The Elders froze where they were. They had never been to such a place and more importantly had no idea how this boy brought them here. Cyrus looked down at his hand. The crimson lightning was visibly weaker here.

  He looked up at Li Yu and then at Tekton above him. As he looked around he saw no one else here besides them. He wasn’t adept at the void, he couldn’t see that he was still in the same spot as he was before. For the first time, genuine terror cracked his expression.

  “What… is… this?” Cyrus’s voice slightly trembled.

  “A change of scenery. I thought that it would be rude of me to let everyone watch you all being beaten to death. I am saving your face. You should be thankful to me.” Li Yu said. He didn’t really know if he could truly handle Cyrus but he wasn’t afraid either.

  He stood there with the same smile on his face as before.

  “I told you we shouldn’t fight here,” Li Yu said. “Too much collateral damage. So, I’m taking us somewhere else. In here, no one will ask me to pay them for damages.” With those words Li Yu disappeared from their sight.

  The sensation of entering the void was usually cold. For Li Yu, it felt like home. A refreshing breeze on a hot day. But for Cyrus and the Elders, it was a plunge into an icy hell.

  Cyrus stabilized himself, his cultivation flaring to push back the encroaching cold of the void. The five Elders formed a defensive circle around him instantly with their eyes darting wildly.

  “Where are we?” Elder Brek shouted.

  “A sub-dimension of sorts,” Cyrus responded as he continued to analysis his surroundings. His eyes scanned the gray. “A void pocket most likely. That boy… he is a void Cultivator?”

  It was the only explanation. To shift six people forcefully into a spatial pocket required a mastery of the Laws of Space that shouldn't be possible for anyone under Divine Transformation. No, even in Divine Transformation you wouldn’t be able to do this unless your understanding of the void laws reached a high level.

  “Welcome to my second home,” a voice echoed.

  They spun around.

  Li Yu was floating casually in the air, or what passed for air here. He was sitting cross-legged, as if resting on an invisible floor. He was counting the items in the bone ring he had stolen.

  “Not bad,” Li Yu said, looking up. “Void-Fire Beast core. You weren’t lying when you said so earlier. Did you think that there was no chance that I would be able to leave today? Well, it doesn’t matter. I would have taken it from your corpses after this is over anyways.”

  He tossed the ring into his Koi Sanctuary.

  “Now,” Li Yu said as he stood up and was now standing on nothingness. He stretched his arms, his joints popping loudly in the silent void.

  The playful, sarcastic expression was gone. In its place was a look of focused, predatory excitement. His eyes locked on to them and there was also a sense of pity for them. These people were going to die today. He was confident of that. One way or another, their deaths were sealed.

  “You wanted to fight,” Li Yu said. “And I want to test something. Out there, in the real world, I have to be careful. I can’t break buildings. I can’t hurt innocent people. I have to hold back.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Li Yu took out his staff.

  “But here?” Li Yu smiled and the void around him seemed to darken in response. “Here, nobody can hear you scream. And nobody can see me eat.”

  Cyrus felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. He realized with a sinking horror that he had made a catastrophic miscalculation. He cursed Valen for getting them into this situation.

  Cyrus couldn’t remember the last time he had found himself in such a scenario. This boy was simply too strange. Too full of mystery. Li Yu had continued to surprise him at every step and this was the final surprise that took his breath away.

  He was nearly at the top of the Soul Formation stage so he understood more than the others. As he got closer to the top he could feel the pull of laws. He couldn’t do anything with them but he could start to get brief glimpses on the laws he was best at.

  Cyrus could feel the pull of the law of lightning especially. Those were the techniques he was best with and he always felt at home around lightning. It was calling to him as he got stronger. He felt it internally, that once he got to Divine Transformation he would be able to study it and become its student.

  That is why he felt even more terror than the rest when they were brought in here. This boy had already touched upon laws. That freak of nature over there, the boy that had been smiling at him this entire time had already touched upon the laws.

  It wasn’t any law either, it was the void law. One of the top laws that could be learned and one of the most difficult.

  ‘How has he done it? How could he have this kind of mastery over the void laws already? He isn’t even in the Divine Transformation realm yet. I am sure of that. I have met Divine Transformation before, their aura is unmistakable. Just like that beast above, he is in Divine Transformation.’ Cyrus thought.

  ‘How had this boy done it then? A mid Soul Formation boy at best and here he is!’ Cyrus screamed internally.

  He hadn't stepped into a trap. He had stepped into a cage and there was nothing he could do now to escape it.

  “Form the battle array!” Cyrus screamed. “Crimson Blood Slaughter Formation! Now!”

  The five Elders roared, their own fear transmuting into desperate aggression. They moved into position, red energy linking them together in a pentagram of power with Cyrus at its center.

  Li Yu just watched them do so with staff in hand. He hadn’t acted yet because he wanted them to be at full power. That was the only way to test his abilities as he pleased.

  “Come on then,” Li Yu whispered. “Let us begin!”

  Like before with the beginning of the fight against Tekton, his pupils were replaced by swirling vortices of black and white in his right eye and purple in his left.

  His killing Intent burst forth, interwoven with other laws. The grey void around Li Yu turned red, purple and abyssal black. The very space decaying. It was being destroyed just by being near him.

  Behind him the air shimmered and an opalescent ocean manifested in the void. The Fisherman Soul came out stunning the six below.

  “Nascent Soul?!?!” They all shouted at once.

  Then a circular and golden portal appeared to the side of the ocean. Out came his Koi Soul.

  “What in the Daos is that?! No…. No!! Two Nascent Soul!?” Elder Vokin couldn’t help but yell out.

  ‘So that was how I reacted… Yes, it is quite a shock, who wouldn’t be shocked by this revelation.’ Tekton thought to himself as he watched the souls come out.

  Li Yu performed a hand seal as the two souls appeared. From his body, a second figure split away. It was identical to Li Yu in every way, formed from pure compressed Qi but stabilized and made semi-permanent by the Life Law.

  Once his Sentry was created he held back onto his staff. It was now glowing with a sinister pulsing purple light that was interweaving with the black light it always had.

  All of this happened in a matter of seconds and Li Yu was now ready for battle. There was no surrendering here. Just then.

  “Stop! This was all a mistake! We are all human, we are on the same side. Yes, we have made mistakes and taken advantage of others. But who cares! The strong are supposed to take from the weak. This is how it's always been. This is how it always will be! We’ve done nothing wrong!” Cyrus shouted, trying to stop Li Yu.

  “Hahahaha” Li Yu laughed loudly. “You are right about one thing. The strong do take from the weak. I am the strong and I will soon be taking from the weak!”