Chapter 465 - 439: Heaven Shakes and Earth Trembles: I Am Lu Bell, and What I Say Goes

Song Ciwan walked over to the Silver Armored Military Officer and sighed softly. "What do you think you’re doing?"

To the onlookers, the corner of the black-robed youth’s mouth merely twitched. More than mockery, his young face wore an expression of exasperation, as if to say, ’How can you all be so stupid?’

Yet, this exasperation was somehow more cutting than any overt sneer.

The City Patrol Department Soldiers supporting the Silver Armored Military Officer couldn’t help but shuffle back a step, even as their faces were masks of uniform fury.

Then, the black-robed youth spoke again. "It’s simple. I’ve said it several times now. I have only one demand: none of you are to go to the Spirit Realm Secret Realm. No one. If anyone dares..."

At this, the black-robed youth stepped over the teahouse’s threshold.

The City Patrol Department Soldiers holding up their officer scrambled to the side, pressing themselves into a tight, flattened cluster.

The black-robed youth paid them no mind, crossing the threshold and walking into the street, spear in hand.

In the street, more eyes fell upon him, and more onlookers began to back away.

Some even retreated into the shops across the way. Others, unwilling to miss the spectacle but fearing the danger, huddled under the eaves of the buildings opposite the street.

They jostled against one another, shrinking into themselves yet still fighting to maintain a front-row view.

For a moment, it was its own kind of bustling chaos.

Wherever the black-robed youth passed, the crowd parted before him like the sea.

Only then did the crowd hear the black-robed youth finish the sentence he had left hanging.

They heard the black-robed youth declare, "If anyone dares to go, I will be waiting at the entrance to the Secret Realm with my blade drawn!"

Having said his piece, the tall, slender figure suddenly shot into the air from the middle of the street.

The onlookers all craned their necks to see him raise his spear and point it toward the sky.

The sky had been a clear, limpid blue. Several consecutive days of heavy snow had blanketed the earth in white and washed the heavens, leaving them azure and ethereal.

There was nothing in the sky, yet the instant the black-robed youth soared upward with his spear, a net of eerie blue electricity materialized from thin air.

CRACKLE!

The electric net thundered, letting out bursts of crackling sparks.

From the crowd, someone cried out in alarm, "It’s... it’s the City Defense Array! The City Defense Array is active!"

Others were delighted. "Excellent! This madman dares to fly freely within the city. With the City Defense Array active, he’s dead for sure!"

Before these joyful words had even faded, the black-robed youth who had shot into the sky lifted his spear and suddenly hurled it.

The moment the spear left his hand, the entire world seemed to fall silent.

If the Silver Armored Martial Artist’s spear throw had been like a furious dragon and startling lightning, then the black-robed youth’s throw now seemed to have reversed the river of stars, stolen the light of the heavens, and absorbed all the Distracting Thoughts of the Mortal World.

The onlookers’ eyes were all wide, but their minds went blank for a moment, completely incapable of thought.

Everything else vanished. All they could see was that spear.

A single throw that could shake the heavens and stun the ages.

SWOOSH!

The spear flew past.

Was there a sound?

It seemed there was, and yet there wasn’t.

The spear’s tip, like a convergence of mountain peaks, met the flickering electric net in the sky. PSSST!

As if piercing a thin sheet of paper stretched over a bowl, the electric net—the very net that connected the entire city—was torn apart with ease.

From the direction of the County Magistrate’s Office in the distance, a voice seemed to cry out, "O righteous fortune of the nation, gather upon my Spirit Platform, weave my celestial net, protect my vast lands. Seal!"

In the sky, countless new lines, ashen-gray in color, began to grow frantically from the torn electric net.

Unlike before, these lines were not just charged with eerie blue electricity, but also with all sorts of tangling, stretching energies of unknown meaning.

There was a deep black light, as desolate and cold as the Abyss.

There was a crimson light, as searing as magma.

There was a dim gray light, twisted and viscous, that clung like a swamp of mud.

There were also lights of mossy green, others with edges that frayed like feathers, and countless more lights and shadows of indescribable colors and shapes...

All these lights grew like wild vines, madly reaching for the figure soaring into the sky.

At the same time, they were accompanied by a series of vast, indistinct sounds.

These sounds seemed to come from the heavens, and yet also from the Mortal World.

Infinitely vast, infinitely ethereal, both distant and magnificent. They seemed to be within the mortal coil, yet also in some majestic, faraway place.

This was the coalesced manifestation of the nation’s fortune!

When faced with a powerful enemy, activating the City Defense Array didn’t just mobilize the power it had accumulated over the years—it also mobilized the nation’s fortune!

At that moment, most of the onlookers below fell to their knees.

It wasn’t just the crowd around the teahouse; the entire city’s populace was affected by the sudden mobilization of the nation’s fortune. Their hearts pounded with an involuntary terror, an invisible panic descended, and more and more people collapsed to their knees.

THUD!

THUD!

From within the twisting lights in the sky, cries seemed to echo: "Seal! Seal! Seal!"

"Suppress! Suppress! Suppress!"

"Die—!"

...

Shrieks rang out as the rays of light stretched forth, like a bacchanal of demons.

Amidst it all were muffled shouts: "Ahhhhh!"

...

But even so, it was all meaningless.

The nation’s fortune might be strong, but everything depended on who was mobilizing it—and who their opponent was!

The spear broke through the celestial dome, then flipped in the sky far beyond. Its tip turned back toward the ground, and it plummeted.

Fast!

Too fast!

So fast that the wildly growing lights and shadows couldn’t keep up with it. So fast that all words of description became a pale backdrop.

BOOM!

The spear pierced the celestial net woven from the nation’s fortune a second time, annihilating all the wildly growing rays of light into nothingness.

All sound vanished once more.

The spear fell through the enormous hole, while the figure of the black-robed youth in the sky shot through the opening like a black arrow, heading for the space Beyond the Heavens.

The spear and the black-robed youth crossed paths—the youth soaring away from the world, the spear trailing a long tail of flame as it fell toward the ground.

It all happened in a flash.

In the direction of the County Magistrate’s Office, the County Magistrate cried out in pain and collapsed. The City Defense Array lost its anchor, and the electric net in the sky abruptly dissipated.

From the west of the city, a heavy bell tolled, its sound rippling like a shockwave. The voice of the City God followed: "Who in the heavens are you? To cause such a disturbance, do you dare leave your name!"

From the sky, the youth’s long laugh echoed in response. "Why wouldn’t I dare? I am Lu Bell. I did not come to cause trouble, but merely to offer some well-intentioned advice. The Spirit Realm Secret Realm is not a place you should go! It will bring only misfortune. You would all do well to remember that!"

Lu Bell!

Amidst the lingering laughter, the black-robed youth trod upon the sea of clouds and drifted away.

He left behind only a profound, lasting shock that reverberated throughout Luying City, on the border of Yu State.

And the spear. The one that had torn through the celestial net and fallen to earth with a tail of flame.

It was embedded deep in the bluestone slabs of Sanming Street.

The flagstones had spiderwebbed with cracks, just like the shattered Divine Souls of everyone in the city.