They were stunned. Another Heaven-Human Realm expert had arrived.
A powerful figure descended from the sky and landed on the yellow dirt road before Chen Du, sending up a circular blast of air.
It was a white-haired old man, nearly ten feet tall.
His hair and beard were snowy white, yet every strand stood on end. Muscles knotted over his body like the tangled roots of an ancient tree, stretching his black battle robes to the point of bursting.
He stood with his hands behind his back, like an insurmountable mountain.
"The Great Yan Martial God!"
Someone in the crowd cried out in shock.
The name exploded like a thunderclap, making every martial expert present draw a sharp breath.
Xiang Anshi, the Great Yan Martial God, was the pillar upholding the Yan Kingdom, a Heaven-Human Realm expert who had been famous for eighty years.
Eighty years ago, he had already been the Yan Kingdom's greatest expert.
Seventy years ago, he had helped the founding emperor establish the Yan Kingdom.
Fifty years ago, when the Blade Saint defended Ningdu, he had been in seclusion in the Yan Kingdom and had not intervened.
He was a living legend acknowledged throughout the Heavenly Human Realm.
He was the strongest shield of Great Yan.
And its sharpest sword.
No one had expected this legendary figure to personally stand in the way on this yellow dirt road.
Xiang Anshi looked at Chen Du and slowly drew the long saber at his waist.
The blade was broad and heavy, with two ancient seal characters engraved on its spine... Pacify the Nation.
This saber had been with him for decades. It had severed enemy generals' heads and drunk the blood of northern invaders, and had never been drawn in vain.
"Young man." His voice was deep and resonant as a bell, each word making the air hum. "I am Xiang Anshi, the Great Yan Martial God, at the Middle Stage of the Heaven-Human Realm. I have guarded the Yan Kingdom for eighty years.
"In those eighty years, I have never suffered defeat. Today, I have come for you."
He held his saber across his chest, his gaze like iron.
His Heaven-Human Realm aura clashed with the fiery rage surrounding Chen Du.
"You killed a hundred thousand with one sword strike. I respect you, but you cannot destroy the Yan Kingdom. Great Yan still has a million iron cavalry, these old bones of mine, three other Heaven-Human Realm experts, and a city full of people.
"If you want to destroy the Yan Kingdom, you must first step over my blade."
He raised his long saber high overhead and poured all his power into the blade.
The light that blazed along its edge was no ordinary saber force, but a wheel of light as scorching as the blazing sun.
When the saber came cleaving down, the hundreds of watching experts held their breath in unison.
This strike had already surpassed the bounds of martial arts as they understood them.
It was the full flowering of Peak Stage Heaven-Human Realm combat power, mastery of a single Dao far beyond the understanding of ordinary martial artists.
Chen Du did not answer. He simply raised the wooden sword a child played with and held it across his chest.
Xiang Anshi's pupils contracted slightly.
He could naturally tell it was a wooden sword, made from the ordinary, miscellaneous wood found everywhere.
Its edge was too dull to cut even paper, and the character "courage" had been carved crookedly into the hilt.
In the Yan Kingdom, wooden swords like this sold for three copper coins apiece at roadside stalls, bought for children to play with.
His opponent was simply using this wooden sword as a sword.
Just as a farmer used a hoe, or a woodcutter used an ax.
The tool did not matter. What mattered was the person holding it.
Indeed, the moment the saber light appeared, the hundreds of experts watching around them all retreated.
The lingering force of the saber light alone made their cheeks feel as though they were being cut by blades.
This was a full-powered strike backed by the Great Yan Martial God's eighty years of cultivation. There could only be a handful of people in the entire Heavenly Human Realm capable of taking it.
Chen Du, by contrast, raised his wooden sword and held it before him.
Just like that, the three-copper wooden sword quietly caught the wheel of saber light, scorching as the blazing sun.
It was as if it had caught not the full-powered strike of a Heaven-Human Realm expert, but a withered leaf drifting down from a tree.
The saber light struggled against the wooden sword's dull edge, broke apart, and finally turned into countless tiny motes of light that filled the sky.
The wooden sword did not budge, and not even a scratch was left on it.
Xiang Anshi stared at the completely undamaged wooden sword, his heart churning like rivers and seas.
Both were at the Heaven-Human Realm. He was at the Middle Stage, and had stood at that level for decades.
He had fought all his life and crossed blades with countless experts. He knew full well that the gulf between the Heaven-Human Realm and the Saint Tier was as vast as that between heaven and earth.
Even someone at the peak of the Saint Tier could not withstand three saber strikes from him.
He had thought that, however great the gap between Heaven-Human Realm experts, it could not be all that vast.
But now he understood that Chen Du stood on a higher level than he did.
That level could not be reached through the accumulation of time or arduous cultivation.
It was a difference in dimensions!
Chen Du withdrew his wooden sword, then gently thrust it forward.
In the eyes of the hundreds of watching experts, the strike was so light it was almost weightless.
Like an old farmer handing someone a hoe,
Like a child handing someone a branch,
So casual as to be almost perfunctory.
But in the eyes of Xiang Anshi, the Martial God, what that thrust delivered was not a blade, but an entire purgatory.
The Martial God seemed to see a surge of raging fire pour from the wooden sword, swallowing heaven and earth the moment it emerged.
It was rage that had settled for far too long,
Been compressed for far too long,
And been suppressed for far too long,
Like a volcano sealed for a thousand years finally bursting through its seal,
Its magma shooting straight into the ninth heaven, setting the sky ablaze in a dark-golden sea of fire.
It was rage itself, grown from this land ravaged by the fires of war for hundreds of years.
Everyone who had died unjustly on this land had placed their grievances,
Their hatred,
And all their blood and tears into one person's hands,
And then,
That person had delivered them all with a wooden sword.
Before this sea of fire, Xiang Anshi was as small as a grain of sand.
There were no moves in this sword intent, only rage, pure rage carried to its utmost extreme.
This rage was will, one person's questioning and judgment of the entire world.
He was engulfed by the sea of fire.
His mind,
His soul,
And his will
Were all utterly crushed.
He felt like a moth flying toward a boundless sea of fire.
The sea of fire had not yet touched him.
Yet his wings had already begun to scorch and wither.
His body had already begun to curl up.
His soul had already begun to tremble.
He had no doubt that if that sea of fire truly descended, he would be burned to ashes in an instant.
When he came back to his senses, Xiang Anshi's pupils contracted sharply.
He saw what lay behind this sword strike:
A sword intent that reached through heaven and earth,
A power that seemed capable of destroying heaven and earth,
A towering rage that made him look like an ant.
Before this sword strike, he, the Great Yan Martial God, a legend who had lived for two hundred years in the Heavenly Human Realm,
Was nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust, unworthy even of struggling.
Xiang Anshi let go of the long saber in his hand.
The treasured saber Pacify the Nation fell to the ground with a crisp metallic clang.
Then he slowly knelt, both knees touching the ground and his white-haired head bowed.
"I have witnessed your skill."
"Before I ascended to the Heaven-Human Realm, seeing you was like a frog at the bottom of a well gazing at the moon in the sky."
"Having ascended to the Heaven-Human Realm, seeing you is like a mayfly gazing at the blue heavens."
"I cannot withstand this sword strike."
He raised his head and solemnly declared once more:
"I have guarded the Yan Kingdom for eighty years. Only today have I learned that beyond heaven, there is another heaven. Please, go ahead."
He turned sideways, clearing the road to the Yan Kingdom's capital.
The hundreds of experts by the roadside were silent as sparrows.
Xiang Anshi, the Martial God and Great Yan marshal who had been famous for eighty years, had willingly knelt and made way after receiving one sword strike.
The sight shocked them even more than the sword strike that had wiped out a hundred thousand.
It suddenly dawned on them: could a mere martial artist truly destroy Great Yan, a kingdom at the height of its power?