Nan Caiming looked up into the void, his eyes narrowing. A consciousness had entered the space rule he controlled, seeking to wrest control of it from him.
When the manifestation of rules first appeared in the Void Return Realm, rules were controlled by ninth-order experts whose attributes were more compatible with them.
That was because the Great Dao Competition took place within a rule, testing who had mastered more of it. The contenders then advanced step by careful step, until one finally drove the other's consciousness out and gained control of the rule.
But as the Great Dao Competition evolved, control no longer went to whoever had a soul best suited to the rule. Instead, whoever had the bigger fist controlled it.
Other ninth-order experts stopped competing with your consciousness within the rule. They simply found your true body and destroyed it, naturally eliminating their competitor.
This was also the reason behind the great ninth-order melee in the Void Return Realm back then. To seize stronger rules, nearly every ninth-order expert had personally entered the fray.
They forged alliances, played factions against one another, and stopped at nothing. Only then did the Void Return Realm's present state take shape.
This was why ninth-order experts reacted so fiercely whenever they discovered another consciousness entering their rule. They were not necessarily the ones whose souls were most compatible with it.
After controlling a rule for so many years, they already knew every detail of it inside and out. Normally, even in a Great Dao Competition, they would not lose, and might even win with ease.
Yet the world always had monstrous prodigies, beings whose existence seemed utterly unreasonable. Even if you understood a rule completely, sometimes that still could not beat someone who simply suited it better.
Thus, the simplest method was