Alien Experts, First Glimmer of Sharpness

The sand of the Eastern Plains battlefield still trembled faintly, aftershocks traveling up through the soles of their feet as though the earth had yet to recover from that palm strike. Chen Wuya stood between the two armies, one palm facing forward, fingers slightly spread. Misaligned Force drifted slowly beneath his skin like a coiled snake lying in wait.

He did not smile.

That ground-shaking blow should have been the trumpet of victory, but the instant its force sank into the earth, another tremor surged back through the soil—heavy, steady, carrying a rhythmic oppression. Step by step, it somehow formed a subtle counterbalance against his Misaligned Force.

[Detecting abnormal energy fluctuations... Target locked: early Land Realm (pseudo)]

His pupils contracted.

It was not a cavalry charge, nor was it the workings of some mechanism—much less the rush of an ordinary martial artist. Those footsteps were too heavy. With every step, the ground seemed like a drumskin lightly struck by an iron hammer, the tremors faint yet unceasing. The foreign army formation ahead automatically parted to open a path. No dust rose; only a figure emerged, walking slowly forward.

The man wore dark teal heavy armor, the edges of its plates gleaming with cold metallic light. His shoulders were nearly twice as broad as an ordinary man's. In his hand was a gigantic axe, its blade so thick it scarcely resembled a weapon and looked more like a stone slab made for splitting mountains. As he walked, his arms hung at his sides. The muscles in the hand gripping the axe bulged in knots, his knuckles protruding like stone growths.

Three elite allied soldiers immediately rushed to meet him.

The first, wielding a saber, had only charged halfway when the other man shifted sideways by half a step and