Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Breach the City

“All right,” Wang Jie said at last, waving his hand. “You can go.”

Chong Ruo Ruo exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for days. She stormed off, face tight with indignation.

After a few steps, she turned back. “Vicious man. What’s your name?”

“Wang Jie.”

“Wang Jie…” She narrowed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll remember you.”

“Hmph. We’ll see.”

Then she left.

Once she was gone, Wang Jie began packing the disaster materials.

Wen Zhao spoke quietly. “That girl told me something. You need to know.”

Wang Jie didn’t look up. “What?”

“On her way here, she met someone. Someone terrifyingly strong.”

“Eighth Seal?” Wang Jie asked, still sorting.

Wen Zhao’s gaze drifted in the direction Chong Ruo Ruo had gone. “A single look made the entire insect tide prostrate.”

Wang Jie’s hands stilled.

Wen Zhao met his eyes. “One look scared Chong Ruo Ruo so badly she didn’t dare move.”

Wang Jie’s expression shifted completely.

He had just crushed a centipede with one finger—yet that wasn’t even close to making an entire insect tide kneel with a glance. The difference was a cliff. Not even comparable.

At the Eighth Seal, without some special bloodline… intimidating an entire swarm like that should’ve been impossible.

“Someone like that exists?” Wang Jie asked, voice low.

“Before she said it, I would’ve said no,” Wen Zhao replied. “Even the fourth batch of Ten Seals Trialists shouldn’t be that exaggerated.”

“But it’s real.”

Wang Jie’s eyes narrowed. “Could she be lying?”

Wen Zhao shook her head. “She doesn’t lie. She didn’t trick me.”

A cold weight settled in Wang Jie’s chest.

Trouble.

After gathering their haul, they headed back toward the Shang Jing City base.

It was time to rest.

—

Far to the north of Hua Xia, in a dim, crumbling villa, a man stood by a window, staring at the sunlight with a hunger that looked almost painful.

Behind him lay piles of disaster materials.

He had once craved them.

Now they disgusted him.

A Trialist walked in and kicked the materials scattered across the floor. “Hurry up. You’re not far from breaking through, right?”

The man lowered his head. “If I break through… will you let me go?”

“Of course,” the Trialist said with a smile. “You’re a meritorious contributor.”

“Not only will we spare you, we’ll free you from being a war slave. If you’re lucky, you might even become part of the next group of Trialists.”

The man’s lips twisted.

Only children believed words like that.

But he had no choice.

He picked up the materials and began absorbing imprint power.

The Trialist was right. He was only one step away.

As the imprint power poured into him, a mark appeared on his back near his right shoulder.

The Ninth Seal.

He broke through.

The first cultivator on Blue Star to reach the Ninth Seal.

“He broke through!”

“Tell the other Blue Star natives immediately!”

Not long after, fire-red meteors streaked across the sky. Countless people lifted their heads to watch.

The third batch of Trialists had arrived.

—

At the Shang Jing City base, Wang Jie and Wen Zhao’s return finally eased Bai Yuan and the others.

Wang Jie also learned that Zuo Tian still hadn’t come back. No one knew where he’d gone.

He had barely finished washing when Old Five’s shout made his heart drop.

Meteors carved across the night sky.

“How can it be this fast?” Qing Zheng blurted, disbelief clear in his voice.

It hadn’t been long since someone reached the Eighth Seal. Even someone like the five extremes of the three gods would need time to reach the Ninth Seal—especially without endless disaster materials and nonstop battles like Wang Jie’s.

And Blue Star people weren’t stupid. Why would anyone rush to drag down the third batch of Trialists?

Wen Zhao stepped onto the balcony and stared at the sky, her face grim. “Someone set things up. They wanted the third batch to come as soon as possible.”

“That kind of thing happens,” she added, almost coldly.

Wang Jie’s jaw tightened. “Then we need to break through faster too.”

“The third batch is eighteen people,” Old Nine murmured. “All Ninth Seal.”

The pressure in those words settled over everyone.

It wasn’t only Blue Star that felt uneasy. The first two batches of Trialists were uneasy too. They wanted time—time to cultivate and climb, time to contend with the third batch, maybe even the fourth.

But the third batch had arrived early.

And their strongest was named Yun Lai.

One of the Yun family—one of the three great houses of Jia Yi Sect.

—

Far beyond the northeast of Shang Jing City, a man sat at the edge of a cliff, gazing at the meteors with a bored smile.

“Still dull.”

He stood. “I’ll help you out.”

He stepped off the cliff.

And didn’t fall.

He walked through the sky, one slow step after another, heading into the distance.

—

Nan Guo Base blared with alarms.

Lian Qin stood by the window in a thin veil, staring at the sky as a meteor streaked toward them. The trajectory was wrong—too direct. It looked like it might land inside the base.

Worry flickered across her alluring face.

Shang Jing City had completely broken with the Trialists. She had sided with Blue Star.

Now stronger Trialists had arrived.

What could she do?

She was still a long way from breaking through to the Ninth Seal—and even if she did, would that be enough?

They were natives.

The meteor slammed down.

Lian Qin closed her eyes, exhaled, then changed into a luxurious gown. If she couldn’t resist, she would endure. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to.

The impact created a massive crater inside the base.

The odds of it landing in the base were tiny.

And yet it had happened.

Lian Qin moved through the smoke toward the landing site, ordering people to contact the other bases with the news.

Tens of thousands of cultivators in Nan Guo Base stood on edge. Around Lian Qin gathered cultivators above the Fifth Seal, all staring into the dust.

A man stepped out.

Handsome. Young. Arrogance sat in his eyes like a crown.

His clothing was unlike anything they’d seen on any Trialist—distinct, refined, carrying an innate nobility.

Lian Qin smoothed her expression into a smile and approached. “Welcome, Trialist. I am Lian Qin, here on behalf of Nan Guo Base to receive Your Excellency. May I ask Your Excellency’s honored name?”

The man looked at her, ignoring the crowd as if it didn’t exist. “I know you, Lian Qin.”

“The trial process,” he added, “I can see it.”

Lian Qin’s heart tightened. “Is that so? Then Your Excellency’s status must be high.”

“Don’t probe me.” His tone was casual, cold. “My name is Yun Lai.”

Lian Qin’s eyes widened.

Behind her, the cultivators closest to her in status visibly stiffened.

They’d heard that name—through Lian Qin, who had heard it from Shang Jing City.

Wen Zhao had said the strongest of the third batch was Yun Lai, of the Yun family of Jia Yi Sect.

No one expected he would land here.

Yun Lai smiled faintly. “So you know me.”

He bent his knees and vaulted onto the base wall in one smooth motion. Facing north, he drew an ornate bow from his storage ring. Air currents exploded from his body, heat shimmering around him like flame.

His eyes snapped open.

“Tian Fu Base,” he said. “Break.”

He released.

The arrow screamed across the sky.

Lian Qin and the others stared, shaken by the sheer dominance of his presence. Even the wall beneath his feet cracked under his power.

He drew again.

This time he turned east.

“Jin Ling Base,” he said. “Break.”

Another arrow launched.

From above Hua Xia, you would’ve seen them—two arrows cutting across the land, so fast that obstacles didn’t exist. They pierced through anything in their path.

Tian Fu Base was hit first.

The arrow blew open the wall, tore through the base itself, and carved a line of death through the interior. Countless were killed or wounded, a gouged scar left behind.

At Jin Ling Base, Hong Jian happened to be on the southern wall when the arrow arrived. He slashed out Wind-Rending Eight Blades.

One Blade fell from above, cutting down at the arrow—

And shattered.

Hong Jian was thrown backward into the base, blood spraying as he crashed and lost consciousness. The arrow’s path shifted just enough to skim past the southeast corner, pulverizing the wall there but missing the base’s people by inches.

Two arrows.

Across vast distances.

Piercing two major bases.

The world shook.

—

At Shang Jing City, Bai Yuan found Wang Jie’s group immediately and relayed everything.

Sister Tang’s voice was tight. “Why would Yun Lai do this?”

Wang Jie’s expression darkened. The pressure he felt from Yun Lai was nothing like Chong Ruo Ruo’s insect tide.

This wasn’t a swarm.

This was a gap—an unbearable, tearing gap in strength.

Yun Lai didn’t even need to appear to breach a base.

It felt like standing beneath something that could crush you without effort.

Wen Zhao spoke in a low voice. “There’s a basic truth in the universe.”

“Within the Ten Seals, there’s a chasm—between the Ten Seals and everything below the Ninth Seal.”

“Because the realm after the Ten Seals is called the star-breaking realm.”

“Star breaking means exactly what it sounds like. A star. A planet.”

“The star-breaking realm is power capable of shattering a planet.”

She looked out into the night. “Even if we reach the Ninth Seal, we’re still far—far—from that.”

“A planet, even a small one, is bigger than Hua Xia. We can’t even break Hua Xia itself. How could we break a planet?”

“That’s why the Ten Seals are a threshold. Once you reach them, your destructive power rises from city-level to regional-level.”

“With enough power, you can shatter Hua Xia itself.”

“But you have to be Ten Seals.”

She paused. “There is only one kind of person who can break those rules—who can shatter regions at the Ninth Seal, or even the Eighth.”

“Those people are called heaven-chosen geniuses.”

“Yun Lai is one of them.”

“Jia Yi Sect has a supreme skill called Eight-Cloud Arrow,” she continued. “In all of history, no one has ever mastered the full Eight-Cloud Arrow before reaching the star-breaking realm.”

“He’s the first.”

“And right now, the only one.”

The words landed like stone.

Wang Jie clenched his jaw.

He only knew one of the Eighteen Ultimate Techniques—Jia Eight Steps—and even now he could only take seven steps.

And Jia Eight Steps was supposed to be one of the simplest.

“Backed by the Yun family,” Wang Jie said slowly, “one of the three great houses… resources from birth, talent, Eight-Cloud Arrow… recognized as a heaven-chosen genius.”

He looked at Wen Zhao. “Why would someone like that join the trial?”

“To compete,” Wen Zhao said. “The results are ranked. The highest grade is A-rank. If you earn it, you qualify to enter the sect’s Scripture Pavilion and choose a technique.”

“That’s Yun Lai’s goal.”

“He wants to defeat every Trialist with Ninth Seal combat power, suppress the trial grounds, and earn A-rank.”

Bai Yuan rubbed his forehead. “So we’re in trouble.”