CHAPTER 2 - Interference

Out in the far reaches of the capital of the Yixine empire, there was a small house. It looked built haphazardly and the only thing inside the house was a small child wrapped in layers upon layers of restraints.

It had been roughly an hour since they’d arrived at their new plot of land. The debris was already gone. Marven took care of it almost instantly. One shouldn’t underestimate the size of the space within his dimension ring, nor the work speed of a platinum path cultivator. Some of the intact walls had been reused to construct a temporary house, but that was only so that Neave could be placed inside and out of the line of sight for the neighboring sects.

There were already quite a few people ‘subtly’ snooping around to see what was happening. Gabrias was handed a treasure that could temporarily disguise his cultivation so that they could build the ruse of him being the sect master.

In reality, Marven thought that idea was plain stupid. The only reason he even played along with it was that, well, he didn’t see an alternative. He didn’t want to be a sect master again. Truth be told he didn’t believe this ‘sect’ would be a true sect in the first place.

Their sect premises were a crappy little patch of land squeezed between several larger sects. Nobody in their right mind would join a sect like this. And for those not in their right mind, well…

Marven wasn’t going to turn them away. The more lunatics wanted to join, the better! The fewer people seeking an actual sect joined this farce the happier Marven would be.

At the end of the day, he was just humoring Neave’s whims. Marven felt endless regret and guilt at what Neave had gone through. It was all his fault. Marven couldn’t even fathom the sheer terror of living through possibly millions of years of torture.

If building this shitty little sect was all it took to redeem himself, he would be overjoyed.

Sadly, it would take more than that. The damage done was far too much. It would possibly take years of careful attention directed toward Neave to help him properly heal from his trauma. They would take it one step at a time.

***

Gabrias was a man in the know about construction. Marven was an incredibly fast worker, even if it was rather absurd that a platinum path cultivator would be doing something as mundane as basic construction. With the guidance of Gabrias, he managed to construct a small sect hall with a couple of rooms. It was incredibly rudimentary and not much bigger than a large house.

It would do for now, however. Marven placed Neave in one of the rooms and slowly unwrapped the restraints. Neave was looking a lot worse for wear than he was back when they first arrived. The fact that he hadn’t made any wisecracks was a rather serious symptom.

Marven took a small bag out of his dimension ring and placed it next to Neave on the floor.  He pulled out an elixir and put it to Neave’s lips. The elixir would take quite a while to be absorbed into Neave’s body, and then it will take quite a bit of time for the energy within the elixir to…

Marven watched in utter shock as he sensed the energy swirling within Neave’s body. Neave’s complexion got significantly better within seconds and he opened his eyes.

“Yo, old man! You must have hooked me up with some really good shit, what was that?”

Marven couldn’t believe his eyes. Neave got up as if there was no problem whatsoever, stretched a bit, and spread his arms open, a massive grin on his face. Then he froze and fell over face-first onto the floor.

“Neave!”

“Ish okeh, ould mam!” Neave got up. “My spirit is all sorts of fucked up so it’s hard to get a good feel for reality. Got anything to help with that?”

Marven stared at Neave with open eyes. What was going on? Did he seriously absorb that elixir in seconds?

“How did you do that?” Marven asked.

“How’d I do what?” Neave asked back but just as Marven was about to answer he continued, “... Is what I would ask if I were an idiot. You gave me some sort of healing treasure, right? No wonder you’re confused. To answer your question, I have the absorb spirit power so I absorbed it instantly, I have pure blood and hyper liver so any impurities got purged almost immediately and my energy manipulation skills are lifetimes more advanced than even yours so I integrated it into my body manually.”

Marven gaped. Everything Neave was saying only created more questions.

“You… You have three spirit powers!? No, wait, four!?”

“I have like… eight? Honestly, I’m not even sure, I’d have to count them manually. Either way old man, do you have the spirit healing treasure too since I am literally dying as we speak.”

Marven rushed to hand Neave a small bottle. It was a bottle containing seven small pills. Marven watched in pure terror as Neave opened his jaw wide like a snake and ate the entire bottle.

“Oh, hell yeah, this stuff is amazing! Anything else?” Neave looked at the bag Marven was pulling the treasures out of. He grabbed the entire bag, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and ate it whole. “Either way old man, I think it’s time we get to business.”

“How… How is any of this possible!?”

Neave sat down and explained rather condescendingly that he could manipulate spirit and round up monster cores. Marven felt like his heart was about to explode. Suddenly, he was regretting cooperating with Neave’s crazy idea. He took a deep breath and was about to confront Neave.

“Neave, listen to me, that…”

“Is extremely valuable information that will put a massive target on my forehead, wow father, thank you for your grand cultivator insight!”

“It is more than that! If you’re capable of manipulating spirit in such a way you…” Marven thought back to what Neave had said his ambitions were. Suddenly, it no longer seemed so ridiculous to have such plans. “You can’t go around telling everybody about this.”

Neave grinned and morphed into the slightly older-looking and much taller version of himself.

“Why do you think I wanted us to make this sect, father? Hypothetically speaking, if I were to give you, let's say, two hundred perfectly rounded cores, how powerful would you become?”

Marven paused at that. After thinking about it for a bit he shook his head.

“The interference of the powers I’ve previously gained would still reflect on the new powers.”

Neave paused.

“Oh shit you’re right, I remember reading about that, damn.” Neave thought for a bit. “Can you bring that dog over here? Actually, wait, follow me, let’s go see him right now.”

Neave ran out into the main area of the new sect headquarters and found Gabrias sitting in a corner by himself. Harel was in a different room altogether. Gabrias looked like he wanted to throw up when he spotted Neave.

“How’s my favorite henchman doing today!?”

“Do–Do we need to, hah, build? I can build! I’m ready to put my skills…”

Neave grinned.

“Relax, there is just a small experiment I’d like to conduct.”

“Experiment? No, I mean, why would you need me for that?”

“I said relax…” Neave lifted his finger and a small tendril of life-force-coated liquid spirit flowed out toward Gabrias.

“No! Please, spare me!”

“Shhh, shhh, shh, just relax it will be over in a second!”

Marven watched in distress. He wanted to stop whatever Neave was doing. However, getting Neave to cooperate was a priority and the short-term suffering of a man that tried to kill his son wasn’t worth compromising that cooperation over.

The tendril reached Gabrias and sank into his body. Moments later he tensed up, but he didn’t scream.

“What, what are you doing to me?”

Neave frowned.

“Okay, here is how it's going to go! Either you relax your spirit and let me do this or I have to do it by force. If I do it by force, there’s probably around eeeeh…” Neave contemplated for a bit, “A seventy percent chance you’re going to die.”

Gabrias froze in terror. He whimpered a bit but decided that cooperating was a lot better than dying.

“Alright…Do–Do what you want.”

Neave grinned. Moments later, Gabrias winced at a faint stinging sensation within his spirit. It only took around twenty seconds of probing around and then Neave was finished.

And the moment he was finished, Gabrias opened his eyes wide in shock.

“This… This shouldn’t be possible.”

Marven frowned.

“Neave, what did you do to him.”

Neave cackled like a lunatic.

“Yes! It fucking worked! I removed his spirit powers!”

Marven had seen quite a few shocking things in his life. Neave had in mere ten minutes shocked him more than literally every other surprising thing he had gone through put together.

Neave turned to Marven and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes, perfectly rounded cores. Let’s say I remove your shitty spirit powers and give you a tremendous amount of completely ridiculous ones. How many do you think it would take to make you equal to a diamond path cultivator?”

Marven felt like the moon falling from the sky would have fewer consequences to the fate of this realm than what Neave was suggesting.

Gabrias was thoroughly confused as he listened to Neave speak.

Neave continued.

“This is why I wanted to start a sect, father. I remember it was you who once said that the life of a cultivator is anything they have the power to make it be. So what kind of life do we have the privilege of living now?”

***

Neave and Marven talked about the potential of Neave’s plan. This entire situation had gone way differently than Marven had thought it would. He was still struggling to cope with the change of pace. The only reason he had cooperated with Neave’s plan of making a sect was that he wanted to make things right.

Now it felt like he was on a timer. Marven kept subtly hinting at keeping a low profile, hoping that Neave would believe that was his own idea. Neave didn’t bite.

As far as Marven understood it, Neave planned to conquer the entire capital, and he called that ‘stage one’.

Marven was getting a severe headache just thinking about all the conflict some of the things Neave was planning would cause. He just couldn’t think of a way to get ahold of this situation. Marven feared that shooting too many of Neave’s plans down would make him run away. He was deathly afraid of the consequences of freeing Neave into the wild. At the very least, the power Marven could acquire from Neave’s plan would indeed allow him to protect Neave.

Marven hated himself a little for how excited he felt. He desperately wanted to think of this situation through the mindset of a father but it was obvious his identity as a cultivator was skewing his judgment. That was unavoidable. What Neave was planning on providing Marven was something that anyone, even diamond rankers, would go crazy over.

He was only hoping that craze didn’t catch them before they had the power to defend themselves.

***

Harel was trying to meditate in one of the rooms. Key word trying. She couldn’t focus. Harel vaguely heard the buzz outside. Neave was already up. It was shocking to her that he could recover so quickly from such a state. But it wasn’t surprising.

She was deathly scared of Neave. There was something about him that no longer felt human. Marven was emotional and probably wasn’t thinking straight. To him, Neave is his son.

To Harel, Neave was someone who had lived through an eternity of torment. Anyone who took the moment to think about it would realize the implications of something like that.

How did the time he was stuck within that loop affect him mentally?

He had admitted to killing several people while he was being chased down. There was no regret or guilt in his eyes as he retold what happened. Not remorse, not grief, not fear.

But there was a subtle hint of glee.

What kind of person was he if he felt pride at slaughter? And how the hell was she supposed to sleep within a hundred-mile radius of someone like that?

Just as she was thinking this thought, Neave suddenly appeared right in the middle of the room.

“Hi, Harel!”

She screamed.

“Wow, my perfect young master form must be impossibly attractive if you’re reacting like that!” Neave wiggled his eyebrows.

Harel took a second to calm herself down. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She was afraid that her reaction would insult him. And she was terrified of the consequences.

“So, Marven and I did some talking and we have decided to conquer the world.”

Harel couldn’t afford to be shocked at what he had just said so she just nodded her head.

“W–Wow. That s-s-seems like-a a uhm, in-incredible plan, yes, yeah! I’m thoroughly im-impressed.”

Neave burst out laughing.

“You’re stiffer than a day-old corpse Harel, relax, I’m not going to eat you.”

Everything about the way he had phrased that sentence freaked Harel out.

“Here you go, Harel! I made these specifically for you!” Neave pulled several monster cores out of his dimension ring and placed them right in front of her.

Several perfectly round monster cores.

Harel couldn’t believe her eyes. She touched them and felt around, failing to believe that this was real.

“What in the…?”

Neave was already gone.

***

After the discussion was finished, Neave and Marven both decided to wait until tomorrow to do anything else. Neave felt exhausted. It was a type of exhaustion he could wipe away with some heavy eating and warm-up, but he didn’t want to.

He wanted to sleep.

Would he end up within that realm again if he went to sleep?

There was only one way to find out.

ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ

Neave appeared within the dark realm again. He felt the same as he had just as he was about to go to sleep. Which was to say that he felt like he was rudely shaken awake.

“Alright, horrific monstrosities! I have arrived, and this time I will be putting you in your place. Please line up neatly and prepare to be dispatched.“

He didn’t have a weapon, but a trusty old branch was going to have to do. Neave had already tested expending his life force and he knew that had no impact on him in real life.

Neave was very low on life force. Well, not really, he was actually at several times higher capacity than should be possible for a cultivator of his rank. But this paled in comparison to the ocean of life force he had built up while running through the woods. He would have to go snack on a few abominids tomorrow before he returned here.

ҾҾҾҾҾ

Neave whirled as fast as he could and yet he was still just barely in time to block an attack. This time he got a good look at the thing that had killed him. It looked like one of the demons. Tentatively, at least.

It was covered from head to toe with shriveled eyes, tentacles with mouths, spikes, and a whole load of claws.

And it was ridiculously fast.

Neave blocked the few attacks he could until the branch was broken. Before he could pull his arm back, one of the toothy tentacles latched onto it and bit hard. Neave pulled back, letting the teeth tear his flesh off with little hesitation. It was at this moment that a second one of these creatures attacked. Neave blew fire at it, but that had no effect. He tried getting a true strike in but he was impaled before he could react. He forcefully morphed his body to release himself from the spikes.

Neave used a movement technique to make some distance from the creatures. He appeared on top of the obsidian forest. Something latched onto his leg and pulled him down into the thick of the obsidian growth. Before he could escape, the other two were already on top of him.

Neave was skewered, impaled, and chewed up.

ÞÞÞÞÞÞestaÞÞÞ

Neave was woken up by Gabrias screaming. It didn’t seem like a lot of time had passed since he had fallen asleep.

Neave got off the floor he was sleeping on and walked over to the screaming. Marven was holding Gabrias down as he thrashed and yelped.

What is this pathetic bastard doing?

Should I just put him out of his misery?