The ascent to Nexus Peak was not a climb but a transition. Li Yao was escorted by two silent disciples of the Primordial Convergence Sect onto one of the great light-bridges, the Celestial Bridge. With each step, the spiritual pressure intensified, a symphony of a thousand laws played at a deafening volume. To any other cultivator, it would be both an immense strain and a priceless opportunity for comprehension. To Li Yao, it was a constant, dull roar that his void effortlessly silenced into a personal, quiet bubble around him. His escorts glanced at him, their expressions unreadable, but he could feel their surprise at his utter lack of reaction.
The Peak was a world unto itself. Pavilions floated amidst waterfalls of liquid light. Gardens contained herbs that pulsed with the rhythm of creation. The very air was thick with primordial energy, the raw stuff from which laws were born. It was the absolute pinnacle of "something."
He was led not to a grand hall, but to a simple, isolated pavilion perched on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the infinite expanse of the clouds below. Inside, the air was still. The chaotic symphony of the Peak was muted here, held at bay by a formation of immense subtlety.
An old man sat on a mat, sipping tea. He had no overwhelming aura, no visible sign of power. He seemed as ordinary as the wood of the pavilion, but his eyes held the depth of someone who had watched empires rise and fall. This was Elder Heng, successor to the legacy of Grand Elder Yuan Mo.
"Disciple Li Yao of Verdant Mountain," Elder Heng said, his voice soft yet filling the silent space. "Please, sit."
Li Yao bowed and sat on the mat opposite him. A second cup of tea steamed between them.
"You have caused quite a stir," the Elder began, not unkindly. "You move through a tournament of the world's finest talents as if they are but mist. You do not cultivate. You... uncultivate. It is a paradox that defies the teachings of the Eight Ancestor Clans."
"The Ancestors built upon what was there," Li Yao replied, his voice calm in the profound quiet. "I am merely exploring what was there before they began."
"Before?" Elder Heng took a slow sip. "Before was Chaos. Primordial, formless, and destructive. Is that your goal, Disciple Li? To return the world to chaos?"
Li Yao met his gaze. The old man's eyes were not accusatory, but deeply probing. This was the real question.
"Chaos is not nothing, Elder," Li Yao said. "It is everything, mixed together. The void is not chaos. It is the canvas upon which chaos, and then order, is painted. I do not seek to destroy the painting. I seek to understand the canvas."
Elder Heng was silent for a long time. The only sound was the faint whisper of the wind outside the pavilion's influence.
"An interesting distinction," he conceded. "Your 'canvas' has proven remarkably resilient. It negates Fire, unravels Earth, silences Resonance. But the mortal realms are but the first brushstrokes. What happens when you face a power that is not an attack, but a state of being? A law so fundamental that to negate it is to negate existence itself?"
He gestured to the cup of tea before Li Yao. "For example, the Law of Heat. It is not an attack. It is a condition of the universe. Your tea is hot. Can your void make it cold, without simply draining the energy? Can it persuade the law itself that it should not apply to that specific cup?"
It was a challenge far more profound than any he had faced in the arena. It was a test of the fundamental principle of his path.
Li Yao looked at the steaming cup. He could, of course, nullify the heat energy, turning it into another speck of inert "ash" in his dantian. But that was brute force. That was not comprehending the law; it was erasing its effect.
He closed his eyes, delving into the Void Scripture. The new characters that had shimmered after the Zhang Fan fight now glowed brighter. They spoke of a deeper layer: not just being the ripple, but understanding that the ripple and the water are one. The void and the law are not separate.
He reached out a hand, not to touch the cup, but to hover over it. He did not project negation. He instead focused his will on the relationship between the cup and the Law of Heat. He introduced a concept of separation, of disconnection. He created a microscopic void in the link between the object and the universal law.
He wasn't making the tea cold. He was making the Law of Heat forget the tea existed.
The steam rising from the cup ceased instantly. A faint layer of frost crystallized on the surface of the liquid. The tea was now ice-cold.
Li Yao withdrew his hand, a single bead of sweat tracing a path down his temple. The effort had been immense, not in energy, but in concentration and conceptual weight.
Elder Heng stared at the frosted cup. His placid expression finally broke, revealing a flicker of something immense: not fear, but a dawning, monumental understanding.
"You are not a cultivator," the Elder whispered, his voice filled with awe. "You are a philosopher of the absolute. You manipulate the substrate of reality itself." He looked at Li Yao with new eyes. "The Primordial Convergence Sect studies all laws. We have texts, fragments, that speak of a theoretical state beyond affinity, a talent that is not for a law, but for the Field in which laws manifest. We called it the 'Theoretical Zero-Point Talent.' We believed it was a myth."
He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "Disciple Li, you must win this tournament. The final prize is not just a Spirit Crystal or an herb. The winner earns the right to meditate for three days within the 'Chamber of Primordial Echoes.' It is a place where the echoes of the universe's first laws still resonate. For a genius of fire, it might grant a sliver of the Primordial Flame. For a genius of earth, a fragment of the First Stone. But for you... for a Theoretical Zero-Point..."
He left the sentence hanging, the implication clear.
Li Yao understood. The Chamber of Primordial Echoes wouldn't give him a law. It would allow him to listen to the first something that ever emerged from the nothing. It would be the ultimate textbook for the Void Scripture.
"Thank you for the information, Elder," Li Yao said, bowing again.
Elder Heng sat back, his expression once again unreadable. "The path you walk is one of supreme power and supreme danger. You hold the eraser that can wipe away the universe. Tread carefully, Philosopher of Nothing. The world may not be ready for your truth."
The audience was over. As Li Yao was led back down the light-bridge, the chaotic energy of the Peak felt different. It no longer felt like noise. It felt like a complex, beautiful, and fragile structure. And he, the quiet void, held the power to gently unplug one single, crucial piece, and watch the entire symphony fall into silence.
The quarter-finals were no longer about winning a contest. They were about claiming a key to a deeper understanding of his own existence. The void within him seemed to hunger, not for power, but for the silence that came before it all.