Ethan’s mastery over his domain was now absolute. Though the Crimson Sect warriors possessed bodies fortified by high-level cultivation, they were no match for the fundamental laws of space that Ethan now dictated. He knew their physical resilience was high—enough to make a standard fight a tedious chore of attrition—and he had no desire to exert enough raw energy to trigger the planet’s Electric Dragon Matrix against himself. So, he simply deleted their momentum. He froze them in the vacuum of his will.

Su Ni, standing with his back turned, heard the sudden silence and the strange, humming crackle of the air. He spun around, expecting to see Ethan’s mangled corpse. Instead, he saw his elite guard suspended in the air like flies trapped in amber. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The Young Master’s face twisted with a mixture of shock and incandescent rage. He didn’t understand the level of law manipulation he was witnessing; he only saw hesitation.

"What are you waiting for, you useless piles of filth?!" Su Ni barked, his voice cracking with indignity. "Do you think we’ve fed and trained you for all these years just so you could ignore my direct orders? Kill him! Tear him apart! Or I’ll have your entire lineages wiped from the records of the Northern Peaks!"

He screamed at his men, oblivious to the fact that they weren’t defying him—they were currently experiencing the terrifying sensation of their atoms being locked in place by a King who had finally stopped playing games.

Ethan looked past the frozen guards, his violet eyes locking onto Su Ni’s terrified, arrogant face. "They can’t hear you anymore, ’Young Master.’ In this space, the only voice that matters... is mine."

"You? Your voice is the only one that matters?" Su Ni’s face contorted, turning a blotchy, indignant purple. He let out a shriek of laughter that was more like a tantrum. "Do you have any idea who I am? I am the blood of the Great Leader! I am the sky of the Northern Peaks! This entire world is nothing more than a footstool for my sect, and you are just the dirt on its legs! Guards! I said KILL HIM! Why are you standing there like statues!?"

Ethan’s eyes turned into cold, abyssal pits. An imperceptible black mist—the raw manifestation of the Law of the Void—began to leak from his pores. To Su Ni and his guards, it was invisible, but the very fabric of reality around Ethan began to groan.

Without a word, Ethan vanished.

He moved at Mach 5, but there was no sonic boom. With the Amethyst Void Body, he didn’t just move through the air; he erased the resistance of the world itself. He was weightless, a ghost of pure lethality. He flickered past the seventy frozen soldiers like a needle threading through silk.

Ethan reappeared in his original spot, his hands at his sides.

A heartbeat passed. Then, seventy heads slid simultaneously from seventy pairs of shoulders. A fountain of crimson spray erupted, painting the jagged rocks in a gruesome, steaming red. The bodies hit the ground in a rhythmic thud-thud-thud, leaving a river of blood that flowed toward Su Ni’s silk boots.

The only ones left standing were the Young Master and the red-haired guard.

The woman’s hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with a terror so profound she couldn’t even scream. Her refined, beautiful face was now splattered with the hot blood of her comrades.

"You... you monster..." she whimpered, her legs shaking so violently she collapsed to her knees. "What are you? This shouldn’t be possible... this is a low-tier world..."

Su Ni backed away, his silk robes trailing in the blood. "Stay back! Don’t come near me! My grandfather... he will erase this entire place! He will torture your soul for eternity! Do you hear me!?"

"I hear a dog barking," Ethan said, his voice flat.

Suddenly, the sky darkened further. The remaining 180 Outsiders, drawn by the massive energy spike and the deaths of their comrades, descended from the heavens. They surrounded the peak, their red armor glowing as they sensed the slaughter.

"Young Master!" one shouted, looking at the decapitated army.

"ATTACK!" Su Ni screamed, his voice reaching a hysterical pitch. "He’s a monster! Kill him! Don’t let him breathe! Use the Forbidden Formations! KILL HIM NOW!!"

Ethan sighed, his violet eyes flashing. Once again, he exerted his will. The Spatial Control expanded, catching the 180 newcomers in mid-air. He began the slaughter again, moving with the same ingravid grace, a reaper in the mist.

Ten, thirty, fifty fell... their armor offered no more protection than paper against the Void.

But then, a sharp, white-hot spike of pain lanced through Ethan’s skull. His vision blurred, and the world tilted. He had been pushing his ocular powers and spatial manipulation to the limit against nearly 250 cultivators of the Spiritual Condensation stage. The mental strain hit him like a physical blow, causing his knees to buckle.

The spatial grip flickered and died.

"The pressure! It’s gone!" a veteran soldier roared.

With the last of the survivors—about twenty elite guards—regaining their movement, one commander didn’t hesitate. He thrust his pulse-spear forward with every ounce of his spiritual energy.

SHLICK.

The spearhead, glowing with a jagged red light, pierced through Ethan’s abdomen, emerging from his back in a spray of amethyst-tinted blood.

Ethan gasped, his hands clutching the shaft of the spear as he coughed up a mouthful of crimson.

"Haha... Hahaha!" Su Ni let out a manic, shaky laugh from the safety of the rear. "See? Even a monster bleeds! Pin him down! Tear him apart piece by piece! I want him alive so I can skin him myself!"

Ethan looked down at the spear in his gut, then up at the surviving soldiers closing in. A dark, terrifying chuckle escaped his lips despite the wound.

"You think... a hole in my stomach is enough to save you?"

--------------------

From this moment forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.

Note: These are only the ranks mentioned so far to avoid spoilers.

Body Refinement Realm

Skin Refinement / Bone Refinement / Organ Refinement

Spiritual Gathering Realm

Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation

Spiritual Core Realm

Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Core)

Spiritual Soul Realm

Spiritual Soul Awakening / [Locked] / [Locked]