Late summer cicadas tore at the few remaining moments of peace in the night, using their last breaths to announce their existence to the world.
The air was still thick and muggy following the afternoon rain.
In the lonely, silent city, only a few scattered streetlights cast a dim, yellow glow.
The downtown area, which should have been brightly lit and bustling, was now empty except for two men sitting at a roadside barbecue stall that hadn’t had time to close yet, enjoying the last of the tranquility.
A massive surge of Spiritual Power finally approached from the distance.
Mu Fan took one last skewer of slightly charred pork belly from the grill, then raised his beer toward Yan Hao.
Yan Hao shoved a large mouthful of his own home-cooked egg fried rice into his mouth and picked up his beer as well.
Their eyes met briefly as they clinked their cans and drained the beer in one go.
In the darkness, eight figures leaped eerily toward them, each jump covering dozens of meters.
It wasn’t until they were less than 100 meters away that Mu Fan and Yan Hao picked up their blades and stood to face them.
Putting away his phone, Mu Fan toyed with the black sword in his hand and unfolded his Dao.
The seven or eight people in the distance froze where they stood.
However, it wasn’t so much that those people had stopped, but rather that the entire city—with Mu Fan as the center—had come to a halt.
Whether it was the dim lights, the faint breeze, or the incessant summer cicadas, everything seemed to have hit a pause button.
All “motion” appeared to become difficult for a moment before the city finally jolted back to life.
Unable to leap any further across the 100-meter gap, the eight people dressed in strange attire walked slowly toward them.
They were a formidable force.
Judging by their appearances, all eight of them were over 40.
Each one radiated an intimidating pressure that could not be underestimated; they were undoubtedly all touching the vertex of Spirit Cultivation.
Almost their entire foundation had been deployed, yet their target was only these two men in their early 20s.
To be more specific, their target was Mu Fan, whose mastery of the Space Path had reached a once-in-a-century Fifth Rank.
Eyes met, but no words were exchanged.
The chaotic Daos of the group clashed and extended across the urban area.
In an instant, the atmosphere shifted.
Without the slightest hint of underestimating the young men, the eight people attacked simultaneously.
Various chaotic Daos and massive Spiritual Power attacks surrounded them instantly.
Seeing this, Yan Hao flashed away to a distance.
Mu Fan, however, stood as firm as a rock in the center of the storm of attacks, a faint smile playing on his lips.
A downpour of strikes descended upon him, only to pass through his body in an eerie fashion.
“This is the Fifth Rank? Hah, interesting.”
One of the eight men laughed as he watched the strange scene, his interest piqued.
“Ordinary techniques might find it difficult to — “
Zap!
A slash accompanied by black electrical arcs interrupted the man’s unfinished sentence.
The young man who had just been surrounded suddenly appeared beside them, electrical arcs dancing around him.
He leaped with a strike — Thunder Severance!
A perfect blend of lightning-attribute Spiritual Power and the Space Path slashed toward the two men who had just spoken.
Despite exhausting their efforts, they could not dodge the bizarre strike.
They were forced to use their Spiritual Power for a desperate defense.
The slash landed heavily, forcing them back several steps.
In a split second, the others attacked Mu Fan as well.
He immediately dodged to the left to avoid one person’s strike, then sent another Thunder Severance toward two others.
The collision of blades, Spiritual Power, and Daos echoed through the sky.
As the attacks surged again, he flashed away to create distance between himself and the eight enemies.
The others adjusted their stance and charged together again, engaging Mu Fan in a fierce struggle.
Every clash of blades carried chaotic Daos and Spiritual Power.
Even with the evasion and guaranteed-hit capabilities of a Fifth Rank Space Path user, Mu Fan ultimately found it difficult to contend with so many experts at once.
He began to find himself overwhelmed.
One attacker seized an opening just as Mu Fan finished parrying and swung a blade at him.
Unable to dodge in time, he could only block the strike with the Black Blade Duan, which sent him flying back.
The two who had been repelled earlier were about to give chase when they were stopped by a slash carrying electrical arcs.
It was another Thunder Severance, this one from Yan Hao.
Looking at the crowd that was ignoring him, Yan Hao utilized the coverage of Mu Fan’s Dao to barely hold back the two pursuers.
For him, stalling these two was his primary mission.
While being knocked back, Mu Fan plunged the Black Blade into the ground.
Sparks and electrical arcs erupted as the blade carved a long trench into the road.
He stabilized himself, adjusted his condition slightly, and turned his head toward Yan Hao.
“Brother Hao, lend… lend… lend me your blade again!”
Without looking back, Yan Hao threw the Black Blade in his hand.
The blade flew through the air and appeared in Mu Fan’s hand out of thin air in the next instant.
Catching the Black Blade, Mu Fan flashed to Yan Hao’s side, a slight curl at the corners of his mouth.
After many years, Yan Hao finally saw that reassuring smile on Mu Fan’s face again.
An old phantom overlapped with his current figure; the high-spirited, omnipotent young man had returned.
Time had passed, and the one who was once the peak of his generation was no longer limited by that generation.
He had become a true, literal peak — the strongest.
Since the incident when he was age 18, Mu Fan had dreamed of this day, even if it meant he might die here.
“Brother Hao, let’s… give these old fogies a proper lesson.”
Mu Fan held his black swords, the electrical arcs around him becoming increasingly violent.
He gathered his strength and slashed forward once more.
Lightning illuminated the dim city.
His Thunder Severance, backed by the full power of the Fifth Rank Space Path, seemed ready to sever everything — the street, the cicadas, the night sky, and even the entire world appeared ready to be cut down by these unavoidable blades.
Looking at the gap between Mu Fan’s Thunder Severance and his own, Yan Hao smiled helplessly.
He let out a breath of resignation and held his own sword horizontally in front of him.
He gazed calmly at the pale blue sword named God Avoider.
Faint memories flashed through his mind as he synchronized with Mu Fan’s Thunder Severance.
The pale blue sword swung from his hand, sending a chilly blade-light alongside it.
Did he count as someone who truly gripped his sword now?
He still didn’t know the answer to that question.
Cold light filled the air as sword intent flowed, resembling a budding flower in spring or a young girl’s relaxed brow.
With the extension of that “God Avoider” strike, crystalline ice flowers scattered across the city that hovered on the brink of collapse, all under the radiance of the lightning-filled sky…
In 2018, in an old house, a worn-out electric fan creaked and groaned.
Yan Hao’s fingertips tapped rapidly on his phone screen, but the display still visibly dimmed.
Following his character’s “death,” the blue base exploded under the enemy’s assault in a blinding light effect, finally collapsing into the crimson word “Defeat” in the center.
He had lost his sixth game of the day.
Zero wins and six losses.
A gray-blue minor restriction window immediately popped up:
“You have reached your 2 hours of game time for today. Click confirm to exit the game.”
Closing the game, he checked the time: 6:17 PM.
Then he let his gaze drift out the window.
The sun was about to set, and the twilight glow was cutting diagonally through the window, casting long, narrow shadows in the cramped room.
His room was small, and several windowpanes were broken, patched only with pieces of paper.
The paper was printed with the large characters for Wang Wang Milk and a smiling little Wangzai mascot.
The paper had faded after exposure to the sun and rain, but the little mascot was still grinning foolishly, forming a subtle contrast with his current mood.
His mind wasn’t actually on the game.
Today was August 31, the last day of his summer break after finishing middle school.
He felt more or less lost about the future.
Tomorrow, the nearly 15-year-old would report to Liuyang No. 13 Middle School for his first day of high school.
As he stared blankly out the window, a sudden vibration from his phone interrupted his thoughts.
His scattered focus returned to the Wang Wang Milk paper.
After a moment, he opened QQ.
It was a group notification for tomorrow’s school report.
It stated there would be registration tomorrow morning, followed by the collection of supplies in the afternoon to prepare for military training.
His beautiful summer break was officially over.
Because it was the break after middle school graduation, Yan Hao had no summer homework.
However, when the high school entrance exam results came out, his scores were only mediocre, landing him in a poor private school.
To show his son the consequences of not studying hard, Yan Hao’s father had dragged him to work for one month.
Yan Hao spent the remaining month at home watching TV and playing games.
Unusually, Yuan Qing hadn’t come over this break to play games or watch shows with him.
Turning off his phone, Yan Hao stood up and stretched.
Just as he was about to leave the room, a voice called out from behind the door.
“Dinner’s ready, Yan Hao! School starts tomorrow, yet all you do is play games every day. Come eat, hurry up.”
Yan Hao answered as he walked out of the room.
The last light of evening grazed his hair.
Outside, the cicadas chirped in waves, and the evening breeze stirred the leaves, casting fragmented shadows on the ground like an unfinished puzzle.
Somewhere deep in the mountains, there was a rare clearing amidst the densely forested slopes.
Looking inside, it was as if another world existed.
Amidst the bird calls and cicada chirps, a strangely dressed man with a bleeding left arm and a pitch-black blade emerged from that clearing under the cover of night…
The night air brought a wave of humid heat.
Swarms of “flower mosquitoes” from the countryside emerged from the rice fields, their sharp buzzing circling his ears.
These mosquitoes were numerous and venomous; a single bite would result in a large “welt.”
In the living room, only a large, rusty fan spun overhead, fending off the mosquitoes’ assault.
Yan Hao glanced at the food on the table.
Tonight’s dinner was quite abundant.
Glistening chili fried pork was mixed with green garlic, stir-fried cucumber slices were neatly arranged, the edges of the scallion fried eggs were slightly curled, and sliced bitter melon soaked in ice water to maintain its bright green color.
The aroma of the food mixed with the metallic smell of the rusty fan as the wind blew toward his nose, making him salivate.
“Stop playing games all day. You should have at least looked over some high school material ahead of time. All you know is games. You’re a big boy now. It’s a good thing you got into a public high school; if you hadn’t, the family wouldn’t have had the money to send you to a private one, and you would’ve just gone to work with your father.”
Yan Hao scratched his head and didn’t respond to his mother.
Instead, he simply served himself some rice.
After standing in the hall for just a moment, he felt an itch on his calf.
He looked down to see a red welt already forming.
“Is there any mosquito incense?”
“On the table.”
Yan Hao scanned the area and spotted the mosquito incense among a pile of strange items.
However, he didn’t see a lighter.
Just as he was about to ask, his mother added,
“The lighter down here is broken and thrown away. There are more in the woodroom upstairs.”
“I’ll go grab the lighter, then.”
After saying that, Yan Hao left his bowl, chopsticks, and phone on the table and headed for the stairs.
The woodroom should still have his Space Path mark.
He wondered if the Spiritual Power on it had faded.
Since summer began, he had mostly lived downstairs and hadn’t gone up.
This was a good chance to use the Space Path to get the item and see if the mark was still functional.
Yan Hao activated his Spiritual Power and sensed all the nearby items he had marked.
He also felt the mark upstairs.
The mark in the upstairs woodroom seemed to be on a useless old notebook, and the imprint had become very faint.
Just as Yan Hao was about to teleport, he suddenly sensed a strange Spiritual Power on the back of the mountain.
Yan Hao froze in place.
‘Is it someone from Yuan Qing’s side?’
He had never felt a strange Spiritual Power this close to his home.
Almost simultaneously, the man on the mountain sensed Yan Hao’s Spiritual Power.
Muttering words in an unfamiliar language, the man sat up from a rock on the mountain.
From his appearance, he had also been “serviced” by the mountain mosquitoes.
Through Spiritual Power detection and his own physical prowess, he had already killed countless mosquitoes, yet the things seemed endless.
He glanced in Yan Hao’s direction.
Yan Hao’s Spiritual Power was weak, but they had perceived each other.
The man grasped at thin air, and a Black Blade appeared in his hand.
Then, the man began leaping rapidly down the mountain toward Yan Hao.
Feeling that Spiritual Power rushing toward him, Yan Hao immediately realized something was wrong.
Remembering his phone was still on the living room table, he dashed back, grabbed it, and sprinted out of the house.
Ignoring his family’s confusion and questions, he ran toward the fields.
As he ran, he made Spiritual Power marks on small stones and grass along the way.
Sensing that the Spiritual Power was still closing in on him rapidly, he plunged into the fields.
Damp mud splashed into his shoes, and wild grass scraped his arms, leaving thin, itchy lines.
As he continued his frantic escape, he opened his phone and searched desperately through the main interface of QQ.
Finding nothing, he immediately opened his contacts and scrolled through them until he finally found a user with a Rachel avatar, noted as Zero.