Lin Mansion.

Practicing her swordsmanship with one hand, Lin Xiaoliu suddenly froze. She looked up at the massive vortex swirling in the sky, her body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

"The weather... There was still some sun a moment ago. How did it suddenly turn into this?"

Her father, Lin Shunhe, paced with a confused expression as he entered the courtyard from outside.

He was slowly rotating two metal balls in one hand like Baoding balls as he entered the courtyard, just in time to see Lin Xiaoliu shivering violently.

"Xiaoliu, are you sensing something?" His expression immediately turned grim.

Ever since Lin Xiaoliu had sensed their son Lin Hui’s situation before, they had paid even closer attention to her condition, especially her Sensing Power.

And now, it seemed this Sensing Power was manifesting again.

"I... I don’t know! It feels like... Brother... Brother..." Lin Xiaoliu dropped her sword. Sweat beaded on her forehead as her body went limp, and she collapsed to her knees.

Before she could finish, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she passed out.

"Xiaoliu!" Lin Shunhe cried out in alarm, rushing over to catch her.

"Quick, get the Pharmacist!"

*

*

*

"This power... is incomprehensible!"

Black Cloud’s Great City Lord, Xie Chang’an, stared in shock at the massive vortex swirling in the sky.

For a moment, his heart was filled with the same powerlessness and terror he’d once felt as a weakling facing the Fog Giants.

Logically, with his current power, he could shatter a mountain falling on him with a single palm strike and break free.

But at this moment, what swirled overhead was a terrifying cyclone, a force far more colossal than any mountain.

"As far as I know, no power in the Federation’s history has ever been able to trigger a celestial phenomenon of this magnitude!" The man beside him, Second City Lord Zhang Yao—a Fog Person and Gongsun Xinlian’s second older brother—had also recovered his senses and spoke in a low voice.

"No... it has happened before," Xie Chang’an said softly. "When the Host of Gods attacked the Federation’s Inner Court, there was a spectacle this exaggerated. But that was over five thousand years ago. In that war, the Host of Gods was shattered, and the Federation was also gravely wounded. Both sides eventually called a truce, which gave Hong Yin the opportunity to grow stronger."

"This Lin Hui... could he be connected to that Host of Gods from the past?" Zhang Yao frowned.

"No... This is a power I have never seen before. It is not the power of a Fog Spirit. It is more like some kind of pure, primordial destructive force. At its core is an attribute of power higher than that of the Fog Spirits," said Xie Chang’an.

"It’s starting. Tuyue won’t let him continue building up power like this," Zhang Yao reminded him.

Xie Chang’an snapped back to his senses and looked toward the battlefield once more.

At that very moment, Tuyue was floating in mid-air. She could faintly feel a terrifying pressure, like the hand of fate, rapidly descending from above, intensifying and weighing down on her.

Her body grew increasingly heavy, and her limbs gradually weakened. The surrounding air currents pressed in on her relentlessly.

The scene unfolding before her eyes completely surpassed the limits of her imagination.

"A mere mortal!!"

Her long-held pride as a Fog Person made her absolutely unwilling to admit she was feeling pressured.

Gazing at Lin Hui in the distant eye of the storm, she finally made her move.

She raised her right hand, palm facing out.

"Then let me show you what we truly rely on to command the world!"

"Release!"

Suddenly, a cloud of gray mist erupted from Tuyue’s body and spread in all directions.

"Hyper-Divine Speed!"

She vanished in the blink of an eye, rushing toward Lin Hui at an incredible, terrifying speed.

Ten thousand meters per second?

No, it had reached a level completely beyond Lin Hui’s comprehension.

In just a thousandth of a second, Tuyue crossed several kilometers to appear before Lin Hui.

She was right in front of the massive cyclone.

It wasn’t like moving, but more like teleporting across space.

A palm strike!!

Without hesitation, Tuyue unleashed a full-power strike at the massive gray cyclone that filled her entire field of vision.

BOOM!!

A terrifying force, powerful enough to topple mountains and overturn seas, blasted from her palm. It formed a fan-shaped, transparent shockwave that slammed viciously into the massive cyclone.

The cyclone trembled slightly. A large chunk seemed to have been bitten out of its midsection, leaving a gaping hole.

But in the next instant, the swirling currents rushed in from all sides to compensate, filling the gap in the blink of an eye.

Not only that, but the immense Palm Force seemed to have a counter-effect. The vacuum created by Tuyue’s strike violently pulled in more air from the sky and sea, further accelerating the typhoon’s rotation!

Floating in the eye of the storm, Lin Hui was completely unharmed by the strike.

"Again!" Tuyue’s expression changed. ’If it were any other Fog Person, it would be one thing, but if I were truly defeated by this mere mortal before me, I would become an eternal laughingstock in the Federation’s history for millennia to come!’

"Hyper-Divine Speed!"

She raised her hand again.

This time, she didn’t rely on speed and Void Power alone. A dense, colorful halo suffused her entire body.

"Descent of the Heart God!!"

BANG!!

The next instant, her entire body exploded.

She completely burst apart, transforming into a vast, dense gray fog that merged directly into the surrounding mist.

It was as if she had completely disintegrated into countless gray particles and gas.

This stunned Lin Hui, who had just raised his sword to strike.

"Be careful! Tuyue is about to use her true form!" Gongsun Xinlian’s solemn voice suddenly sounded in his mind.

"Our greatest strength as Fog People comes down to two things."

"First: The Mist Form and the Descent of the Heart God. This is an ability of immortality and indestructibility. We can completely transform our bodies into a special mist unique to each of us. With this, we can alter the world within a certain range, creating an environment favorable to us. In this environment, you cannot defeat us unless you completely destroy every particle of the mist that we are made of."

"Second: Evil Energy. The Evil Soldier Insect Scripture grants each of us our own unique Evil Energy. Tuyue’s Wheel of Longevity gives her the ability to forcibly drain the lifespan of most living beings. With the exception of beings at our level or Fog Spirits, all other creatures are powerless to resist her once she uses her Evil Energy. Of course, using Evil Energy at will is also a huge drain on us and will accelerate our decay. She won’t do it unless she has no other choice. But you must be careful. The moment you see a third, colored eye open on her brow, retreat immediately! Get into the sea! The water can block her line of sight and partially insulate you from the Evil Energy. I will intervene to stop her then!"

In a single instant, Gongsun Xinlian’s powerful consciousness transmitted this large block of information to Lin Hui.

Information that would take a normal person at least ten seconds to convey was transferred from her mind in a single moment.

The overwhelming advantage of the Fog People’s Mental Power was on full display.

’Mist Form... Descent of the Heart God?’

Lin Hui’s expression grew solemn, and he no longer hesitated.

Although his Ruyi Sword couldn’t lock onto a target, the entire surrounding area was now within his attack range.

’Then let’s see what’s stronger—your Descent of the Heart God, or my Typhoon Swordsmanship!’

He raised the Ruyi high.

’Typhoon Swordsmanship, Secret Art...’

’Aperture of Destiny!’

SWISH!

The next instant, he swung the Ruyi down with force.

At the same time, a long, gray, sword-shaped current of air emerged from the massive gray tornado.

The current of air was thousands of meters long, like a tentacle of the tornado, and it spun at high speed around the main vortex.

As it rotated, the sword-shaped current accelerated, spinning ever faster and more violently.

Driven by the tornado’s terrifying speed, it began to sweep madly across everything within a radius of several thousand meters.

Amidst a deafening rumble, seawater was swept up into the vortex. The howling wind drowned out all other sounds, and lightning formed a blue web that crackled over the inside and outside of the sword-shaped current.

This sword-shaped current frantically swept and sliced through everything in its path.

Meanwhile, in the area where Tuyue’s body had burst apart, an area thousands of meters wide became shrouded in a dim, blood-red hue.

The sea itself seemed to be dyed red, and a thick carpet of fleshy tissue grew upon its churning surface.

Countless tiny, grayish-white, spore-like particles appeared in the air. They drifted everywhere like grains of sand. Upon landing in the water, they began to grow, sprouting large gray spore clusters. These clusters then disintegrated, bursting apart to release even more spores.

Clearly, Tuyue had transformed into a bizarre, living plague of flesh, which began to rapidly spread outward.

The countless growing spores now rapidly multiplied, condensed, and swiftly formed a massive white arm.

It was an absurdly large, hazy gray hand, fully tens of kilometers long!

It slowly opened its five fingers and, with a roar, reached through the air to grab at the tornado housing Lin Hui!

The giant spore hand and the grayish-white tornado.

The two behemoths were now nearly equal in size.

The giant hand’s grasp and the tornado’s slicing sweep collided head-on at almost the exact same moment.

"This is... completely beyond the realm of mortals! This is a natural disaster!!"

Far away, among the members of the Clearwind Sect, Su Yaping—the only one qualified to sense and observe the battle—was covered in goosebumps. Though he was far away in the city, he couldn’t help but take several steps back, nearly falling off the roof.

Although he couldn’t see the scene directly, he could piece together the horror of it from the terrifyingly massive fluctuations of power, the clash of auras, and the resulting shockwaves.

"You’re courting death!!" Tuyue’s furious roar vibrated out from the giant hand.

It wasn’t a sound wave, but a diffusion of Mental Power, which transmitted information that only seemed like sound.

The next instant.

The terrifying explosive force from the collision of the giant hand and the tornado erupted between them as a ball of white light.

BOOM!!!!

In that moment, everything seemed to stand still.

The churning sea froze.

The howling wind fell silent.

The swirling mist ceased its motion.

It was as if a pause button had been pressed on all of creation.

The next instant, motion returned to everything.

The massive explosion’s shockwave exceeded the normal range of audible frequencies and could no longer be perceived by the human ear. It became a purely destructive wave, spreading out in dense ripples that covered a radius of hundreds of kilometers.

The giant hand disintegrated, its particles re-condensing into Tuyue’s body.

The tornado also slowed and broke apart, completely dispersing to reveal Lin Hui’s form.

Both of them were covered in a dense network of bloody wounds.

"Interesting! How very interesting!" Tuyue cackled. "Excellent! Let’s begin phase two. You didn’t think our Mist Form would collapse so easily, did you? As long as the mist is indestructible, so are we! You aren’t a Fog Person. You don’t even have the right to harm the mist. What makes you think you can fight me!?"

"That’s exactly what I was thinking." Lin Hui raised the Ruyi again. He flicked his wrist.

SHIING!

The sword let out a clear cry.

The massive, oppressive vortex overhead once again descended, rapidly forming a giant tornado.

The sea below him once again connected to the tail of the new tornado.

Above and below joined once more.

A new tornado took shape.

"As long as the heavens turn, my sword is eternal. This is the essence of the Typhoon."

"Kill!!" "Slash!!"

The two charged at each other once more.

The giant hand and the tornado’s sweeping slash rapidly formed once more and collided head-on.