Thunder rumbled in the heavens. Above the black clouds, a bolt of violet lightning seemed to tear the sky apart, a pillar of thunder striking straight toward the Thunder-Fire Demon Cave.
Within the arcs of lightning, two men traveled alongside the thunder. They were the brothers Li Jianshu and Li Jianning.
Li Jianshu formed hand seals. As the first member of the family to enter the Bronze Gate, his cultivation had astonishingly reached the point where he could command thunder. This lightning arc moved as readily as his own arm and fingers, while the thunderclouds above obeyed his decree.
"Big Brother!"
The lightning halted above the demon cave. Within the Void Refinement space Li Jianshu had constructed, Li Jianning—who had spent so many years honest and unassuming—now wore an aged face touched by savagery and regret. "The problem lies with us. We..."
Li Jianning trailed off.
The family had defenses outside the Bronze Gate. Beyond the formations spread throughout the land, their most direct line of defense was the two brothers. Ever since emerging from the Bronze Gate, their strength had soared by leaps and bounds. One of them had cultivated the divine art Green Lady left behind until only the words Heavenly Punishment remained; the other had inherited Blue Ancestor's legacy. Coupled with the most extraordinary "Innate Void Origin" within the Bronze Gate, it was likely that nowhere under heaven could another pair of geniuses like them be found.
The elders had left their finest inheritances to them, yet had never sent them onto the battlefield. This sacred ground of the Bronze Gate had instead become the place of their Protection.
When Li Jianshu activated his cultivation art, his Void Refinement technique altered the heavens. The region blanketed by dark clouds for ten thousand li became a domain of