After a thousand years of cultivation, he returns at the pinnacle!

Chapter 78 A Familiar Feeling

Seven days later, in the Scandinavian Mountains of Northern Europe.

The sky, just after the polar night, was leaden gray, with low-hanging clouds drifting slowly along the mountain ridges, as if the entire sky were collapsing towards the earth. The snow-covered peaks, in the dim light, took on a cold, almost metallic blue-gray hue. A biting wind howled through the valleys, carrying fine ice pellets that stung the face like countless needles.

The Temple of the Twelfth Apostle sits at the deepest part of this icy plain, a black building that seems to have grown out of the permafrost. Its exterior is not made of any known stone or metal, but of a smooth, mirror-like black substance with a cold, gleaming sheen, like a frozen abyss, like a void frozen solid. The building's outline is sharply defined, every line as precise as if it had been cut with a ruler.

Outside the Temple of the Apostles, a joint force of various nations had already established a temporary camp three kilometers away. Tents, military vehicles, and communication equipment were lined up in neat rows, and the flags of dozens of countries fluttered in the cold wind. Military personnel were busy at their respective posts; some were adjusting equipment, some were patrolling and on guard, and some were observing the black building from afar with binoculars.

But no one took another step forward. The oppressive aura emanating from that building proclaimed a fact more directly and instinctively than any radar warning signal: those who approach would die.

Inside the largest tent in the center of the temporary camp, Chu Tianxiong, Ye Wuhen, and several high-ranking officers were gathered around a holographic projection table. The projection table displayed a real-time topographic map of a ten-kilometer radius, with the location of the Twelfth Apostle's Hall marked as a constantly flashing red triangle.

"How's the signal?" Chu Tianxiong asked, his voice low and urgent.

"Stable." The technician switched the camera, and a preview of the live stream appeared on the projector. Seven cameras were simultaneously online, focusing on the entrance to the Apostle's Temple from different angles—that dark, arched doorway that seemed to devour all light. "Global live streaming has begun, and the number of viewers is rising. Currently—"

The technician paused for a moment, looking at the numbers on the screen that were jumping at a visible speed, his throat felt a little dry.

"The number of viewers has exceeded two billion and is still rising."

A moment of silence fell over the tent. Everyone knew what that number meant. Today, all of humanity's eyes were focused on this icy plain, on that black building, on that figure that had yet to appear.

"Have you made contact with Jiang Chen?" Ye Wuhen asked. He was still wearing that dark gray robe today, his right hand gripping the longsword with only the hilt remaining. The rope binding the hilt had been worn smooth by his palms, gleaming with an aged luster in the dim light.

"Not yet." Chu Tianxiong glanced at the communicator. "Given his personality, he won't arrive early."

Ye Wuhen didn't speak, he just nodded. His thumb repeatedly rubbed the thirty-year-old wear mark on the sword guard, his gaze piercing through the tent canvas and landing on the black building in the distance.

"He's here."

Jiang Chen stepped out of the void and landed a hundred paces in front of the main gate of the Apostle Hall. He was wearing the Jiangzhou Academy uniform: a dark blue jacket over a white lining, with the academy emblem embroidered on his chest. On his feet were white sneakers, the soles crunching softly on the permafrost. He carried no weapons, wore no protective gear, and hadn't even scouted the terrain beforehand. He walked here as casually as if he were taking a stroll from his own neighborhood, his expression calm.

The cold wind swerved past him, but didn't even stir the hem of his clothes.

The live stream focused on him at that moment. Seven cameras simultaneously focused on him, clearly projecting the boy standing in the middle of the ice field, his back to the world, onto billions of screens.

The barrage of comments exploded in a fraction of a second.

"Here it comes! Here it comes! Here it comes!!!"

"School uniform!!! It's the school uniform again!!! Chen-ge's designated battle uniform for fighting the Apostles!!!"

"Hey, is Jiang Chen still half asleep??? Did he just yawn???"

"Brother Chen: Hurry up and finish playing so we can go home for dinner."

"Twelfth Apostle: Don't come any closer!!!"

"The prophet in front has been killed."

"But what exactly is this Twelfth Apostle...? Is the Twelfth Apostle's Temple several dimensions stronger than the previous ones?"

The concerns expressed in the comments are valid, and this is something many people are concerned about, but Jiang Chen had never considered these points.

In the live stream, Jiang Chen looked up at the black building. His gaze slowly moved down from the spire of the Apostle's Hall to the dark, arched entrance.

Then he stepped forward.

There was no probing, no observation, no tactical maneuvering. He simply walked, step by step, casually and calmly. He stopped about ten meters from the entrance.

Jiang Chen raised his right hand.

In the video, his movements were so slow that every viewer could see them clearly. It was just a simple fist clenching, without any power-building motion, any energy fluctuations, and even the posture wasn't standard—elbows slightly bent, shoulders relaxed, and fists loosely clenched, as if he had casually made a snowball to throw.

Then he lightly punched the door of the Apostles' Temple.

Like knocking on a door.

Boom!!!

The sound didn't originate from the point of impact, but rather from within the Apostle's Hall. A deep, muffled roar, like an ancient behemoth awakened from its slumber, came from the building's foundations, spreading along the frozen ground, causing even water glasses in the camp three kilometers away to tremble slightly.

The gates of the Apostle Hall—the pitch-black arched entrance formed from pure Apostle law, which had never been opened by any external force for three hundred years—began to shatter.

The cracks started from the point where Jiang Chen's fist landed and spread in all directions. Black fragments peeled off the door frame and smashed into the ground, creating deep craters in the permafrost. The cracks spread to the lintel, to the walls on both sides, and even the smooth, mirror-like black substance on the outer wall of the Apostle Hall began to show fine, spiderweb-like cracks.

The whole process took less than three seconds.

Three seconds later, the gate to the Hall of the Twelfth Apostles—the gate that symbolized the inviolability of the apostles—shattered into a pile of black debris before the eyes of billions of viewers.

Jiang Chen withdrew his fist, his gaze passing over the shattered doorway and looking into the depths of the Apostle Hall. It was pitch black there; he couldn't see anything. But he knew something was watching him.

"Let's go," he said, his voice soft but clear to every viewer of the live stream. "Let's finish this game sooner and go home sooner."

The barrage of comments exploded at that moment.

"One punch!!! Just one punch!!! Smash the gate to the Apostle's Palace!!!"

"Brother Chen's way of entering is always so simple and brutal!!!"

"Twelfth Apostle: Is someone knocking? I'll open it—Holy crap, where's the door???"

"No, calm down! That's the gate to the Apostle Hall! When Ye Wuhen and the others went in, the gate opened by itself!!"

"Brother Chen: Opening the door is too much trouble, I'll do it myself."

"From today onwards, Brother Chen is a professional demolition target for the Apostle Palace."

"One of them has already been demolished; this is the second one."

"Twelfth Apostle, you'd better hide. Jiang Chen from the demolition office is online."

Amidst the frantic scrolling of comments, Jiang Chen stepped through the shattered doorway and entered the Twelfth Apostle's Hall.

As soon as he entered, Jiang Chen felt a familiar aura, as if he had returned to that world of cultivation.