Growing in Power

Brutal blasts of magic, bolts of colorful lightning, and blazing beams of death filled the air with thunder and light.The battle in the sky rocked the world. The Qi there was as dense and vast as the ocean. The very fabric of reality, the space itself shook from its sheer power. It vibrated, twisted, and morphed, changing how it felt. And then suddenly, it went quiet and still.The old man looked down at me from the sky, ten swords circling around him. I looked up at him with my one good eye and saw him smirk arrogantly. He pointed at me, and five swords turned, their pointy ends aimed at my remains.He was trying to finish the job.But then a red blur flashed by, and the old man was no more, replaced by a trail of blood leading to a massive Drake in the distance.The man got run over by one of ours. Most likely the Drake Grand Elder I saw before.[Heh…] I smirked as pieces of my body merged together and healed. [Serves him right.]It was just a shame my perception was too slow to see that glorious drive-by. I would have enjoyed watching him get torn to pieces.I slowly stood up, my body much larger than I was used to while the damage was quite severe. That broke me free from the bloodlust frenzy. A shame. I quite enjoyed the feeling of power that came with it.I looked at the sky and took a deep breath. More Souls than I could have ever imagined were swimming among the dead.I jumped up and flew… Well, I tried to, anyway. The space around me suddenly felt rigid. I growled in annoyance but then felt something on my face like my skin peeling off. I scratched myself and felt something coming off. It was the Thousand Faces Mask. It was destroyed.[Damn that old man.]Such a shame I lost such a valuable piece of gear like that. It came quite in handy a few times. With a sigh, I tossed the broken scraps aside and tried bending space again. It didn't work.[Huh?]If before space was like a piece of dough, easy to mold and squish, the feeling it gave after was like a piece of steel. Hard and unyielding.[Damn it!]I knew that residual effects of spells from higher Realms had that side effect of making the space harder to manipulate, but I never thought it would make it that hard. I never had problems with Spirit Realm Cultivators before, though they were quite weak. Sky Realm on the other hand…I looked at the battle in the sky and frowned. There were quite a few of those monsters up there. I noticed that the flight of many warriors up there changed. Instead of floating in the air freely, they stood on platforms formed of Qi. It seemed like I wasn't the only one having problems staying airborne.Looking around the ruined forest on the ground, I spotted many wounded Cultivators battling among themselves. They were the weaker sorts. First few levels of the Spirit Realm. They didn't yet deserve to be among the titans in the sky.I considered joining them. The thought crossed my mind for a second and then I laughed at it. I could just stay still and keep growing with all the Soul fragments around me. There were so many dead Spirit Realm Cultivators all around, there was more Essence than I knew what to do with it. My entire lifetime of accumulation paled in comparison.I just had to devour and could grow in peace. But where would be fun in that?[Heh… Hehehe…]Madness returned to my eyes as I activated the Heart of Frenzy. The technique I got from De Danw was a common one and many Sword Cultivators appeared to be using it to gather an upper hand over their opponents.I slipped into that magnificent state of pure rage and insanity, feeling no fear, no hesitation, no mercy. Oh, how I loved that feeling, releasing all the shackles that bound me.I dropped to all fours and crouched down, ready for takeoff. My body was screaming at me, begging to be released, to indulge in the carnage, to slay and destroy to my heart's content. So I let it.I exploded from a standstill as my feet dug into the hardened ground. The earth around me turned hard as stone yet still cracked under the force of my footfalls.My claws, filled with energy and coated with blood, became sharper than ever. My mind focused on a single point as I rushed forward. Elders, those who were ours, were shoved away by my Qi as I fell upon the enemy without warning.I crashed into the first one, a man of large stature and fighting with five flying swords around him. He got impaled by my horns before he even knew what happened. The storm of Qi my body produced then tore him apart and he died screaming, the sharp winds grinding him to dust.[MINE!] I roared amid laughter.The swords disappeared, sucked into my ring, his Soul into my Sea of Consciousness, and his remains into my stomach. I consumed it all!"Aaaaaah!"I heard a shout from the side, half-fear and half-battle cry. I turned and opened my mouth, and an Arcane Blaze exploded outward, burning the guy before either of us knew what was going on. Was he an allay? An enemy? He had a sword, so probably the latter? I didn't take the time to check. He tried to attack me, served him right.Another tried to wound me and as his blades struck, I felt my Soul pulse painfully. But it wasn't from him, no, the attack didn't even break my skin. It's just that I had so many Souls inside my Sea of Consciousness, waiting to be devoured, I was getting something like Soul indigestion. Weird.Anyway, less thinking, more killing!I bit the man and tore off the entire upper half of his body with a crunch. For Spirit Realm Cultivators their flesh was surprisingly weak. Their bones too, had no resistance to them whatsoever. They kind of felt like eating hard sugar candy, just without the sugar, and without being hard. Also, they tasted nothing like candy. They were way better!I finished him off and collected the weapons with a single thought. There were more enemies to kill, so I had no time to be picky or thorough with the loot. I turned towards the rest and pounced."Wait, wait, wait! We are on your side!" I heard a tiny snack scream. I stopped and looked.It was a guy in the Spirit Realm, First or Second Level, probably. They were so weak it was hard to tell. Anyway, he had the robes of the Myriad Beasts Sect and the badge, so I held my bloodthirsty impulses back.I rose to my hind feet before him and looked down.Why was he so tiny? He barely reached over my knees. I looked around and noticed everyone appeared somewhat small. Did they shrink?No, I realized. I had just grown. My transformation went out of control and to consume faster, my body expanded. Nice. Maybe my Sea of consciousness should have expanded as well.I left the trembling guy behind and turned around, still hungry for violence.The density of Qi around the sect was still climbing, the Souls of the fallen sometimes experiencing a quick and devastating decay due to some special Mystic Arts. I couldn't eat those, but they could surely be used to power me up.I breathed in deep and hard, sucking in the excess Qi like my life depended on it, and then blew it back out in the form of an Arcane Blast. The land burned. People died. And I laughed.***While my Sea of Consciousness rapidly expanded to accommodate all the Soul Essence waiting to be processed, I fought my way through the fields of endless carnage. Any enemy carrying a sword, no matter how strong, sooner or later died at my hands. Falling from the sky was a death sentence for any Sword Cultivator. Like a starving piranha, I pounced on any chunk of fresh meat that fell, alive or otherwise.My body burned with extreme heat, growing and becoming denser at the same time. The thickness of my scales increased with every passing moment, and my muscles had more similarities to steel cables than Mortal flesh.Any weapons that fell in my hands were stored away, even if they were attached to an aggressive dwarf trying to steal them. Why couldn't they understand they were mine? Why would they try to resist in the face of a superior being?They just kept coming no matter how many times I crushed them.But, oh well, I couldn't exactly blame them. I did the same. Those stupid Sky Realm Cultivators tried to take me down, but like a cockroach, I always came back. Luckily they had other powerful warriors to guard against so I could recover even after getting turned into minced meat.Hah, that threat of getting turned into minced meat didn't work on me, bitches!They even used Soul-rending attacks on me, those fools!Didn't they understand?! I was immortal! And that was real immortality!Even if my Soul was torn and cut, the strands of Divinity bound it together, and with the excess Soul Essence all around me, I healed in mere moments. Regenerating both body and Soul.It was going well. The enemy was weaker, and though it didn't seem that way, with similar losses on both sides, we were winning. Slowly but surely, we were winning.That's why having a home turf advantage was so great. Our wounded could be quickly moved inside the barrier and patched up while the enemy had to suffer under constant assault.No matter how bad it was, as long as we could get back inside, our people would survive.Even when once a whole bunch of guys ganged up on me, trying to contain me with chains and arrays, I just flashed a pulse of Disruption and beat the shit out of them as their magic failed them. I didn't give them the chance to counter my counter.They had nowhere to run, no place to hide. The Grand Elders of both Sects were busy killing each other and getting anywhere near them meant certain death. They clashed high up in the sky, each of their attacks containing enough energy to compete with what a guy at my level could gather in a year.Ain't no way I was ever going anywhere near them, and luckily they kept to themselves as well. It would probably be bad if a stray spell killed a whole bunch of their people. And there weren't even that many of them. A few dozen Sky Realm Cultivators, with thousands in the Spirit Realm.According to all I knew, that was less than 10% of our total force. Maybe this wasn't an all-out war but instead just a probing clash between the two superpowers? If that was the case, then that was crazy. Not that I complained since the loot was incredible!Ah, but then again, all of that didn't matter, because I recognized a figure that suddenly appeared on the battlefield. I was just about to rip some guy's throat out when everything froze. The battle came to an immediate standstill and I couldn't move a muscle. Heck, I couldn't mobilize even a speck of my Qi, or form a Soul attack. Nothing worked. It was like I was stuck inside a chunk of ice, being able to see but unable to do anything.It was the same for all my Sect members. Not for the enemy though. They could still move, but for some reason, they didn't attack. Instead, they prostrated themselves before the newcomer.Among all the Cultivators I saw and killed, he was the only one I immediately recognized. The memories and knowledge of that man were that deep. And his arrival spelled disaster for everyone present.I swallowed with difficulty as the grip over my body was unyielding. That was bad. It was the strongest Cultivator I knew of, Jian Tian. The grand leader of the Brilliant Sword Sect.Fuck.