Shen Fei was momentarily caught off-guard by Liang Chen's soft affirmation of individuality. He spoke so softly, yet his voice carried an unshakeable assuredness and a bone-deep sense of defiance. Couple with his earlier conversation with the will of this universe, it wasn't hard for Shen Fei to guess that Liang Chen probably had quite a feud with the will of his own universe.

But none of that mattered to him right now. The enemy in front of him was capable of invoking the ire of this Sphere of Existence's Consciousness, such an opponent would be able to teach him an untold number of things. So he picked up his sword and drew in a deep breath, a myriad of colours dancing in his yellow eyes.

"It seems like you've been forbidden from using your proper domain, but I'll still give it my all, so please forgive me. The things I'm about to show you were taught to me by the daughter of the Nightmare Queen herself, beware."

Shen Fei expelled the breath he had sucked in, a soft tremor running through his body as a rainbow-coloured light began swimming underneath his skin. The light gave him a rather otherworldly and somewhat saintly appearance, but the energy that burst out from his body was the complete opposite, it brought with it a dreadful sense of suppression and sharpness.

Shen Fei then moved his feet and vanished, his body shimmering in a manner that made it impossible to see him as he moved. Even Liang Chen's law of wind and law of lightning weren't able to properly locate him, it was as if he phased in and out of existence as he moved.

But even with this strange movement and enhancement to his strength, Liang Chen was still able to sweep his spear upwards just as Shen Fei's sword appeared in front of him. The edge of the blade touched the handle of the spear in a quiet manner, passing right through it without the slightest resistance.

Liang Chen's pupils shrank to pinpoints when he saw the strange scene, his body flashing to the side so that the sword only barely grazed his left upper arm. The cut that was left behind couldn't even be called a scratch, it only cut through a single layer of skin and didn't even draw a drop of blood. But as Liang Chen stopped his dodge, the wound started to grow at a rapid pace.

Layer after layer of skin was eviscerated as the wound grew deeper and longer, flesh tearing apart as blood gushed forth and stained his sleeve. Liang Chen pushed his Fiendgod Essence to cover the wound, but it didn't close up in the slightest and just continued to grow without pause. But he didn't have time to focus too much on this strange wound, smashing his spear downwards directly in front of him.

Shen Fei appeared in front of him again, his sword already rising towards Liang Chen's other arm. The weapon once again just passed through Liang Chen's spear, but a thin layer of stone-like material had already covered the blade by the time it reached his body. Liang Chen exerted all his might with his wrist, the spear that was in the process of slamming down suddenly shifting into a sideways sweep.

Shen Fei hurriedly stepped back, but the increased weight of his sword, as well as the fact that he didn't seem quite familiar with this enhanced state of his, slowed him by a beat. Liang Chen's spear reached his abdomen but passed through it in much the same manner as Shen Fei's sword had passed through his spear.

Shen Fei let out a stealthy breath of relief when he saw that the spear passed through his body like that, quickly stepping forward and stabbing out with his sword. The layer of stone-like material around his sword suddenly passed through the blade and fell to the ground, the tip of the weapon quickly reaching Liang Chen's chest.

But a tremble ran through Shen Fei's body just as the sword was about to hit Liang Chen, the surging energy erupting from his body waning as his face paled. He hurriedly pulled back, barely able to dodge a dull violet bolt of lightning that tore through the air where he had just been. He clutched his stomach as he stepped back, a strangely amused smile surfacing on his face when he saw that a yellow mark in the shape of a small spider had appeared where Liang Chen's spear had passed through him.

"Poison from a Yellow-veined Birdeater? You're even able to use poison from such a weak and unnoticeable Demonic beast? And to make it work so fast, you've fused it with your law of time?"

The only thing remarkable about the small Yellow-veined Birdeater was its highly corrosive poison, which could eat away at both flesh, blood, and Qi. But it was so slow-working that it might sometimes take months or even weeks before you noticed any corroding taking place, even normal mortals weren't too afraid of this poison.

But just like it had done with the assassin he faced once in the past, Shen Fei was utterly caught off-guard by the sudden eruption of the poison. But he was much stronger than the assassin from back then, his law was also much more peculiar so he only had to wipe his hand over his stomach to get rid of the poison.

But his aura had been weakened quite a bit, flickering unstably, so it was clear that whatever he was doing was taking quite a toll on him. He was clearer on this than anyone else, so he took another step back and vanished entirely, leaving behind not a single trace for Liang Chen's laws of wind and lightning.

But even with no trace left of him, Liang Chen's energy surged out as he raised the spear with his right arm. His left arm was already hanging limply at his side, the originally tiny scratch already morphed into a gash so large it had gone halfway through his bone. Liang Chen closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, the air around him fluctuating violently for a short instance.

When he opened his eyes again, the fluctuating air turned into a transparent ripple that swept over the entire area, Liang Chen stepping forward and slamming his spear down at the same time. A loud clang echoed throughout the area just as Liang Chen's spear passed through empty air, Shen Fei's sword appearing just beneath the spearhead.

The sword was sent crashing to the ground, Liang Chen stepping forward once more and lashing out with a kick. Shen Fei was revealed at the end of Liang Chen's foot, his abdomen not even sinking in slightly despite Liang Chen lodging his foot there. Liang Chen didn't mind and swept out with his spear, slamming the handle into Shen Fei's body and then lowering his foot again. He spun his body once and delivered a roundhouse kick to Shen Fei's other waist, none of the three attacks able to move Shen Fei's body in the slightest.

But after he delivered his second kick and lowered his foot, a transparent ripple left Shen Fei's body and dissipated into the surroundings. And as the ripple dissipated, Shen Fei's abdomen and both sides of his waist were pushed in by a violent force, blood spurting out from his mouth as he was launched back several tens of metres.

He rolled across the sand for a bit before he finally stopped, his body sprawled on the ground in a weak manner. His chest was heaving violently as he looked up at the sky, the surging aura from his body fully vanishing as he laid there. The wound on Liang Chen's arm also vanished as Shen Fei's aura receded, he was no longer able to manifest that illusion into reality. But he couldn't be bothered about something so small, his eyes shining brilliantly as he laughed, blood spilling from the corners of his mouth.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Amazing, how scarily amazing. You froze not only the time of my body, but also the time of your attacks. The moment you stopped freezing time, all three attacks hit me at once, you didn't even leave the slightest room for defence. But tell me, how did you manage to locate me in my illusion?"

His mind hadn't been frozen, only the time of his body, so he could somewhat figure out exactly what he had just been hit by. But he couldn't figure out exactly how Liang Chen had found his position. He had cloaked himself entirely in his illusion, he was half a step from just turning himself unreal so there shouldn't have been a way to find him so easily. Liang Chen let out a heavy breath, a slightly empty feeling welling up in him after using his law of time on such a strong entity.

"Your illusions aren't real unless you make them real. And if they're not real, then they don't rot."

It was actually quite simple to locate Shen Fei, Liang Chen just had to spread out a domain based on his least-used law, his law of rot. Even the sand couldn't escape rot, there would always be particles in it that would eventually rot and were thus affected by the law. And with how much they were moving about, even the air was filled with minuscule particles that would eventually rot. All he had to do to find Shen Fei was to find the one place where the law of rot wasn't affecting anything, his illusion. Shen Fei's mouth hung agape for a second when he got the answer, boisterous laughter soon escaping his lips.

"Rot...rot? Hahaha, you even have the law of rot tucked away within you? Really, what a creature you are, what a beautiful weapon of destruction, I couldn't even force you to bring out your full strength. Lord of Wrath, what a joke, what a hilarious joke. You should be a king, maybe even an emperor, why haven't you been crowned yet?"

He had seen Liang Chen's strong physical body, his strong laws, and even gotten to taste his poison, which seemed to be focused mostly on the soul and the immaterial. But he hadn't gotten to experience the storm that Liang Chen summoned against the Stone-Soul King, he hadn't gotten to see how strong Liang Chen would get after absorbing it.

But even so, he, a Prince on the Bloodwind Multiverse List, was beaten down savagely. Such a feat did not belong to a mere Lord, it belonged to an entity of higher standing. Liang Chen simply shrugged his shoulders, not planning on divulging too much about how his law of the void affected the Bloodwind Code.

"Who knows. It's probably because I'm not suited to wear a crown, it seems stifling."

He said it half-heartedly, but Liang Chen knew that he wasn't suited to be a leader, he was much more suited to just being an unchained wanderer. But Shen Fei simply chuckled at his statement, turning his head to spit out some of the blood that was pooling in his mouth.

"Hah, as if it matters whether or not you think you're suited or the like. Gods and kings are much the same, they aren't the ones who decide their position, their positions are granted by the belief of others. You can think yourself unsuitable all you like, if others decide that you're a king, then you'll be a damn king."

You might be able to take over a country with your strength and crown yourself king, but you'd never be a true king until the populace accepted it and deemed you as such, Shen Fei was firmly convinced of that. Liang Chen didn't have any comment on Shen Fei's views of kingship and the like, nor did Shen Fei seem intent on lingering on the topic, moving onto a different one entirely.

"Oy, mind answering a question for me? I called you kindhearted earlier because you chose to fight the Stone-Soul King on your own, hell, you even gave him a chance to retreat unharmed. Why would you bother with all that? With your strength, you could have fled whenever you wanted and not bothered involving yourself in this? Yeah, the city may have been razed, but it's so small that it's not even a drop in the ocean. What could you possibly gain out of risking your life for people who don't even know you?"

Now that he had gotten the duel out of the way and seen some points where he stood to improve, he was a bit more relaxed and chatty. As such, he pulled up a question that had been tucked to the back of his mind for a bit. Liang Chen was strong, he was so strong that a city like Moonset city was too small to be of notice for him, it shouldn't have mattered much if it was razed. After all, what did it matter to a man if a group of ants got together and killed each other? Shen Fei felt that his question was more than reasonable, but Liang Chen simply hit him with a different question.

"Shen Fei, how many people do you think remained in Moonset city by the time I moved to take care of the Stone-Soul King?"

Shen Fei was caught slightly off guard by the question, tilting his head somewhat. He had been given the Prince title on the Multiverse Bloodwind List so he didn't usually stay in smaller cities like Moonset city, meaning that he had to give it a bit of thought before he uttered his guess.

"Hm? Not too many, couldn't have been more than 12 million."

Shen Fei was much more familiar with the size-differences that some cities had, so his guess of 12 million people was quite accurate when it came to how many people still remained in the city. But the number still sounded so large that Liang Chen almost felt that it was unreal.

"12 million, not even a drop in the ocean when you consider the grand scale of this dominion, much less the entire universe or multiverse. But those 12 million, do you think they consider their own lives nothing more than a drop in the ocean? They want to live, they want to love, they want to spend every second possible next to those they care about."

Truly, with how vast just a single dominion in this universe was, 12 million people were nothing. More people than that were born every single minute in just this dominion alone, Moonset city would quickly be replaced even if it was razed, most people wouldn't even bat an eyebrow. But Liang Chen was different, he would bat an eyebrow and object, because he had made up his mind.

"I just wanted to protect those desires before it became too late for them to follow them through. There's been enough pointless massacres, too many innocent desires torched before they could bear fruit. There's already enough monsters in existence, more of them don't need to be born. As for those who are oh so willing to create more monsters, to ruin innocent desires on a whim, the heavens may not be willing to punish them, but I am."

Liang Chen had already lost almost everything, after the death of his sister, he only had Yan Ling, Yumao, Lan Yun, and Yan Ying left that he could consider close. He knew what it was like to lose even the chance to fulfil your desires, and it was not a fate he wanted others to experience, there was no need for more people like him to appear. Shen Fei looked somewhat dumbfounded at Liang Chen's steely statement, but he quickly threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

"Haha, now that's a good arrogance, I didn't know you had it in you! So you'll replace our heavenly wrath and bring down death to the sinners, saving the innocent in the process? What lofty goals, what arrogance to stick your nose into the lives of all other living beings!"

These were his true emotions, it was truly arrogant to think that you had the right to stick your nose into the lives of every other living being. It was even more so arrogant to think that you could judge who had committed deeds worthy of punishment, a punishment that not even the heavens chose to dole out. But Shen Fei's laughter didn't contain derision, nor did Liang Chen think much of it, raising an eyebrow while passing Shen Fei another question.

"True, it's probably arrogant beyond belief. Arrogant and hypocritical when you think about the way I go about it. But tell me, Shen Fei, do you think I have the capital for that arrogance?"

In the past, Liang Chen might have been a bit more low-key about his actions. But there was no denying that he acted more and more as he grew stronger, slowly stretching out his hands to cover more people. Shen Fei didn't halt his laughter after Liang Chen hit him with the question, his bloody lips curving into a wide grin.

"Hahaha, you do, you absolutely do. An uncrowned king like you most certainly has the right to be so arrogant that you'll even think about supplanting the heaven's wrath!"

Once more he spoke his true feelings. The strong feasted on the weak and stood above everything else. And Liang Chen was strong, so he had the right to exude as much arrogance as he wanted, he had the right to shine his terrible light and judgment on all he deemed evil.