The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

He turned to look towards the sea.

The golden light barrier is still there. As long as the barrier remains, it means the formation hasn't been broken. If the formation hasn't been broken, the person is still alive.

But how long can this stuff last? Nobody knows.

Their understanding of the formation came entirely from Qin Xiaoyu's research report. The report stated that the formation on the tenth island "can theoretically withstand energy impacts of S-level or higher," but how many S-level is Xiang Liu? There was no reference point.

Han Songyue unconsciously clenched his fist and then relaxed it.

If something happens to these four people...

He dared not think any further. These four people were Chen Hao's disciples, the core seeds of the entire Chinese spiritual cultivation system.

To put it more realistically: the consequences of offending Chen Hao are more terrible than losing four spiritual geniuses.

"Report!"

A communications soldier rushed into the tent.

"Radar has detected a high-speed moving target! Southwest bearing, approximately 300 meters altitude, speed—"

He paused for a moment, as if to confirm that he hadn't misread it.

"Speeding at more than four times the speed of sound. Approaching this area."

Han Songyue: "What model?"

"Unidentified. Not a signal characteristic of any known aircraft. Shape... resembles a living organism."

Han Songyue was stunned for a second.

"Do not intercept."

Before the communications soldier could relay the order, the area outside the tent had already exploded.

Yang Xiaowei is speaking to the camera.

She has excellent professional skills; even when the content is "We do not have any more information at the moment," she can still speak with intonation and clarity.

Then she heard a sound.

It wasn't an explosion, nor a roar, but a bird's cry with an extremely penetrating quality. It came from a great distance, yet it was so clear it seemed to be right next to my ear.

She looked up instinctively.

In the southwest corner of the sky, a black dot is rapidly growing larger.

The cameraman, Lao Zhao, was a veteran with twenty years of experience. His first reaction wasn't to run, but to throw the camera up.

In the video, the black dot transformed from a single point into a clear outline within three seconds.

A bird.

A huge bird with a wingspan of over sixty meters.

The feathers gleamed with a bronze luster in the sunlight, and each flap of its wings created visible ripples in the air.

Its speed began to slow down as it approached the shore, but the oncoming wind pressure still made the antenna of the live broadcast truck shake violently.

Yang Xiaowei's hair was blown about by the wind.

She held up the microphone, her mouth open.

He couldn't utter a single word.

The military personnel on the shore reacted even faster. The air raid siren was manually shut off after three seconds... Han Songyue's order was transmitted quickly enough.

However, the mobile forces still instinctively gathered in this direction, and several armored vehicles turned around.

The three bluebirds landed.

Its claws slammed into the rocks on the shore, sending pebbles flying. Its enormous wings folded, creating a gust of wind that made everyone within a fifty-meter radius lose their footing.

Then, the three figures on the bird's back jumped down.

The first person to land was very steady, jumping down from the back of the bird several meters high as if taking a step.

The second one was a young woman; she moved swiftly and landed silently.

The third one—

Yang Wanqing's landing was not graceful. She staggered a couple of steps, almost falling to the ground, before finally regaining her balance by leaning against a low tree.

"I'm fine! I'm perfectly fine!" she shouted to the two people in front of her.

No one responded to her.

Chen Hao was already heading in Han Songyue's direction.

The live stream camera followed him.

Old Zhao's hands were shaking, but the camera was incredibly steady—twenty years of practice had paid off.

He zoomed in.

In the video, Chen Hao's face becomes clearer and clearer.

The live stream chat on Douyin (TikTok) has stopped.

It's not that the server crashed. It's that nobody is posting.

Hundreds of millions of people watched the same scene and the same face at the same time, and were collectively speechless for nearly thirty seconds.

Then--

The barrage of comments exploded.

Holy crap!!!

"God!!! It's God Chen Hao!!!"

"The gods have arrived!!!!!"

"I knew it! I knew he would come!"

"They arrived riding three bluebirds??? What kind of show of grandeur is that???"

"Wait, I recognize this bird!! It appeared during the Yaochi Secret Realm livestream! Back then, it was only about the size of an eagle!"

"Three bluebirds, brothers! In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the bluebird scouts the way; it's a divine bird under the Queen Mother of the West!!"

"He flew in from Shenzhen? Shenzhen is over 2,000 kilometers from Penglai."

"Has anyone started the timer?"

"It's only been six or seven minutes since Director Han finished his call..."

"Six minutes for 2,000 kilometers? What kind of speed is that?? Supersonic??"

"The High God has come to take on a disciple; Xiang Liu, you're finished."

"Xiangliu: I was terrified.jpg"

The bullet comments refreshed faster than the server's rendering limit, turning the text on the screen into afterimages.

shore.

Chen Hao walked up to Han Songyue.

Han Songyue quickly stepped forward and extended his hand. He had indeed been startled by the landing of the three bluebirds, but decades of experience in officialdom had made his recovery speed astonishing.

The two shook hands.

Qin Zheng, standing next to him, was still holding up his phone. On the other end of the line, someone from the Pengcheng Military Region was saying, "The special plane is ready and is expected to take off in half an hour—"

Qin Zheng slowly took the phone away from his ear and glanced at Chen Hao, who was already standing in front of him.

Half an hour? He arrived in six minutes. The person in front of him didn't even need to go through security.

Qin Zheng hung up the phone.

Chen Hao didn't look at him.

"Director Han, how's the situation?"

Han Songyue's answer was concise and precise: "At 7:10 this morning, our anti-submarine system detected Xiang Liu's signal. It came from the eastern Pacific Ocean, and after entering the Penglai waters, its speed suddenly increased, heading straight for the Tenth Island. At that time, Qin Xiaoyu and his team were on the island finishing up the work of breaking the formation."

"What happened after Xiangliu landed on the island?"

"About three minutes after landing on the island, the formation was reactivated. We believe that Qin Xiaoyu and her group activated it on their own initiative, with the aim of trapping Xiang Liu."

"Currently, we can detect five humanoid heat sources and one super-large heat source on the island, but vision and communication are completely blocked by the array."

"The person is still inside." Han Songyue's answer was direct. "Moreover, we are not confident in the formation's resilience. If the missile hits the formation and triggers a chain reaction, the consequences will be uncontrollable."

Chen Hao nodded.

"Arrange a boat. I'll go."

Han Songyue was prepared; with a single gesture, a speedboat was already waiting on the shore.

Chen Siyao followed. Yang Wanqing jogged after her, almost tripping over a rock on the bank.

Han Songyue looked at the two girls, then at Chen Hao.

"Mr. Chen, they..."

"Come with me. It's okay."

Han Songyue didn't ask any further questions.

The speedboat started, cleaved through the sea, and headed towards the tenth island.

As the speedboat approached the rocky shoreline of the tenth island, the golden light curtain was just three meters overhead.

Upon closer inspection, this light curtain is not a solid object. It is composed of countless intricate runes that move, intertwine, and recombine rapidly across its surface.

The energy fluctuations after the formation was activated caused all the electronic instruments on the speedboat to malfunction, with the pointers spinning wildly and the screens displaying static.