Li Yu kept walking towards the center and then the trees stopped.

  The center of the Whispering Weald was a crater, a massive depression in the earth where the forest had been crushed into submission. The heat here was incredibly intense, enough to blister the skin of cultivators in Core Formation instantly. Li Yu’s body was incredibly tough and being in the 1st layer of the void also drastically reduced the heat and it didn’t impact him much at all.

  In the center of the crater lay the source of the heat.

  Li Yu stopped once he saw it. He was floating ten feet off the ground and just took a long moment to just stare at it. He had read the reports. He had heard the descriptions. But seeing it with his own eyes was different.

  The Sky-Iron Dreadnought.

  It was colossal. Lying down, it was the size of a small mountain range. It was one of the largest creatures he had ever seen in person. Rivaling the size of some of the Guardian Beasts. However, size didn’t mean much in the cultivation world. High level cultivators and creatures had techniques to become larger or smaller as they pleased.

  Size was a matter of convenience most of the time, not an actual gauge of strength. With that all being said, the size still made an impact as its presence was enhanced by it. It was just like Elder Feng had said, it is immense and covered in countless layers of overlapping, iron like plates that look like they were ripped from the hulls of warships.

  It was currently sleeping or at least looked like it was. Its breath came in slow tectonic rhythms. Inhale… and the air in the crater was sucked toward it. Exhale… and jets of superheated steam blasted from between its plated armor. There were vents throughout its body that were helping to release this heat.

  The pressure coming off of it was visible. The gravity around the beast was warped. Li Yu watched a rock near the beast’s head. It wasn’t sitting on the ground; it was being pressed into the ground and it was slowly cracking under the sheer weight of the Dreadnought’s passive aura.

  Li Yu drifted closer to examine it even more. It was clear that this beast was in the Divine Transformation realm. It was the first Divine Transformation realm beast he had seen since Zephyr. The aura it gave off was weaker than Zephyr and not as refined.

  While Zephyr seemed like an unassailable being with no weakness, the Sky-Iron Dreadnought seemed like pure aggression and destructive might. It felt that way and it was currently sleeping. It felt unrefined and that probably meant it was in the very early Divine Transformation realm.

  Li Yu hovered directly over the beast’s head and was looking down at the closed eyelid. The eyelid alone was a thick shutter of bone and metal, scarred from countless battles.

  He extended his spiritual sense, sharpening it into a fine needle to pierce through the beast’s natural interference field. He needed to know exactly what he was dealing with.

  The Alliance report echoed in his mind: Stronger than a 7th Stage Soul Formation expert. Invulnerable to all attacks.

  Li Yu scoffed internally. “Alliance intelligence is worse than I thought. Or maybe the scouts just don’t understand the level they are dealing with. I wouldn’t have understood what this level of power was either if I had not met Zephyr and the Guardian Beasts.”

  It had crossed the threshold that would hold back so many others. It had entered the realm where one began to touch the fundamental laws of this world. In the cultivation world, the gap between Soul Formation and Divine Transformation was a chasm that many cultivators died trying to cross.

  A Divine Transformation expert could crush a Soul Formation expert without much effort if they could weld laws. They could manipulate the laws of the world to a limited degree. Level of law mastery was what started to separate cultivators in this stage.

  Li Yu felt the density of the core inside that massive chest. The metal, fire and wind element in the air seemed to be worshipping this creature. The earth element submitted to it. The beast had touched upon at least those four laws. Its level of mastery was unknown but given its strength it couldn’t have been much.

  “If this thing wakes up and decides to walk toward the Alliance headquarters,” Li Yu analyzed coldly, “there is nothing stopping it. The formations will likely shatter like glass or be able to hold on for just a bit. Shen Tu? Elder Feng? Torben? They would be wiped out. Where did this thing come from?”

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  “How come it didn’t kill everyone that had fought with it before? The scout reports have mentioned several people attacking it and doing nothing to it. However, it didn’t mention that it killed everyone and everything. Like it is waiting for something or planning something?”

  “The only reason it hadn’t attacked yet was likely because it was waiting for the beast tide to reach a critical mass or perhaps it was in a period of hibernation to consolidate its breakthrough? There must be a reason for it… maybe there isn’t at all and it simply didn’t feel like it?”

  Li Yu looked at the slumbering calamity but he wasn’t terrified. In fact, it was the opposite. There was a feeling of excitement building within him. This was a worthy opponent for him to test himself against. To see how far he had come after touching upon the laws.

  Slowly, a grin spread across his face. It wasn’t a hero’s smile. It was the smile of a craftsman who had finally found a material strong enough to work with. In a way, it was the smile of a pervert who had found exactly what he was looking for.

  “Finally,” he murmured, his blood beginning to heat up. “An opponent that I should destroy and try my utmost to do so. Someone that should be eliminated for the greater good of this world. But more importantly, someone that will provide me with rich resources. Not only will I be able to get the core of this beast, it's fresh and body. I will also be able to trade in the merit points for additional resources.”

  He floated down and did two full laps around the beast. He was just looking at it and studying it. Li Yu was a beast physician afterall and he was curious on the anatomy of the beast. After taking nearly an hour to study it to his heart's content it was finally time for him to think of an actual plan to fight this thing.

  His body wanted to start right now. He wanted to wake it up with a slap and see what it could do. To see what he could do.

  “The scouts and all the other beasts,” he reminded himself.

  That was the problem. Even miles away, if Li Yu fought a Divine Transformation beast here, the shockwaves would be catastrophic. The forest would be flattened. The mountains would crumble. The sky would change color.

  And the scouts would see it all. They would see a young man from the South trading blows with a god-beast. They would see powers that defied the Soul Formation realm. He wanted to be respected here and prove the worth of his group, yes. He wanted their group to have a voice and also gain more ground when it came to allocating resources.

  However, he didn’t want to have his strength and abilities be known exactly. The mystery of it all would give him much better leverage at discussions. They just needed to know how strong he was through his deeds and mission completion. Not from his actual abilities. He did not want the entire world asking him questions he didn’t want to answer.

  “I need a private room,” Li Yu thought.

  He looked around him. He looked at the grey and desaturated world of the first layer of the Void.

  It was sturdy here. This layer was a buffer zone between reality and the chaotic turbulence of the deeper void. It was reinforced by the laws of the void itself and was the most stable layer after the real world. It could take a beating, a fight. It contained no life to destroy and more importantly no scouts to watch.

  But could he bring the fight here?

  Li Yu looked back at the Sky-Iron Dreadnought. It was massive. Dragging something this heavy, this powerful, out of reality and into the Void wasn’t like slipping a coin into a pocket. It would be like trying to pull a continent through the eye of a needle.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do it, I have never tried to do it before. I have taken smaller objects with me to this layer but never thought to take any kind of other lifeforms with me. Why didn’t I think to do that before? I was too busy contemplating, I wasn’t applying. How foolish of me.’ Li Yu berated himself.

  Li Yu rubbed his chin and started calculating the variables.

  “I can’t just slowly pull it,” he reasoned. “It is big and a lifeform like that would resist me greatly. I have to relocate it all in one quick motion before it even realizes what is happening to resist. Once it is here, it will be trapped here unless I allow it to go back. Surely its understanding of the void can’t match up with mine?”

  He visualized the technique. A spatial hole would need to be opened, large enough to fit the beast. Then instead of trying to pull the beast through the hole, he would move the spatial hole around and through the beast. The beast would stay exactly where it is the entire time but entrance to the 1st layer of the void would move past it, bringing it in.

  Once it went through the hole, Li Yu would have the perfect arena to face it.

  “The scouts, if they even notice anything during the time, will just see the beast vanish,” Li Yu plotted with his smile widening. “They’ll think it burrowed underground or teleported away.”

  He floated upward, positioning himself directly above the center of the Dreadnought’s back. He raised his hands, his fingers dancing as he began to weave the threads of the Void Law. He wouldn’t strike yet. He needed to prepare the trap perfectly. One shot to swallow a mountain.

  “Sleep tight, big guy,” Li Yu whispered to the oblivious monster below him. “Because when you wake up, you’re going to be in my world.”

  He took a deep breath, his eyes glowing with a faint silver light as he began to trace the runes of the spatial hole in the air. He had never done anything at this scale before and it would take time. Not only that, he needed to make sure it didn’t use and waste too much Qi or else he wouldn’t be able to fight it properly in there.

  This was a Divine Transformation beast after all. It was incredibly dangerous and while Li Yu was feeling confident. He wasn’t going to be careless and possibly get hurt. He was confident that if things started to go wrong he could escape with the void. This was the power and utility of the void laws.

  The plan was set. Now, it was time to simply get to work.