"I... am strong?"
Ji Wuchen jerked his head up. The bloodshot veins in his eyes had not faded, but a trace of bewilderment had joined them.
Qin Wangchuan said nothing, only watched him quietly.
Ji Wuchen was strong, of course. Without all that idle gossip, he could have gone very, very far.
Most importantly, he dared to challenge a mountain. That alone put him beyond the vast majority of people.
It was no exaggeration to call him a strong one.
The wind swept up the dust and smoke, skimming between the two of them.
Suddenly—
Something warm trickled down his cheek.
Only when he heard a soft "tap"—
did Ji Wuchen realize that he had actually started crying.
He raised a hand in disbelief, catching a teardrop on his fingertip.
As his finger trembled slightly, the tear shimmered in the moonlight, reflecting his shattered image.
Ever since he had first heard the name Qin Wangchuan at the age of five, he had spent eight years cultivating bitterly, without a moment's slack.
Ji Wuchen had thought he'd long forgotten what tears felt like.
Yet now, just one word of recognition from Qin Wangchuan had brought him to tears.
What fell was not a tear, but the release of an obsession.
"Ah, I really can't compare to you."
Ji Wuchen smiled, finally at peace. Beneath the moonlight, his smile looked exceptionally clear and bright.
He raised a hand and wiped away the tears still wet on his face. His fingertips trembled faintly.
When he said those words, even he was surprised by how light his voice sounded.
The inner demon that had haunted him like a shadow for eight years vanished without a trace in that instant.
He looked at Qin Wangchuan. The stubbornness and unwillingness of old were gone from his eyes, replaced by a few other emotions.
The night wind brushed past, stirring his loose black hair.
Ji Wuchen slowly knelt before Qin Wangchuan, pressing his fist hard against the ground. His knuckles whitened with the force.
"Qin Wangchuan, you really are strong..." His voice was muffled by the dust, but it carried an unusual resolve. "Ten years!"
"Let's make it ten years—"
As he spoke, Ji Wuchen suddenly looked up. Blood and dirt streaked his forehead, but his eyes shone with startling brilliance.
"In ten years, please fight me again!"
"I'm begging you..."
A person was never prouder than in their youth.
Ji Wuchen had not only dropped to both knees, but had even said the word "beg."
The Ji Clan members watching from afar saw their pupils contract. Several elders even stumbled half a step backward.
"He... actually knelt?!"
"That's the sort who'd rather break than bend, even when the Patriarch punishes him!"
An old, white-haired elder's beard trembled, his aged eyes brimming with tears. "Young Master... Young Master has finally crossed this hurdle."
Qin Wangchuan's gaze shifted slightly.
He saw it—a towering phantom appearing behind the kneeling youth.
The Taixu Halberd resonated and trembled with it, and even the stars in the sky seemed to shine a little brighter.
Ji Wuchen had yielded, but not completely.
He was unwilling to take a detour, nor could he accept stopping here—
So he chose to use the mountain as his whetstone, honing his edge against it.
Qin Wangchuan knew this man would grow stronger.
But it didn't matter.
Because he would grow stronger too—stronger than anyone else.
"Fine."
Just one word, yet the entire plaza fell abruptly silent.
Qin Wangchuan's gaze darkened slightly. "Don't expect anyone to protect you like this ten years from now."
As he spoke, he glanced at the Ji Clan guard who had intervened moments earlier.
The guard gave an awkward laugh.
Ji Wuchen's pupils contracted slightly, as if he hadn't expected Qin Wangchuan to agree so readily.
He opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing as if words were caught in his throat. In the end, he only bowed his head deeply, pressing his forehead against the cold ground.
"Thank you..."
"Thank you."
He repeated those two words several times. They weighed more than any oath.
It wasn't submission, but transformation.
The night wind swept past, blowing Ji Wuchen's loose strands of hair aside and revealing the slight upward curve of his lips.
And the battle intent surging into the heavens.
But just then—
"Qin Wangchuan!!"
The Emperor's voice roared like thunder, shattering the clouds for ten thousand miles.
A colossal hand wreathed in chaotic energy came crashing down, blotting out the sky and sun. Space crumbled inch by inch wherever it passed, exposing the endless currents of the void beyond.
Just a wisp of its leaked aura instantly reduced the ancient trees around the plaza to dust.
An Emperor's true body needed time to descend. In this emergency, only one hand had arrived—but this was a genuine Great Emperor!
"Not good!" Several Qin Clan elders turned pale. "He's trying to forcibly seize the prisoners!"
With a gathering this important, the Qin Clan naturally had an Emperor's true body guarding the area in the distance.
But in the eyes of the mysterious person hiding behind the scenes—
With Great Emperors on both sides, sacrificing one hand to take these people away was hardly impossible.
Of course, all of this depended on that person not intervening.
He was gambling, betting the Qin Clan Heavenly Emperor wouldn't interfere.
Otherwise, a mere Great Emperor could be annihilated with a flick of his finger!
At the same time, in the Longevity Pavilion atop the Qin Clan's Longevity Nine Heavens—
"Old Ancestor... what is this?" The several Great Emperors of the Qin Clan guarding the place had already sensed something amiss. They even knew someone was watching from the shadows.
After all, it was no Dharma Body standing there, but a true body!
Their Emperor auras surged. They should have acted at the very beginning to suppress the intruder, but the Old Ancestor had suddenly stopped them.
Qin Taiyi stood with his hands behind his back, a deep smile flickering in his eyes. "What's the hurry?"
He lightly tapped the empty air, and several invisible barriers silently settled over the Qin Clan's younger generation below.
They blocked the Emperor's might of the sky-covering hand completely.
"Give the youngsters a chance to act." Qin Taiyi's voice was calm, yet brooked no argument. "Besides—"
His gaze turned cold as he looked into the depths of the void.
"It's time those rats in the dark saw the Qin Clan's foundations."
Before his words had even faded, the Old Ancestor vanished from the spot.
—In the next instant, he had set foot in the Tenth Heaven.
This was no ordinary Small World, but a complete Great World, vast and boundless, with perfect laws.
And yet, only one person sat within this immense world.
He was an old man clad in gray robes. His aura was as deep as the abyss and vast as the sea. Simply sitting there, he seemed to suppress the order of the entire world.
—He was none other than the Ji Clan Heavenly Emperor.
Beneath Longevity Heaven—
Just as the colossal hand reached down, at the very moment when all hung by a thread—
"Eldest Brother! Look up! An enemy!" Qin Xuanji suddenly stepped forward and pointed at the sky, his voice carrying a rare hint of excitement.
Judging from his expression, he seemed to be saying, "Go! Sic him!"
Qin Wudao stood with one hand behind his back, his white robes snapping in the Emperor's might.
He tilted his head slightly, looking at the colossal hand blotting out the sky and sun. His voice was as calm as if he were critiquing a clumsy painting.
"Mm, I see it."
"Very clearly."
Before his words had faded, he joined the fingers of his lowered left hand, shaping them into a sword.
The simple motion caused the entire world to freeze.
"Clang—!"
A clear sword cry rang out from beyond the highest heavens.
It wasn't the clash of metal, but the Great Dao trembling!
A pinpoint of light glimmered at Qin Wudao's fingertip.
At first it was no larger than a firefly, but within one-thousandth of an instant, it surged into a brilliant river of stars that bridged heaven and earth.
Countless stars flickered into being and vanished within it. Each one held the power to cleave down the sun and moon.
"What is that...?!"
The banquet guests cried out.
It was another of the Qin Clan's supreme secret arts—
"Taichu God-Burial Sword!"
The river of stars surged upward and collided with the descending hand of chaos—
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
No world-destroying shockwave.
Only a smooth, mirror-like cut that silently spread across the giant palm.
"Shhk—"
Like a hot knife slicing through butter.
The Emperor's palm, powerful enough to crush mountains and rivers, was cleanly severed at the wrist by that river of stars!
Golden Emperor Blood poured from the stump like a heavenly river bursting its banks.
Every Blood Bead weighed as much as a mountain. As they fell through the void, they rang out like clashing metal.
Great Dao Runes flowed across the surface of each bead. Countless worlds could faintly be seen being born and destroyed within them.
Before the severed hand could even fall, it disintegrated in midair into billions upon billions of fragments of law, lighting up the night sky like a rain of fire.
"Desolate Ancient Sacred Body—!!!"
A heart-rending scream came from the depths of the void.
The remaining Emperor's might shook wildly, making even the stars beyond the heavens tremble and rustle.
The entire banquet, inside and out, fell deathly silent.
Everyone's pupils contracted. It felt as though an invisible hand had clamped around their throats; even their breathing stopped for an instant.
"What did I just see?"
An elder of an ancient clan spoke in a trembling voice. The jade cup in his hand shattered with a "crack," and wine trickled between his fingers, but he didn't even notice.
"He actually... severed a Great Emperor with a Quasi-Emperor's body?"
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