The silence that descended upon the valley following Ling Feng's insult was not merely quiet; it was a physical weight, heavy enough to crush a mortal's lungs. It was the kind of silence that precedes a cataclysm.
The Heavenly God Dao Child stood frozen. His face, usually a mask of haughty disdain, underwent a fascinating chromatic transformation. It shifted from the pale white of shock to a flushed crimson of embarrassment, and finally settled on a deep, liver-purple hue of apoplectic rage.
He was the Chosen One of the Heavenly God Sect. He was a genius whose name was sung by bards in the teahouses of the Grand Middle Territory. Royal Nobles bowed when he passed; lesser sects scrambled to offer him their finest treasures just for a glance. Yet, this grey-robed nobody, this mortal with no aura and a loose tongue, had spoken to him as if he were street trash.
"You... you low-born animal!"
The roar tore from the Dao Child's throat, vibrating with spiritual energy. His golden robes snapped violently, not from the wind, but from the explosion of his own power.
Boom!
A pillar of violet blood energy erupted from his crown, piercing the clouds. Above his head, the fabric of space twisted as five majestic Fate Palaces manifested. They aligned in a halo of dominance, pouring down a torrential pressure that forced the surrounding loose gravel to grind into dust.
"You dare insult me? You dare humiliate the Heavenly God Sect?" His eyes burned with murderous light. "Today, I will flay the skin from your bones! I will hang your corpse at the entrance of the Ridge as a bloody warning to all monkeys who do not know the immensity of Heaven and Earth!"
Ling Feng watched the light show with half-lidded eyes, looking as threatened as a man watching a slightly aggressive pigeon. He dug a pinky into his ear, wiggling it around before blowing off an imaginary speck of wax.
"Blah, blah, blah. 'Skin you alive,' 'immensity of Heaven and Earth.' Do you cultivation types have a shared Google Doc for insults? It's getting repetitive," Ling Feng yawned, his voice cutting through the thrumming energy with casual boredom.
He glanced at Chen Baojiao and winked. "See what I mean? Zero creativity. It's like talking to a glitched chat-bot that only knows three lines."
Chen Baojiao covered her mouth, her beautiful autumn-water eyes widening. A strange thrill, electric and unfamiliar, shot down her spine. She knew she should be terrified—the Heavenly God Sect was a titan—but seeing this mysterious man treat the terrifying Dao Child like an annoying internet troll was... cathartic.
"Die!"
The Dao Child's rationality snapped. He didn't care about the rules of the gathering anymore. He only wanted to turn this smirking face into meat paste.
"Heavenly God's Palm!"
He thrust his hand forward. The blood energy in the sky roiled and collapsed inward, condensing into a massive, spectral palm. It was the size of a small mountain peak, wreathed in ancient, glowing runes that carried the crushing weight of the Earth Dao. The air screamed as it was compressed, and the ground beneath Ling Feng instantly spider-webbed into a crater from the sheer atmospheric pressure.
It was a strike meant to obliterate.
Ling Feng didn't blink. He didn't shift his stance. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets. He just watched the descending annihilation with the expression of someone waiting for a microwave burrito to finish heating.
"Shuangyan," Ling Feng muttered, a lazy command that barely rose above a whisper. "If he touches even the stitching on my hem, I'm docking your spirit stones."
"Understood."
The reply was instantaneous, cool as a mountain spring.
Before the giant palm could crush them, a figure blurred into existence between Ling Feng and the falling sky.
In the original timeline, Li Shuangyan would have fought the Dao Child to a draw, using this moment to temper her cultivation. But today, she was not just the descendant of the Old Ox; she was a conduit for the Chaos Force.
She did not unsheathe a sword. She did not chant a mantra. She simply raised her delicate, jade-like hand.
Her Pure Jade Physique activated. Usually, this physique created a domain that repelled all evil and nullified arts. But now, augmented by the reality-warping energy Ling Feng had shared with her, it flared with a brilliance that was painful to look at.
BOOM!
The collision did not result in a stalemate. It resulted in a demolition.
Li Shuangyan's slender palm met the massive energy construct of the Dao Child. There was no struggle for dominance. The Heavenly God's Palm shattered like cheap glass hitting a pneumatic press. The violet energy didn't just disperse; it was erased, neutralized by the "anti-magic" properties of the Chaos energy intertwined with her Physique.
"What?!" The Dao Child's eyes bulged, the capillaries in them bursting as the backlash hammered his internal organs.
"Too slow. Too weak. Too sloppy," Li Shuangyan critiqued, her voice devoid of emotion.
She moved.
It was the Kun Peng's Six Variants, but evolved. She didn't just traverse space; she slid through the friction of the air as if she were made of liquid light. To the onlookers, she simply ceased to exist in one spot and materialized in another.
She appeared instantly before the Dao Child, bypassing his protective aura as if it weren't there.
SLAP.
The sound was not like flesh hitting flesh. It sounded like a whip breaking the sound barrier.
The Heavenly God Dao Child, a genius of his generation, was sent spinning through the air like a ragdoll. Blood sprayed from his mouth in a fine mist, mixed with the white fragments of shattered teeth. He crashed into the hard earth fifty meters away, ploughing a deep, jagged trench through the rocky soil before coming to a stop at the feet of his terrified lackeys.
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence returned to the valley.
Nantian Hao, the genius of the Southern Heavenly Kingdom who had been watching with folded arms, felt his eyelids twitch violently.
The experts of the Azure Mysterious Ancient Kingdom gripped their weapons, their knuckles turning white.
Li Shuangyan stood quietly, dusting off her hands. Her aura was terrifying—not because it was overwhelmingly violent, but because it was so pure, so untouchable. She looked like a goddess who had descended to the mortal realm only to find it wanting.
"Two moves," Ling Feng yawned, shaking his head as if disappointed. "Actually, that was barely one move. That was a bitch-slap. I expected better from a 'Dao Child.' Is the bar really that low these days? I've seen keyboard warriors with more backbone."
Li Shuangyan returned to Ling Feng's side, her chest not even heaving. She adjusted her veil, her cold eyes sweeping over the crowd with regal indifference. "He is unworthy of your attention, Young Noble."
"True. Good job, my dear," Ling Feng grinned. He reached out and patted the top of her head.
The crowd gasped. The icy Li Shuangyan, the untouchable goddess of the Nine Worlds, stiffened slightly. A faint pink flushed the tips of her ears, but she did not pull away. She leaned ever so slightly into the touch, accepting the praise like a contented feline.
The Dao Child staggered to his feet, his face swollen to twice its size, his eyes burning with a madness that eclipsed reason. "Kill them! Everyone, kill them! I will drink their blood!"
"Enough!"
A booming voice rolled over the crowd, carrying the suppression of a high-level cultivator.
Si Tu, the Imperial Advisor of the Heavenly Jewel Kingdom, stepped forward. His expression was dark, his eyes swirling with a killing intent that dropped the temperature of the valley.
He was an Enlightened Being—a realm that stood far above the younger generation. In the eyes of the cultivation world, the difference between him and the juniors was the difference between a tiger and a rabbit.
"Junior," Si Tu said, his voice dripping with icy menace as he glared at Ling Feng. "You have gone too far. Beating a disciple of the Heavenly God Sect in front of the Heavenly Jewel Kingdom? Do you think you are invincible?"
Ling Feng finally looked at Si Tu. He tilted his head, a mocking, lopsided grin spreading across his face.
"Invincible? Nah. That's a boring cheat code," Ling Feng chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. "But compared to you? Yeah, I might as well be God."
Si Tu's patience evaporated. As an advisor to the Mortal King and a representative of the Heavenly Jewel Kingdom, he was accustomed to reverence. Even the arrogant geniuses of the great sects bowed their heads to him.
"Ignorant frog in a well!" Si Tu roared. "Today, I will cripple your cultivation and make you kowtow for forgiveness!"
Rumble!
Si Tu released his Life Wheel. It spun behind him, a magnificent ring of blood energy pouring out like a crimson ocean, drowning the valley in red light. The pressure of an Enlightened Being slammed down. Weaker cultivators from smaller sects fell to their knees, gasping for air, their souls trembling under the suppression.
He formed a complex seal with his hands, the laws of the earth converging.
"Mountain Crushing Seal!"
A massive seal, formed of condensed earth energy and reinforced by his Grand Dao laws, materialized. It was dense, heavy enough to flatten a country. He threw it directly at Ling Feng, intending to crush him into paste along with his arrogance.
"Young Noble!" Xu Pei cried out, her instinctual fear resurfacing at the might of an Enlightened Being.
Su Yonghuang narrowed her golden eyes, her solar energy flaring as she prepared to step in.
Li Shuangyan's aura spiked, ready to activate her physique again.
"Chill," Ling Feng said.
He moved first.
He didn't activate a cultivation technique. He didn't summon a Life Treasure. He didn't chant a mantra to the Heavens.
He just stepped forward, his right fist clenching at his side.
Inside his Inner Void, the Red Chaos Emerald pulsed with a rhythmic, violent beat.
[Trait: Absolute Force] [Effect: Physical strikes ignore 50% of defense. Energy projection density increased by 500%.]
Ling Feng didn't need to use the Dao. He didn't need to weave laws. He simply applied the physics of a different reality to this one. He channeled the raw, unadulterated concept of Force.
"Sit the hell down," Ling Feng said.
He punched.
It was a simple, straight punch. No flashy name. No glowing avatar. Just knuckles meeting the air.
CRACK!
The sound was sickening, like the spine of the world snapping. The air in front of his fist didn't just compress; it shattered. A visible shockwave of distorted reality blasted forward, shaped like a cone of pure kinetic violence. Space itself groaned, unable to withstand the density of the force.
When the shockwave hit Si Tu's Mountain Crushing Seal, there was no explosion. The Seal simply... ceased to be. It disintegrated. It was erased, turned back into scattered qi particles as the force of the punch completely overwhelmed the structural integrity of the technique. The Grand Dao laws woven into the attack were ripped apart like tissue paper in a hurricane.
The punch didn't stop there.
It slammed into Si Tu.
"Guh—!"
Si Tu's protective treasures—shields, amulets, spirit armor—shattered simultaneously with the sound of breaking porcelain. His chest caved in visibly.
The Enlightened Being, the terror of the region, was blasted backward faster than the speed of sound.
He flew past the Heavenly God Dao Child, past the stunned onlookers, and smashed into a massive boulder three hundred meters away. The boulder exploded into dust upon impact. Si Tu slid down the remains, unconscious, foaming at the mouth, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
One punch.
The silence this time was not just heavy; it was absolute. It was the silence of a graveyard.
The "Suppressive Might Noble" of the Heavenly Jewel Kingdom, who had been hiding in the back, felt a chill shoot from his heels to his skull.
He had been planning on joining in if Si Tu succeeded, but now? Now he wanted to dig a hole, crawl inside, and pull the dirt over his head.
Ling Feng blew on his knuckles, looking bored.
"Glass cannon," he muttered, shaking his hand out. "All that shiny aura, all those fancy particle effects, and zero HP. Absolute trash tier."
He turned his gaze to the shivering disciples who had come with the Dao Child and Si Tu. There were about twenty of them, all Royal Nobles or high-level warriors. They looked like deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.
"Peipei. Boys," Ling Feng called out over his shoulder, gesturing to Xu Pei and the Cleansing Incense Seven. "Take out the trash. Don't make a mess. I want the area clean."
"Yes, Young Noble!"
The Cleansing Incense Seven, led by Luo Fenghua and Zhang Yu, roared with excitement. Seeing their leader casually one-shot an Enlightened Being had injected them with a lethal dose of confidence.
"Get them!" Zhang Yu bellowed, his muscles swelling as he activated the Violet Cloud Chant.
What followed was not a battle. It was bullying.
The Cleansing Incense disciples, fueled by Ling Feng's hellish training and the residual Chaos energy in the sect's environment, tore through the Heavenly Jewel and Heavenly God disciples.
Xu Pei, usually the timid rabbit, moved like a phantom. Her sword, imbued with the sharpness of the wind and the confidence of a woman claimed by a monster, danced through the enemy ranks. She didn't kill—Ling Feng hadn't ordered a massacre yet—but she severed tendons and smashed meridians with surgical precision.
"My hand! My cultivation!" "Mercy! We surrender!"
Within thirty seconds, the "elites" of the great powers were groaning heaps on the floor, twitching in the dirt.
Ling Feng turned back to Chen Baojiao. He dusted off his hands and flashed her a brilliant, charming smile, as if he hadn't just committed a massive act of violence against two superpowers.
"So," he said, stepping close to her again, ignoring the terrified looks of her own clan elders who were now backing away from him. "Sorry about the noise pollution. Some people just don't know how to behave in public. Where were we? Ah, right. I was telling you that you're too high quality for these losers."
Chen Baojiao stared at him. Her heart was pounding against her ribs—not from fear, but from a rush of adrenaline she had never felt before.
She was the supreme princess of the Jewel Pillar Sacred School. Men looked at her with lust, with greed, or with possessive arrogance. They saw a trophy. They saw a physique to be harvested. They saw a political bridge.
But this man... Ling Feng. He had just crushed the Heavenly God Dao Child and one-shot an Enlightened Being, yet he was looking at her with a clear, appreciative gaze that held no darkness, only a playful warmth. He looked at her like a man admiring a beautiful painting, not a thief calculating its resale value.
"You..." Chen Baojiao moistened her dry lips. "Do you know what you've done? You've completely offended the Heavenly God Sect and the Heavenly Jewel Kingdom. They won't let this go. You've started a war."
"Eh, let them come. I already killed off some Royal Noble and humiliated another one of theirs a while back." Ling Feng shrugged, leaning casually against a large rock. "I deal with problems when they happen. Worrying about the future is bad for your skin. You'll get wrinkles, and that would be a crime against humanity with a face like yours."
He reached out, and for a moment, Chen Baojiao flinched, expecting him to grab her. Instead, he gently tucked a stray lock of her dark hair behind her ear. His fingers were warm, his touch gentle.
"Besides," Ling Feng lowered his voice, his tone turning intimate, ignoring the thousands of eyes watching them. "If they annoy me too much, I'll just wipe them off the map. But right now, I'm more interested in you."
"Me?" Chen Baojiao's cheeks heated up. She was known for her fiery temper, but this man's rhythm was impossible to follow. He was chaos incarnate.
"Yeah. You hate your destiny, don't you?" Ling Feng asked, his eyes suddenly serious, piercing through her defenses. "Marrying some trash just because your clan wants a connection? Wasting your talent? Being a pretty vase on a shelf?"
Chen Baojiao's breath hitched. "I..."
"I can see it in your eyes. You want to burn the world down," Ling Feng smirked, leaning closer until she could smell the faint scent of ozone on him. "I like that. I like women with fire. It keeps things interesting."
In the distance, on a golden chariot, Nantian Hao of the Southern Heavenly Kingdom gripped the railing until the celestial metal warped under his fingers. His face was twisted with jealousy.
He had once pursued Li Shuangyan, but was rejected. Now, seeing Li Shuangyan standing obediently behind this unknown man, and seeing that same man flirting with Chen Baojiao—another woman Nantian Hao desired—it was eating him alive.
"Who is he?" Nantian Hao hissed to his servant, his voice trembling with rage. "Find out everything! I want to know what hole this bastard crawled out of!"
Ling Feng ignored the political currents swirling around him. He was calculating.
'In the original story,' Ling Feng thought, his mind racing, 'The Dao Child schemes inside the Ridge. He tries to trap Baojiao, leading to Li Qiye saving her and her eventually destroying her own cultivation to join him. It's a classic tragic-heroine-rebirth arc. Very dramatic. Very tears.'
He looked at the unconscious Dao Child, and Si Tu piled up like garbage.
'But I don't vibe with that. Why let her suffer? Why let these trash bags have a chance to scheme? I'm not running a drama series here.'
However, killing them right here meant the armies outside might attack immediately. The Cleansing Incense Sect wasn't ready for a full-scale war right this second—he had to get the goodies inside the Ridge first to upgrade everyone's gear. He needed a buffer.
As he contemplated his next move, Li Shuangyan glided close to him.
"Young Noble," Li Shuangyan whispered, leaning in, her breath cool against his ear. "The entrance is opening."
A deep, guttural rumble shook the earth. The thick grey mists that shrouded the Evil Infested Ridge began to swirl and part. A massive ancient gate, invisible until now, shimmered into existence. The heavy Dao Laws preventing entry were lifting, revealing the mouth of the beast.
"Perfect timing," Ling Feng laughed.
The crowd, previously paralyzed by Ling Feng's display of violence, suddenly remembered why they were there.
Greed overpowered fear. Cultivators began to summon their weapons, eyeing the entrance with feverish anticipation. The allure of Emperor artifacts and ancient medicines was too strong to ignore.
Ling Feng looked at the open gate, then down at the unconscious Si Tu and the groaning Heavenly God Dao Child, who was feebly trying to crawl away.
A wicked idea formed in his mind. A grin that promised absolutely nothing good stretched across his face.
"Hey, wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Ling Feng said, kicking Si Tu in the ribs.
The Enlightened Being gasped, eyes snapping open, filled with pain and terror. "You... you..."
"The Ridge is open," Ling Feng announced cheerfully, his voice amplified so the whole valley could hear. "And since you guys were so eager to show off your power earlier, I think it's only fair you get the honor of the First Enter. You know, VIP treatment."
"No... wait..." The Dao Child wheezed, realizing what was happening. Blood bubbled past his lips. "Our injuries... the mist..."
"Don't worry about it," Ling Feng deadpanned. "Walk it off."
He grabbed the Dao Child by the back of his golden robes. He gestured for Li Shuangyan. "Grab the old guy."
"With pleasure," Li Shuangyan said, hoisting the broken body of Si Tu effortlessly by the collar.
"Team!" Ling Feng shouted to the Cleansing Incense Seven. "Grab the minions! We're playing a game. It's called 'Extreme Bowling.'"
"You can't do this!" Nantian Hao stepped forward from the Southern Heavenly Kingdom camp, his face pale. "This is murder! Using Royal Nobles and Enlightened Beings as pathfinders against their will? The Great Sects will not stand for this!"
Ling Feng turned to Nantian Hao.
Inside his Inner Void, the Green Chaos Emerald flared.
[Mastery: Space Control]
"Did I ask for your opinion, fanboy?"
Ling Feng's voice warped. It wasn't just sound; it was a spatial vibration that resonated directly inside Nantian Hao's skull. The space around Nantian Hao tightened, squeezing him like a giant invisible hand.
"Sit down before I throw you in too."
Nantian Hao froze. The Young King, usually so proud, felt the primal instinct of a prey animal screaming at him to freeze. The air around him felt solid, ready to crush him into a cube if he uttered another syllable. He shut his mouth with an audible click.
Ling Feng turned back to the gate. He swung the Dao Child back and forth like a pendulum.
"One... Two..."
"Stop! My ancestor won't stand for this! He will—" The Dao Child screamed, snot and blood running down his face.
"Three! Of you go!"
With a burst of strength amplified by the Red Emerald, Ling Feng hurled the Heavenly God Dao Child into the swirling, poisonous fog of the Ridge.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
His scream faded into the mist, followed by the wet thud of a body hitting the unknown.
"Your turn," Li Shuangyan said coolly, tossing Si Tu after him with the grace of a woman taking out the trash.
The Cleansing Incense disciples followed suit, picking up the groaning lackeys and flinging them into the fog like sacks of potatoes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The bodies disappeared into the gloom.
The thousands of cultivators at the entrance watched in horrified silence. This wasn't just dominance; this was a complete disregard for the unspoken rules of the cultivation world. He treated Royal Nobles and Enlightened Beings like stones thrown to check the depth of a river.