After a thousand years of cultivation, he returns at the pinnacle!

[Warning! Black ice crystals have fallen on the capital. The entire country is on high alert!]

The normally noisy classroom seemed to fall silent for a moment, everyone staring in disbelief at the messages on their phones.

That knowledge, which only existed in books, is now actually happening in the capital of the Dragon Kingdom.

Outside the windows of Jiangzhou College, the sun shines brightly, but darkness has already quietly descended.

"Holy crap, is this for real?! It's not April Fool's Day, is it?!"

"It seems to be true. The video has come out, and it looks exactly like some footage from three hundred years ago!"

"Oh no, is this the end of the world?!"

"That can't be true, I've heard that many Awakened Ones are heading towards the capital..."

The classroom was filled with sounds of excitement and fear, but the students discussing these questions seemed unaware that one of their classmates had quietly disappeared.

.....

The capital city, in the desolate wilderness north of the city.

Black ice flowers were still falling, but no one cared about that anymore.

In the very center of the wasteland, the sphere formed from condensed ice flowers had completely cracked. It didn't bloom slowly; instead, it shattered like an eggshell bursting from the inside! Black shards of ice scattered everywhere, each the size of a fist, carrying a strange corrosive power, eroding the ground and creating craters that emitted white smoke.

After the rain of broken ice, twelve figures appeared on the wasteland.

They were exactly like the Apostle Vanguard described in previous intelligence reports: five meters long, with slender, stick insect-like limbs, and dark gray skin covered in cracks from which a dark red light emanated. They had no facial features, only a crescent-shaped crack running across their face.

Shen Wanshan's pupils contracted slightly. On the spiritual energy detector, twelve points of light lit up simultaneously, each with an energy reading that remained steadily at the peak of Grade A.

"Twelve peak A-level?" Zhao Tiangang's voice came through the communicator, tinged with disdain.

"this one?"

He hovered in mid-air, crackling with silver arcs of electricity around him. During the recent storm of ice flowers, he hadn't even moved; the lightning spiritual power flowing around his body had simply evaporated all the ice fragments.

"Don't be careless," Shen Wanshan said in a deep voice, "There are quite a few peak A-level fighters."

"No matter how many there are, they're still Grade A." Zhao Tiangang interrupted him, his tone full of impatience. "Old Shen, the thing you just attacked hadn't even hatched yet and you beat it down. Don't scare yourself."

He's right. That sphere was crippled by the combined forces of the four great families before it was even fully formed, so most people present didn't even have time to experience just how powerful the so-called apostles really were.

Moreover, being classified as an A-level apostle is nothing to these family heads who have already experienced countless battles!

A mere A-level apostle can be wiped out with a wave of the hand. Humans are no longer the weaklings who were powerless three hundred years ago!

Zhao Tiangang made the first move.

With a wave of his hands, dozens of silvery-white arcs of electricity shot out from his palms, each striking a vanguard apostle with pinpoint accuracy. The arcs didn't dissipate upon impact; instead, they transformed into a dense electric net, binding, tightening, and strangling those five-meter-tall figures!

The moment the electric arc touched the gray skin of the Apostle Vanguard, it erupted with a blinding white light and a sharp screech. The sound was like a thousand birds screaming at the same time.

three seconds.

In just three seconds, the three vanguard apostles at the front of the line disintegrated under the strangulation of the electric grid. Their bodies began to shatter at the joints, large chunks of black ice and gray skin peeled off, eventually turning into a pile of black debris.

"Did you see that?" Zhao Tiangang withdrew his hands, turned around and raised an eyebrow in Shen Wanshan's direction.

"That's all there is to it."

Zhou Boyong also made a move.

He wasn't as flamboyant as Zhao Tiangang; he simply stomped his foot lightly.

"Earth Ley Lines - Binding Chains"

The wasteland ground cracked open beneath the feet of the Apostle Vanguard, and countless rock chains as thick as arms shot out from the earth, tightly binding the legs of the remaining nine Apostle Vanguards. These chains were not ordinary stones—their surface was covered with a layer of earthy yellow spiritual energy, and their hardness far exceeded that of steel.

The apostle vanguard struggled, trying to cut the chains with their sharp fingertips. But for every chain they cut, two new ones would spring up from the ground, binding them even tighter.

Wu Shichang appeared silently behind the Apostle Vanguard.

This Wu family patriarch is a Dark-type S-rank Awakened, and his fighting style is completely different from others. He doesn't need flashy moves or dazzling special effects—he simply raises his right hand, his five fingers loosely clenched.

"Eclipse."

The nine Apostle Vanguards froze simultaneously. Large black patches appeared on their skin—not their natural color, but rather Wu Shichang's dark spiritual power devouring their structure from within. The patches rapidly spread, expanded, and merged, turning their gray skin inch by inch into black powder.

The whole process took less than ten seconds.

The twelve apostle vanguards all turned into black residue on the ground.

The wasteland fell silent.

Zhao Tiangang landed back on the ground, patting non-existent dust off his hands: "That's it? I thought the Apostles were much more powerful."

Zhou Boyong stroked his beard and nodded slightly: "They are indeed much weaker than I imagined. Although there are many peak A-level fighters, in the face of S-level fighters, quantity is meaningless."

Wu Shichang didn't speak, but silently withdrew his hand, his expression unchanged.

Shen Wanshan stood there, looking at the twelve piles of black residue, his brows furrowing slightly.

so easy.

With the heads of the four great families personally taking action, twelve peak A-level cultivators are indeed nothing special. But the question is, are these really Apostles?

Is this all the power that a being that nearly destroyed human civilization three hundred years ago possesses?

"Patriarch Shen," Zhao Tiangang walked over and patted him on the shoulder, "Don't overthink it. It's probably just a small-scale anomaly. These condensed ice flowers look intimidating, but they're actually just A-level grunts. If our four great families join forces, we can kill as many as they come."

"That's right." Zhou Boyong also came over.

"Old Shen, you're too cautious. Over the years, you've been managing the Shen family, and you've become increasingly timid."

Shen Wanshan did not refute. He looked down at the black residue on the ground, his unease growing stronger.

If these things are really that weak, how were humans driven to the brink of extinction three hundred years ago?

"Alright, alright, let's call it a day." Zhao Tiangang stretched and turned to walk back the way he came. "Go back and tell the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs—well, what do you mean?"

He stopped in his tracks.

A blood-red light poured down from the very center of the sky.

Everyone looked up at the same time.

In the sky, the crack—the one that had existed since the black ice flowers appeared, the crack in the clouds—was widening. Not slowly, but as if it were being violently ripped open from both sides by two invisible giant hands!

Countless tiny black ice crystals shattered at the edges of the crack, scattering in all directions. At the center of the crack lay a bottomless abyss of darkness. Within that darkness, something moved, wriggled, and—

decline.

A foot stepped out from the crack.

The foot was ten meters long, covered with layers of black ice armor, each piece the size of a door panel. It stepped into the void, yet produced a heavy, deafening roar, as if a mountain had fallen to the ground.

Then the other foot.

Then come the legs, torso, arms, and head.

When the thing fully emerged from the crack and landed on the wasteland, everyone was speechless.

Thirty meters high.

Its head alone was larger than the entire bodies of the previous Apostle Vanguards. Its torso was as thick as a mountain, covered in black ice armor, from which a dark red light emanated, as if something was flowing within its body. Its arms hung at its sides, the black ice crystals at its fingertips gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

Its face—that face without features—had a slit running across its entire surface. The slit was slowly opening, revealing an eye inside.

A blood-red eye with a diameter of over five meters.

The eye slowly turned, sweeping over everyone on the wasteland. Those it saw felt frozen from head to toe—not their bodies, but their souls.

Shen Wanshan's spiritual energy detector shattered in that instant. Fragments cut his palm, but he was completely unaware.

Because that eye was watching him.