The once lively main hall now only had Yuan Buyu left, resembling a "lonely old man."
In the vast terrain of Mingjiang Prefecture, Mr. Feng, the Painter, and Zhou Xuan were tearing through with inhuman speed, frantically chasing one another.
"East Third Street, broken tile house—wait, the location changed again—to the clothing store on West River Road."
Right now, Zhou Xuan was nothing more than the Painter’s human GPS.
When it came to speed, Mr. Feng was indeed a cut above the rest.
He embodied "Human World No Distance," swifter than even the wind.
After harnessing the Space Law, the Painter’s absolute speed matched Mr. Feng’s,
but his laws came with fatal flaws. Moving through a separate spatial layer meant he had insufficient control over Mingjiang Prefecture’s real-world terrain.
To put it bluntly, he was like a man traveling in mist; no matter how sharp his eyesight, the faint fog clouded his vision. Lacking directional clarity, he couldn’t match Mr. Feng’s agility.
As for Zhou Xuan, his Night Travel lagged behind Mr. Feng’s sheer velocity. There was little hope of catching up; not being completely left behind was already fortune enough.
Fortunately, even with Mr. Feng wreaking havoc in Mingjiang Prefecture, the city felt constricting despite its size in the face of their extraordinary speed.
The smaller the locale, the more limited the advantage of their rapid movement became.
Though Mr. Feng’s shadowy figure seemed untouchable, his edge during the pursuit of Zhao Wuya and Yun Ziliang across several kilometers boiled down to just brief flashes.
Once Zhou Xuan became the Painter’s navigation guide, even those few fleeting moments were reduced to almost nothing. Before Mr. Feng had a chance to strike, the Painter’s Dao Yan Fire was already there.
Mr. Feng’s incense-fire techniques came with a critical weakness: he had only refined a single stick of Incense under his "Food Heaven" doctrine.
This Incense allowed him to transcend human limits, achieving "Human World No Distance," but it left him almost entirely defenseless.
For offense, he could only depend on piercing the opponent’s vital points with his folded fan, harnessing the Alien Ghost powers of "Food Heaven" to absorb their soul and kill them.
Thus, his defenses were practically nonexistent, and his offensive methods, while terrifying, were narrow in scope. With Heaven and Earth’s Extreme Speed, he executed frenzied assassinations because few could react to his velocity in time.
But neither Zhou Xuan nor the Painter feared Mr. Feng.
Zhou Xuan had extraordinary sensing power and was equipped with the Divine Armor modified by the Blood Well,
while the Painter traveled in another spatial layer—no matter how fast you were, you could only traverse the human world, but he wasn’t in the human world. What could you do about that?
"Mr. Feng, you’re nothing but a one-trick pony genius. And this one trick? It gave you a nemesis.
Me? Less than two sticks of Incense, and even then, you can’t kill me. How are you fit to be a Hall Master?"
The three of them raced at breakneck speeds, but none could gain the upper hand on the others.
Trailing slightly, Zhou Xuan began spewing trash talk to mentally disrupt Mr. Feng.
"Zhou Xuan, when I end up killing your friends one by one, don’t come crying to me for mercy."
"Look at you—haven’t dealt with a single person yet, and already you’re resorting to threats. Those kidnappers under your command? Haven’t I cut down more than a few of them?
The Dog King—isn’t he one of yours?
Tsk tsk, died such a miserable death.
Chun Meng—isn’t she also one of yours? And didn’t I drive her insane?
Recently, I joined forces with Bone Elder, the City God, and the Witch—all three major Tangkou united. We captured those under your kidnappers’ network, killed what we needed to. Doesn’t that pain you?
If I were in your shoes, I’d also feel devastated. To have built such a large base, ranking fourth in the entirety of Mingjiang Prefecture, maybe even challenging the Witch’s position, only to lose it all—if I were a Hall Master like you, leading a Tangkou into ruin rather than saving my brothers, then relying on ’Human World No Distance’ to fight a completely unwinnable battle, could I even call myself a person?"
"Shut your motherfucking mouth for once."
Hiding in plain sight—Mr. Feng had lived quietly in Mingjiang Prefecture for nearly thirty years, playing the role of a top-tier storyteller. Whomever saw him greeted him with courtesy and warmth. When had he ever endured such humiliation?
"Zhou Xuan, in Mingjiang Prefecture, I’ve had countless chances to kill you. I let you live because of your talent..."
"Can’t win, so you pull the ’admire talent’ excuse? If those twenty-four God-level entities atop the Heavenly Dome say the same thing, I could say every single one of them ’admires talent,’ right? Since I can’t kill them either."
Mr. Feng was speechless.
Lies can’t hurt, but the truth cuts like a blade.
In the Metropolitan city, he had already demonstrated through action—he genuinely couldn’t kill Zhou Xuan. That damned two-Incense-stage nobody could even counter with Divine Armor and Bone Teeth against his attacks,
an unthinkable insult for someone as proud as Mr. Feng. To be countered so embarrassingly, even without significant losses, was an intolerable humiliation.
"Fine. I’ll kill your friends right now. Let’s see if your mouth remains this sharp."
With a single step, Mr. Feng appeared on East River Avenue...
"Grandmaster, are we really not going back to help the landlord? That storyteller seemed terrifyingly fierce."
Zhao Wuya was driving a Meite sedan.
The car was borrowed from Bai Guang, a singer in the Metropolitan city, when he and Yun Ziliang fled.
After all, Yun Ziliang’s instructions had been crystal clear: "We leave right now, and the faster we run, the better."
How could two human legs possibly compete with a car?
"We can’t help him. That storyteller, judging by his methods and cultivation, doesn’t seem like just any ordinary storyteller. His speed’s incredible—if we stay behind, we’ll only get in the way."
"The landlord’s not even higher in Incense stage than me, and yet he’s still there, isn’t he?" Zhao Wuya retorted.
"And do you have Xiao Zhou’s Divine Armor? Can you use Night Travel?" Yun Ziliang flicked Zhao Wuya’s forehead and said, "With Mingjiang Prefecture’s foremost Divine Office on Xiao Zhou’s side, nothing should happen to him. Our only job right now is to flee as far as possible to avoid being captured by that storyteller and used as leverage against Xiao Zhou."
When it came to matters , Yun Ziliang had plenty of experience.