The atmosphere above the Underworld River was a suffocating blanket of silence and death. The sky here was not blue, but a sickly, bruised yellow, hanging low over the black, timeless waters. Countless paper money drifted like snow, and the heavy mist concealed terrors that even Virtuous Paragons dared not provoke.
On the riverbank, the tension was palpable. Cultivators from the great sects, Ancient Kingdoms, and Sacred Grounds held their breath, their eyes glued to the drifting ghost boats. This was not merely a treasure hunt; this was a gamble for life itself.
On the shore, standing amidst the grim-faced experts, Li Shuangyan's brows knit together. Her icy beauty was usually unshakeable, but the stakes today were terrifyingly high.
She looked at the man beside her—Ling Feng. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking less like a cultivator facing the greatest mystery of the ages and more like a man waiting for a bus that was running late.
"Young Noble," Li Shuangyan whispered, her voice laced with urgency. "Are you not going to make a choice for War God Mu? The deal with the War God Temple… the time is running out."
Nearby, the elders of the War God Temple were sweating profusely, their eyes darting between the boats and Ling Feng. They had pinned their hopes on this anomaly of a man, but he was doing absolutely nothing.
"Choice?" Ling Feng chuckled, the sound jarringly casual against the backdrop of silent death. He shook his head, looking at the frantic elders with amusement. "Look at them. They're all throwing dice with their eyes closed, praying for a double six. That's not a choice, Shuangyan. That's just content for a horror story waiting to happen."
Chen Baojiao, her devastatingly curvaceous figure radiating a charm that could topple cities, glanced at him with a mixture of adoration and exasperation. "Then what do you intend to do? If we miss the window, the War God's lifespan—"
Ling Feng interrupted her with a grin that didn't belong in this era. It was a grin of pure, unadulterated confidence.
"Use cheats, obviously."
The women blinked. Before they could ask what a "cheat" was, the air around Ling Feng changed.
Deep within his Inner Void, the Green Chaos Emerald flared to life.
It was a light unseen in the Nine Worlds. It was not the light of the Grand Dao, nor the aura of a Merit Law. It was the raw, primal energy of Chaos Control—the mastery of Space itself.
To the outside world, Ling Feng merely lifted his hand, a lazy gesture as if he were shooing away a fly.
HUM.
Reality didn't just bend; it folded.
The spatial fabric separating the riverbank from the middle of the misty river didn't tear or break—it simply ceased to be an obstacle. The distance became zero.
In one heartbeat, War God Mu was crouched at the river's edge, his hand resting heavily on his ancient coffin, his muscles tensed to leap toward a boat that might not even accept him. The air around him was stagnant.
In the next heartbeat, he was gone.
There was no blur of movement. No sonic boom. He had been cut from one coordinate and pasted into another.
Replaced by a swirl of distorted space that snapped shut with a hollow thwack, the spot where the legendary War God stood was now empty air.
"—?!"
The War God Elder's pupils shrank to the size of needle points. His jaw dropped, his beard trembling in the wind. "Ancestor?!"
In that same instant, out on the dark waters, a ripple blossomed on the surface of one of the "premium" boats—a vessel exuding an ancient, sorrowful aura.
War God Mu and his coffin appeared there instantaneously. Space knitted itself around him like water closing over a thrown stone.
War God Mu was a veteran of countless battles, a being who had walked through mountains of corpses. He did not flinch. His battle instincts anchored him immediately. Before his mind could even process the impossible shift in location, his body reacted. He planted his coffin securely onto the boat's center, his stance unmovable as a mountain.
The boat did not reject him. It did not capsize. Instead, a mystical karmic tag, visible only to those with the eyes to see, flared above the hull.
[Result: Lifespan Extension – 500~700 years. Path: Outward.]
War God Mu slowly raised his head. His ancient eyes, filled with the vicissitudes of time, looked back toward the shore. Across the churning chaos of the mist, his gaze met Ling Feng's for only a fraction of a breath.
Ling Feng gave him a lazy two-finger salute.
"…So it is like this." The corners of the old War God's mouth curved up into the faintest, most satisfied of smiles. He understood. This was not luck. This was domination over the rules.
Then, the Underworld River's current seized the boat. War God Mu's vessel drifted deeper, swallowed by the yellow fog, carrying him toward a new lease on life.
"YOUNG NOBLE LING!"
The roar shattered the silence. The War God Elder's face was flushed crimson, his blood pressure spiking to dangerous levels. He pointed a trembling finger at Ling Feng. "You… You dare to move the War God Mu to a boat at random?! This is the Underworld River! One wrong move means eternal damnation! This old man will—"
"Save your breath, old man, you're gonna pop a blood vessel," Ling Feng interrupted, digging a finger into his ear as if the Elder's voice was physically irritating. "I just bumped him onto the VIP route. Instead of yelling, maybe you should be drafting that thank-you letter. And make it sincere."
The Elder choked on his own rage, but before he could scream again, the river itself reacted.
BOOM.
Death qi boiled. The water churned violently.
The Underworld River had rules. The dead had rules.
Hundreds of Earth Corpses—ancient beings buried here for millions of years—snapped their heads toward Ling Feng's position. Their hollow, rot-filled eyes burned with green fire. Treasure Lords, who had been haggling with corpses or fighting over boats, paused mid-combat.
The natural order had been violated. Someone had bypassed the test.
"You moved a candidate!" a voice boomed from the Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom's camp.
"He dares to disrupt the order of the Underworld River!" screamed an ancestor from a secluded sect.
"Impudent living brat! You court death!"
Layers of corpse qi and treasure light surged toward Ling Feng's position like a tidal wave. The pressure was immense, enough to crush an ordinary Enlightened Being into paste.
Li Shuangyan's expression tightened, her hand instantly going to the hilt of her sword. "Young Noble, the crowd is inciting—"
"Relax, honey," Ling Feng said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I'm not done yet."
He ignored the screaming masses. He ignored the killing intent rolling off the Royal Nobles and Ancient Saints. His gaze snapped toward a solitary figure standing further down the bank.
Bu Lianxiang.
The Princess of the Middle Continent Ancient Kingdom.
Her boat was already drifting past her position. She had not moved. She simply stood there, watching the black water flow, her silhouette lonely and majestic. She looked like a painting of a bygone era, beautiful but utterly devoid of hope.
Ling Feng exhaled, a soft sigh escaping his lips.
"Can't leave a pretty lady hanging," he muttered.
Then, his internal engine shifted gears.
"Cyan Emerald. Full throttle."
The world didn't change for the onlookers. But for Ling Feng, reality ground to a halt.
[Chronos Perception: Active]
Colors bled out of the world, turning the yellow sky into a stagnant grey. The roaring waves of the river froze into jagged sculptures of glass. The screaming mouths of the cultivators were suspended in ridiculous, contorted shapes.
To everyone else, Ling Feng vanished. He didn't move fast; he simply ceased to exist in their frame of reference.
To Ling Feng, he was strolling through a museum of statues. He walked across the riverbank, the corpse cloak billowing behind him like wings of night.
He stopped beside Bu Lianxiang.
Up close, her beauty was piercing, a sharp blade that cut through the gloom. The eras of burial, the silence of the earth, none of it had dulled her. Even in this frozen time, her eyes held a flicker of intelligence, as if her powerful cultivation was trying to fight the static of the time stop. She recognized him from the mountain peak—the strange man who had spoken to her with a soft voice and given her closure when no one else could.
"You again," Ling Feng said softly into the frozen air. "Told you the boats were coming. You have a bad habit of waiting too long."
Bu Lianxiang's gaze seemed to tremble, even though time was stopped. Her soul sensed him.
Ling Feng stepped close enough that their auras brushed. He could smell the faint scent of ancient earth and unyielding orchid on her.
"Your story doesn't end in that coffin," he murmured, his voice low and magnetic. "If you're willing to gamble, this one gives you the highest odds of seeing another sky. I promise."
He reached out.
In the cultivation world, touching a woman of her status—an ancestor, a princess of a fallen era—was a death sentence. It was blasphemy.
Ling Feng didn't care.
He smiled faintly, the usual frivolity of his modern persona muted into something sincere. "Don't overthink it, Princess. You already buried yourself once. Compared to that, boarding a boat is nothing. Let me give you a hand."
The boat slid parallel to the bank in the super-slow motion of his perception.
Ling Feng lifted his hand.
Green Chaos Emerald: Space Anchor.
He stepped lightly onto the air between the bank and the boat. The laws of gravity tried to protest, but the Chaos Force silenced them. He reached out and wrapped his arm around Bu Lianxiang's slender waist.
It was firm, cold, yet unmistakably real.
"Pardon the touching," he grinned, though she couldn't see it in real-time. "Boarding assistance services are included in the package."
With a twist of space, he moved her.
Zip.
Ling Feng deposited Bu Lianxiang gently onto the boat, placing her coffin behind her. He positioned her so she stood regal and tall, framed by the infinite darkness of the river.
The karmic tag above this boat blazed, confirming his judgment.
[Result: Lifespan Extension – 500~700 years. Path: Outward.]
He stepped back onto the water's surface, hovering.
"Resume."
Reality snapped back to normal speed with a deafening CRACK.
To the crowd, it looked like a glitch in the heavens. One moment Ling Feng was by his maids; the next, he was standing on the river, and Bu Lianxiang had teleported from the bank to the boat.
For a brief, fleeting instant, Bu Lianxiang looked back. Her eyes widened, the shock breaking through her ancient composure. She looked at her hands, then at the receding bank, and finally, her gaze locked on Ling Feng.
Her lips moved soundlessly, her eyes shimmering with a complex emotion—gratitude, confusion, and a spark of renewed life.
—Thank you.
Ling Feng grinned at her, hands on his hips, and switched to English for just three words, knowing she wouldn't understand the language but would understand the intent.
"See you later."
Then the boat drifted away, swallowed by the yellow sky and black water, taking the legend of the Middle Continent with it.
Shocked silence lasted only half a breath.
Then the riverbank exploded.
"IMPUDENT!!!"
"PRESUMPTUOUS JUNIOR!"
"We have fought for countless years to earn a single seat! We have sacrificed blood and treasure! And you dare to steal boats and arrange seats before the competition even concludes?!"
The envy was palpable. It twisted the faces of the ancestors. They saw Ling Feng handing out life extensions like candy, while they had to beg and fight for scraps.
From the Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom's fortress, a terrifying pressure erupted. A Royal Noble clad in imperial gold armor leapt out. His Life Wheel blazed like a sun behind him, chanting sutras of war.
"Die, brat!"
He thrust his palm down. It was a technique of the Emperor lineage, a palm strike heavy enough to sink a continent. The air compressed, screaming as it fell toward Ling Feng.
"The Heavenly Dao Academy will not tolerate this disruption," an ancient scholar from the floating academy stated coldly. He raised his horsetail whisk. The white hairs elongated, turning into a rain of steel runes, descending to suppress Ling Feng's entire group, intending to seal them for eternity.
The Divine Sword Sacred Ground's envoy drew his blade. SHING. Sword light filled the sky, cold and merciless, aiming to decapitate Ling Feng where he hovered.
Even several Earth Corpses turned, their instincts roaring. Living thing. Breaking rules. Punish.
"Brace yourselves!" the War God Elder shouted, panic spilling from his voice. "Young Noble Ling, stop! If you attack recklessly here, you will incite calamity from the Burial Ground itself—"
Ling Feng floated above the water, looking at the descending apocalypse of magical attacks. He looked bored.
"Man, you guys are noisy," Ling Feng sighed. "I hate Karens."
In his Inner Void, the Red Chaos Emerald began to pulse. It was the heartbeat of destruction. The essence of Power.
[Trait: Absolute Force] [Effect: Physical strikes ignore 50% of defense. Energy projection density increased by 500%.]
He raised his right hand and simply flicked his middle finger against his thumb.
A simple, casual motion. Like flicking a piece of lint off a jacket.
SNAP.
The sound was not loud. It was crisp.
But the result was catastrophic.
Chaos Force surged. It wasn't the refined, flowery spiritual energy of the Nine Worlds. It was raw, unadulterated kinetic force, compressed to an absurd density. A transparent shockwave, barely visible to the naked eye, burst forth from his finger.
It didn't clash with the Grand Dao. It didn't debate with the laws of physics. It bullied them.
The shockwave tore through the air.
The first to meet it was the imperial Royal Noble from Azure Mysterious.
He roared, his defensive treasures flaring—three layers of Saint-level shields, a Life Treasure given by an Ancestor, and his own impenetrable body fortification.
The shockwave touched his forehead.
There was no sound of impact. The layers of defense didn't crack; they simply dissolved. The Absolute Force trait ignored his armor as if it were tissue paper.
The Royal Noble's body stiffened. His eyes went wide with a realization that came too late.
Pop.
His head vanished.
There was no blood spray initially because the force was so fast it cauterized the wound instantly. His headless body hung in the air for a second, momentum carrying it forward, before it toppled like a felled tree, smashing into the fortress deck.
Only then did the blood fountain erupt.
A hiss of cold air rippled through the sea of experts.
"One… One finger…" someone whispered, their voice trembling.
"That youth—is he really only a Named Hero?! That was a Royal Noble of the Azure Mysterious Kingdom!"
Ling Feng didn't even look at the corpse. He landed back on the riverbank, dusting off his jacket. He turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing at three more Royal Nobles from a hostile sect who were gathering power to flank him.
He didn't move. He simply spoke names.
"Shuangyan. You're up."
Li Shuangyan's face was serene, cold as the deepest glacier. "Yes, Young Noble."
Her Pure Jade Physique—enhanced and evolved by Ling Feng's chaotic influence—lit up beneath her robes. Her meridians didn't just glow; they pulsed with a strange, alien rhythm.
She stepped forward.
ROAR!
A dragon's roar shook the yellow sky. The Frost Dragon Sword leapt into her hand. But this was not the standard sword art. Infused with the Chaos Force, the ice wasn't just cold; it was absolute zero.
With a single step, she disappeared.
The next moment, a frost lotus bloomed in the middle of the enemy formation.
The three Royal Nobles froze mid-technique. Their Life Wheels stopped spinning. Their Dao Seals cracked audibly. The ice didn't just freeze their skin; it froze their spiritual energy.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three heads rolled across the ground, their faces still frozen in expressions of aggressive shouting. Their bodies shattered into ice dust a second later.
"Baojiao," Ling Feng said, pointing to the left where a hulking armored warrior was charging.
Chen Baojiao's lips curled into a feral, breathtaking smile. She cracked her knuckles. "I've been itching for this."
Her Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique erupted.
Usually, this physique was about explosive power, but fueled by the Chaos Force, it became a natural disaster. The ground under her feet shattered into powder as she shot forward. She moved so fast she left a trench of fire in her wake.
The armored warrior, a Royal Noble known for his defense, raised his halberd and shield. "You dare, little girl?!"
Chen Baojiao didn't use a weapon. She used her palm.
[Violent Cloud Chant + Chaos Amplification]
She slammed her palm into his shield.
CRUNCH.
The shield exploded. The armor exploded. The chest beneath the armor exploded.
The warrior didn't fly back. He disintegrated backward. A cone of destruction blew out behind him, carving a path through the crowd. Chen Baojiao stood amidst the gore, her aura tyrannical and dominating, looking like a Valkyrie of war.
"Weak," she scoffed.
Finally, an Enlightened Being from a lesser Ancient Kingdom, seeing his allies fall, began to frantically chant a sealing mantra from the backlines, trying to subdue Ling Feng with a curse.
Xu Pei, the gentlest of the group, stepped forward quietly. Her eyes were sharp.
"Feng," she said softly, her voice filled with devotion, "I'll take care of that one."
Four Fate Palaces rose behind her—but they were intertwined with the spectral image of Chaos Emeralds. The energy was violent, churning like a storm, yet she controlled it with delicate precision.
She raised one jade finger.
"Violent Cloud Finger."
A beam of compressed cloud energy, spiraling like a drill, shot out from her fingertip. It ripped open the void, leaving a black scar in the air.
The Enlightened Being screamed, activating every talisman and life treasure he owned. A golden barrier, a turtle shell shield, a wall of runes—all activated at once.
The beam didn't care. It punched through the gold, shattered the shell, erased the runes, and continued in a perfectly straight line.
A tiny, neat hole appeared in the middle of the Enlightened Being's brows.
His soul was shattered before his brain could register the pain. He slumped over, dead.
Silence.
Absolute, terrified silence descended upon the Underworld River.
The earlier tide of righteous indignation, the shouts about the "rules of the Burial Ground," the arrogance of the great sects—it all evaporated like mist under the morning sun.
These weren't empty threats. These were powerhouses. Royal Nobles and Enlightened Beings who usually strutted across the regions as overlords, treated as gods by mortals.
In front of Ling Feng and the three beautiful women at his side, they were slaughtered like chickens in a butcher's yard.
On the Divine Sword Sacred Ground's side, the envoy froze mid-draw. His sword never left its sheath. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He realized that if he drew that sword, he would be next.
On the Heavenly Dao Academy's ark, the old scholar slowly lowered his whisk. His cloudy eyes, previously filled with disdain, were now sharp with something between fear and intense academic interest. "What sort of Dao is that?" he murmured. "It ignores the Laws…"
On the Azure Mysterious fortress, the remaining experts clenched their fists so tight their knuckles turned white. They were humiliated. Their companion was headless on the deck. But not one of them dared to step forward. The fear of death outweighed their pride.
Ling Feng swept his gaze across all of them. His eyes were cold, devoid of the earlier playfulness.
"You all should be grateful I'm in a good mood," he said, his voice flat but carrying across the entire riverbank. "I delivered your War God to a proper boat. I gave the Princess of the Middle Continent a fair shot at another life. And I even put on a free fireworks show with your friends' heads."
He lifted his hand, extending his middle finger toward the gathered elites, corpse merchants, and ancient monsters.
"Anyone who wants to test me further…"
He smiled. It was a bright smile. It was a handsome smile. But it was utterly without warmth.
"Fuck off, or line up to die. Your choice."
The death wind howled, carrying his vulgar ultimatum across the silent river.
No one answered.
They couldn't. Not without paying a price they were suddenly very unwilling to pay.
The Underworld River continued flowing. Boats drifted, Earth Corpses boarded, Treasure Lords struggled in the distance. But around Ling Feng's position, a wide, empty ring formed. It was a zone of absolute exclusion, as if an invisible plague surrounded him.