217. Domain Unleashed

The first thing that Alistair realized was that the scarred woman and the two armed guards had vanished.

A setup, or just them saving their necks? It doesn’t truly matter. Now, we have to survive.

The battle between Profounds raged in the distance. More nuclear explosions went off miles apart each time, an all-encompassing stench of rotting flesh and bark spreading from the clashes.

But that was for Chu Hua to sort out. Her battle was the central one, but in order to live, they needed to defeat or at least hold off ten Middle Adepts.

Ten against four, none of whom was over level 105.

Time came to a standstill as Alistair combined his mind with Dev'rox, while the calm waters of the ocean of tranquility embraced him like an old friend.

His heartbeats felt aeons apart.

Fuhao began singing, her vibrant Dao surrounding him. Not with malicious intent, but with vitalizing power.

Riyord was still in a daze, his reactions not up to snuff.

Berengar was in the process of gathering a purple lighting cloak around his body, his sword already drawn.

Alistair gathered Ashendar’s mighty dragonfire over his palm.

“Feast of my power,” declared the ancient red dragon. “Give these heretics their funeral pyre.”

A second passed, the 400 points of fire affinity Mana growing to the size of a beach ball.

The one weakness of Ashendar’s flames was the enormous activation time. But with the enemy starting so far away, it was a perfect opportunity.

While the heretics ran toward them, they split up into four groups. Their intentions were evident. Three for Alistair and Berengar, two for Riyord and Fuhao. Their speed was a notch below Alistair’s top speed, before the 25% “Heroism” multiplier when facing reprobate evil.

A half second passed. They were half a mile away.

The dragonfire condensed down into a point onto his finger, the sheer heat of the flame singing even his tough skin.

Alistair made the first move of the battle, dragging his finger from right to left as the fire exploded into a stream of destruction. The air itself was consumed in the wake of the flames, as the conflagration spread in the direction of his finger.

While his fires blocked their sight, he ran behind it at a leisurely pace, feeling the absurd vigor coursing through his veins. Not yet.

Berengar also moved to action, but Alistair’s [Reality Sense] was focused on what was ahead. There was no time to pay attention to the right side of the battlefield.

Dark symbols appeared within the flames—the Language of the Pure Dao, or the First Script.

The glyphs appeared as blackened, twisted steel that absorbed the dragonfire as if it were the flames of a candle. The heretical text carried a meaning that transcended language.

“One Thousand Children’s Souls Sacrificed.”

Even within the absolute tranquility of the first state of the Kai’tazake Mutra, a flicker of rage overcame Alistair, quickly suppressed.

The First Script disappeared with the fire, leaving nothing behind. The cultists were only two hundred feet away. From their perspective, he moved at a laborious pace, perhaps half their speed.

One hundred fifty feet away. A hundred.

Alistair only had one shot at this.

30 points of Karma burned away to hide his intentions, leaving him with only 100 since he was still recovering from a cultivation session. The active of [Monk Motionlessness] flared, converting nue into raw physicality.

For a brief few moments, his Agility exceeded 4,000. [Mindshift] activated next.

Alistair appeared in front of the far left figure in well under a thousandth of a second. [Force Fist] struck true. Now that he was an Adept, the Skill shone with brilliant light, Mana condensed so tightly that it was only a thin layer over his hand.

The blow struck according to the principles of the Dao of the Fist. The Fist that crushed evil.

The heretic flew back a thousand feet, taking a fajin to the face. Alistair didn’t let up, [Mindshifting] once more, the previous nue shadow battling the heretic’s partners behind him.

The hood of the figure’s cloak tore, revealing the face of his attacker. The man was ugly as sin, his jaw cracked from the [Force Fist]. His skin was rotten and red, the bones of his face showing through tissue paper-esque skin.

Alistair [Force Fisted] the evil man again, sending him another thousand feet back to the burnt edge of the forest.

Another [Mindshift]. The nue clone and the real Alistair both threw a [Force Fist]. One in front, one behind. A perfect pincer, one real and one fake.

The cultist laughed, ignoring the nue punch from in front. A bloody arm shot out of the back of his head just as fast as Alistair, even with his temporary 4,168 Agility, catching the [Force Fist].

[Dharmic Gaze] failed to peer into the threads of Fate and timelines, blocked by a black and translucent haze.

Chaos, the flow of reality positing an unknowable future.

Chaos’s specialty was defending against prognosticative abilities of any kind—if he pushed his Karma, he likely could break through it, but at what point? He was already low from his cultivation sessions.

The impact of fist on fleshy palm sent the two of them skidding back hundreds of feet into the canopy of a grandfather tree that had weathered the inferno of five years prior.

Alistair became one with the fist. A trickle of Dao energy poured into his system, but his movements were primarily derived from his own experience. A memory from his sparring with Red flashed through his mind.

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“I’m sure you're wondering how my moves are so perfectly aligned with the Dao despite a near-zero usage of Dao energy.”

Alistair hopelessly chained together flawlessly executed moves. Every time he reached a new peak of the mountain, Red revealed he was even taller.

What was it? Unarmed combat had a finite number of possibilities. If Red wasn’t stronger, nor faster, nor more durable, how could it be that he was wiping the floor with him?

“I simply have better Technique. Technique with a capital-T. My innate understanding of the Dao is simply greater than yours, apart from Dao Nodes and Focuses and the system’s categorization. I see more. I feel more. You attempt to incorporate the laws of causality into your style, but your qualifications are lacking. I can sense that your recent deepening is a step in the right direction. You see fighting as some kind of harmony or painting? Is it musical or artistic? I know it’s one of those.”

Alistair simply gritted his teeth and kicked Red as hard as he could.

“Music, then. You’ve started walking your own path. At the higher realms, Technique and the way the system incorporates Dao Nodes become identical, but at lower realms, Technique is always better. What you have found in your own fist.”

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My own fist. Alistair thought. What is my fist?

Red’s explanation of Technique was that of understanding the laws of causality within the clashing of unarmed fighters.

It was how the strange man could defeat Alistair, using only 50% of his speed (with some difficulty, he might add). Right action at the right time.

When he saw his fist, it was not only the manifestation of pugilism.

His fist was duality.

His fist was the egoism of combat. The desire for selfish victory, to be known as the strongest above or under Heaven. The childlike thrill of the dance itself, the satisfaction of the skill he possessed, as a man, as a cultivator. His pride and dignity as a human being.

His fist was the altruism of action. The selfless will to help those in need, to comfort those in pain. The protector of the innocent and the savior of the damned. The compassion, empathy, and desire for justice above all else, answering the cries of the multiverse.

Yin and Yang. Without his egoism, his strength would falter. Without his altruism, his fist had no meaning. Because he wanted to help people, his desire to grow stronger increased. Because he improved at the art of combat, his ability to help people improved.

A virtuous cycle was formed. The Confucian concept of altruistic egoism.

Alistair defined himself as a “person who defeats evil.” This was his true self, and performing actions of this nature was akin to a glutton consuming food or a lustful man indulging in pleasures of the flesh.

It was for himself that he performed these actions, because he defined himself in such a way, harmonizing all. He would unify the multiverse through strength, to create a world where strength was unnecessary.

Only a man of singular willpower could accomplish his lofty goal of complete transformation of the multiverse. In a way, it was against the Dao itself, which was effortless action. Existing in concordance with the laws of nature.

This, too, was another duality.

Alistair intended to encompass the entire Dao while being opposed to the entire Dao. He was exertional in all aspects, one who struggled to the peak, yet he needed to also encapsulate Red, the perfect Daoist sage, who was effortless action.

That was why he went down the path of [Monk Motionlessness] and Tranquil Mind, states that embraced the natural flow of the universe, allowing him to act without action, to think without thinking.

But this was merely one facet of his path. While traditional cultivators struggled under Heaven, and perhaps even desired to one day become one with Heaven, Alistair sought to destroy Heaven.

The Dao, in its purest form, was balance. It was the natural cycle of creation and destruction, the endless dance of opposing forces maintaining equilibrium across the multiverse.

Alistair’s goal of a permanent, everlasting multiversal paradise represented the most profound contradiction. He wished to use the power of the Dao to overcome the Dao’s own inherent nature.

The Daoist Sages and Buddhas were in agreement over one thing—the multiverse was full of suffering and joy, life and death. They sought personal transcendence over this neutral order, but recognized its permanence.

Impermanence was the only permanence.

To achieve his desires, he needed to understand this concept at a level surpassing the greatest Truthseekers. He needed to become one with the Dao in ways few cultivators had ever managed. He needed to understand it to the fundamental core, in order to transcend it.

That was where nue came in. It was the exact opposite of the Dao. Instead of understanding the laws of the multiverse, the way of being, it was an expression of his own mind.

Somehow, someday, he would use that to his advantage.

These were two dualities, and then there was the triad.

His Domain. His Mana affinities. Blood for Body, Lightning for Mind, Ice for Soul.

Fist as the ultimate centerpiece, the combination of all that wiped away evil at its core. The Spirit’s Fist That Overcomes Evil.

Kai’tazake Mutra was a borrowed heritage from a great cultivator who had reached peaks far beyond what Alistair could currently dream of.

It also wasn’t his. Through his introspection, he reformed the trance in his image and achieved a new level of understanding.

Achievement: Dao Node (IV) (Dao of the Fist)(Dao of the Ghost)(Dao of Justice) — First Web. Threefold-Awakening Mutra. Tranquil Mind becomes Bodhi Consciousness, Infinite Arsenal becomes Dragorphism Cadence, Black Impermanence becomes Dualist Impermanence. Reward: +75 to all Attributes.

Alistair entered Bodhi Consciousness right away.

Lightning flashed through his brain, nervous system, and muscles, sparking over the surface of his skin in tiny bolts. Even his hair stood on end.

If Tranquil Mind increased his reaction time, Bodhi Consciousness overclocked his brain to an impossible degree, replacing nerve signals with lightning itself.

Bodhi Consciousness was an evolution of Zenaitsu Morogoni’s tranquility in Alistair’s image. It was the Daoist and altruistic interpretation, pure in essence, with an orthodox interpretation through the Buddhist way. One day it would need to become duality, but today was not even close to that day.

In his mind’s eye, he sat atop a pillar above civilization, calmly meditating with enlightened consciousness. The new state was a combination of Justice and Ghost, running on both Dao energies.

In the real world, Alistair swarmed the heretic with punches. Grotesque arms and legs grew out of his body in a vain attempt to block, but with the bonus Agility from his First Web, it was too slow.

The evildoer stuck out his tongue, a blood rune in the First Script visible. Without speaking, Alistair heard his voice.

“The Screams of 10,000 Burning Babies,” he shouted with laughter.

Pure, euphoric, rapturous laughter.

An enormous bloody arm, composed of hundreds of sewn-together appendages, flew out of his back and punched Alistair.

Only through Bodhi Consciousness did he duck at the last second, the huge fist slicing a few strands of hair.

Ultraviolet soulfire formed in the palm of the giant arm, thrusting toward Alistair at hypersonic speeds. With Ashendar inside him, slowing time, he saw the heretic’s injuries close.

Sacrifice breeds renewal, he thought. There was no time to waste. Almost two seconds had passed since he isolated the heretic. Two seconds too many.

Alistair swapped Bodhi Consciousness for Dragorphism Cadence.

His pupils became like those of a snake. The skin around his eyes became scaled, and a soft crimson aura rose from his body.

Alistair laughed. This was exultant. This was ego and the rejection of the natural order. The Tune of the Fight hummed louder than ever before in his combination of Fist and Justice.

While he lost the reflex of Bodhi Consciousness, he ducked with the carried momentum.

Dev'rox snapped his fingers. For a split second, his opponent was taken off guard, not sensing the spiritual energy. But the imp didn’t target the heretic, but Alistair.

A hardened [Force Fist] elbow fell toward the evildoer’s back. The giant arm whirled to block, a soulfire shield forming.

Dev'rox snapped his fingers again. The [Force Fist] elbow slammed into the heretic’s neck. But that wasn’t all—Alistair used his new {Crimson Bones II} leaf to thrust five sharpened bones into his neck at once.

The Tune of the Fight blazed loudly, capturing all the profane instruments in the cultist’s malevolent song.

Instead of an infinite variety of moves, Dragorphism Cadence was about adaptation. The tenacity of a dragon applied with Tune of the Fight. Anything could be overcome with adaptation and evolution, even the Dao.

A symbol reading “The Wailing of 100,000 Women” appeared on his enemy’s eye, which glowed with disintegration Mana.

The giant arm gathered the most soulfire Mana yet, spreading it out in waves of psychological destruction.

Alistair instantly switched to Dualist Impermanence. The crimson sheer vanished, replaced with a haze of uncertainty. Well-worn palms struck both the flaming arm of soulfire and the disintegration beam, deflecting the profane attacks.

Dualist Impermanence was a state of subversion, where he dismissed his enemy’s attacks as meaningless before man and the Dao.

Without the substrate of Mana, he could channel Dao energy through his body to disrupt powerful Dao-based attacks. Before, he would have to use his Mana pool as well, so it freed him up to go all-out with Skills or healing with Dragon’s Blood Mastery.

The disintegration beam carved a deep rift through the earth, stretching for dozens of miles. Soulfire engulfed the barren forest in a spiritual blaze, but with no living beings to sustain it, the flames quickly faded.

A glimmer of light surfaced in the heretic’s other eye. A bloodstained, warped glyph smuggled into reality, an abomination under Heaven—“One Million Souls Tortured For All Eternity.”

His spiritual pressure exploded, a flood of Dao energy emanating from his eye. The heretic’s mouth rippled and expanded, an arm reaching out of his throat, grasping for air.

A [Frozen Claw] enhanced by Dualist Impermanence raked the cultist’s face, attacking his meridians.

Swap. Dev'rox snapped his fingers, bringing his host behind the heretic. Alistair drove a spearhand [Blood Hand] through the back of his opponent, expanding it into twelve spikes inside his flesh.

Swap. Alistair struck five times with [Force Fist].

Swap. Alistair switched back to Dragorphism Cadence, his hands became a blur as he delivered palm strike after palm strike. At the same time, he parted his lips and summoned 1,000 points of Ashendar’s fire Mana, the searing flames swirling into existence just before his tongue like a true dragon.

Even the evildoer’s regeneration faltered under the relentless assault, his massive arm unable to block every strike. Meanwhile, the creature clawing its way out of his mouth finally stuck its head out to the surface—a bald, snow-pale being, smooth as an infant, forcing its way into the world.

If I strike that now, I lose, Alistair thought within Dragorphism Cadence. That was what the Tune of the Fight screamed at him.

Swap. An uppercut to the heretic’s jaw. The birth of the pale human split apart his mouth at the seams, the entity making a full escape with the force of Alistair’s punch.

Now. The original heretic faltered, his life force diminished. With his dying embers, he uttered, “The Court—”

Now more than ever, he could read the Dao of his opponents. Dragorphism Cadence was his spyglass into the enemy’s very foundation. The newborn monstrosity would continue to grow stronger.

Red-orange flames exploded in a cone, enveloping the white creature in the wrath of a dragon. While the flames burned, Alistair clamped the heretic’s mouth shut, trapping his words.

Even as the fires still expanded, he whipped his head toward the cultist, activating [Draconic Roar].

He was surprised by the volume and strength of his bellow, his bloodline’s improvement from [Peon] to [Peasant] doubling its potency. Streaks of force Mana and nue lanced through the battlefield, halting the Domain’s expansion.

[Monk Motionlessness] triggered, but not for his safety—even as it burned, the reborn heretic turned and swung a marble-like arm at the ghostly imp.

With the snap of a finger, Alistair was in Dev'rox’s place. The blow landed, tearing his arm from his body with a spray of blood; a price he had already accepted.

Alistair’s revenge was even sweeter—a [Force Fist] imbued with the Daos of Fist and Justice. Karma seared the threads of Fate as fist met jaw. The newborn horror should have been hurled a mile away by the impact, but Alistair commanded him to remain through the Dao.

The dragon was majesty, the embodiment of his pride and spirit. The dragon was savagery, the very image of humanity’s defiant rage.

Alistair was both the monk and the avenger, and now he bared his fangs.

Sometimes, the only way forward was to beat the living daylights out of a villain. And this villain was steeped in evil, indeed.

The newborn thrashed wildly, its white flesh blistered and cracked from the fire. He pounced without hesitation.

He hammered his fist into its face, once, twice, three times, and then sank his teeth into its throat, ripping a bloody chunk free.

The creature howled like the innocent victims sacrificed to bring it into existence, striking Alistair in the stomach.

The blow was far stronger than the punch that blew a hole in his stomach on Nuevo Invierno. Back then, Fara had been an Adept, and he a Foundation. Now, he was on equal footing.

Alistair climbed onto its back, wrapping himself around the creature. Thirteen {Crimson Bones} speared the monster from behind.

“Ssahahas!” The inhuman scream echoed for miles, yet he did not care in the slightest.

Spinning off its back, he kneed it in the ribs. He clawed at its eyes, grabbing its face and smashing it into the scorched earth.

It twitched.

His other arm missing, he grabbed the creature’s skull with his good arm. It was heavier than it looked, carrying the weight of sin.

Alistair slammed it to the ground with all his might.

One time.

Two times.

On the third slam, its head split open like rotten fruit, but Alistair didn’t relent. Accumulated Karmic debt rushed out, the demerits of uncountable sin. While this heretic hadn’t actually killed a 100,000 women or tortured a million souls, he was beyond stooped in iniquity.

Alistair spent more of his own positive Karma, diverting the unwanted debt, slamming his head again and again and again. And again.

Finally, it stopped twitching.

Alistair panted, his head hanging low. His Mana dropped to 8,200 as Dragon’s Blood Mastery converted the quintessence into blood essence, slowly regrowing his missing arm.

Ten seconds. That was how long their fight had lasted.

A warm presence caressed his back.

“Thank you.”

The voices of hundreds of people spoke as one. Alistair looked up, seeing the ghosts of thousands ascend to the Heavens. The profane experiment was over, and balance was restored. Their souls were to enter Samsara.

{Samsaric Guide} +15% Max Karma.

Alistair ignored the notification, directing [Reality Sense] back at the main battlefield.

Dev'rox, you’re too good at this.

The moment he had defeated the heretic, the demon flew back toward the rest of the group at top speed. A second later, the array he left near his host started glowing.

Alistair jumped through the magical portal. As he exited, he was greeted by an immense Domain Battle.

Nine Domains of unspeakable evil converged into one deity, a colossal amalgamation of corruption that stood over a hundred feet tall.

The entity’s form constantly shifted between nightmarish forms—a thousand-eyed colossus with limbs sprouting from impossible angles, a writhing mass of First Script profanity that scorched reality itself, a tenebrous configuration of geometric hell.

At its knees, Alistair’s companions fought bravely.

They fought desperately.

Gu Fuhao’s Domain was a serene mountain lake under a cherry blossom tree. Her voice pulsed throughout her projected space, appearing as golden energy that washed over the lake in waves.

However, her melodious voice, once sonorous and pure, now wavered as she struggled to maintain her Domain as corruption seeped through the border. Flowers withered and fell in blackened clumps at the edge of her lake.

Riyord’s kaleidoscopic dreamscape was collapsing inward, the mage driven to his knees at the center as his Domain bent inward. Dream Dao scattered in broken patterns, fractured possibilities escaping into the real world.

The deity-like Domain lowered its arm, squashing the manifestation of imagination from above. The wisps of the dreamscape dispersed across the battlefield like gossamer threads of possibility, creating fleeting hallucinations where they touched—bloody warriors facing their end, galaxy-like trees flowering in lakes of lava, phantom structures on a broken world.

Berengar fared no better. To the naked eye, his Domain was not one of outward manifestation, but becoming the lightning itself. Alistair wasn’t sure if it was a true internal Domain, but the swordsman’s skin itself became purple electricity as he was forced back by the corruption.

His allies had half a minute—no, perhaps 10 seconds—before they were overwhelmed. The amalgamated deity was simply too powerful, the combination of the Domains of nine Middle Adepts.

“Spirit’s Fists Overcoming Evil.”

Alistair’s bloody sphere expanded from behind the composition of Domains.

The air shimmered as ectoplasmic blood dripped from nowhere, forming a sphere that clashed against the back of the evil god.

With his willpower, he opened up the edges, allowing the thousand-armed statue of his future self to meet the deity’s gaze.

Justice against evil. The polychromatic, overlapping arms shot forth to strike the darkness of their Domains.

With each strike, they resonated together in a symphony of the Dao, shaking the entire town to its core.

Prayers were heard and answered, sins were confessed and forgiven, evildoers were punished and redeemed.

A virtuous cycle was formed, counteracting the gathered sin, with Alistair at the center.

The transcender—the ultimate judge. By seizing the power, his future self was the King of the Multiverse, judge, jury, and executioner. Yet he was only worthy of holding such supremacy when directed toward a singular cause.

The corrupt deity roared in outrage, the fused Domain trembling a thousand arms pummeled its body. Each blow carried transcendent compassion, human rage, and august justice, warping the evanescent features of the being.

Ten seconds, he realized.

Even though his path had perfect compatibility to destroy such a defiling Domain, it was still Middle against Early Adept, nine against four.

Their qualifications were lacking compared to cultivators of the Clear Water Sect, but they had taboo formations drawing on innocent souls and blood sacrifice.

As Alistair prepared to add to his Domain with his finishing Skill, he felt a mighty aura in the distance and began to laugh softly.