The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns: An OP Xianxia Returnee LitRPG

Chapter 164: The Tower Master’s Decision

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“Hmm, that was good; thanks for the breakfast, sis.”

“Yeah, it was delightful, though a bit too heavy for a breakfast…”

Ruby and Juan were sitting next to me on the table. After my wives ate their breakfast, they wanted to eat some more, so they joined everyone else at the table.

My sister and her boyfriend had just joined us recently though, but they ate happily anyways. I was also quite satisfied after having eaten too, so I sat down for the moment while admiring the little waterfalls inside of my Zen Garden.

“Glad you liked it,” I nodded. “Would you two like to join us climbing the Tower later? I plan to go in a day or two.”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” nodded Ruby. “I kind of want to get stronger anyway, so this is perfect! Also, I wanted to see the second floor and what you did there to fix it, sis.”

“It would be an honor to join you,” said Juan.

“Alright then…” I nodded. “Hmm, might as well check this.”

I checked the system, which had been bugging me for some time. I had been completely ignoring it for a while, but it was time to see what it wanted to tell me.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

“Okay, okay, I know you want me to see you; calm down!”

I sighed, swiping my hands and quickly being surprised as I saw a few dozen of System Messages pop up at the same time.

Ding!

[Congratulations! You and your Party have defeated a large-scale invasion from a parallel timeline gate.]

[You have slain several Powered Machines and Mechanical Gods, and the Vessel of a Primal Goddess.]

[You’ve earned a generous quantity of EXP.]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[…]

[Your Level has increased from Level 3.346 to Level 4.137/10.000!]

[All your Stats have increased. You gained Bonus Stat Points and Skill Points.]

[Several of your Skills have Leveled Up.]

Hmm, not bad! I gained quite a lot of Levels, not one thousand, but this is indeed tremendous. Is this because these invaders were already assimilated by the System and had levels and such?

Beating the spider definitely gave a lot of EXP; she was certainly very powerful.

But that wasn’t all; EXP wasn’t the only thing I could gain from slaying gods.

Although she wasn’t slain, I did eat a piece of her Soul and her Divinity before she escaped.

In fact, like a crab leaving behind their limbs for a predator to eat instead of them, she cut her own pieces for me to eat and escaped.

Her survival instincts are very high, without a doubt… I suppose she’s more of a monster than a true goddess in that sense.

Ding!

[You have absorbed the Primal Goddess’ Shattered Soul Fragments and Shattered Divinity!]

[The Skill: [God Predator (SSS)] effects have been activated. You have absorbed the Divinity and Soul Fragments of the Foreign Primal Goddess: {Evil Arachnid Queen of Malice and Cunningness, the Great Web Mother, Arashkaghl-Dolth}]

[You obtained the {Broken Primal Divinities}: {Malice & Cunningness} {Space-Weaving Spider} {Corruption Venom}]

[All Stats have increased by +12.000.000]

[You gained +4.000.000 Divinity.]

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[You have stolen the Faith of the Primal Goddess you’ve wounded and eaten a piece of her Soul and Divinity.]

[You gained +100.000.000 Faith.]

Ohh! Three Broken Primal Divinities—that’s much better than I imagined! And these stat boosts, they’re better than when I ate the whole souls and divinities of like fourteen gods?!

And this is only a piece of her, perhaps a small one if she could afford to cut it off and escape… This without a doubt cements her as someone incredibly strong.

[You learned the Classless/Magic/Class Skills]: [Abyssal Miasmic Venom of Corruption (SSS): Lv1] [Space-Weaving Spiderwebs (SSS): Lv1] [Primal Mechanical Spider Creation (SSS): Lv1]

[The Skill: [Divine Class Absorption (SSS)] Effects have been activated. You have devoured a fragment of the Divine Class of the Primal Goddess you have wounded and eaten a fragment of.]

[You devoured the Divine God Classes]: [Primal Spider Queen] [Arachnid Space Weaver] [Corrupted Undead Machine]

[You have earned +500.000 Skill Points]

And that should be it… Three new Skills, three new Classes, and more Skill Points. The Skill themselves seem to be weak, derived versions of that goddess' abilities.

I’ll probably check them out and see what I can do with them later.

For now, we should move to New York; that’s where Merneith should have just arrived.

She said she really wanted to visit other countries, so she told me she would come to New York with Ra’s help, bringing some of the Hunters from El Cairo with her.

“Anyways! Who wants to go to New York for a small trip? Merneith should have arrived by now, so let’s go pick her up.”

“Merneith?” wondered Mursha. “Why so sudden?”

“We already scheduled this small meeting; we need to discuss things regarding the Mechanical Gods parts inside my Inner Realm,” I explained. “With Hekita also offering her help, we’re probably aiming to repair them somehow.”

"Oh, that sounds interesting,” nodded Mursha. “Sure, I want to explore that city as well! Isn’t that the place where you were born? Sounds good; let’s go.”

Everyone else came with me too, so it ended up turning into a family trip. The rest of my disciples were in the city right now as well, doing their jobs as hunters.

.

.

.

RUMBLE!

“How is this possible?!”

CLASH!

“You’re able to hold against my might?!”

BOOOM!

“I am the combination of all Nine Heavens!”

CRASH!

“Ngh…! Hah, you’re strong indeed, so very strong… Stronger than me, without a doubt. But I am not weak either, you Interdimensional Alien God!”

TRUUUM!

The clash between cosmic deities continued through dozens of years across the cosmos, time going much different outside the tower and the worlds connected to it.

The girl whose entirety was made of pink and purple cosmic light overflowed with tremendous power, distorting space and time with her mere presence.

“My tower is a place where mortals shall dream and work to make their wishes come true! I couldn’t ever call myself a Tower Master if I let an abomination such as you overtake it! You were able to steal Vestrellenth Tower, but he’s not even comparable to me.”

“Just give up already! I’ll take all I desire, for I am the Nine Heavens incarnated! I rule and create order!”

The titanic made of pure white light with a gigantic rainbow halo behind his back attacked the cosmic girl, his titanic claws tearing through space and time.

“With the power of this artifact, I can now manifest a further part of myself outside of Murim! And once that tower is mine, I’ll take it all!”

“No, I won’t let you!”

The cosmic girl knew that this entity would eventually defeat her after hundreds of years of fighting him.

A threat of this caliber had never appeared across the cosmos and the interconnected star system streams.

“My power cannot grow any further,” she thought. “What can I do to stop him? Must I rely on my children? No… They’re too weak, selfish… constantly thinking about themselves and overtaking one another’s worlds. What do I do? Where do I ask for help?”

Then, her glistening eyes, which were actually two small nebulas, widened as an idea sparkled in her mind.

“If such a being doesn’t exist yet, then I’ll create it…” She glanced down into the one hundred worlds and a dozen more that composed the tower. “I am by no means a benevolent being. But I simply work towards the benefit of the many instead of a few… Please forgive me.”

Suddenly, amidst an old temple floating in the skies of a world within the Tower, an old man glared at a glass orb with a frustrated expression.

“So those didn’t work either… not even that accursed spider they summoned, hm?” he sighed. “Oh well, it’s not like half of them are there yet. And so many more are coming—huh?”

His eyes widened as he saw someone suddenly appear by his side.

“Grandfather of Time, I require your power.”

“Wha…? AAACK!”

Without hesitating, the girl pierced his chest, infusing her cosmic energies and power into his own.

FLUOSH!

“I always kept you because you were a useful tool, and with this power you have, I was going to use it one day. That day came sooner than I expected.”

“W-What?! Wait, you’re…?! The Tower Master?!”

“Stand Still, Grandfather of Time... Or should I say Chronostasis? I am the only one that knows your true name, Fragment of the Primordial Time Wheel incarnated. Your Ego has decayed greatly due to the amount of selfishness you’ve developed over eons, but your purpose is all the same.”

“M-my ego…?! Ah!”

RUMBLE!

And then the entire tower started trembling, beginning to distort constantly, creating afterimages of itself, as if it were constantly “glitching”.

Each afterimage showed different “what if” scenarios, duplicating the same over and over again.

“This is a gamble, but… in one of such parallel timelines… There must be something!”

Her eyes constantly flashed through thousands of what-ifs, many scenarios, many worlds.

Until suddenly she saw it—a future, a ruined future.

Despite how it seemed so despairing.

There was someone there, a tremendously powerful being.

They stood amidst a destroyed world, having saved it.

But at what cost?

Everything they once had was now lost.

They were completely alone.

Their family, their loved ones…

So lonely.

“Is this the only way…?”

She thought about this, using her incredibly fast thought process that seemed to slow time in front of her.

But came to the same conclusion as before.

“There’s no time to hesitate… She might not be ready yet, but this person could hasten her growth exponentially.”

FLUOSH!

“This is a gamble at the end… Time dilation within the entire tower will help me delay this as much as possible, but… Ultimately, it all depends on her. You have to take responsibility for bringing this monster here, Bing Xue.”

Her spiraling, nebula eyes glowed brightly as she disappeared, the Grandather of Time gasping for air, suddenly realizing there was no wound on his chest or anything at all.

“W-What happened?! What… Who…!” he felt confused, utterly shaken. “My powers were used by someone else, and I was unable to do a single thing! T-This is… so pathetic…”

As the ancient god’s ego crumbled to pieces, he glanced at the orb that allowed him to see through the world where Bing Xue came from.

“Huh?!”

The portals he had placed had more than tripled.

And not only that, but…

“T-This is…?!”

As he smiled maniacally, he saw the same portals begin to appear slowly, one after another, across the many other worlds of the Tower.

“Haha… Hahahaha!” He laughed in disbelief. “I did this?! Did I do this?! Yes… With this, everything, every world, shall be consumed by my powers! Gehahahaha!”

Completely unaware that he had been used as a tool, Chronostasis only laughed, believing himself as a genius.

Little did he know of how much of an important key piece he was for the schemes of the Tower Master.

“You won’t be able to protect your Tower forever! I’ve learned the same abilities you utilize…”

The monstrous dimensional invader laughed as his gigantic claws made of eternally bright light rushed towards the smaller Tower Master.

She conjured giant nebulas of pink, purple, and azure color as millions of stars resonated with her powers, exploding and inhibiting his advance.

However, the dimensional being smiled nonetheless, his thousands of small tendril-like tentacles made of Primordial Heavenly Ki piercing through space and time.

Slowly expanding and dividing…

“You can somehow hold on against me, so I’ll simply have to eat you away bite by bite~” he smiled. “From the inside out!”

Space started beginning to be disturbed as tiny white cracks began to spread slowly across space.

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.

.

Once we arrived in New York, we started walking around the streets while Mursha admired the enormous skyscrapers.

“Woah! This place’s huge! What is this?! Amazing!”

She was sure easily amused… It was quite surprising.

BZZZTTT!

“Hm?”

Out of nowhere though, I felt something.

It was… as if.

BBZZTTT!”

“Again?!”

I looked behind me, expanding my senses.

It was like a horrendous sound, a combination of several… mechanical sounds together.

No, it was similar, but it wasn’t that-

BBZZTTT!

And then I saw it—the origin of the sound that could only be described as “a computer glitching out and releasing loud, ear-wrenching sounds”.

The buildings—no, the entire city seemed to be strangely creating afterimages of itself, made out of different lights.

Nobody but me noticed; nobody could see this except me.

“What’s going on?”

I quickly released my Aura and encompassed my entire family with it; they suddenly stopped walking, wondering what had happened.

BZZZTTT!

“There it is again!”

Countless afterimages, “shadows” of the city, of the people, even of me and everyone else, constantly appeared behind us, but nobody could notice.

Except me.

“Someone is tearing through the fabric of space and time—reality?!”

As I was about to drag my family inside my Inner Realm for maximum security, suddenly…

It stopped.

Everything went back to normal.

“It’s… normal now?”

I kept my senses high, and I didn’t move a single inch; my family didn’t either.

They knew something was wrong after seeing how I react.

Crack, crack…!

“Ah!”

I looked into the skies, noticing a small crack in time—a gray portal!

Another?

But this one is so small.

What gives?

“What’s coming from there?”

It was the figure of a human, a tall… young man?

He was wearing medieval Chinese clothes that only high nobility would wear.

Of bright silver and gold, with a dragon across his chest.

He was covering his head with a wide white hat, but I could clearly see his hair reaching his neck, waving by the wind.

It was of silvery-white color with black strands.

I saw two golden eyes glowing too.

“This is...!” he muttered, with slight surprise. “Why… How did I…? This is… New York?”

He looked around cautiously; the people of the city panicked; some ran away; others pointed their cameras at him and started filming.

“This shouldn’t be possible… How is this…” he kept talking. “Am I back…?”

I quickly flew to confront him.

Based on his clothes, he could even be someone from Murim too!

If he’s of Demonic Factions, it is my duty to take care of him.

However, I would prefer to solve this peacefully.

FLASH!

“Who are you?”

I appeared right before him.

He quickly glared at me with his sharp golden eyes, squinting them.

“Do you come from another timeline? A world?”

“You…”

Suddenly, his eyes widened in shock, but then…

His face twisted into anger, calm, unsettling hatred.

His Aura erupted with tremendous ferocity.

RUMBLE!

So strong as his Aura that the buildings below were instantly shaved apart and disintegrated.

His Aura of tremendous power, containing highly refined Ki, Mana, Spirit Energy, and even Divinity!

Just who is this man?!

“Stop it! Your Aura will…!”

I quickly released my Venerable Authority, clashing against his Aura.

But then, something even more shocking happened.

TRUUUM!

His Aura transformed, growing even stronger…

And becoming a Venerable Authority too.

CRAAASH!

Don’t tell me this is a Venerable from Murim?!

How did he even get here!

“You… You’re her! You ruined everything… Why?! Why do you show your face in front of me?!”

With utter hatred, he suddenly started growing furious; his eyes became like those of a beast, and even his human teeth changed into beastly fangs.

“Calm down! I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you continue with this, I’ll have to stop you!”

I held back against his own Authority, but the more furious he grew, the stronger it became.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

With a furious roar, he charged against me, his entire aura transforming into an arrow to enhance his power and speed, clashing against me.

BOOOM!

“Ungh?!”

And then as he hit my stomach with both of his fists, I realized something.

I vomited blood.

He’s…

A Primordial Immemorial Venerable like me?!

“YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MANY DIED BECAUSE OF YOU?!”

His hands became like gigantic beastly claws as he attempted to tear my body into shreds.

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