Chapter 77: Chapter 77: First Blood

Reality shifted.

The clone appeared in open space above the Absolute Infinity’s hull. Space Law mastery made the transition seamless—no disorientation or adjustment. It felt just stepping from one location to another as naturally as walking through a door.

Celestia materialized beside him, Heaven Piercer already extending to combat length. Three meters of Primordial-grade weapon, ready.

The vacuum of space didn’t affect them. Anyone was has Mastered law to as little as 1% could survive in space. The clone’s body maintained itself through Space Law creating protective barriers, Life Law sustaining cellular function. Celestia’s five mastered Laws provided similar protection. Breathing became optional when your body operated on pure qi.

The clone scanned their surroundings.

They floated fifty meters above the ship’s hull. The Absolute Infinity stretched in all directions—white metal not even scarred with the fresh weapon impacts. Burns, craters, slash marks there were none. The pirates had been attacking for a while before the defenders arrived.

Pirates filled the space around them. Thousands of ships, tens of thousands of individual cultivators flying under their own power. All of them converging on the Absolute Infinity from every direction. Attack craft strafed past, firing energy beams that splashed uselessly against the hull’s formations. Planetary Core, Stellar Ignition, Solar Flare cultivators—all of them attacking, all of them failing to damage the ship.

Then the pirates noticed the defenders.

Hundreds of young cultivators appeared across the battlefield, teleported directly into vacuum. All of them Satellite Orbit realm.

The clone watched through his spatial awareness as confusion rippled through the pirate forces. Young cultivators, unprotected, floating freely in hard vacuum. Every single one surviving what should have killed them instantly.

Law mastery. Understanding of Law from Satellite Orbit realm cultivators. They couldn’t believe it.

The pirate communication channels erupted in shock. Spiritual sense signatures flaring as thousands of cultivators scanned the defenders, confirmed what they were seeing, refused to believe it.

Satellite Orbit realm. All of them. And every single one had mastered Laws completely—something most cultivators didn’t achieve until Star Fusion realm or later.

A notification appeared in the clone’s vision:

COMBAT ASSESSMENT ACTIVE

Current Points: 0

Enemies Detected: 47,293

Maximum Points: 10,000,000

Objective: Eliminate targets

“Ready?” the clone asked.

Celestia nodded once.

They accelerated.

The clone raised his hand and activated Space Law.

His domain exploded outward. Not gradually—but instantly. A sphere of compressed spatial manipulation extending ten thousand kilometers in all directions, overlapping with Celestia’s own domain and the domains of every other candidate who’d deployed theirs simultaneously.

Inside his domain, space became his weapon.

Three thousand pirate ships and fifteen thousand individual cultivators found themselves locked in place. Space itself froze around them, preventing movement, preventing escape. The clone’s will imposed itself on reality within his territory.

Then he attacked.

Spatial blades materialized by the hundreds. Invisible cutting edges that existed as dimensional tears, each one sharp enough to sever anything that touched it. They swept through the frozen formations in geometric patterns—horizontal, vertical, diagonal, spiraling. Pirates died without understanding what killed them. Ships came apart in pieces, hulls splitting along perfectly clean lines.

Four thousand deaths in the first second.

Spatial bombs detonated throughout the domain. Tiny points of compressed space expanding violently, creating spheres of warped reality that shredded everything within their blast radius. Pirates caught in the explosions didn’t just die—they disintegrated, their bodies torn apart at the molecular level by conflicting dimensional forces.

Six thousand more deaths.

Space shredders activated across multiple zones. Rotating fields of dimensional instability that ground matter to dust. Anything caught inside—ships, weapons, cultivators, defensive formations—simply ceased to exist in recognizable form. The technique didn’t cut or crush. It erased.

Five thousand deaths.

The clone folded space and appeared thirty thousand kilometers away in a microsecond. His domain moved with him. Locked onto a new concentration of pirate forces—a massive formation of two thousand ships coordinating their assault on another section of the Absolute Infinity.

Same sequence. Spatial lock. Blades. Bombs. Shredders.

Two thousand ships reduced to debris in three seconds.

He folded space again. And again. Each relocation bringing his domain to bear on fresh targets. Each attack killing thousands. The spatial techniques operated at speeds approaching light velocity—his consciousness processing information and executing techniques faster than normal perception could track.

To observers watching at normal speeds, the clone was simply appearing in different locations while massive sections of the pirate fleet disintegrated around him.

To the clone, operating in his accelerated state of consciousness, everything happened at comprehensible pace. He selected targets, calculated optimal attack patterns, deployed techniques with surgical precision. Each decision made in fractions of a second, each execution flawless.

Celestia was conducting her own massacre across a different section of the battlefield. Her fighting style differed from his—where he used overwhelming spatial manipulation across massive areas, she combined her five Laws into concentrated strikes that killed with perfect efficiency. The spear extended to impossible lengths, each thrust leveraging Void Law to punch through defenses, Time Law to strike before reactions could form, Space Law to extend her reach across vast distances.

Frozen zones appeared throughout space wherever she focused—Time Law slowing everything in specific areas to near-停止. Pirates trapped in those zones became stationary targets. Her spear moved through them like they were standing still. Because to her accelerated perception operating on Time Law principles, they were.

The clone checked his point total: 3,847,500.

Celestia’s count: 4,125,000.

Elapsed time: About one second objectively had passed in the real world.

Not enough yet.

He accelerated further.

Space folding. Domain repositioning. Mass destruction techniques deployed across multiple locations simultaneously. The clone split his consciousness—not literally, but functionally. His Heaven-Defying Comprehension Mantra’s one hundred parallel thought streams allowed him to process and execute a hundred different spatial techniques at the same time.

Spatial blades cut through formations on the left while spatial bombs detonated on the right. Space shredders activated above while compression attacks crushed targets below. All of it happening simultaneously, all of it controlled by different threads of his consciousness working in perfect coordination.

Star Fusion pirates tried to mount resistance. Tried to coordinate, to use their superior cultivation and Law mastery to counter these two Satellite Orbit cultivators who shouldn’t exist.

Failed completely.

The clone killed eight Star Fusion cultivators in six seconds. Their 100% Law mastery meant nothing against techniques that operated on principles they couldn’t perceive. They died the same way Planetary Core pirates died—quickly, efficiently, without ceremony.

His point counter hit seven million.

Celestia’s counter hit seven point five million.

They were close.

The clone deployed his largest attack yet.

Space domain expansion. The sphere of his influence grew from ten thousand kilometers to fifty thousand kilometers in radius. Everything inside that volume fell under his absolute control.

Then he activated every spatial technique simultaneously.

Blades, bombs, shredders, compression zones, folding traps that teleported pirates directly into the ship’s hull where they splattered on impact. Dozens of different attack types executing across the entire domain at once, creating a sphere of absolute destruction that killed everything it touched.

Twelve thousand pirates died in two seconds.

Point counter: 10,000,000.

Maximum achieved.

The clone stopped.

Celestia’s counter hit maximum half a second later.

Total elapsed time since teleportation arrival: Forty-seven seconds subjective. Approximately five seconds objective.

The clone folded space one final time and appeared back at the Absolute Infinity’s hull. Celestia arrived a microsecond later. They descended to the white painted surface and simply sat down.

Cross-legged. Relaxed. Like they’d finished a light workout.

Around them, the space that had been filled with tens of thousands of pirates was now filled with debris. Ship fragments, bodies, frozen blood crystals—all of it drifting slowly away from the battlefield. The assault formations that had been converging on the Absolute Infinity had massive gaps where the clone and Celestia had carved through them.

The fighting continued elsewhere. Other candidates were still engaged, still accumulating points. The clone could sense them through his spatial sense.

Marcus Sunfire three kilometers away, surrounded by flames, his combat aggressive and loud. Point total: 347,000.

Khan Storm further down the hull, lightning crackling around him as he engaged pirate formations with techniques that prioritized flashy devastation. Point total: 284,000.

Lyra Moon using illusions to confuse and eliminate targets, her approach subtle compared to the others. Point total: 429,000.

All of them strong. All of them killing pirates efficiently.

All of them operating at a completely different tier than what the clone and Celestia had just demonstrated.

The pirates noticed.

Through his spatial sense, the clone watched as assault formations actively rerouted away from his and Celestia’s position. Pirate ships that had been approaching saw them sitting calmly and immediately changed course. Star Fusion commanders coordinating attacks redirected their forces to other sections of the hull.

A perimeter formed. Five kilometers in radius. Empty space around their position that no pirate would enter.

“They’re avoiding us,” Celestia said, watching distant battles.

The clone nodded. Smart decision. They’d killed approximately fifteen thousand pirates in under 7 seconds, including nine Star Fusion cultivators. Any force that approached them now would meet the same fate.

They sat in comfortable silence.

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