Way of the immortals the.., p.1
Way of the Immortals: The Complete 4-Book Series: (Isekai Cultivation Fantasy), page 1
Way of the Immortals
The Complete Series
By Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2024 by Harmon Cooper
Copyright © 2024 Boycott Books
Edited by Andi Marlowe @ Andromeda Editing
Audiobook narrated by Neil Hellegers
Cover Art by Daniel Kamaruddin
www.harmoncooper.com
writer.harmoncooper@gmail.com
Twitter: @_HarmonCooper
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Contents
Table of Contents
Stages of the Path of the Divine
Map of the Five Kingdoms
Part One: Path of the Divine
Chapter One: Portal Nonfiction
Chapter Two: Driftwood on a Foreign Shore
Chapter Three: Boar
Chapter Four: Nature Finds a Way
Chapter Five: Evil Spirits
Chapter Six: Slave
Chapter Seven: Lights Out
Chapter Eight: Lights On
Chapter Nine: Introduction to the Paths
Chapter Ten: Dark Hazel Blur
Chapter Eleven: Roger
Chapter Twelve: Refuge
Chapter Thirteen: Penmanship in the Courtyard
Chapter Fourteen: Banished
Chapter Fifteen: Three Years, Three Months, Three Weeks and Three Days
Chapter Sixteen: Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom
Chapter Seventeen: Healing Hand
Chapter Eighteen: Poems in a Cave
Chapter Nineteen: Snow Lioness
Chapter Twenty: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?
Chapter Twenty-One: Making a Night of It
Chapter Twenty-Two: Steam Monk
Chapter Twenty-Three: Fist of Force
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Sword in the Skull
Chapter Twenty-Five: Sona Awakes
Chapter Twenty-Six: Cat Men and their Cargo
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Negative Karma
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Getting Dolled Up
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Dinner Discovery
Chapter Thirty: Ring of Fire
Chapter Thirty-One: A New Path Opens
Chapter Thirty-Two: Underground Knowledge
Chapter Thirty-Three: Stirring the Embers
Chapter Thirty-Four: Change of Plans
Chapter Thirty-Five: Runic Combat
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Plantation
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Showdown
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Distortion
Part Two: Divine Madness
Chapter One: Safe Haven
Chapter Two: Hermits and Ice Spirits
Chapter Three: Hermit Transmission
Chapter Four: The Inevitable
Chapter Five: Flight After Fight
Chapter Six: Birds of a Feather
Chapter Seven: Say My Name
Chapter Eight: Dornod
Chapter Nine: Snow Lion Hospitality
Chapter Ten: Midnight Fighter
Chapter Eleven: Lhandon’s First Transmission
Chapter Twelve: Winter Moon Festival
Chapter Thirteen: Wrestling with Ego
Chapter Fourteen: Angelic Revelations
Chapter Fifteen: Fight like a Snow Lion
Chapter Sixteen: Plans of Departure
Chapter Seventeen: Visualization
Chapter Eighteen: Reunion
Chapter Nineteen: A Journey Begins
Chapter Twenty: Sand
Chapter Twenty-One: Demons on the Plateau
Chapter Twenty-Two: Thieves and Meditations
Chapter Twenty-Three: Flatulence of a Dragon
Chapter Twenty-Four: Bead Work
Chapter Twenty-Five: Soup in Sarpang
Chapter Twenty-Six: Gomchen
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dungeon Hallucinations
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Awful Fish Offal
Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Monk in Worcester
Chapter Thirty: Cold Hands
Part Three: Path of Possession
Chapter One: Uninvited Guests
Chapter Two: Shitbirds and Other Oceanic Obstacles
Chapter Three: The Cooling Fan of Broken Whispers
Chapter Four: The Golden Jewel
Chapter Five: Crypt Keepers
Chapter Six: Island Hospitality
Chapter Seven: Welcome to the Jungle
Chapter Eight: Sudden Departure
Chapter Nine: Heads Down
Chapter Ten: The Temple of Ocean Sky
Chapter Eleven: An Enlightening Supper
Chapter Twelve: Turn Back Time
Chapter Thirteen: Ultimatum
Chapter Fourteen: Faith
Chapter Fifteen: Demons in the Courtyard
Chapter Sixteen: Alone Time
Chapter Seventeen: Bully Monks
Chapter Eighteen: Reincarnation
Chapter Nineteen: Floating Guard Skull
Chapter Twenty: Deathstone
Chapter Twenty-One: Foolhardy Plan
Chapter Twenty-Two: Redo
Chapter Twenty-Three: You’ve Got a Friend in Me
Chapter Twenty-Four: Public Execution
Chapter Twenty-Five: Demon Bull
Chapter Twenty-Six: Fighting through the Crowd
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sona’s Fate
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Under the Sea
Part Four: Path of the Cultivation
Chapter One: Time to Die
Chapter Two: Some Dark Souls Shit
Chapter Three: Bill Demon Burrs
Chapter Four: Rensho the Weighted Fallen and the Bone Keys of the Skeleton Hills
Chapter Five: Descent into Madness
Chapter Six: Karma, Take the Steel!
Chapter Seven: Born Again
Chapter Eight: Bedroom Antics
Chapter Nine: My Name is Jonah
Chapter Ten: Shrimpkind
Chapter Eleven: Norbu Zabshen, Great Foot of Celestial Splendor and Treadbearer of the Radiant Path
Chapter Twelve: Gills and Whiskers
Chapter Thirteen: Seahorse
Chapter Fourteen: Buckin’
Chapter Fifteen: Big Bird in the Mountains
Chapter Sixteen: Roger, the Gilded
Chapter Seventeen: Old Times’ Sake
Back of the Book
Stages of the Path of the Divine
Map of the Five Kingdoms
Part One: Path of the Divine
Chapter One: Portal Nonfiction
“I’m glad you all could make it,” I told the small group of guys who had gathered for Tom’s bachelor party. I held my beer in the air, ready to kickstart the celebration.
“Hey, I was supposed to deliver the toast,” Bobby said, the balding middle school teacher not bothering to stand. Evan was next to him, Tom’s friend from college already drunk from an afternoon of pre-gaming.
“No, you told me you’d be drunk by this point, and that I’d better handle it. I literally have the text message from you that says, ‘you’re doing the toast, Nick, I’m drunk,’” I reminded Bobby. “I’ve only had one beer, remember? I just got here.”
“All right, you got me,” Bobby said, showing me his palms. “Maybe I did say something like that.”
“Sit down, Nick,” Hugo told me with a grin. “And get the hell off your damn high horse with that ‘I’ve only had one beer’ shit. You’ll catch up soon enough.”
Hugo had traveled the furthest to make it to Tom’s bachelor party, taking the redeye from San Diego to Boston. He was a former Marine, and by my estimation, he was going to be the only one that made it through the night.
I would give it a shot, but Hugo always made it to the finish line, ready for another lap.
“Enough, enough,” I told the group, my beer still in the air. “To Tom Griff, future Mr. Lindsay Hale, one of my oldest friends…”
Tom snorted. “I’m not taking her last name, you asshole.”
“Are you sure about that, dude?” Hugo asked, punching Tom in the leg, both of them laughing as Tom winced in pain.
“Just let me finish the toast,” I told them, my words cut short once the windows burst open, a purple spark of electricity exploding into the room.
A subsonic sound rattled the floorboards and all the glass in the home shattered, as a sphere of energy took shape before us.
Suddenly awake from his beery slumber, Tom’s friend Evan tried to kick over the coffee table, only to be sucked right into the purple sphere kicking and screaming.
“What the hell?” Bobby shouted as my feet were whipped out from beneath me, a lasso of energy pulling me toward the oscillating sphere of purple.
“Nick!” Tom screamed.
Launching into action, Hugo dropped to the ground and hooked his arms around me.
“I got you, buddy!” he said, his muscles bulging as he tried to stop me from being sucked into the sphere.
But the sphere was stronger than both of us, and it was only a matter of moments before we were both sucked in.
There was no tunnel made of light, no freefalling, no pain, and no warning.
Hugo and I were simply deposited on a breakwater made
I gasped as I took in my surroundings, at the sea that stretched into the distance, the mountains beyond.
“Okay, okay…” Hugo said, nodding his head. “Evan, we have to find Evan. First thing.”
“Wait, what the hell just happened?” I asked. Everything around me spun as I tried to get my head around what was happening.
“Doesn’t matter, we find Evan and…”
Tom fell out of the sky and straight into the water.
“Tom!” Hugo cried, taking off his shirt, ready to jump in. I caught his arm just in time, preventing him from diving.
“What the hell, Nick!?”
“Dude.”
“Dude…” Hugo said, his eyes going wide.
There was no way in hell we were going to be able to take on what we saw rise out of the water.
A sea serpent?
No, a fucking sea dragon, something easily as large as a city bus, with glistening scales and a terrible maw filled with sharp teeth.
But rather than run, Hugo lifted one of the smaller rocks and tried to hurl it at the dragon, which was definitely a mistake as the monster lifted itself even higher into the air. It crash-landed onto the breakwater, trying to eat Hugo alive.
The wave it created slapped me in the chest, sending me under the water.
I felt something move against my side, the dark water and gray sky making it difficult to see what lurked beneath the depths.
A hand came around my mouth, another hand landed on my chest, both pulling me backward.
I squirmed away, kicking toward the breakwater, faster than I’d ever swum before. I pressed forward with all my might, fueled by adrenaline, trying my best to come out of the water and figure out what had happened to Hugo.
Reaching the breakwater, I scrambled up onto the rocks just as Bobby fell before me, the middle school teacher shrieking until he realized he was on solid ground.
“Nick! Nick!” he started screaming again when he saw me kicking at the water, pale white hands trying to grab at my feet. “What the fuck was that!?”
“No idea…” I said as I managed to free myself.
“Where are the others?” he asked, his hands on his forehead. “What the hell was trying to pull you into the water?”
“I really don’t know, man!”
I could see something ominous moving beneath the sea, something causing a small swirl in the surface of the water. It sent a shiver down my spine, my heart racing just as fast as it had ever beat before.
Bobby and I heard a terrible roar as the sea dragon came out of the water again, landing on the breakwater, spines lifting off its back.
“Hugo…” I started to say, pointing toward the sea dragon.
“Hugo’s a fucking sea dragon!?”
“No, that’s where he was…”
“I’m out of here!” Bobby said, starting to run.
I looked back to the sea dragon to see the monster opening its mouth, water spritzing the air all around it, its beady red eyes locked onto me.
And rather than stick around to see what it was capable of, I took off toward the shore.
Chapter Two: Driftwood on a Foreign Shore
We reached the shore at the same time, Bobby jumping as if the land was moving away from him. I glanced over my shoulder to see the sea dragon had dipped back into the water, a whirlpool the only proof it had ever existed.
“Where’s Evan?” Bobby asked frantically. “Tom? Hugo’s goddamn dragon food, you said so yourself!”
“I did?”
“How the fuck? We’re drunk. We’re drunk. You’re drunk, I’m drunk. We’re drunk.”
“I had one goddamn beer, Bobby!”
“Did you put some mushrooms in my beer or some kind of crazy Western Mass hippy concoction?”
“What? No!” I bent forward, my hands on my knees now as I tried to catch my breath. I was sopping wet, but it was the last thing on my mind. “I don’t even live in Western Mass anymore, I live in Worcester.”
“Same damn thing.”
I clenched my fists shut for a moment. “Okay, okay, let me think this through. Evan was the first to go into the portal.”
“Yeah, I saw that, Nick!”
I swallowed hard. “I’m just trying to get a grip on what happened here. Then Hugo and I went in. Tom’s out there.” I nodded toward the sea.
“Are you saying that Tom was…”
“I don’t know what I’m saying! We were just sitting in your apartment, and now this.”
I looked to the sea, to the end of the breakwater. The waves were calm now, and for a moment I questioned if there had been a dragon in the first place. I shuddered. I knew it had happened, and I also knew what I had experienced once falling in the water.
“We’re going to die here,” Bobby kicked a piece of driftwood. “Wherever the hell we are, we’re going to die here.”
“I don’t know…”
“What are you talking about, Nick? Two of our friends are already dead. Evan may or may not be dead, but he wasn’t our friend to begin with,” Bobby said, pacing now. “You said Tom fell into the sea. I’m guessing Hugo went after him.”
“Correct. And then the dragon came.”
Bobby paused. “Nope, dragons don’t exist. No way, no how.”
“We both saw it,” I reminded him.
“Sure, that complicates things. And we both know Evan’s fat ass isn’t getting very far. Who knows if he can even swim.”
“I’m sure Evan can swim.”
“He’s severely overweight.”
“Maybe by a hundred pounds,” I told Bobby, not sure why I was arguing with him.
“Well, if he did make it to safety, something will eat him. If there are dragons here, they will eat Evan. Mark my fucking words, Nick. I mean, if I were a dragon, I would eat Evan. He has the most meat on him.”
“I thought you said he was fat.”
“You know what I’m goddamn trying to say here, Nick!” Bobby clenched his fists at his sides. “Okay, okay, enough shit-talking. Sorry. I’m upset. Where are we? Let’s start there.”
“I’m upset too. This is some worst case scenario shit.”
Both of us looked around; all I could see was that we were on a beach in front of a vast sea, mountains to our right, and jungle behind us. Bobby checked his phone, grimacing. “No service. What about you?”
“My phone’s on the table at your place.” I took another glance around. “New England? Are we still in New England?”
“No, it was winter in New England. That’s a jungle. There are no jungles in New England.”
“The water kind of reminds me of New England, its coldness, its darkness.”
“No way. We’re somewhere else, maybe somewhere…” Bobby looked at the mountains in the distance. “If we were somewhere tropical, there probably wouldn’t be snow on the tops of the mountains.”
“Asia?”
“How the hell would we go from Boston to Asia in a matter of seconds?”
“Shit, Bobby, I’m just throwing out suggestions here! How often does a portal open up in the middle of a bachelor party?”
He nodded. “Good point. Sorry, again. This has my blood pressure up, and yeah, crap. You don’t think someone spiked our beers, do you? This isn’t some of your edibles, is it?”
“Edibles? Come on, Bobby. And who’s going to spike our beers? It was a bachelor party with five people, all of whom have known each other since childhood. Well, except for Evan. He’s new to the group.”
“That’s a nice way to say it. He’s Tom’s friend. Evan was never part of our group. But I agree with you. No one would spike our drinks.” Bobby ran his fingers through his goatee. “Except Evan, but even that seems like something he wouldn’t do.”
“We’re not hallucinating, Bobby,” I said, reaching down and taking a fistful of sand. “I’ve tripped before. This is not what it’s like.” I let the sand fall from my fingertips. “Trust me.”
Our dialogue was cut short when we noticed something on the other end of the beach. A group of men moved along the shoreline, and from a distance it looked like they were…
“Soldiers?” I asked.
Both of us peered off into the distance, confirming what we had seen.
“Looks like it to me,” Bobby finally said. “Shit, shit!”
“I’m right there with you man, let’s just… ”
The soldiers were about a quarter of a mile away, and if I wasn’t seeing things, it seemed like they had swords at their sides.
