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

crushing...

A complete and utter crushing defeat!

If the attitude the Thirteenth Apostle had shown towards Ye Wuhen and the others was casual, then their battle was even simpler.

The three attacks were unable to break through the defenses and could be easily analyzed.

But now, Jiang Chen's attack seems even simpler.

Without flashy swordsmanship or elemental attribute bonuses, he used the most simple and unadorned attacks.

Might makes right!

Speeds that are outrageously fast, power that is terrifying to the extreme!

This is everything Jiang Chen just displayed: an overwhelming offensive.

Although Ye Wuhen and the others were present at the scene, their eyes were still able to keep up with the speed of the battle, albeit with difficulty, but it was enough.

All of this had an immense impact on them.

The powerful apostle they could never overcome was now easily defeated by a rumored powerless individual?!

Of course, the outcome is yet to come, but the process that has unfolded so far is already terrifying enough.

"Just who exactly is this Jiang Chen?"

Ye Wuhen's soft whisper seemed to represent the inner thoughts of countless people.

The chat in the live stream room has gone completely crazy.

The text on the screen was layered upon layered, densely packed, almost completely obscuring the image. Billions of people screamed, shouted, cried, and laughed simultaneously; various emotions intertwined, collided, and exploded in the barrage of comments. Server alarms blared across the globe, but no one paid any attention, because everyone was watching the same thing.

"Did you see that??? Did you see that??? His face!! The Thirteenth Apostle's face was smashed!!!"

"That punch!!! That punch landed on my face!!! I saw it!!! My bones were broken!!!"

"He didn't use a sword, he didn't use magic, he didn't use anything!!! Just his fists!!!"

"Jiang Chen!!! Jiang Chen!!! Jiang Chen!!!"

"The thirteenth apostle is trembling! Do you see him? His arms are shaking! His whole body is shaking!"

"An apostle who has never been injured in three hundred years had his bones shattered today by a high school student's fist!!!"

"I cried, I really cried. I've cried three times since Zhou Tianze was about to be killed."

"Me too. The first time was despair, the second was hope, and the third was—I don't know, I just wanted to cry."

"What did Jiang Chen just say? He called me a powerless person, and then punched an apostle and smashed his face???"

"This is what a powerless person is??? This is the world's first case of a powerless person???"

"To hell with the awakening system, to hell with S-rank, SS-rank, and SSS-rank! True powerhouses don't need these labels!!!"

"Did you notice the Thirteenth Apostle's expression? He's not just stopped smiling, he's now—"

"Fear. It's fear. He's afraid."

"An apostle who had lived for three hundred years showed fear in his eyes when facing Jiang Chen."

"I took a screenshot! I zoomed in and looked at it twenty times! His pupils were contracting! His lips were twitching! That was the expression of fear!"

"For the first time in three hundred years, the apostles have felt fear."

"And what instilled fear in the apostles was a seventeen-year-old high school student."

"A high school student ridiculed as a loser by the whole world."

History will remember this day. Regardless of the outcome, history will remember this day.

"Jiang Chen! Jiang Chen! Jiang Chen!"

The comments were scrolling wildly, but Jiang Chen couldn't see them. He stood in the void, looking at the disheveled thirteenth apostle in the distance, his expression still calm as still water.

"You must have more than that, right?" Jiang Chen finally spoke.

In the void, the thirteenth apostle lowered his head, his long, silvery-white hair disheveled and draped over his shoulders, obscuring his face, which had been smashed in half.

What he felt was something he thought he had long since lost.

excited.

That almost pathological excitement that surged from the depths of his bones, making every cell tremble. Like a wild beast trapped in a cage for three hundred years, finally smelling blood; like a lonely person who has stood at the peak for too long, finally seeing an opponent who can make him take things seriously.

His body was trembling.

It wasn't out of fear, it was out of excitement.

"hehe...."

A very soft, hoarse laugh escaped from his throat.

The laughter was very soft, almost inaudible, but it was undeniably there. It came from the mouth of the man whose face was half-crushed, carrying the indistinct quality unique to broken bones, like a dull knife slowly slicing across glass.

"Hehe....Hehehe..."

The laughter grew louder, clearer, and more unrestrained.

He slowly raised his head.

His long, silvery-white hair slid down his face, revealing a broken yet still handsome face. His left cheekbone was sunken, and the bone around his left eye socket was fractured, causing the pupil of his left eye to be slightly skewed. A dark golden streak of liquid trailed from the corner of his mouth, extending down to his chin like solidified lava.

But his eyes—those golden eyes with dark red cracks—were shining.

He lowered his arms, looked down, and looked at Jiang Chen again.

In those eyes burning with golden flames, the boy in the school uniform was reflected. Jiang Chen in the reflection remained calm as still water, but beneath that calm surface, the Thirteenth Apostle saw something he had never seen in anyone before.

"I thought that humanity could never reach my heights. I thought I would continue to wait in this void until the world was destroyed, until the stars were extinguished, until everything returned to nothingness."

He took a step.

In the void, a ring of dark golden ripples exploded beneath his feet. The ripples spread in all directions, and wherever they passed, the void itself began to tremble, distort, and shatter.

"But you came."

Another step.

The ripples grew larger. Fine, spiderweb-like black cracks began to appear in the void, emanating blinding white light, as if something was squeezing in from another dimension.

"You were wearing a school uniform, like a high school student who skipped school. There was no spiritual energy fluctuation on you; you looked like a stone, a tree, a speck of dust. You crushed my attack with two fingers, broke my bones with your fist, and beat me into this state in the most savage way."

third step.

The cracks widened. Collapse began to appear in the void, with each point of collapse spewing out blinding white light. Mixed in with the white light was a dark golden liquid, like blood, which was the "blood" of this void itself.

Do you know what this means?

He stopped in his tracks.

They were about fifty paces away from Jiang Chen.

He stood there, arms outstretched, his black robes fluttering in the air, his long, silvery hair flying wildly behind him like a flag torn apart by a gale. A smile appeared on his face—the face with half its face smashed open.

That smile was wild, ferocious, fiery, and insane.

It is the ecstasy of breaking three hundred years of solitude, the excitement of a lonely person at the peak finally meeting their opponent, and the almost morbid, chilling laugh of a beast trapped in a cage when it finally sees the cage door open.

"It means I don't have to wait any longer."

His voice suddenly softened. It was as soft as a sigh, as soft as a whisper, as soft as the whisper he made three hundred years ago when he first came into this world and watched the black ice flowers fall from the sky.

"Jiang Chen".

He read the name aloud.

"Remember my name."

He raised his right hand, fingers spread, palm facing up. In his palm, a ball of dark golden light was gathering. That light was different from any before—it was darker, deeper, more restrained, like a giant star about to collapse into a black hole, compressing all its light to the extreme.

My name is—

In the void, all the points of collapse simultaneously emitted blinding white light. The white light intertwined, collided, and merged with the dark golden light, causing the entire void to tremble violently, like a sleeping behemoth awakening.

"Astra".

The moment the name was uttered, the world changed color.