The black line fell in complete silence.
It carried no fire or lightning. It was a raw tear in space, created by burning a half-formed Nascent Soul. Clouds did not part around it. They simply ceased to exist along its path. Even the arena’s shadows seemed to lean toward the narrow slit.
High above, Jiang Taixu burned with the last of his life.
Nothing mortal can survive a cut through space! No shield can turn it aside. No armor can endure it. Even a True Immortal must vanish before the void!
The conscious spectators could only stare. The sky appeared to fold toward that single dark line.
On the Central Jade Dais, Austin planted his boots in the crushed pavers. He kept the First Epoch server beneath his left arm, shielding its six-pin port from falling grit.
His right hand held the five-foot Stellar-Steel pipe wrench.
He widened his stance and raised the tool at a forty-five-degree angle. The open jaws sat directly in the tear’s path.
The void slash entered Austin’s gravity field.
Three hundred years of sword training met the weight of a compressed star.
Most cultivators thought of space as a flat stone floor. Austin knew better. Enough mass could bend it.
The White Dwarf Seed in his dantian held ninety-five quintillion pounds of matter in a space smaller than an egg. As the void slash entered its field, the straight path curved.
Drawn toward the mass anchored through Austin’s wrench, the black line bent into the open jaws.
Austin moved his gloved thumb and spun the brass adjustment nut.
CLICK-CLICK.
The upper jaw closed. Tier 4 Stellar-Steel teeth bit into the edges of the spatial tear.
CLANK.
The clear metal ring echoed across the silent arena.
The black line stopped.
It did not slide or pass through the tool. A strike meant to split the world now hung between the jaws of a plumbing wrench.
Jiang Taixu froze with his arms extended and his soul still burning. His mouth fell open. His bloodshot eyes bulged.
He clamped it?
HE PUT A PIPE WRENCH ON A TEAR IN SPACE?
THAT IS NOT A PIPE! THAT IS CREATION ITSELF!
Jiang remembered the first time he practiced the strike. He had seen the cut pull to one side. His master’s jade slip said the misalignment was part of the technique, so Jiang had ignored his own measurement. For three hundred years, he had treated a flaw as a sacred instruction.
Now a mechanic had caught the cut and pointed out the bad edge. Jiang did not understand the wrench, but he understood the mistake.
Austin felt an uneven vibration through the handle. It sounded like a bad joint.
Pug stopped chewing. All three heads tilted toward the hissing black slit. His left head gave a curious boof. His right head sneezed. The middle head kept hold of the sword sheath.
Austin nudged the hound gently with his boot.
“Clear the swing path, buddy. Take your toy behind the line.”
Pug picked up the sheath and trotted back to Xiaoyao. Then he resumed chewing.
Austin examined the clamped seam and clicked his tongue.
“Terrible fit. Look at that gap. Ragged edges too. You didn’t even clean up the cut before bringing it to the job.”
He glanced at Xiaoyao. “Pay attention, kid. This is what happens when you force a joint without squaring the ends. Bad fit, rough flow, leaks everywhere.”
“Writing it down, Master!” Xiaoyao said. Lesson forty-one point five: always deburr the edges of a spatial tear before assembly.
Austin reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out a small roll of white thread-seal tape. He held it up so Jiang could see.
“Did they teach you anything in trade school? You never assemble a pressure line without three wraps of PTFE tape. Look at this mess. You’re leaking raw void all over my clean floor.”
A faint hiss came from the seam. Stone dust slid toward it and vanished.
“Hear that? A leak. In a public venue, that’s an automatic red tag. An inspector would shut down the arena and padlock your sword until next Tuesday.”
Blood dripped from Jiang’s ears. His cracked foundation broke a little more.
Governor Zhao and Ouyang lifted their bruised faces from the floor.
“He’s lecturing the Southern Sword Saint on pipe sealant,” Zhao whispered. “The sacred void slash is leaking like a cracked water jug.”
“The Patriarch enforces the building code against the void itself,” Ouyang wheezed.
Austin put the tape away and took a fresh grip on the wrench. He widened his stance another two inches.
His HUD displayed a simple calculation.
“A five-foot handle with that much anchor mass behind it. Plenty of leverage. The joint just didn’t seat right.”
Austin clamped both gloved hands around the cold blue handle.
“All right,” he told the silent arena. “Bad cut, poor fit, and a void leak. Time to put some real torque on it and crank it back into spec.”