Chapter 814: Secret Domain is ready
Max merely shrugged, his mouth curving into the faintest ghost of a sardonic smile as he replied with careless ease, "What can I say? I don’t go looking for trouble—but if trouble comes knocking on my door, I demolish those troubles down to rubble."
His tone was light, almost playful, yet underneath it hummed a dark, unmistakable finality that sent a faint shiver along Lyra’s spine.
She let out a small chuckle, the sound soft and brief, before her amusement faded, replaced by a grave seriousness as she leaned in a fraction closer, lowering her voice as she said, "Congratulations, Max—you’ve just officially offended the Thunder Monarch Hall, the Void Soul Tower, and most likely the Mountain Gods Valley too, considering they’re allied with the Thunder Monarch Hall. When you enter the secret domain, you’ll have to be extremely careful around the members of those three forces. After what happened just now, they’ll definitely target you."
Max’s brow furrowed slightly, a flicker of irritation crossing his face as he countered in a low voice, "Aren’t they afraid that killing me would provoke the wrath of the Great Ruler Empire?"
Princess Lyra exhaled slowly, her gaze shifting toward the swirling purple portal as if gathering her thoughts before turning back to him, her eyes glimmering with a mixture of resignation and warning as she explained, "You don’t understand how it works here. In the Middle Domain, there’s this unspoken rule: if someone dies in the secret domain—whether from monsters, traps, or by being killed by another person from other forces—nobody can be held responsible once they’re inside. No force is supposed to seek vengeance outside for deaths that happen within. So even if they kill you inside the secret domain, our Great Ruler Empire would be forced to accept your death and do nothing about it."
Max’s eyes narrowed, a faint shadow flickering in their depths as he processed her words, and then, in a voice suddenly edged with steel and icy calm, he let out a low sneer as he asked, "So you mean... if I kill the members of those three forces inside the secret domain, they can do nothing to me afterward either?"
Princess Lyra blinked rapidly, momentarily stunned by the dangerous glint she saw in his eyes, and for an instant, she couldn’t quite fathom how this young man’s mind seemed to leap straight to retaliation rather than self-preservation, and she stammered slightly before recovering her voice to say, "Yeah... that’s true. They could do nothing to you afterward—but you’d have to survive it. You have to understand, Max, you’re likely going to be heavily targeted by those three forces. You should be careful."
Max gave her a calm nod, his expression placid as though her warning had merely confirmed something he’d already decided, but deep inside his mind, a far colder, more ruthless thought surged forward, his eyes glinting briefly with a predatory light as he thought to himself, ’If they dare come for me in the secret domain... then I’ll make sure none of them ever leave it alive.’
Just then, as though the heavens were determined to keep the tension mounting, another void shuttle streaked across the sky and came to a graceful halt before the swirling purple portal, its hull gleaming faintly with mystic runes.
As its doors parted with a low mechanical hum, a fresh group of cultivators from the Void Soul Tower disembarked, their figures gliding down through the air with practiced ease, robes billowing around them like dark wings, each one exuding an aura of quiet arrogance that immediately drew wary glances from many of the surrounding forces already gathered.
Max, standing beside Princess Lyra, cast them only a cursory glance at first, his eyes sweeping over the familiar dark uniforms and the chilling confidence on their faces, but then, in the next heartbeat, his gaze snagged on a figure among them, and he felt his entire body go rigid as though an invisible cord had yanked him to a halt, his eyes narrowing sharply, ’Is that... Lenavira?’