The bandit incident changed the caravan's attitude towards its two cultivator passengers. The guards, who had previously viewed them with a mixture of pity and indifference, now treated Liu Mei with respect and Li Yao with a healthy, cautious wariness. They'd seen cultivators shatter stone and call down lightning, but they'd never seen one simply... turn a man's power off.
Bor, the caravan master, made a point of walking beside their wagon for a stretch. "That trick of yours, boy," he grumbled, not unkindly. "It's unnerving."
"It has its uses," Li Yao agreed amiably.
"Use it wisely. The world doesn't like things it can't understand. They either worship them or burn them." With that piece of grim wisdom, Bor moved to the front of the caravan.
Liu Mei spent the hours in deep meditation, but her focus was different now. She wasn't just accumulating energy; she was trying to feel the structure of it, the way Li Yao had described. She would gather a wisp of Earth energy in her palm, feeling its stable, patient nature, and then try to imagine it... not. It was frustrating, like trying to un-learn how to breathe, but she persisted. The glimpse he had given her of a world beyond her talent's limits was too compelling to ignore.
Li Yao, for his part, finally decided to "read" his textbooks. As the caravan rolled through a sun-dappled forest, he took out the Earthstone. To his senses, it was a small, compact knot of low-grade life energy, stubbornly persistent. He held it in his palm and focused his void essence on it, not to violently nullify it, but to gently encourage it towards its natural state of dispersion.
The process was fascinating. The energy didn't just vanish. It unraveled. He could feel the delicate, simple structure of the life law within it come apart at the seams, like a knitted scarf being patiently unpulled. In a few breaths, the grey stone in his hand turned a lighter, chalky white, and then crumbled into inert dust. He had not destroyed it; he had accelerated its journey back to nothingness by ten thousand years.
He repeated the process with the Jadeleaf Herb. He felt the forced, artificial flow of energy within its veins—a flow meant to guide a cultivator's own energy. He introduced stillness. The leaf blackened and withered in seconds, becoming a fragile, carbonized skeleton.
Finally, he looked at the Vitality Pills. They were more complex, concentrated packages of "life" and "recovery." He held one and focused. The pill didn't crumble. Instead, it seemed to age rapidly in his hand, its glossy surface becoming dull and cracked, its vibrant energy fading until it was just a lump of tasteless, powerless dough.
He had learned something crucial. His void was not mere destruction. It was a catalyst for entropy. It could persuade things to return to their base, neutral state. The more complex the energy structure, the more interesting the process of its unraveling.
On the fifth day of travel, they reached the border of the Fire & Steel Region. The air grew dry and carried the faint, sulfurous scent of distant volcanoes. The law of the land changed palpably. The stable, patient Earth energy Liu Mei relied on became thin and scattered, replaced by the aggressive, chaotic buzz of Fire and the unyielding sharpness of Metal.
Liu Mei struggled. Her cultivation slowed to a crawl. She looked pale and uncomfortable, like a fish out of water.
"You must adapt," Li Yao advised, seeing her distress. "Do not fight the Fire Law. Observe it. Feel its desire to consume and transform. Your Earth Law is about endurance. Can you endure consumption? Can you be the anvil that survives the hammer's blow?"
It was a different kind of lesson, one of resilience rather than negation. Liu Mei nodded, closing her eyes and trying to shift her meditation from drawing energy to simply understanding the new, harsh environment.
For Li Yao, the change was inconsequential. Fire energy rushed into his void just as Earth energy had, meeting the same neutral end. But he, too, chose to observe. He felt the "ripple" of the Fire Law—its explosive, expanding nature. He felt the Metal Law—its focused, penetrating sharpness. They were different patterns of "something," and his void was the constant "nothing" against which they were defined.
That evening, as they made camp on the edge of a basalt plain, a lone figure approached. He was not a bandit. He was a young man, perhaps their age, dressed in travel-stained but well-made robes of dark blue and grey. He carried a long, slender sword at his hip, and his aura was sharp, focused, and unmistakably aligned with the Metal Law. He had the confident bearing of a Stone or even River Talent.
He bowed politely to Bor. "I am Jian, an independent cultivator. I seek safe passage with your caravan to the Central Continent. I can pay, and I can offer my blade as additional security."
Bor looked him over, then glanced back at Li Yao and Liu Mei. He shrugged. "Fine. Another sword is always welcome. We share the food, you share the watch."
Jian thanked him and found a spot near the fire, his eyes briefly scanning Li Yao and Liu Mei. He gave a slight, courteous nod, which Liu Mei returned. Li Yao simply watched him, fascinated.
Here was a cultivator perfectly in tune with his environment. His very presence was like a honed edge in the world. His law was one of boundaries, of cutting one thing from another. It was the absolute opposite of the void, which sought to erase boundaries.
Jian felt Li Yao's gaze and met it. His eyes were clear and sharp. "You are from the Verdant Mountain Sect?" he asked, his voice as precise as his posture.
"We are," Liu Mei answered when Li Yao remained silent.
"I am from no sect. My master taught me that the only law worth mastering is the law of the blade's edge." He rested a hand on his sword's hilt. "It defines what is, and what is not."
Li Yao finally spoke, his voice quiet. "And what lies on the other side of the edge?"
Jian looked at him, a flicker of confusion in his sharp eyes. It was clearly a question he had never considered. "The other side... is what has been cut. It is irrelevant."
"Interesting," Li Yao said, a small smile playing on his lips. "I spend my time on the other side of edges."
The two young men looked at each other, one the embodiment of defined, sharp existence, the other a student of formless, boundless nothing. The journey to Nexus Peak had just acquired a new, compelling dynamic. The Law of the Blade's Edge was about to meet the Law of No Edge At All.