Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

Outside Fengtian Gate, Zhu Youzhen and tens of thousands of Ming soldiers, who had been waiting for death with their eyes closed, opened their eyes in bewilderment.

They followed the old Taoist's gaze and looked in the direction of the sound.

A somewhat frail figure slowly emerged from the Meridian Gate, which had been ravaged by war and riddled with holes.

The man was wearing a faded coarse blue shirt and a pair of black cloth shoes with layered soles that were slightly covered in yellow dirt.

Her long hair was casually tied back with a single withered twig, and she held a mottled, old Xiangfei bamboo folding fan in her hand.

He walked slowly, his pace as leisurely as if he were strolling in his own backyard.

The afterglow of the setting sun shone on his blue robe, casting an extremely long shadow.

On that handsome yet weathered face, there was not a trace of fear in the face of the immortals, nor any hint of murderous intent.

There is only a profound tranquility that comes from seeing through the changes of time and regarding all the gods and Buddhas in the sky as nothing.

This was Li Changqing, who had traveled from Jiayuguan all the way to the capital.

He walked through the most prosperous street in the Ming Dynasty.

Along the way, he saw closed shops and scattered silk and candied hawthorns on the ground.

I saw those people trembling behind the cracks in the door.

This city was his masterpiece, into which he poured countless efforts and personally propelled it to its golden age.

Now, this masterpiece has been ravaged by a group of charlatans who appeared out of nowhere.

In Li Changqing's heart, there was no rage, only a deep and extreme indifference.

He walked step by step up the white marble steps of Fengtian Gate, passing by the stunned Shenji Battalion soldiers.

He walked straight up to Emperor Chengping, Zhu Youzhen, and stopped.

Zhu Youzhen stared intently at the back of the man in the blue robe in front of him.

His heart, which had been as firm as a rock, began to tremble violently at this moment.

do not know.

This handsome yet unfamiliar face, this shabby and worn-out blue cloth robe—he had never seen this person before in his decades in the imperial court.

but.

That kind of composure, standing with hands behind his back, as if he could hold up the sky with one hand even if it collapsed.

That kind of nonchalant attitude, where everything in the world is seen as a piece on a chessboard, exudes endless domineering power.

too familiar.

So familiar that it stirred within Zhu Youzhen's very soul an urge to prostrate himself in reverence.

"Who...who are you...?"

Zhu Youzhen's voice was hoarse beyond recognition, and his hand gripping the sword trembled uncontrollably.

Li Changqing did not turn around.

He simply shook the folding fan made of Xiangfei bamboo in his hand, and the soft "snap" sounded particularly crisp in the deathly silent square.

"Your Majesty, you are now the Emperor of the Great Ming Dynasty. If the barbarian tribes outside see you behaving in such a dramatic manner, what kind of decorum would that be?"

"The rules of the Ming Dynasty are set by cannons and silver. Don't let a few flying insects scare you out of your wits."

boom!

Zhu Youzhen was struck dumb, his whole body stiffened on the spot, his eyes wide open, and two streams of hot tears instantly welled up in his eyes.

This sentence, though seemingly casual, carries a tone of scathing rebuke.

Apart from the Grand Tutor who once held immense power and personally mentored him to become an emperor, who else in the world would dare to speak to him like that?

Who else could say such a thing!

He didn't know why the Grand Tutor had become this young and unfamiliar figure.

He didn't want to ask why the Grand Tutor had faked his death to escape back then.

All he knew was that this was the darkest moment in the Ming Dynasty's history, a time when the dynasty faced annihilation.

The pillar that once held up the sky for the Ming Dynasty has returned.

Not only Zhu Youzhen, but also several veteran officials, including Grand Secretary Song Yin, who had followed him since he was a prince, were deeply shaken upon hearing these words, and tears streamed down their faces.

One by one, their knees buckled, and they could no longer control themselves, kneeling prostrate on the blue bricks.

Li Changqing still didn't turn around; he held the folding fan in front of his chest and gently swayed it.

He raised his head and calmly glanced at the dozens of cultivators in mid-air who looked as if they were facing a formidable enemy.

"Just who are you?!"

The old Taoist priest suppressed his fear and shouted in a fierce but inwardly weak voice.

He carefully examined the man in the blue robe with his divine sense, but found that there was no fluctuation of true essence on him at all.

The other person was just an ordinary mortal.

Yet, the aura emanating from his every move made this Nascent Soul stage expert feel a genuine sense of dread.

"Who I am is not something you frogs in a well are worthy to know."

Li Changqing closed his folding fan, his tone revealing an indifference that transcended all paths.

"I ask only one question. Is this Central Plains, this city ablaze with fireworks, something you yourselves intend to destroy?"

The old Taoist priest Xuanji was thoroughly enraged by Li Changqing's condescending attitude.

He bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the bronze flying sword at his feet, and laughed wildly.

"Playing tricks! No matter what kind of reclusive old demon you are, my Great Qin Immortal Sect has a history of two thousand years. How could a wandering ghost like you possibly fathom its depths!"

"Elders, heed my command! Form the Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation! Crush this official, along with this imperial city, into dust for me!"

"Yes, sir!"

Dozens of cultivators responded in unison, each unleashing their natal magic weapons.

Multicolored sword light intertwined in mid-air to form a dense and terrifying net.

The killing power contained within that sword formation even caused subtle spatial cracks to appear in the surrounding void.

This earth-shattering power is more than ten times stronger than the previous palm strike.

Faced with the overwhelming and devastating Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation, the mortal soldiers below didn't even have the courage to look directly at it.

Li Changqing sighed.

"After two thousand years of inheritance, all you've learned is this crude trick, like a child wielding a sword? You've truly disgraced the word 'immortal'."

He slowly raised his right hand, which was holding the folding fan.

No hand seals were performed, and no earth-shattering magical treasures were unleashed.

He simply faced the dazzling net of swords filling the sky, using the ordinary Xiangfei bamboo folding fan in his hand.

In mid-air, it seems to be a casual, light stroke.

This stroke, seemingly extremely slow, also appears to transcend the passage of time.

A ripple, invisible to the naked eye, quietly spread out from the top of the folding fan.

At that moment, the world fell into a deathly stillness.

The wind stopped.

Fallen leaves, suspended in mid-air.

The Immortal Slaughtering Sword Formation, carrying the lifelong cultivation of dozens of terrestrial immortals and threatening to tear apart the heavens, touched this invisible ripple the instant it did so.

"Click."

A series of faint cracking sounds rang out in mid-air.

Followed by.

In the utterly despairing gazes of the old Taoist Xuanji and all the cultivators, their natal flying sword magic weapon, which they had refined for hundreds of years, was...

It was as fragile as glass, crumbling inch by inch before this invisible force.

There was no spectacular explosion, only the purest annihilation.

The sky full of sword light instantly turned into dust and vanished without a trace.

"puff!"

With their magical artifacts destroyed and their minds affected, dozens of cultivators in mid-air simultaneously coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Their protective true essence was torn apart like rags.

Like dumplings being dropped into a pot, they fell from mid-air and crashed heavily onto the hard gold bricks of Fengtianmen Square.

The sounds of bones breaking echoed throughout the room, accompanied by a chorus of groans.

The immortals, who were high and mighty just moments before and looked down on mortals like dirt, were now limp on the ground like dead dogs, without even the strength to get up.

The Taoist priest Xuanji, with the highest cultivation level, barely managed to stabilize himself in mid-air.

But his once youthful face, now white-haired and hunched over, was now distorted and deformed, his eyes filled with an indescribable terror.

"You... what level have you reached... that your words become law, that a single thought can break all laws... could it be that you have already passed through the nine tribulations of lightning and ascended to become a true immortal?!"