Beginning with the Ubume Bird-Chapter 591 - 23 Zheng and Asura

Whoosh!

The black hoverboard soared into the air, racing on the knife-straight, smooth facade of the skyscraper.

On the hoverboard was a girl wearing a loose hoodie, her delicate chin visible beneath the shadow of the hood. Her eyes were fixed on the cobblestone path that faintly appeared on the glass curtain wall of the building, the wind whistling past her ears, shaking the rim of her hood violently.

Suddenly, a silver blade swooped up from beneath her feet. The hoverboard narrowly dodged it, but the moment the girl in the hoodie got distracted, a tall, dark shadow flashed past her. Looking up in surprise, she only saw a man wearing a black tank top, his well-defined muscles moving fluidly as he sprinted on the side of the high-rise.

The man bared his teeth, defying gravity as he ran wildly on the facade of the skyscraper. Unwittingly, he stepped on a hand-drawn, grid-patterned, white-paper landmine sticker.

Boom!

A massive explosion erupted from the middle of the building, throwing both the tank-top man and the hoodie girl from their perch, plummeting a hundred meters to the ground.

A three-meter-wide paper airplane watched as the two fell. Standing on the plane was a skinny youth with a freckled face.

He looked up at the cobblestone path on the skyscraper. With a playful turn of the paper airplane, he shot upwards, following the straight line of the building and comfortably reaching the rooftop, where the cobblestone path ended at the staircase entrance of this skyscraper.

Just as the finish line was in sight, the man on the paper airplane’s expression suddenly darkened. It turned out that there was already a man with a blue scarf waiting on the rooftop.

"Get out of the way!"

He couldn’t care less about anything else; behind him, a white paper giant that had ballooned like a balloon raised its fists high.

In that instant, both the tank-top man and the hoodie girl had reached the rooftop. Without exchanging a word, they too launched an attack on Blue Scarf.

Blue Scarf, expressionless, raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. A clear, metallic clash echoed, and the paper airplane man was hit first. Time seemed to slow down, and then the world turned into a vast expanse of white, followed by a prolonged ringing in his ears, his legs going weak...

Thud~

Thud~

Thud~

The paper airplane man, the tank-top man, and the hoodie girl all passed out and fell to the ground.

Blue Scarf, or rather Yang Zheng, took a deep breath. He tightened the scarf around his neck and hurried towards the staircase entrance.

Yang Zheng, a representative of the third seat of the Yan Zhao Club, Proxy Traveler Zheng, Peak of the Seven Palaces.

The ideal successor in Jiao Chong’s eyes.

Just as Yang Zheng was about to step through the staircase entry, his pupils suddenly constricted!

Shadows swept over everything on the rooftop.

This nearly 400-meter-high crumbling building was seized out of thin air by an immense black hand. As the giant hand exerted force, fragments of concrete and glass burst from between its fingers!

The entire skyscraper collapsed and disintegrated, the dust not settling for at least two minutes. All that was left was a huge pile of rubble.

Yang Zheng stood atop the rubble, one hand clutching the paper airplane man, the other holding the tank-top man, with the hoodie girl draped over his shoulders, all of them covered in dust.

He looked up, the cobblestone path having been completely destroyed in the collapse. Ultimately, no one was able to enter the venue through this exit.

"..."

Yang Zheng let go of the two men in his hands and gently placed the hoodie girl down, muttering to himself, "Sometimes I really can’t understand why there are people like you who harm others without benefiting themselves."

A bald, muscular man with a wicked smile emerged from the dust. He was over two meters tall, wearing a well-tailored suit that accentuated his inverted triangular frame.

"What’s the point of the Yan Zhao Club? Everyone sits down to eat fruit and cast a few votes as if it were a game of house. That old Zhao still gets to control whatever he wants, doesn’t he?"

He glared at Yang Zheng, his calloused hands clenching as his fingers made a cracking sound. "Yang Zheng! Let’s see who’s really the strongest among the third seat!"

Pang Chunhao, the third seat representative of the Yan Zhao Club, whose Proxy Traveler is Asura, was at the Peak of the Seven Palaces.

The prized student of Zhan Yuejin.

Long before Sifan and the Yan Zhao Club coexisted, Yang Zheng and Pang Chunhao had clashed. At that time, neither of them were Proxy Travelers, and the encounter ended with Pang Chunhao’s complete defeat.

Latter on, Zhan Yuejin became the new Jie Master, and Pang Chunhao’s power rose with the tide; Yang Zheng was sent off to Yunnan by Zhao Jianzhong.

Time passed, and today, both had become hotshots in Yan Fu, each well-known as fierce combatants of their respective third seats.

But since Yang Zheng went to Yunnan, he’d hardly returned to Beijing.

Zhan Yuejin was suppressed by Zhao, and Pang Chunhao didn’t return to Heaven Jiazi Nine all year round. The two had little opportunity to meet.

"Can we change the time, please? You may not care about the Yan Zhao Club, but if I can’t get in, Jiao boss would skin me alive,"

Pang Chunhao narrowed his eyes, "You said... hmm?"

He lost his footing and staggered for a moment.

An earthquake, sudden and unexpected.

Light, blindingly bright, the atmosphere churned and cleansed everything as it reflected back with tremendous speed. The entire sky was engulfed by the violent dust ripples, making the giant hand that could easily crush skyscrapers seem so feeble by comparison.

Columns of golden flame, too intense to behold, shot straight into the heavens, and a giant rust-colored mushroom cloud stretched as far as the eye could see.

This was the cataclysm of the world.

Even nearly a hundred kilometers away, the sheer intensity of this unfathomable destructive force still made one shudder.

After a long while, a scorching wind slapped against Pang Chunhao’s face, its destructive force comparable to red-hot coal, causing him to lose focus momentarily.

"A maniac from the second seat as well?"

Pang Chunhao couldn’t help but question himself.

"Hmm?"

By the time Pang Chunhao realized what happened, Yang Zheng had already vanished, leaving nothing but slowly settling dust on the rubble.

"You think you can run?"

"Hmph."

Furious, Pang Chunhao chased after him without a second word.

————————————————

The reach of the super bomb was not vast, with most of its explosive power, including the waves that could cause moderate earthquakes, absorbed by the Domino Wall. Other than leaving behind a three-kilometer-diameter, bottomless crater, the super bomb did not cause any long-lasting consequences, proving to be rather "clean".

Fierce winds never ceased, the air perpetually twisted. Li Yan stepped on the smoldering red-black ash, his bloodshot eyes scanning the scorched earth as a vivid purple line on his forehead stood out starkly.

In that moment, he strongly agreed with Zhao Jianzhong’s decision to isolate the majority of the Ten Masters and most of the Six Ministries Proxy Travelers outside of Heaven Jiazi Nine. At the same time, he began to question what exactly Zhao Jianzhong relied on to contain these madmen. Was it merely his own skill and personal charisma? That seemed unlikely to convince everyone.

Li Yan halted in his steps, as if he had discovered something, and decisively jumped into the pit.

One minute, two minutes.

It took a full three minutes before Li Yan finally emerged from the pit with someone in tow.

To say it was a person was a stretch; it was a shapeless black clump of flesh, unidentifiable as having limbs or features. In the blur of flesh and blood, a golden eight-pointed domino was embedded, covered with fractures, seemingly on the verge of breaking at the slightest touch.

Li Yan examined the lump of flesh for a long time, at a loss on how to proceed. A Fleeting Glimpse provided no response, indicating that even Earth Endurance thought this was a corpse without value.