and making sure they were bundled up warmly. None the wiser to the changes around him. 

Not because he couldn’t sense the wider world. Nay. It just wasn’t worthy of being on his radar. 

Why would man or woman notice a molecule moving when it could cause them no harm? An insect buzzing a thousand miles away could never attract the attention of a dragon slumbering within its mountains and caves. 

It was simply not worth noticing, even if he did not understand.