The presence of Jian, the blade cultivator, added a new tension to the caravan. It was not the open hostility of the bandits, but a constant, low-grade pressure, like the edge of a knife held a hair's breadth from the skin. His very existence was a statement of definition, a refusal of ambiguity that stood in stark contrast to Li Yao's pervasive emptiness.
Liu Mei found herself caught between them. She practiced the resilience Li Yao had suggested, imagining her Earth energy as an anvil, enduring the chaotic fire of the region and the sharp, probing pressure of Jian's aura. It was arduous, but she felt her foundation, once bounded by the gentle mountains, becoming tougher, more versatile.
Jian, for his part, was polite but aloof. He took his watch duties seriously, his posture never slackening. His eyes, however, often lingered on Li Yao with a mix of professional curiosity and deep-seated unease. To his senses, honed to perceive the sharp lines of spiritual pressure, Li Yao was not a cultivator. He was a blur. A smudge on reality. It was offensive to his worldview.
Three days into the Fire & Steel Region, they were crossing a vast, rocky basin when the second attack came. It was not bandits.
A shrill cry echoed from the rust-colored cliffs, and a flock of large, avian spirit beasts descended. They were Fire Vultures, their feathers the color of cooled magma, their beaks and talons glowing with intense heat. They were native to the region, drawn by the concentrated life force of the caravan.
"Defensive circle! Protect the cargo!" Bor bellowed. The guards formed up, their weapons glowing. These were not weak bandits; each vulture had the power of a mid-level Energy Perception realm cultivator, and they fought with animalistic ferocity.
Jian was a whirlwind. His sword left silvery trails in the air, each movement a perfect, efficient kill. He didn't waste energy on grand techniques. A flick of his wrist, and a vulture would fall, neatly bisected, its fiery aura extinguished the moment his blade's edge passed through it. He was the embodiment of his law: precise, lethal, and definitive.
Liu Mei fought defensively, creating low walls of earth to block diving attacks and using concussive pulses of energy to knock the beasts off course. She was the anvil, enduring the assault.
And Li Yao? He stood near the center of the caravan, not far from the most valuable wagons. He did not draw a weapon. He did not assume a fighting stance. He simply stood there, and he became a fortress of absence.
The vultures, driven by instinct to attack the brightest sources of energy, largely ignored him. But one, smarter than the rest, sensed the guards' formation drawing power from the land and saw Li Yao as a weak point. It dove, a screeching comet of flame and fury, its talons aimed to shred him.
It entered his Warding Emptiness.
The effect was instantaneous and grotesque. The fire wreathing its body snuffed out. The fierce light of life in its eyes dimmed. Its dive, a moment ago fueled by violent intent, became a clumsy, tumbling fall. It crashed to the ground at Li Yao's feet, not dead, but utterly drained. It flopped weakly, a now-ordinary bird, confused and terrified.
Jian, having just dispatched two vultures with two strokes, witnessed the entire event. His sharp eyes widened imperceptibly. He had seen Li Yao disable a human bandit, but to do the same to a spirit beast, a creature of pure, wild instinct and energy, was something else entirely. It wasn't a technique that countered energy; it was a state of being that negated it.
The fight was over quickly. The remaining vultures, seeing their kin fall in such an unnatural way, scattered with alarmed cries.
The caravan was safe. The guards tended to minor burns and cuts, casting wary glances at the ordinary-looking vulture still twitching at Li Yao's feet. Bor just shook his head, muttering about "unnatural sights."
Jian walked over, sheathing his pristine sword. He looked from the pathetic creature on the ground to Li Yao's placid face.
"You did not kill it," Jian stated. It was an observation, not a question.
"Killing is a defined action," Li Yao replied. "I simply... persuaded it to be less. The difference is subtle, but important."
"That is not the way of the blade," Jian said, his voice tight. "The blade defines. It separates life from death, enemy from ally. What you do... it creates things that are neither. It is imprecise."
"The world is full of things that are neither one thing nor the other, Brother Jian," Li Yao said softly. "The moment before the blade falls. The silence after the echo dies. Are they not also real?"
Jian had no answer. His law had no room for such concepts. He gave a stiff bow and returned to cleaning his sword, the action itself a meditation on order and definition.
Liu Mei approached Li Yao, her breathing slightly labored. "You saved the cargo. They were aiming for the spirit-grass wagon."
"I was merely standing in the way," Li Yao said. He looked down at the vulture, then knelt. He placed a hand on its head, and this time, he did not drain it further. Instead, he exerted a minute control over his void, allowing a trickle of the neutralized, ambient energy he had stored to flow back into the beast. It was not its own fiery essence, but pure, unaligned vitality.
The vulture stopped twitching. It looked up at him with dull, but no longer terrified, eyes. After a moment, it clumsily flapped its wings and flew off, a mundane bird in a world of cultivators and monsters.
Liu Mei watched it go. "You gave it a chance."
"Every thing deserves the chance to be nothing, or to be something else," Li Yao said, standing. "The void is not an end. It is a... possibility."
As the caravan regrouped and continued its journey, the three young cultivators—the blade, the anvil, and the emptiness—continued in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. The road to Nexus Peak was not just a physical journey; it was a collision of philosophies, and the tournament would be the crucible where they would be tested. Jian sought to prove his edge was the sharpest. Liu Mei sought to prove her foundation was the strongest. And Li Yao? He sought to prove that the most powerful thing in the world was the space in which all else existed.