Fire-control radar lock? This hunk of iron of yours flies way too slowly!

Ten thousand meters in the air.

The fierce winds were like steel blades scraping bone.

The system notifications in Lin Bei's head crackled away without stopping.

Ding! Captain He Yiming's worldview has shattered. Sensation Points +5,000!

Ding! Air traffic controller Xiao Li's worldview has shattered. Sensation Points +2,000!

Ding! Air traffic control supervisor Zhao Zhen is utterly horrified. Sensation Points +6,000!

Watching the numbers on the translucent panel jump wildly, Lin Bei grinned so broadly his mouth nearly reached his ears.

Even though the cold wind at this altitude poured straight into his short sleeves, chilling him until snot streamed from his nose.

This was still a massive windfall.

At this rate, ten million Sensation Points would be in the bag by the time he reached Jinghai City.

The god-tier draw was already beckoning to him.

Lin Bei was considering whether to descend a little farther and find some fun at low altitude.

Suddenly, a needle-prick chill shot up his back.

A Qi Refining Stage cultivator's instincts were extremely keen.

It was the instinctive sensation of something lethal having him firmly in its sights.

Lin Bei raised an eyebrow and spread his divine sense behind him without holding anything back.

Fifty kilometers away.

An entirely silver-gray fighter jet was tearing through the clouds at tremendous speed, hurtling toward him.

Beneath its wings, the mounted air-to-air missiles gleamed with a cold metallic sheen in the sunlight.

The invisible waves of its fire-control radar had already bitten firmly onto his back.

"Oh, the state apparatus reacts pretty fast."

Rather than panicking, Lin Bei felt a spark of playfulness.

He had barely touched a real gun a handful of times in his life, yet now an active-duty fighter jet had scrambled specifically to catch him.

There was no one else in the world getting this kind of treatment.

"Sure. If you want to play, let's play big."

Lin Bei grinned, circulating his spiritual energy furiously and feeding it continuously through his meridians into the iron sword beneath his feet, which had cost nine ninety with free shipping.

The iron sword gave a high, ringing hum.

The azure light around its blade instantly surged, and its speed abruptly increased.

At the same time.

Inside the fighter jet's cockpit.

Xu Hu pressed hard on the control stick, his eyes beneath his goggles fixed on the HUD.

"Command center, Fierce Tiger has reached the target airspace."

"Fire-control radar has locked onto the target. Distance, ten kilometers."

Xu Hu's voice was steady and strong, carrying an ace pilot's absolute confidence.

As a top pilot who had won the "Golden Helmet," what storms and crashing waves had he not weathered?

Whenever foreign reconnaissance aircraft came nosing along the border, he would fly straight up alongside them and use his wake turbulence to send them scurrying away with their tails between their legs.

He could take down today's "new stealth aircraft" with no radar cross section just the same.

"Fierce Tiger, stay alert," came the command post's voice through his headset. "The target is extremely fast. Be ready to take forcible measures at any moment."

"Understood."

Xu Hu flicked a switch, adjusting the fire-control system to its optimal state.

Distance, five kilometers.

Three kilometers.

One kilometer.

"Command center, Fierce Tiger has visual on the target! Repeat, visual on the target!"

Clenching his teeth, Xu Hu stared through the thickened bulletproof glass at the little black speck flickering in and out of the clouds ahead.

He was going to see exactly which country had produced this high-tech creation.

The distance closed rapidly.

Five hundred meters.

Three hundred meters.

Xu Hu finally got a clear look at that supposedly high-tech "aircraft."

Just one look.

Xu Hu's hand on the control stick gave a violent twitch.

The fighter jet lurched right there in the stratosphere and nearly stalled.

"Holy shit!"

Xu Hu's scalp instantly prickled.

What was he seeing?

That was no goddamn stealth fighter!

That was a person!

A living person wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt washed nearly white, flip-flops dangling from his feet, and a black mask over his head!

No wings.

No engine.

He was not even wearing the most basic oxygen mask!

He was simply standing on a battered iron sword without so much as a scabbard, tearing along at Mach 0.8, ten thousand meters up in temperatures of minus forty degrees!

Xu Hu squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head hard.

Then opened them again.

That person was still flying.

He even tilted his head slightly, seemingly sizing Xu Hu up because his fighter had just lurched.

The pride Xu Hu took in his "Golden Helmet" honor shattered at that moment, leaving not even a speck behind.

This was the stratosphere!

The air was so thin it could suffocate someone in an instant.

How was this guy breathing? Through photosynthesis?!

And that battered iron sword did not even have canards. How was it generating lift?!

Newton's coffin lid was about to burst free!

"S-sir..."

Xu Hu held down the radio button, stammering like a child who had only just learned to speak.

"The target... the target is confirmed human..."

"H-he isn't even wearing an oxygen mask!"

The underground combat command center of the Jinghai Military Region.

Deathly silence.

The enormous electronic screen was showing live high-definition footage transmitted from the electro-optical sensor in the fighter jet's nose.

The image zoomed in.

Then zoomed in again.

The gray-clad figure standing on an iron sword with his back to them, facing the wind, appeared with perfect clarity before everyone in the command post.

Even the windblown creases in his short-sleeved shirt were crystal clear.

Dozens of operations staff officers stood frozen in place.

Standing at the main console, Liu Jianjun's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty as he swallowed.

He turned to look at Gu Changshan beside him.

"Sir... this..."

Gu Changshan said nothing.

This old general, who would not have changed expression even if Mount Tai collapsed before him.

Now braced both hands firmly against the command console.

Veins bulged on the backs of his hands.

Having lived nearly sixty years and fought wars all his life, he had thought he had seen every grand spectacle there was.

But he truly had never seen anything like today's spectacle.

"The radar isn't malfunctioning?" Gu Changshan asked hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the screen.

"R-reporting, sir... the radar is functioning normally. The fire-control system's lock is stable," the operator answered, stammering.

Gu Changshan closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

When he opened them again, they were filled with horror.

This was not high technology.

This was an immortal descending to the mortal world!

Just as the command center sank into deathly silence.

The image on the big screen suddenly changed.

In the footage, the masked man standing on the iron sword not only failed to slow down as the fighter jet approached.

Instead, he turned around.

Ten thousand meters in the air, standing on that battered iron sword, he flew onward backward.

Then.

He slowly raised his right hand.

Across a distance of several hundred meters, he waved at the fighter jet's electro-optical sensor with complete ease.

As though greeting an old friend.

Gu Changshan and Liu Jianjun could even make out a hint of a smile as leisurely as a stroll through a quiet courtyard in the eyes exposed outside his hood.

"What... what is he doing?" Liu Jianjun's voice sounded unsteady.

"He's greeting us." Gu Changshan clenched his back teeth.

Liu Jianjun's scalp went numb.

What the hell kind of monster was this?

Not only could he fly, but he could turn his head against the raging wind to greet them at Mach 0.8?

Was his neck made of titanium alloy?!

Ten thousand meters in the air.

Having finished waving, Lin Bei looked at the fighter jet behind him, which seemed somewhat dazed, and curled his lip.

"This hunk of iron of yours flies way too slowly."

After that inward gripe, Lin Bei turned back around, and the spiritual energy of his Qi Refining First Layer erupted without restraint.

It all poured into the iron sword beneath his feet.

"Let's go!"

A clear sword cry rang through the clouds.

The iron sword, which had originally glowed with a faint azure light, instantly erupted with dazzling azure radiance.

Boom-!

An enormous ring of white air, visible to the naked eye, exploded through the stratosphere with Lin Bei at its center.

A sonic boom cloud!

Breaking the sound barrier in the flesh!

Inside the fighter jet's cockpit, Xu Hu watched the figures on his HUD skyrocket, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.

On the radar screen, the red dot representing Lin Bei instantly shot from Mach 0.8 straight up to Mach 1.5!

In the blink of an eye, he left the fighter jet several kilometers behind.

Even his taillights... no, even his sword's light was almost out of sight.

"Reporting!"

Inside his cockpit, Xu Hu was questioning his entire existence.

"The target has broken the sound barrier!"

"My God, he's flying faster than I am!"

"I can't catch him! I really can't catch him!"