The window exploded inward as Lián Zhen stepped through it, glass shards melting away before they could touch his skin. The courtyard of the Whispering Wind inn had been transformed into a battlefield—seventy-three cultivators arranged in precise formations, their weapons gleaming with deadly qi, their eyes fixed on the young man who had just emerged from the second floor like an ascending deity.
Elder Blackthorne of the Thunder Celestial Sect stood at the center, his war hammer crackling with purple lightning. "So young," he said, his voice carrying a mixture of greed and pity. "And already so foolish. Surrender the Codex willingly, boy, and your death will be swift."
Zhen landed softly in the courtyard, his bare feet touching the ground without making a sound. Around him, the spiritual pressure of nearly six dozen powerful cultivators should have crushed him into paste. Instead, he stood straighter, as if their combined might was somehow feeding his own strength.
"I have a better offer," Zhen said quietly, his voice somehow reaching every corner of the courtyard despite its softness. "Leave now, and I'll let you keep the techniques you came with."
Several cultivators laughed. Elder Blackthorne's face darkened. "Arrogant child. You face the combined might of seven major sects, yet you speak as if—"
"As if I can see every technique you're preparing to use?" Zhen's head tilted slightly, and his eyes began to glow with that same golden light that had filled Wei Wuxian's room. "Thunder God's Wrath, Crimson Phoenix Rising, Thousand Blade Storm, Earthen Colossus Fist…" He rattled off technique names with casual ease, watching as expressions of confidence turned to uncertainty. "Should I continue? I can name all two hundred and thirty-seven techniques currently being channeled."
[Mass Scan Complete]
[Techniques Identified: 237/237]
[Quality Range: Iron Grade to Earth Grade]
[Estimated Absorption Time: 4.7 seconds]
[Warning: Simultaneous absorption of this magnitude may cause temporary personality fragmentation]
Zhen dismissed the warning. What was temporary insanity compared to the alternative of death?
"Attack formations!" Elder Blackthorne roared, raising his hammer. "Kill him before—"
The world exploded into chaos.
⸻
**The Feast Begins**
Seventy-three techniques launched simultaneously, turning the night into a kaleidoscope of destruction. Lightning bolts thick as tree trunks, fireballs that could melt stone, wind blades sharp enough to cut through steel, and earth spears that erupted from the ground like the fangs of some buried titan.
Any normal cultivator would have been vaporized instantly.
Lián Zhen opened his arms wide and smiled.
"Echo Absorption: **Mass Assimilation Protocol**."
The attacks struck him—and vanished. Not deflected, not blocked, but absorbed completely. Each technique that touched his body was instantly understood, categorized, and added to his growing arsenal. The lightning became his lightning. The flames became his flames. The wind, the earth, the ice, the poison, the light itself—all of it flowed into the infinite vessel of his soul.
[Absorption in Progress: 47/237 techniques integrated]
[Universal Resonance: Rising rapidly]
[Warning: Spiritual sea expanding beyond normal parameters]
[New Ability Unlocked: Technique Synthesis]
But Zhen wasn't satisfied with merely absorbing. As the understanding of dozens of techniques flooded his mind, he began to see how they could work together. The Thunder God's Wrath and the Crimson Phoenix Rising shared similar qi circulation patterns. The Thousand Blade Storm could be enhanced by incorporating elements from the Earthen Colossus Fist.
"Thank you," he said to the shocked cultivators, his voice now carrying harmonics of power that made reality itself seem to vibrate. "But let me show you how these techniques are supposed to work."
He raised his right hand, and purple lightning began to dance between his fingers—but this wasn't the crude Thunder God's Wrath that Elder Blackthorne had used. This was something new, something that incorporated elements from seventeen different lightning techniques, refined and perfected in the space of heartbeats.
"**Synthesis: Judgment of the Void Emperor**."
The bolt that erupted from his palm wasn't just lightning—it was the concept of divine punishment given physical form. It struck Elder Blackthorne's hammer, and the Earth-grade weapon simply… ceased. Not destroyed, not shattered, but erased from existence as if it had never been forged.
Elder Blackthorne stared at his empty hands, then at the young man who had just casually deleted a weapon that had taken his sect three centuries to create.
"Impossible," he whispered.
⸻
**Evolution in Battle**
[Absorption Complete: 237/237 techniques integrated]
[Universal Resonance: 12%]
[WARNING: Detecting hostile intent from additional sources]
[New targets incoming: 1,247 cultivators approaching from six directions]
Even as Zhen processed the system's warning, his enhanced spiritual perception confirmed it. The initial attack had been just a scouting force. The real armies were coming—entire sects mobilizing with their full might.
"You've made a terrible mistake," one of the surviving cultivators said, backing away slowly. "You've declared war on the entire cultivation world."
Zhen considered this for a moment. Then he shrugged.
"Good. I was getting bored."
The temperature in the courtyard dropped by twenty degrees as Zhen's spiritual pressure began to truly manifest. Ice crystals formed in the air around him, but they burned with cold fire that defied natural law. This wasn't just any ice technique—this was what happened when you synthesized the Absolute Zero Meditation with the Flames of Purgatory and added elements from the Stellar Void Technique that had been used by a long-dead master from the Cosmos Sect.
"You have ten seconds to leave," Zhen said calmly, even as his power continued to grow exponentially. "After that, I start collecting more techniques."
Most of the surviving cultivators fled. A few of the more arrogant ones stayed, convinced that their higher cultivation levels would protect them.
They were wrong.
[New Quest Available: Become a Legend in a Single Night]
[Objective: Defeat 1,000+ cultivators before dawn]
[Reward: Unlock Third Circle of Void Codex + Spatial Manipulation abilities]
[Time Remaining: 4 hours, 23 minutes]
Zhen looked at the approaching spiritual signatures—masters and grandmasters from across the region, some with cultivations that had taken centuries to achieve. By any reasonable measure, he should be terrified.
Instead, he felt a thrill of anticipation that made his entire body tingle with excitement.
"Wei Wuxian," he called back toward the inn, not bothering to turn around. "You might want to stand back. This is going to get messy."
⸻
**The Dance of Infinite Echoes**
The first wave of reinforcements arrived like a force of nature—fifty masters from the Flowing River Sect moving in perfect coordination, their water-based techniques creating a tsunami that should have leveled the entire district.
Zhen met the wall of water head-on, but instead of being crushed, he seemed to dance through it. Each droplet that touched him carried with it the essence of the technique that had created it, and within seconds, he understood not just the Flowing River Sect's signature moves, but their entire cultivation philosophy.
[Rapid Absorption: 23 new techniques integrated]
[Sect Knowledge: Flowing River Sect (Complete)]
[New Synthesis Option: Oceanic Dominion available]
"Your Thousand Rivers Convergence has a fatal flaw," Zhen said conversationally as he walked through their ultimate formation technique like it was a gentle spring rain. "The seventh tributary doesn't account for void-element interference."
He demonstrated by extending his hand, and the massive tsunami simply stopped. Not frozen, not dispersed, but paused in mid-air as if time itself had forgotten to continue.
Then he reversed it.
The water exploded backward with twice its original force, carrying with it the weight of absolute authority. When the torrent cleared, all fifty masters of the Flowing River Sect lay unconscious on the ground, their qi centers sealed by techniques they didn't even know existed.
"Who's next?" Zhen asked the night sky.
As if in answer, the ground beneath his feet began to rumble. The Earth Shattering Sect was arriving, and they were bringing their mountain-moving techniques.
Zhen's smile widened. Mountain-moving techniques were exactly what he needed to test his newly acquired spatial awareness abilities.
[Combat Analysis: Enemy forces increasing exponentially]
[Recommendation: Consider strategic retreat]
[User Response: …Seriously? We're having fun.]
The night was young, and Lián Zhen was hungry for more.
By the time dawn broke over the ruins of what had once been the peaceful village of Willowbrook, the cultivation world would have a new legend—and a new nightmare.
The boy with Absolute Silence had become something far more terrifying: a cultivator with Absolute Everything.
And he was just getting started