Everywhere the projection reached, silence fell.
Heavenly Dao Academy's Sacred Era Hall, where old ancestors and teachers observed the world, went still. Dao scrolls that had floated lazily in the air stopped turning. Tea steam curled halfway up and did not disperse.
Mei Suyao pressed a hand over her Immortal Bone.
The translucent bone hummed inside her chest, trembling as if in both fear and… yearning. In her sea of consciousness, her fragrant dao shook. Petals of light that had always drifted serenely in her inner world suddenly curled in on themselves, as though bowing before something higher.
"…This aura…" she whispered, jade-like fingers tightening over her heart.
On the other side of the hall, Ye Chuyun's Pure Lotus Dao quietly retracted. The lotus platform beneath her soul sank inward, petals folding, as if hiding from some vast, unfathomable pressure.
Her long eyelashes lowered, covering the tremor in her eyes.
"This world…" she murmured softly, "…has truly birthed a monster."
Far away, Jikong Wudi froze mid-swing.
Heaven's Will power stirred faintly in his body, as if answering some distant summons, but for the first time in his life, he had the illusion that even if he obtained Heaven's Will and carried it over his head, there would still be a man standing above him, looking down.
"Impossible…" he breathed, pupils shrinking. "Even if he has some heaven-defying chance… to erase two Heavenly Guardians like this…"
He wasn't the only one.
Heavenly Emperor Lin, Zhan Shi, Wolong Xuan, Jewel Pillar Mortal King, South Emperor, Long Aotian—
Every Heaven's Will competitor who had once treated the Mortal Emperor World as their stage fell silent. The proud, arrogant, self-assured sons of heaven who believed that Heaven's Will would inevitably end up in their hands, all watched the same image:
A slender, gray-robed youth above a shattered mountain range, closing his hands as if wringing out a wet towel.
There were no huge waves of immortal light. No supreme tribulation descending.
Just two casual squeezes.
And somewhere, two Heavenly Guardians—True Gods who had protected Ancient Kingdoms since the Emperors Era—ceased to exist.
"He killed… two Heavenly Guardians…"
"Their True Fates… he did not even leave their True Fates…"
"Even Immortal Emperors find that difficult…"
Voices trembled across countless altars and ancestral halls. Sect masters, temple lords, undying old monsters—people who had thought they had seen every kind of miracle and calamity—felt their scalps go numb.
Because they had all seen it clearly.
He hadn't used Heaven's Will.
He hadn't proclaimed an Immortal Emperor's title.
He had simply lifted his hands, and the heavens had responded.
...
In Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect's main hall, Su Yonghuang sat as if struck by lightning.
The jade table in front of her was still set for a normal day: tea in a warm pot, several jade slips stacked neatly, petitions from various branches waiting for her approval. The lamps in the corner burned steadily, casting soft light across the carved beams. Everything was in its proper place.
Her Dao Heart was not.
Her mind knew his strength.
She had seen him destroy Azure Mysterious's grotto, massacre Ancient Saints, drag treasure mountains back as if they were cabbages in a market. She had watched him stride into the Heavenly Ancient Corpse Burial Ground as if stepping into a garden, watched him walk back out with treasures that would drive Ancient Kingdoms to madness.
But seeing him stretch out both hands and erase two Heavenly Guardians, while countless Virtuous Paragons hovered at death's door from the shock alone—
Her heart still lurched.
The projection above the sect had shown everything. Two enormous silhouettes, continents of might, the incarnations of Heavenly Guardians of Ancient Kingdoms—one wrapped in Imperial radiance, one exuding beastly divine light—had responded to his earlier "demonstration" with fury.
They had erupted with suppressive might that dyed the sky of the Eastern Hundred Cities in their own colors. Imperial laws, Immortal Emperor treasures, ancient divine arts—everything had poured out like a flood.
Against them, Ling Feng had simply raised his arms.
No elaborate stance. No thousand-layered formation.
Just Chaos.
Primordial light, not belonging to this world, had condensed above Tiger Emperor Citadel, threading through the fabric of the Mortal Emperor World, extending from Ling Feng's hands into two translucent palms that spanned heavens and earth.
The world had shuddered.
Dragon veins screamed. Immortal veins writhed. Ancient cities felt their foundations twist.
And then—
Two casual squeezes.
No echo. No lingering True Fate. No chance of rebirth.
Two immortal pillars that should have stood until the end of the Emperors Era were simply… gone.
Now, in the hall, Su Yonghuang's heart was a storm.
Awe. Fear. Relief. Exasperation.
And beneath all of that, something softer that she fiercely controlled.
"Ling Feng…" she murmured, fingers digging into the armrest of her chair.
In the projection, he had just called her "future wife" in front of the Mortal Emperor World.
Her face, usually calm and majestic, flushed despite no one in the hall daring to look up. Elders and disciples knelt silently, not daring to even let their breathing grow loud.
She ground her teeth, forcing her expression back to its usual cool dignity.
"This man…"
He would overturn the heavens, overturn Ancient Kingdoms, overturn her carefully laid plans—he would overturn her heart.
...
Back above Tiger Emperor Citadel, Ling Feng flexed his fingers once, loosening them as if he had just finished a set of casual exercises.
Far above, the Chaos palms had already faded like mist under the morning sun.
Across the Mortal Emperor World, countless cultivators felt a suffocating weight lift from their hearts. Knees that had pressed against stone and soil finally remembered how to straighten. True essence that had knotted itself inside meridians began to flow again.
Ling Feng's aura, which had just brushed against Immortal Emperor level, quietly receded. Threads of fate that had stretched tentatively toward him curled back, unable to touch his existence.
He exhaled slowly.
"Mm." His voice was relaxed, almost amused. "Good stretch."
The sound carried into every projection like a whisper beside the ear.
"I think that example is enough for now."
He rolled his shoulders, as if he truly had only been limbering up.
"Ancient Kingdoms, Immortal Emperor lineages," he went on, tone mild, "you've seen it. You touch my wives, their clans, or my Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect…"
His eyes hardened.
"…you will simply be erased along with your Virtuous Paragons and other old monsters."
The words landed in every imperial palace and ancestral hall like thunder.
In Azure Mysterious's devastated heavenly grotto, ancestors who had barely survived his earlier visit felt phantom fingers close around their throats.
In Brilliance's imperial shrine, where the Divine Beast Protector's statue still stood tall and proud, hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the stone, as if the sculpture itself remembered the sensation of being crushed.
Many old monsters felt their scalps go numb.
He let the threat sit for a breath.
Then his gaze turned, slightly, as if looking at something very far away—through mountains, rivers, and time itself.
"Also," he added suddenly, tone turning even more offhand, "Furious Immortal Saint Country."
In that country's sacred grounds, where the Lower Tyrannical Immortal Physique was tempered generation after generation, countless disciples stiffened at once. Training fields that were usually filled with the sound of roaring battle cries and bones cracking under the burden of tyrannical force suddenly went silent.
Deep in their ancestral land, the remnant will of Furious Immortal Progenitor—vague, tyrannical, like a sleeping giant—quivered.
Ling Feng's eyes were calm, almost lazy.
"You're on very thin ice," he said. "If you breathe the wrong way, or if you annoy my wife Chi Xiaodie again…"
He smiled, showing a hint of teeth.
"I'll come over and make sure history never knows Furious Immortal ever existed."
In Furious Immortal's supreme dojo, proud geniuses who had always looked down on Lion's Roar and Bao Clan felt something snap in their hearts. A young cultivator practicing the Lower Tyrannical Immortal Physique suddenly choked. His meridians seized; his tyrannical bloodline trembled, the instinctive fear of prey sensing a natural predator strangling his arrogance.
Even the ancestral will from the depths didn't dare speak up. That ancient murderous intent which had once looked down on the Hundred Cities as an ant nest… hid itself like a turtle pulling back into its shell.
...
Above the ruined Tiger Emperor Citadel, shattered mountains and broken formations hung in a strange, stunned quiet.
The winds that should have howled through the jagged peaks crept instead, timid as guilty thieves. Even lingering strands of Heavenly Guardian law, which should have rampaged after their masters' deaths, curled up and dissolved into nothing under the remnant pressure of Chaos.
Heaven and earth held their breath.
On distant ridges, the cultivators who had survived Ling Feng's earlier "demonstration" didn't dare move. Knees that had already touched the ground didn't straighten; those who were still standing found their legs numb, as if nailed to the stone.
They had just watched two Heavenly Guardians die.
Not fall into slumber.
Not suffer a setback.
Die.
True Gods who had been the pillars of Ancient Kingdoms since the Emperors Era, crushed between two casual, translucent palms that had descended from the heavens like some higher order of law.
The gap between Immortal Emperor and everything below had always been a chasm most cultivators could not see across. Today, for the first time, they had glimpsed what it meant for a single person to reach across that chasm and flick the guardians of Ancient Kingdoms away like dust.
In their chests, their Dao Hearts quaked.
On a broken platform not far from Ling Feng's group, Chi Xiaodao swallowed hard. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his Virtuous Paragon Sword Life Treasure, but the blade itself did not dare hum. The sword spirit shrank back, obediently silent, as if afraid to draw that gray-robed figure's gaze.
"So that's… the man I chased into Heavenly Dao Academy…" he muttered, voice hoarse. "Big Sis was right. I really… had no idea."
Bao Yun's face had gone pale. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. The brashness that had always brimmed in her every word had been washed away by a single scene.
Xu Pei exhaled slowly.
Her palm was damp where it gripped her azure halberd, but her gaze never left Ling Feng's back. The earlier shock of watching him erase two True Gods had already melted into something else—burning, steady, like a flame sinking into her bones.
Her King Noble cultivation, her five Fate Palaces, her meticulously polished combat instincts—at this moment, she felt them all shake. But instead of collapsing, they seemed to stretch, as if a ceiling over her head had just been broken.
Li Shangyuan's Pure Jade Physique glimmered faintly, polishing away the violent fluctuations in her meridians. Even so, her heart thumped hard in her chest, each beat a heavy drum. She stared at those hands—hands that had touched her skin with tenderness the night before, hands that now crushed Heavenly Guardians as if snapping dry twigs—and felt a shiver she could not fully name.
Chen Baojiao's chest rose and fell, Immortal Spring Physique absorbing and churning the remnant pressure into cultivation fuel on instinct. Her beautiful eyes were bright, almost feverish, a wild grin tugging at the corners of her lips.
"Heh… as expected of the man this lady chose," she muttered. "Young Noble, you're really trying to scare the heavens on purpose, aren't you?"
Bai Jianzhen's sword intent had sharpened to a cutting, silent line. Her fingers tightened around her Immortal Emperor Sword Life Treasure's hilt. Deep in her clear pupils, waves shook. The sword in her heart—once pointed only at the grand dao of sword—quietly turned a fraction, orienting itself toward the gray-robed youth's back.
Chi Xiaodie's slender fingers clenched at the hem of her robe. The shadow of Lion's Roar surged once, then knelt deeply in her heart. This was the man who had stepped into her kingdom's ancestral hall and casually struck Furious Immortal's line; now he threatened to erase the Saint Country itself in a single sentence.
And he had called her "wife."
Bing Yuxia, still in her men's robes, arms folded across her chest, let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The lazy, roguish curve at the corner of her lips was gone for once; what replaced it was an expression complicated even for her—a mix of shock, wariness, and a reluctant, dangerous warmth she absolutely refused to name.
"Crazy freak…" she muttered under her breath. "Pinching Heavenly Guardians like buns… who does that…"
On the ruined mountain's peak, the gray-robed youth who had caused all this simply lowered his hands.
Ling Feng flexed his fingers again, as if shaking off the last traces of stiffness. The titanic palms in the faraway skies had already dissipated.
His aura, which had brushed Immortal Emperor level moments ago, sank fully back into his body. The world's laws, which had screamed in protest when he used a power not born of these Nine Worlds, slowly relaxed. The chaotic ripples in heaven and earth smoothed out, as if the world itself pretended nothing had happened.
Ling Feng rolled his shoulders with satisfaction.
"Mm," he said again, almost to himself. "Good stretch."
His voice wasn't loud, but in the stunned silence, every cultivator heard it.
That casual tone—like someone commenting on a morning exercise—made their hearts clench more tightly than any roar.
Then he smiled.
"Alright," he announced, turning back to the group clustered behind him. "Show's over."
His words, delivered with the offhand ease of a street vendor closing up his stall after selling out, shattered the frozen stillness more thoroughly than any explosion.
Xu Pei blinked, then huffed despite herself, a little tremor of laughter slipping out.
Li Shangyuan exhaled a weak laugh, half-disbelieving, half-helpless.
Chen Baojiao stepped forward and smacked his arm lightly with her fist. "Young Noble, this 'show' almost scared people to death."
"Exactly," Ling Feng replied calmly. "If their Dao Hearts break just from watching, they weren't going to make it far anyway. Consider it a free test. I'm very generous like that."
He looked over his shoulder at them, eyes curving, the terrifying pressure from moments ago softening into something warmer.
"Anyway," he continued, "that's enough for today. Next, I'm taking my girls on a little vacation."
His gaze swept over them—the wives who were already his, the ones whose hearts were half in his hands, the ones he had his eye on. As it passed over Bing Yuxia, his smile turned a shade more playful.
"And yes," he added deliberately, "that does include my lovely Yuxia."
Bing Yuxia's eyelids twitched.
She raised her chin, trying to recover some of her usual swagger. "Who said I agreed to let you… drag me around?" she scoffed, voice still a bit tight. "This Young Master still has to watch over Ice Feather Palace's juniors at the academy. I don't have time to accompany some crazy freak who pinches Heavenly Guardians like—"
He looked at her.
Just one glance—lazy, amused, but with a depth that cut past her crossdressing disguise and reached straight for the woman underneath.
Bing Yuxia's words stuck in her throat.
For a moment, it felt like his gaze had skipped past all her layers of armor—men's robes, roguish act, sharp tongue—and was looking at the girl who had once climbed to Ice Feather's peak alone and stared at the endless snow.
Her ears turned a faint shade of red.
Ling Feng chuckled, not pressing the point. "You'll come," he said lightly, as if stating an inevitable fact. "You like me too much."
"Who—!" She choked, almost coughing blood from sheer indignation.
He lifted his hand.
Green light flickered between his fingers, subtle and gentle. Space itself seemed to lean close, listening.
"Let's go," he said. "We've scared the Eastern Hundred Cities enough for one afternoon."
Space bent.
To outside observers, the group simply vanished—no blinding light, no explosive thunder. Only a faint ripple in the air, as if a stone had been dropped into an invisible pond and the surface had smoothed over a moment later.
Above the shattered Tiger Emperor Citadel, the winds finally began to move again.
...
In the Eastern Hundred Cities, the world took longer to remember how to move.
For three days, the land did not calm.
At the borders of Azure Mysterious and Brilliance, the earth itself seemed to moan as their dragon veins writhed. Heavenly Guardian altars sat cold and empty, the divine statues upon them suddenly nothing more than carved stone.
In the capital of Azure Mysterious, the old True Gods' seats in the ancestral hall remained vacant. Lamps that had burned with steady, imperial flame for eras flickered weakly.
The palace that had once shone with dazzling radiance felt… smaller.
The imperial clan's younger generation walked softly, as if afraid to wake something that was no longer there. Young princes who had once bragged loudly in Ancient Sky City now spoke in hushed whispers, their eyes flickering toward the silent Heavenly Guardian seat and then away again, as if even looking too long would bring disaster.
Rumors crawled through the corridors like ghosts.
"The Heavenly Guardian is truly gone…"
"They said two palms descended from the sky…"
"Azure Mysterious's divine pillar was crushed like… like an insect…"
In the Brilliance Ancient Kingdom, the empire of a hundred races, the high nobles who had never bowed their heads now avoided mirrors.
When they accidentally glimpsed their pale faces, they remembered the moment their invincible Divine Beast Protector had cracked like porcelain under a casual squeeze.
On the day of the calamity, the Divine Beast's roar had shaken mountains and rivers. It had cast its titanic shadow across the kingdom, ready to trample anything beneath its claws. Brilliance's Immortal Emperor heritage had surged, golden dao patterns lighting up the sky.
Then, before the roar had even faded, a translucent palm had closed over its head.
Now, whenever storm clouds gathered, people flinched, expecting that palm to return.
In both Ancient Kingdoms, old undyings coughed blood in secluded chambers, their meridians scarred by the backlash of trying to support their Guardians against an enemy the world could not measure. Some would never fully recover. Once-towering auras dimmed; lineages that had seemed unshakable now felt hollow, as if a single shove could collapse them.
News ran faster than horses.
From small inns to grand academies, from wandering cultivator caravans to Heavenly God Sect's outer branches, from the Hundred Cities markets to the far-off peaks of the Grand Middle Territory, everyone repeated the same thing in hushed, disbelieving voices:
"A Virtuous Paragon killed two Heavenly Guardians at once."
"He erased their True Fates. No rebirth, no lingering dao, nothing."
"That aura… it was almost like Heaven's Will itself, but… not Heaven's Will…"
"The heavens didn't respond. No Heaven's Will, no Emperor's proclamation. It was like something outside the sky reached in."
Exaggerations layered on top of truth until the line blurred.
Some said he had used the hidden hand of an Immortal Emperor.
Some whispered that he was an Immortal Emperor reincarnated, still warming up.
Others shuddered and claimed he was not a child of this heaven and earth at all.
But the core of it—that Ling Feng of Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect had casually killed existences rivaling Immortal Emperors and walked away untouched—spread like a plague.