Li Yu swung his staff at the character for "Bind."

  "I don't want to read your trash!" Li Yu roared.

  He smashed it. It didn't break like glass; it exploded like ink and splashed over him and hardened instantly into chains. The character for "Heavy" hit him next. He felt his bones creak.

  "What is this? Annoying." Li Yu grumbled as he was straining against the ink chains. It was such a strange thing that he had never encountered before. He didn’t know if it was a Qi technique, an array or some special ability from his martial spirit. Either way, Li Yu didn’t know how to get rid of it.

  He looked at the group. They were spread out in an erratic formation to him but there was clearly a plan.

  Hao was their vanguard but he was mostly playing defense. Lan was the controller, restricting the terrain. Gui was the assassin and trap master. Using space to harass his openings. Mo was the commander. He was increasing their abilities and making Li Yu weaker.

  Gongsun Yue stood in the back and hadn’t acted this entire time. She was behind Mo but was watching with intense eyes. Why she hadn’t acted yet Li Yu didn’t know. Maybe she was waiting for something. Maybe she couldn’t act at all.

  "They're good," Li Yu admitted to himself.

  He blocked another cane strike from the void and then kicked a vine that tried to sweep his leg. He dodged a formation chain Scholar Mo tried to wrap around his neck.

  This wasn't clumsy fighting. This was refined. They covered each other’s gaps perfectly. When Li Yu lunged for Mo, Lan put up a wall of iron-wood. When Li Yu tried to smash the wall, Gui shifted the space so his staff missed by an inch. When Li Yu tried to pursue Gui, Hao stepped in with a defensive technique to absorb the blow.

  Li Yu was stronger than all of them combined. He had Laws they couldn't touch. But he was fighting a hydra. Every time he cut off a head, another one bit him.

  "I'm wasting energy," Li Yu realized. "I'm smashing rocks while they're throwing sand. I don't know how to untie these knots."

  He looked at the floating jade discs. He looked at the ink characters. He didn't understand the arrays. He didn't know the weak points.

  "So don't untie them," Li Yu whispered to himself.

  He deflected another of Lan's rapier thrusts and jumped back to create distance. The Sentry stood back-to-back with him, its ice spear spinning to deflect the Needle-Mosquitoes that Auntie Lan had somehow summoned from her sleeves.

  "You guys work well together," Li Yu called out to him. His voice was booming over the chaos. "I'll give you that. But you made one mistake."

  "And what is that?" Scholar Mo asked aloud as he was writing another character in the air.

  Li Yu gripped his staff with both hands. He didn't aim at the arrays. He didn't aim at the people. He aimed down.

  "Law of Destruction: World Breaker."

  He slammed the staff into the white sand with everything he had.

  BOOM.

  It wasn't a technique designed to target a specific enemy. It was a tantrum. He was tired of all this and was physically tiring out. It was pure, unadulterated destruction channeled into the foundation of the pocket dimension.

  The white sand liquified. A shockwave of jagged, black-and-gold energy rippled out through the ground and was tearing the fabric of the artificial reality. Scholar Mo screamed as his formation disks which were caught up in the destruction began to crack and wobble.

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  "He... he's attacking the dimension itself!" Mo looked at his jade disks in horror. "He's just breaking everything!"

  "The ground is unstable!" Hao shouted. He was trying to find footing as the sand churned like an ocean in a storm. They had underestimated his strength and now the treasure they had used to bring him to this space was being damaged.

  "He's learning," Grandma Gui noted. "He knows he can't out-skill the arrays, so he's flipping the table."

  Li Yu didn't stop. He lifted his staff and smashed the ground again. And again.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  Each hit sent shockwaves that disrupted their concentration, broke Lan's vines and shattered Mo's ink characters. They couldn’t get close to him anymore because the devastation was just too great. If they were caught in that themselves, they would be done for.

  "Sentry," Li Yu whispered. "Javelins."

  The blue avatar dissolved the ice spear and raised its hands. Dozens of javelins appeared and were glowing with a cold, predatory light.

  "Let's see how you handle rain while the ground is eating you," Li Yu said.

  He swung his staff in a horizontal arc. “The Sweeping Tsunami.”

  A tornado of multi-colored Qi erupted from his staff. It quickly picked up the javelins and turned them into a shredding vortex. The storm tore through the unstable pocket dimension. It was ripping up the sand and hurling it alongside the spears.

  "Defensive Formation: Turtle Shell!" Mo shrieked at the group. He was abandoning the offense. The four of them converged instantly. They knew they couldn't take this individually.

  Lan created a dome of woven iron-wood and layered it thick. Hao projected his Crimson Shield over it and was bracing his shoulder against the vines. Mo threw his scroll around the group, the paper hardening into steel bands to bind the structure. Gui warped the space around them to deflect the projectiles that came too close.

  BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

  The storm hit their bunker. The pocket dimension shook violently. Cracks appeared in the white sky and now revealed the void between worlds.

  Inside the defensive shell, the Gongsun family held on for dear life.

  "His Qi capacity..." Auntie Lan gasped as her face was paling as she poured energy into her vines. The impacts outside sounded like the fist of a god. "It's endless. How does a Mid-Stage Soul Formation cultivator have this much reserves?"

  "It's not just capacity," Grandma Gui wheezed. Her lantern spirit flickering as she fought to keep the space from collapsing on them. "It's the quality as well. His Qi is heavy and destructive. It feels like... like an ancient beast consuming us. It eats our Qi upon contact."

  "He is absolutely incredible for his age and circumstances," Gongsun Yue whispered. "He is no doubt their son. There is no doubt."

  Li Yu stopped his attack. He walked up to the dome of vines and steel. He didn't knock. He raised his staff. The staff felt heavier now. Li Yu was beginning to reach his limits for exertion.

  "Open up," Li Yu said.

  He smashed the staff into the side of the dome.

  CRACK.

  A massive dent appeared in the iron-wood. Inside, Hao grunted in pain as the force transferred through his shield. Li Yu hit it again.

  CRACK.

  Splinters the size of spears flew off the dome.

  "Scholar Mo!" Hao yelled. "The shield is failing! Do something!"

  "I'm trying to stabilize the array!" Mo shouted back. His hands were bleeding as he wrote frantic runes in the air. "He's disrupting the Qi flow with every hit! It’s the law of destruction. I can't get a grip!"

  Li Yu hit it a third time.

  CRUNCH.

  A hole appeared in the vines. Li Yu peered through the gap. He saw them huddled inside. They weren’t truly afraid of him since they could just revert back to their real cultivation level and he wouldn’t be able to harm them. They were, however, desperate because they had never encountered such a freak before.

  These people were all elites and they couldn’t even remember back to a time where they were struggling this much against a single person.

  "I see you," Li Yu said while panting a bit. He could still fight but it was clear that the continuous battle from before had affected him. These four were no pushovers with their coordination.

  The Sentry reached in and grabbed the edge of the breach and began pulling.

  RIIIIIIP.

  The Sentry tore the hole wider.

  "Back!" Hao yelled while thrusting his glaive at the opening.

  Li Yu batted the glaive aside with his staff. He stepped closer and was preparing to bring the entire structure down on their heads.

  "Wait!" Gongsun Yue shouted from outside the dome.

  Li Yu didn't stop. He raised his staff high. The opalescent Qi gathered for a finishing attack.

  "I said wait!"

  Gongsun Yue stepped in front of Li Yu. She raised her hand for him to stop.