There were two options that she had considered before deciding to assume the role of a group purely opposed to the Primordial Deities.
One was naturally that, but the other was to play along to the rumours and pretend to be a devoted group of worshipers. However, the issue with the Primordial Deities, regardless of the specific nature of Primordial Cosmos, was that they had some connection to or reliance upon prayer and worship, and the moment that they began to engage in it, even if simply in jest, there was a chance of something like the living plague or the seed of corruption appearing within them, possibly without them even being able to notice it.
As such, even without the many other considerations that would need to be made, it was not reasonable to play those kinds of roles, even if it would allow a scheme where, instead of nudging the incoming crowd’s interest aside, they could cull it entirely by allowing themselves to ‘die’ and therefore get rid of the common population, leaving only the Greats to deal with. The danger was simply too great.
The Primordial Deities weren’t named that simply because of their power, after all. As any good deity out there – good, in this instance, defining one’s quality rather than moral character – they had a connection to prayer, and could either make use of the faith itself in some way, or were able to use the prayers as conduits for their power, perhaps even using it to magnify their abilities. It was one of the reasons that they appeared to have had for not killing all human life within their territory, as they instead forced the people to worship them and thus benefit them in some way, and the prevention of such forced prayer was recorded to have some effect on their strength, although that particular effect tended to vary to the point that it was difficult to confirm.
What she could be certain of was that something with the aura of a Primordial Deity was out there, two of them at least, and that more of them might not be dead and already active to some extent, so any action done in their favour would be highly unwise, while the opposite would also be true.
Thus, with that being decided upon, they had gone on to figure out the kinds of changes they would need to present in order to make themselves seem as unlike themselves as they could, with some taking far longer to conclude a viable option than others. She had thought that it would be particularly important not to let her present character mix with any of the previous ones, so she made sure to discard everything that she had stuck to with everything she had done before.
Typically, she’d wear a decent amount of clothing in the form of her robes, then she also began to wear her gauntlets and high heeled boots, but all of those were too noticeable so she swapped them out for nothing. Her physique had fortunately been the source of her tanned skin in the first place, so the fact that she had worn so much, so frequently, did nothing to alert anyone to this fact now. In addition, to make herself seem much more physically powerful, she made use of some of her physical training methods to temporarily boost the definition of her muscles, causing them to stand out far more than they regularly would.
Also, it could be safely presumed from her previous appearances in the Ping District and before then that she was a regular woman, without anything amiss in her nether regions, so she decided to emphasise the new addition to the point that it would be hard to miss, even intentionally, as Huang Yu Di had confirmed for her with his stare.
She wasn’t too keen on showing herself off just for this, especially since something like this might actually make her more notable in the eyes of others, as well as putting a greater deal of suspicion onto her if Ping Gangze was to let it be known to the Greats that she had escaped and ended up taking a technique manual or two with her. At that point, if the Great Families have any decent understanding of techniques, the principles of yin and yang and so on, they wouldn’t necessarily be incapable of arriving at the conclusion that the Yin Soul Yang Root technique was capable of altering the body.
After all, the reason she had presumed this to be impossible was due to not seeing that as a possibility, whereas they would already know the final result and would only need to question which technique, physique or drug out there was able to cause it.
Her claim of possessing draconic blood was also a somewhat risky one. On one hand, there were very few out there that had any decent understanding of bloodlines, and blood in general, and from what she knew, neither the Blood-tinged Church nor the Blood Alchemists had any friendly relations to the Greats. However, if she was found by someone that did understand this, like Long Huang had, and were able to prove her claim of draconic blood wrong, then it would make her far more suspicious.
Fortunately, this wasn’t something that she intended to keep up for very long, only however long she needed to in order to attract the Greats over without the aid of the common warriors of Yi City. Once they were within her reach, she could do as she likes, so long as she brought them away from Paragon while doing so.
That much was easy to accomplish, so she didn’t expect to have much difficulties in the case of the warriors being tricked. Most wouldn’t think to question her claim of bloodline in the first place, as she did not expect most to be randomly suspicious of her dick, of all things, rather than any of the other claims that she would be putting forth, or even the appearance of some of the other new members of the so-called Hunters of the Cosmos. So long as these other things pulled away their attention, even actual bloodline experts might be fooled, not to mention regular people.
Before attempting this, she did attempt to find any source of a draconic bloodline within the remaining stockpile of treasures from the House of Gold, or within some of the Ascendant’s Arbiters, but none had it so far as she was able to observe, nor was she sure whether the amount that anyone would have would be sufficient to be able to present her own bloodline as a draconic one. If it functioned like her physique energy, which wasn’t implausible, then she would need a sufficient amount to satiate the blood, but that wouldn’t be obtained from anything but a highly concentrated bloodline without leading to the death of the blood donor, or the destruction of whatever may somehow be storing the blood of a dragon for whatever purpose.
She suspected that if she had been able to stabilise her House of Gold at a larger size than it ended up being at first, which she would have been able to do if she had a stronger cultivation while in the prison realm, there would be something that fit her needs. The other world from which many of the items had to have been obtained, or sourced from at the very least, had a fondness for dragons, from what she understood from Fu Zan and Miyu, so to have no draconic items would be really unusual.
It didn’t even matter if it had been some strange draconic bloodline that wasn’t seen in this world, since few knew of any kind of proper list in the first place and would be unlikely to notice one small thing being amiss so long as it was still obviously related to dragons.
For instance, something from the House of Gold would be likely to have some relation with gold, or metal at the very least, and she might have obtained the blood of a gold dragon rather than any well-known variants – not all were known to the world in the first place, so there was no guarantee that there was no gold dragon out there – but so long as the bloodline resonance that it produced was more similar to a dragon than to the metal or to gold coins, it would be hard to complain. Even if some unknown genius pointed out a problem, she could always play the fool and claim that she also had no idea, and that she had always believed her endowment to be the result of a draconic bloodline.
Most would believe her, especially if she seemed genuine, since they would have similarly believed the same and wouldn’t want to let their own lack of knowledge seem as obvious. Rather than them being wrong, they were convinced by the surety with which Wei Yi had spoken, leading them to make a mistake, and so on.
If everyone else had been able to practise bloodline cultivation with her Ascendant’s Bloodline, and if she did have enough draconic blood not just for herself but for others as well, it might have been highly effective to let the entirety of the Ascendant’s Arbiters showcase it during the mission. It would contrast greatly with anything that the rest of the world would expect from the participants in the War of Yin, which most of the faction were, as if the others gained the ability to change their bodies as dragons could, they could always display or hide any draconic endowments much more easily than she could.
On the topic of the draconic ability to hide and display their male genitalia, she wasn’t certain whether that would affect her if she was to add it to her own powers through the Ascendant’s Bloodline, or if she would need to have grown the yang root through the bloodline itself in order to benefit from it.
She didn’t really mind having a dick, and she had gotten used to most of the challenges it presented, allowing her to go without constantly and blatantly presenting any traces of arousal, physical or mental, to others, but it was still a rather obvious target to anyone that was aware of it, and so long as they could injure her, going for the balls would likely hurt her far, far more. That was inconvenient, to say the least, hence why she would greatly appreciate the ability to hide it at any time.
‘Still, that’s enough about me. Great Dark should be ready to present himself soon, and once the others arrive, we can begin the play for as long as necessary…’
Confirming one more time that Huang Yu Di was still inside the tent, having fallen into a bit of a daze as he lay there, staring up without moving much, she pre-emptively turned to the tent from which the former leader of the forces of the War of Yin would emerge and waited for whatever he would be able to present to her.
While they had decided to disguise themselves in complex ways together, they decided that most people travelling together wouldn’t know every little detail of one another’s character and identity, so it would be more believable if they encountered one another for the first time without full knowledge of what they were going to do. In the moment of the first encounter, they would be likely to seem a little too surprised at any alterations, but the general atmosphere should be a little more accurate after that, which should be fine seeing as any other forces wouldn’t arrive for some time.
They had decided to place the fake camp some distance away from Paragon, nearer to the end of the sandstorm rather than the beginning, to ensure that any accidental wandering wasn’t going to lead anyone to the fortress, but the camp was still some way into the storm.
For most to decide that they were going to traverse a sandstorm, especially one that seemed to encompass as much as this one did, they would be very likely to require appropriate preparation and items, like plenty of water to satiate themselves on the journey, so anyone that wasn’t as hurried as Huang Yu Di wouldn’t wander in until a day later than him at the very least. Given the fact that they prepared and completed this camp within a day, it meant that they were highly likely to have at least one more until the fastest of groups was going to be rushing into the sands in search of a worshiper of the Primordial Cosmos.
At that point, if they were still showing behaviour that was unbefitting of the group they were pretending to be, then that could only be said to be their fault for being so utterly incompetent.
One thing that they hadn’t considered all that much was the possibility of there being a true variant of the Hunters of the Cosmos out there, whether they would be going by the same name or some other one. It wasn’t an absolute impossibility, especially not when the Great Families prompted rumours of Primordial Cosmos worshipers heading north in order to catch Wei Yi and anyone that they thought was accompanying her, but she hoped that she would be able to get away with it even then.
Larger organisations, or those that travelled frequently, tended to have many branches and separate parties, and not all of them would know one another, or be identical in the way they do things. If some lone member of a true Hunters of the Cosmos was to recruit a few more to his cause then leave them shortly after, it could easily result in a group that understands the basic intentions of the group without anything else about them, perhaps not even their usual traditions and etiquette, which would be especially likely with a group that would be unlikely to see much action while under the leadership of this experienced person.
This was the kind of story that Wei Yi wanted to present if some member of the group they might have accidentally named themselves after shows up and demands to know why they aren’t following the proper rites and traditions in their hunt of the Primordial Deity. She didn’t know whether that person would believe her, but so long as most of the hunters coming after her were convinced, it would be fine.
After a short while, Great Dark finally came out of his tent, his body also mostly uncovered, and his skin darkened via certain means as to appear far less suspicious that he normally would.
He lacked the same physical training and reinforcement as her, so it would be unreasonable to even attempt to bolster his muscle definition to the same extent, prompting him to instead bring out a bow and to let his hair cover much of his body, giving the impression of an untidy ranger. His hair had been dyed a slight crimson, difficult as it was to alter the black shade into anything workable, and his aura or pure yin had been subdued as much as it was possible to hide the effects of the Paradigm of Yin, with this being accomplished through the slight façade of yang to cover the weakened yin.
To anyone with an expertise in yin and yang, this would do little to cover his true nature, but from what they were aware of regarding the Greats, they did not practise physique cultivation nor did they tend to possess physiques, substituting them with their bloodlines instead, albeit unconsciously.
As such, they would be very unlikely to be able to interpret the yin aura to any significant degree and would at most conclude that Great Dark had a mixed physique relating to ice and fire, or something of that sort. Combined with the differences in his appearance, if they were aware of it in the first place, they shouldn’t be likely to jump to the wrong conclusions.
His features, cultivation and soul were far more difficult to alter, as they were all in part tied to Great Light as a result of the way in which Great Earth had originally chosen to cultivate the Paradigm of Yin, hence the long and loose hair to cover his facial features, as well as a kind of frost-fire technique that he could use on his arrows to make it seem like he is either a fire cultivator, or someone using frost to create flames due to his preference. This too would be unlike Great Earth and the twins born from him, hopefully making it even more difficult to guess who he is without the full understanding of him, his history, and his cultivation.
Really, they were unable to hide anywhere near as well as they probably should have been considering the kind of foe they were up against, but various disguise techniques and methods were far more complicated than changing one’s face once or twice. Even if that had been enough, to change one’s appearance a significant investment of time is required to procure the correct pills and the expertise of someone knowledgeable in the craft, neither of which was a possibility for them.
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Then, even if Wei Yi’s body wasn’t only malleable to her own physique and if Great Dark could change himself however he wanted, altering the bones and internal organs would be incredibly difficult without harming their cultivation, which they would need to do if they wanted to truly hide from anyone with spiritual perception. It had been a risky thing for Wei Yi to do back in the Yi District, when she grew her additional meridians, and it was even more risky to do now, even if they did not intend to modify the body to such a large extent as she had.
Even after all of that, only she was able to alter her energy entirely and on a whim, whereas Great Dark and everyone else that had been brought along to the fake camp would need to hastily cultivate back up to their current realm. For some, that had taken close to forty years, so even if their lifespan and whatever else remained while they attempted to regain their power, they would need at least half of that time to complete the process unless Wei Yi’s plan to dilute her energy and provide it to others worked, at which point it would still take an eighth or a quarter of the time, which would still be far, far longer than a day or two, which was all of the time that they currently had on their hands.
In other words, it was not a viable solution for now, and unless the basic structure of the Truth of the Universe, the method that permitted Wei Yi to switch her energy whenever she wanted, could be replicated and passed on to everyone else, it would never become viable.
‘That is an interesting prospect that I should consider at some point. I don’t know exactly how the Truth of the Universe works, nor do I know what material it is made from – otherworldly gifts and their resistance to spiritual perception are still rather frustrating – but it shouldn’t be impossible to replicate their storage capabilities to a far, far lesser extent,’ she considered while she stared at Great Dark, ‘They store far more than necessary, so if I limit it to just energy or techniques, perhaps I might be able to do this before the ninth or even eighth realm.’
Successfully allowing everyone under her leadership in the Ascendant’s Arbiters to be able to switch between the cultivation methods that they had learned would be an enormous boost, as it would allow them to fulfil far more roles than any regular cultivator ever could. They would also be able to ignore the weaknesses of any of their chosen techniques, as they could just switch from one to another.
As such, it was a worthwhile project to embark upon, even if it wasn’t currently something that she understood with any degree of sufficiency that might allow her to get on with it.
“Do you intend to stop staring at me, Wei Yi? It’s like you’ve never seen an archer before, Wei Yi.”
“Sorry, boss, just amazed that someone as weak as you gets to be a leader around here,” Wei Yi replied, pretending to absentmindedly display her muscles as if to present a comparison between his and her own, “Back in the west, they’d have made you a pet of some stronger man, you know?”
“I do, but that is none of your concern. We’ve already fought to confirm my strength, haven’t we?” he asked, continuing after she nodded readily, “So, shut up and do what you’re told. Have you learnt who that man was, and whether he is someone that we must purge so that the primordial deities do not rise again?”
He had to inhale quite a lot of air to make up for the prolonged sentence he had just spoken, so the Ascendant made sure to give him enough time.
“Boss, that guy said that he was just lookin’ for protection since a bunch of bastards were after him, so I told him that he’ll be gettin’ it. He also said that he has nothing to do with any Primordial Deities, especially not Primordial Cosmos.”
“You just believed him? He could easily be lying to you. Make sure to watch over him and see whether he tries anything strange, and tell me the moment that he does, or if the patrol returns. Got it?”
“Somethin’ strange? Can’t say that I’m too familiar with what kinds of strange things you guys tend to get up to, but the moment I notice a single thing, I’ll let you know!” Wei Yi exclaimed, turning towards the tent that Huang Yu Di was in and proceeding to stare at it intently, as if he was going to do the aforementioned strange thing at any moment.
After a brief pause, Great Dark let out a two-layered sigh, one layer being entirely fake while the other contained the frustration that had gathered from many years of encountering subordinates of similar levels of intellect and comprehension. Fortunately for the two of them, both knew that the other was just acting, so any levels of actual frustration that might be generated were lessened significantly, and it also made it very clear why Wei Yi was more suitable for acting as someone unlike herself than Great Dark or someone like him was.
Even now, he was playing a role that he was mostly familiar with, in a character that was also similar to what he had acted like in the past, but while Wei Yi didn’t like to constantly act, and was also rather poor at keeping her character for prolonged periods of time, while she was still at the top of her game, it was far better than anyone else in their fake Hunters of the Cosmos could act. Considering that she had started deceiving all kinds of people from early on, that wasn’t much of a surprise.
He returned to his tent while thinking back to the tactical meeting they had earlier in the day.
Then, the man had not yet awoken, so they were able to speak with one another freely while Wei Yi kept her attention on him with her spiritual perception to make sure that they wouldn’t be surprised by him and so that he had no opportunity to eavesdrop.
At this point, Wei Yi had yet to forcefully raise her muscle definition, Great Dark hadn’t yet dyed his hair, and the others had not yet gotten to the preparations that they were also going to make, meaning that if they were to be seen at that point, anyone familiar with them would likely recognise them after a moment of questioning the actions that they had taken at that point. Such acquaintances would be likely to discover them even after their attempts at a disguise, but they could hardly do better in a few hours.
“Alright, the plan is as follows: I and Great Dark will greet that guy when he wakes up, giving him a sudden impression of the most prominent people within the Ascendant’s Arbiters and the participants in the War of Yin respectively, making it more difficult for him to connect our appearances with the people that are being sought out by Them. You guys can take more time out there and then return as if you were scouting out the sands, and pretend to have found nothing at all,” Wei Yi pointed forwards.
Luo Lia Kun glanced in that direction and frowned, “Isn’t that the direction of Paragon? Won’t they know right away that there is something there if they learn who we are at some point?”
“Why should they? I mean, it is an assumption that can be made, but with the way in which the barrier works, the more you are attempting to head in a certain direction with care and attention, the more likely you are to stray off course,” she replied, “The key is that they don’t have any particular reason to assume that we are in control of the sandstorm, and so they could easily conclude that we got lost as well, while some other group activated the sands. In fact, they might do that whether or not They spread tales of whatever they know about the fortress, so we should be reasonably safe from at the very least.”
“What about… our names? You seem to use Wei Yi now, but… the rest of us, me in particular, can’t.”
“Just call yourself Da Heian or something. Nobody figured me out so far, and I doubt that even if they think us all to be idiots that they will assume that we would just use our real names most of the time.”
“What about me? They might have records about me as a result of what had happened with the Luo District and Their Luo family, so just swapping it to Lia Kun Luo or something might tip them off, especially if every one of us goes this route,” the perpetual vice-leader pointed out, “I am also not very good at coming up with names, so, any ideas?”
“While I do think that they might ignore this as well, seeing as They are a strange bunch to say the least, but if you don’t want to go with that… To tell you the truth, my ideas for names are also limited, hence constantly using Wei Yi, but… Yin Baishu?”
“Uh… I suppose that works as well as any other name… This is going to be a temporary thing, one that we’re not returning to any time soon, right?”
“I don’t think it was that bad, but yes, I don’t intend to be getting back to this any time soon. That being said, I hadn’t expected to be doing this either, so you might want to take such assumptions with a grain of salt. Essentially, you won’t be hearing that name being spoken at you after this in the best case scenario, won’t hear it for a while with a good outcome, and might be hearing it a whole lot more in a bad one.”
“Right, that’s just great. What about everyone else?”
Wei Yi looked at the other people they had brought with them, mostly those that were originally from the Remnants of Yin as the people of the prison realm would look far too pale for a group originating west of the Chao District, and shrugged.
“I think it will be better for everyone if we just flip your names. None of you should be particularly famous, so as long as you don’t mess up or make it obvious you’re messing up, nobody should notice,” she said, her gaze freezing on Chao Ru for a moment before continuing, “The key is to just play along with whatever happens between us. One of you decide that you’re in a relationship with someone else? Good, either go with it, or make it obvious that the first person is some annoying pest that keeps trying to get your attention. Ideally, none of you would do that, as it could cause unnecessary strife between us, so just remember that this is temporary. If there’s someone you do want to go out with, just speak to them normally.”
She didn’t expect anyone in the Ascendant’s Arbiters to act in such a fashion, not while it was a rather pure group without the participation of countless other forces from around the Western Continent, but it was safer and ultimately quicker to remind them not to do anything stupid than it was to wait for something like this to occur first.
Depending on the scrutiny of those that would be heading in their direction eventually, even a minor mistake could escalate, and mistakes were more often made when someone tried to take advantage of a situation for their own benefit while the rest couldn’t tolerate it.
“Also, don’t try to act like someone you really cannot imitate. That will seem far more unnatural, and would just attract attention, again. If you cannot act at all, don’t, and stay out of conversations as if you don’t do well in them or something like that, since it will be far more believable than a stiff and uncertain sentence spoken by someone constantly glancing at their audience to confirm that their words were achieving the intended effect,” Wei Yi stated, leading to some breathing a silent sigh of relief, “Essentially, be believable for a day or two, then we may be able to get people to fuck off. Got it?”