453 Nerfed? Nah, more like Buffed

453 Nerfed? Nah, more like Buffed

After a long hour of arguing with Ru Qiu, I finally folded.

Somewhere between his insults and his logic, I realized how stupid it would be to ignore the aftermath of losing the Source. I had been pretending the destabilization was manageable, that I could brute-force my way through it like always. That mindset was exactly what got me here in the first place.

I sat down cross-legged over the ocean’s surface. The water beneath me rippled outward in perfect circles, yet I did not sink.

Jue Bu arrived quietly, his presence folding into the storm-heavy sky.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “The two of you asking for me and bringing me last minutes isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.”

“Yeah,” I replied.

He narrowed his eyes. “You sure you’re the Immortal Paladin and not the King of Cripples?”

“Hey,” I protested, “low blow. And it wasn’t even my idea. It was Ru Qiu’s.”

Ru Qiu didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “You know you need this.”

I did. That didn’t mean I had to be happy about it.

“I’m sincerely hoping I won’t lose too much power,” I muttered. “I’d gladly give up the Warlock Legacy and anything that sounds remotely cursed. I’d like to keep the Ophanim, though. And the basic stuff, obviously. Also the aura. The aura’s convenient. It adds that extra punch. If I lose it, I’ll ruin my perfect one-to-one-to-one-to-one balance between qi, mana, world force, and aura.”

Jue Bu looked at me like I was negotiating with a natural disaster.

“That’s not how this works,” he said flatly. “You don’t get to pick and choose what stays. I’m going to blast you with my Immortal Art: Reversal of Heaven and Earth. It will revert your state to before you acquired most of these powers. Worst-case scenario, you lose everything. Best-case scenario, your inner world reorganizes itself into harmony, and you avoid restarting from scratch.”

Ru Qiu added casually, “My job is to help exorcise the bad stuff.”

I swallowed. “So what do I need to do?”

“Stay still,” Ru Qiu said. “Hold onto the abilities you want to keep. Don’t let go mentally.”

It was just cultivation. There was no need to overthink it. I’d done this before. If we were counting major resets, this would be the third time. Compared to speedrunning my cultivation in Meng Po’s world or refining my understanding through the Six Path Souls, this should’ve been manageable.

It was going to be a breeze.

Unfortunately, I had grossly underestimated the situation.

This wasn’t like Meng Po’s realm, where everything was optimized for growth. It wasn’t like splitting my Six Path Souls to refine insight. This was regression. Violent regression. I had also underestimated how much I’d gained from my Accursed Paladin counterpart and how much I’d lost when my Six Path Souls remained with my disciples.

“Immortal Art: Reversal of Heaven and Earth,” Jue Bu intoned.

Thunder split the sky instantly. A storm erupted overhead as if the heavens themselves were being turned inside out.

I turned my perception inward.

My inner world trembled. My dantian appeared before me, shockingly small. It resembled a poor imitation of the Source, fragile yet precious. Despite its size, it represented every step I had taken along the path of cultivation.

The six realms that once revolved around it had long since merged, becoming a composite reflection of my soul.

Then the reversal began.

My dantian hardened abruptly, like clay fired into brittle ceramic. I reached for my qi and found nothing. It was still there, technically, but I could no longer move it. My progress in the Longevity Method seemed preserved in a twisted way. The passive enhancements, the stat boosts, the unlocked thresholds up to the Eleventh Realm remained etched into my existence. However, without the ability to circulate qi, those benefits were crippled.

The pain that followed was not physical. It was conceptual.

I could no longer abuse quintessence. I could no longer create Manasouls. The synergy I once enjoyed between Manasoul, Castling, and Divine Possession shattered like glass. My high-speed movement, elite positioning, and layered tactical playstyle were suddenly gutted.

It felt like losing a limb I hadn’t realized I depended on so completely.

The only good news was that my Ultimate Skills still responded. I could feel them resting in the depths of my soul, intact and ready.

Lightning struck again, and the storm intensified.

Inside me, structures shifted. Powers clashed. Some began peeling away like old bark torn from a tree. Others dug in stubbornly.

I clenched my teeth and held onto what I could.

This was not a breeze.

This was surgery without anesthesia.

I focused harder, desperately trying to retain the Six Paths. If I could at least keep that, I would have a stable core to rebuild from.

It was pointless.

With my dantian locked in that hardened, inert state, the Six Paths detached from it one by one. I felt them unravel like banners torn down from a collapsing tower.

I sighed inwardly. The Six Paths Unity had been so cool. So powerful. It was basically my Sage Mode. The synchronization, the layered perception, the divine balance of offense and defense. Gone.

At least the knowledge remained. The insights, the comprehension of each realm, the refined understanding of life, death, hunger, asura, heaven, and humanity. I would take that as a consolation prize.

I clung stubbornly to Aura Mastery. If that disappeared too, I was going to riot. Fortunately, it held firm, rooted deep within my martial foundation. It trembled but did not detach.

Then I began vomiting again.

This time it wasn’t red.

Black blood poured from my mouth in thick, tar-like streams, reeking of corruption and something older than language.

“Let it all out,” Jue Bu commanded. “These impurities have to go.”

I continued retching, my body convulsing violently. Then something forced its way up my throat.

A hand.

A pale, slick hand shoved its way out of my mouth.

What the hell?

It dragged itself free, followed by a writhing mass of shadow and limbs. The thing fell onto the air beside me and began crawling, movements jerky and unnatural. Then it wrapped around me from behind in a grotesque embrace.

I blinked in stunned disbelief. “Eldritch-chan?”

She was something I used to joke about. A boogeyman born from my transmigration, now stronger than ever after she devoured the Warlock Legacy and the fragment of the Supreme Void. A lingering accumulation of taint I never fully addressed.

Apparently, she had addressed me first.

Through the Ophanim, I perceived her structure. She had absorbed the Warlock Legacy completely. The Void fragment pulsed within her like a corrupted heart. The taint was concentrated, self-contained.

Her whispers flooded my mind.

“We will be together forever. Yes. Yes. You. Me. Forever. Feed. Consume. Eat.”

Her hand shoved itself over my mouth, pressing into my jaw.

I tried to struggle, but Jue Bu’s qi pinned me in place.

“Don’t move too much, damn it!” he shouted, maintaining the reversal.

Wait.

Couldn’t they see her?

Ru Qiu was staring at me with mild concern, but there was no reaction to the eldritch horror clinging to my back. He looked completely oblivious.

Oh.

This was internal.

I might be screwed.

Think.

She had the Warlock Legacy. That meant she followed warlock logic. Contracts. Patronage. Power exchange.

An idea surfaced. A reckless one.

I considered using Qi Speech to tell Ru Qiu to start carpet-bombing the space around me with fireballs, but my intrusive thoughts won.

I still had Ru Qiu as backup if everything went wrong.

I forced my thoughts steady and responded to her whispers.

“Yes,” I said calmly within my mind. “We can be together forever.”

Her grip tightened. “Let me back inside.”

“It doesn’t have to be inside,” I replied.

The logic was twisted, but coherent. She was a warlock entity now. I was a would-be patron with a paladin foundation. Normally, it would be the eldritch being granting power to some poor mortal.

Why not reverse it?

Through the Ophanim, I analyzed the structure of her existence. She was semi-autonomous but lacked true selfhood. She could think, but she had no stable identity.

That made her moldable.

When I confirmed it was feasible through the Ophanim, I went all in.

“Ah, you poor little thing,” I murmured inwardly. “I shall grant you my company as long as you don’t grow tired of me. All you need to do is say yes to my demands, and we can be together once more. You must take the shape I desire. Follow my will. Defend me with your might. Do this, and we will be together now… and perhaps forever.”

She twitched.

Her form shimmered and reshaped.

She took on Alice’s appearance.

I paused. “Try again.”

The false-Alice tilted her head, confused.

Forming the image I actually wanted was harder than expected. Her whispers kept intruding, dissolving clarity. Meanwhile, I felt her siphoning power from the Hollow Star and the Dark Veil. The artifacts responded instinctively, feeding her as if she were an extension of me.

Lightning struck directly above.

Power coursed through my body in violent waves.

Ru Qiu frowned. “Is this supposed to happen?”

Jue Bu’s voice sharpened. “No. My Immortal Art triggered something.”

No kidding.

Inside my mindscape, the storm intensified. The eldritch entity’s body flickered between shapes, unstable and hungry.

I forced the image again.

Armor.

Wings.

A weapon.

Not Alice.

Not temptation.

A guardian.

“If you want to stay with me,” I whispered to her, “then you will stand beside me, not cling behind me.”

Thunder roared as her form began to change again.

The curses my counterpart had accumulated and nurtured, began to burn.

One by one, they ignited, twisting into fuel for something new. Black sigils cracked and flared like dying stars, their malice consumed as kindling. The writhing eldritch mass that had clung to me compressed, hardened, and restructured.

Full plate armor encased my body.

It bore a dark sheen like the deepest stretch of night, layered with silver tracery that shimmered faintly. Tiny motes of light flickered across its surface like distant stars scattered across a moving cosmos. The Hollow Star above my head resonated, and the Dark Veil flowed seamlessly into the armor’s frame.

My cape transformed into a literal aurora, cascading upward instead of downward, streaming into the storm-lit sky in ribbons of color.

I blinked.

In every crisis, there was an opportunity. Wasn’t that the saying?

“Master,” the armor said, its voice no longer a maddened whisper but clear and steady, “please give me a name.”

It was aware now. Not entirely sane, perhaps, but far more coherent than before.

Yeah, I couldn’t keep calling it Eldritch-chan. I probably should’ve stopped doing that a long time ago.

“From now on,” I said calmly, “you are Starshroud.”

A pulse of emotion rippled through the armor. Excitement. Pride. Something almost childlike in its giddiness.

Jue Bu stared at me as if he had just swallowed a fly whole.

“That thing,” he said slowly, “it’s alive, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “What about it?”

He let out a short, humorless laugh. “I look forward to the spread of your infamy.”

“What? I didn’t even do anything!”

Ru Qiu coughed lightly, clearly suppressing a grin. “How is it?”

I closed my eyes and assessed myself.

The Paladin Legacy remained intact, stable and radiant at my core. Aura Mastery flowed smoothly. The Ophanim rotated behind my perception like silent witnesses. The Hollow Star and Dark Veil had fused with Starshroud instead of anchoring me separately.

I opened my eyes.

“I thought I’d lose a lot more,” I admitted. “But aside from the Warlock Legacy, the Void fragment, the accumulated curses, and the Six Paths cultivation… I’m perfectly fine.”

Saying it out loud felt surreal.

Looking back, it was probably better that I lost the Six Paths. My disciples would benefit more from inheriting and refining that system without me overshadowing them. It also simplified my internal structure considerably.

More importantly, Jue Bu’s reversal had done something unexpected.

It allowed me to “remember” something I technically shouldn’t have had access to.

Memories of my counterpart’s meeting with the Origin. Of witnessing the Source directly. In that fleeting moment, my counterpart had attained a sliver of omniscience. It was brief and limited, but profound.

Through that borrowed perspective, I understood more about the Greater Universe. Its structure. Its currents. Its hidden tensions. I even glimpsed a direction for my cultivation moving forward.

The idea was rough, like most of my ideas.

But this time, it wasn’t blind accumulation. It was convergence.

I tested my abilities cautiously.

My perception of faith and choices remained intact. Those powers stemmed from my spirit and soul, not external frameworks. When I activated Immortal Art: Divine Appointment of the Faithful, I immediately heard the prayers of countless people across the Hollowed World. Their belief flowed toward me like invisible threads, warm and steady. I could still use that faith as fuel.

Immortal Arts like Godslayer and Crimson Crown of Catastrophe felt slightly janky, as if their internal wiring had been rearranged. They responded, but not as smoothly as before.

That was acceptable.

With practice, I could recalibrate them.

The storm began to subside. Thunder retreated into distant rumbles as the sky cleared gradually above us.

I flexed my fingers inside Starshroud’s gauntlets. The armor responded like a second skin.

I drew my sword and let it rest lightly in my hand before stepping forward into a familiar rhythm.

I began a sword dance.

The blade traced arcs through the air as my feet skimmed across the ocean’s surface. Aura Mastery flowed through me naturally, smoother than before. Each transition between stances felt seamless, as if resistance I never noticed had finally been sanded away.

“This seems fun,” I muttered.

I raised a hand and released War Aura in a single sweeping motion.

The ocean below split.

Water tore downward in a violent chasm, exposing darkness far beneath. The pressure wave traveled deeper than I intended, carving a trench that reached the ocean floor. I sensed the abrupt silencing of several sea creatures caught in the wake.

I winced slightly.

Mental exhaustion struck immediately, a sharp drain from my reserves.

“Is it just my imagination,” I asked aloud, “or did I get stronger?”

I tried world force next, throwing a punch into empty air. The impact rippled outward, less explosively than before, yet I felt something different. The flow of the world within me resonated with the world outside me more clearly. It was less brute force and more alignment.

I reached for qi.

Nothing.

The channel remained sealed. My dantian was still hardened, untouchable.

I switched to Divine Smite and Thunderous Smite. Both activated smoothly, but I felt the mechanics clearly now. They were entirely fueled by mana.

I frowned.

Before, I would allocate power evenly—twenty-five percent qi, twenty-five percent mana, twenty-five percent world force, twenty-five percent aura. A perfect one-to-one-to-one-to-one harmony. It was my internal doctrine I comprehended throught eh Ghost Soul’s training.

Now I only had three reliable systems.

Maybe I could rebalance them.

I tested War Aura, Life Aura, Zeal Aura. Originally, they were mana-fed abilities, but through Aura Mastery, I had repurposed them into martial manifestations.

When I used them now along with mana and world force, they were weaker.

“Hm.”

I reached deeper.

Beneath mana. Beneath world force. Beneath aura.

I called upon my Divine Spark.

It responded immediately.

Instead of flickering like a stubborn ember, it bloomed. Fully. Brilliantly. It expanded inside me, swallowing the surrounding energy systems into its orbit.

It felt different.

The Divine Spark had matured.

Without the clutter of curses, Warlock residue, Void fragments, and the stabilizing interference of the Source, it burned clean. Fierce. Unrestrained.

It became a star.

From that star, particles began forming, tiny motes with properties similar to qi yet distinctly divine. They pulsed with intent, warmth, and authority.

I swung my sword again.

The ocean split cleanly to the bottom, scraping along the seabed in a perfect line.

“What in the world?”

I had experimented with integrating Divine Spark into my energy system before. It had always been too volatile and too fickle. It refused to submit to structured casting.

But now?

Now it flowed naturally, as if it finally had room to breathe.

Since losing the Source, I felt more in control of my body and energies than ever before. Paradoxical, but undeniable.

Jue Bu let out a low whistle. “Congratulations. You just discovered a new kind of qi. What are you going to call it?”

I shrugged. “Meh. It’s just some weird qi.”

Ru Qiu immediately snapped, “You just split the ocean down to the seafloor casually, and you’re calling it weird qi?”

Jue Bu nodded. “Also, don’t underestimate qi. I don’t know much about mana, but qi is not simple. Each qi particle is considered a living organism in some traditions. They respond to emotion. That’s why righteous cultivators revere them.”

That was news to me. The cultivators I’d met never acted like they were tending to a garden of sentient particles.

Ru Qiu crossed his arms. “Discovering a new type of qi is like discovering a new species. You’ve unlocked one of the deeper mysteries of cultivation. Most cultivators will never reach this point. They might dream about it, but they won’t touch it.”

I looked inward again.

The star burned steadily. The particles it emitted felt loyal, responsive, intrinsically aligned with my will yet not enslaved. They weren’t stolen. They weren’t forced.

They were born from me.

After a moment of thought, I nodded.

“I’ll call it Divine Qi.”

The name felt appropriate.