227. A Difference of Philosophy

Team Goldhair refused to meet Jaden Erryngton’s demands. Instead, they watched as he ran roughshod through their preparations.

With balls of cerulean plasma, he vaporized the desiccation pills hidden within the ground, pushing back the dreamscape with his sheer aura.

As Alistair observed from his aerial vantage point, he turned to Jin Toba. “Do you know anything about Jaden?”

“He uses a plasma affinity, as you can see,” she said. “He follows the Dao of Stars from within the Nexus of Cosmology rather than the Dao of Stars the Essence Dao. I know he has a powerful attack capable of vaporizing an entire country.”

“That’s good for us, then?” he asked. “Surely he wouldn’t be able to use such a wide area attack in this ruleset?”

Jin Toba cocked her head. “I suppose you’re right about that. I wasn’t considering that factor. Those with uncontrollable area of effect Skills won’t be able to showcase their full power. I don’t even know if that would advantage us.”

“Well, it helps, here, so I’ll take that.” On the inside, he questioned Norman’s plan. If Jin Toba’s intel was correct and the enemy had already eliminated three squads, that was over 30% of their manpower, including his squad’s losses.

Speaking of the devil, in the distance, he felt an enormous outburst of power. A familiar aura that resonated with the gold dust in his system. Norman Goldhair moved into action.

Thousands of feet in the air, two inner disciples of separate sects battled.

Norman summoned a two-mile-long golden rod, treating it like an extension of his body. His opponent conjured billowing torrents of white flame, the heat felt even at their location miles away.

Jaden laughed. “I would sooner believe up becoming down before Long Yan’er loses to a Clear Water savage. Would you like me to defeat you, or wait to be immolated in her fires?”

“D—” Alistair began to call out, however, Jaden wasn’t as dumb as he intimated. The moment the words carried at the speed of sound to his ears, a plasma bolt shot through the [Liminal Dreamscape] straight for his head.

Before he even started speaking, he had timed a [Mindshift]. The plasma bolt harmlessly passed through where his head used to be, listlessly striking against the boundary between the city and the water above. No matter how powerful Jaden was, that nigh-invisible border was capable of withstanding Peak Visionary realm attacks.

The sudden burst of energy triggered [Phantasm of the Nightmare], constructs diving after the Endless Horizons disciple like sprinting zombies. A wave of plasma disintegrated the entities without a second thought.

Jaden raced through their territory, constantly effusing waves of plasma to burn away the dreamscape and Borentall’s Alignment formations. Whenever he passed through one of the chokeholds their squads created, he would be inundated with ranged attacks. If he tried retaliating, they would use a combination of Dev'rox’s spatial arrays and one of the other outer disciples’ wormhole ability to shuttle away potential victims.

It became clear that Jaden was a specialized combat machine. His plasma could not be stopped, capable of vaporizing the ice slopes Alistair created with zero resistance.

Yet it also became clear that he lacked other abilities. His only method of detecting them was his keen sense of hearing, and he relied on his pulsing plasma aura to destroy incoming threats. His plasma also lacked versatility, clearly sacrificing it for sheer power.

“You fucking rats,” Jaden roared from the middle of a local park full of mile-tall redwoods. His wrath this time felt far more real. “This doesn’t even matter. Once Long Yan’er wins, you’ll be kindling.”

His tone, however, revealed a certain amount of doubt. They had been pestering Jaden for over ten minutes, after which the disciple got so mad he found the nearest open field. Or rather, he used his plasma to fell ancient trees and create an open field for himself.

During that time, the battle in the skies raged on. Gold dust met brilliant white flame in a display that almost didn’t feel real. Despite Jaden’s braggadocio on behalf of his inner disciple, they were at a stalemate. Neither Norman nor his opponent was making any ground.

Another five minutes passed. The plasma cultivator didn’t budge an inch, remaining sitting cross-legged on one of the giant stumps he had created in his wroth.

Alistair and his allies observed the situation with caution, occasionally sending out probes of [Lightning of Justice] or explosions of desiccation or a rocket-powered javelin.

Nothing got past his invincible plasma wall.

Even when Borentall tried to expand his circle to create a path to victory, somehow, Jaden fired beams of plasma to disintegrate the golden inscriptions. While his sensory abilities were subpar, his feeling of the Dao was not something to laugh at.

Eventually, Riyord came up to Alistair with a hesitant look on his face. “I have a plan.”

Alistair raised an eyebrow, surprised at the boy’s initiative. “Okay, what’s up?”

“I can’t tell you,” Riyord said, looking down. “I’m the only one who can know.”

“Alright,” Alistair said. Riyord had earned his trust, and [Dharmic Gaze] felt uneasy, but not wrought with anxiety. “Whatever you need.”

-----------------

The first step of Riyord’s plan was a dreamlike illusion.

From their concealed position, Alistair watched as perfect replicas of himself, Jin Toba, and several other outer disciples materialized around the park’s perimeter. The illusions moved with convincing detail, using their cooperation to perfect the aura and gait.

“Come out, you cowards!” Jaden roared for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. “Face me like—”

His words cut off as one of the Alistair illusions stepped into view, [Force Fist] crackling around its knuckles. Jaden’s response was instantaneous—a lance of cerulean plasma that crackled with tens of millions of degrees of heat.

The illusion dissolved into pink and purple mist.

Jaden snarled. Another illusion appeared—this one of a disciple named Morris launching shadow constructs. Again, plasma fire, again, dissolution.

The pattern repeated. Illusion after illusion emerged, attacked, and dissolved under plasma fire. That was when Alistair made his move—he entered the fray.

If they kept baiting him with illusions only, the Endless Horizons disciple would never continue biting. He [Mindshifted] into the streets. Hearing the new arrival, Jaden immediately fired three tracking plasma beams.

Alistair switched to Dualist Impermanence, battering the Dao out of the plasma beams with his bare hands and then switching to [Frozen Claw] to crystallize the Mana in a fraction of a second.

More dreamlike illusions stepped out of the shadows. They felt so real that even Alistair was shocked. Seeing no other recourse, Jaden flew forward, propelled by jets out of his back and heels.

Riyord’s plan came into action. Alistair baited the plasma cultivator down the circular street, running at top speed. Under normal circumstances, even though Jaden likely had an Intelligence build and he was Agility-based, the level gap should have given Jaden the speed advantage.

However, spamming [Mindshift] bridged the gap. By switching to Bodhi Consciousness, he had the reflexes necessary to react to the speeds of his movement Skill, drawing the disciple into Riyord’s trap.

Step by step, the plasma cultivator was led in a specific pattern. What appeared to be random movement was a carefully designed spiral. Riyord layered illusion over reality, creating a slight deviation in the curvature of the street.

As a rapidly expanding slash of plasma narrowly missed his head, Alistair took Jaden almost a full 360 degrees around the park.

Together with Borentall, Riyord created a formation that almost perfectly replicated the redwood park as Jaden had left it. Hundreds of enormous stumps stood among blackened earth.

Alistair was joined by an army of illusions, the combined force numbering in the dozens. Riyord included real disciples like Jin Toba, Borentall, Morris of the shadows, but many imaginary ones.

Jaden’s eyes swept across the assembled force, his plasma aura flickering with both annoyance and excitement.

“At this point, I don’t care if half of them are fake. At least one of you is the real deal. Let me show you what a real cultivator can do.”

Cerulean energy began building around him, not in focused beams or controlled bursts, but as a massive sphere of raw stellar power. The air itself began to ionize, shimmering and cracking with fire, lightning arcs dancing in the sky. Everything rippled like a heat mirage, charged particles drifting through the air like luminous snow.

Alistair was in an unusual position. It was always him giving the orders, but now he was receiving them.

“Stay there,” Riyord’s voice echoed through a tendril of purple gas from the dreamscape. “We’ll break his hold on the Dao at the last second so you can escape his attack. Jessa will use her wormhole and interface it with your spatial magic again.”

By that, Riyord was referring to the effect Jaden’s Skill had on the surrounding territory. Oftentimes, large area Skills would lock down potential victims from using movement Skills or teleportation.

“STELLAR ANNIHILATION!”

The attack that erupted from Jaden’s position lived up to its name. Not a mere plasma beam or series of bolts, Stellar Annihilation was a miniature supernova, a sphere of destruction that expanded outward at impossible speeds.

The illusions vanished instantly, dissolving not into their usual pink and purple mist but simply ceasing to exist as the sheer magnitude of energy overwhelmed even Riyord’s considerable abilities.

But the attack didn’t stop at the park’s boundaries. A concentrated burst of Dao energy created a tiny hole for Alistair to escape with a [Mindshift], but he witnessed the carnage.

Alistair now understood what Riyord’s intention was.

Disqualification.

The final layer of deception had worked. They weren’t standing in the redwood park at all.

In reality, Jaden floated above the central plaza. His controlled blast, sized precisely to vaporize the park area without breaking tournament rules, struck a residential district home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Through [Reality Sense], Alistair felt them die. Families at dinner tables, children tucked into bed, shopkeepers closing their stores—all vaporized in an instant as the redirected stellar energy consumed entire city blocks.

A voice blared at eardrum-shattering volume.

“CATASTROPHIC CIVILIAN CASUALTIES DETECTED. KILL COUNT: 47,329 NON-COMBATANTS. ENDLESS HORIZONS SECT DISCIPLE JADEN ERRYNGTON DISQUALIFIED.”

And just like that, the effects of the finishing Skill were undone, the city blocks restored like nothing had ever happened. Everything was the same, except for one missing outer disciple.

Jaden Erryngton had vanished.

In one second, they were separated in their strategic positions, Alistair still sweating from almost being vaporized. Next, all the remaining members of Jin Toba and his squad were standing in the ruined park.

Elder Aylesfort stepped through the void between worlds, his lined face hiding a smile.

“That was certainly clever, outer disciples,” Elder Aylesfort said. “Ruthless and clever. That will not work a second time. That you found such a loophole is a testament to an impressive wit, but we cannot let our competition degenerate into baits of civilian protection. Carry on.”

Elder Aylesfort vanished as quickly as he appeared.

Alistair turned to Riyord. “What the hell were you thinking?”

There was a look of absolute confusion on the boy’s face. The kind that you only had when your prediction of reality incomprehensibly deviated from the actualization.

“Wha—I d-don’t understand? Didn’t we just beat a guy who was way stronger than us?”

“You risked thousands of lives on a hunch,” Alistair said. His Dao of Justice felt wronged for being used in Riyord’s scheme, despite the advantageous outcome. Even if the chance was 99% that it would work, he couldn’t abide gambling with all those innocent people. “What if the Endless Horizons elders had interfered so that their 6th-strongest outer disciple didn’t lose on a technicality?”

Riyord’s hands trembled. “I hadn’t considered that,” he admitted. “But it worked! We won. A cultivator is nothing without taking risks.”

“Risking your own life, yes,” Alistair replied. “But what about next time? What happens when those civilians are real?” He stepped closer, realizing how young Riyord looked. His soft features made him seem younger than sixteen. “You made that choice for me without my permission. At the very least, you are at fault for that. Don’t leave me out of the loop next time. I am the leader of this squad, and you will respect that.”

“Yes, Alistair,” Riyord responded, showing no signs of indignation over his admonishment. “I promise.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a haggard Norman. Alistair jumped back, realizing soon after that it was a representation made of gold dust.

“Personal ethics can wait,” Norman said tersely, golden dust swirling around his fingers as he maintained his connection to his aerial self. “Right now, I’ll be needing your assistance.”

The sky above began to fracture as two Domains opened and crashed against each other.

“Shrine of the Eternal Flame.”

“Gilded Imperial Longhouse.”

“Please make it here quickly. I set this all up for you to be the heroes, after all.”