Li Yu was drifting in the sky with his body wrapped in a layer of thin void Qi to shield himself from the biting gale and hide from his enemies. Below him the Northern continent was a quilt of white snow and grey rock.

  He wasn't cultivating here. He was hunting.

  His eyes were active and scanning for any irregularity. Any dip in the natural pressure that would indicate the "Ghost" was feeding.

  His slate-grey Command Token then vibrated against his chest. It wasn't a standard rift alert. It was a frantic distress signal.

  Sender: Elder Torsten (Thunder Echo Sect)

  Status: Critical situation, requesting help. Vorgnir is engaged. Losing containment. Magnar in critical condition. 5 ghost entities!

  "The ghost!" Li Yu muttered to himself. They were deep in the jagged peaks of the Razor-Edge Range.

  Vorgnir was already there. The Thunder King was there. And they were dying. That just showed how strong the enemy was.

  Li Yu reached out with both hands and grabbed the fabric of space itself. He then ripped it open, pushing his mastery of the void to its very limits. He launched himself through it.

  The world blurred into a tunnel of streaking starlight. The air screamed as he forced a physical body through. Distance became irrelevant. Miles compressed into a single step.

  At the Razor-Edge Range. The scene that greeted Li Yu was a slaughter in progress.

  The snow was churned into mud. It was stained with the unmistakable crackling blood of high-level lightning cultivators. In the center of the valley, Sect Master Magnar, the Thunder King, was fighting for his life.

  His legendary lightning armor was shattered. It was usually a fortress of unassailable voltage but it had been overpowered. His left arm was gone, severed at the shoulder. The wound was cauterized by his own desperate lightning.

  Behind him lay two bodies. The two 2nd Stage Soul Formation elders. They were unconscious and bleeding from their noses and ears. They were knocked flat not by physical blows but by the crushing weight of the soul attack during the ambush. The pressure in the valley was thick and heavy from the combined soul domain of the ghosts.

  Only Elder Torsten, a 4th Stage Soul Formation expert, was still standing beside his Sect Master. However, he was sluggish. His movements like he was wading through deep water and his soul trembling under the pressure. His soul was injured during the ambush attack and was now barely holding onto the soul pressure.

  Standing over them were two of the "Ghosts."

  For weeks, the North had feared an invisible spirit. A phantom. They were wrong.

  The creatures were physical nightmares. They stood nearly five meters tall. They were towering over even the giant Vorgnir. They were hunched, bipedal monstrosities that blended the worst traits of a werewolf and a bat. Their bodies were covered in matted fur that shifted color between moss-green and mud-brown. It was rippling like a chameleon's skin.

  But the most terrifying aspect wasn't their claws or their fangs. It was their presence.

  The five beasts were projecting a combined Soul Domain that warped the air, a vacuum of hunger that suppressed the cultivation of anyone caught inside. It was this pressure that was limiting Magnar and Torsten’s abilities. The soul attack during the ambush was what allowed them to injure Magnar so badly.

  Vorgnir was the only one truly fighting back. He wasn’t here during the ambush so he was in better shape. He was also much stronger than Magnar. Vorgnir had already had all of his soul defenses up before he engaged. He was getting hurt by the soul attacks of the Ghosts, but it wasn’t to the level that Magnar and his team was hit with.

  Vorgnir was engaging three of them at once to keep as many off of Magnar as he could. His chest was slashed open and revealing ribs. His face was a mask of blood. But the giant was roaring, his will of steel allowing him to move despite the crushing weight on his soul.

  The leader of the pack, a creature slightly larger than the others, shrieked. The soul pressure intensified.

  Magnar fell to one knee and his vision began graying out. Then, the sky shattered. Li Yu dropped from the void like a meteor of fury.

  He didn't just bring his physical weight. He brought his soul.

  As he slammed into the ground between Vorgnir and the flankers, Li Yu unleashed the full, unbridled weight of his spiritual existence.

  The Koi and the Fisherman materialized next to him as he dropped and began dropping with him. Li Yu analyzed the situation as he was charging in and he needed to make sure that these things couldn’t escape.

  BOOM.

  It wasn't a sound. It was a spiritual shockwave.

  The suffocating pressure that the five beasts had maintained shattered instantly. It was like a pane of glass being hit by a tidal wave.

  The air in the valley suddenly became light. The crushing weight on the human cultivators was replaced by the terrifying and boundless sensation of the deep ocean. The situation reversed in an instant. The soul pressure was now on the five beasts and it was immense.

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  The five beasts recoiled violently. They screeched while clutching their massive bat-like ears. For the first time, the eaters of souls felt a soul that was too big, too strong to eat. They felt a predator that looked at them as the snack. A feeling that they had never felt before in their entire existence.

  Li Yu stood up from the crater. He didn't speak. He didn't offer a greeting. His face was a mask of cold, absolute lethality. He took action immediately.

  From his shadow, a figure rose. The Sentry Clone. Li Yu pointed his staff at Vorgnir’s group.

  The Sentry nodded. It raised its hand. Technique: Glacial Javelin Rain.

  Hundreds of ice spears materialized and launched at the three beasts attacking Vorgnir. The monsters shrieked and blurred. They had been slowed down by Li Yu’s domain but they were still able to dodge.

  The Sentry didn't stop. It wasn’t meant to kill, it was meant to zone. It began weaving a domain of water-attribute Qi. Thickening the air to slow them down and buying Vorgnir the opening he needed.

  Li Yu turned his back on them. He faced the two beasts attacking Magnar. His two souls remained at his side and were waiting to take action. It seemed like they were grown ups watching a kid’s battle. They seemed above it all and were just waiting for the result.

  The creatures hissed. They sensed the threat. This small human wasn't food. He was a calamity for them.

  The two creatures attacked together.

  One blurred to the left and the other to the right. Their claws tearing ribbons in the air. It wasn't void movement; it was pure biological acceleration.

  Li Yu used his perception of the void to track the displacement of the air, the shift in gravity and the intent of the kill. The beast on the right appeared with its claw descending toward Li Yu’s neck.

  Li Yu moved inside the creature's reach with his shoulder slamming into its chest. At the moment of impact, he released a burst of destructive energy from his core.

  THOOM.

  The massive creature was knocked backward and its ribs cracking audibly. Without their advantage with the soul, they were neutered quite dramatically. They didn’t have their element of surprise either. One of their greatest advantages. They had been held here too long, the greed for powerful souls overriding their normal tactics of disappearing away after an assault.

  The second beast appeared behind Li Yu and was aiming for his spine. Li Yu spun his staff behind his back, the heavy staff acting as a shield. The claws sparked against the nearly indestructible material that was Khaos’s shell.

  Li Yu pivoted slightly. He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

  The space around the first beast, the one he had hit first, became heavy. Its displacement technique failed and it couldn’t disappear. It stumbled in place, its speed dropping from supernatural to merely fast. It tried to make a move but the Koi Soul next to Li Yu roared and froze it in place.

  Li Yu was on it instantly. He swung his staff.

  CRACK.

  The staff struck the beast’s knee. The sound was like a tree snapping in a storm. The creature howled as its leg was blasted into a mist. It fell to one knee and was thrashing around. It was trying to crawl away with its wings.

  Li Yu stepped in close.

  The beast opened its mouth to unleash a soul scream. A desperate act to do some damage to Li Yu and reassert its dominance.

  Li Yu didn't flinch at the incoming attack. The Fisherman Soul had already acted. Its ethereal hook was already flying towards the creature. It hooked onto its soul and pulled.

  The beast froze mid-scream. Its eyes rolled back. Magnar watched in horror and awe as the massive creature simply... turned off. He couldn’t see Li Yu’s souls.

  There was no final blow. No exploded head. Li Yu blasted the creature's leg into mist and the beast collapsed into the snow, a lifeless husk.

  ‘Were they always that fragile?’ The Thunder King thought to himself. He was feeling much better after Li Yu’s arrival. His mind was more clear and he was taking pills to restore some battle power.

  Li Yu felt the rush of potent soul energy enter the body. One down.

  The second beast saw its kin drop dead without a wound. It shrieked in terror and vanished.

  It reappeared directly above Li Yu, diving with both claws extended, desperate to kill the threat before it could be killed as well.

  Li Yu looked up. Three Void Javelins were already materialized above him.

  THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

  Two javelins pierced the creature's wings and pinning it to the sky for a fraction of a second. The third struck it in the shoulder, spinning it around. It crashed to the ground.

  It tried to get up but the Thunder King already moved. He brought down his thunder spear through the head of the creature with his good arm.

  The impact drove a hole straight through the creatures head and pinning it to the frozen earth. Black blood sprayed across the white snow. Even with a hole in its head, the beast thrashed around and was clawing at the thunder spear and trying to dislodge it.

  The Fisherman acted again. Once hooked the beast stiffened. It felt the hook latch onto its soul. The Fisherman pulled once again.

  The struggle ended instantly. The beast went limp with its claws falling away from the spear.

  Magnar roared in victory and Torsten stared at him. They had finally gotten a bit of revenge for their sect. The two enemies that had nearly wiped out them and their sect were dead.

  ‘This young man that showed up was the key. The situation turned in their favor when he appeared.’ They both thought.

  Across the valley, a roar echoed. Vorgnir had used the distractions provided by Li Yu’s Sentry.

  The Sentry Clone bombarded the three beasts with ice and slowed their movements. Vorgnir had isolated one of them. He didn't use any fancy techniques. He used rage.

  He caught the beast's claw with his left sword. It had become much easier after the massive pressure on his soul was gone. With his right sword, he swung a horizontal arc that carried all his frustration, all his pain and all his desire for a worthy end.

  SHINNNG.

  The massive blade bit through fur, muscle and bone. The beast's head flew from its shoulders. It was spinning in the air before landing in the snow.

  The body stood for a moment. A fountain of black blood erupting from the neck before toppling over. The body continued to struggle for a bit before the Fisherman’s hook came for it as well. It would have died off eventually but its incredibly strong soul would be able to move it for awhile but without much power.

  Silence returned to the valley for a heartbeat.

  Three dead.

  Li Yu stood over his kill. His staff dripped with black blood. Magnar was standing by his kill. His thunder spear crackled as he was still roaring out his emotions. Vorgnir was now standing over his kill. He was panting like a bellows as steam rose from his bloody skin.

  Li Yu turned his gaze to the last two beasts that his sentry was still keeping tied down. The massive leader and the final subordinate.

  They were backed against the canyon wall now. The crushing pressure of Li Yu’s souls was pinning them in place and making their movements sluggish.

  They were clicking rapidly with their heads darting between Li Yu and Vorgnir. They had gone from apex predators to cornered rats in the span of minutes.

  Li Yu still hadn’t said a word. He just pointed his staff at the leader. The message was clear. You're next.