Central Imperial Market — Tianwu CapitalThe Central Imperial Market bustled with thousands of merchant citizens, armored mercenary squads, and wealthy sect disciples, surrounded by three-story mahogany shops selling refined herbs and forging ores.Lin Feng walked along the main cobblestone avenue, his frayed cotton tunic and linen-wrapped sword contrasting sharply with the luxurious silk garments worn by the imperial citizens.He stopped outside a two-story forging shop bearing a bronze anvil sign, entering the workshop threshold where hot coal smoke filled the air.Behind a heavy iron counter stood Merchant Qian—a veteran blacksmith wearing a thick leather apron and holding a heavy iron caliper. Merchant Qian looked up from his work desk, his sharp eyes evaluating Lin Feng's physical posture and the heavy sword resting on the youth's shoulder.Merchant Qian rested his iron caliper onto the wooden counter while addressing the customer. "You carry the specific physical balance alignme

Sun Yan of the Rising Sun Sect stepped onto the stage, channeling thermal fire Qi along his four-foot refined sword. "My thermal Qi will melt your plain iron blade before you complete a single physical parry!"Lin Feng adjusted his stance, keeping his body mass balanced over his left heel. "Thermal Qi without physical speed achieves zero combat efficiency against structural joint strikes."Sun Yan thrust his flaming steel sword forward at a movement velocity of twenty feet per second, targeting Lin Feng's chest cavity. Lin Feng shifted his torso two inches to the left, allowing the burning blade to pass through empty air. He grabbed Sun Yan's right wrist with his left hand, applying joint leverage that twisted the arm downward by ninety degrees.The leverage snapped Sun Yan's radius bone and dislocated his wrist, forcing the flaming sword to fall onto the platform. Lin Feng executed a low horizontal kick against Sun Yan's left ankle, sending the Rising Sun genius spinning off the stag

Lin Feng drew silver Divine Sword Qi from his seven unlocked spinal vertebrae, channeling fourteen hundred pounds of physical kinetic output force directly into the meteorite wire. The silver Qi entered the grey wire at an internal frequency of eighty hertz, traveling through the thirty feet of metal thread in zero-point-zero-five seconds.The eighty-hertz silver Qi collided violently with the two-hundred-hertz blood Qi network inside the sacrificial array nodes. The physical energy disruption generated a three-thousand-volt electrical overload that traveled backward through the twenty iron spear shafts into the blood guards' forearm meridians.The twenty blood guards screamed in agony as the electrical overload ruptured their upper meridian pathways and shattered their wrist joints simultaneously. Their 8th Layer internal Qi flow collapsed completely, forcing all twenty guards to drop their spears and fall flat onto the basalt floorboards in total paralysis.The Blood Guard Captain c

Lin Feng reached into his inner tunic pocket with his left hand, pulling out the hexagonal blue memory crystal provided by Elder Guanyan. The blue glass surface held three-dimensional spatial recordings detailing Grand Elder Chen's secret executions, the seventy captured cultivators, and the blood sacrifice mechanics operating beneath Platform One.Lin Feng channeled a hair-thin thread of silver Divine Sword Qi from his eight unlocked spinal vertebrae into the crystal activation thread. He adjusted the output frequency of the memory crystal to five hundred hertz, linking the array to the wide opening in the shattered ceiling eighty feet above.The hexagonal blue crystal activated instantly, projecting a fifty-foot-wide three-dimensional spatial image straight up through the ceiling opening into the sky above Tianwu Capital. The holographic projection displayed crystal-clear visual records of Grand Elder Chen holding his ceremonial dagger, cutting the throats of seventy captive practit

Lin Feng pivoted on his right heel, bringing the purified steel tip of his black iron sword through Everlasting Ice's cervical vertebrae to end his life cleanly."My frost blade shattered from pure physical parry force!" Sect Master Everlasting Ice stumbled backward three paces while blood spilled from his lips.Sect Master Everlasting Ice's physical body fell face-down onto the deck, while blood pooled around his blue elder robes.Lin Feng leaped one hundred fifty feet horizontally through empty air, landing on the main deck of Sect Master Rising Sun's flagship.Sect Master Rising Sun raised his four-foot flaming steel blade, radiating seven hundred pounds of yellow thermal fire Qi. "I will burn your spinal marrow to ash before you cross this deck!"Lin Feng stepped forward three inches, keeping his balance centered without hesitation. "Your yellow thermal Qi suffers from a zero-point-three-second transition lag between your forward thrusts."Rising Sun thrust his flaming blade strai