42: Su Chen, he's such a good person.

As Lin Yan let out an angry roar, the Azure Dragon phantom suddenly raised its head. As its massive maw opened, the drooling saliva from its fangs solidified into ice beads in mid-air, clattering on the ground with sharp cracks.

The tearing sound of the dragon claws ripping through the air was like thousands of steel needles piercing eardrums. The azure dragon's might, like a tidal wave, pressed down on all sides, causing even the cultivators observing from a distance to involuntarily retreat three steps, feeling a dull pain in their chests as if struck by a heavy hammer.

“This is the unique skills of the Azure Cloud Daoist Temple. It truly lives up to its reputation.”

This sword strike was the pinnacle of Lin Yan’s lifelong learning—not only did it pour out all his spiritual power at the peak of the Solid Spirit Realm, but it also invoked the true meaning of the Azure Dragon inherited by the Daoist Temple. The sword’s momentum was accompanied by surging water vapor; wherever it passed, the ground cracked, and the air was twisted into a spiral-shaped vacuum, as if in the next instant, it would flip Su Chen, along with the ground, over. Even a three-zhang thick profound iron barrier would shatter like paper in the face of such power!

Shen Zhou, observing the battle, nodded secretly, his fingertips unconsciously clenching. This “Azure Dragon Exploring the Sea” was the Azure Cloud Daoist Temple’s ultimate trump card. In the provincial competition back then, Lin Yan had used this very sword to defeat three late Solid Spirit Realm cultivators.

“This sword strike should at least force out some of his strength…” Shen Zhou mused, his gaze fixed on the center of the arena.

The next second, the Azure Dragon phantom, carrying the force to shatter mountains and crack stones, swooped down. The azure light on its dragon claws almost blinded people. Lin Yan stared intently into Su Chen’s eyes, the dragon’s ferocity reflected in his pupils. Only one thought remained in his mind: Break!

However, the anticipated earth-shattering collision did not occur.

The Azure Dragon phantom crashed heavily onto Su Chen, yet it was as silent as a mud ox entering the sea. The dragon claws, capable of splitting stone and severing metal, landed on Su Chen’s shoulder, yet felt as soft and powerless as a child’s caress. The violent azure light instantly dispersed into specks of fluorescent light. The long sword in Lin Yan’s hand let out a mournful wail, the cloud patterns on its blade cracking inch by inch, until it finally dropped to the ground with a “clank,” its blade covered in spiderweb-like fissures.

Su Chen hadn’t even moved half a step, not even his clothes had swayed, as if he had merely brushed off a falling leaf.

“How… how is this possible?” Lin Yan was struck by lightning, his pupils suddenly constricting to pinprick size.

He could clearly feel that his spiritual power had been completely crushed by an invisible force, unable to stir even a ripple on the opponent’s body. This feeling was as if Su Chen was immune to his ultimate move.

Before he could recover from his shock, the Su Chen in front of him had already transformed into a faint golden afterimage, so fast that only a streak of light remained.

“Where is he?!”

As these two words flashed through his mind, Lin Yan felt a searing pain in his forehead.

Su Chen had appeared before him at some unknown point, his flicking finger moving slowly and clearly visible, yet the faint golden glow on his fingertip was as dazzling as the scorching sun. That seemingly casual flick of a finger carried a heart-palpitating dragon’s might, as if it contained the power to shatter stars.

“Dong!”

A muffled thud exploded like a drumbeat, as if directly striking everyone’s heart.

Lin Yan felt an intense pain in his glabella, his entire body like being hit head-on by a battering ram, his body cutting through the air with an ear-splitting sonic boom.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Lin Yan’s body finally crashed into a flowerbed with a “thud,” stirring up a cloud of dust, after successively breaking seven phoenix trees as thick as a bowl.

Ultimately, he fell into a coma, his life hanging in the balance.

At this moment, only Zhang Qiang remained on the field, his arms dislocated and hanging by his sides.

He looked at Su Chen’s indifferent profile, his muscular body trembling violently from fear, yet he still forced himself to roar, “Su Chen, you are very strong… but how can you be so overbearing?”

“We came to support you! Just because I said a few words behind your back, you have to be so ruthless?”

Su Chen slowly turned his head, looking down at him, and said indifferently, “I’m too lazy to argue with you.”

“In the world of the strong, there’s no need for extra nonsense.”

“You are alive only because I don’t want to dirty my hands yet.”

“This is my bottom line as a strong person, but it’s not an excuse for you to take advantage of me.”

“Consider this a small warning today. As a grown man, learn to control your foul mouth.”

“Now, do you understand?”

Zhang Qiang stood dumbfounded, Su Chen’s words like a heavy hammer striking his heart.

He looked at the broken long sword on the ground, the unconscious Lin Yan, and Ji Sisi curled up in the corner in the distance, finally understanding that the gap between them was already as vast as heaven and earth.

Shen Zhou whispered a reminder from the side, “Why are you just standing there? Hurry up and apologize.”

Zhang Qiang snapped back to reality, his legs gave way, and he fell to his knees with a “thud,” his forehead hitting the ground heavily as he loudly said, “I’m sorry… it was my loose tongue… please, be magnanimous…”

Shen Zhou stood by, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

These people had previously always brought up how he hadn’t stopped Su Chen when he killed He Xing Tian, mocking him for being “cowardly and afraid of trouble.” Now, they had finally hit a brick wall.

He even felt that Su Chen had been too lenient.

“Alright, consider today a lesson for you all.”

Su Chen glanced at Shen Zhou, “I’ll leave the aftermath here to you. Look after my classmates.”

Before his words finished, a black talisman in front of him transformed, pointing southwest. Su Chen’s figure instantly turned into a flash of lightning and disappeared into the sky.

...

A few minutes later, Lin Yan suddenly sat up from the flowerbed, looking around in a daze: “Where’s Su Chen? I remember I just used Azure Dragon Exploring the Sea… How did I end up here?”

“Could it be that Su Chen was scared and ran away?”

He saw Shen Zhou looking at him with regret and then pointed to his forehead.

The next second, the scene of being instantly defeated by Su Chen’s flick of a finger flooded his mind—he had lost without even seeing the opponent’s movements clearly.

Lin Yan’s face instantly turned pale, his previous arrogance completely gone.

He had actually been instantly defeated by Su Chen with a casual move, so fast that he almost lost the memory of that moment.

The pride on his face was completely gone, and he felt as if his soul had been hollowed out. “The gap between people, can it really be this big…?”

At this moment, more than a dozen female university students had been comforted by the Security Department officers.

Some girls hugged Ji Sisi, who had regained consciousness earlier, crying bitterly, tears mixed with dirt streaming down their faces.

Ji Sisi had already bandaged her wounds and looked a bit dazed. Listening to the female students’ tearful accounts of how Su Chen had displayed his mighty power and saved them, a mix of emotions churned in the young girl’s heart: “…These people were all saved by him…”

“Could he really be a good person? Were we… to blame?” Conflicting emotions churned in her heart.

But no matter what, Su Chen’s figure was already deeply imprinted in her heart.

“Let’s go inside and take a look.” Shen Zhou broke the silence and was the first to walk towards the center of the ruin array.

Lin Yan, Ji Sisi, and Zhang Qiang followed, supporting each other. When they clearly saw the three suspended blood mists on the ground, all four of them froze in place simultaneously, as if an invisible large hand had gripped their throats.

The blood mist was dark purple and still wriggling slightly. Every wisp of mist emitted a nauseating smell of blood, as well as… the eerie spiritual pressure unique to Spirit Sea Realm mid-stage cultivators!

But now, these powerhouses who should have been dominating one side were like mosquitoes swatted to death, leaving only Vague blood and flesh remnants, not even a complete skeleton.

The four stood before the blood mist, not daring to breathe, only feeling that within the pervasive bloody aura, there lurked a terror capable of crushing their souls.

“This… this…” Zhang Qiang’s teeth began to chatter, his voice trembling uncontrollably, “Spirit Sea Realm mid-stage… three of them… just like that?” He instinctively took half a step back, the sound of stepping on loose stones particularly jarring in the dead silence. “Can a first-year university student really do this?”

Ji Sisi’s face was ashen, and she instinctively clutched Zhang Qiang’s arm, her knuckles white from the force. She could feel the fierce aura remaining in the blood mist, yet such existences were easily obliterated by Su Chen.

“So strong…” A complex emotion arose in the girl’s heart at this moment.

There was both a genuine awe for the strong, and the thrilling sensation of her heart pounding when Su Chen crushed her.

She couldn’t quite describe what kind of feeling this was.

Lin Yan scratched his somewhat numb scalp, recalling the scene where Su Chen had casually crushed them. At this moment, he only felt a sense of relief at having escaped a disaster.

If Su Chen had been even a little serious, wouldn’t killing them be as casual as crushing an ant?

Thinking of Su Chen’s “gentleness” just now, such a thought actually arose in their hearts at this moment—

“Su Chen, he really is a great person!”