Tang San, suspended in the distant sky, coldly watched the blue light barrier that blocked the giant wave.
The trident mark on his forehead flashed with blue light, and the divine weapon in his hand once again radiated a deeper and purer sea-blue glow than before.
“A dying struggle!
Feng Bailong, you’ve already chosen your own path to death!”
Tang San’s eyes flashed like lightning as he hurled the Sea God’s Trident.
“The Heart of the Sea God comes with the skill – Raging Ocean Waves!”
The halberd transformed into a golden stream of light, with the blue energy of the raging ocean following closely behind.
This time it was no longer a towering wave, but a fatal blow concentrated at the tip of the halberd!
The air whistled as the trident swept past.
Wherever that extremely compressed blue light passed, ripples appeared in the space.
“This is bad!
Disciples, hold your ground!”
Feng Bailong’s pupils shrank sharply, and he roared as he poured his soul power into the array’s core.
The cyan light barrier lit up again, and hundreds of disciples desperately activated their soul power.
“Boom—Crack!”
The moment the halberd tip touched the light barrier, the Heart-Soothing Formation shattered!
Cyan fragments scattered everywhere, and the backlash energy storm sent the disciples flying.
Feng Bailong stood frozen in place, staring blankly down at his chest.
A hole the size of a bowl pierced through his chest, its edges still wreathed in the lingering power of the water element.
He opened his mouth, but ultimately, with a look of resentment, he fell from the city wall and disappeared into the raging torrent.
“Sect Master!!!”
The disciples of the Wind Sword Sect let out a mournful cry.
The next second, the Jialing Pass city wall, having lost the protection of the Heart-Soothing Array, was completely exposed to the towering waves!
“boom–!!!”
This time, there were no obstacles.
A hundred-meter-high wall of water crashed against the ancient city wall with overwhelming force!
The immense impact caused the entire pass to groan and tremble, and the sturdy bricks were easily torn apart and swept away like toys.
“No–!”
“Help!”
“Mother…”
Desperate cries for help, screams, and wails erupted instantly, only to be immediately drowned out by the deafening roar of the waves.
The giant waves relentlessly swept over the battlements, swallowing up everything that lived on the city walls.
The soldiers were swept up like falling leaves, their heavy armor now becoming death warrants, dragging them swiftly to the bottom of the murky water.
Banners, crossbows, and scattered weapons tumbled and collided in the raging torrent, producing a teeth-grinding cracking sound.
Lu Feng felt a sudden darkness before his eyes as an irresistible force slammed into his chest and back, as if he had been hit by a ten-thousand-pound hammer!
The cracking sound of bones breaking was masked by the sound of water, and the excruciating pain didn’t even have time to reach his brain before the icy river water rushed into his mouth and nose.
“Uh…
gurgle…”
Lu Feng struggled desperately to surface, but his body was completely out of his control, and he could only tumble in the raging undercurrent.
The feeling of suffocation gripped his throat like an iron hoop, and his lungs burned with pain.
In the last moments before his consciousness completely sank into darkness, he saw a blurry and terrifying sight through the murky water:
The once majestic walls of Jialing Pass were twisted and collapsed in the flood.
Countless soldiers, just like him and dressed in the uniform of the Spirit Empire, helplessly sank and struggled in the water, then disappeared like stones.
The entire Jialing Pass was now a vast, infernal wasteland.
“We’re just ordinary soldiers…
why won’t they even give us a way to survive…”
This lingering thought, like a candle flickering in the wind, swayed in his consciousness as he was about to sink into eternal darkness.
A bone-chilling cold was spreading from every part of my body, more penetrating than the floodwaters of Jialing Pass.
“…Do so-called gods have the right to trample on ordinary people like weeds at will…?”
After an unknown amount of time, Lu Feng slowly opened his eyes, and what came into view was a pair of small hands that were blue and purple from the cold.
His gaze shifted downwards in a panic—a small, thin body wrapped in tattered burlap, kneecaps clearly visible against the frozen ground.
He trembled as he touched his cheek, finding it to be the soft skin of a child.
His red hair, streaked with ice, fell across his forehead like a dying flame.
This frail body, this bone-chilling hunger… memories flooded back:
When he was six and a half years old, he was falsely accused by Lu Jing, the young master of the Lu family, of stealing a sect’s secret manual in the winter.
After being publicly whipped by his adoptive father Lu Jian, Lu Feng was thrown out of the Ice Sword Sect and left to fend for himself on this cold, windy plain.
“I’ve been reborn…”
A childish voice overflowed with a hoarse, bitter laugh.
The cramping pain in his stomach and the chilblains on his fingertips cruelly confirmed this fact—
He returned to the moment when he was abandoned in the cold, windswept plains, waiting to die.
The biting wind carried fragments of memories, slamming them into Lu Feng’s mind.
He saw himself huddled in the woodshed of the Ice Sword Sect, his six-year-old hands covered with frostbite from years of doing odd jobs.
The words of his adoptive father, Lu Jian, still seemed to echo in his ears: “A piece of trash who can’t even awaken a Martial Soul is just a waste of food!”
His memory suddenly jumped to that snowy evening.
Young Master Lu Jing pointed to his bruised and purple arm and cried out:
“Dad!
Brother Feng stole my candy and even hit me!”
His foster mother, Zhang Lan, immediately dug her sharp nails into Lu Feng’s arm: “You little bastard, how dare you bully Jing’er!”
The clearest image is the day Lu Jing shattered the sect leader’s jade pendant.
The seemingly frail child tugged at his clothes, pleading:
“Brother Feng, please admit it for me…”
When Lu Jian rushed over, Lu Jing suddenly screamed:
“Father!
Brother Feng smashed your favorite jade pendant and is trying to run away!”
“evil creature!”
As Lu Jian’s whip lashed down, Lu Feng remembered staring intently at the triumphant smile on Lu Jing’s lips.
Every detail of the day he was thrown out of the sect is etched in his memory.
The butler kicked him to the ground in the snow: “You little bastard, remember who you are!”
The tattered bundle was scattered all over the ground, and Lu Jing deliberately stepped into the mud with the patched cotton-padded coat.
“Such trash deserves to freeze to death outside!”
Amidst the snickers of the gatekeepers, six-and-a-half-year-old Lu Feng toddled into the cold, windy plains.
When he was hungry, he gnawed on tree bark; when he was thirsty, he drank snow water, until he collapsed in the snow on the fourth day…
After being rescued by a kind person and taken to Di’ao City, he wandered the streets.
On the fifth day, suffering from hunger and cold, he huddled under the eaves outside the steamer shop, staring blankly at the steam rising from the steamer.
“Little beggar, what are you looking at?” The shopkeeper raised his rolling pin and scolded.
“Boss, I…
I can help you with the work, just one steamed bun…”
“Get lost!
Don’t interrupt my business!”
The memory jumps to a cold winter day, when Lu Feng was beaten in the street for stealing dry food.
“Stealing at such a young age!”
Amidst the jeers and curses of the onlookers, only an old beggar quietly slipped him half a spoiled steamed bun.
“Child, being alive is more important than anything else.”
At the age of twelve, he was forced to join the local gang, the “Blood Wolf Gang”.
The leader pinched his chin and sized him up:
“That redhead’s got some nerve.
He’s going to ‘work’ at the caravan tomorrow; if he messes up…”
The other person made a throat-slitting gesture.
His most vivid memory was when he was fifteen years old, when Lu Jing, along with three disciples of the Ice Sword Sect, cornered him in an alley.
“That little bastard’s got a tough life.”
Lu Jing stepped on his hand and sneered, “Beat him hard!”
“Young Master, this kid at least spent some time in a sect…”
“What’s there to be afraid of?
He’s just a piece of trash without a Martial Soul!”