The heavy, suffocating silence within the Law Enforcement Hall was broken only by the sharp, agonizing creak of the floorboards beneath Yoriichi's boots.
He had taken a step forward. Against the crushing, oceanic gravity of a Dou Huang, a mere Dou Shi had actually managed to advance.
Commander Wu's sharp eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, his gaze locked intensely on the boy's forehead. The crimson, flame-like mark resting above Yoriichi's brow was glowing with an ethereal, searing heat, vibrating in tandem with the youth's unnervingly calm heartbeat.
'Impressive,' Wu thought, his internal shock perfectly masked beneath a facade of icy indifference. 'So this is the reason for his anomalous talent? This strange mark… it forces his physical vessel to temporarily transcend its natural limits to combat my pressure.'
As the seconds ticked by, agonizingly slow, Yoriichi could feel a deep, structural exhaustion slowly creeping into his bones. His muscles were screaming under the sheer weight of Wu's aura. His hyper-compressed, liquid Dou Qi was burning at a phenomenal rate just to keep his internal organs from rupturing. Every breath he drew required the effort of lifting a boulder. And yet, his gaze remained entirely devoid of fear, anchored in that tranquil, emotionless void.
Wu stared into those impossibly calm eyes and felt a rare flicker of hesitation.
As the Commander of the Law Enforcement Unit, he possessed absolute authority over the Outer Academy's peace. But he was also a shrewd politician. He knew the complex web of backing this boy had unknowingly woven. 'Zhan Yue heavily favors him, treating him as the cornerstone of her batch. And the reports from this morning state that Elder Long from the Forging Pavilion, actually broke his own rules to take this kid in.'
Wu clasped his hands tightly behind his back. 'If I make any foolish move—if I accidentally cripple his foundation or execute him for insubordination—the furious retaliation of that madwoman and that eccentric old man would be a tremendous problem.'
Beyond the politics, Wu was a martial artist. He recognized a true dragon when he saw one. What this young man had just said and done—willingly throwing his life away for his own unyielding sense of justice—was something very few in this entire continent possessed the sheer spine to do. Wu could easily guess that if this boy survived the harsh tempering of the world, he would undoubtedly become a terrifying, peerless expert.
But admiration could not override duty. He could not make the Law Enforcement Unit look weak, nor could he let a precedent be set where talented students thought they were above the rules. He had the overwhelming pressure of maintaining systematic order across an academy filled with thousands of arrogant, hot-blooded geniuses. If he let Xiao Ning walk away with a slap on the wrist, chaos would ensue.
Wu's eyes flashed with a cold, absolute resolution. 'Since it has come to this, I will test just how much that Dao heart of yours can truly endure.'
Suddenly, the suffocating, mountainous pressure in the hall vanished.
The abrupt absence of the Dou Huang's aura caused the surrounding enforcers to stagger forward, gasping loudly for air. Yoriichi swayed slightly, his lungs greedily pulling in the oxygen, though he forcibly maintained his upright posture. The crimson mark on his forehead slowly receded, fading back into his skin as his breathing remained heavy and labored.
Commander Wu stood tall, his voice echoing with cold, unforgiving authority.
"Xiao Ning. For the crime of taking justice into your own hands, engaging in a brutal public altercation, and defying the direct authority of the Law Enforcement Unit... you are hereby given two months of imprisonment."
The hall remained dead silent.
"You will serve this time in solitary confinement at the Riverlands Purgatory," Wu declared, his tone devoid of any emotion. "Furthermore, to ensure the punishment serves its absolute purpose, the offender will be stripped of his cultivation for the entire duration of this period."
A collective gasp echoed from the sidelines.
Lin and Feng, the enforcers who had brought him in, exchanged horrified glances. Feng exhaled a shaky breath, sighing in relief that their Commander didn't order an execution or immediate expulsion, but the relief was instantly swallowed by dread.
The others in the hall stared at Yoriichi with a mixture of pity and awe. The Riverlands Purgatory was not a standard prison cell. It was a subterranean nightmare. It consisted of a single, barren stone island—no larger than a small, cramped apartment—marooned in the dead center of a vast, underground lake of freezing, black water.
It was an inescapable, claustrophobic rock entirely devoid of natural light and ambient worldly energy. Worse, the surrounding waters were infested with deadly aquatic creatures—Rank 3 and Rank 4 venomous beasts that constantly circled the tiny island, lurking just beneath the dark surface. For a normal cultivator, being trapped on such a minuscule patch of stone and surviving the biting cold was a harrowing ordeal.
But with no cultivation? With a sealed Dantian?
It was a blatant death sentence. Without Dou Qi to form a protective layer over the skin, the freezing temperatures alone would induce hypothermia within days. One wrong move, one slip off the damp stone into the dark waters, and a powerless student would be torn apart by the unseen terrors below. Very few in the academy's long, bloody history had ever survived the Riverlands without their Dou Qi, and those who did often returned fundamentally broken.
Yoriichi stood in the center of the hall, his chest rising and falling as he regulated his breathing. He could feel the residual ache in his meridians from pushing back against the Dou Huang pressure. He had no illusions about his current situation. He was vastly outmatched, cornered, and entirely out of options. Fighting back now would only result in his immediate death, and he still had promises to keep.
He closed his eyes for a brief second, his mind perfectly tranquil despite the harrowing sentence.
"Okay," Yoriichi said, his voice quiet but remarkably steady, devoid of any trembling or despair. "I accept it."
Commander Wu's eyebrow twitched slightly at the boy's eerie composure, but he did not waste another word.
Wu stepped forward, his speed akin to a phantom. Before Yoriichi could even register the movement, Wu's right hand—glowing with dense, intertwining chains of dark blue Dou Qi—struck the center of Yoriichi's abdomen.
Thud.
A sharp, localized pulse of energy shot through Yoriichi's body. He grunted, stumbling half a step backward as an icy, suffocating sensation bloomed inside his Dantian.
It felt as though a massive, impenetrable iron vault had just slammed shut over his internal furnace. The roaring, milky-white liquid Dou Qi that he had painstakingly compressed and cultivated over the last few months was suddenly... gone. He couldn't sense it. He couldn't draw upon it. The pathways connecting his meridians to his Dantian were bound in ethereal, heavy chains.
A sudden, intense wave of physical vulnerability washed over him. Without the constant, passive reinforcement of Dou Qi, the ambient air in the hall felt incredibly cold. The weight of his own muscles felt heavier. He was, for all intents and purposes, abruptly reduced to the baseline of a normal, albeit highly trained, mortal human.
Wu slowly retracted his hand, the glowing chains fading into Yoriichi's skin, leaving behind a complex, black circular seal just beneath his navel.
"The seal will naturally dissolve in exactly sixty days," Wu stated coldly, turning his back on the youth and walking toward his elevated desk. "If you survive until then, your slate will be wiped clean. If you perish in the dark, it is because your arrogance outweighed your capability."
Wu waved his hand dismissively toward the enforcers. "Bring him there. Immediately."
Lin and Feng stepped forward, their expressions highly complicated. They had seen many arrogant geniuses break down, beg, or curse the heavens when their cultivation was sealed. Yet, this boy simply righted his posture, adjusting his sleeves as if he were preparing for a casual stroll.
"Follow us, Xiao Ning," Lin said softly, a hint of genuine respect bleeding into his tone.
Yoriichi did not look back at the Commander, nor did he offer any parting words of defiance. He simply turned and followed the enforcers out of the grand hall, his footsteps echoing steadily as he walked away from the light, heading straight into the abyss of the Riverlands.