ALL NOVEL 391. Rules
Shen's aura was out before the girl's mind's command to move her body spread through her soul. Yet, his aura was almost immediately overwhelmed by her domain.
Nonetheless, her domain couldn't get inside him. He just found out that inside him rested his own domain—one he instinctively knew not to use with his injured soul. Still, just having a domain, and it more or less covering his True Self, was enough to prevent his existence from being bashed into nothingness by her domain.
That saved his life in the short term but also greatly upset the girl. She teleported beside Shen, her hand going for his throat.
Instead of his throat, her palm met the Extremity of his qi-filled spear.
The world itself fought against Shen as she made the local Laws of Reality more agreeable to her Path's Laws and less to his. He couldn't challenge that only with his inactive domain; he was part of Reality, and such changes affected him, too.
He continued anyway. His domain-supported True Self allowed him to.
Spearhead met flesh, and the former gave. Her skin was like a perfect treasure. His spear shattered as it approached her hand.
Shen Backstepped...
...into the same place he was. Space had shifted inside her domain. He couldn't beat that. Or so she probably believed; feeling Space itself change allowed him to recall he had an Aural Realm.
The girl's domain filled all of Space around her, including the edge to the fourth dimension. However, she wasn't actively protecting that place. Shen infiltrated it with his Aural Realm and affected the local Reality.
His Aural Realm filled the boundaries between the third and fourth spatial dimensions. Then, he ruled that everything within would require more willpower to move, especially any Law not from his Path.
His Aural Realm behaved like a domain in that. Whenever two domains fought for supremacy over the same place, they engaged in meta-combat. Shen knew little about meta-combat, but he sneak-attacked her in it anyway, almost by mistake.
Meta-combat didn't involve direct clashes of willpower. Investing more willpower in the meta-battlefield allowed one to change more of the rules of Reality locally at the cost of losing focus of the rest of the combat and spending willpower. It also countered an opponent's influence. Shen invested a lot into his meta-attack, while the girl, unchallenged in the meta-battlefield until now, wasn't investing much in it. At least, not more than enough to strengthen her Path, weaken his, and make Space behave weirdly. Perhaps she was watching out for Shen's domain, which he kept inside his body, but not his Aural Realm.
The willpower he invested countered and erased her influence over the surroundings.
Reality bowed to his rules.
He expected his Aural Realm to surprise her, so he Backstepped again as soon as he did that. His spear had lost half its length, but he still filled it with qi and gave it a qi spearhead as he went for her nape.
She became much more surprised than anticipated; she wasn't ready to protect himself. His spear would pierce deeply into her, and then—
Light flashed brightly in the whole world.
Space twisted.
Shen's influence over the surroundings was crushed, and his aura was forced back into his body.
Suddenly, Shen was standing a few yards away from his foe, and an angel-like male with eight wings, wearing majestic golden and white-silvery armor, stood on the edge of Shen's spear. Shen's qi wasn't destroyed but found an obstacle it couldn't pierce in the male's chest armor.
He was B-rank, and Shen knew he had no chance against him.
Shen jumped back and prepared to flee from the B-rank, but the next scene gave him pause. The black-haired, green-eyed, chiseled B-rank, who looked forty years old, cupped his hands before himself and gave Shen a very slight nod. Even that much was still surprising coming from a B-rank.
"In the name of the Gardener Sect, I, E'lemer, ask forgiveness for my daughter's harsh behavior," the man said. "Before anything, I assure you that your life was not at risk. No harm would be allowed to befall you, just as none befell her.
"Unfortunately for E'livia, she has failed her Self-Suficiency Test. Previously, she was needlessly disrespectful to City Lord Pagarti, sowing discontent between a City Lord and the Gaderner Sect. Now, she attacked one of the people she came here to protect." His voice was harsh, and the girl flinched behind him. "She will be disciplined upon our return to the Gardener Sect.
"Let's establish the restitution you're owed. You're a Law Mastering Ethereal Harmonization cultivator. So is she. She tried to murder you once with her domain, and her follow-up attack had an uncertain goal. The context suggests she was going for the kill again. Therefore, the Gardener Sect owes you fifty high-purity spirit stones for the first attempt and a hundred for the successive one."
He twisted his hand, and fifty fist-sized transparent crystals brimming with qi appeared a little before and beside Shen.
Shen just stood there, processing everything. The guy claimed he would've saved Shen, but Shen didn't trust the man's words. If the Gardener Sect were so upright, they wouldn't already have rules for when their members tried to kill other people.
The bystanders' reactions told another tale. Univari was looking at the spirit stones with so much desire Shen thought he might ignore decorum and go for one right then. Even the girl looked at the stones longingly and unwillingly. That was a very hefty sum, one that might show enough sincerity, all things considered.
That is, if Shen could survive holding that much money when everyone knew he had suddenly become very rich.
The Gardener Sect had also thought of that, as proven by E'lemer's following words, "These are bound to you—they can't be given away, stolen, or pillaged—and can only be directly used for your cultivation. You can also exchange them for resources in any Garden City, but if you do, we'll investigate if you're being coerced before agreeing to the exchange. The Gardener Sect won't have you incur danger for holding a sum we provided as an apology. If you still feel unsafe, I can store the spirit stones in the Gardener Sect's Bank in your name. Only you can access it, in any Garden City. The same rules for exchanging for resources would apply if you wanted to withdraw a spirit stone."
Shen considered it. Going to a Garden City might be a trap. However, keeping the stones meant certain danger. From how people looked at them, at least some would be willing to kill Shen and take a shot at using the supposedly bound stones.
Shen was strong but couldn't defeat the entire world—unless this palce was an island. No one had answered him that.
"How big is Teolhora?" he asked.
The question shocked Univari even more than the money. Even E'livia looked at Shen as if he had grown another head. Evidently, she felt offended when Shen called her Arrogance Incarnate, but speaking casually to the B-rank was on another scale, unimaginable.
The man in question seemed unbothered by it. "Teolhora is a Dwarf World only one hundred thousand miles across to all sides, most of it land. It's a curved plane, like most leaves in the World Tree, which is physical, as you were wondering. Even Path Outlining Ethereal Harmonization cultivators like me can't fully grasp its size."
His answer also touched on what Shen had been thinking: whether E'lemer would save Shen from his daughter. Maybe he wouldn't, but he had been watching; he knew about Shen's previous question. He hadn't appeared due to some mystical ability that triggered whenever E'livia was endangered.
Well, the latter was still a possibility, and maybe he had looked into the past after arriving, but sincerely, there was no need for him to do it. He could just have killed Shen, made it look like it had been the girl, then "disciplined" her in secret in the sect, away from prying eyes. No one would bat an eye. The Gardener Sect was clearly too powerful for anyone to argue.
Yet, few seemed to resent them. The sect at least knew how to pretend to be just. Even watching over the unprepared girl showed some foresight and care about others.
Shen would take the guy's word for it until he found signs otherwise.
"I'll take one stone now," he decided. "You can store the rest for me." He then cupped his hands before himself. "I ask for your apologies for my earlier disrespect. Junior greets senior." He bowed deeply.
As Shen had thought not long ago, he didn't resent bowing to someone stronger. That was the way of things. He hadn't done it until now only because the man had interjected into a fight to protect Shen's foe—who, by the man's admission, had sought to kill Shen—and because he wanted to test the man.
E'lemer had asked for Shen's forgiveness as soon as he arrived. Therefore, the angel owed Shen one. If he had still attacked Shen, everything would've been a farce.
"I see what you did, Outsider," E'lemer replied as he made every stone disappear but one, which Shen grabbed and placed in his sleeve. "Beware; playing politics with the Gardener Sect is also banished in the Myriad Worlds. Not by the Gardener himself, but by his Sect. I'll consider your actions a personal matter between you and I."
Shen frowned. That sounded absurd. He had not played politics.
"I know what you're thinking," the guy insisted. "You merely "tested" me. But you weren't forthcoming for personal gain, and that suffices; low-level politics is still politics. We turn a blind eye to most of it when it happens between cities up to a certain level for convenience's sake, but we're much more stringent when it comes to ourselves. Corruption infiltrates easily and spreads even more easily. My daughter is an example. I was lax with her, and she grew into an entitled brat. I'm as much at fault as she is—"
"Dad!" the girl interrupted. "That's not your fault! It's on me! I'm an adult! It was my own decision to attack!"
The man sighed without looking at her. "See? She was almost killed by an Outsider who didn't use their domain, yet she has the gall to claim she knows what she's doing. What is it if not entitlement?"
The girl flushed. "He... He did something weird!" she said.
However, there was no bite to her words. She felt ashamed of her loss. Her accusation was no more than a weak attempt not to look as bad.
In fact, her earlier distaste for Shen was gone. She was entitled and inconsequential, but she could be humbled. She didn't even seem upset at Shen.
Then, to his greatest surprise, she lowered her head towards him and said, "I'm sorry." And it looked like she meant it, too. "I didn't try to kill you. Not really. You have a solid Path, you'd have survived. I just wanted..." She trailed off and didn't say what she wanted.
The man sighed again. "She's not a lost cause, thank the Gardener. But she is young and confused. Thank you for teaching my daughter humility and combat awareness, Outsider. I'm in your debt. Sadly, I was forbidden by the Gardener from assisting you before you finish your current business. Should you survive, you can come find me for a minor favor at any time."
Shen was surprised that the Gardener knew of him, but in hindsight, it was expected for an S-rank named Gardener to be aware of everything in his big tree. Shen was an Outsider, as people easily noticed, likely because he used Stangue, maybe because of his race. Or maybe the Heavenly Tribulation was like a beacon to those who could detect it. It was unclear whether the B-rank could see it. Shen doubted an S-rank couldn't.
As for E'lemer not helping Shen, it also made sense. No one was allowed to assist anyone undergoing a Heavenly Tribulation. Shen doubted any C-rank could do it even by chance, but a B-rank might, and the Gardener didn't want E'lemer to get involved with Shen's Tribulation, not even by mistake.
As for the Gardeners Sect's spirit crystals possibly being considered illegal assistance... Well, Shen didn't think an S-rank would fear a little lightning—or allow it to destroy their sect. They might still not be willing to face all of the Heavens's wrath, but they weren't as vulnerable as everyone else.
Shen bowed again. "Thank you for your generosity, senior."
The man nodded. "With that out of the way, know my following words will come as an Envoy of the Gardener Sect. I am beholden to my position and cannot use the personal favor I owe you to interfere with sect matters. The rules must be obeyed."
Shen's gratitude faded as he expected the Gardener Sect to finally kill him for his earlier offense or something similar.