Chương 363: The Unveiling of the Slaughterhouse

With his core objectives—the beast-taming art, the inspiration for his Sentry, and the healing-art principles—all secured, he was free to simply browse, to expand his horizons. He drifted over countless valleys and mountains, his spiritual sense scanning thousands of tablets. He saw bizarre, hyper-specific arts, like a scroll dedicated entirely to the 'Art of Spiritual Calligraphy,' which promised to imbue one's brushstrokes with Dao-intent.

He saw a canyon filled with sound-based techniques, from the 'Siren's Beguiling Song' to the 'Thunder-Clap Roar,' which could shatter an opponent's spiritual sea. In a strange isolated pagoda, hidden in a pocket of warped space that almost repelled his senses, he found a single chaotic stele. The text on it seemed to writhe and shift, the characters themselves unstable. The title of the creator was grand, it made him pause: 'Scripture of the Seventy-Two Earthly Transformations.'

The author was listed only as 'Legacy of a Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.' Li Yu's curiosity was piqued. He began to read the introduction. It was not a simple shapeshifting art. It was a profound, law-defying technique that claimed to allow the user to fundamentally alter their own spiritual, physical and even soul-imprint to become anything—a mountain, a bird, a wisp of smoke, a different person, a blade of grass. The complexity was staggering.

The Qi pathways it described were not limited to meridians; they involved re-configuring one's own bones, blood and spiritual sea. Li Yu's mind reeled from the sheer scope. It would take years, perhaps decades, just to comprehend the theoretical framework for the first transformation, let alone master all seventy-two. He had only a few days left so he was not fated with it. He sighed, pulling his senses back.

"A 'Great Sage, Equal to Heaven,'" he murmured to himself, a smile touching his lips.

"What an amazing name." He thought of his own ridiculous moniker, now infamous across the battlefield.

"And I'm 'Little Crab.'" He felt a slight connection with this long-dead sage. He decided to do one last thorough sweep of the Shattered Peaks. He'd been disappointed before, but maybe he had missed something useful if not foundational. He was right. Tucked away in a small floating crevasse, he found two smaller, overlooked tablets that others had likely deemed too specific. The first was titled 'Void-Lattice Cage.'

The text described in precise detail how to weave threads of void energy into a three-dimensional lattice, creating a temporary inescapable prison that didn't just block, but erased any energy that touched it. It was a pure trapping art. The second was 'Mantle of the Unseen.' This text described how to coat oneself in a thin, warped layer of void energy. It didn't make one invisible to the eye; it erased one's presence from spiritual sense, a far more lethal form of concealment.

"These," Li Yu thought, "are perfect." They fit his preferred style. He carefully memorized the Qi pathways and core principles of both. After a few days he had set it to memory. As he was leaving, he passed over the water-aspected valley again. He immediately spotted two complementary techniques he had ignored before: 'Still-Pool Reflection,' a water-art that bent light and muffled sound to hide and 'Current-Bind Prison,' which used high-pressure water currents to trap a foe. A new idea sparked.

A void cage was powerful but used a massive amount of qi. A water cage was subtle but weak.

"What about a cage of water, bound and reinforced by an invisible void lattice?" he mused.

"Or a hiding art that uses water to bend light and the void to erase my presence from spiritual sense?" It was something for the future. He had the pieces he needed. He simply needed the time now. He had just finished his mental cataloging when the deep blue sky flickered once. An ancient, bell-like chime echoed across the entire dimension, a sound that seemed to resonate in the bones. Before Li Yu could even react, the world twisted. The spatial transition was not gentle this time. It was a violent, lurching pull.

The library, the mountains, the pale grass—all of it dissolved. He materialized in a new, brutal world. The sky was a sickening blood-red. The ground was black, cracked basalt, littered with the bones of giants and the rusted broken weapons of forgotten wars. The air smelled of ozone, iron and ancient death. This was the Central Battlefield. A cold ancient voice echoed in everyone's mind simultaneously.

"The Time of Inheritance is over. The Battlefield of the Ancients is open. Two months remain." The silence that followed lasted for a single, stunned heartbeat. Then, chaos erupted. Everyone had been scattered but not alone. Li Yu materialized in a small, rocky cleft with three other cultivators. He didn't recognize their faces but their dark blood-flecked robes, demonic Qi and the hostile symbols on their badges marked them as enemies. They in turn saw him.

They saw the pristine white robe, the void emblem and his own tokens. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"It's the Crab Cult!" one of them, a 7th-Level Core Formation expert, shrieked his eyes wide with fear, not greed.

"It's 'Little Crab'!" The other two disciples with him, both in Foundation Establishment, visibly panicked.

"We have to run! They are lunatics believing in some fake God!!" The irony of their statement was lost to them. The Star-Crusher staff was already in his hand. He took a single step. He appeared directly behind the 5th-Level expert. The two other people were already slumping to the ground, neat staff-sized holes punched through their chests by the butt of the Star-Crusher. They hadn't even seen him move. The 5th-Level expert's eyes went wide with terror. His demonic fire fizzled.

He spun, opening his mouth to scream.

"Wai—" Li Yu's staff swung in a simple horizontal arc. It connected with the man's chest. The Void Qi simply erased his entire torso, his upper and lower body falling to the basalt ground in two separate cauterized pieces. Li Yu calmly bent and collected their three storage rings. He flew up from the cleft, his spiritual sense unfurling like a tidal wave. The entire battlefield was now a free-for-all.

He saw pockets of cultivators immediately testing their new skills, resulting in brief, flashy and deadly skirmishes. He saw larger more cautious groups flying off in random directions, clearly intent on hunting for the treasures. His goal was the latter. He was not here to hunt but to find the rare treasures he couldn't otherwise get easily. He flew over the black desolate landscape. He encountered several other battles.

He saw a group from the Forest of the Radiant Dawn, led by a disciple he recognized from Torin's introductions—Bronwyn Steel (Rank 6). She and her squad were grimly holding a defensive circle, pinned down by a much larger force of demonic cultivators who were gleefully bombarding them with new, dark arts. Li Yu didn't hesitate and he didn't chant. He just descended.

"Abyssal Javelins!" Li Yu currently didn't have new techniques to test, spending all his time on learning as much as he could so he could create his own later. A dozen silent black spears rained from the sky vaporizing the enemy's rear guard and their apparent leader. The demonic cultivators turned their heads at the newcomer and seeing the sparkling white robes, began to panic.

"LITTLE CRAB! HE'S HERE!" Some quickly scattered away. Bronwyn Steel and her surviving team breathing heavily looked up. Her stern face was a mask of gratitude and a hint of the same disturbance she'd felt when Jian was chanting.

"Commander... Little Crab. My thanks." Li Yu merely nodded.

"Be careful." He flew off ignoring their further thanks. He slew any foe that was foolish enough to attack him. He saved any ally he saw in trouble. He was a silent white-robed angel of death to one side and a bizarre savior to the other. As he flew, he heard it. Faintly, from far, far off in the distance, carried on the sulfurous wind.

"PRAISE THE GOD CRAB, HIS MIGHTY CLAW!" A massive explosion of golden light echoed from a distant mountain.

"HIS BOUNDLESS VOID ARE OUR LAWS!" CRASH! Another explosion. Li Yu sighed. Jian Xuan was not looking for treasure. He was on a one-man crusade. He was actively hunting people using his new 'Singing Blade of the Unfettered Heart' to its absolute fullest. All the while gleefully announcing his presence to the entire battlefield. The man was a lunatic but he was a useful one, drawing an immense amount of attention. Two days passed.

The battlefield was so vast that even with tens of thousands of cultivators, encounters were sporadic. Li Yu had settled into a rhythm: explore, observe, collect. He hadn't found anything truly rare yet. But he had found a few things. In a field of ancient giant-sized bones he found a patch of glowing silver-blue herbs. He didn't recognize them but his spiritual sense told him they were pulsing with a cold energy. He carefully harvested them.

He found a broken masterless shield half-buried in the basalt, its energy signature higher than any artifact he'd looted so far but he didn't know its use. He was flying over a massive, dormant volcanic canyon when it happened. KRA-KA-THOOOOOM! The sound was not a sound. It was a physical blow that struck his entire body, nearly knocking him from the air. The entire battlefield and the entire dimension lurched violently. The blood-red sky was cracking. Two new massive swirling rifts tore open in the sky above.

From one a wave of pure chaotic demonic energy poured forth. Thousands upon thousands of twisted demons, some with leathery wings and bodies of living shadow poured out, led by large armored Demon Captains at the Soul Formation level. From the other rift, a bestial unified roar shook the world. A tide of various muscle-bound warriors, clad in crude iron and wielding large weapons poured out. They were not the Beast Faction he knew. They were something else, something more... primal.

The air was suddenly, suffocatingly full of tens of thousands of new hostile auras. Then the ancient cold voice echoed in everyone's mind.

"The barriers have fallen. The Demon Realm's Proving Ground and the Beast Realm's Proving Ground have now merged with the Human Realm's Proving Ground." The voice did not pause.

"Good luck to all." Silence. A collective silence. This was no longer a two-sided grudge match. This was not a treasure hunt. This was a three-way, no four-way, inter-planar battlefield now.

"What's going on…." Li Yu murmured his expression turning to ice as he watched a massive, six-armed demon, easily three times the size of a man, claw its way out of the rift and roared.