Immortal Paladin

[POV: Da Wei]

The first floor of the Tower on the False Earth’s side was primarily designed with an urban aesthetic reminiscent of twenty-first-century Earth, filled with skyscrapers, concrete jungles, and sprawling metropolitan districts. However, there were exceptions. Some areas consisted of abandoned towns, while others stretched into deserts at the edges of the world. There were also isolated pockets scattered throughout the floor, preserved as tourist attractions or designated for more specialized purposes.

“So, are you certain we can find the Great Sage here?” Ru Qiu asked impatiently.

“We will,” I assured him as I jumped over the electric fence.

Ru Qiu landed beside me and examined the forested area. From where we stood, we could see a massive mountain looming beneath a sky thick with smog. Tall poles rose from the surrounding landscape, and a cell tower stood in the distance. Considering the warning signs plastered across the fence, which declared the area hazardous, privately owned, and a protected sanctuary, there certainly seemed to be an excessive number of man-made structures around here.

“This place is a geothermal power plant,” I explained. “It’s one of those locations where all sorts of storylines can take place. You have science fiction, spy thrillers, dinosaur survival scenarios, treasure hunts, and whatever else the Supreme Void can come up with.”

Ru Qiu turned to look at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I couldn’t believe him. He had been roaming around the Tower for some time, doing his own thing, yet I somehow knew more about this place than he did.

“The storylines are basically this side of the Tower’s equivalent of dungeon instances,” I explained. “They have their own settings, plots, characters, and objectives. Think of them as movies, except you’re not watching them on a screen. You’re thrown into the middle of one and expected to play your part. Of course, not every area follows this system. It only became widespread around the time the Supreme Void began taking over the place.”

I paused to admire the sheer amount of effort that had gone into creating this elaborate system.

“The Supreme Void has experience remaking entire civilizations for his own amusement, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the level of detail. I must say, he certainly knows how to have fun.”

Ru Qiu considered my explanation for a moment before nodding.

“Right. So, it’s like a movie, except you’re stuck inside a dungeon instance and have to deal with whatever happens. I get it now. I’ve stumbled across a few of these storylines myself.”

“How did you deal with them?”

“I punched the big bad.”

I stared at him.

He stared back.

That was it. That was his entire strategy.

It was unfair, really. His level was far too high for the first floor, and I suspected the Supreme Void had been forced to intervene by sending aspects of himself to deal with Ru Qiu personally. Judging by the results, those encounters hadn’t gone particularly well for the Supreme Void’s representatives.

Ru Qiu had never been one to back down from a fight. He’d never ducked a fade in his life, or at least not that I could remember. There had been that one time when we nearly got eaten by the Nidhogg monster in the Greater Ghost Realm, but I was willing to overlook that incident. Even the most fearless among us had to acknowledge the occasional exception when faced with something that could swallow entire star systems in one bite.

“Follow me,” I said, leading the way along a path that would hopefully allow us to reach our destination without triggering a storyline.

Unlike the Tower on the Hollowed World’s side, where dungeon instances had clearly defined entrances, this side had no such courtesy. The entire environment could become part of a storyline, and an unsuspecting climber might find themselves thrust into one without warning.

I’d witnessed the consequences through Ophanim. Countless climbers had fallen victim to the system, including echoes created by the Tower itself and individuals invited from the False Earth. The design was cruel, but it had a purpose. It was meant to produce more adaptable climbers with sharp critical thinking skills and a strong instinct for self-preservation.

Unfortunately, it also created an increasingly vicious cycle.

Whenever a climber died, they left behind an echo that could be repurposed as a resource for constructing more difficult storylines. From what I’d observed, the Supreme Void had even designed the system so that these echoes could challenge the storylines themselves and continue climbing the Tower.

At first glance, that might have sounded almost benevolent. After all, the echoes were given opportunities to grow stronger and overcome challenges. However, it reminded me of the Ascension Games, where the imprisoned Ancient Souls had been forced to participate in a system they didn’t understand.

The echoes were no different. They were test subjects, little more than disposable resources used to stress-test the storylines. The Supreme Void wanted to determine whether each scenario was cost-efficient in producing the ideal soldiers. Every death provided him with more data, and every failed attempt helped refine the system.

It was an efficient way to manufacture soldiers, provided one didn’t care about the suffering involved.

Then again, we were talking about the Supreme Void. Compassion had never been one of his defining characteristics.

“We’re here,” I announced as we reached the foot of the mountain.

Ru Qiu looked around in confusion. “Here where?”

I gestured toward the mountain towering above us. “This is where the Great Sage is.”

“...”

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“I know. The Supreme Void certainly has a sense of humor, doesn’t he?”

“No, no, don’t do this to me,” Ru Qiu snapped. “Where is here?”

“The mountain.”

“I can see that! So what? Are you suggesting the Great Sage is imprisoned somewhere inside it? How are we supposed to get him out?”

“That’s the problem. I have no idea.” I shook my head. “I know for certain that this entire mountain serves as his prison, but I don’t know how to release him. The Supreme Void isn’t stupid enough to leave an entrance with a sign saying ’Welcome, please enter here to free the Great Sage’. Do you know the first thing he did when he arrived on this side of the Tower? He challenged the Great Sage. This mountain is the result. That alone should tell you how powerful the Great Sage is, if he’s so threatening. We need to get him out.”

“Yeah, but how? Our guy is sealed inside an entire mountain, so we need to unseal him. That’s the obvious part. It’s the how that’s the problem.” Ru Qiu rubbed his face. “Yeah, the Supreme Void sure has a sense of humor.”

According to Earth’s mythology, the Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal, had been trapped beneath a mountain by the Buddha. I doubted the Supreme Void fancied himself a Buddha, but I wouldn’t put it past him to recreate the scenario simply because he found it amusing.

Fortunately, there were several ways we could approach the problem. I wasn’t certain which one would work, so we might as well try them all.

“Hey, Ru Qiu.”

“What?”

“Can you... Hmm. Maybe you could flip the mountain?”

He stared at me as though I’d just suggested we move the entire planet. In a different environment, it would have been easy, but inside the Tower?

“What?” asked Ru Qiu, unsure if he heard it right.

“That’s actually why I brought you here. So, can you do it?”

“You said you brought me here to be the muscle.”

“I did. So use those muscles.”

Ru Qiu’s expression darkened. He looked like a man who had just realized he’d been tricked into doing something considerably more troublesome than he’d originally agreed to. Nevertheless, he walked toward the base of the mountain and crouched down. He pressed his fingers against the ground beneath it, searching for a suitable grip before carefully positioning himself to lift.

His qi began spreading across the mountain, enveloping the enormous mass of rock as he tried to establish control over it.

The ground trembled.

I watched with interest. “You know, I could have done this with one hand back in my prime.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying! Remember when War rag-dolled me through several mountains? I went through them like they were made of paper. And that wasn’t even the most impressive part. There was also that time I dropped an entire continent on War. And that was the Hollowed World, limiting our cultivation to just around the level of an immortal.”

“Da Wei, shut the hell up! I’m concentrating!”

I grinned. Nothing motivated Ru Qiu quite like the suggestion that someone else could do what he was struggling to accomplish. His competitive streak was practically a natural resource, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.

“I’m only trying to encourage you!”

“Encourage me? I’ll encourage your head into the fucking ground when I’m done with this!”

The mountain shook harder. Cracks spread across the earth, and the surrounding trees swayed violently as Ru Qiu poured more qi into his effort. His muscles bulged beneath his clothes, his veins standing out as he strained against the mountain’s immense weight.

“Fuck you, Da Wei! Muscle, my ass! You want me to flip a fucking mountain, so why don’t you get your useless ass over here and help me?”

“Because you’re doing such a wonderful job!”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

His suit began tearing at the seams. Ru Qiu’s shoulders expanded, his arms swelling with the sheer force he exerted. He dug his feet into the ground, leaned back, and let out a thunderous war cry that echoed throughout the forest.

For a moment, I wondered whether he would actually manage it.

Then the mountain moved.

The earth groaned beneath us as the entire mass of rock tilted sideways. Ru Qiu roared again, his qi surging in a desperate final burst of strength, and the mountain flipped over.

He’d done it on his first attempt.

I immediately cast Shield of the Eternal around us as the mountain’s exposed interior erupted in a torrent of molten rock. Rivers of fire spilled across the newly exposed surface, illuminating the surrounding forest with an infernal glow.

Was it magma or lava? I could never remember which was supposed to be which. Magma was underground, while lava was what emerged onto the surface. Since we were now watching the stuff spill out in front of us, lava seemed like the more appropriate term.

Amid the blazing inferno, I spotted a human silhouette at the center of the mountain, standing where the flames burned hottest, and the molten rock flowed thickest.

Ru Qiu stared at it, his breathing still heavy from the exertion.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” he said. “Does that look like a monkey to you?”

I examined the figure more closely.

It resembled a statue of a man frozen in the middle of a pose, as though he were attempting to carry the mountain or resist its crushing weight. The figure remained motionless amid the flames, its surface darkened by long years of imprisonment.

Then cracks began to spread across the statue.

Thin lines of ember-red light appeared beneath its surface, spreading like veins of molten gold. The cracks widened, and the statue shuddered as something stirred within. A moment later, the stone shell shattered, and a figure burst forth from the remains.

A young man emerged from the flames, clad in ornate armor. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and a golden headband resting against his forehead. He wasn’t particularly tall, at least not by the standards of the powerful beings I’d encountered throughout my life, but there was something undeniably imposing about him.

Then he looked at us.

Fire burned in his eyes.

“What did you say? I don’t look ’monkey’ enough to you?” he demanded, his voice reverberating through the mountain. “I am Sun Wukong, the Monkey King! I don’t look monkey enough to you?”

His expression twisted with outrage, and the flames surrounding him surged.

“I’m not the Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal, if I don’t beat your ass back to yesterday!”

The Great Sage moved so fast that neither of us could react.

One moment, Ru Qiu and I were standing behind my golden barrier, Shield of the Eternal. The next, the barrier shattered with such overwhelming force that it couldn’t even begin to regenerate. Ru Qiu vanished at the same instant, leaving behind a suspiciously human-shaped hole in the ground beside me.

The Great Sage landed where my companion had been standing.

I barely had time to register what had happened before I replayed the scene through Ophanim.

The Great Sage had crossed the distance between us in an instant, appeared before Ru Qiu, and smacked the back of his head with enough force to send him flying into the ground. The poor guy hadn’t even gotten a chance to defend himself.

Well, that was certainly one way to greet a guest.

“Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal! It’s an honor to finally meet you. My name is Da Wei, and I’ve come here to—”

“I don’t like you.”

WHACK!

Something crashed into the back of my head.

My vision went dark, and I briefly lost consciousness.

When I came to, I found myself lying at the bottom of a human-shaped crater. There was a perfectly Da Wei-shaped exit above me, leading back to the surface.

I climbed out, brushing the dirt off my clothes, only to discover that Ru Qiu was having an even worse time than I was.

The Great Sage had him by the scruff of his clothes and was repeatedly smacking him on the rear. Every time Ru Qiu attempted to retaliate, the Great Sage dodged effortlessly before delivering another slap, sending my companion stumbling and cursing.

“I’ll teach you a lesson!” the Great Sage shouted. “Call me Granddaddy Sun!”

“No! My balls are your granddaddy!” Ru Qiu shot back.

I stopped in my tracks.

I hadn’t thought Ru Qiu had it in him to come up with a response like that, especially while getting his ass handed to him. Yet somehow, he’d managed to deliver the comeback with a straight face.

The Great Sage froze.

For a moment, the entire world seemed to fall silent.

Then he burst into laughter.

“Ka ka ka ka ka~!”

The Great Sage laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, while Ru Qiu staggered away, struggling to recover his balance. My companion looked thoroughly battered, and judging by the way he was standing, I wasn’t sure his legs were still cooperating with him.

I watched the Great Sage continue laughing, then glanced at Ru Qiu.

Well, at least one of us had managed to entertain our host.