Chapter Twenty-Eight: Terror

But who was Song Changjing? He was a god of war who had clawed his way out of the cruelest battlefields, and his muscle memory reacted instantly, snapping into a defensive stance.

Yet, just as Song Changjing raised his arms to block, before he could even lock onto Su Ling’s precise location, Su Ling’s figure materialized right beside him. Before Song Changjing’s eyes, in a sight that would defy all common understanding, Su Ling’s plain, sandbag-sized fist suddenly loomed large.

Song Changjing’s pupils dilated rapidly. First, he felt a numbness spread through his facial muscles. Then, a pain so deep it reached the marrow—the kind that would kill a normal person from sheer agony—surged through his body like a tidal wave. To any onlooker, the event had happened so suddenly that their minds simply stalled, leaving them as stunned as wooden geese, utterly unable to react.

Su Ling’s fist struck the face of Song Changjing—a face filled with the same arrogance that his nephew, Song Jixin, had displayed three years ago. As the impact connected, a thunderous boom erupted, loud enough to shatter the eardrums of an ordinary man, and a visible shockwave of white air rippled outward from the point of contact. With a sharp crack, a broken white tooth, still trailing blood at the root, was sent flying from Song Changjing’s distorted mouth. Blood from his nose and mouth sprayed into the air, only to be pulverized into nothingness by the sheer intensity of the shockwave.

In Chen Ping’an’s eyes, the ground beneath Su Ling’s feet suddenly shattered, and amidst the spray of rock fragments, Su Ling appeared instantly beside the proud and confident Song Changjing. In the blink of an eye, Su Ling’s fist slammed into Song Changjing’s face, sending him flying backward like a cannonball, vanishing from sight in an instant.

Song Changjing was propelled away like a piece of rag caught in the speed of light. Along his trajectory, he tore clean through the cluster of vacant, dilapidated houses in Mud Bottle Alley. The resulting shockwave instantly pulverized the nearby buildings, as if they had been swept away by a violent hurricane.

The silence that followed the deafening roar was profound. The area was left in ruins, causing immeasurable property damage, and in the distance, Song Changjing’s impact had carved out a massive crater, as if a comet had struck the earth. This earth-shattering destructive power was merely Su Ling holding back the vast majority of his strength; had he struck with full force, it is no exaggeration to say that for a hundred miles around, not a blade of grass would remain, and the world would be left in a hollow, desolate silence, with no living creature able to escape.

Su Ling looked relaxed and at ease, as if he had casually swatted away an annoying mosquito. Unlike Su Ling’s natural composure, Song Jixin, on the other side, stood frozen, as if confronting death itself. He remained rooted to the spot for a long time, his gaze vacant, unable to process the reality before him.

"Impossible... this is impossible..."

Song Jixin found it hard to believe, to the point of utter shock. His uncle, a warrior at the pinnacle of the Mountain Top Realm and a widely acknowledged invincible general, had just been swatted away like an ant by someone who could crush him at will. He was now missing, his life or death unknown, which completely shattered the worldview of Song Jixin, a frog in a well.

Song Jixin’s legs gave way like a boneless snake, and he collapsed onto the ground—which had been swept clean by the gale—his face bloodless. His fine, ornate robes were now filthy, and his neatly kept crown slid from his head, tangling with his disheveled hair.

Su Ling possessed excellent control over his strength; he had merely sent his uncle flying with a single punch, and the surroundings had only been affected by the resulting wind. Just as Song Jixin’s inner conviction crumbled, his eyes hollow and his mouth muttering nonsense like a street beggar, Chen Ping’an—who had been watching in shock—stood with his jaw dropped wide enough to swallow a fist-sized pear, staring dumbfounded at Su Ling as he walked toward him.

"Are you alright?" Su Ling asked, patting the shoulder of the stunned Chen Ping’an. He was slightly curious about what exactly could have shattered this young man’s worldview so thoroughly that he still hadn't recovered after all this time. Su Ling found it somewhat unexpected that Chen Ping’an looked as if he had been "broken" by the event; it was comical, yet undeniably genuine.

After all, this was how an ordinary person would react to seeing Su Ling casually punch away Song Changjing, a top-tier expert of the outside world. Had Chen Ping’an’s inner heart not been remarkably resilient, it would have been clouded by this sight; otherwise, he would have been just like Song Jixin, who was still slumped on the ground, unresponsive.

"Brother Su... your strength..." Chen Ping’an faltered, his jaw slightly agape, the shock in his heart written clearly on his face. Although he was not at all surprised that Su Ling possessed great strength, the scene he had just witnessed was nonetheless impossible to believe and truly world-shattering. Such terrifying, bone-chilling destructive power was something Chen Ping’an had never seen in his life, leaving him unable to express the thoughts swirling in his mind.

Seeing this, Su Ling found it amusing and gave Chen Ping’an’s rigid shoulder another casual pat.

"Alright, when there’s time, I’ll teach you how to become as strong as I am."

"Brother Su, please, don't tease me anymore..." Chen Ping’an thought Su Ling was still trying to fool him with the same ordinary training methods from three years ago, and he was hesitant to believe him.

Seeing through Chen Ping’an’s thoughts, Su Ling could not help but chuckle. Just as he turned to leave, a surge of incredibly intense energy erupted from the end of the meteor-like path of destruction.

"You think you can just leave after striking this King!"

"There is no such genius in this world!"

A thunderous voice, heavy as war drums and filled with profound killing intent, rolled out. It echoed over Mud Bottle Alley and even shook the distant town.

Beyond the ruins of the houses, a hulking figure appeared in the sky, wreathed in terrifying blood-red killing intent. His once-resolute face was now masked by a chilling, malevolent aura. It was none other than Song Changjing, the Great Li general who had been sent flying and whose fate had been uncertain.

However, this Song Changjing was quite different from the one who had displayed such overbearing arrogance earlier. His gilded white jade robes were now in tatters, revealing shocking wounds beneath the rags, his blood and energy surging violently. His expression was savage, filled with both a fierce desire for battle and a terrifying, tangible intent to kill.

Song Changjing’s dark hair danced wildly in the air. His eyes, once arrogant, were now bloodshot and filled with a murderous, crimson haze, with streaks of red blood trailing from the corners of his eyes. He looked like the most terrifying god of slaughter descending upon the world, surrounded by a suffocating aura of blood and battle. An ordinary person would have dropped dead on the spot just from looking at him. Even a martial artist of the same realm would struggle to escape the cage of his murderous intent.

Yet, here was Su Ling, who even had the leisure to pat the stunned Chen Ping’an back to his senses, pulling him out of the suffocating trap of killing intent.