Ascension of the immortal Asura

John left the room, holding an object in his hand. He studied it for a moment, looking at the runes carved into the formation disk he held. It was circular, with glowing blue formation runes, the complexity of the runes beyond his ability to read what they did.

Furi had given him the formation disk, which he said was a location formation disk. It allowed Furi to know the location of whoever held it, so long as they were within a certain range of him. Furi had mentioned his mistake of not supplying his children with such an object before, and would not make the same mistake again.

With John's importance to Furi going forward, he seemed unwilling to risk John's safety. John studied the disk for a moment and then put it away in his spatial ring, which allowed Furi to detect it. If he had placed it in his palace realm, it would have become undetectable, which defeated the purpose of the object.

John walked to a separate room that Furi had allowed him to use, and sat on a comfortable chair within the room, digesting his conversation with the man. A lot of information had been given to him by Furi and Luri, and he needed to plan his moves going forward.

Kirii had flashed into his soul space before he entered the room, falling asleep within, apparently content with the number of head pats he had obtained from Suri. After putting his thoughts in order, he stood and walked over to the exterior wall of the room, where a large window allowed him to look outside the ship.

The ship was speeding over the Immortal Forest, towering trees and soaring mountains flying by each second. Valleys lined the landscape, filled with violent rivers some dozens of miles wide. John's eyes went wide as he spotted a beast emerge from beneath the waters of one the rivers. The creature looked to be a type of fish, with black scales and sharp teeth. The shocking part was its size and power.

The creature was several miles long, and its power was at the Late World Expansion Realm. He watched as the creature leaped forward out of the air, catching the prey it was chasing who had fled the waters as well. Its prey was another fish type creature, about a third its size, and despite being in the Early World Expansion Realm, was swallowed whole in a single gulp.

The massive creature crashed into the water's surface and disappeared below a moment later, returning the river to its former calm. John took a deep breath, shaking his head lightly to himself.

"It seems I took the Immortal Forest too lightly when I was in it," he muttered to himself.

He had been lucky and managed to not run into the Serpion Broodmother, and now this creature's appearance showed him just how strong the creatures of the forest were. In just a few moments, this world had shown itself to be a level beyond his own, as creatures like these were few and far between on his homeworld, and yet seemed to be aplenty here.

The river zoomed by in his vision, the ship moving at incredible speeds. John stood at the window, taking in the sights of this new world, a world filled with wondrous things he had never seen before.

John's face twitched as his instincts suddenly screamed out in warning, his sense of danger honed by dozens of life and death encounters, and heightened further by his incredible soul power and divine sense.

Power surged through his body as he activated his Dragon-God Shift, pushing his bodily defenses to incredible heights.

Behind him, he heard a loud scream come from the interior of the ship, the voice belonging to Furi. It was not a roar of power, but a scream of panic.

"Noooo!" John heard for a brief instant, before suddenly the ship all around him vanished, replaced by a blinding explosion of ruinous power.

Boom!

A blast of power, seemingly equal to the power of the remnant explosions he had faced off against the Asura slammed against the ship, completely destroying it and drowning him within. The fiery explosion engulfed him while he did his best to resist its power. His skin tore, his bones creaked and fractured, and his blood tumbled violently within his body as if about to burst out from within. He had not had time to activate his Immortal Asura Transformation, as the moment's hesitation of considering whether or not to use it had made him a moment late.

His body tumbled in the air through the sky, flying off in the distance the ship had been traveling. He left the fiery explosion in the sky, a trail of smoke flowing behind him as he fell to the earth dozens of miles away.

Bang!

His momentum carried him violently into the forest below, his body breaking through several towering trees, each seemingly sturdier than a mountain. Pain wracked his body as he broke through each tree, the collisions reminding him of the vision Kirii had shown him of him crashing into the world from high above.

Thankfully he was awake this time, and was able to have his Dragon-God Shift enabled to resist becoming as injured as he had been before. A trail of destruction miles long was carved into the forest before he slammed into the base of a sturdy mountain and finally came to a halt.

A groan of pain escaped his lips as he rested against the ground, a familiar pain wracking his entire body.

Flash!

Bright light flashed for a moment as Kirii appeared beside John. John's body was covered from head to toe in his own blood, making him look incredibly miserable.

"Are you okay?" Kirii asked.

"I…I'm fine," John groaned. "I think."

He sent his divine sense into his body and inspected his condition, and breathed in a sharp breath.

"Several broken bones and torn muscles, but nothing too serious," he mumbled to himself after assessing the damage. To others, this damage would be quite bad, but to him, especially now that he had unlocked his Limiter of Life, it was nothing more than a nuisance.

Thankfully his meridians had remained unharmed, which was the hardest part of one's body to heal. That had been the part that had taken him weeks to heal before. With his meridians unharmed, John's Qi surged within his body as he activated his Limiter of Healing and Limiter of Life.

A vibrant life energy emerged within his body, surging over his broken bones and torn muscles. The bones knitted together at a visible speed, while his muscles mended even faster. In less than a minute, John had nearly completely healed himself, the speed surprising even himself.

He had failed to notice just how powerful the Limiter of Life had been previously, as he had needed to take the process slow due to his damaged meridians. But without his meridians damaged, it was as if he had a personal healer contained within his body, ready to restore him at a moment's notice.

He nodded his head in approval, caught up in the sensation of being healed. However, the process was not without its downsides, as the Qi required to heal these wounds was quite extensive. He felt his Qi reserves become noticeably drained by a fifth of his total.

"Seems like I can only do this a few times in battle," he muttered, shaking his head to clear the fog away.

His eyes shifted upwards towards the direction he had come from, scanning the sky for any potential danger. He noticed nothing, and quickly stood up, his face furrowing with a deep frown.

"We were attacked by something," he said to Kirii, "something strong enough to completely destroy the ship. Let's head back, but be very careful on the way there."

Kirii nodded his head, slipping back into John's soulspace. John debated whether he should flee or return, and opted for the latter. He had been shown much kindness from the youths and their father, and would not abandon them to whatever had attacked them without seeing if he could help first.

A bad feeling crept up within him as he recalled the power of that explosion, and the horrified scream of Furi a moment before it happened. He thought of Luri and Suri. Would they have been able to survive that explosion without Furi's help? Was their father able to help them in time?

He shook his head, erasing the thoughts as best he could, focusing on what he could do right now.

Body healed, his dantian surged with power, emanating the strongest spatial Qi he could muster. He wrapped himself in the Qi, forming the strongest barrier of space around him. It was a far cry from what Lilian was capable of, but was quite strong, nonetheless.

Satisfied with his spatial shroud, John sped forward in the direction he had come from, following the trail of destruction his body had carved into the forest. As he sped forward, the land trembled beneath him, while the sky lit up brightly with the obvious signs of strong battle arts being unleashed.

He arrived near the location the ship had been destroyed a short while later, stopping at the edge of a massive clearing in the forest. The clearing had not been there before, but had been made recently by the ruinous battle arts that had been unleashed in the area.

He surveyed the area, the clearing ablaze, thick smoke drifting into the sky. He held his breath as he noticed several figures hovering in the sky a dozen miles away, five in total. He recognized one of them, Furi, but did not recognize the other four humans that surrounded Furi.

His eyes went wide with shock as he noticed the blade of a sword rammed directly through Furi's chest, sticking out his back, the hilt of the sword held by a woman directly before Furi; a woman with a Half-Step Holy Manifestation cultivation.