Li Yao did not leave the Echoing Bazaar. He found its heart—a vast, open plaza nestled within the leviathan's massive sternum, a place known as the "Trading Floor." Here, the most valuable goods changed hands, and the air was thick with the pressure of high-level immortals and their potent auras. It was the perfect stage.
He sat in the very center of the plaza, assuming a meditative posture. He did not hide his presence. Instead, he did the opposite. He let the absolute stillness at his core radiate outwards, a subtle but undeniable challenge. To the cultivators around him, it felt like a sudden pocket of profound quiet in the middle of a roaring festival. Conversations faltered. Heads turned.
The air above the Bazaar撕裂 (tore open). Three figures descended, wreathed in an aura of such intense heat that the very light in the plaza bent around them. The leader was an elder of the Blazing Heaven Sect, his face a mask of cold fury, his robes embroidered with a phoenix perpetually consumed by its own flames. This was Elder Zhu, master of the humiliated disciple. Flanking him were two other elders, their power manifesting as shimmering heat hazes and the faint smell of ozone.
"Heretic!" Elder Zhu's voice boomed, silencing the last of the whispers in the plaza. "You, who dares defile the sacred Fire Law with your unnatural nullification! You will come with us to the Volcanic Cloud Fortress to answer for your crimes!"
Li Yao opened his eyes. The gaze he leveled at Elder Zhu was not one of defiance, but of deep, almost pitying understanding. "There is no crime in stillness, Elder. Only a different truth."
"Do not speak to me of truth!" Elder Zhu roared. He didn't bother with a single technique. He unleashed his domain.
The Inferno Domain erupted outwards. The air in the plaza ignited. The bone-white floor of the leviathan began to glow red-hot. Lesser immortals scrambled back, erecting hasty barriers. This was the power of a seasoned immortal elder—not a simple technique, but the rewriting of local reality to embody his law. Within this domain, his fire was absolute.
The inferno rushed towards Li Yao, a tidal wave of annihilation.
Li Yao did not stand. He did not counter-attack. He simply breathed out, and enacted his own will.
Domain of Uncreation.
A sphere of perfect, mundane silence expanded from him. It was not large, only twenty feet in radius, but it was absolute.
The two domains met.
It was not a collision of forces. It was the meeting of a scream and a vacuum.
The Inferno Domain, a reality of roaring flame and unbearable heat, simply ceased to exist where it touched Li Yao's sphere. It didn't push back; it was unmade. The wave of fire hit the boundary of his domain and vanished, leaving a perfect, calm hemisphere of normal air within the heart of the inferno.
Elder Zhu's eyes bulged. "Impossible! My domain is a manifestation of cosmic law! It cannot be... negated!"
He poured more power into it, the phoenix on his robes seeming to scream in silent fury. The inferno intensified, turning from orange to white, then to a blinding blue-white that threatened to consume space itself.
It made no difference. The boundary of Li Yao's domain remained, an unassailable cliff face against an ocean of fire. The Domain of Uncreation was not a shield; it was a statement of fact. Within its bounds, the laws that allowed fire to exist were not present. It was a logical impasse.
One of the other elders, seeing the stalemate, acted. She focused her power, not on Li Yao, but on the space around his domain. She weaved strands of Fire and Binding Law, attempting to constrict the sphere itself, to crush the "nothing" with the "something."
The constricting bands of energy touched the domain and dissolved. You could not bind the void.
The third elder tried a different tactic. He launched a projectile—a spear of condensed solar essence, a treasure that could pierce through minor worlds. It flew, a line of incandescent death.
It entered the domain and became a harmless, warm light that faded into nothing.
The entire Bazaar watched in stunned silence. The three elders of the mighty Blazing Heaven Sect, unleashing their full might, could not even touch the quiet figure sitting calmly in the center of the plaza.
Elder Zhu, his face purple with rage and exertion, screamed, "What manner of demon are you?!"
Li Yao finally spoke, his voice carrying easily through the nullified space and into the stunned silence beyond. "I am no demon. I am a reminder. Your fire is beautiful. It is powerful. But it is not all there is. It requires fuel. It requires air. It requires the permission of the universe to burn. I am that which can revoke the permission."
He stood up, within his sphere of silence. "You came to enforce a law of dominance. I have shown you a law of balance. The lesson is over."
He took a step forward. His Domain of Uncreation moved with him.
The three elders instinctively retreated. The absolute, unassailable nature of his defense had shattered their will to fight. They could not win. They could not even engage.
Li Yao walked across the plaza, his domain pushing back the lingering heat of the Inferno Domain, leaving a trail of cool, normal air in his wake. The crowd of immortals parted before him, their faces a mixture of awe, fear, and dawning comprehension.
He had not just defended himself. He had publicly humiliated a major sect and demonstrated a power that defied the foundational principles of Immortal Realm combat.
He reached the edge of the plaza and dissolved his domain. The roaring energy of the Bazaar rushed back in.
He did not look back. He simply walked on, disappearing into one of the many bone-white passages.
Behind him, he left a changed world. The tale of the "Void Immortal" who had faced down the Blazing Heaven Sect without lifting a finger would spread like wildfire. He was no longer a curiosity or a mere threat.
He was a power. A new, unpredictable, and terrifying variable in the immortal calculus.
Wei Feng, watching from the shadows, allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. The Philosopher of Nothing had given his first lecture. And the entire realm had been forced to attend. The canvas had just asserted itself against the painting.