The Curtain Rope Snapped, Despair Descended! Before Countless Eyes, the Sword Immortal Came Flying Through the Sky!

Below the World Trade Center, red and blue police lights flashed in a sea of color.

Piercing sirens mingled with people's cries, raising a din that shook half the skies over Jinghai City.

Over a hundred fire engines surrounded the building, sealing it off completely.

But it was no use.

"Increase the pressure! Keep increasing it!" The commander on the scene was a middle-aged man in his forties. His voice had long since cracked from shouting, and his eyes were as red as a rabbit's.

Several thick columns of water shot straight into the sky.

But the moment they reached the twentieth floor, the terrifying heat from the building's exterior evaporated them into white vapor. Not even a drop reached the blaze.

The aerial ladder had already extended to its limit, stubbornly stuck at the fifteenth floor, unable to go any higher.

And now, the fire had already spread to the thirtieth floor!

"Where's the helicopter? Why hasn't the SWAT helicopter gotten close yet?" The commander snatched up his radio and roared.

The pilot's anxious voice came over the radio. "Command, we can't get close! There's too much smoke, and the thermal currents are too strong! The helicopter keeps spinning. Any closer and the rotor will stop, and we'll crash and explode!"

Despair.

Despair that blotted out the heavens and covered the earth.

More than ten thousand people had gathered below the building.

Countless people held up their phones, filming while wiping away tears.

Across the major platforms' live news streams, the viewer count had already surpassed fifty million, and a dense barrage of comments flooded the screens.

"Oh, heavens, please save them!"

"Isn't there anything else you can do? Please, firefighters, think of something!"

"This is too awful. I can't even bear to watch..."

The camera stayed fixed on the top of the building.

The rooftop was packed with a dark mass of people, the thick smoke choking them as they lay on the ground, coughing violently.

And at a window on the thirty-fifth floor, the situation was even more heart-wrenching.

A man in a white shirt clung desperately to a cloth rope made from several curtains knotted and twisted together, half his body dangling a hundred meters in the air.

On the thirty-fourth floor below him, scarlet tongues of flame spewed wildly through shattered windows, less than half a meter from the soles of his feet.

The wind drove the scorched smell straight into his nose.

"Help... somebody help!" The man screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice trembling beyond recognition.

He didn't dare look down. One glance would send his calves into spasms.

But he didn't dare climb up either. The sweat from his palms had already soaked through the curtain fabric, leaving it too slippery to get any purchase.

"Hold on! Whatever you do, don't let go!"

Someone in the crowd below shouted at the top of their lungs, though they knew he couldn't possibly hear them up there.

The hearts of tens of millions of livestream viewers rose into their throats. Even through their screens, they hardly dared breathe.

Just then.

A freak gust swept past, and the flames suddenly surged upward.

The terrifying heat instantly licked at the taut curtain rope.

The fabric, already strained to its limit under a grown man's weight, let out a teeth-grating tear.

Riiip-

The man's eyes instantly went wide, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

The curtain rope snapped.

"Aaaah-!!!"

An utterly agonized scream tore through the sky.

The man instantly lost his balance and plummeted straight down from a hundred meters up!

"It's over!"

The commander closed his eyes in anguish.

The crowd below erupted in terrified screams. Countless girls clamped their hands over their eyes, unable to face the gruesome sight to come.

At that instant, the livestream comments stopped completely.

Tens of millions of minds went blank, leaving only that despairing figure plunging downward.

One hundred meters.

Eighty meters.

Fifty meters.

The man was about to be smashed into a puddle of bloody pulp.

Humm-

From high in the heavens, a clear, ringing sword cry suddenly rang out!

It wasn't loud, yet it pierced the deafening sirens and the howling wind, striking every person's eardrums with perfect clarity.

Immediately afterward.

A streak of azure light tore straight through the smoke-filled sky at a speed that utterly defied common knowledge of physics.

Boom!

A white sonic boom cloud burst open in midair.

Just as the falling man reached a point only twenty meters above the ground, that streak of light abruptly stopped.

The powerful blast of air blew the surrounding smoke clear, creating an empty zone.

Dead silence fell over the scene.

Everyone was dumbstruck.

The commander's eyes flew open, his eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets.

Watching the image that had suddenly appeared on their screens, tens of millions of livestream viewers forgot even to breathe.

In midair.

A figure in a black hooded tracksuit and a black face covering stood steadily on an iron sword glowing with azure light.

His left hand was tucked into his pants pocket.

His right hand gripped the falling man's back collar tightly.

The man weighed over eighty kilograms. Combined with the terrifying acceleration of a hundred-meter fall, the pulling force was enough to rip the bumper off a small car.

Yet the black-clad figure's arm hadn't even trembled.

Just like that, he held a full-grown living person in one hand, hovering in midair outside the World Trade Center.

The fierce wind snapped his black clothes. The eyes visible beneath his hood were as calm as an ancient well.

Inside, Lin Bei was actually cursing up a storm.

What the fuck did this fatty grow up eating? He nearly threw my back out!

If he hadn't infused his right arm with Spiritual Power beforehand, his arm would probably have been dislocated the instant he caught the man.

He lowered his head and glanced at the man dangling from his hand.

He had fainted from fright and wet himself, too.

Disgusted, Lin Bei extended his hand a little farther outward, afraid it would drip onto his shoes.

A full ten seconds passed.

Only then did the crowd below finally recover from their overwhelming shock.

No one knew who started it, shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Sword... Sword Immortal! Holy shit! It's the Sword Immortal!"

That shout was like a ladle of cold water poured into a pan of boiling oil.

The entire area below the World Trade Center instantly exploded!

"Aaah! It's really a flying sword! Am I going blind?"

"An immortal! Heaven has answered our prayers!"

"This isn't a fucking movie shoot, is it? Where are the wires? Where's the crane?"

"I recognize him! He's the Sword Immortal who was speeding outside that plane! It's definitely him! That sword looks exactly like the one in the video!"

The crowd went completely wild.

The police cordon was instantly overrun. Countless people raised their phones, aiming them at Lin Bei in midair and frantically taking photos and videos.

The radio in the commander's hand clattered to the ground. His mouth hung open, but for a long while, he couldn't force out a single word.

In the livestreams, the comments that had frozen for dozens of seconds erupted with a vengeance.

The densely packed words covered the images completely, even making the servers stutter for a moment.

"Everyone, rise!!!"

"The Sword Immortal has descended! Mortals, stand aside!"

"Mom asked why I'm kneeling while looking at my phone! He's so fucking cool!"

"Catching someone falling from a building bare-handed-isn't that against Newton's laws? Newton's coffin lid won't stay shut!"

"Newton has no authority over Huaxia's immortals! The Sword Immortal is fucking awesome!"

Lin Bei hovered in midair, listening to the tsunami of cheers below as that mechanical voice rang frantically in his mind.

Ding! Sensation Points +1,000!

Ding! Sensation Points +5,000!

Ding! Sensation Points +20,000!

Watching the numbers soar, Lin Bei's lips twitched beneath his face covering.