The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 102: Black Shores

Running a cultivator to exhaustion wasn’t that difficult. If forced to use qi, they could be out of energy within minutes. But running a cultivator to exhaustion without forcing them to use qi… well… that was a different story altogether.

The Glass Shrub. A fabulous being of mighty, mysterious powers, one whose path had taken a sharp turn into the profound unknown. This mysterious being was manipulating a glass puppet to chase a child on the bronze path to exhaustion.

Indeed, running a cultivator dry without forcing them to use qi was much more difficult. But it was much easier when a sadistic plant threatened to stab them.

Hunter panted. He wouldn't have felt so forced to run if it were anyone other than the creepy plant. But he could tell—this thing wouldn’t hesitate to skewer him.

Unjust, barbaric, and needlessly mean, he thought, regretting ever agreeing to enter the nightmare realm.

Why would Neave do this? If there was anything Hunter could take pride in, it was his discipline in working himself to the bone. There was no need to force him like this—was what he thought at first, but he was surprised to find how much hidden potential could be extracted when the risk of harm was present.

His panting worsened, and he felt the intense burning in his legs and abs. Even his shoulders and neck hurt from running; how were those muscles even involved? It wasn’t much longer until he genuinely couldn’t run anymore—as in, he was, no matter how hard he tried, well and truly out of stamina.

The puppet eyed him, and for a long moment, he worried it would stab him for good measure. Luckily, it seemed satisfied with his efforts, so it left him to it as it returned to Neave.

He stared at the chiseled obsidian floor. The dome had been transformed yet again. The smaller glass shrubs inside the dome were deemed useless by the mighty glass shrub, and Neave collected the plants for material, cleaning the room up to make space for their training.

Complete and utter exhaustion overwhelmed him as he finally allowed himself to drop his guard.

The call of sleep couldn’t be left unanswered any longer.

***

Neave saw his brother drop half-dead from exhaustion, and he nodded in satisfaction. The kid was already losing some weight. His muscles were too big to permit the type of flexibility he needed, and Neave felt that perhaps five to ten dozen more runs like that would be enough.

The others weren’t faring much better, either. Everyone had their own hell to live through, personally crafted by Neave—the master of torturous training himself. On a small, glass platform, Gabrias shakily stood up but rapidly lost ground and facepalmed again. The floor beneath him was already beginning to look quite bloody from all the times he smacked into it.

Neave nodded at the glass rollers attached to Gabrias’ feet.

His biggest weakness was that he had zero balance. It wasn’t unusual, given his impressive height, but that didn’t make it any less detrimental to his combat ability. He was improving, though. But only at falling. Now, when he fell down, he didn’t smack his head into the floor at full, but only like… seventy percent force. Lovely.

Not too far from him, Harel was benching crazy weight. Neave brought over the equipment he had used, although he had to make a few less heavy weights so everyone could utilize them.

Likely due to the stress from being here, she had lost a ton of muscle mass. She looked like a damn skeleton and needed to regain some bulk. Thus, Neave had her on a strict eat-and-lift schedule. While she didn’t seem to hate the training, she hated the eating part. Unsurprising, given that whenever she could no longer eat the regular way, Neave would, with the help of Shrubby, blend meat into a fine paste and force her to drink.

The way Neave trained Dukean was by first leaving him to his own devices. The boy was no fool—he knew what he needed to do to improve. It was just that after his demonic trainer saw his self-made schedule, he was forced to do it twice as hard as he decided would be enough.

He was on a relatively balanced schedule, as he had no critical weaknesses to address.

Marven was on a schedule very similar to Harel’s. Except he ate nearly thrice as much meat blend as she did. Given that he was on the platinum path, his overall capacity for monster meat consumption was through the roof. Other than that, Neave forced him into a few particular exercises. Namely, he was to repeat roughly three-hundred and fifty-eight movements that would act as a counterweight to the undesirable muscle memory he had built up over his life as a miserable twat.

Neave nodded in satisfaction and left the chamber again. He reached the place where he was raising the monsters. He had separated a small area to grow a specific type of abominid.

He had created them by feeding them extremely specialized limbs, ones grown with the life force of several species he had run into. It resulted in a lopsided body that made the creatures themselves rather clumsy and weak due to all of the clashing forces, but the meat was packed with an insane variety of beneficial qi.

And also… enough toxic qi to kill a golden path cultivator, but that was nothing Neave couldn’t purge.

Raising monsters and experimenting on them was highly illegal and supremely taboo basically everywhere. After trying it for himself, he was confident that at least half of the sects did it in secret, likely in bases hidden deep in the wilderness.

Because it was just so damn effective. Words couldn’t describe the utility of growing specialized monster meat like cattle.

He nodded in satisfaction and went to another, fully isolated chamber.

A small glass orb hung off the ceiling, shining as brightly as a miniature sun, and the floor had a vast variety of different types of fruits and vegetables growing, even some grain in the corner.

These weren’t monster plants, either. They were simply plants. Neave had, after an insane amount of trial and error, managed to grow a limb that produced fruit and extracted a seed. That was only the beginning.

Seeds of all types and different varieties, created through unholy means and blended with the life force of countless different creatures, had resulted in a vast field of enviable growth.

The most valuable thing he had developed was in the far corner to the right, where he grew a specific grain species.

The grain was, as Neave would put it, fucking fantastic. The sheer quantity of energy it could contain made it challenging to keep the plants fed. There was a whole other section where he dedicated much time and effort to cultivating soil that could be used as fertilizer. It required an entirely different species of specialized grass-fungus hybrid.

After collecting some sparkly grain, he returned to the room with the monsters and threw it around on the floor. The chubby abominids rushed to collect the goods, and he grinned in satisfaction.

It was time to visit the other critical chamber he had created.

He maneuvered through the caves, and he made it to the third chamber after a few hops through thick cave walls. The door of solid spirit swung open, revealing the inside.

It was a lake. A large, circular dome was fully isolated from the outside. Water poured from the ceiling without end, where several glass orbs hung on thin strings. The glass water spheres—an infinite source of water.

Neave had first created a species of water creature. Then, he bred them until he had found the suitable cores, ones he turned into what could basically be described as infinite water generators.

All of this was possible only after he discovered the secret power of Shapeshifting.

Neave was shocked when he first discovered that he could do that. He hadn’t experimented much with it initially, mainly because he feared the changes would be irreversible.

That wasn’t an incorrect assumption, either. Kind of. Any limb he monsterfied could be transformed back into his own limb if he burned his own life force. However, any time he morphed a limb, part of his life force would be transformed into the same type belonging to the foreign body part.

While it was possible to move alien life force and keep it anywhere he pleased within his body, there always had to be some amount of his own life force within all of his limbs. That life force would become victim to a transformation whenever he used this morphing ability.

For as long as he kept at least half of his body mass entirely his own, he could technically transform the rest into monster flesh without any long-term consequences.

Anything more than that, however, and he would forever remain partially a monster. He wasn’t entirely, or honestly, at all averse to that idea. If that monster shape granted him more power, he would happily keep it.

The problem was that he could no longer disguise himself as fully human afterward.

Now… He wouldn’t mind transforming, perhaps, his bones, let's say, and turning them into monster bones, preferably that of a species that had a body of, hmmm, let’s say metal or crystal.

But he wouldn’t risk that haphazardly. He still didn’t understand everything about this power, and he hoped to learn as much as possible before feeling forced to transform into a literal monster.

Transforming an arm or a leg, however, wasn’t an issue.

He had a… very, very unpleasant realization as he experimented with this power initially. Neave had always believed it didn’t matter what type of life force he burned when he healed himself.

Ha… Ha ha… Ha….

Oh, it mattered. It mattered a lot. He would have been dead a long time ago if he didn’t have Sacred Blood.

For a long time, Neave wondered why he had been in such a terrible state after escaping the assassins in Pavarrie and why his condition improved so much after getting his improved organs.

Back then, he brushed it off, thinking it was some peculiar combination of his powers that removed the consequences. But it was almost entirely the Purifying Blood that had kept him alive.

Now, he was wiser, older even, although it was arguable by how much. He was no longer willing to risk his life doing utterly stupid crap. He would only do it for somewhat ridiculous crap now.

Character growth achieved, Neave thought as he pumped his fist in the air.

Back to the water chamber he went, and another one of the abominid-piggies was sent to the slaughter. Soon enough, a relatively presentable batch of meat was butchered into a pile. Neave used his ‘secret technique’ to purify the flesh of any harmful qi. It was a secret since he didn’t want the others to know that he washed the meat in his blood—the ultimate purification substance.

He willed his avatar power, and a somewhat sizeable purple abominid appeared, carrying big boxes strapped to its back and even a cistern of water. This thing was so damn useful that he was almost willing to forget the unfortunate evolution. Almost.

He opened one of the bigger boxes and put the meat inside. Then, the avatar disappeared, taking the items into the dimensional space while he traveled back to the others.

The meat tasted mediocre. It wasn’t bad. It was just kind of plain. He had mixed the traits of countless different beings into it, and the result averaged out into something with zero character.

Yet, they all ate the meat as if it were a heavenly golden apple.

The reason why was simple. Even if the flavor was suboptimal, the gains one could receive from eating it rivaled a supreme treasure. Well, to be fair, it pretty much was a supreme treasure.

They weren’t focusing on cultivation yet, as he wanted them to first build their bodies into optimal shape, so they were all already at least a rank above their own in strength.

While that might not seem much compared to Neave, whose power was now roughly at the level of someone on the third step of the silver path, having strength above one’s rank was mighty impressive, especially if that was achieved without a spirit power and without cultivating the potential of muscle.

Consuming this meat did considerably more than just boost their strength. It was arguable that that was the least impactful of its myriad benefits.

Virtually every aspect, physical or mental, was boosted in one way or another. Granted, it was to varying degrees, but it was still mighty impressive. Several had a roughly similar impact to the boost to strength, but they mattered more since they were more difficult to directly train. However, all of them paled compared to the regeneration boost.

Neave may have been underselling his spirit powers' influence on the monsters since the sheer power of the regeneration enhancement could only be described as godlike.

It was to the degree that a silver, or perhaps even a gold-rank regeneration boosting power couldn’t compete with the enhancement they’ve received.

That was absolutely… They all felt tired at this point. Being in a constant state of shock at what Neave presented them with was exhausting to the point that they were beginning to wave off realm-shattering revelations as just another one of his wacky hijinks.

The creator ate the meat as well. To be honest, he ate the most out of anyone here. Regularly, he devoured those things whole while they were still alive. They were so packed with beneficial qi that even he received some benefit from it.

As time passed, he related to the glass shrub more and more. He wondered how a creature could be so jealous. Now, he wondered no more. These bastard leeches and parasites were improving at a pace that made him envious—and it was all from the incredible amount of hard work he’d put in and the sacrifices he’d made.

Not to mention that, because they were actually fucking cultivating, they had a drastically higher ceiling, and their growth wouldn’t slow down nearly as quickly as his had.

Well, it would be a long time until they could rival him. Honestly, they could likely never truly threaten him.

Neave wasn’t even close to done with empowering himself, and, well, he felt that there were more secrets he had yet to unravel.

He finished watching them eat and eagerly return to their training.

Oh, you little kids can have your fun, okay, okay, he thought in the most condescending voice he could imagine. Then, he returned to the chamber with the plants.

A small corner of that chamber had a few… dangerous, or as Neave would say—fun experiments.

Neave was growing a specific type of fruit he wanted to feed to the glass shrub. This plant had also been granted a spirit, but it started with a monster core, and it wasn’t nearly as massive as the one Neave used on the glass shrub.

There was no way he would be introducing another freak like that any time soon. That damn plant had already reached the silver path, and its growth wasn’t slowing.

The thing he was growing here could be called a fertility elixir.

The realm already had enough atmospheric energy for monsters to grow independently. Which they were doing quite nicely. However, Neave would still prefer it if the process was faster. So he would feed the damn plant some fertility drugs and force it to get on with it already.

Neave observed the walls of the chamber he found himself in. He had settled for a different design. It was a five-layered barrier. He made a layer of glass from the glass brushes, slightly altered with the alchemy techniques to boost their hardness, then a layer of crystalized spirit, and the outer layer of extremely tough metal. This was mirrored on both sides of the barrier, adding to five layers.

This made a powerful, nearly fully sealed barrier quite resistant to attacks from the outside or inside.

There was still some other stuff Neave could do to enhance the protection, but one thing at a time. The list of stuff he had to experiment with grew daily, and he had to choose his priorities wisely.

The seals on these chambers were an improvement on what he did with Shrubby’s dome. They still weren’t and never would be perfect unless he made an unbroken spirit dome that fully enveloped the room.

However, this made it impossible to get in and go out. Perhaps there was some way he could do it, but movement techniques couldn’t move Neave through solid spirit. That was straight-up impossible, for the same reasons the barrier was so efficient.

Qi simply couldn’t flow in and out. No form of energy could, as crystallized spirit made a practically impenetrable barrier to anything but physical force, which it was relatively weak to.

Which was great, as far as Neave was concerned. The lower the odds of something teleporting out of its designated chambers, the better. And it was best nothing ever got inside.

The plants weren’t a big problem since if there wasn’t for their optimal environment, they couldn’t grow outside anyway, but the monsters…

Monster experimentation was illegal for a reason. Experiments going in the wrong direction could cause calamities, and it wasn’t once that such a calamity had transpired.

A poison sect once did something similar to what Neave was doing. The chamber where they grew their monsters had an unexpected evolution. It had a pretty round core, so it evolved into a humanoid version of an incredibly potent venomous monstrosity.

It wasn’t a big deal on its own. However, it was a fox in a chicken coop, and it devoured all of the other monsters, rapidly ascending in power.

The sect was annihilated, and the creature decimated the nearby land as it made its way through the now-unprotected settlements, feasting on hordes of people and becoming a nearly diamond-ranked threat in a matter of days.

That was why he maintained a careful watch over the monster coop and kept their numbers to a minimum. It still felt like it was a matter of time until something happened and everything went to shit.

The nightmare realm was a dangerous place. What Neave was doing was absolutely insane but necessary. He hadn’t talked much to the others about his fears and anxieties. It was his job to worry and theirs to grow.

The demon that hunted the others down recently heavily weighed on his mind. It had been tough, but that was no big deal. It was what his father had told him about it being far more skilled than the common rabble.

It wasn’t a real threat to Neave, but it was an ominous sign nonetheless. Something about that prickled at his mind, and he couldn’t help but worry.

The demons were moving, and something might be behind those movements. Something he dreaded deeply.

There was another problem as well.

Astrador wouldn’t simply sit by and wait for long.

Whatever was brewing beyond the walls of these caves… Soon.

It would be coming for them yet again.

***

The waves crashed against the beaches of the sea of tar.

Splash. Splash. Splash. Thud.

One such wave carried a body, and the crashing left it stranded ashore. A lithe, smooth body of morphing black lay on the withered sands. Unmoving.

Splash. Thud. Splash. Thud.

More just like it crashed into the land.

And eventually.

Once the slumber of the drowned was overcome by their desire for bloodshed…

They began to move.

***

Sateron stood, back firmly straight, observing and touching the edge of the barrier. He had spent his entire life inside here up until now, and he knew. It was likely death that awaited him beyond these walls.

His body was already that of an adolescent.

His father, no… Astrador hated it when he called him that. His creator claimed that he was ugly. By cultivator standards, he was apparently a dashing young man, but the great god didn’t think the lower realms even had standards for beauty.

Sateron didn’t know—as he had never seen a reflection of his face.

Yet, he had knowledge of the outside world imbued directly into his being. It was a vast, expansive, infinite collection of realms to be in and explore. It was a stage much more significant than this confined barrier.

Soon.

Soon, he would be given a chance.

He merely had to kill a few humans who threatened the balance of the omnirealm. And then, his fath—no, his creator, would allow him to go outside.

Soon.

He would get to experience what it was like.

Soon.

He would take a life for the first time.