The wind howled across Backridge City's fractured plaza, carrying the acrid tang of scorched stone and a faint metallic hint of blood. Yan Han stood on the edge of despair, fists clenched until his knuckles gleamed white against the bruised purple of his calloused hands.
His dark eyes, sharp as a hawk's, cut through the haze of dust and resentment thickening the air. His face, once a canvas of youthful arrogance, had hardened into a mask of grim resolve, etched with lines carved by a single, relentless question gnawing at his soul.
"Could a mere whisper have shaken my aura?" he muttered, his voice a faint rasp beneath the wailing wind. Disbelief clashed with fury in his trembling tone, his lips twisting into a bitter sneer as he glared into the abyss before him.
The thought slithered through his mind like a venomous snake, its fangs sinking deeper with each pulse of his racing heart. His mystical power—overwhelming, suffocating, forged through years of unyielding discipline—had wavered. Someone had dared to defy it.
"Who dares?!" he bellowed, his voice splitting the air like a thunderbolt, startling a flock of birds into frantic flight from the rooftops.
His chest heaved, broad shoulders rising and falling as he paced the plaza's edge, boots crunching splintered stone. The void before him churned, a swirling abyss of shadow and starlight, as if reality itself recoiled from the answer about to emerge.
From that roiling darkness stepped a figure, his silhouette framed by ethereal mist clinging to him like a divine cloak. Qin Ting descended as if the heavens had parted to grant him passage, each step resonating with quiet, unshakable authority.
His robe rippled in the wind, catching fractured sunlight in a way that made him seem less man, more celestial being summoned to earth. His features were sharp yet serene—high cheekbones, a jawline like carved jade, and eyes shimmering with fathomless blue. The air hummed with the weight of his presence.
The crowd—disciples, merchants, wandering cultivators—parted instinctively, their murmurs fading into reverent silence. Xuantian Sect disciples, clad in flowing midnight robes adorned with their sect's sigil, erupted in unrestrained joy.
They surged forward, dropping to their knees in synchronized devotion, foreheads brushing cracked stone. "Greetings, Senior Brother Qin Ting!" their voices rang out, clear and fervent, echoing through the marketplace. "We thank you for descending to our aid!" The sound swelled, a tide of gratitude and pride, as they gazed upon their savior.
Xu Hao felt relief crash over him, washing away the bitter fear lingering since the ambush. His chest heaved with a ragged breath, hands trembling as he knelt among his peers. "With Senior Brother here, the Yuanshi dogs don't stand a chance," he whispered fiercely, his voice a low growl of renewed determination.
He glanced at his fellow disciples—Mei Lin, her fierce gaze fixed on Qin Ting as she gripped her sheathed blade, and Chen Yu, his broad shoulders bearing the weight of their earlier retreat, fists clenched in silent resolve—and saw the same fire reignite in their eyes. They were cherished heirs of noble clans, prodigies shaped by destiny. When had they ever bowed to humiliation?
Mei Lin rose, brushing dust from her robes with a sharp flick. "The Yuanshi Gate Sect dared to strike like thieves in the night," she spat, her voice slicing through the murmurs like a blade.
Xu Hao still felt the sting of the first cut across his arm, the hot rush of blood as he parried a second blow. They had fought valiantly, their mystical techniques lighting the dusk with bursts of flame and ice.
But the Yuanshi's reinforcements arrived: an expert whose aura alone pressed them to their knees, a suffocating weight mocking their pride. The Yuanshi Gate Sect had no honor, using raw power to grind rivals into submission, all to tarnish the Xuantian Sect's name.
Now, with Qin Ting before them, the disciples saw Yan Han's venomous scheme clearly. This wasn't just a skirmish—it was a calculated disgrace to cripple their sect's reputation across the Eastern Wilderness. And Yan Han, that sneering viper, was its architect.
"Qin Ting?!" Yan Han's voice slashed through the air like a whip, raw with barely contained fury.
His face darkened, storm clouds gathering in his furrowed brow as he locked eyes with the newcomer. His stance widened, as if bracing against an unseen tide. He eyed Qin Ting with the wariness of a cornered beast sensing the hunter's arrival. "You think you can stroll in here and make me cower?" he snarled, fingers twitching near his sword's hilt.
Yan Han was no weakling. A True Disciple of the Yuanshi Gate Sect, one of the cultivation world's hallowed holy lands, his name carried weight. His lineage traced to revered elders, his grandfather a towering figure whose influence spanned continents.
Yet, Yan Han's star dimmed beside Qin Ting's blazing comet. Less than a month ago, the eastern skies had flared as Qin Ting ascended to the Divine Spirit Realm at eighteen—a feat that sent shockwaves through every sect, his name whispered in awe from villages to gilded halls.
"Think I'm afraid of you?!" Yan Han spat, defiance flaring in his chest like a sparked ember. His shoulders squared as he drew his sword with a sharp metallic hiss cutting through the tension.
"I've crossed blades with the Holy Son of Yuanshi. If I can stand against him, I can stand against you, Qin Ting!" He brandished the blade, its edge glinting ominously as he assumed a fighting stance, body coiled like a spring.
The memory of those clashes fueled his resolve. In the Yuanshi Gate Sect's shadowed training grounds, Yan Han had faced the Holy Son—a figure cloaked in golden radiance, each strike a hymn of destruction. Victory eluded Yan Han, but he had never fully crumpled. Each bout left him bloodied yet unbowed, a testament to his tenacity.
"I'm no lesser talent," he growled under his breath, the words a mantra against doubt. "I, too, am a son of the heavens."
To Yan Han, Qin Ting was more than a rival—a prize. The Xuantian Sect's destined Holy Son, whose defeat would ignite Yan Han's legend. His name would blaze across the Eastern Wilderness, his standing in the sect eclipsing even the Holy Son's. With his grandfather's backing, the title might be his. The plan unfolded in his mind: 'Why should I fear him when our power is so alike?'
He lunged, his sword slashing in a brutal upward arc toward Qin Ting's throat, only for it to be sidestepped.
Qin Ting's gaze flickered with mockery in his fathomless blue eyes. He saw through Yan Han's bravado as easily as through a cracked windowpane, reading the desperate ambition beneath.
"Courting death," Qin Ting murmured, his voice soft yet heavy as a death knell, audible only to himself.
The Holy Son of Yuanshi was a titan whose skill Qin Ting might acknowledge. But Yan Han? A speck, a pretender propped up by lineage, his Divine Spirit Realm status a gift forced by ancestors, not earned.
'A faint path stretches before him,' Qin Ting mused, lips barely moving. 'Orchestrating a successful ambush would be a miracle for such a pitiful insect.'
Yan Han caught the disdain in that glance, rage twisting his features into a snarl. "How dare you look down on me?!" he bellowed, spit flying as he thrust his sword forward again. "I'm an immortal expert too—I'll carve that arrogance from your face!"
The air shrieked as a white streak flashed forth—a sword's radiant arc slashing toward Qin Ting's brow, swift as a thunderbolt, inescapable as fate. It was no mere blade but a torrent of mystical power, honed to sunder stone and spirit alike.
The crowd gasped, stumbling back as the light blazed, only to freeze mid-flight. Qin Ting raised his right hand, catching the sword energy between two fingers with the grace of plucking a petal from the wind.
"Enough of your childish tantrums," Qin Ting said, his voice calm yet laced with an icy edge that silenced the plaza.
He flicked his fingers, and the white gleam shattered with a deafening crash, splintering into motes of light that swirled back into Yan Han's grip, reforming as a gleaming longsword.
Its aura pulsed—still as the abyss, then chaotic as a storm-tossed sea—before erupting into a relentless barrage.
"Die!" Yan Han screamed, his voice hoarse as waves of frigid sword light surged toward Qin Ting, each strike a howl of defiance, a desperate bid to prove his worth.
Qin Ting observed the assault, unshaken, as if sculpted from ice. "You overestimate yourself, mongrel," he remarked coolly, raising a single finger.
Just one.
The heavens trembled. A colossal finger materialized from the sky, vast as a mountain peak, its surface etched with glowing runes pulsing with eternity's weight.
It descended with inexorable force, the air screaming as the ground buckled. The plaza sank over ten feet, stone fracturing into jagged fissures.
Yan Han's sword light shattered like glass against a hammer, the backlash spraying blood from his mouth as his face drained to a ghostly pallor.
"No—impossible!" Yan Han choked, knees buckling as he staggered back, clutching his chest. The finger struck, and the city quaked as if gripped by an ancient god's wrath.
Dust billowed in choking clouds, the distant Lian Yun Mountain Range shuddering against the horizon.
Yan Han roared, a beast ensnared, but his defiance was a fleeting spark. His robes disintegrated into ash, leaving him naked, his body fragile as a reed in the wind.
Blood streaked his chest, his spirit fractured, his pride ground to dust beneath that merciless blow.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping, his sword clattering uselessly beside him. "I… I am Yan Han…" he rasped, his voice a broken whisper, "True Disciple of Yuanshi… I can't fall… not like this…"
Silence fell, thick and unyielding. The Xuantian disciples stood frozen, awe laced with fear.
Xu Hao's breath hitched, relief souring into dread. "Is this the chasm between us and him?" he murmured, the words cutting deep.
Mei Lin's grip tightened on her sword hilt, lips thinning into a taut line. Chen Yu, towering and unyielding, stared in stillness, his massive form carved from stone.
Yan Han, a True Disciple of the Yuanshi Gate Sect, lay defeated—felled by Qin Ting with a single finger. An immortal brought low, a fleeting dream snuffed out.
As the dust settled, Qin Ting turned away, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. The man crumpled at his feet was a mere pebble in his path—insignificant, broken. "The Yuanshi Gate Sect will hear of this," he murmured, his voice a soft thread woven with quiet menace. "And they will come to understand the folly of challenging me."