Chapter Six: Someone Is Flying in the Sky

Wushen Port, Kaitai Dock.

A thunderbolt surged from the west, streaming light for a thousand miles—one strike shattered the warships! The enemy was annihilated! The fiends were obliterated!

A divine thunder clad in steel armor roared forth at ten times the speed of sound.

The sonic boom exploded, an invisible sledgehammer crashing against the wall of air, making those kneeling with their foreheads to the ground see stars and taste thick metallic blood, as if someone gripped their throats, leaving them gasping for breath.

Many laborers already frail or suffering from hidden ailments spat blood on the spot.

Compared to the ill-fated ironclads, coughing blood was a trivial matter.

Upon the mighty river, dozens of water columns nearly three hundred meters high erupted in an instant! Beneath each pillar, distinct wave-shaped corridors appeared, their depths averaging several meters, nearly exposing the riverbed, slicing and surrounding the ironclads—most hulls were pierced through!

Some, being small and narrow, were even cleaved in half.

The river surface echoed with screams and wails.

Foreign soldiers aboard the ships were battered by the violent blasts, hurled into the water, their bodies shattered—innumerable dead and mutilated, pierced by shrapnel until they became geysers of blood.

Yet what followed was the true disaster for the stricken ironclads. The riverbed, laid bare by the divine steel thunder, remained exposed for several seconds from inertia, before the surging river waters rushed back.

The instant return of the waters created a terrifying pressure difference for the damaged ironclads, making them as fragile as the softest custard. Against this pressure, the river flowed like a solid mass, effortlessly tearing apart steel and flesh alike!

As if the river god himself had been enraged.

Steel wailed, torrents roared.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of warships before Lan Yi were reduced to dust, sunk together with their crews to the riverbed. Distant passenger and cargo ships fled in panic.

From this moment on, Lan Yi proved to all present that he alone possessed the arcane power to annihilate the military might upon which the empires of this age relied. In other words, with such power, Lan Yi was destined to become the god-emperor of this decaying empire.

All would revere him as a deity.

When immortals wage war, mortals suffer.

Even though Lan Yi did not intentionally target those ashore, the blast from his divine thunder left most of them with varying degrees of injury. Save for a handful of fanatics, the majority fled as fast as their legs could carry them, driven by instinct.

Seeing the once-mighty ironclads of the foreign powers, which had bombarded and oppressed them for so long, now lying at the bottom of the river, many burst into tears of joy.

How satisfying!

They longed to shout, to roar, to beat their chests and vent their emotions!

Lan Yi, hovering in midair, slowly descended.

Bang!

Several bullets, their tips faintly glowing red and spinning, were halted before him by the powerful magnetic field woven by "Canghua." Lan Yi couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

He was in an exceptionally good mood—astonishingly so—and yet there were still skilled opponents?

The shooters were a squad of foreign patrolmen.

Whether out of folly or courage, after Lan Yi had obliterated dozens of warships, they saw him descending and, recalling the many shamans and priests shot dead by foreign rifles in the past, raised their guns and fired.

Instantly, they felt hostility pressing in from all sides.

Swoosh!

"Canghua" extended in a flash!

In less than two hundred meters, the white hair reached its mark. The patrolmen had no time to react before the rifles in their hands were sliced into fragments.

Having done this, Lan Yi, still wreathed in the radiant energy ring at his back, strode toward the city without so much as a backward glance.

“They’re yours now.”

With that, Lan Yi left the patrolmen behind.

These foreign patrolmen had long abused their power, committing countless crimes both within the concession and outside it. Now, disarmed and deserted by the one who had just annihilated the ironclads, the people hardly needed further instruction.

Lan Yi’s steps were swift and light, as if the ground shrank beneath him, yet even from afar he could hear the shouts and screams of vengeance and catharsis behind him.

Those who have wielded violence to indulge their beastly desires must remember: someday, they may lose that power and become targets themselves.

On the Yangtze, the imperial fleets, supposedly protecting foreign citizens and property, were annihilated in a single day.

This event was like a stone cast into a still pond—its splash set off waves that would ripple across the country and beyond, fermenting and spreading.

...

...

International Press Club, Wushen.

“The rise and fall of the world is the duty of every man.”

“Today, all of you from the martial world have gathered at my invitation to participate in the Jingwu Physical Culture Society. I thank you greatly. Only by nurturing the body, the mind, and virtue among our people—only when all our compatriots progress together—can our great nation stand once more among the peoples of the world.”

“Only with national confidence can we have true Chinese confidence!”

On stage, Huo Yuanjia, now a symbol of national pride and dignity, spoke with the bearing of a true master. His words stirred the hearts of all the martial artists present.

They had practiced their arts while foreign guns and cannons broke the nation’s spirit.

Clinging to their ancestral martial halls, able only to train in fists and kicks, their passion amounted to nothing. What sorrow! Today, Huo Yuanjia, the man who had defeated the strongman O'Brien, told every practitioner:

Compared to the fervent martial artists, the foreign journalists below—there to cover the founding of the Jingwu Physical Culture Society and interview newsworthy figures—felt that while the ancient eastern lion might have faded as an empire, it still possessed a lingering spirit.

Whether this glimmer of hope could revive the vast, decaying body remained uncertain—after all, many ants wished to feast on this slumbering elephant.

The banquet of partition would not wait for the beast to awaken and strengthen itself.

Nong Jinsun listened with a calm expression but a heavy heart as the foreign journalists beside him spoke openly and with condescension.

Yes, his childhood friend was striving.

He too was working hard.

But it was too slow. They'd stood still for too long, fallen too far behind. Now, to catch up would not be easy. Still, no matter how hard, it must be done—otherwise, the nation would perish!

Just as Nong Jinsun clenched his fists in silent resolve, a rumbling sounded from afar.

“Hm? What’s that? Who’s setting off cannons?”

The distant rumble interrupted the speech.

Nong Jinsun frowned, signaling Huo Yuanjia’s disciple, Lu Bing, to go and see what was happening. Lu Bing, sharp and resourceful, would know how to handle any situation.

Barely a quarter hour later, Lu Bing burst back into the hall, breathless and wide-eyed.

“In the sky! Someone’s flying in the sky!”

“They’re coming this way!”

“Master, what should we do?!”