Li Yu had worked his way through the halls and now stood before the massive double doors of the Crimson Fang’s central treasury. The air down here was cool and smelling of stone and old iron.

  The doors themselves were made of some sort of reinforced metal and were thick. It was designed to withstand a bombardment along with its arrays and formations. The physical barrier was the least of his concerns. It was those arrays and formations that made this place secure.

  The surface of the metal hummed with a low and menacing frequency. Intricate patterns of light shifted across the surface. Runes that twisted and turned in ways that hurt the eyes if stared at too long.

  "Space-type arrays," Li Yu noted calmly. "And Void-Locking formations. High level ones too."

  Li Yu didn’t understand arrays to the level that he could deactivate them. He didn’t even understand them to a level where he could identify what arrays were here. However, he had an understanding in Void laws and he could feel the manipulation of space here.

  Li Yu reached out and had his hand hovering an inch above the metal. He could feel the spatial distortions. The door wasn’t just locked; it was phased slightly out of reality.

  A brute force attack would simply pass through it or, worse, trigger a spatial collapse that would jettison the contents of the vault into the chaotic void currents.

  It was a clever defense. Against anyone else with no understanding of void laws, it would have been nearly impenetrable without the specific key or token held by the Patriarch. Either that or an expert in arrays would be needed to eventually turn them all off.

  But Li Yu was ready to face such a thing.

  ‘Tekton,’ Li Yu said. ‘Keep watch.’

  ‘Understood,’ the bracelet on his wrist hummed. It flew off of him and settled on the ground behind Li Yu. He would stand guard in his small and unassuming form.

  Li Yu closed his eyes as his hand reached out once again. He didn't reach for a key that he had found within the storage ring. He had checked through it and couldn’t find anything. Instead, he reached into his own understanding.

  His mind drifted back to the gray boundless expanse of the First Layer of the Void. He recalled the sensation of tearing space, of weaving it and of existing within the gaps of the world. His eyes snapped open. A slight royal purple light began to be emitted from them.

  To his vision, the intimidating array on the door dismantled itself. He saw the anchor points where the array pinned the door to the material plane. He saw the flow of void energy that kept the phase-shift active.

  "Interesting... Arrays are always so fascinating and this is one of the few times I can see and understand what they are trying to do." Li Yu murmured. "The knots are tight but the weave is quite uneven. It actually looks quite amateurish… I shouldn’t say that though, if this was me from just a year ago I would be facing a dead end here."

  He extended his index finger. The tip glowed with purple void energy.

  He didn't strike the door. He began to trace runes in the air. He was mirroring what the array was doing but in reverse. He wasn't breaking the lock; he was untying it.

  He then tapped three specific points on the door in rapid succession.

  Ping. Ping. Thrum.

  The menacing hum died instantly. The shifting light patterns froze and then dissolved into motes of harmless spiritual energy. The phase-shift ended and the door and vault was pulled back into full reality with a heavy thud.

  Click.

  The vault opened. It looked like it was set to automatically open once the array was turned off. Golden light spilled out into the corridor and illuminated Li Yu’s face. He walked inside with his staff at the ready just in case. He was tapping it rhythmically on the floor.

  The vault was quite vast. It was a cavern carved directly into the bedrock of the valley and was reinforced through the years. It was lined with shelves that stretched high above.

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  There were mountains of different grades of spirit stones piled in corners like gravel. There were racks of weapons, armors and artifacts. There were crates filled with herbs and jars sealed with special wax that contained pills.

  It was a fortune but Li Yu frowned.

  He walked through the aisles and was scanning the shelves with a critical eye. He picked up a jade box, checked the contents—a 500-year-old Blood Ginseng—and put it back. He checked a weapon rack and found a sword, decent, but mass-produced.

  "It's mostly bulk goods. Used as rewards for disciples." Li Yu analyzed.

  He did a quick mental calculation as his spiritual sense expended outwards. The wealth in this room was immense in volume but in terms of sheer value, it paled in comparison to the five rings he had taken from the Elders and the one from Patriarch Cyrus.

  "That makes sense," Li Yu said to himself. "The Patriarch and the top Elders wouldn't leave the best stuff gathering dust in a basement. They took the best things such as ancient manuals, the peak-tier artifacts, the rarest herbs and pills with them on their fingers."

  He looked at the locking mechanism from the inside. It required a special token to open normally.

  "Only the inner circle had access," Li Yu deduced. "The rest of the sect, like the disciples and the lower elders couldn't get in here even if they wanted to. That’s why it hasn't been looted yet during the chaos in recent days."

  Li Yu felt a wave of relief, followed immediately by a sharp lesson.

  He was lucky. If Cyrus had been more generous and given more people access to this vault, this might have gone differently. This wealth might have already disappeared in the days they spent on Kael’s revenge and the two breakthroughs. If a rogue Elder had possessed a way to break this array, the room would be empty.

  "Note to self," Li Yu thought as his expression turned more serious. "In the future I need to loot faster. Secure the treasury immediately. Don't assume the enemy will leave it for you."

  He began to sweep. He moved through the vault methodically. Entire piles of Spirit Stones vanished into his storage rings. Racks of weapons were cleared. Shelves of herbs were emptied. He didn't discriminate. The Crab Cult needed everything after all.

  It took him nearly an hour to strip the room bare and slightly organize things so he could find it later. He mostly just put the same things together, herbs with herbs and weapons with weapons. When he was done inside the vault only the dust remained. Not even the containers were spared as they too were valuable.

  Li Yu turned and walked out with the heavy doors groaning shut behind him. He had thought for a moment on how he could take the entire vault itself. It was quite a treasure itself but much too big.

  His mastery of the void wasn’t at a level where he could separate it out and store it away. He made a mental note to work on such things in the future. He could just take the entire thing, it would be much faster.

  When Li Yu emerged from the underground complex and stepped back into the central plaza, the sun was high in the sky.

  The fighting had ceased completely. The fires that had been raging earlier were now smoldering embers. They were doused by Lin Xia’s water techniques.

  The plaza was littered with the bodies of the Crimson Fang loyalists who had fought to the bitter end.

  Kael was standing near a pile of them and was wiping his Tidal Cleaver with a rag. He was covered in blood, breathing heavily but he looked calm. He didn’t look injured at all which was good.

  "The residential district is clear," Kael reported as Li Yu approached. "The main line of the Crimson Fang has ended..." He said while nearly choking up. Clearly he wasn’t sad for the death of the Crimson Fang members, most likely memories of his own family coming to him.

  "Good," Li Yu said with some understanding. He gestured to the bodies on the ground. "Before we deal with the survivors, we need to clean up here. Check the bodies. Every ring, every storage bag and every weapon. If it has spiritual energy, take it."

  Even though Li Yu had said that, those things were already done. Everyone here were seasoned warriors and had already taken the spoils from the dead. Jian Xuan and Lin Xia nodded at Li Yu’s words but didn’t move. They too had already done so.

  Once the battlefield was stripped, Li Yu finally turned his attention to the main gate.

  Thousands of people were gathered there. It was a sea of terrified faces. Servants in grey robes, outer disciples in ragged red tunics, crafters, stable hands and low-level administrators. They huddled together and were surrounded by a barrier of earth walls Jian Xuan had erected to keep them contained.

  When they saw Li Yu approach them, a wave of fear rippled through the crowd. They pressed back and away from him. This seemingly young boy was the boss here. He was the only one that had spoken to them in any way. The others simply killed or looted without much acknowledgement towards them.

  Li Yu stopped fifty meters from the gate. He planted his staff on the ground with a bang. He tossed it up and it spun in the air and then fell down forming a line on the ground.

  "Line up," Li Yu commanded. His voice wasn't loud but it carried the weight of absolute authority behind it.

  "Single file. Slowly walk past me. If I tell you to go you can go. If I tell you to stay... you stay."

  The crowd hesitated.

  "Move!" Kael barked as he stepped up beside Li Yu. His massive curved blade gleaming in the sunlight. The terror of the blood-soaked warrior spurred them into motion. A shaky line formed.

  The judgment began.