One Finger

Ling Xi stood upon the wasteland, calm and composed. Her quiet restraint formed a stark contrast with Wang Zhan in the distance, whose holy radiance soared into the heavens and whose presence was as overwhelming as that of a primordial ferocious beast.

Battle intent boiled in Wang Zhan's eyes, while azure-green holy power condensed around his body into tangible flames.

“Cyan Rakshasa, I admire your courage for accepting my challenge.”

Wang Zhan's voice rang out like a great bell, filled with the absolute confidence of a newly ascended Saint.

“But the difference between a Saint and a mortal is a chasm as vast as heaven and earth. In this battle, I will make you accept your defeat wholeheartedly and show you what true Saintly might is!”

In the face of the oncoming Saintly pressure and declaration, Ling Xi's expression did not change in the slightest. Her cool, aloof eyes merely swept over Wang Zhan from head to toe.

The Azure Heavens Saint Physique. A solid foundation and an unwavering spirit.

To possess such bearing with a Saintly body newly forged was truly impressive. He could be called a prodigy of his generation!

“What a pity.” Ling Xi sighed silently in her heart. “You are facing me, as well as several of my fellow disciples.”

Seeing Ling Xi remain silent, Wang Zhan assumed that she had been cowed by his Saintly might, or perhaps left speechless.

He immediately stopped wasting words and let out a low roar. “Take my punch—Heaven Weeps Blood!”

He took a single step forward.

The earth beneath his feet exploded with a thunderous boom, and his figure transformed into an azure-green bolt of lightning that tore through space.

Before his fist, the phantom image of a collapsing sky took shape. Carrying an artistic conception of blood-soaked lamentation and Saintly Laws capable of crushing all things, it came crashing down toward Ling Xi!

He had already unleashed ninety percent of his strength in this punch. After suffering several defeats earlier, he would no longer underestimate anyone.

What was more, his opponent was a junior sister whose talent was just as astonishing as that of the Battle Asura.

He had not been careless. He intended to fight with all his might and in the most overbearing manner possible, establishing his invincible reputation as the Foremost Saint of the Younger Generation!

Faced with this earth-shaking punch that made countless onlookers cry out in alarm, Ling Xi finally moved.

She merely raised her right hand and extended a slender jade-like index finger.

There was no dazzling radiance at her fingertip, nor any violent fluctuation of energy. There was only the circulation of the purest and most ultimate Laws.

“For this move, I will use the Heaven-Severing Finger.” That was what she thought calmly.

“If I used the Dao-Breaking Finger, I fear you would not even be able to leave behind a wisp of your remnant soul.”

Then she pointed forward.

The motion was effortless, like brushing a flake of snow from her shoulder, or dropping a grain of sand into still water.

There was no sound.

Or rather, all sound—the roar of Wang Zhan's fist, the shriek of shattering space, the cries of the spectators, and even the movement of wind and thunder between heaven and earth—

At the instant her fingertip extended, it was as though an invisible hand had seized every throat, and everything instantly fell into a deathly silence that made the heart tremble.

Wang Zhan's fist intent and Saintly Laws, powerful enough to shatter mountains and make the heavens weep blood, touched that seemingly harmless fingertip.

Like ice beneath the blazing sun, or glass crashing against an invisible wall, they began to collapse without warning from the very core of the Laws themselves, disintegrating inch by inch before silently vanishing into nothingness!

“What?!”

Wang Zhan's pupils shrank to pinpoints. Boundless terror and disbelief instantly overwhelmed his mind.

He could feel his Saintly fist intent—unyielding and invincible until now—continually breaking apart.

This was completely beyond his understanding!

Yet before he could recover from his shock, that finger had already lightly touched the radiant edge of his fist.

“Pfft—!”

A faint sound rang out, like a bubble bursting.

The holy-body radiance surrounding Wang Zhan’s fist, along with the formidable flesh and bones beneath it, was cleaved apart as if by an invisible blade, instantly dimming and shattering!

An indescribable and irresistible force of the finger—one that seemed capable of severing everything in existence—surged into his body along his fist, arm, and meridians, sweeping through him with unstoppable force!

“Urgh—!!”

Wang Zhan let out a muffled groan of agony. His entire body was struck as though by an ancient divine mountain, and he was sent flying at an even greater speed than when he had charged forward.

“Rumble!”

He crashed heavily into the earth several miles away, plowing a vast, bottomless ravine through the ground as smoke and dust soared into the sky.

At the end of the ravine, he lay sprawled amid the ruins. His right arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, covered in cracks, while blood gushed from his mouth.

His eyes were filled with horror and disbelief, as though he had witnessed the most terrifying thing in existence, and he stared fixedly at the white figure still standing in the distance.

He had lost.

With a single punch.

No—with a single finger.

Wang Zhan, the bearer of the Azure Heavens Saint Physique, had just endured the Chaos Heavenly Tribulation and forged an unrivaled saintly foundation. He had been confident that he was invincible among those of the Saint realm…

Yet he had been defeated in an instant, effortlessly, by a woman in the King Realm—with nothing more than one finger.

An eerie silence descended over the wasteland for hundreds of miles around.

The wind ceased. The clouds hung motionless. Everyone’s breathing and heartbeat seemed to stop at that very moment.

Every onlooker wore the same expression: utter bewilderment, shock, and the hollow emptiness left behind when one’s entire understanding of the world collapsed.

The Wang Family Patriarch’s wild laughter froze on his face, turning him into a stone statue.

The venerable elders and young prodigies who had previously been discussing and analyzing the battle with great confidence stood there with their mouths agape, unable to utter a single word.

Xiao Ruobai and Fang Hanyu seemed to have anticipated this result long ago, and their expressions remained relatively calm.

Only their gazes toward Wang Zhan held a trace of sympathy.

It wasn’t that you were weak. It was that your opponent was simply too strong.

“What just happened?” a young cultivator murmured, his voice dry and hoarse.

No one answered.

Because no one had understood it!

All they had seen was Wang Zhan unleashing a punch of unrivaled might. Then the Cyan Rakshasa had raised her hand, and Wang Zhan had been defeated?

Sent flying like a fly being flicked away?

This had gone far beyond the scope of “fighting above one’s level.” It was a dimensional massacre—a crushing of reality by myth itself!

After a long while, an old, trembling voice finally rang out, filled with boundless fear. It spoke the question in everyone’s heart:

“What… what kind of finger technique was that?! It’s terrifying! Who exactly is she?!”

At the center of the wasteland, Ling Xi slowly withdrew that finger, white and flawless as jade, seemingly untouched by even the slightest trace of dust.

Wang Zhan lay sprawled on the ground. The bones in his right arm had been shattered, bringing excruciating pain, yet that agony was not even a fraction of the storm raging within his heart.

Had he lost? No. That wasn’t defeat.

It had been an absolute, crushing domination.

His fist intent, his saintly might, and his incomparably powerful saintly body had all been destroyed with overwhelming ease before that seemingly delicate finger.

“Pfft—!”

He spat out another mouthful of blood, golden holy blood staining the scorched earth across his chest.

Yet the pain in his flesh and the wounds to his Dao foundation were both drowned out by something far colder and more despairing—the collapse of everything he believed he knew.

“Why?”

He lay sprawled amid the ruins, staring blankly at the ash-gray sky. His lips moved as he spoke in a voice like a sleepwalker’s murmur.

“Why, when I’m already a Saint…”

“The Azure Heaven Sacred Physique, the Chaos Heavenly Tribulation, the Supreme Sacred Foundation…”

“Why can’t I even withstand a single finger from you?”

“Could everything I, Wang Zhan, have pursued and taken pride in throughout my life… all of it, have been nothing more than a joke?”

“Could it be that the so-called Azure Heaven Sacred Physique is nothing but… trash?”

“No. Impossible. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it!!!”

He practically howled the final words. His voice was hoarse and shattered, filled with unwillingness, humiliation, self-doubt, and a trace of despair teetering on the brink of madness.

The surroundings fell silent—utterly silent.

Wang Zhan’s crazed howl had stirred the deepest fear within everyone, along with a resonance they could not escape.

If it had been them facing that single finger, what would have happened?