The dusty street in front of the Ling Clan manor, which had moments ago been a stage for a petty regional rivalry, was suddenly plunged into a vacuum of absolute, suffocating terror.
The air itself seemed to curdle as Shen Haoran's gaze locked onto the man who had once been a legend in the Upper Realms.
Without wasting another second, before the sound of his own voice had even finished echoing against the stone walls, Haoran moved.
To the observers, he vanished and reappeared in a single frame of reality.
Then, he reached out with a hand that felt like cold iron, grabbed Jiang Chen's face with a grip that threatened to shatter his skull, and slammed him into the ground.
The impact was deafening.
The heavy cobblestones of Fragrant Flower City, reinforced by centuries of minor earth-qi, splintered like brittle glass.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward, reaching the feet of the horrified bystanders.
