Li Yu raised an eyebrow. "You people are clearly not from around here."

  "Shut up!" Hao screamed. "We are from a place you cannot even comprehend!"

  He pointed his glaive at Li Yu.

  "The rules say we cannot use higher cultivation," Hao hissed. "But it does not forbid a duel of equals. If I suppress my cultivation to his level... if I kill him as a peer... the law is satisfied. It is valid."

  "Hao," Grandma Gui tapped her cane. "Be careful. The boy is not simple. He is incredibly powerful."

  "He is a Soul Formation junior from a place no one wants," Hao spat. "I am an elite of the Gongsun Clan. I have trained in the Crimson War Arts since I could walk. Even at the same level, the gap between us is heaven and earth."

  He looked at Li Yu, his eyes burning with arrogance and killing intent.

  "Mid-Stage Soul Formation," Hao analyzed Li Yu. "Fine."

  The young man closed his eyes. A series of metallic clicks echoed from his armor. His aura, which he exposed as soon as he came into this pocket space, was vast and far beyond anything Li Yu had felt on this continent. That vast aura began to contract.

  It folded in on itself, becoming denser, sharper, until it sat precisely at the Mid-Stage Soul Formation level. Hao’s Mid-Stage Soul Formation back from when he was at that stage many, many years ago.

  "There," Hao said while opening his eyes. "I have sealed my cultivation. No domain advantage. No higher-realm pressure. Just skill and power on equal footing."

  He spun his glaive around and got used to his strength. The blade was slicing through the air with a terrifying whistle.

  "Now," Hao said. "Release her, or I will cut you down and free her myself."

  Li Yu sighed. He looked at Gongsun Yue. She looked conflicted but she didn't stop Hao. She wanted freedom and she was desperate enough to let him off the leash.

  "I really hate fighting for no reason," Li Yu said, shifting his grip on his staff. "But if you insist on being the villain in this story, I guess I have to play along."

  "Villain?" Hao laughed. "I am the hero freeing the princess from the dungeon master! You are the serving boy of that dungeon master, Li Yu! A weak, pathetic boy!"

  BOOM.

  Hao moved.

  He was fast. Incredibly fast. Even with his cultivation suppressed, his movement technique was top-tier. Utilizing footwork that warped space slightly with each step. He crossed the fifty meters between them in a heartbeat and was leaving a trail of crimson afterimages.

  "Die!"

  The glaive came down in a vertical chop, aiming to split Li Yu from head to toe. The blade glowed with a crimson fire that burned the air itself. It was a perfect strike—technically flawless, filled with intent and backed by a martial art that had been refined for thousands of years in a higher realm.

  To anyone else on this continent, it would have been completely unblockable. Not due to the power of his strike but the weapon itself. Almost no weapon here would have been able to withstand the strike from such a weapon. It would never withstand the blow from such a magnificent weapon. Hao knew that yet he attacked anyway without any regard for fairness there.

  Li Yu, however, didn't dodge. He signaled the Sentry to stand down. He felt for some reason that this needed to be personal. He watched the blade come down. Li Yu saw the trajectory, power and intent.

  ‘He's good,’ Li Yu thought calmly. ‘But he is greatly mistaken if he thinks I am anything but normal.’

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  Li Yu simply stepped forward, planting his feet and swung his staff upward. It was a simple but brutal uppercut.

  CLANG.

  The sound was deafening. The crimson glaive met Star Crusher. Probably the only weapon around here that could withstand that Crimson glaive in battle.

  Li Yu’s swing met Hao’s strike and simply... erased it.

  Hao’s eyes widened. He felt a shockwave travel up his arms and shattered the bones in his wrists instantly. The glaive was knocked backward with such violence that it tore the skin of his palms.

  "What—" Hao gasped.

  Li Yu didn't stop. The upward swing carried the staff high and Li Yu used the momentum to bring it back down in a fluid overhead smash.

  "Sit down," Li Yu said.

  Hao roared as he was trying to raise his glaive to block. He channeled every ounce of his suppressed Qi into a defensive barrier.

  Crimson Turtle Aegis!

  A shield of complex red runes materialized above him—a technique designed to withstand attacks from a realm above his own. It came at the cost of stripping him of all of his Qi and would take days to recover from. It was a last resort type technique to survive.

  Li Yu’s staff hit the shield.

  CRACK.

  The shield shattered like cheap glass. The staff continued downward, smashing into the shaft of the glaive and then slamming into Hao’s shoulder.

  BOOM.

  The ground of the pocket dimension exploded. A crater formed instantly. The white sand erupted into the air in a massive geyser.

  When the dust settled, Hao was lying in the center of the crater. He was embedded deep in the white sand. His armor and weapon was mostly fine but he was broken. He suppressed his cultivation but his equipment was still at a much higher tier. Hao had cheated but was still battered and defeated. He was coughing up blood and his eyes began to unfocus slightly.

  Li Yu stood over him in the air with his staff resting on his shoulder. He wasn't even breathing hard.

  "That's the problem with you 'prodigies'," Li Yu said, looking down at the stunned man. "You think suppressing your cultivation means you’d be stronger than me. How could you ever be weaker than some ‘peasant’ at the same cultivation level?"

  He leaned slightly closer.

  "Don’t try to gauge me by your low standards." Li Yu was now upset. These people had come out of nowhere and were clearly not treating him well. There was no real hostility in their actions but they had been looking down on him since meeting him. Not only have they been looking down on him, this one here just tried to kill him.

  Silence filled the white void. The other four members of the Gongsun family stared. Grandma Gui’s jaw was slack. Auntie Lan was just as surprised. Scholar Mo dropped his fan to his side. Hao was the most stunned of all and it took him a while to realize he could just unlock his cultivation and he would be healed. Something he did a few seconds later to heal himself fully.

  Even Gongsun Yue looked horrified. She knew her retainer was strong. Even suppressed, he should have been able to handle any cultivator from a lower plane. Hao was a true prodigy that their clan had raised and was a talent they were nurturing. But Li Yu hadn't just beaten him; he had swatted him like a fly.

  They had all seen how he had done it as well. It wasn’t just cultivation that Li Yu used. It was also the strength of his body as well. In those moments of fighting they saw it. His body was incredibly strong and its true depths unknown.

  They didn’t think anything of his Drunken Monkey Destroy the World technique. That was the one area that they thought he was lacking in. His technique, while strong, wasn’t as refined as it could have been. There was a lot that could have been improved, judging from their own standards.

  However, the thing that shocked them the most was his usage of laws. He shouldn’t have been able to use laws at this cultivation level. How old was he? From his bone age, not over 30 years old. A new born compared to them. His cultivation was also just at the mid-stage of Soul Formation. How could he use laws like that?

  Li Yu’s technique looked simple but it was anything but that. He was utilizing several different laws within his strike. On his way up he was using the law of the Earth, to reduce impact. Water to flow and soften the blow. Destruction to empower his attack. Void to add weight and further destructive power. Lightning, Wind and Storm for speed and further power. There were smaller traces of metal, fire, emptiness, yin and yang laws as well.

  His strike down carried more of the same. There was no way someone like Hao who couldn’t use laws at that stage would be able to contend with Li Yu. There was no way any of them would be able to contend with Li Yu at the same cultivation level if he could use laws.

  ‘What a freak of nature they all thought.’ This complicated things greatly.

  Li Yu turned to face them and was unaware of their thoughts. His opalescent Qi flared to life, surrounding him in a shimmering, multi-colored aura that felt heavy, ancient and undeniable.

  "Now," Li Yu said, his voice hard. "If anyone else wants to try me. Step up now."

  He pointed his staff at Gongsun Yue.

  "I don't know who you are. I don't know what this oath is. And frankly, after this little display, I trust you even less."

  He thumped the staff on the ground.

  "I'm not dying here today. And I'm not releasing anything until I get some real answers. So, are we going to talk, or do I have to break this box from the inside out?"