Chapter Fourteen: Disasters Both Natural and Man-Made

The room fell silent at once, the sound of rustling leaves became stark and clear. After several moments of quiet, Lin Feng broke the silence with a soft sigh.

"Over a thousand years ago, that man wanted to protect the entire world!" Lin Feng’s voice rose, ringing out with absolute clarity within the house, but to Xiao Shan’s ears, it was like a thunderclap in broad daylight.

Meteors fell one after another from the sky, unleashing wave upon wave of earthquakes. Even the most advanced buildings had no hope of withstanding such tremors; countless people lost their homes, and corpses littered the earth. The ground revealed its fangs, devouring those powerless to resist.

The surfaces of the meteors began to split, fragmenting like honey dripping from a hive. Each shard became a smaller meteor, shooting out in all directions. With terrifying speed and hardened exteriors, they rained down from the sky—so densely that one had to look up to see them, like bullets pouring down.

Protective shields were mere illusions; the meteors tore through them without resistance.

Wherever a meteor struck, not a patch of unscathed ground could be found. Towers were reduced to rubble, flames engulfed the earth. People on the ground, wrapped in fire, staggered and screamed in agony.

That man began to change—his face twisted, rage contorting his features. He raised his hand to block the meteors descending from the heavens, veins bulging on his arms. He could not stop the meteors, but he tried—he wanted to protect everyone.

In the end, he managed to halt one meteor, but its companions crashed into it one after another, unleashing a violent shockwave. The man smiled faintly, refusing to budge an inch, and the meteor slowly descended.

He saved the world, but the flesh where the meteor grazed him was instantly scorched, his arm severed, his waist broken, blood streaming from the corners of his mouth.

Though he stopped most of the devastation, not a single patch of earth was left untouched. The planet's core cracked, mountains collapsed, chasms opened everywhere. Magma surged through cities, destroying them utterly. The environment of Earth was forever changed.

Lin Feng tilted his head toward the sky. A shaft of sunlight pierced the roof. Xiao Shan looked up and realized, at some point, a small hole had opened overhead, letting in a blinding ray.

Lin Feng gazed at the sky with a faint smile—so mournful in Xiao Shan’s eyes, who could not, no matter how he tried, begin to imagine such tragedy.

"If even that man could not save himself, how could you?" Lin Feng paused, then questioned Xiao Shan.

"Disasters and misfortunes—I cannot control fate either," Xiao Shan replied with a sigh.

"Do you know? Right now, you're just like those people of the past, subject to fate, no different from the survivors back then." Lin Feng smiled gently at Xiao Shan.

Back then, people saw their homes destroyed, their loved ones lost. They refused to face reality, claiming the apocalypse had come, that devils were punishing them, or that the majority who had died before were fated to die unnaturally, and now it was simply their turn.

"That is the behavior of cowards. If you think the same way, how are you any different from those who died because their homes were lost and their families perished?"

Hearing this, Xiao Shan pressed his lips together, his gaze shifting uncertainly as thoughts churned in his mind.

"In this world, only the strong survive. This is an age where strength reigns supreme!"

"To the south are wolves, tigers, and leopards; to the north, bandits and outlaws; to the east, an endless forest; to the west, the layered peaks of the Kilimanjaro Mountains. In the middle lies this small town. How many people have fought fiercely, striving to grow stronger and seize martial arts techniques!"

This is an era of martial arts—a world of heroes, an age belonging to the strong!