Chapter 155: A sword stroke clears the way.

CRACK!

A sound like an enormous pane of glass being torn apart echoed across the entire aerospace center.

The spatial tear, which had only reached several dozen meters after its previous expansion, was suddenly pulled violently toward both sides.

One hundred meters.

Five hundred meters.

Then more than a kilometer within only a few breaths.

Blue-purple light surged out from the other side, dyeing the entire sky in an eerie color and causing everyone standing around the area to change expression.

"Fall back! The gate is opening!"

"Protect the younger generation!"

Shouts rang continuously throughout the camps.

Ethan had just stepped out of Qing Lian’s barrier when he was forced to raise a hand to shield his eyes.

He had originally assumed that once the gate truly formed, spatial forces would create a massive suction that dragged everything nearby inside.

But what happened was the complete opposite.

Boom!

A terrifying storm erupted from the spatial tear.

The air compressed into layers of white waves visible to the naked eye, sweeping across the aerospace center like an invisible wall.

Metal blocks weighing dozens of tons scattered across the runway were thrown off the ground. Several smaller airships were even pushed sideways for dozens of meters despite their anchoring systems having already been activated.

Laira immediately stepped in front of Ethan.

Her tall body lowered slightly as her dragon wings spread wide, blocking most of the wind.

Ruo Yan stood behind her, one hand gripping the edge of her clothes while the other controlled her Soul Threads, wrapping them tightly around a nearby steel pillar to anchor herself.

Mumu was an entirely different story.

"MUMU!"

The Slime, more than three meters tall, was stretched by the wind like a piece of soft candy.

Its upper body flew toward the left while its lower half remained firmly stuck to the ground.

Ethan turned his head just in time to see part of Mumu’s body flying horizontally past his face.

He immediately reached out with his right hand and grabbed it.

"Mumu, shrink!"

"MUMUMU!"

Whether it actually understood him or was simply too frightened was impossible to tell, but its entire body immediately contracted into a round ball before the wind sent it rolling straight toward Laira.

Splat!

Mumu stuck to her back.

Laira was pushed half a step forward, then turned her head toward the Slime’s face peeking over her shoulder.

"Get down."

"Mumu!"

"You are heavy."

Hearing that, Mumu immediately shrank another size.

Even Ethan, who had been tense, could not help laughing.

But the smile quickly disappeared when he looked back toward the spatial tear.

The truly terrifying thing was not the wind.

It was the energy pouring out of the Gate.

Streams of strange light continuously erupted from the spatial fissure, carrying dozens of different colors.

Some were blazing red like molten lava.

Some were nearly transparent blue.

Others were so completely black that even the surrounding light seemed to be swallowed as they passed.

Only a few seconds later, those energies began intersecting.

At first there were only several strands, but the number rapidly increased into dozens, hundreds, then thousands.

Eventually, they wove themselves into an enormous net centered around the spatial tear and covering an area more than ten miles wide.

Hum!

The instant the net fully formed, the spatial pressure skyrocketed.

A nonhuman flying several hundred meters above the ground was immediately forced downward.

He hurriedly activated an ability to stabilize himself, but the moment he touched one of the energy strands, he was blasted sideways as though he had collided with an invisible wall.

A Harpy elder saw what happened, and his expression immediately changed.

"This is the gate’s screening layer! Prepare yourselves!"

Almost immediately after the warning, the powerful figures accompanying the Elves, Beastkin, Dark Elves, and various other races all acted at once.

An old Elf raised his staff.

An enormous forest instantly burst through the concrete, hundreds of branches intertwining before stabbing violently into the energy net ahead and forcibly tearing open a gap.

Elsewhere, a Beastkin nearly five meters tall let out a roar.

Both arms rapidly transformed into enormous claws before tearing directly forward.

BOOM!

The energy strands trembled violently.

The opening lasted only for a brief moment, but it was enough for the younger members behind them to rush through.

The elders stopped just outside.

Everyone understood the rule.

This gate only allowed beings below Diamond rank to enter.

If anyone above the limit tried to force their way through, that spatial net would not merely stop them.

It would kill them.

Ethan watched group after group open paths for their younger members before turning toward Qing Lian.

She remained standing where she was, while Qing Zhu beside her showed no sign of urgency either.

She merely watched the energy net becoming increasingly dense.

"The longer this takes, the harder it will become to open a path inside," Qing Zhu said. "Once the rules completely stabilize, even temporary openings like those will disappear."

Ethan frowned.

"Then how are we getting in?"

Qing Zhu smiled.

"You asked the wrong person."

Before Ethan could even turn his head, Qing Lian had already stepped forward.

A scroll appeared in her hand.

No one saw where she had taken it from.

They only saw the long sheet of white paper automatically unfurl in the middle of the storm.

Strangely, even though the spatial winds outside were powerful enough to push airships aside, the scroll remained perfectly motionless before Qing Lian.

She raised her right hand.

Her index and middle fingers came together and stood upright before her.

The black characters on the scroll began to move.

Hundreds of words continuously slid across its surface before disappearing one after another.

Eventually, only a single character remained on the blank page.

Sword.

Just one simple word.

But the moment it appeared, every sword, saber, spear, and bladed weapon throughout the surrounding area began vibrating at once.

Clang!

Clang! Clang!

Metallic ringing echoed continuously.

Several people holding weapons immediately changed expression and had to use strength just to keep them under control.

"What is happening?"

"Sword Intent?"

Qing Zhu, standing behind her, immediately stepped aside.

Laira also raised her head and looked at Qing Lian.

She already knew this woman was extremely powerful, but this feeling was completely different from when Qing Lian had used her aura to force four powerful experts to kneel.

This time, Qing Lian released no pressure at all.

She merely held two fingers upright before her chest and calmly looked at the character Sword floating on the scroll.

A moment later, her middle finger bent slightly.

Her thumb held it in place.

Then she flicked it forward.

Tap.

Her fingertip touched the character Sword.

The sound was so quiet that it nearly disappeared beneath the storm.

But at that instant, the world suddenly fell silent.

Ethan felt as though every sound around him had been erased.

The wind stopped.

The energy net stopped trembling.

Even the nonhumans charging forward seemed to slow for a single beat.

The colors in the sky faded.

Then a line of light appeared.

Thin.

Straight.

And so dazzling that Ethan instinctively narrowed his eyes after only one glance.

SWISH!

Sword light shot out from the character Sword.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

It simply moved calmly forward.

The first energy strands it touched immediately separated toward both sides.

They were neither shattered nor forcibly pushed away.

It felt as though space itself had been cut straight down the middle by an invisible blade.

The sword light continued forward.

Ten meters.

One hundred meters.

One kilometer.

The farther it traveled, the larger the line of light became.

By the time it reached the center of the spatial tear, it had transformed into an enormous band of sword light stretching from the ground all the way into the sky.

BOOM!

Only then did sound suddenly return.

The sky was split in two.

The clouds swirling around the spatial tear simultaneously separated toward both sides, revealing a dark blue path across the heavens that stretched beyond the limits of sight.

The energy net covering more than ten miles was also cut open into a corridor dozens of meters wide.

The severed strands of energy continuously twitched, but under the lingering Sword Intent, they could not close again.

Even the spatial tear itself had been opened by the sword light into a straight passage.

A completely unobstructed road.

The elders of the various races, who had only managed to force open tiny gaps by using all their strength, now stood frozen in place.

Qing Lian did not even bother looking at them.

She simply turned toward Ethan.

"Ethan!"

He had been waiting for exactly that.

"Go!"