The words were light, spoken with the casual inflection of a man deciding what to have for dinner.
But across the expanse of Ancient Sky City, countless hearts skipped a beat. It was a primal reaction, a biological warning signal screaming that wherever this youth walked, the laws of survival changed.
That place became a Forbidden Ground.
Behind them, the Heavenly God Sect's heavenly grotto was still burning.
It wasn't the crackling, lively fire of a campfire. This was the aftermath-fire—a heavy, oily smoke rolling across the ruins, choking the sky. Divine runes, once imperishable, were breaking apart in the air like grey ash. The cloying, acrid scent of scorched Refined Jades and melted formation nodes hung thick in the air. This soil had been deemed "holy" for ten thousand years, worshipped by mortals and cultivators alike.
Now, it looked like a butcher's yard built on sacred stone.
The Nine Saint Elder stumbled as he stepped through the shattered remains of the sect gate. He blinked rapidly against the smoke, looking like a man desperately trying to wake from a nightmare. He cast one trembling glance backward—at the kneeling survivors who had lost their cultivation, at the cracked guardian statues weeping dust, at the collapsed preaching hall where Ancestors once sat high above the clouds.
His legs turned to water.
"Y-you… you're really going… again?" he rasped, his voice thin and dry.
He didn't dare say where. He didn't dare say to whom.
Because in the Nine Worlds, names carried weight. Some names were mountains that blocked the path. Some names were storms that ravaged the land. And one name—Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom—was the kind of cataclysm that crushed storms for sport. They were a double-Emperor lineage, a colossus that had stood since the Desolate Era.
Li Shuangyan walked beside Ling Feng. Her veil was still in place, fluttering slightly in the updraft of heat. The blood on her sword was already evaporating into a thin, crimson mist, purified by her energy. Her face was calm, a mask of ice jade, but her eyes… her eyes were a turbulence of emotion.
It wasn't fear. It was the quiet, bone-deep chill of realizing the next step would cut off all retreat. They were crossing the Rubicon.
Chen Baojiao rolled her shoulders, the movement loose and feline. Her saber hung low at her side. The fierce joy in her grin hadn't faded; if anything, it had sharpened, like a tigress tasting the scent of bigger prey on the wind.
Xu Pei kept her hand on the rim of her dark-green cauldron. Her fingers were white-knuckled, grounding herself against the cold metal. She was breathing a little fast, the adrenaline of the slaughter still coursing through her veins, but her gaze stayed locked forward—stubborn, refusing to shrink away.
And Bai Jianzhen…
Bai Jianzhen was, as always, a blade pretending to be a person.
She walked with her black sword hugged to her chest, her white sleeves pristine despite the carnage behind them. She looked ahead, expression blank, but that faint, terrifying brightness in her eyes had returned. It was the look of a craftsman who had just found a new material to test their tools on.
The Elder swallowed a lump of terror. "Young Noble Ling… Azure Mysterious is not the Heavenly God Sect. They have ancient foundations, deeper than the sea. If you destroy their heavenly grotto here, their Main Kingdom will—"
"—Retaliate?" Chen Baojiao finished for him, the corner of her mouth quirked in amusement. "Good. Let them."
The Elder's face twitched violently. He looked ready to pass out.
Xu Pei whispered, almost to herself, "They… they will mobilize the Ancestors. The old monsters buried in Blood Era Stones."
"Mn." Li Shuangyan's voice was soft, melodic yet cold. "They value face above life. If their heavenly grotto is humiliated in Ancient Sky City, they will not endure it. They will burn the sky to wash away the stain."
Bai Jianzhen added, simple as a final verdict: "If they come, cut them."
The Elder stared at her as if she had spoken absolute madness.
Then his desperate gaze jerked to Ling Feng. "Young Noble… if Azure Mysterious and the Heavenly God Sect join hands again… even if you are strong, this is the Grand Middle Territory! There are existences above Ancient Saints. There are… Virtuous Paragons…"
He said the last title like it was a crack of thunder. In the Nine Worlds, a Virtuous Paragon was no longer just "someone's ancestor." It was the realm where the user began to construct their own Grand Dao. It was the level where the world itself started treating you like a Law.
Ling Feng listened with his hands in his pockets, his posture lazy, as if the Elder were reciting the weekly weather forecast. He kicked a loose pebble, watching it skitter over the broken pavement, then glanced sideways at the old man.
"You're shaking, old man," Ling Feng said.
The Elder choked. "T-this old one is not—"
"You are," Ling Feng interrupted, his tone calm. "It's fine. I'd be shaking too if I were you. It's a normal reaction to seeing the ceiling of your world crumble."
That made the Elder's face contort in confusion. The words were oddly… human. Not the condescending sneer of a Young Master, nor the archaic mockery of an old monster. Just matter-of-fact.
Then Ling Feng's tone softened, a warmth bleeding into the edges of his voice as he looked at his women.
"Listen," he said, nodding toward the smoking ruin behind them. "Heavenly God Sect already tried the 'big move.' They tried the formations, the blood sacrifices. Didn't work. Azure Mysterious tried sneaking their people in to ambush us. Didn't work."
Li Shuangyan's gaze sharpened, sensing the intent behind his words. "Young Noble means…"
"I mean retaliation is just noise," Ling Feng said, waving a hand near his ear as if brushing away a persistent fly. "And you know I hate noise. It ruins the vibe."
He turned his head slightly, his eyes half-lidded, looking past the smoking ruins of Ancient Sky City and straight through the fabric of space, gazing toward a distant coordinate.
"The Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect's main gate…" he said slowly, "…is already wrapped."
Chen Baojiao blinked, her saber rattling slightly. "Wrapped?"
Ling Feng smirked, a boyish expression that belied the terror of his power. "I took our sect's formations and made them… polite."
The Elder's eyelids twitched. "Polite?"
Ling Feng nodded. "Polite enough that if some old freak at the Virtuous Paragon level decides to kick the door in, the formations will force him to sit down and cool off. Indefinitely."
The Elder's mouth fell open, his jaw unhinged.
Suppressing a Virtuous Paragon? That wasn't a joke. That wasn't a bluff. That was a feat reserved for Immortal Emperors or the apex of Legendary Alchemy.
"You… you can suppress Virtuous Paragons?" the Elder croaked, his worldview fracturing.
Ling Feng shrugged, looking bored again. "Those formations can suppress them enough. I'm not chaining them forever; that takes too much effort. I'm just making sure they don't feel like causing any trouble while I'm out shopping."
He paused, then added, his voice casual but laced with a terrifying, absolute certainty: "If they insist on standing anyway, then I'll squash them back to the Yellow Springs. No big deal."
Li Shuangyan's lips didn't move, but something in her eyes thawed—a profound sense of security washing over her.
"And Nine Saint?" Xu Pei asked quietly, her concern for her sister disciples evident. "Feng… The Nine Saint Demon Gate will be targeted again. We are the reason for this conflict."
Ling Feng's gaze slid to Li Shuangyan. The casualness evaporated, replaced by a genuine, grounding sincerity.
"I'm not letting your home burn, Shuangyan. And I'm not letting your people bleed again."
Li Shuangyan's long lashes lowered by a fraction. The veil hid her face, but it couldn't hide the faint tremor in her aura—a mixture of gratitude and something deeper.
Ling Feng nodded once. "After we're done here, I'll lay the same kind of 'polite' formations around the Nine Saint Demon Gate. No repeat performances. I prefer my drama on TV, not in real life."
The Elder let out a shaky breath, a sound like a dying bellows.
Then, the nagging fear returned, forcing him to speak. "But Azure Mysterious… their main kingdom… The Heavenly Prince Qing Xuan… and Grandpa Guan…"
Grandpa Guan—one of Azure Mysterious's old guards. A legend. He was famous for being cautious, cunning, and terrifyingly experienced.
Ling Feng curled his brow for a moment. He recalled the original timeline. Grandpa Guan was a tragic figure who died trying to escape the Evil Typha Tree in the Evil Infested Ridge. But in this reality, Ling Feng had single-handedly cut that tree in half days ago. That meant Grandpa Guan was still alive.
'Not that it matters,' Ling Feng thought. 'That old fogey is merely an Ancient Saint. A big fish in a small pond.'
For a heartbeat, the air near Ling Feng's sleeve warmed.
A tiny, almost invisible wisp of Chaos Force pulsed—like a text message passing through a fiber-optic cable.
He made a small sound. "Huh."
Chen Baojiao leaned in, the scent of wildflowers and steel following her. "What?"
Ling Feng smiled, but it wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of a hunter finding an empty den. "Looks like that Heavenly Prince and Grandpa Guan aren't in the grotto."
Xu Pei's brows rose in surprise. "How do you know?"
Ling Feng tapped his sleeve lightly. "My power sent a little heads-up. It pinged me. Said their scent ran the moment the Heavenly God Sect's grotto fell. They booked it."
The Elder didn't understand the slang, but he understood the context.
"They… fled?" he whispered, scandalized.
Ling Feng nodded. "Smart. Cowardly, but smart. Still useless."
Li Shuangyan's voice turned cold, disdain dripping from every syllable. "So they abandon their people. Their disciples."
"That's how big heritages stay big," Ling Feng said, kicking a piece of debris. "They treat regular members like NPCs. Expendable. They sacrifice whoever can be replaced to save the 'important' pieces."
Bai Jianzhen's fingers tightened on her sword until her knuckles turned white. "Disgusting."
Chen Baojiao laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Normal."
Xu Pei's face paled, then steadied, her resolve hardening into iron. "Then… even more reason to tear it down."
Ling Feng turned fully, looking at the four women. He wasn't looking at their cultivation; he was checking their hearts.
"Last chance," he said lightly, hands resting on his hips. "Azure Mysterious is going to scream. The whole city is going to watch. If you're tired, say so. I can handle the trash myself."
Chen Baojiao's grin widened, feral and beautiful. "Tired? This Princess is just getting hot."
Li Shuangyan lifted her chin slightly, the arrogance of the Pure Jade Physique manifesting. "Nine Saint's blood is not something others can spill and walk away from."
Xu Pei swallowed—then nodded hard. "Feng… I can do it. I won't fall behind."
Bai Jianzhen's answer was the simplest, cutting through the rhetoric. "Where is the enemy?"
Ling Feng's eyes softened for half a beat. He reached out, almost subconsciously, and brushed a stray lock of hair from Xu Pei's forehead, a touch of startling tenderness amidst the killing intent.
Then his gaze went sharp again.
"Good," he said. "Then it's time to crash the party."
He grabbed the Nine Saint Elder by the collar again, just like before.
The Elder flinched violently. "Y-Young Noble, this old one—"
"Breathe in," Ling Feng advised. "If you puke on my shoes, Shuangyan's going to laugh at you."
Li Shuangyan's voice, perfectly calm: "This Shuangyan will not laugh."
Chen Baojiao: "I will. Definitely."
Xu Pei covered her mouth, eyes wide.
Bai Jianzhen: "…Noisy."
Ling Feng snapped his fingers.
Snap.
The sound was louder than it should have been. The world folded. Distance became irrelevant. The laws of physics shrugged and looked the other way.
...
Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom's Heavenly Grotto
If the Heavenly God Sect was a fortress of war, Azure Mysterious was a monument to arrogance.
Heavenly God Sect was sharp—sun banners, lightning motifs, aggressive formation geometry meant to intimidate.
Azure Mysterious was simply… expensive. It was built to suffocate you with wealth and history.
Their walls were carved with ancient beasts and royal patterns, every inch of stone soaked in the blood and sweat of history. Their gates were inlaid with Refined Jades the size of fists, treated like cheap paving stones. Even the air felt premium—spirit energy filtered through seventeen layers of defensive arrays until it was thick, smooth, and intoxicatingly pure.
It was the kind of place built to say: Kneel. You are poor. You are weak. We are eternal.
Dozens of disciples stood guard in ceremonial armor that cost more than a small sect's entire treasury. There were Elders on the high towers, scanning the horizon with Divine Mirrors, looking for threats from miles away.
For one heartbeat, everything was stable. The birds sang. The fountains flowed.
Then, five figures appeared in the middle of their main courtyard as if the universe had hiccupped.
No formation ripple. No warning flare. No tearing of the void.
They were simply there.
For a second, the guards blinked, brains failing to process the intrusion.
Then, an alarm talisman shrieked—a high-pitched, soul-grating wail.
"Enemy—!"
"Seal the space! Lock the array!"
"Who dares trespass Azure Mysterious—?!"
Ling Feng looked around, eyes half-lidded, unimpressed by the golden pillars and jade roofs. He bounced his heel once on their floor—floorboards made of Blue Spirit Wood, worth a thousand gold pieces an inch.
"Mm," he said, scratching his chin. "You guys really spent the budget on the decorations, huh? A bit tacky, if you ask me."
A Tower Elder barked, his voice booming through an amplification array: "Insolent junior! State your name and lineage! Kneel and accept death!"
Ling Feng smiled. It was bright, lazy, and completely out of place.
"I'm Ling Feng," he said, his voice projecting without effort, drowning out the Elder's amplified shout. Then he tilted his head. "And I'm here because you all forgot your place."
The courtyard went deathly still.
A disciple's face reddened with rage, his veins bulging. "Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom has ruled these lands for millions of years! We are the descendants of—"
Ling Feng cut him off, his voice casual, almost friendly.
"Yeah, yeah. You're old. You're great. You're scary. Blah blah blah." He waved a hand dismissively. "Listen, I'm not here to hear a bedtime story."
His gaze sharpened, the modern slacker vanishing, replaced by the ancient predator.
"I'm here because you marched with Heavenly God Sect to crush the Nine Saint Demon Gate. You wanted to play the bully." His words fell like stones into a calm lake. "And the moment you smelled blood, you tried to run. You thought you could ghost us."
An Elder stepped forward from the main hall, his aura flaring—an Enlightened Being. Seven Stars manifested behind his head, rotating with crushing pressure.
"You dare slander our Ancient Kingdom—!"
Ling Feng sighed, a long, exaggerated exhale.
"Talking to you guys is like talking to a brick wall. A really pompous brick wall."
He turned to his women.
"Alright," he said, his voice warm again, intimate. "Go wild. Wreck the place."
The four auras detonated.
Li Shuangyan moved first. Her Pure Jade Physique bloomed—a radiance that wasn't just light, but a rejection of all impurities. It was clean, cold, and terrifyingly refined. The world seemed to distance itself from her, unable to touch her perfection.
Chen Baojiao's Tyrannical Immortal Springs Physique roared to life. It sounded like a tsunami crashing inside her veins. Vitality twisted into violent, hungry currents that distorted the air around her.
Xu Pei's hands danced. The Violent Cloud Chant spun up—no longer the wasteful chaos of her past, but a compressed, rotating storm intent, guided by Chaos Energy.
And Bai Jianzhen stepped forward. Her sword left its sheath. It was a sound like a quiet funeral bell.
What followed wasn't a fight.
It was a collapse.
A Named Hero, clad in golden armor, rushed Li Shuangyan with a treasure spear that hummed with lightning. "Die, witch!"
Li Shuangyan didn't even blink. She stepped—a movement that seemed to slide through the gaps in reality. She cut once.
Clang.
The treasure spear shattered like thin ice. The Named Hero's defensive light, capable of stopping a mountain, evaporated. He didn't even have time to scream before his Life Wheel cracked, and his body burst into a mist of blood and bone.
"Too slow," she murmured, stepping through the crimson mist without a drop touching her robes.
A squad of Royal Nobles tried to surround Chen Baojiao, forming a killing array. "Suppress her!"
Baojiao laughed, throwing her head back. She didn't dodge. She let their attacks hit her.
Boom!
The energy struck her Tyrannical Physique and was instantly swallowed, churned, and amplified.
"Is that it?" she mocked. "My turn."
She swung her saber. The energy she absorbed was rebirthed as a doubled, crushing counter-wave. The earth buckled. The Royal Nobles flew apart like broken dolls, their armor crumpling like tin foil.
Xu Pei raised her hands, palms trembling slightly. Above the courtyard, the sky darkened.
"Drop," she whispered.
A pillar of concentrated storm clouds dropped with surgical precision. It didn't hit the ground randomly; it shredded a specific formation node. The Elders standing on it screamed as the backlash turned them into ash instantly. Xu Pei inhaled sharply, her eyes burning brighter. The next will be better.
Bai Jianzhen cut once.
A clean, black line appeared in the air, hanging there for a second.
Three Elders, preparing a combined spell, suddenly stopped moving.
Their heads slid off their necks.
No flourish. No screaming name. Just "cut," and the world obeyed the logic of the sword.
The Azure Mysterious disciples broke. The morale that had held for ten thousand years shattered in ten seconds.
"Run—!"
"Activate the Ancestral Defense!"
"Call the Kingdom! Summon the army!"
Ling Feng watched it all like a man watching children throw tantrums in a sandbox. He stood in the center of the chaos, untouched, unbothered.
Then, the deeper layers of the grotto trembled.
Ancient Saint pressure rose from the earth—heavy, old, and furious. It felt like the gravity had suddenly doubled.
Boom!
A bronze chariot burst out of an inner hall, smashing through the jade doors. Runes blazed across its frame, depicting four ancient wars. On it stood a man with sharp brows and eyes colder than a winter storm, his aura rolling like a tide of steel.
"Who dares!" he roared, his voice shaking the foundations. "This is Azure Mysterious! I am Qingxuan Yuanhe!"
The younger brother of the Azure Mysterious Mortal King. The man tied to the legendary Tetra-War Bronze Chariot.
Behind him, several other Ancient Saints rose—each one carrying the heavy, dusty scent of time. They had the arrogance of beings who had lived too long to fear death.
The Nine Saint Elder behind Ling Feng turned paper-white, clutching his chest.
"T-that is Qingxuan Yuanhe… and those are… those are Ancient Saints! Real Ancient Saints!"
Ling Feng nodded, polite as could be, hands still in his pockets.
"Hey," he said, waving like he was greeting a neighbor while taking out the trash. "Finally, the adults came out to play."
Qingxuan Yuanhe's gaze swept the burning courtyard. He saw the shattered formations. He saw the paste that used to be his disciples.
Then he saw Li Shuangyan.
His pupils shrank to pinpricks. Rage twisted his handsome face into something ugly. "Li Shuangyan! So it's you! The Nine Saint Demon Gate seeks extermination!"
Ling Feng sighed. He stepped in front of Li Shuangyan, blocking the Ancient Saint's gaze.
"Nah," he said. "It's me. Look at me."
He took one step forward.
The air changed.
The Chaos Force inside him didn't explode outward. It settled. It became heavy.
It was like the sky lowering itself to touch the earth. Like a calm sea suddenly turning still before a tsunami hits.
"You came out," Ling Feng said, his tone mild. "Good. Saves me the time of digging you out of your holes."
Qingxuan Yuanhe roared, his pride stung by this junior's casual attitude. "Die!"
He drove the Tetra-War Bronze Chariot forward. The runes flared, ancient war spirits manifesting. A battlefield-level killing technique condensed on the prow of the chariot, aimed straight at Ling Feng.
It was an attack that could level a mountain range.
Ling Feng didn't dodge. He didn't summon a shield.
He lifted his hand.
And the world answered.
A sword law formed—but it wasn't a normal sword intent. It wasn't a standard Grand Dao. It drew from the environment itself—from the sky above the heavenly grotto, from the crushed jade underfoot, from the drifting smoke and shattered runes.
Chaos World Attacking Sword Immortal Law.
The heavens above the courtyard seemed to unzip.
A rain of star-wreathed swords dropped. Each blade was surrounded by chaotic light, twisting grey and black. Each one carried the weight of a world pressing down.
CRASH.
Qingxuan Yuanhe's chariot rune-screen flared, trying to resist the bombardment.
It lasted half a breath.
The first sword pinned the chariot to the ground, shattering the wheels.
The second split the rune-screen like a hot knife through butter.
The third went through Qingxuan Yuanhe's chest like he was made of wet paper.
His roar cut off mid-sound.
His eyes widened, disbelief flooding in. I am an Ancient Saint… I have the Chariot…
Then the star-sword's pressure expanded.
Pop.
It was a quiet sound. Qingxuan Yuanhe's Life Wheel was crushed. His body disintegrated into light particles.
One move.
An Ancient Saint, erased.
The Tetra-War Bronze Chariot screamed—the spirit within it sensing the death of its master, trying to flee into the void.
Ling Feng's gaze flicked toward it.
"Sit," he commanded.
Chains of thick, grey Chaos energy erupted from the void, wrapping around the bronze chariot. The treasure struggled, buzzing like a trapped hornet, but the Chaos energy simply absorbed its resistance.
With a wave of his sleeve, the massive chariot was sucked into his Inner Void.
Ling Feng muttered. "That's mine now."
The other Ancient Saints behind the chariot froze in mid-air.
They had prepared to suppress a junior. They had prepared to lecture him on the immensity of heaven and earth.
Instead, they had watched one of their leading figures get deleted like an ant against a tiger.