189. The Reverse Eyes

However cold Alistair was expecting Nuevo Invierno to be, it was worse.

He had braved the cold of both George’s proto-Domain and the wintry environment from Symphony of Skills. That had given him a foolish overconfidence. Constitution being one of his lowest stats didn’t help, though the [Steel Body] aided somewhat.

The three of them ran like the wind, barely able to see from the torrential out-pour of snow from the invisible sky. White blanketed Alistair’s [Reality Sense] in an impossible to describe manner, as if the color turned into sounds and Mana. The concentration of Mana in the atmosphere was both higher than anything he had felt and more hostile.

That was when he saw his sister. She had bought a cold protecting robe back on Ah’Drezakh, but it was clear that it was not sufficient. Her Constitution was not up to scruff.

Alistair took off Mammothskin Raiment and gave it to Evangeline to double-layer, and that was when the true torture began.

Without his jacket, he was brutally exposed to the elements. His undershirt and pants frosted over, ice particles making tiny cuts in his skin. The color in his limbs faded as his body prioritized his organs.

Yet despite the cold, Alistair’s mind was unperturbed. He had experienced worse pain. He had known greater hardship.

The speed at which they moved helped out, as blood pumped through his veins and warmed his extremities. He was forced to carry her on his shoulders as the difference in their physical specs was such that a burdened Alistair was faster than a normal Evangeline.

They followed Jindor, who moved with unnatural grace despite his enormous bulk. Alistair wasn’t sure who was modulating their speed to whom. All he knew was that he wouldn’t want to race the Black Star disciple for a bet.

As he followed Jindor, Alistair asked Dev’rox about what exactly the Reverse Eyes were.

“What do they actually do?” he asked.

“Their true nature is notoriously guarded,” Dev’rox answered. “But it is for certain that it allows them to see Mana in a unique manner. I’m assuming that’s how he’s tracking his assailant with the stake. Besides that, there’s some kind of prognostication involving darkness.”

“That’s highly non-specific. Where in the hells did you read that from? You sound like you’re reciting a textbook.”

“That’s because it was from a textbook, dumbass. Required reading for my ‘employment’. There were only a few lines for each type of threat we could encounter.”

Alistair rolled his eyes. “Like I should have known that. You’ve been quite testy recently. If you’re going to be so rude, I might need to reconsider your roaming privileges.”

Dev’rox was about to respond, when the atmosphere suddenly shifted. Alistair saw the perturbations within the threads of Fate before it happened in reality, stopping in his tracks.

The blizzard vanished in the blink of an eye.

In a mile radius, there was nothing but royal blue sky and crushed, jagged ice below.

At the border of the snowstorm and the temporary clearing, millions of rotted fingers reached out. Alistair focused [Reality Sense] afar. The aura of rotting death was unmistakable. It was obvious even at a distance that it matched the outer darkness of the black stake almost exactly.

Do they have a grand leader? Alistair thought. He hadn’t considered the possibility the zombifying virus was planted by someone lurking in the shadows. He immediately regretted that thought—it only brought up repressed rage for the real Man in Shadows, the one who had kidnapped Alexandra.

She’s still alive, Alistair told himself. They wouldn’t discard of an asset like her. They might brainwash her though.

“I was foolish,” Jindor said, shaking his head. “I should have known it was a trap.”

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Evangeline asked with some rising anger in her voice. “If you knew the enemy had this capacity, why didn’t we employ more sophisticated stealth methods?”

Jindor never replied as all three of them prepared for the storm.

In the distance, the first zombies emerged from the white film. Blackened, rotting, frozen corpses ran with disconcerting alacrity. But that wasn’t the scariest part. As the first wave of zombies spread out on the ground, a dark mass came forth on top of the ground zombies.

Another group of zombies, running on the backs of the first. And then another, another, as they quickly realized they were being swarmed by a hundred-foot-tall, three-mile circumference of infected soldiers.

Jindor looked at the Tan siblings with a wry smile. “Junior sister, you are entirely correct. This series of events has been because of my shortcomings as a cultivator and a man. As a consequence, I beseech you to let me handle this. That should be sufficient to gain your trust back, I hope. I shall put myself in the path of danger.”

Alistair raised an eyebrow. “Ooookay. Sounds good to me.”

Jindor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the world crumbled inward around the tall cultivator.

This coincided with the opening of the man’s eyes. The Reverse Eyes. Alistair had felt the chills before, but this was something else.

It was as if the multiverse died out, as space fractured in a perfect four-dimensional sphere around Jindor. Alistair and Evangeline were safely out of the radius, which was merely a few feet, but that didn’t assuage their instincts.

Even his unwavering temperament could not stop the physiological effects of seeing the unleashed Reverse Eyes, as deep chills reverberated through Alistair’s body, even affecting the flow of Mana within his meridians for a second. He had to stop force his muscles to clench to stop himself from dropping to a knee, a fate which Evangeline was unable to avoid.

He peered into those inversed eyes, unable to avoid the allure.

Jindor’s black eyes held the secrets of the multiverse and beyond. There were doors to a higher Heaven, a greater expanse. Such things Alistair did not even dare ponder previously. What did that even mean? Surely the Jade Emperor was the highest height one could reach?

The white pupils on the eternal surface of black represented the light of the infinite unknown reaching out. The true God of beyond the veil. In seeing Jindor’s forbidden eyes, Alistair’s fire for exploration and self-enlightenment was ignited tenfold.

It was to the point where it threatened his Dao Heart as his selfish desires threatened to overwhelm his altruism and justice. “Heroism” took over, blocking off any more deviant thoughts, though the ideas they brought up were not inherently evil, just out of balance.

And just like that, reality returned to normal, space became right, and Jindor had a vacant look on his face, staring at the ground. His eyes visually looked the same, with a white pupil in a sea of black, but there was something qualitatively different.

Each breath he took felt effortless yet simultaneously belabored, as a large puff of steam dispersed in the frigid air with each exhalation. Then, with no warning to any of Alistair’s senses, he leaped over them.

Alistair was so taken aback that he started to activate a Skill, though he realized in time that it was not an attack on him and his sister. Instead, Jindor’s powerful legs carried him hundreds of feet forward into the incoming wave of zombies.

“Watch carefully,” Dev’rox advised. “This is our chance to observe an ancient power in action.”

Alistair didn’t need further advisement for that. His perception focused solely on the Black Star monk and surroundings.

With a mighty palm strike, Jindor delivered a staggering blow to one of the vanguard zombies, clearly dislocating its neck almost onto its back in a sickening crunch.

For a moment, nothing else happened, and the zombies continued forward.

Alistair was struck with disbelief. That was the power of the mighty Reverse Eyes? Based on his estimate of the zombies’ power, a single one of his own punches would have obliterated the entire head.

Time slowed down in Alistair’s view as he honed his attention even closer. Every sense was located right around Jindor, giving him beyond crystal clarity of the region.

The next closest zombie after the one that got its head blown back almost touched Jindor, a rotted finger about to brush his robes.

A darkness devoured it whole.

Between invisible cracks of reality, a warren of eldritch horror manifested. The black cracks exploded outward at an exponential rate, soon covering the entire ring of zombies flooding forth.

Alistair almost couldn’t believe his eyes as indescribable alien entities partially emerged from the darkness, consuming and slaughtering the zombies like they were flies.

They looked borne from the recesses of human imagination, the ultimate horror that Lovecraft tried to describe. Colors that did not have names. Limbs that had no beginning and no end. Mouths of infinite teeth flipped inside out.

Based on what he knew about cultivation, it was some kind of warren—a gateway to a separate dimension, ranging from Domains of both living and dead cultivators, dangerous natural zones, and pockets of the Heavens or Hells.

But what could this warren even be to? It felt so foreign, so antithetical to the world. Could it really be a cultivator’s Domain, who perfected their soul as they reached toward Heaven? It wasn’t even the heretical nature of demons that Alistair felt, but something far stranger.

Whatever the warren contained, it was powerful. In seconds, thousands upon thousands of zombies met their second end. As the creatures from the other side slithered back, Jindor let out another attack—this time a thunderous roundhouse kick.

Perhaps he wasn’t going all-out the first time, as the bald man’s second strike broke the sound barrier, launching dozens of zombies back.

Alistair noted that the return of the alien entities and the black cracks were stronger, expanding into the white void of the blizzard. The cracks grew thicker, perhaps an inch wide, and the creatures more bold with their incursion into material reality.

“It’s a fearsome power, no doubt,” Dev’rox said. “If a man like that can be nearly killed...”

“I know,” Alistair replied. “But the only way off the planet is to the nearest large station, which is a week’s journey away on foot. Plus, danger is where a cultivator grows quickest, right?”

“You are right,” Dev’rox said begrudgingly.

“I never wouldn’t have thought you’d become like a doting grandfather, so worried about my safety.”

Dev’rox did not elect to respond to that taunt, instead observing the awesome strength of Jindor. Alistair did the same, though he never had lost focus on the monk, using [Ghost Whispers] and his utmost mental control to split his attention between two subjects.

Jindor ignored his own warren, letting that power of the Reverse Eyes clean up the vast majority of the zombies as he did his own thing.

Alistair followed every movement. He found a surprising perfection.

If anything, he felt the Black Star disciple’s moves were similar… to his own. The man oscillated between hard and soft, between strikes and throws. He moved in accordance with a Dao of the Fist that felt like coming home.

They both used their large physiques and blinding speed to their advantage. Jindor felt a bit more orthodox than Alistair, whose use of deception was influenced by his copying of Dispersion from the Holy Ones.

As the Dao became evident within his martial arts, his punches no longer broke the sound barrier, despite growing even faster—Alistair had begun to realize that he was the same. The Dao made things convenient for cultivators, so they didn’t have to worry about the ramifications of breaking the sound barrier or friction on their skin.

Jindor stomped and kicked and punched, comboing his attacks dozens of times faster than his initial sound-breaking strike. Hundreds of zombies “died” every second, limbs and heads being separated with each breath. His oscillations in attacks were like the rising and falling of a sleeping man’s chest.

Alistair looked to Jindor’s breathy style with admiration, to the point where he almost didn’t react to Evangeline tapping him on the shoulder.

“Behind us.”

Alistair snapped around. Giants.

To Jindor’s rear, dozens of new shadows loomed in the blizzard, so big they were almost visible in the thick snow and winds. Each second, they grew larger and larger as they approached the eye of the storm.

Zombified giants stepped out of the storm, crushing the human-sized zombies like ants. The shortest of their kind stood over thirty-feet tall, the largest ones in the back standing nearly fifty feet in height.

The first thing Alistair noticed besides their height was their marble white skin, mottled with blackness. They were titans, just like administrator from the base. Alistair used [Eyes of Truth] on one of the largest ones.

Name: N/A

Species: Marble Titan (Zombified)

Class: N/A

Level: 119

“Back me up,” Alistair told Evangeline. Then, he leaped.

Alistair directed his momentum forward, not up, not even bothering to [Mindshift]. These creatures were beneath that. He purposefully chose the largest of the titans, whose skin had turned almost completely black from the mysterious rot.

It had been too long since he had seen real combat. Not since he defeated Yarik. His muscles ached for a fight.

Or in this case, a slaughter.

You look tough, Alistair thought, making eye contact with the titan as he darted in between Jindor’s warren and the zombies being eaten and killed by it. But how about this?

Alistair’s jump left a miniature crater in the ground as he directed all of his 1,153 Agility and 545 Strength toward the largest marble titan.

The activation time on his [Force Fist] was so low that even his own perception, it felt almost instantaneous. Coral-colored force Mana wrapped around his invisible gauntlet.

Materia of True Martial Clarity. His new wraps were a tougher and a better conduit than anything he had ever had. A glowing and highly concentrated [Force Fist] formed around his hand, extending only a few inches, but thicker and more dense than ever.

Alistair closed his eyes as his body soared through the air in a straight line toward the largest titan. He did not need to see with his eyes to strike his target.

His fist pointed up in defiance of the Heavens, and he imbued the Dao of the Fist within his strike. [Force Fist] collided with the titan’s expressionless face.

An immense amount of force transfered from Alistair’s hand to the titan’s head, a fajin strike that penetrated all defenses. An imprint of [Force Fist] pummeled a crater in the titan’s nose, and for a tiny moment as Alistair descended from his strike, the titan stood in limbo against the laws of physics.

All at once, cracks spread from the titan’s face across its body as the true power [Force Fist] manifested. Its face shattered into dozens of pieces, collapsing like actual broken marble.

Alistair had aimed the punch so that as the titan flew back from his fajin strike, its body collided into several of its smaller brethren. He didn’t stop there, using his immense speed to dart between the attacks of the now angered titans.

He didn’t bother using any Skills. The strength of the titans, despite their monstrous size and zombification, was far beneath his level. A simple punch here and kick there sent them flying into the snow.

Seconds turned into minutes as Alistair continued to one-hit kill each titan that came his way. Dao mirages of Spiritual Fighter’s Echo punched after his targets died, sometimes hitting new titans that happened to run in, sometimes striking only air.

There was no shortage of the enemy. Every second, more marbled titans emerged from the blizzard, stomping on the zombies beneath.

Alistair showed no mercy to the titans, employing every move in his arsenal. He used it as a time to experiment with his martial arts. It wasn’t every day that he could try out moves on creatures ten times his size.

One titan he demolished with a ten jab combo in a twentieth of a second, while another he threw by the neck into a sea of zombies. All the while, he let himself bask in the cold energies of the planet.

He felt every snowflake on his skin, every drop of moisture forming on the warm parts of his body. The pulse that sent scalding crimson blood coursing through his veins. An unknown tune called out, from deep within but also from the outer edge of the multiverse.

It was the Dao of the Fist, but in a form hitherto unknown. Alistair had always perceived the art of hand-to-hand combat as a kind of dance, but he had never connected that to actual music. Now, a barely perceptible beat led his actions, forming a new style that was both foreign, yet also felt like home.

What were the transitions between soft and hard in his style if not the up and down beat of a song? What were the strikes and throws if not notes in a melody? What was the clash between two fighters if not the harmony between voice and instrument?

Alistair let his discovery guide him, as he felt himself on the edge of a Third Deepening of the Fist Node.

Punch, kick, throw, spearhand, knee, elbow, palm strike. All notes in a grand symphony. He could tell eventually there would be a transcendent song that vibrated with the fabric of the multiverse, but for now, he felt the tune draw upon his favorite songs.

It eventually ran its course. Upon the last note, Alistair nearly collapsed, resting his hands on his knees as he panted, after he had checked the vicinity for danger.

Sweat had frozen on his forehead. Steam wafted off of him like a stallion in the dead of winter. The song lasted me at least five hours, Alistair surmised from his internal clock. He focused his perception back toward Evangeline and Jindor.

His sister was dealing with the last remaining zombies with Jindor. Funnily enough, she employed a dance herself, though not to any music, to the best of Alistair’s knowledge. She swayed her body as if it were a pendulum, delivering palm strikes that emitted blasts of blue pure affinity Mana along with unblemished spirituality.

The zombies instantly died upon contact with Evangeline’s Dao energy, unable to resist the spiritual pressure on their corrupted souls, sending them to the afterlife. Unlike Devil Kings, the zombification virus didn’t eject one from the cycle of Samsara.

Jindor looked impeccable, his movements not having faltered in speed or accuracy in the slightest. In that regard, he seemed to be superior to Alistair, as he chained together combos, destroying countless zombies every second.

By the time Alistair reached his allies, they had finished cleaning up all the zombies. Jindor didn’t show a single sign of exhaustion, simply staring at the litany of corpses with his cold, inversed eyes.

The oldest corpses had already collapsed into black dust and scattered apart, the zombification virus being the only thing holding them together. Still, the pile of corpses of zombies and titans filled up in the distance larger than a small hill.

“What are you made of?” Alistair asked. His Stamina was still almost entirely depleted, though he tried to hide the worst effects. “This cold means nothing to you?”

Jindor’s robe had long torn off. His torso was chiseled out of muscle, without an ounce of body fat. Over the course of the last five hours, the fighter’s skin had turned reddish, from his face to his bare feet.

“The training I went through is far more brutal than this tepid cold.”

Alistair chuckled at that, remembering what he had to do to obtain the Steel Body. He had a guess that a level 99 Pike would have similar levels of durability and stamina. He himself only had a small portion of that heritage.

Woosh.

By the time Alistair realized what happened, it was too late.

It was [Reality Sense] that detected the bullet, but specifically was the nue sight that he remembered from [Mindshift]. Only the slightest amount of killing intent triggered a warning that something was traveling toward him.

Alistair was fast, but the bullet was three feet away from him by the time his body began to move. He didn’t have enough time to escape.

There were two options—clench his muscles and trust in [Steel Body], or etherealize his body. He acted on instinct alone. The attack felt mostly physical, so he began channeling the Ghost Node within his body. It would not come close to full saturation by the moment of impact, but it was better than nothing.

Jindor teleported directly in front of Alistair—or moved so fast it seemed to be teleportation. The bullet struck the large man with an enormous gong sound, as if he were literally made of metal. The two of them were pushed back several dozen feet, though neither fell over.

A clear voice spoke over the howling winds. “Jindor, your heart has always been too large.”