Chen Zui focused his full attention on the warm current within his body.
After breaking through into the Wind-Riding Realm early stage, its momentum finally began to slow down.
It was not because the power had been exhausted, but because his body's capacity had hit its ceiling.
Given the current strength of his meridians and physical foundation, the Wind-Riding Realm mid stage was the absolute limit he could bear.
If he forced it any higher, his meridians would burst under the strain.
Sensing this limit, the warm current gradually settled after pushing him to the Wind-Riding Realm mid stage.
The remaining energy sank deep into his dantian, going dormant to await his next opportunity for breakthrough.
【Realm Breakthrough Complete: Mountain-Viewing Realm → Wind-Riding Realm mid stage】
【Current EXP Balance: 0】
【This allocation consumed all EXP, breaking through two major realms and three minor stages.】
The system prompts in his mind finally fell silent.
The surging power within him gradually subsided. The inner force flowing through his meridians transformed from a wild, raging flood into a smooth, steady river, flowing through his body with calm composure.
The purple-gold light around him slowly receded, eventually withdrawing beneath his skin without leaving a trace.
Chen Zui finally opened his eyes.
He looked down at his hands.
The old calluses on his fingers remained, and the sand between his knuckles was still unwashed; he looked no different than before.
Yet he knew the power now held within these hands was beyond comparison to what it had been just moments ago.
He pulled his long spear from the reef. The moment the butt left the rock, it left a round hole an inch deep on the surface.
Raising his head, he spotted two figures engaged in a fierce battle in mid-air.
One wielded a staff, while the other wielded a ruler.
The staff roared with wind while the ruler flickered with shadows, locked in an intense clash.
After watching for a moment, he recognized the staff wielder as Lü Beisheng's sworn brother, Lu Yang.
The one with the ruler was an unfamiliar, white-haired and white-bearded old Daoist.
Dressed in a coarse blue Daoist robe, his face was somber and dark.
The pitch-black iron ruler in his hand shimmered with a dark purple gleam.
“What's going on?” Chen Zui muttered to himself, feeling somewhat bewildered.
Earlier, he had been fully focused on absorbing the fragments of the laws of heaven and earth, completely oblivious to what was happening outside.
He had no idea where this old Daoist had popped up from, nor why he was fighting Lu Yang.
He looked back toward the sea.
The clash between Shen Xingzhi and Lü Beisheng was still ongoing.
The two Sword Immortals seemed completely undisturbed by the commotion nearby, utterly absorbed in their fight.
Sword light crisscrossed as heaven and earth changed color, and the clouds above the Eastern Sea were torn to shreds by sword qi.
Chen Zui withdrew his gaze, looked back at the old Daoist fighting Lu Yang, and let out a faint smile.
“Wind-Riding Realm mid stage.” He weighed the long spear in his hand, feeling the internal energy—countless times stronger than before—flowing smoothly through his meridians. “Just what I need to test my spear.”
Chen Zui raised his spear, tapped his toes lightly against the reef, and soared into the mid-air combat zone like a wisp of blue smoke.
He did not even use the Dragon Roam technique.
There was no need for it.
Upon stepping into the Wind-Riding Realm, the body united naturally with heaven and earth.
At this moment, the sea breeze naturally held him aloft.
His robes fluttered in the wind, and his spear tip drew a straight silver line across the twilight.
Lu Yang and Qingyangzi were in the heat of battle.
The wrought iron staff and the Black Iron Heaven-Measuring Ruler clashed seven or eight times in rapid succession, every strike sending white waves exploding across the sea surface.
Both were veteran Boundless Realm Grandmasters with immensely rich combat experience.
Having thoroughly seen through each other's moves and rhythm, neither could gain the upper hand.
Lu Yang forced Qingyangzi back half a step with a horizontal staff sweep. Just as he was about to press his advantage, he caught sight of a figure soaring up from below at an absurd speed out of the corner of his eye.
His heart chilled, and he instinctively prepared to pull back his staff to block.
The next second, he saw the newcomer's face clearly.
Chen Zui.
Lu Yang's pupils shrank violently.
Earlier, he had been fully focused on fighting Qingyangzi. Although he knew Chen Zui was breaking through on the reef beach, he had not had the chance to see how far he had actually progressed.
Now that Chen Zui had soared beside him, he could clearly feel the aura emanating from the young man.
It was not the Mountain-Viewing Realm, nor even the Abyss-Facing Realm.
It was the Wind-Riding Realm!
And it was not the raw, unstable aura of someone who had just entered the Wind-Riding Realm.
It was a refined, mature presence of the Wind-Riding Realm mid stage—steady as a mountain, smooth as water.
Lu Yang's hand gripping the wrought iron staff faltered slightly. A rare look of utter disbelief appeared on his weather-beaten face.
Qingyangzi noticed it at the exact same moment.
He was even more shocked than Lu Yang.
As a Daoist practitioner—though expelled from Mount Longhu—his understanding of the laws of heaven and earth, martial realms, and fortune and karma from a millennium of Daoist heritage was far beyond that of ordinary martial artists.
He knew better than anyone what two major hurdles lay between the Mountain-Viewing Realm and the Wind-Riding Realm.
The Abyss-Facing Realm—like standing at the edge of an abyss, like treading on thin ice.
It was the hurdle where a martial artist directly confronted their inner demons.
It was the deadly portal where countless brilliantly talented individuals suffered defeat.
Inner demons could not be overcome by talent alone.
They hid in the deepest recesses of every person's heart—the self they least dared to face.
Some remained stuck before the threshold of the Abyss-Facing Realm for ten years, while others were trapped for a lifetime.
Still others managed to touch the threshold with great effort, only to suffer backlash from their inner demons and drop in realm, left broken and forced to retire from the martial world.
This was precisely why the Abyss-Facing Realm was considered the watershed between Grandmasters and ordinary martial artists.
Cross it, and one became a Grandmaster.
Fail to cross it, and one remained an ordinary mortal.
But what about this young man?
How long had he stayed in the Abyss-Facing Realm?
Qingyangzi calculated frantically in his mind.
From the moment the fragments of the laws began to shatter until now, the total time elapsed was no more than fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes to pass through the Abyss-Facing Realm?
In his nearly one hundred years of Daoist cultivation, Qingyangzi had never seen such a thing.
What sent an even deeper chill down his spine was that this young man had not merely crossed the Abyss-Facing Realm—he had also broken through the bottleneck of the Wind-Riding Realm and directly stabilized his cultivation at the Wind-Riding Realm mid stage.
What did the Wind-Riding Realm represent?
That was the stage where a martial artist truly began to resonate with heaven and earth, another towering peak on the path of a Grandmaster.
Even if ordinary martial artists were fortunate enough to break into the Wind-Riding Realm, they would need months or even years of acclimation to master the subtle wonder of heaven-man resonance.
Yet this young man, immediately after breaking through, had soared into mid-air, riding the wind with the energy at his spear tip condensed and unyielding.
He was clearly wielding the subtleties of the Wind-Riding Realm with complete mastery!
An inevitable comparison flashed through Qingyangzi's mind.
Even Sword God Lü, who was once known as Grand Zhao's fastest martial artist to break through realms...
...had taken five full years to go from the Mountain-Viewing Realm to the Wind-Riding Realm.
Yet the young man standing before him had taken less than fifteen minutes.
Qingyangzi's hand holding the ruler trembled slightly.
It was not fear, but a shock rooted deep within the bones of a Daoist practitioner.
He had witnessed with his own eyes something that completely defied a thousand years of recorded Daoist scriptures!
“This is impossible...”
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