Xianxia Online

Using the power of Assimilating Qi, absorbing the contents of the void was easy. With a twist of his wrist and an activation of energy, Xuan began the channeling process, taking in the power of the abyss and converting it into energy for himself.

Of course, had this been the real void, what he was doing right now would not have been possible. However, this fake plane was nothing but an illusion conjured from Qi, made to simulate reality as much as possible. It was a paracausal space that did not obey the laws of pocket dimensions or small worlds, but that was also what made it so special at the same time. After harnessing the power within, Xuan charged up his blade once more, this time imbued with the energy of the void, and cut through the air.

Immediately, a rift was opened.

"… Futile tricks."

Holstering his sword once more, Xuan stepped into the warp gate he sliced open, and emerged back in the ascendant cosmos plane he'd been in earlier. It took a bit of a workaround, but he'd successfully comprehended the second layer of the Law of Space—the Aspect of Travel. Next was…

Suddenly, several invisible knives shot out of thin air towards Xuan, and his gaze tightened. Without warning, he drew his sword in the span of the blink of an eye, and parried them all through instinct alone.

"… The Aspect of Nihility, huh?"

Defined as the ability to not exist, mastery of this layer would allow the user to blend completely in with space itself. No form of attack apart from Spatial ones would be able to harm the user, given that they are not only rendered invisible but intangible. Such a powerful ability naturally came with a cost, however—and Xuan was well aware of that fact.

Because while it allowed the user to evade attacks in the real world, that didn't mean there weren't dangers of its own in the void.

Due to its devouring nature, the void naturally wanted to pull anything and everything into itself. This meant that if one were to remain in nihility for too long, they would truly cease to exist and be eaten up by the abyss. The skill, in and of itself, was a dance along the border of life and death, existence and disappearance. If one didn't have absolute mastery and control over their own capabilities, it was far too risky of a move to use.

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Not that it daunted Xuan, of course.

After several more volleys of attacks that seemed to challenge his instincts and ability to detect slight fluctuations in space more than swordsmanship, Xuan got tired of the tests and resorted to simply using the Stray Cloud Path technique. The knives flew straight past his intangible body, and were completely defeated by this skill that was like a much inferior version of nihility, since it did not mask presence or vision and the user could still be harmed by mental attacks.

[Aspect of Nihility (Third Layer Space Law) — Comprehended.]

"Such boring challenges… for a cultivator powerful enough to manifest a place like this, these 'trials' are sure underwhelming… no, disappointing, even."

Appearing to taunt a person that may or may not be listening, Xuan spoke these words with gleaming confidence. As if on cue, a portal suddenly opened in front of him, and he stepped forward to accept the invitation. But then, he stopped, and narrowed his eyes as he sensed something was off.

This portal… it was not meant for him to leave.

It was meant for something to come in.

Slowly, Xuan rested his hand on the handle of his blade. The hostile presence was getting closer—and it was terrifyingly large. To compare, a human cultivator would be the size of a small red dot on Xuan's radar-esque Divine Sense. However, this presence was… about ten, no, fifty times larger in terms of area.

"Could it be…"

In his heart, Xuan dreadfully hoped his prediction was wrong. But like a slap to the face—

The wind hit him first.

Then, the rest of the being came through.

"—!"

Caught off-guard by how fast the beast was, Xuan quickly rolled to the side, and stabbed his sword into the ground to avoid being blown away by the air current. From the portal flew out a massive wyrm, several times larger than even a dragon. It had porcelain-like white skin, appearing to be slightly translucent in nature, but its thickness was nothing to scoff at either. Immediately, Xuan recognized the beast immediately.

"An Abyssal Serpent… here?!"

Gritting his teeth, Xuan held on tight to his sword and dug it deeper into the ground. Surprisingly enough, even the snake was unable to break the invisible walls confining Xuan, so it was trapped in here… or rather, Xuan was trapped in here with it. As its full length emerged to all of its glory, the portal behind it immediately closed, leaving no escape for Xuan, who was now stuck in a poorly-sized chamber with a massive dragon with mystical space-powers.

"Well… isn't this interesting? I asked for a challenge, and they've responded…"

Abyssal Serpents were feared all across the higher realm of Elysium, where travel between different stars was common. They ruled the empty space that covered the distance between planets, and although they were rare, spotting one was a cue to evacuate the premises immediately. The one here was just an infant, yet it was already so large. Fully grown ones could devour entire small stars… Xuan used to have one as a pet for fun, but due to their short lifespans, that fun didn't last very long.

In fact, their short lifespans are about the only reliable way to kill them. At the very least, there's never been a record of a fully grown Abyssal Serpent being slain by cultivators, much less a single one.

However… when it came to infants, that was a different story.

The reason adult Abyssal Serpents were so hard to kill was due to their space-manipulation abilities that allowed them to teleport and regenerate constantly by devouring the space around it. In this confined box, however, there was none of that. Infant ones did not possess strong enough space manipulation skills to make them nigh unkillable, and there was no space for it to eat in here to heal either.

The feat was possible—it just came down to who the doer was.

Xuan, grasping his sword, slowly stood up and faced the Abyssal Serpent in all of its might. A massive white worm, towering over what seemed like a puny cultivator, miniscule in size by comparison.

"… Now, let's see what I'm truly capable of."