Heading to the Northern Plains

Xu Wuyi stepped back a few paces, putting some distance between himself and Fan Chongguang.

More than ten meters of open ground lay between them. Around them stretched an empty parking lot: no people, no cars, only a gray sky and snowflakes about to fall.

Fan Chongguang stood with his hands behind his back, taking no stance at all. He looked like an ordinary old man, but Xu Wuyi could sense the power hidden beneath that calm exterior.

It was the accumulation of more than twenty years as a grandmaster, tempered by countless battles and years of cultivation.

Xu Wuyi did not underestimate him. He never would.

Xu Wuyi raised his right hand and drew the Prairie Fire Spear from behind his back. Its shaft swept an arc through the air with a faint whistle.

The moment the spear entered his hand, his entire bearing changed.

He became more restrained, more solid—as though a sharp sword long hidden in its sheath had finally revealed its edge.

Fan Chongguang looked at the spear, a flicker of approval in his eyes.

"Come. Let me see your spearwork."

Xu Wuyi did not stand on ceremony.

He stepped forward with his right foot and vanished from where he stood.

An instant later, he appeared less than five meters from Fan Chongguang and thrust his spear straight ahead.

There was nothing fancy about the strike, only a direct thrust. But its speed and power were astonishing. The spearpoint tore through the air with a piercing shriek.

More frightening still, the instant he thrust, Fan Chongguang felt an invisible force spread from the spearpoint.

It expanded at an astonishing speed, enveloping dozens of meters in an instant.

Fan Chongguang's vision blurred. In a heartbeat, the world around him changed.

The familiar rules and principles he had