One, two, three… ninety-eight.

Wang Chen counted every living being loitering near the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo, each one shamelessly basking in the protection they didn't deserve. His divine sense swept through them like a thin razor, and from several bodies he felt it —

The faint, cold taint of demons pretending to be human.

His resolve hardened instantly.

Ever since the news of Wind and Thunder Imperial City's destruction spread like wildfire, panic clung to the continent like a plague. Ordinary people had begun losing their sanity; some fled, some begged, some simply screamed into the night. The immortal cities were supposed to be safe havens, fortresses humanity relied upon…

Yet even they were falling.

Wind and Thunder Imperial City had collapsed in a single night.

Green Plain City was under siege.

And for some inexplicable reason, the demons completely ignored the imperial city of the Song family.

Wang Chen didn't understand it. He didn't need to.

One truth was enough:

This place would fall eventually.

He had to prepare before the storm arrived.

His aura rippled faintly as he activated One Thought to Cross the World. The world blurred; sound vanished. Wrapped in a Formation of absolute concealment, he moved like a silent reaper between the squatters. One by one, he placed an invisible timer on them, marking each individual like livestock ready for slaughter.

He wasn't a saint.

He wasn't a demon either.

He could kill them all outright — it wouldn't even take a breath — but it was unnecessary. He also considered emerging dramatically and scaring them all away, but doing so would shatter the persona he'd worked so hard to build: a laid-back, unfathomable existence untouched by mortal concerns.

"Tsk."

Acting had its perks.

But now he was starting to see the drawbacks — especially seeing a hundred clueless mortals treating his dojo like a public park.

Still, there was another reason he didn't shoo them away.

Intel.

If one of them became possessed, he would kill them and harvest every memory the demon left behind.

His lips curled upward slightly.

"Sometimes my own intelligence frightens me…"

He nodded at his own brilliance, entirely too pleased with himself, and drifted back toward the courtyard.

Descending from the sky, his gaze landed on the revitalized Bodhi Tree. A strange expression crossed his face.

"Hmm… did this whining demon finally drop dead?"

It had been suspiciously quiet.

The tree hadn't cursed him in a while.

He certainly wasn't worried; in fact, silence was a blessing.

But the moment the thought crossed his mind—

A shrill, ear-piercing shriek exploded inside his head.

"DID YOU REALLY THINK I WAS DEAD, YOU FUCKING PERVERT?! Wait! One day I'll expose your identity—!"

Wang Chen nearly slipped midair.

Why… why in all heavens had he thought about this moronic tree?

He rubbed his temples and sighed, resigned.

Some problems just refused to die.

After resignation came anger.

A dark vein bulged on Wang Chen's forehead as he stared at the Bodhi Tree. He wanted nothing more than to hack the damned thing into firewood and carve a rocking chair from its corpse. Sadly, reality was cruel. This wasn't the first time the tree made him consider horticultural homicide, yet it still stood there proudly, branches swaying as if mocking him.

The problem was simple:

He had absolutely nothing in his arsenal that could truly kill this thing.

So he could only grit his teeth until his jaw almost cracked and snarl inwardly,

"Just you wait, tree spirit. There will come a day when you'll beg this daddy for mercy. Hmph!"

With a final cold snort, he stormed toward his meditative chambers like a man refusing to admit defeat.

Of course, the tree spirit refused to take the loss quietly.

A shrill, sticky voice wrapped around his consciousness.

"Are you threatening me, you pervert? Neither of us is going anywhere, so let's see what you can actually do! You think I'd fall for your stupid act? Foundation Building brat pretending to be some unfathomable expert. Just you wait!"

Wang Chen's lips twitched so hard they nearly snapped off.

He silently thanked every ancestor he had that only he could hear the tree spirit. If its screeches leaked out, his carefully crafted persona would collapse faster than Wind and Thunder City.

Still… the fact this noisy weed had seen through his act meant something inconveniently true:

He needed to refine his acting skills.

…

Time flowed like a river swollen by endless storms.

A week passed in the blink of an eye.

And the world had become hell.

One by one, news arrived—each worse than the last—of three more imperial cities erased from existence. Millions slaughtered. Blood soaking the land. The air heavy with mourning. Thunder rolled endlessly, as if the heavens themselves were grieving the countless dead.

The people of Azure Dragon Continent finally understood:

Disaster was drawing closer.

Meanwhile, in the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo, Wang Chen shifted on his mat, trying to look serene but mostly trying to get comfortable.

His mind was a chaotic battlefield.

"I should start creating the Chains of Enlightenment to improve my cultivation…"

For a Foundation Building cultivator, chain creation was everything. Stability, power, future breakthroughs—all dependent on the chains woven from comprehension of one's cultivation techniques.

The problem?

Creating them demanded tremendous spiritual strength.

He needed treasures—real ones—if he wanted to replenish himself fast enough.

"Hmmm. Enough thinking. Time to act."

His consciousness dove inward.

At the center of his spiritual space, a week of accelerated time had created noticeable changes. The once-devastated Garden of Eternity had begun to heal. Forests regrew. Broken rivers found new courses. Wisps of qi danced like morning fog.

Faint traces of civilization—the tiny, struggling races born within his spiritual world—had begun to appear once more.

But beneath it all was still tension.

A ghost of the cataclysm that nearly annihilated them.

Wang Chen inhaled slowly.

It was time to fix what he had broken…

and then use that stabilized world to climb higher.. and higher

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