Chapter 18 - One Finger
The wind howled across the fractured plaza of Backridge City, carrying with it the acrid tang of scorched stone and the faint, metallic scent of blood. Yan Han stood at the precipice of despair, his fists clenched until his knuckles gleamed white against the bruised purple of his calloused hands.
His dark eyes narrowed, sharp as a hawk's, slicing through the haze of dust and resentment that hung thick in the air. His face, once a canvas of youthful arrogance, had hardened into a mask of grim resolve, the lines etched deep by a single, impossible question that gnawed at his soul.
"Could a mere whisper have shaken my aura?" he muttered, his voice a faint rasp beneath the wailing wind. Disbelief warred with fury in his trembling tone, his lips twisting into a bitter sneer as he glared into the abyss stretching before him.
The notion slithered through his mind like a venomous snake, its fangs sinking deeper with each pulse of his racing heart. His mystical power—overwhelming, suffocating, a force forged through years of unyielding discipline—had wavered. And now, someone had dared to defy it.
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"Who dares?!" he bellowed, his voice splitting the air like a thunderbolt, jolting a flock of birds into frantic flight from the rooftops.
His chest heaved, his broad shoulders rising and falling as he paced the edge of the plaza, his boots crunching against the splintered stone. The void before him churned, a swirling abyss of shadow and starlight, as though the fabric of reality itself recoiled from the answer about to emerge.
From that roiling darkness stepped a figure, his silhouette framed by tendrils of ethereal mist that clung to him like a cloak of divinity.
Qin Ting descended as if the heavens themselves had parted to grant him passage, his every step reverberating with quiet, unshakable authority.
His robe rippled faintly in the wind, catching the fractured sunlight in a way that made him seem less a man and more a celestial being summoned to earth. His features were sharp yet serene—high cheekbones, a jawline like carved jade, and eyes that shimmered with a fathomless blue depth. As he moved, the air seemed to hum with the weight of his presence.
The crowd of onlookers—disciples, merchants, and wandering cultivators alike—parted instinctively, their murmurs fading into reverent silence.
The disciples of the Xuantian Sect, clad in their flowing midnight robes adorned with the sect's sigil, erupted into a chorus of unrestrained joy.
They surged forward, dropping to their knees in a wave of synchronized devotion, their foreheads brushing the cracked stone. "Greetings, Senior Brother Qin Ting!" their voices rang out, clear and fervent, echoing off the marketplace.
"We thank you for descending to our aid!" The sound swelled, a tide of gratitude and pride, as they raised their heads to gaze upon their savior.
Xu Hao felt a tide of relief crash over him, washing away the bitter taste of fear that had lingered since the ambush. His chest heaved as he exhaled a ragged breath, his hands trembling faintly at his sides as he knelt among his peers.
"With Senior Brother here, the Yuanshi dogs don't stand a chance," he whispered fiercely to himself, his voice a low growl of renewed determination.
He glanced at his fellow disciples—Mei Lin, her fierce, unyielding gaze fixed on Qin Ting as she gripped the hilt of her now-sheathed blade, and Chen Yu, whose broad shoulders still bore the weight of their earlier retreat, his fists clenched in silent resolve—and saw the same fire reignite in their eyes.
They were the cherished heirs of noble clans, prodigies sculpted by destiny itself. When had they ever bowed to humiliation?
Mei Lin rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her robes with a sharp flick of her wrist. "The Yuanshi Gate Sect dared to strike at us like thieves in the night," she spat, her voice cutting through the murmurs like a blade.
Xu Hao still felt the sting of the first cut across his arm, the hot rush of blood as he had parried a second blow. They had fought back valiantly, blood staining the earth, their mystical techniques lighting the dusk with bursts of flame and ice.
But the Yuanshi's reinforcements had arrived: an expert whose aura alone pressed them to their knees, a suffocating weight that mocked their pride. The Yuanshi Gate Sect had no honor, no shame—using raw power to grind their rivals into submission, all to smear the Xuantian Sect's name in the dust.
Now, as Qin Ting stood before them, the disciples saw through Yan Han's venomous scheme with piercing clarity. This wasn't just a skirmish—it was a calculated disgrace, a move to cripple their sect's reputation across the Eastern Wilderness.
And Yan Han, that sneering viper, was its architect.
"Qin Ting?!" Yan Han's voice slashed through the air like a whipcrack, raw and jagged with barely contained fury.
His face darkened, storm clouds gathering in his furrowed brow as he locked eyes with the newcomer. His stance shifted, feet planting wider, as though bracing against an unseen tide.
He eyed Qin Ting with the wariness of a cornered beast—a predator sensing the hunter's arrival. "You think you can stroll in here and make me cower?" he snarled, his hand lingering near his sword's hilt, fingers twitching with barely contained violence.
Yan Han was no weakling. As a True Disciple of the Yuanshi Gate Sect, one of the hallowed holy lands of the cultivation world, his name carried weight. His lineage traced back to the sect's revered elders, his grandfather a towering figure whose influence stretched across continents.
Yet, for all his pedigree, Yan Han's star dimmed beside the blazing comet that was Qin Ting. Less than a month ago, the eastern skies had flared with celestial light as Qin Ting ascended to the Divine Spirit Realm at the tender age of eighteen—a feat that sent shockwaves through every sect and clan, his name whispered in awe from the lowliest villages to the gilded halls of power.
"Think I'm afraid of you?!" Yan Han spat, defiance flaring in his chest like a dying ember sparked back to life. His broad shoulders squared as his hand gripped the hilt of his sword, drawing it with a sharp metallic hiss that cut through the thickening tension.
"I've crossed blades with the Holy Son of Yuanshi. If I can stand against him, I can stand against you, Qin Ting!" He brandished the blade before him, its edge glinting with a faint, ominous light as he assumed a fighting stance, legs bent and body coiled like a spring.
The memory of those clashes fueled his resolve. Within the shadowed training grounds of the Yuanshi Gate Sect, Yan Han had faced the Holy Son—a figure cloaked in golden radiance, his every strike a hymn of destruction.
Victory had eluded Yan Han, true, but he had never crumpled entirely. Each bout had left him bloodied yet unbowed, a testament to his tenacity.
"I'm no lesser talent," he growled under his breath, the words a mantra against the doubt gnawing at his edges. "I, too, am a son of the heavens."
To Yan Han, Qin Ting was more than a rival—he was a prize. The Xuantian Sect's destined Holy Son, a prodigy whose defeat would ignite Yan Han's own legend. His name would blaze across the Eastern Wilderness, his standing in the sect would eclipse even the Holy Son's, and with his grandfather's backing, the title might yet be his.
The plan unfolded in his mind with merciless clarity: 'Why should I fear him when our power is so alike?'
He lunged forward, his sword slashing in a brutal upward arc toward Qin Ting's throat, only for it to be swiftly sidestepped.
Qin Ting's gaze flickered with a faint glint of mockery dancing in those fathomless blue eyes. He saw through Yan Han's bravado as easily as one might peer through a cracked windowpane, reading the ambition that pulsed beneath—the desperate hunger of a man chasing a shadow larger than himself.
"Courting death," Qin Ting murmured, his voice soft yet carrying the weight of a death knell, audible only to himself. The Holy Son of Yuanshi was a different beast—a generational titan whose skill Qin Ting might acknowledge.
But Yan Han? He was a speck, a pretender propped up by his lineage, his Divine Spirit Realm status a gift forced upon him by his ancestors' meddling rather than earned through his own sweat.
'A faint path stretched before him,' Qin Ting mused, his lips barely moving. 'To orchestrate a successful ambush would be nothing short of a miracle for such a pitiful insect.'
Yan Han caught the disdain in that fleeting glance, and rage twisted his features into a snarl. "How dare you look down on me?!" he bellowed, spit flying from his lips as he thrust his sword forward again. "I'm an immortal expert too—I'll carve that arrogance from your face!"
In an instant, the air shrieked as a flash of white streaked forth—a sword's radiant arc slashing toward Qin Ting's brow, swift as a thunderbolt, inescapable as fate itself. It was no mere blade but a torrent of mystical power, honed to a razor's edge, capable of sundering stone and spirit alike.
The crowd gasped, stumbling back as the light blazed brighter, only to freeze mid-flight. Qin Ting raised his right hand, catching the sword energy between two fingers with the effortless grace of a man plucking a petal from the wind.
"Enough of your childish tantrums," Qin Ting said, his voice calm yet laced with an icy edge that silenced the plaza.
He flicked his fingers, and the white gleam shattered with a deafening crash, splintering into countless motes of light that swirled back into Yan Han's grip, reforming as a gleaming longsword.
Its aura pulsed—still as the abyss one moment, chaotic as a storm-tossed sea the next—before erupting into a relentless barrage.
"Die!" Yan Han screamed, his voice hoarse with fury as waves of frigid sword light surged toward Qin Ting, each strike a howl of defiance, a desperate bid to prove his worth.
Qin Ting observed the oncoming assault, his demeanor unshaken, as if sculpted from ice. "You overestimate yourself, mongrel," he remarked coolly, raising a single finger.
Just one.
The heavens trembled. A colossal finger materialized from the sky, vast as a mountain peak, its surface etched with faint, glowing runes that pulsed with the weight of eternity.
It descended with inexorable force, the air screaming in protest as the ground buckled beneath it. The plaza sank more than ten feet, stone fracturing into jagged fissures that spread outward.
Yan Han's sword light met it and shattered like glass against a hammer, the backlash sending blood spraying from his mouth as his face drained to a ghostly pallor.
"No—impossible!" Yan Han choked out, his knees buckling as he staggered backward, clutching his chest. The finger struck at last, and the mountain city quaked as if gripped by the wrath of an ancient god.
Dust billowed in choking clouds, and even the distant Lian Yun Mountain Range seemed to shudder, its peaks trembling against the horizon.
Yan Han roared, a beast ensnared, but his defiance was a fleeting spark against the tide. His robes disintegrated into ash, leaving him stark naked, his body swaying fragile as a reed in the wind.
Blood streaked his chest, his spirit fractured, and his pride ground to dust beneath the weight of that single, merciless blow.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping, his sword clattering uselessly to the cracked stone beside him. "I... I am Yan Han..." he rasped, his voice a broken whisper, "True Disciple of Yuanshi... I can't fall... not like this..."
Silence descended, thick and unyielding. The Xuantian disciples stood frozen, their awe laced with a flicker of fear.
Xu Hao's breath hitched, the relief he'd felt moments ago souring into a gnawing dread. "Is this the chasm between us and him?" he murmured, the words cutting deep, a blade twisting in his core.
Beside him, Mei Lin's grip tightened on her sword hilt, her lips thinning into a taut line. Chen Yu, towering and unyielding, stared in stillness, his massive form carved from stone.
Yan Han, a True Disciple of the Yuanshi Gate Sect, lay defeated—felled by Qin Ting with a single finger. An immortal brought low, a fleeting dream snuffed out.
As the dust settled, Qin Ting turned away, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. The man crumpled at his feet was little more than a pebble obstructing his path—insignificant, broken. "The Yuanshi Gate Sect will hear of this," he murmured, his voice a soft thread woven with quiet menace. "And they will come to understand the folly of challenging me."