Chapter 579 - 383: Descent, Jian Yi’s Strongest Sword Strike

Chapter 579: Chapter 383: Descent, Jian Yi’s Strongest Sword Strike

"Hm?" Liangzi raised an eyebrow, pausing his cracking of sunflower seeds.

The image on the screen, which had been displaying a clear afternoon sky, was now marred by a sudden and deeply unnatural azure halo. Like ink dropped into clear water, it rapidly spread outward.

"The hell... Is the monitor broken?" Liangzi muttered, reaching out to tap the screen.

But the blue light remained, growing brighter and more intense. It expanded rapidly from a tiny dot into a patch that stained the on-screen sky an eerie blue.

What made Liangzi’s scalp prickle was that the blue light wasn’t static. It pulsed with a rhythmic ebb and flow, like a living thing breathing. Faint, ripple-like waves of light emanated from its center.

This familiar sight...

Liangzi shot up from his lounge chair, his hefty body displaying an agility that completely betrayed his size.

His eyes, normally narrowed to a squint, were now wide open, glued to the screen.

’A Teleportation Array! That’s definitely the light of an active Teleportation Array! And from the looks of it, it’s countless times bigger than the disturbance Tang Yuchu caused last time!’

HUMMM—

As the azure radiance spread like water ripples, forming a massive curtain of light that covered a large portion of the sky, a shudder ran through Liangzi’s body. He practically scrambled to the console and, with a trembling hand, slammed down the red button—the one for the highest-level alert.

A piercing alarm instantly blared throughout the monitoring center, transmitted via secure channels to every major outpost of the Starfire Organization.

"Alert! Highest-level alert! Northwest sector, coordinates 323, 178, massive spatial fluctuations detected. Suspected enemy teleportation in progress! I repeat, suspected enemy teleportation in progress!"

Liangzi snatched the communicator, his voice hoarse as he yelled. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, instantly soaking his collar.

...

On the training grounds of the Martial Arts Academy.

Jian Yi was instructing a new student in the Qi Refining Realm on how to coalesce his sword aura when the piercing alarm rang out like a sudden clap of thunder. The wooden sword in his hand faltered for a moment, and the student jumped, startled by the sudden noise.

"All students, to the underground shelter, now! Instructors, initiate Level-One combat readiness!" Jian Yi’s voice was utterly devoid of panic, as calm and cold as ancient glacial ice.

He didn’t even turn his head. The moment he heard Liangzi’s voice on the internal channel—"enemy teleportation in progress"—his figure blurred and vanished from the far end of the training grounds.

Alina of the Magic Academy, Master Jie Nian, and the other core members of Starfire, whether they were teaching or in the midst of Cultivation, all received the alert at nearly the same instant.

Without a moment’s hesitation, they all dropped what they were doing and became streaks of light, racing toward the source of the alarm.

The entire Starfire Organization, a machine that ran with clockwork precision in peacetime, shifted into a high-speed war footing the instant the alarm sounded.

Moreover, as the alert propagated, the entire city of Zhongjing, and indeed the whole Alliance, sprang into action.

Emergency protocols, practiced countless times, were activated one by one. Piercing air-raid sirens wailed across the city. The once-bustling streets became orderly in an instant as countless citizens, guided by Starfire members and soldiers, evacuated to the nearest underground shelters.

There was tension, but no panic. There was fear, but not despair.

In the city’s northwest, the azure curtain of light now consumed more than half the sky, like a colossal, demonic eye stretched across the heavens, gazing coldly down upon the prepared city below.

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH—!

The first to arrive was a dense volley of missiles. Trailing long plumes of fire, they screamed into the sky from hidden silos all over the city, like furious dragons plunging headlong into the eerie blue light.

This was followed by a deafening roar from the ground. A fleet of camouflaged, all-terrain unmanned combat vehicles swarmed in from every direction like a tide of steel. Their menacing cannons spat furious gouts of flame, unleashing a torrent of high-explosive, armor-piercing shells into the sky.

This was the most powerful conventional firepower the Alliance could muster, representing the pinnacle of this world’s military technology.

However, these attacks—each capable of annihilating a small city—vanished into the azure curtain of light like stones dropped into the ocean, disappearing without a trace.

The blue light merely shimmered with fine ripples, effortlessly neutralizing all the missiles and shells, not a single one managing to produce a proper explosion.

"Damn it!" In the underground command center, Lao Gui slammed his fist on the console, his expression grave.

Just as everyone’s hearts sank, several much thicker columns of fire tore through the sky at speeds far surpassing the earlier missiles, slamming violently into the blue light!

Tactical nukes!

BOOOOOM—!

This time, the blue light finally reacted. The violent detonations created monstrous waves across its surface, causing the entire curtain of light to tremble violently. Its color flickered erratically, as if it might shatter at any moment.

"It’s working!" A suppressed cheer erupted in the command center.

But before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, the situation changed again.

In the center of the violently shaking blue curtain, space suddenly collapsed inward. Then, a colossal palm, composed entirely of cyan light condensed to its absolute limit, slowly extended out.

The colossal palm blotted out the sky, radiating a terrifying pressure that made one’s very soul shudder. With a casual flick, it caught several more incoming tactical nukes.

Before the horrified eyes of countless onlookers, the five fingers of the cyan palm closed slightly.

CRUNCH...

As if crushing fragile eggs, the tactical nukes—each capable of leveling a city—were crushed into oblivion within the palm’s grip, failing to even detonate before they were annihilated and dissipated into nothing.

Deathly silence.

Everyone who witnessed this, whether on-screen or with their own eyes, felt a bone-deep chill shoot from the soles of their feet to the crown of their head. It was as if their very blood had frozen solid.

A single hand had toyed with humanity’s ultimate weapon as if it were a mere plaything!

’Is this the true power of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator from the Kunxu Realm?’

Just as despair settled over everyone, a lone figure suddenly shot into the air, heading straight for the colossal hand.

The figure was dressed in black and wielded a longsword, his face an emotionless mask.

It was Jian Yi!

He made no sound; even the whisper of his passage through the air was almost nonexistent, as if he were a shadow melting into the wind.

Yet, as he reached the apex of his ascent, he raised his longsword. In the eerie azure glow, the blade gleamed with a cold, hard light.

There was no world-shaking eruption of power, no dazzling special effects.

In that instant, Jian Yi seemed to merge with his sword, becoming one with the blade—an unparalleled divine weapon on the verge of being drawn.

The aura around him was condensed to the absolute extreme. His Sword Intent was so pure and sharp it felt as though it could pierce the very heavens, let alone the azure curtain of light.

The next moment, he struck with his sword.

There was no earth-shaking force, no brilliant flash of light.

The strike was unremarkable, like a child’s casual swing.

And yet, this seemingly simple strike made everyone watching—whether through a screen or with their own eyes—feel as if their very souls had just been viciously pierced.

It was a strike of ultimate purity, one that cast aside all distracting thoughts and external factors, leaving only the singular intent: to cut.

This one strike condensed all of Jian Yi’s understanding of and devotion to the Sword Dao. More than that, it was infused with the newborn, incomparably pure sword essence he had gained after breaking through the Qi Refining Realm!

The sword light wasn’t dazzling; it was reserved, like the lonely path of a star streaking through an eternal night. Yet it carried a sharpness, a decisiveness that could sever the threads of fate and shatter all illusion!

SHIIIIING—!

Where the sword light passed, the air itself split open, forming a silent, pitch-black fissure, as if space itself could not withstand the blade’s edge.

The cyan palm—seemingly indestructible, capable of crushing tactical nukes with ease—froze the instant it met the sword light. The cyan radiance flowing across its surface abruptly stagnated.

Then, under the shocked, ecstatic, and utterly disbelieving gazes of countless witnesses, a tiny but distinct crack appeared where the sword light had landed. And from that point, it began to spread like a spiderweb!