The dust from the crater settled and revealed the tense standoff in this other space. Hao was back on his feet and his chest was heaving as his cultivation rapidly healed his internal injuries.

  The arrogance in his eyes had been replaced by a wary, hunted look. He gripped his slightly bent glaive so hard his knuckles were white. It had been a very long time since he had suffered such a defeat.

  Scholar Mo snapped his fan shut with a sound like a cracking whip.

  "Do not engage him directly!" Mo shouted, his voice losing its smooth diplomatic veneer. “He is much stronger than we thought. He defies the logic of this realm! His existence is not something we can handle in the same realm. If you trade blows, you will break!"

  "We noticed!" Hao spat in anger and was wiping blood from his chin.

  "Switch to formations and a more defensive style," Mo commanded. His hands then blurred as he reached into his wide sleeves. "Containment and attrition. We do not need to defeat him; we need to exhaust him until he listens to reason."

  "Or until he kills us," Auntie Lan grumbled as she took a step forward.

  Mo didn't answer. He threw his hands outward. Twelve discs made of translucent blue jade flew into the air. They didn't fall; they hovered. They were humming with a frequency that made Li Yu’s teeth ache.

  "Array of the Twelve Sinking Stars," Mo chanted.

  The discs spun and were projecting beams of light that connected to form a geometric cage around Li Yu. Immediately, the gravity within that cage tripled. A precise magnetic heaviness that sought to bind Li Yu’s joints and slow his blood flow.

  "Damn formations and arrays." Li Yu muttered. He flexed his shoulders as he was feeling the weight. It was like walking through underwater mud. "But I’m not a fan of cages."

  He raised his staff to smash the nearest disc. Li Yu still didn’t understand formations or arrays very well. Not well enough to break them using his own understanding anyways. He understood enough to know that formations and arrays can be broken though.

  "Now, Lan!" Mo yelled.

  Auntie Lan moved. For a stout woman, she possessed a terrifying grace. She didn't charge; she flowed. She drew a weapon from her waist. It was a thin needle-like rapier that shimmered with a green venomous light.

  "Iron-Thorn Matriarch!" Lan roared. It was her martial spirit.

  Behind her a massive phantom manifested. It was a botanical nightmare. A colossal feminine figure composed entirely of dark jagged vines and iron-hard thorns. The spirit let out a silent scream and the white sand of the pocket dimension exploded.

  Thick roots erupted from the ground beneath Li Yu’s feet. They weren't just wood; they were infused with a Metallic Wood Qi that made them harder than steel. They were quick and coiled around his ankles, his waist and his staff. They were trying to bolt him to the floor.

  Li Yu grunted at the new development that he didn’t expect. His muscles bulged as he ripped his leg free, snapping a root as thick as a man's thigh.

  "Persistence," Lan whispered while thrusting her rapier forward from thirty meters away.

  The Iron-Thorn Matriarch mimicked the motion. Hundreds of vines lashed out like spears.

  Li Yu spun his staff and created a defensive sphere. Thwack-thwack-thwack. The vines shattered against his defense and wood chips began raining down. But for every vine he broke, two more grew from the debris.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Gui, the eyes!" Mo directed as he threw three more formation flags to reinforce the gravity array. He was also doing some other things but it wasn’t clear what.

  Grandma Gui cackled at the command. She then tapped her twisted root cane on the air. "Don't rush an old woman, Mo. I'm working. I know what to do."

  She took a step and her figure fractured.

  "Mist-Walker Lantern." She called to her martial spirit.

  A ghostly blue lantern appeared floating above her head. It swung gently and was releasing a fog that wasn't made of water but of distorted light. Grandma Gui vanished into the fog. Or rather, she became the fog.

  Li Yu swung his staff at a vine trying to strangle the Sentry. Suddenly, the vine wasn't there. Instead, the space folded and the tip of Grandma Gui’s cane stabbed out from the empty air. It was aiming for Li Yu’s neck.

  It was a spatial assassination technique.

  Li Yu’s instincts screamed at him. He couldn't dodge it. He couldn’t. The vines and the gravity array held him where he was and the vines anchored his feet.

  ‘Sentry!’ Li Yu thought. The Sentry had already begun to move before his thought even came out though. It was being controlled by his second mind after all. The blue avatar didn't need to be told. It spun around and its ice spear thrusting to intercept the cane.

  Ping.

  The cane bounced off the ice. Grandma Gui frowned at the failed attempt and faded back into the mist. "Pesky doll."

  "Try this." Grandma Gui whispered. Her voice came from everywhere at once. "Let your mind drift, child. The battle is over. Sleep. You deserve rest."

  The mist swirled around Li Yu and began turning pink. He saw images forming for a split second. Peaceful images. It was a soul attack that was designed to slip through the gaps in a cultivator's mental defense by appealing to their deepest desires.

  Li Yu didn’t have to do anything and the illusion shattered like a mirror dropped on stone.

  Grandma Gui reappeared twenty meters away and was stumbling as if she’d been slapped. She clutched her chest and her eyes were wide.

  "Impossible," she rasped. "I hit him with a Soul Severing Mirage. He... he wasn’t affected at all? My soul power in this realm was said to be one of the best within the clan’s history."

  "His soul is incredibly powerful," Scholar Mo analyzed and sent to everyone. His brow was sweating as he manipulated the array discs. "It is not just strong; it is a fortress. Don’t try to use soul attacks at him. The backlash from it will hurt you way more. Stick to physical spatial displacement! Wear him down!"

  "My turn," Li Yu growled as he finally freed himself from the vines. He channeled his Qi. The opalescent aura around him flared and was turning the white sand into glass beneath his feet.

  Storm Law: Thunder-Step.

  CRACK-BOOM.

  Li Yu disappeared. He moved so fast that the gravity array couldn't adjust in time. Mo had the array focus on a smaller area to make it stronger and more focused. Li Yu tore through the vines in the surrounding area, shredding them with the sheer velocity of his passage.

  He appeared in front of Auntie Lan with his staff raised for a smash.

  "Hao!" Lan screamed, not even trying to block. She knew she couldn't take a hit that had flattened Hao. Frontal combat was not her strength.

  A streak of crimson light intercepted Li Yu. Hao had been waiting and had moved to a different role. This time, he wasn't attacking.

  “Blood-Forged Glaive!" Hao roared internally as he called out his martial spirit.

  A giant spectral projection of a glaive appeared over Hao. It was crossing with his physical weapon. He caught Li Yu’s staff in the crook of the blade. He was gritting his teeth as the impact drove him knee-deep into the sand. Auntie Lan also used her vines to help him deflect the blow and soften his impact.

  "Go!" Hao shouted as blood was leaking from his nose as he struggled against Li Yu's monstrous strength. Auntie Lan took the opening that it presented. Her rapier flickered.

  Verdant Flash.

  She didn't stab Li Yu; she stabbed the ground next to Hao. A massive flower bloomed instantly, its petals wrapping around Hao and pulling him underground just as Li Yu’s staff overpowered the block and smashed into the empty space.

  Li Yu spun around and was looking for a target. They were gone and could not be seen.

  Scholar Mo stood in the distance and was hovering on a flying disk. He unfurled a scroll that seemed endless.

  “The Celestial Archive." Mo mentally commanded his martial spirit. The scroll floated around him and was covered in glowing runes. Mo dipped a brush made of energy into the air and began to write furiously.

  "Bind. Weaken. Heavy. Slow."

  As he wrote the characters, they peeled off the scroll and flew toward Li Yu. As they got closer to Li Yu they were enlarging until they were the size of houses. They looked ready to engulf him.