The Jester of Apocalypse

Out in the forest not too far from what used to be the Zearthorn sect premises, a man that looked about middle-aged sat cross-legged near a pond. Cross-legged was perhaps inaccurate, as he didn’t have two legs to cross.

Kaphor looked a lot better than he looked after his extreme near-death experience. He was still missing half his jaw, several fingers, and an entire leg, but other than that, he was almost fine.

He had regained a good portion of his life force, although it was only at around eighty percent of its maximum capacity.

All of this was achieved when he stepped onto the golden path.

Kaphor was quite desperate when he crawled out of the ruins of the Zearthorn sect. His injuries and overall poor state prevented him from making it anywhere notable. Eventually, he came across a particularly picturesque part of the forest.

Several beautiful trees surrounded a small pond. The entire section of the forest was located within a slight depression, which meant it was primarily out of sight of anyone snooping around their sect's ruins.

He decided to rest here at first, but his motivation to leave rapidly left him as time passed.

It was so peaceful. Nothing but the occasional chirping of birds disturbed the green silence of the woods.

His hatred and anger slowly faded as he spent time in this garden. After he had relaxed, he spent most of his time meditating. He broke onto the golden path, not even a week after he started.

It just felt so petty afterward. He had spent years fighting for benefits to push himself over this seemingly unbreakable barrier, but all it took was a bit of peace and quiet in the end.

The breakthrough drastically helped with his life force deficiency, and he regained a good part of the youth he had lost.

He no longer felt any rush. There was no more of the desperation that drove him to do whatever it took to progress. Now he just felt… Empty.

How had he been living his life up until this point? Was everything he schemed so petty that a few days of relaxation could have replaced it?

Ever since he had broken into the golden path, he had constantly been questioning himself. At first, he stubbornly stuck by what he had done. But there was nobody else here. The only person he was lying to was himself.

What was the point of keeping his face?

Half of his literal face was gone anyway.

The men and women he had worked to impress were now below him. So there was no more reason to be deceitful.

Eventually, he admitted the truth. He was a petty man who wasted his life on petty shit. At some point along his path, he had stopped believing that he had any potential outside of what he could steal from others.

And where had that taken him?

He pondered the birds in the trees and the frogs in the pond. Slowly, as more and more time passed, Kaphor felt his opinion on potential take a complete one-eighty. He went from seeing no potential anywhere to seeing endless potential in everything.

The birds and frogs, if nurtured properly, could become spirit beasts. These beasts could grow and eventually attain a human form. They could become cultivators and walk down the path.

Kaphor spent days sitting in the same position. Eventually, he noticed a shriveled stalk of grass growing on the floor just before him.

Partially out of boredom and partially out of curiosity, he fed the stalk of grass qi. He had spent a good deal of time nourishing plants, so he was familiar with the special techniques that allowed one to imbue them with qi.

It didn’t change at first, but as the days marched onward, the stalk of grass stopped looking withered. As more days passed, the stem became a shade greener than the surrounding ones and grew taller.

Kaphor pondered this. Could a stalk of mundane grass grow beyond its meager means? Could it attain sapience? A human form? Could it, even theoretically, step onto the legendary third step of the diamond path?

In theory, yes. All of this was possible.

It would take a few unique methods, a long time, vast resources, and much luck, but it could be done.

As Kaphor sated his curiosity, every subsequent bite of discovery left a more bitter aftertaste.

So fucking what?

Even a grass stalk held unlimited potential, but who cared about that? It could never fulfill any of that potential on its own. Grass was everywhere. If it could happen on its own, there would have been at least one that achieved it by now.

In reality, the potential a stalk of mundane grass held was empty. Without a few crucial steps and a massively dedicated caretaker, all of this would forever remain in the realm of mere possibility. There was no point in potential that could not be fulfilled. Kaphor scoffed at the slightly greener-than-usual plant. It would have never grown or even survived without his help.

Kaphor had spent most of his life feeling like this stalk of grass—abandoned, empty, withering. There was nobody there who wanted to nurture him. He had to achieve all the progress he had made entirely by himself.

Once again, he started slowly feeling justified in living as he had. But yet again, as the days marched onward, the bitterness and fury wilted away. He didn’t feel any motivation to keep up the anger. It was exhausting. Why needlessly disturb his peace?

He was alone in a forest, unable to move from where he sat. He would undoubtedly be boiling in anger if he was still dying and helpless, but he was on the golden path now. Kaphor couldn’t bring himself to cry about injustice when he felt more and more like his failures were his fault.

He kept feeding the stalk of grass with qi. Not even he knew why. It was just fun, he supposed.

More days went by in peace as he spent them nurturing the stalk.

***

The diamond path cultivators of the Yixine empire sat in a circle in a forest. They had been tracking the myth golem for a while now. As far as they could tell, this thing wasn’t heading in any particular direction.

They hoped that all it was doing was just looking for an entrance into the underground, but there seemed to be no such luck. The myth golem walked past many openings, some even artificially created by the diamond path cultivators.

They forged plans to deal with it, but they hadn’t gone much further than evacuating the settlements in its path.

Beanna spoke after a while of silence.

“You know, maybe we should make a gigantic pit trap! Perhaps it wouldn’t be motivated to climb back out if we dropped it into the underground?”

The Emperor considered that proposition.

“That is not a bad plan. The problem is that it keeps randomly turning directions. And judging by the estimated range of its spirit senses, we would have to create the trap well ahead of time.”

The heavily armored man, Carfen, spoke up at that.

“We always have the option of preparing many traps in its wake and hoping it drops into one of them.”

The Emperor considered that as well.

“Perhaps. But we will need more than a bet to evade this crisis.”

Kingean spoke up.

“Why don’t we just fight it?”

Zhaore answered that question in a quiet, raspy voice.

“Because the calamity…”

“... The calamity we will leave behind might drag more monsters out. I understand that is a theoretical threat. Still, it is neither an inevitability nor something we can’t account for and compensate for.”

The Emperor addressed Kingean.

“Exactly how do you propose we account for that?”

“It won’t be easy. But we can replicate what had been done in the caverns of Xinus.”

Beanna and Zhaore groaned a bit at that. Carfen considered it, and the Emperor spoke again.

“That would be a tremendous undertaking that we would be fortunate to finish within years, let alone the days we would probably have.”

“No, think about it. We are the most powerful cultivators in the empire. We don’t have to clear the caverns. We merely have to locate a section closed off from the deep underground.”

“That plan would involve a tremendous amount of luck first, and then we would have to find a way to bait the myth golem over the location.” The Emperor contemplated a bit, and an idea flashed through his mind. He frowned. “There is one more thing we could potentially try, however.”

Everyone perked up at that, but they could tell it wouldn’t be easy.

“We could bait the golem into a mystical realm and fight it there.”

Everyone contemplated that, and eventually, they all nodded.

It would certainly work. They only had to hope that they were truly capable of taking it down.

***

The destruction of the Bentheta sect had caused quite a disturbance within the Yixine empire. Rumors were very unclear, though, as nobody had witnessed what had happened and survived.

According to the disciples teleported out in the last moments, it was a monster attack. Nobody knew the exact scope of what had happened, but speculation ran amock.

One such rumor wasn’t particularly prevalent, but it still had severe consequences for the person involved.

Hunter was currently in the third circle of the capital. He was out on the streets, poor and desperate.

When he arrived within the Bentheta sect, he had been showered with benefits. He didn’t understand why, but the sect's leadership appreciated what he had done as far as he could tell.

Perhaps the book's cover was more valuable than he had initially assumed.

To Hunter, the book cover was little more than incriminating evidence against Marven and Neave. To the Bentheta sect leadership, it was probably some sort of mighty treasure.

When he first arrived, Hunter was a target of immense envy and scorn by the other disciples. He had just joined the sect yet had risen the ranks at unbelievable speed. Few among those fighting for every scrap they could get could tolerate his existence.

Rumors spread, such as him being the bastard son of the sect master, born to a whore. He had rather vehemently spread the truth of his story. He told everyone how he had barely escaped the destruction of the Zearthorn sect.

He was warned not to spread any rumors about the book cover by the leadership, so he kept quiet about that.

Ultimately, his competence and strength as a cultivator gained the respect of others. He was easily within the top ten disciples among those his age. He was shocked at how strong the other disciples in this sect were.

Relatively soon after arriving and settling himself, he was, together with as many other disciples as possible, teleported out of the sect by the desperate elders.

They had arrived at the capital but hadn’t come to open arms and support. Sects had recruited those among the most competent, but Hunter simply wasn’t talented enough to land a spot.

He had joined the rejects in their journey to find a place in a minor sect in the outer reaches of the capital, but it wasn’t long until he was ostracized and kicked out.

Most of the other disciples blamed him for the destruction of the sect. Zearthorn sect had also been destroyed, yet he had escaped with his life. To the children of the Bentheta sect, it simply made sense that he was to blame, as fate hated Hunter’s existence.

What were the odds of it being a coincidence?

He was outraged. They were looking for someone to blame, but he was outnumbered, and everybody was against him. They beat him up and left him abandoned on the capital's streets.

Ever since, he had been randomly lumbering around, hoping to find any sect that would take him in.

It was only now that the reality of how inferior the Zearthorn sect was began to truly sink in. Most prominent, even middling sects of the capital had scores of disciples far mightier than him.

He tried to present himself as a prodigy who had grown up in a poor environment, but nobody bought that story.

Hunter had tried himself in several publicly available trials that would get him a spot in one of the sects. Each time, he spectacularly failed to meet their standards.

In one trial, he was presented with an obstacle course in which he fumbled terribly due to his lack of agility.

In another trial, he had to hold onto a spiritually heavy object for ten minutes. He didn’t even last ten seconds.

The third trial he tested himself against required him to fight a dummy. The dummy was an artificial golem. It was an opponent that all disciples were required to be able to defeat if they wanted to stay in the sect.

He was severely beaten, but luckily he didn’t break any bones or suffer serious injuries. This was the last of trials he was willing to risk. Hunter slowly walked out toward the outer reaches of the capital. It took him days to reach the outer layer. Once he found himself there, he sank into despair.

Any sect he tried to join refused him, with endless excuses and reasons to reject him at the ready.

Some suspected him of being a spy. Others suspected him of being a thief. Certain sects told him his style didn’t fit them or his build wouldn’t suit their arts.

There was even one sect where an elder had refused him because some young master was eyeing one of their disciples, and he didn’t want any competition.

Unbelievable!

Even worse were the sects that did want to accept him. The problem was their criteria. They wanted him to take a spirit oath that would turn him into little more than a slave.

Hunter had nothing to his name as he roamed the capital's streets.

Looking for anyone who wanted to take him in.

***

On top of the outer reaches tower of the Crystal Palace merchant group, Kalen was fumbling around with the monster core he had been gifted. It irked him that he had to make such a deal, but as the annoyance faded away, he was left with glee.

Finally, there would be some hope for the happiness of his daughter.

He was so immersed that he hadn’t noticed the obese man standing there. As he snapped back to reality, the unusual individual surprised him. He couldn’t feel anything about his cultivation.

He put the monster core away into a dimension ring and politely nodded to his guest. He wasn’t going to judge this man by his looks. Anyone that could make their way to the top of this tower was a respectable figure in their own right.

Kalen straightened his posture and entered business mode.

“Greetings, sir. My name is Kalen, and I represent this branch of the Crystal Palace. How may I assist you today?”

“‘Sup mate. Me name is Bob.”

The man spoke in a deep, gruff voice, then he gurgled and spat on the fine marble floor.

Kalen winced.