The Jester of Apocalypse

Far out in the wilderness of the Yixine empire, a ridiculous sight was taking place. A large stretch of nature had countless priceless materials scattered about, roughly leading in a single direction.

It was like an absurd path of breadcrumbs, designed to lure a greedy myth golem down a specific direction.

The diamond-rank cultivators sat with their arms crossed as they waited. The Emperor eventually appeared, and they eagerly waited for news.

“As far as it is readily apparent, our plan is working.”

The cultivators all looked relieved.

They had looked for an entrance to a mystical realm for a while. After tracking one down, although it was pretty far and somewhat deep underground, they hatched the plan to bait the myth golem by scattering small bits of precious metals and gems around the landscape.

They weren’t sure whether this plan would work, as the golem must be accustomed to seeing numerous precious materials underground. In the end, the project seemed to be tentatively working. Either that or the golem was just coincidentally heading in that direction already.

A ring on the Emperor's finger lit up as they sat around and discussed their battle strategy.

Everyone froze.

The Emperor injected his qi signature into the ring as fast as possible. Text appeared in the air in front of them.

Beanna yelped, and Kingean frowned deeply. Zhaore winced as he read through the text. The Emperor looked grave. It was a crisis of the highest order.

The Emperor quickly got up and prepared to return to the capital. Everyone yelled at once.

“Wait!”

“Don’t try to stop me.”

Kingean spoke next.

“Do not be rash, my Emperor. You are needed here at all costs. One of us will go instead!”

It was at this moment that Carfen got up. His metal armor shone in the sun, and everyone looked at him.

“It is my duty as a protector of the empire to face such calamities. You must handle the threat to the empire as a whole.”

The Emperor looked toward Carfen, hesitant. Soon, he nodded.

Carfen bowed a little and ran toward the nearest settlement, where he could teleport back to the capital.

A ring on one of his fingers glowed beneath the armor. He injected his qi signature into it, and a message appeared.

Ilkivir failed.

***

The purple snakes were fearsome opponents for anyone below the silver path. Even those on the silver path struggled dearly to keep their bearings as countless snakes enveloped their limbs and jumped at their necks.

Corpses lay across a section of the capital, and many more rested in the pits of the snakes’ stomachs.

A group of colorful cultivators, together with Neave, dispatched snakes at a rapid pace. Neave did little more than swallow the snakes en masse as he moved toward the open rift.

He periodically blew fire breath, which was useless against these snakes. The basic version of fire breath was much less effective than dragon breath. Luckily for Neave, he didn’t need to chew as he slurped the snakes.

Some of the cultivators around him were initially distracted by his antics, but he wasn’t the only cultivator with a strange set of spirit powers they had ever seen.

What he was, however, was considerably faster at dispatching the snakes than any of them.

His body was bursting with insane amounts of life force and beneficial qi. These snakes were a delicacy in every meaning of the word, especially for Neave, who could utilize a great deal of the energies found within.

Slowly but surely, countless groups of competent cultivators began appearing. They helped by dispatching the snakes, walling areas off with spirit powers, assisting people in evacuating, and even providing healing and first aid to those injured in the attacks.

Although Neave was physically healed from his encounter, his spirit struggled greatly. Just as he felt his spirit would collapse, he pulled a small cyan root from the dimension ring he had taken from Maecy.

He swallowed only around half the root and felt his spirit rapidly recovering. A lot of the energy leftover had nowhere to go, so it dissipated from Neave’s body. He wanted to cry at the waste of energy.

This root was among the most expensive things he had won off Maecy. It was a powerful treasure that could help one recover from spirit damage and even strengthen one’s spirit after the recovery.

Neave wanted to save this one for his experimentation with alchemy, but sadly, the situation necessitated his use of it.

He could have pulled another weapon from the ring and fought the snakes much faster that way, but there was no way in hell he would do anything but eat the snakes. It was fast enough, and he didn’t want to find himself in a situation where he lacked life force again.

Slowly but surely, other groups of powerful cultivators started arriving in the inner area where Neave and the colorful cultivators fought the bulk of the snakes.

The first group to arrive was an unusual group of edgy, black cultivators carrying scythes, daggers, and sickles on chains. They looked rather intimidating, even if more depressed than scary.

However, it was readily apparent that they weren’t here to intimidate. They were here to kill. Snakes fell apart and rotted as the cultivators dispatched them at impossible speed.

Neave could only kill around half as quickly as their group could. Although that was still ridiculously fast, one had to remember that Neave was quite literally just scooping piles of snakes off the ground with his mouth.

He would be even faster, but occasionally, he had to chew a little to stop the snakes from holding up the line.

The cultivators would probably be even faster if they weren’t distracted by Neave. He wasn’t quite aware of it, but he looked utterly ridiculous. Not only was his stomach inflated beyond all reasonable measures as integrate struggled to dissolve the snakes in his stomach, but he also had his toothy mouth spread so wide he could fit an entire man inside.

After a while, another group of cultivators appeared. They wore heavy armor and dispatched the snakes by far the slowest out of the three groups. But they weren’t focused on killing. The armored cultivators spread out and pushed the snakes back, giving space to the other two groups as they paced their killing speed more efficiently.

A bigger part of the armored cultivators remained behind and helped block the outpouring of snakes to protect the people from danger.

Suddenly, shadows morphed, and a man walked out carrying a large black scythe.

“Xondir.” The edgy cultivators ‘exclaimed,’ barely sounding excited at the man’s arrival.

He took a swing with his massive scythe, and a gigantic ethereal blade reaped the lives of countless snakes. 

Soon enough, the final group arrived. It was a group of primarily simple-looking cultivators. All the groups had come in a few minutes, but this group looked especially miffed that they were the last to get there.

They wore bland robes without any decoration. All except for one young man.

Neave spotted Dukean rushing toward the piles of snakes and swinging his sword. He wasn’t impressed with the swordsmanship.

This didn’t mean that it wasn’t fantastic. Neave just had ridiculous standards. Dukean dispatched piles of snakes with every swing, his sword whistling with every thrust and screeching with every cut.

Just as Neave had spotted Dukean, Dukean eventually spotted Neave. Neave’s perception was immaculate, so he had no trouble seeing the complex emotions on Dukean’s face. He didn’t understand precisely what the facial expressions meant, but he could tell Dukean was confused.

He wasn’t the only one. Most of the cultivators around them were confused about who Neave was. Most assumed he was an old spirit beast in human form, but the problem was that they couldn’t tell.

Not even the platinum path cultivators could sense his life force age impression.

Who he was, at what step of the path he was, and what the fuck his spirit powers were, were questions that left a lot of the people around Neave scratching their heads in bewilderment.

If the situation weren’t so dire, more than a few would be trying to interrogate him about his identity—all except the cultivators that witnessed him whoop the ass of someone on the third step of the platinum path.

They would keep their mouths shut.

Just as it looked like the mass of snakes was starting to shrink, the outpouring of snakes from the rift suddenly stopped. A few of the cultivators prematurely sighed in relief. That was when the rift glowed again, and small shapes started dropping out.

Heavily armored lizardmen stepped out of the rift, wielding crystal weapons.

Most of them platinum rank in threat.