Wormholes warp space. This technique, connecting any two points via a spatial throat, allows instantaneous travel to another corner of the universe. Thus, artificial wormholes are vastly superior to spatial jumps based on faster-than-light travel.

The situation is analogous to a creature living in two dimensions on an unrolled sheet of white paper. Suppose it wishes to move from one corner to the diagonally opposite one. Normally, this movement requires traversing the diagonal, and should an obstacle, like a tear, appear on the paper, the two-dimensional being would have to detour or might even find its path completely blocked if the tear splits the paper in half.

However, if the paper is warped so the two corners meet, the two-dimensional creature can arrive directly at its destination, bypassing the intervening distance. This offers an additional advantage: it can completely skip any obstacles on the paper, as the creature's path only goes from one corner to the other, never touching any other part of the sheet. Even if the paper were shredded, it would have no bearing on the creature’s journey.

Therefore, connected by a wormhole, Yang Ying would not be obstructed by the barriers before him and could materialize directly inside the sanctuary. Nevertheless, generating a wormhole demands extraordinary energy; without the Arbitrator Energy Matrix, the wormhole Yang Ying created could, at best, transport him only a hundred kilometers. However, entering a sealed room required far less capacity.

Xingiel’s cultivation had reached the limit of the Third Level, granting him an extraordinary vision. Within the Galactic races, spiritual combat techniques similar to ‘shrinking the ground’ were countless; basically, any Third Level master understood them. But breaching the sanctuary’s composite outer wall was clearly beyond the scope of such spiritual techniques.

Space. Only the power to warp space could deliver one into this comprehensively sealed sanctuary!

Yang Ying looked up and around. The interior of the sanctuary was vast, with a ceiling nearly ten meters high, supported by numerous pillars large enough for two people to embrace—thirty-six in total. The surface of these pillars was as transparent as crystal, revealing vibrant energy currents surging within. The white light emitted illuminated the entire sanctuary, and judging by the intensity of these energy flows, the sanctuary’s defensive solidity was evident.

While marveling at the sanctuary’s defenses, Yang Ying couldn’t help but sigh: Xingiel’s choice to hide here was a fate he brought upon himself. If this place could keep the thirteen of them out, it could just as easily trap them inside.

“How did you get in here!” a high-ranking Flynn rebel demanded, his tone sharp but underpinned by fear.

“Is discussing that meaningful now?”

Yang Ying and his thirteen companions simultaneously drew their light swords, the resulting zila sound accompanied by twenty-four golden blades illuminating the pale, frightened faces of more than a dozen high-ranking rebel executives.

A military leader at the peak of the Third Level offered courteously, “Is there no room for negotiation? You are mercenaries; we can pay an exorbitant price to redeem our lives! Furthermore, we will forget everything that happened before.”

His tone suggested that Xingiel’s previously issued threat of retaliation had never existed.

“Is saying that useful now?” Yang Ying swept his sword toward them. “If the positions were reversed, standing in my shoes, would you agree?”

Xingiel’s expression was grim. The method Yang Ying and his thirteen used—opening wormholes via space distortion—left him utterly stunned. Manipulating space first required a profound understanding of it, and such a degree of spatial knowledge...

If this trick had been unleashed by a Ksing, he wouldn't have been surprised, but seeing it performed by Yang Ying utterly overturned his cosmological understanding.

However, Xingiel knew that having issued his declaration of revenge, there was no turning back now. Everyone inside the sanctuary understood this.

Xingiel hardened his heart, a fierce glint in his eyes. He commanded someone via telepathy to open the door, then roared at the others, “Charge!”

He swung a golden light sword, shifted his stance, and charged toward Yang Ying’s thirteen, the others drawing their swords and following his advance.

An intensely powerful chill erupted from Xingiel, instantly freezing the water molecules in the surrounding air into snowflakes. It was as if a sudden heavy snow had begun inside the sanctuary. Xingiel seemed transformed into a howling northern wind, his icy aura sweeping toward Yang Ying and his group.

Yang Ying fixed his gaze on Xingiel. Simultaneously, the thirteen rushed toward the rebel contingent. A clone raised a hand and unleashed a branching bolt of lightning. With a colossal boom, Xingiel’s chilling aura was instantly shattered.

Yang Ying seized the opportunity, bridging the distance to Xingiel. His right-hand light sword transformed into a streak of golden electricity, stabbing toward Xingiel with lightning speed.

Xingiel abruptly halted his steps, his body stopping with an eerie inertia that defied the laws of motion. He blocked Yang Ying’s thrust with his sword held horizontally. At the same time, his free left hand conjured a whirlwind. He cupped the whirlwind in his palm and thrust it toward Yang Ying’s face.

The whirlwind initially manifested as an almost imperceptible speck but instantaneously expanded to the size of a cartwheel, sucking in the surrounding air. A massive amount of ice and snow was caught in the vortex, displaying countless intricate forms, yet in his palm, it appeared more magnificent and mighty than nature’s blizzard.

Seeing this whirlwind, Yang Ying felt as if an ice-bound, thousand-mile blizzard had been grasped by Xingiel and was now surging toward him.

Yang Ying’s eyes brightened. He realized that Xingiel’s whirlwind was not only condensing the air’s moisture but was inevitably entangling other atmospheric components, causing them to instantly condense into ice. This indicated the extreme cold within the vortex.

Another golden flash of lightning. Yang Ying thrust his left-hand light sword toward Xingiel’s left hand.

Xingiel shook his hand, releasing the storm, shifted his stance, and retreated backward.

As the storm left Xingiel’s grasp, it immediately expanded, releasing a biting cold approaching absolute zero, capable, it seemed, of freezing everything in existence.

Sensing the chill rushing toward him, Yang Ying swept his sword forward. The sanctuary suddenly blazed with light as countless arcs of lightning flew out to meet the cold air.

Mind Storm!

Yang Ying compressed the power of the Mind Storm into a small area before him, pitting it directly against Xingiel’s Ice Storm. Both sides exerted their full strength, pushing the spiritual power of the Third Level limit to its extreme.

The searing lightning wrapped itself around the massive vortex. With a tremendous explosion, the vortex blew apart, and the thunder broke through the chilling cold, hurtling toward Xingiel.

Seeing that the cold wind could not withstand the lightning, Xingiel raised his sword to block. Dozens of lightning bolts were intercepted by the light sword, but the thrust of the lightning destabilized him, forcing him to retreat two steps before regaining his footing.

After bracing against the lightning, Xingiel glanced left and right, his anger flaring. The subordinates Xingiel had brought into the sanctuary were now locked in combat with Yang Ying’s twelve clones. The fighting was intense and back-and-forth, but Xingiel’s men were vastly inferior in strength. Despite using all their power, they were no match for the twelve clones.

After just a few exchanges, those Third Level experts lay on the ground; some had their heads severed by light swords, others were charred skeletons from lightning strikes.

Yang Ying had long since integrated the God Clan spiritual combat techniques and the techniques of the Psionic Temple. Driven by his Third Level ultimate spiritual power, these skills manifested with astonishing force, dispatching the Third Level experts in mere moves.

At this point, only four peak Third Level masters remained engaged, but they were besieged by the twelve clones and were clearly at a disadvantage. The four gathered together, unleashing all their powerful spells to prevent the twelve clones from closing the distance.

A sea of fire from one, a strange gravity wave from another, sharp gusts of wind, and surging telekinetic force—the four masters executed their knowledge to the extreme, barely maintaining a joint defensive perimeter that kept the twelve clones outside.

However, it was clear such wide-ranging maneuvers could not be sustained for long. Their mental energy consumption was several times greater than that of Yang Ying’s clones, and they were outnumbered by a ratio of three to one. When their spiritual power could no longer sustain the drain, their demise was inevitable.

As for the subordinate Xingiel had sent to open the door, he had already been sliced in half. His corpse lay before the control panel of the now-open door, his eyes wide open, a look of dying resentment frozen on his face.

The residual effects of the ensuing battle were considerable. About ten crystal pillars in the room were broken. The energy currents that had been transmitted within them, now unrestrained, became highly unstable, radiating energy as high-frequency rays and powerful electrical currents outward, striking the surroundings and greatly increasing the danger within the sanctuary.

The power of these rays and currents was comparable to a full-power strike from a peak Third Level master, and being hit meant serious injury if not death—and this was only a small fraction of the dispersed energy.

Bang!

Another crystal pillar was struck by a gravity wave, twisting instantly into a spiral before violently exploding, scattering energy everywhere.

Suddenly, a clone spotted an opening and lunged forward, stepping into the defensive circle of the four rebel masters. With a swift motion, his hands swept both incoming light swords aside, while simultaneously kicking the chest of the master specializing in gravity waves who stood before him.

With a painful cry, the gravity wave master was sent flying backward, directly toward an active energy flow. Seeing this, another rebel nearby instantly tried to rush over to help, but was immediately engaged by four other clones. The rescuer struggled to defend himself while simultaneously trying to exert powerful telekinesis to pull the falling man back. The falling man, in this moment of crisis, focused his own mental power, flipped in mid-air, and halted his backward trajectory.

“Go to hell!”

Yang Ying would not let such a perfect opportunity slip by. Six clones simultaneously raised their hands and pushed toward the man.

The man instantly felt both a pulling force and a pushing force acting upon him, but the push vastly outweighed the pull, and his own efforts were insignificant. With a cry of indignation, his body was propelled like a cannonball, involuntarily hurtling into the energy flow.

The energy flow erupted in a blinding, sun-like brilliance, and a peak Third Level master was instantaneously vaporized, vanishing from existence.