Merin stumbles out of the void passage, bruised, battered, and bleeding.
The rift behind him snaps shut with a violent shudder, and Lou Yuan is nowhere to be seen.
The unstable passage tore them apart, hurling them into different points of entry, but Merin—through sheer force of will—forced his way into the Battlefield Realm.
Source energy rushes into his battered body, but as it touches him, it twists, turning into devil energy within his meridians.
His wounds knit shut, his flesh mends, his bones realign.
The healing is swift, but Merin leaves the scars of space untouched upon his body. He knows the pain is a gift.
The lingering marks of spatial force carve into him a rare chance to comprehend the rule of space.
Seated in silence, he focuses. Hours blur, and piece by piece, the chaos in his wounds gives way to understanding. Space folds, twists, and yields its edges to his grasp.
When he rises again, his eyes gleam with new clarity. He returns to the technique he forged in desperation—the Destruction Boxing—and begins to refine it.
The first move: Bark Fist.
The second move: Stone Fist.
The third move: Iron Fist.
The fourth move: Ice Fist.
The fifth move: Magma Fist.
The sixth move: Destruction Fist.
Each of the first five embodies his grasp of elemental law, a layered path leading toward the sixth.
Destruction comes only when the five reverse, collapsing their harmony and unveiling their true end.
But now, a seventh is born.
The Space Shatter Fist—Destruction braided with space itself, a strike to tear apart not just matter but reality.
Eager to test it, Merin releases his spirit, casting his perception across the vast forest.
It sweeps over treetops and ridges until it collides with a violent aura—beastly, raw, the pressure of a Great Tao Lord.
His crimson eyes narrow. He moves.
Through the trees, he finds it: a hulking beast, body like a rhino, plated in dark hide, but its head a twisted hyena's maw dripping with black saliva.
It catches his breath instantly, red eyes burning, and lets out a cackling roar.
The forest quakes as the beast barrels forward, every stride cracking roots and stone beneath its hooves.
Merin exhales, and the world folds—his illusion space unfurls, a domain pressing down, shackling the beast.
Its aura crashes against the boundaries, still towering, still fierce, but no longer unbridled. Its power bends, suppressed until it hovers just above his own.
He steps into the charge.
The first move—Bark Fist. His knuckles ripple with the echo of wood's resilience, his strike meeting the beast's horn, forcing its head back a fraction.
The second move—Stone Fist. His arm crashes down like a mountain, the air booming with weight, staggering the beast's stance.
The third move—Iron Fist. His fist gleams like tempered steel, vibrating with hardness, slamming into the beast's plated shoulder. Cracks spider across its hide, blood seeping out.
The fourth move—Ice Fist. A chill erupts with his blow, freezing blood and flesh alike, slowing its vitality. The beast bellows, shaking frost from its frame.
The fifth move—Magma Fist. Heat surges, his strike burning like molten rock, tearing through frozen flesh and igniting the beast's veins with searing pain.
The sixth move—Destruction Fist. His gathered elements reverse, harmony undone, all principles collapsing into one truth—obliteration. The beast reels as vitality is severed with each impact, its cackling roar breaking into a ragged screech.
Then—Merin's eyes sharpen—the seventh move.
Space bends around his arm. His fist collapses forward, not through the air, but through the seams of reality itself.
Space Shatter Fist.
The blow lands square against the beast's chest. Space ripples, bones crack like splintering glass, and the hyena-headed rhino staggers back, wheezing, half its torso warped inward.
But it does not fall.
Its vitality surges, monstrous, and it charges again, foam spilling from its jaws. Merin steadies his breath. He had thought one would be enough. It was not.
Again, he cycles through, fists weaving the path from bark to stone, stone to iron, iron to ice, ice to magma, magma to destruction.
Again, he summons the seventh.
Space tears, blood erupts, and still the beast staggers upright, hide shredded but life clinging on.
Merin's lips curl in grim respect.
A third time—his fists roar through the sequence, the domain itself trembling with the strain of his channelling.
He gathers it all, nine principles fused into the core of his Tao, space bending to his will, destruction looming like a storm.
"Space Shatter Fist."
The blow erupts, collapsing the beast's head into nothingness, flesh, bone, and space itself torn apart in one overwhelming strike.
The great body convulses, then crashes to the forest floor, still.
Merin stands over it, chest rising with measured breath, eyes cold. He had thought to end it in one. Instead, it demanded three.
He wipes blood from his lip, gaze narrowing.
"The technique… is still not perfect."
Merin sits cross-legged, eyes shut, replaying every strike, every resistance, every flaw in the flow of his fists. Bark, Stone, Iron, Ice, Magma, Destruction, Space Shatter.
The pattern re-emerges, and within it, cracks.
He strips it apart in his mind, rebuilds, shifts weight and intent, sharpens transition, tempers release. When the vision clears, a new path forms.
"Let's test it again."
He spreads his spirit sense and locks onto another Great Tao Lord realm beast. This one towers like a scaled ape with four arms.
His fists ignite the sequence, wood to metal, cold to flame, and by the third Iron Fist, the beast's skull bursts inward.
Still, Merin frowns. Too slow. Too wasteful. The killing edge is dulled.
So he hunts again.
And again. One beast after another—fangs, horns, wings, claws—each falls, each fight feeding him refinement.
He chisels flaws away, condenses transitions, gathers essence tighter and tighter until the strike approaches singularity.
But still, he is not satisfied.
For three months, the forest quakes with his duels. Beasts die beneath his fists, their roars echoing until silence reigns once more.
With each battle, his technique grows sharper, more absolute, until one day—
He faces a titan, a lion-bodied serpent of shadow and flame.
His fists blaze, the sequence flows, and at last, with a single Destruction Fist, the beast ceases to exist.
No blood. No corpse.
Only nothingness.
Merin lowers his arm. His eyes glint with quiet triumph.
"The time has come to go out of the forest and face the world."
He rises, cloak stirring in the breeze, and takes to the air. To the south, the realm barrier looms like a wall of glass.
To the north, unknown lands beckon. He chooses north.
Forests thin into ridges, ridges climb into mountains, and then the air grows heavy. Gravity presses down, dragging at his limbs, smothering flight.
He grits his teeth and drops to the base of a colossal peak.
"It's difficult to fly in this gravity."
He does not climb. Instead, he circles the mountain, finds a sheer wall, and with one strike of his fist, the stone collapses inward, forming a cave.
He steps inside, shadows wrapping around him.
"Let's break through to the Tao Lord realm first before entering the mountain."
He sits, the silence of the cavern pressing close. His aura steadies. The long path of cultivation has carried him here.
All steps are complete.
Only the final threshold remains.
He closes his eyes, steadying his breath.
To step into the Tao Lord realm, he must release his Dao, let it merge with the world, and withstand its judgment.
Failure means ruin—Dao shattered, path severed forever.
But Merin does not flinch. His Dao has long reached the saint rank.
He releases it, and the cave trembles as a vast, formless force erupts from his body. The world responds, its weight pressing down like a mountain.
For others, this trial would be life and death.
For him, it is like a spring breeze brushing against stone. The pressure cannot touch his Dao.
The transformation completes without resistance. His Dao fuses with the world, then returns to his body, reshaped and exalted.
His veins thrum, muscles coil with new power, and his soul sharpens.
But with the surge comes shadow. Devil energy floods him, faster, heavier, more corrosive than before.
The influence gnaws at his soul, whispering, tempting. He sinks into meditation, forcing calm, wrestling his inner devil until silence returns.
Days later, he exhales slowly and opens his eyes.
"I cannot increase my cultivation before my Dao realm increases." His voice is steady, but his gaze is firm.
"It is now at the initial rank. Only after advancing to an intermediate rank will I raise cultivation again."
He straightens, thoughts flickering. "Improving Dao would increase strength, but that takes time.
Without raising cultivation, the only way left… is my spiritual body."
He lifts his hand, black-red aura surging, bones creaking as if a beast stirs within.
"Tao Rank—Destruction Wolf body."
The words resound like an oath.
He rises from the cave, stepping into a dirt path coiling deeper into the gravity-laden mountain.
With every step, his mind churns, deducing the forms that may lie beyond the Destruction Wolf, each rank waiting to be seized.
Stone cracks under his boots, wind thins, the mountain swallowing him whole as he walks forward.