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

The night before the live broadcast.

Dragon Kingdom, Kunlun Mountains, outside the Thirteenth Apostle's Hall.

On a snow-covered mountain at an altitude of 5,000 meters, three tents were pitched on a relatively flat rock platform. Outside the tents, howling winds and snowstorms raged, visibility was less than ten meters, and the temperature was minus thirty degrees Celsius.

But the temperature inside the tent is a little warmer.

Luo Qinghe sat cross-legged in the center of the tent, her hands on her knees, her eyes closed. She wore a white down jacket over her ice-blue dress, and her long, silvery-white hair was tied into a braid at the back of her head, hanging down to her shoulders. Her left arm hung motionless at her side, completely numb from the elbow down, but her expression was as calm as a pool of ice water.

"Qinghe, stop meditating." Zhou Tianze's voice came from the side, with a hint of rough laughter. "We'll be fighting tooth and nail tomorrow, so why don't we have a drink tonight?"

Luo Qinghe opened her eyes and glanced at him.

Zhou Tianze sat on the other side of the tent, shirtless, revealing his scars and muscular physique. He held a military water bottle in his hand, unscrewed the cap, took a swig, and then handed it to Luo Qinghe.

"This barley wine was brought up from the foot of the mountain. At an altitude of 5,000 meters, one sip is equivalent to three sips down the mountain."

Luo Qinghe didn't answer. She closed her eyes again.

Zhou Tianze didn't mind, took another sip, and then handed the water bottle to the person sitting at the very back of the tent.

Ye Wuhen took the water bottle but didn't drink; he simply held it in his hand. His hand was steady, with long, slender fingers and distinct knuckles—the kind of hands that hold a sword. The longsword without a scabbard lay across his lap, its blade gleaming coldly in the dim light of the tent.

"No trace," Zhou Tianze said, "Are you nervous?"

Ye Wuhen didn't answer immediately. He looked at the water bottle in his hand, remained silent for a few seconds, and then said, "Don't be nervous."

"Liar." Zhou Tianze laughed. "I've known you for thirty years. Every time you enter the Apostle Hall, you say 'I'm not nervous,' but your grip on your sword is always a little tighter than usual. Right now, your grip is a little tighter than usual."

Ye Wuhen looked down at his hands, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"You have a keen eye for detail."

"Nonsense, we've fought side by side for thirty years. I know exactly which way you're going to swing your sword if you fart."

Luo Qinghe opened his eyes and gave Zhou Tianze a cold look: "Vulgar."

Zhou Tianze laughed heartily and took another swig of wine.

The atmosphere inside the tent relaxed a bit.

Ye Wuhen put the water bottle aside, looked up at the tent ceiling. The canvas billowed slightly in the wind, making a "puffing" sound. Outside, the wind and snow were raging, but inside the tent, the three people sat together, their body heat and breathing bringing a little warmth to the small space.

"I'll be entering the Apostle Hall tomorrow," Ye Wuhen said calmly. "I wonder what I'll encounter."

"Didn't you go there back then? We've seen all that information. But I heard that the Apostle Hall has a hundred floors, and the strongest apostle guarding it only appears when you reach the hundredth floor."

"If I can clear the Thirteenth Apostle's Hall tomorrow, I'd be willing to lose another eye." Zhou Tianze lost his left eye when he challenged the Apostle's Hall years ago, but now he has a prosthetic eye, and he said happily.

"Shut up." Luo Qinghe finally spoke, his voice not loud, but as cold as ice. "Don't say things like that."

Zhou Tianze paused for a moment, looked into Luo Qinghe's eyes, and suddenly smiled. This time, his smile was very soft and gentle.

"Okay, that's all."

The tent fell silent.

The wind and snow howled outside, while the light inside the tent flickered, casting the shadows of the three people onto the canvas wall, overlapping like a silent silhouette.

Ye Wuhen looked down at the long sword on his lap, Zhou Tianze leaned against his backpack and closed his eyes to rest, and Luo Qinghe closed his eyes again to continue meditating.

Three people, three SSS-level talents, thirty years of fighting side by side, and countless life-and-death experiences together.

Tomorrow, they will walk together into that building that no one has ever set foot in before, and face a test that no one has ever faced before.

Maybe he'll come out alive.

Maybe not.

But they will go in no matter what.

Because they are Ye Wuhen, Zhou Tianze, and Luo Qinghe.

They are the three strongest among the awakened humans.

They are the three people who have come closest to hope in the past three hundred years.

Ye Wuhen raised his head and looked outside the tent. The wind and snow blurred his vision, but he knew that not far away, the black building stood silently deep in the canyon, waiting for them.

...

Meanwhile, in Jiangzhou.

Wang Kai squatted on the open ground in the abandoned factory area in the south of the city, in front of him was a cracked cement slab. His school uniform was covered in dust, his face was bruised and battered, and there was a bruise around his left eye, as if he had been punched. But his eyes were frighteningly bright, and there was an uncontrollable smile on his lips.

"Brother Chen! Look!"

He took a deep breath, circulated the meager spiritual energy within his body, and slammed his fist into the cement slab.

boom!

The cement slab cracked in the middle, sending fragments flying and raising a cloud of dust. Wang Kai's fist froze in mid-air, his knuckles scraped and bleeding, but his face showed no pain, only excitement.

"Brother Chen! I broke it! I broke it!"

Jiang Chen leaned against the wall not far away, arms crossed, watching this scene expressionlessly.

"It's broken," he said, his tone as flat as if he were commenting on a piece of tofu. "But your fist is injured. In a real fight, if you threw that punch, your hand would be crippled first, and then the enemy would kill you."

Wang Kai's smile froze for a moment. He looked down at his bleeding finger and gave an embarrassed laugh: "Well, I'll practice some more."

"It's not a training problem." Jiang Chen walked over and stood in front of Wang Kai. "It's that your spiritual energy circulation is wrong. When you punch, you concentrate your spiritual energy on your fist, trying to crush the target with hardness. But your body isn't strong enough for that. The spiritual energy is concentrated, and the hardness of your fist does increase, but your finger bones can't withstand the recoil."

He raised his right hand, put his index and middle fingers together, and casually pointed at a larger cement slab next to him.

Silently, the cement slab turned to powder.

"See that?" Jiang Chen withdrew his hand. "It's not about smashing with hardness, it's about using spiritual energy to vibrate. The spiritual energy penetrates the surface and disintegrates the structure from the inside. The force on the surface is actually very small, so the recoil is naturally small as well."

Wang Kai's eyes widened in amazement, and he nodded vigorously, "I understand! I'll give it a try!"

He readjusted his stance, took a deep breath, circulated his spiritual energy, and punched another cement slab.

This time there was no loud bang, only a muffled "thud". The surface of the cement slab was intact, but a hole the size of a bowl was blown open on the back, and fragments flew out from behind, landing on the ground with a series of crackling sounds.

Wang Kai was stunned. He looked down at his fist; there was only a little redness on the surface, no broken skin.

"I...I succeeded?"

Jiang Chen nodded: "Not bad. Keep practicing until you can control the spiritual energy to flow from the front to the back, instead of just exploding the back. The goal is to leave no trace on the front and completely shatter the back."

"clear!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Kai nodded excitedly. During the break, he remembered something and quickly asked about it.

"Brother Chen, you must know about the fact that these three Awakened Ones challenged the Apostle Hall together, right?"

"I definitely know that."

"This is the pinnacle of the Dragon Kingdom's fighting force. I wonder what the outcome will be. But I'm wondering, what would happen if Brother Chen went?"

Jiang Chen did not respond to this.

He did want to go to the Apostle's Hall, but... before that, he could learn about the situation through a live stream.

Time passed quietly, and the next day, the live broadcast officially began at eight o'clock in the morning.