Three months later, the Imperial City of Xialing hummed with an unfamiliar, heavy rhythm. Its usual clamor of merchants and street performers was overshadowed by the austere quiet of powerful sect elders and their youthful, arrogant disciples. Mo Qianshu, cloaked in robes so drab they seemed to actively repel color, shuffled through the grand entrance of the Zenith Summit’s main arena, a colossal structure carved from bloodstone meteor rock. He trailed several paces behind Feng Jiao, using her voluminous, peacock-feathered robes as a convenient visual obstruction. The elder, preening under the attention, barked at a nearby attendant about the quality of the complimentary tea leaves. “Honestly, the nerve! This ‘Cloudfall Dew’ tastes like rainwater collected from a donkey’s trough!” Feng Jiao sniffed, flipping a wrist to dismiss the cowering attendant. Mo Qianshu inwardly sighed with relief. This was it. His chosen path: a senile, complaining loafer. He found a secluded corner behind a massive pillar, far from the arena floor, and settled onto a cushion that felt suspiciously lumpy. “Such a waste of good time,” he grumbled to himself, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “All this fuss for a bunch of glorified sparring matches. The catering had better be worth it.” He watched, half-lidded, as Su Ranyue, looking utterly bewildered in her simple tunic amidst the ornate finery of the other participants, was ushered onto the immense, circular arena. Fifty other youths, each exuding raw martial pressure from polished jade collars and refined weapons, glared at her with disdain. The air stung with ozone from their poised stances. Su Ranyue clutched the hilt of her diamond-hard wooden plank, her gaze darting nervously around the ring. The arena’s central monitor blazed to life, displaying the rules: a grand battle royale. The last one standing would advance. Mo Qianshu yawned. He couldn’t have his disciple winning *another* tournament. The karmic implications were becoming disastrous. He needed her to lose, and quickly, but without injury. A quiet, dignified exit. He closed his eyes, extending a strand of his own boundless power, a nearly imperceptible tendril reaching across the vast distance to Su Ranyue. He intended to gently suppress her meridians, just enough for her to feel suddenly exhausted, perhaps even faint. A harmless, unceremonious collapse. The tendril of power made contact. A hum, almost too low to perceive, vibrated through the arena. Mo Qianshu’s eyes snapped open. Something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of a soft dampening, his esoteric technique, designed for ultimate subtlety, had somehow inverted. It hadn’t suppressed her Qi; it had created a *void*. Around Su Ranyue, the air shimmered. The ambient worldly Qi, usually a diffuse, omnipresent atmospheric mist, began to flow towards her in visible currents, like water swirling down a drain. The surrounding fifty prodigies, who had just begun to unleash their initial attacks, suddenly staggered. Their carefully prepared stances wavered. One, a burly young man from the Granite Fist Clan, mid-swing with a stone hammer, cried out as his arm went limp. “My… my strength! It’s draining!” Indeed, as the vacuum solidified around Su Ranyue, it began to violently siphon the very essence from every competitor in the arena. Their vibrant Qi, their life-force, even the minute spirit marrow flowing within their meridians, was being ripped away. Golden motes, vermilion wisps, emerald sparks—the visible manifestations of their cultivated powers—streamed from their bodies, coalescing around Su Ranyue. Her eyes, previously wide with trepidation, now glowed with an unnerving, unfocused brilliance. Her body, once solid, seemed to diffuse into pure light. She began to levitate, slowly rising a foot, then two, above the dark rock floor. The torrent of stolen power intensified, swirling around her like a miniature galaxy. Her simple tunic billowed as if caught in a hurricane, though the air around her was strangely still. A faint, resonant hum emanated from her, growing steadily louder. She was no longer just standing; she was becoming an avatar of absorption, a luminescent being radiating an aura of devastating power. The fifty prodigies, now pale and gasping, stumbled backward, their faces etched with terror. Their elaborate techniques fizzled out, their weapons clattered to the ground. They felt utterly hollowed out, like empty husks. “What is this monstrosity?!” shrieked a female disciple of the Cloud Veil Sect, clutching her chest as her aura dimmed to nothingness. Their Qi, their very vitality, was being ruthlessly plundered, feeding the glowing figure in the center. Mo Qianshu watched, aghast. His face was devoid of color. This wasn't just a minor miscalculation; this was an intercontinental catastrophe! He’d tried to make her fall asleep, and instead, she was turning into a divine entity of destruction! He could practically hear the Heavenly Dao sharpening its Nine-Yuan Annihilation Lightning in the distance. Su Ranyue, a beacon of blinding, raw brilliance, floated serenely. Her eyes, still unseeing, seemed to gaze through the fabric of reality itself. A soft, almost imperceptible pulse emanated from her, expanding outwards like an invisible ripple. It wasn’t an attack, not really. It was merely the displacement of her overwhelming presence. The ripple reached the first row of prodigies, then the next. Without a sound, without even a visible gust of wind, all fifty elite youths were simultaneously lifted from their feet. They flew backwards in a graceful, horrifying arc, sailing over the arena walls, over the heads of the stunned spectators, and out of the colossal structure entirely, landing with a series of muffled thuds somewhere far beyond. The arena fell into a deathly silence. Not a single soul dared to breathe. Then, from the VIP boxes above, a chorus of enraged shouts erupted. “A deliberate attack!” bellowed a voice like grinding stones. “Who dares manipulate the Summit?! Seal the arena! Find the hidden hand behind this outrage!” With a deafening roar, six ancient, robed figures appeared high above the arena floor. Their combined wills surged, and the bloodstone walls began to glow with intricate, pulsating runes. A shimmering barrier of condensed force descended, sealing the entire colossal structure, trapping every spectator and, more importantly, a very pale Mo Qianshu, inside.

Vacuum of the Gods