The night fractured.
Not with sound—
but with pressure.
The moment Fang Ze stepped out of the bookstore's rear entrance, the world tilted. Spiritual light bent. Air density collapsed inward. Formation lines—dozens of them—lit up across the alley like veins under skin.
An ambush.
Not amateurs.
Three directions. High ground. Kill radius sealed.
Fang Ze stopped walking.
The first strike descended without warning.
A blade of compressed Qi—thin as silk, sharp as judgment—cut straight down from above. It was fast enough to split steel. Strong enough to erase a Qi Gathering cultivator outright.
Fang Ze did not dodge.
He raised his hand.
The blade met his palm—
—and shattered.
Not deflected.
Erased.
The alley detonated with backlash as the broken Qi collapsed inward, screaming as it dispersed. The rooftops groaned. Bricks cracked.
"—Impossible!"
Too late.
Fang Ze stepped forward.
The second attacker revealed himself mid-motion, descending with twin short spears glowing blood-red, cultivation surging at Foundation Establishment peak. His killing intent was sharp, refined, trained for sect warfare.
Fang Ze moved.
One step.
The ground exploded beneath his foot.
He appeared inside the man's guard.
No technique name. No flourish.
Just a palm strike.
It landed against the attacker's chest—and stopped his heart's rhythm in an instant. Not crushed. Not burned.
Disconnected.
The body hit the wall without a sound, sliding down slowly, eyes wide in disbelief.
Before it touched the ground—
The third attacker struck.
A full formation activated.
Six blades. Twelve shadows. Thirty-six overlapping trajectories.
A Sect Suppression Array.
Designed to kill elders.
Fang Ze exhaled.
Qi surged.
Not outward.
Downward.
The earth answered.
Golden light erupted beneath the alley, ancient and absolute. The array lines snapped like threads under fire. Spatial pressure reversed violently, slamming the attackers mid-air as if gravity itself had turned hostile.
Fang Ze raised his head.
His eyes were calm.
But the world around him was not.
"You chose the wrong ground," he said quietly.
Then—
He moved.
The alley vanished.
To any observer, it would've looked like teleportation—but it wasn't. It was absolute body control, movement compressed beyond perception.
One heartbeat—
Three impacts.
The remaining attackers were launched simultaneously, bodies breaking through reinforced concrete walls, their Qi cores rupturing under precise, merciless force.
No excess damage. No wasted motion.
Pure efficiency.
The last survivor crawled backward, blood streaking the pavement, terror breaking through his spiritual defenses.
"M-monster…!"
Fang Ze stopped in front of him.
"You came prepared to kill," he said evenly.
"So you should have been prepared to die."
One finger pressed down.
The cultivator's consciousness collapsed instantly.
Silence returned.
Not the fragile silence of restraint—
—but the heavy silence after execution.
The formations dissolved. The alley stabilized. Dust settled slowly, as if the world itself was catching its breath.
Fang Ze stood alone.
His aura did not leak.
But somewhere far above—
Monitoring arrays spiked violently, then went dark.
At Dragon Division headquarters, alarms screamed for exactly half a second before forcefully shutting themselves down.
In the west district, Su Qingxue halted mid-step.
Her hand clenched.
"…He stopped holding back," she murmured.
Zhang Rui felt it like a punch to the chest.
Liu Wenhao swallowed hard.
He Yun said nothing—only stared eastward, eyes sharp.
Back in the alley, Fang Ze adjusted his sleeve.
No tremor.
No fatigue.
He glanced once toward the skyline—toward the west district.
A quiet acknowledgment.
Then he turned back toward the bookstore.
Behind him, the message was carved deep into the capital's unseen world:
The Fang family's silence was over.
And this time—there would be no testing.