“Right now.”
The words fell hard and clear.
For a breath, no one reacted.
Then the plaza broke into whispers.
“Right now?”
“He dares?”
The air thickened with noise.
Han Dengling burst into laughter.
“Good.”
“You have backbone.”
“I thought you were a coward.”
He took another step. The sole of his shoe tapped lightly against stone in the open plaza. His eyes sharpened like a blade just drawn from its sheath.
“The way you stand now… I find it refreshing.”
Yang Feng did not respond.
He only looked straight ahead.
His gaze was not heated.
Not stirred.
Only steady.
A light wind brushed across the steps of the Council Hall, carrying the chill of early morning. The gray robes around them shifted faintly, like the surface of water touched once.
Han Dengling tilted his head slightly. The smile faded.
“There is something I have always wondered…”
“Why Mortal?”
“The Heavenly path draws lightning tribulation. In return, the strongest foundation.”
“The Earthly path is stable. Solid. It does not deviate.”
“You just entered the sect.”
“No one forced your breakthrough.”
“So why choose the lowest path?”
The wind swept through again, stronger this time, lifting fine dust from the stone steps. No one spoke. No one moved. Only two figures stood facing one another, like two strokes of ink against gray stone.
Yang Feng looked at him.
For a brief moment, his gaze brushed across the line on the list.
Mortal Foundation.
He did not smile.
“I did not choose the lower path,” he said.
“I chose the path I can walk.”
Yang Feng did not explain further. He did not need to.
From within the crowd, someone scoffed.
“A path you can walk? Or a path you dare not?”
“Foundation without lightning tribulation. Isn’t that just avoidance?”
“Someone like that… why enter the Inner Sect?”
A few short laughs followed, brief and cutting.
Han Dengling did not stop them.
He simply looked at Yang Feng for one more moment. His gaze was calm enough that the noise faded on its own.
Then he spoke.
“You say you can walk.”
“Then show me.”
“Show me how you walk.”
A faint metallic sound rang out.
Han Dengling’s sword left its sheath without haste or display.
When the blade appeared, the air seemed thinner. The plaza felt as though it had lost a breath.
A thin strand of Sword Qi slid across the stone, leaving behind a shallow white mark.
Not deep.
But sharp enough that those nearby felt a chill at the back of their necks.
No one spoke.
“Heavenly Sword Art.”
Han Dengling raised his sword slightly, wrist angled.
“First Form.”
Single Line Windcleave.
He did not give his name.
He did not introduce himself.
He simply said,
“I have mastered the first five forms of the Heavenly Sword Art.”
“I am at late-stage Qi Refinement.”
“And my copper skin has been tempered to its limit.”
His voice was not loud, yet each word landed heavy, like knuckles striking stone.
He looked straight at Yang Feng.
“What do you have?”
The space between them seemed to stretch for one more beat.
No one spoke.
Even those who had been laughing fell silent, as if instinct told them this was not a moment to interrupt.
Yang Feng set down the basket of herbs.
He took the token from his sleeve and stored it away. A small movement. Decisive. As if discarding everything unnecessary.
He drew the sword at his waist, slowly easing it from the sheath.
The blade was chipped in places.
The hilt still bore the thin crack from a year ago.
There was no flare of light.
No surge of presence.
Only an old sword, raised by a hand that did not tremble.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He did not lift it high. He held it level before him.
“I have a sword.”
A simple sentence. Enough to answer. Enough to make several in the crowd unconsciously hold their breath.
Han Dengling let out a faint laugh.
“Then let us begin.”
The space around the plaza gradually fell still.
The murmurs from moments ago sank layer by layer, like water withdrawing from a stony shore.
The wind continued to blow, yet no one noticed the dry leaves rustling anymore.
The two stood facing one another.
The space between them was not wide,
but heavy.
No signal.
No count.
No one called the start.
A single blink.
Han Dengling moved.
In that instant, his figure vanished from where he had stood.
Not because he was too fast to see,
but because his motion was so clean it seemed prepared long before his foot touched the ground.
A streak of steel cut through the air, straight and clean, each motion exact.
It carried no flourish.
Only a line so precise it sent a chill down the spine.
Yang Feng barely raised his sword in time.
Clang.
The impact rang out like metal striking a bronze bell.
The vibration ran through the stone beneath their feet.
His foot slid back half a step.
Stone cracked.
Spiritual power inside his body shuddered as if hammered into his spine.
The crowd drew in a sharp breath.
“The gap is obvious…”
“This is real swordsmanship.”
Han Dengling did not give him time to steady himself.
His wrist turned.
The blade flipped across.
“Second Form.”
Crosscurrent Shadow Sever.
The line of the sword shifted like water changing course.
Not faster.
More precise.
Yang Feng twisted to evade.
Half a beat too slow.
The blade brushed his sleeve.
The Sword Qi did not.
A thin edge, fine as thread, cut across his abdomen.
Slash.
The wound opened.
Blood seeped out.
Yang Feng countered immediately.
No form.
No technique.
Only a downward diagonal strike, pouring all his spiritual power into muscle.
Boom.
The stone beneath his feet exploded into a shallow crater.
Han Dengling stepped back once.
His eyes shifted slightly.
“Heavy.”
At the same time, the muscles in Yang Feng’s arm trembled violently.
Bone grated beneath skin.
After stepping into Mortal Foundation, the spiritual power within his dantian had grown denser and far stronger than it had been in Qi Refinement.
His body, however, had never been tempered to keep pace with it.
The force rebounded through his frame, tearing muscle from within, and Yang Feng did not even realize it.
He thought it was only recoil.
In that brief instant, Han Dengling pivoted.
Sword Qi gathered along the edge.
The First Form returned.
Not to open.
To press.
A vertical line fell from above.
Yang Feng raised his sword on instinct.
At the same time, he drove spiritual power into his stance and shifted aside.
Slash.
The blade deflected.
Bang.
The strike tore a deep groove into the stone.
But Han Dengling was no longer there.
“Third Form.”
Heart-Piercing Shadow Thrust.
The tip shot forward.
Sword Qi drove ahead like an invisible spear.
Yang Feng retreated half a step.
He missed the block.
The blade pierced through his shoulder.
Blood burst outward.
A rough breath escaped him.
Before he could recover—
“Fourth Form.”
Reverse Wind Slash.
Han Dengling twisted from right to left,
his left foot pressing down as the blade rose high and came down in a diagonal arc.
The strike was powerful, steady as a stone pillar.
Yang Feng had no time to set his guard.
He threw his weight backward.
The blade grazed past his chest.
The wind of the strike tore his robe open.
But the chain of forms did not break.
“Fifth Form.”
Heavenline Sundering Strike.
Han Dengling lowered the blade.
Sword Qi clung to its spine, thin as thread.
It did not flare or blaze, only stretched into a single absolute line.
Then he lifted it.
A motion that seemed light.
But at the same time, the spiritual power in his dantian was drained.
The blade carved upward from low at his side in a rising arc.
The air before its edge split apart.
The stone beneath his feet cracked into a long fissure, not because it had been struck, but because the pressure of the Sword Qi descended before the blade ever touched ground.
Fragments of rock burst upward as if the earth itself had recoiled.
This was no longer a flowing chain of forms.
This was a finishing line.
Yang Feng did not dodge.
There was nowhere left to dodge.
All the spiritual power remaining in his dantian trembled violently.
Not refined.
Not controlled.
A crude mass of force.
Thick.
Heavy.
He poured everything into his muscles.
Shoulders.
Back.
Arms.
Every fiber beneath his skin drew tight like a bow pulled to its limit.
His meridians burned.
Spiritual power surged like floodwater breaking a dam.
Slash.
The two blades met in midair.
The sound was not a ringing clash.
It was dull.
Heavy.
Like two solid blocks of steel colliding.
Pressure compressed at the point of contact for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Then it burst outward.
The air warped around them like water pressed inward and flung back.
Wind swept across the plaza.
Dust spiraled outward in widening circles.
The stone beneath their feet trembled before it shattered.
Cracks spread like a web.
Han Dengling’s Sword Qi stretched into a thin line of light, holding its form.
Yang Feng’s crude spiritual force pressed entirely into his blade.
No refinement.
No restraint.
Only weight.
In that instant,
a dry sound echoed.
Crack.
Not from the ground.
Not from bone.
From Yang Feng’s blade.
The old fracture along the sword extended.
A pale line ran down its spine.
Then,
The blade split in two.
The upper half was flung into the air, spun once, and drove into the stone several strides away.
The collision did not stop.
The remaining half in his hand slid off Han Dengling’s strike.
The recoil traveled straight into his wrist.
Crack.
This time, his bone.
Han Dengling stepped back.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Each step left a deep imprint in the stone.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
The sword in his hand trembled.
At the center of the plaza,
Yang Feng dropped to one knee.
Half a broken blade remained in his grip.
The shortened edge stabbed into the stone before him, too short now to anchor his balance.
Blood fell in steady drops.
The spiritual power inside him churned in reverse.
Muscle beneath his skin tore in small fragments.
The sword could not bear the force.
Neither could his body.
The wind moved through the plaza.
A fragment of the broken blade lay upon the stone, reflecting the fading light of evening.
No one spoke.
The murmurs had fallen away.
The whispers no longer stirred.
In the middle of the plaza, only a young man remained kneeling,
a broken blade in his hand.
Even the wind grew still,
as if the vast plaza had been pressed down by an unseen hand,
forcing every sound into silence.
The dust settled.
Grain by grain, it fell onto the cracked stone,
gathering along fractures that had not yet closed.
Han Dengling stood straight.
His breathing was not hurried, only one measure heavier than before.
The blood at the corner of his mouth had dried into a dark trace.
His eyes remained clear.
He looked at Yang Feng.
Not loudly.
Not in triumph.
He simply looked.
Then he slowly let out a long breath,
as though releasing the last remnant of spiritual power left in his chest.
“You are not weak.”
His voice was not loud.
Yet in the stillness, each word fell with clarity.
“But you are not strong.”
He sheathed his sword.
The faint ring of metal sounded, thin and cold,
before fading into the quiet.
“You lack one thing.”
His gaze lowered to Yang Feng’s trembling arm,
where muscle had split and blood had yet to clot.
“Your body.”
He said nothing more.
He turned.
And walked away.
The crowd parted on its own, opening a narrow path.
No one tried to stop him.
No one spoke.
Only silent gazes followed his back.
At the center of the plaza, Yang Feng remained on one knee.
Half a broken blade was still lodged in the stone before him.
Blood dripped from his arm.
Drop by drop.
Falling into the fresh cracks that had just been carved into the ground.
No one called him a coward anymore.
There was no more mocking laughter.
Only the wide plaza,
the new fractures in the stone,
and a silence so deep that even breathing seemed too loud.
---