Shh... listen—the hush before a storm.

The old man went still, eyes shut, pouring all his focus into his ears like a monk leaning into wind.

Whoosh—

It was wind, a resentful wind, crawling in from behind like a cold tide.

Take another sniff—like a fox testing the wind.

His nose obeyed Wang Xiaoming like a trained hound.

He sniffed the air, tasting it like smoke. It stank—utterly rank—like the reek when a Daemon corpse first evaporates.

A bad hunch bit him like frost at dawn. He jerked his head around, a bird flushed from brush.

As a seasoned fighter, his eyes snared motion the way hawks net prey; yet, for the first time, he wished his sight were dull, a lantern snuffed.

A ribbon of black mist tore across the sky, a tornado at a distance; his predatory vision peeled it bare like bark off a sapling.

The so‑called black twister was the Daemon corpses we had evaporated with magic, a grave wind reborn.

They had boiled into fine grit; now those grains swarmed together into stray body parts—maybe a nail, maybe a patch of skin—spinning into a storm of scraps like leaves caught in a whirl.

No... impossible! This shouldn't happen, not under heaven!

We vaporized them—so how are they back together, like ash finding flesh?

Yet truth stood like a stone: the black twister kept on, an ink spiral.

[Xinghuang I—]

He didn't plan to wait for an enemy to recover; his wand hummed with mana like a hive, but before the spell primed, the storm changed, a beast turning its head.

The black tornado stopped circling and slid forward like a hunting shark.

Its path arrowed straight at Wang Xiaoming and the elder, a spear of wind.

Though it was only a tornado of organs, he knew touching it would be a bad omen, a nettle that poisons.

He couldn't erase it in one blow, not with one thunderclap.

So there's only one answer: run, like deer before wildfire.

General Wang! We need to run, now—feet like wings.

Why?

General, this isn't time for a child's tantrum! Do you not see that freakish thing, a butcher’s millstone?!

Wang Xiaoming kept his gaze on the black twister, eyes like calm water. Yet his mouth tilted up, like he was laughing at a private joke, a crescent moon.

I'm asking... why do you think we need to run, like rice fleeing the pot?

It's lethal, Wang Xiaoming—can't you tell, like poison in tea?

Don't posture now; this isn't a parade, it's a cliff edge.

You're not much stronger than me—by a hair, a single strand.

Pretending won't get you anything but ashes, smoke in your hands.

His counsel soured on the air; the kid met it with disdain, and even his good temper sparked like dry tinder.

He might be the least suited to battle among S‑rank mages, but S‑rank was still S‑rank, a mountain is still a mountain.

Yet here he was, pride trampled by a kid barely past twenty, like footprints on fresh snow.

So anger swelled like a thunderhead, bruised and heavy.

He dropped even the courtesy of titles, politeness falling like leaves.

Hey, old man, let's make a bet—the dice are wind.

If you want out, go first, like a bird before the flock.

He refused to answer, a stone in the stream.

Let the brat play hero on a bleeding stage.

If he died, bad luck, a candle blown.

King Alex never lacked generals; another capable body could fill the seat like a pawn on a board.

If the kid lived, he'd get his lesson, a scar to remember.

He held that thought like a talisman, a reason to run alone through reeds.

Mana flooded his limbs; he bolted to a spot the tornado couldn't reach, a shadow slipping between trees.

Left behind, Wang Xiaoming wore that icy, keep‑out face, winter on his brow.

His blade bit into the earth to anchor him, so the wind wouldn't fling him like chaff on a winnowing basket.

The black tornado closed in, a hungry spiral.

Ears, scalp, neck—every part felt the whooshing gust claw at him, like river reeds whipping in storm wind.

Ten more seconds and the pull would peak, dragging him in, a tide at full moon.

Even a sword buried to the hilt wouldn't stop it, a stake against a flood.

Three—

A death countdown—spoken by Wang Xiaoming himself—and he started at three, not ten, like a drum cut short.

Two—

From afar, the elder felt a prickle of regret, a thorn under the nail.

Wang Xiaoming was clay that could take any shape; so young, already a general, a sapling set to tower.

Think of past generals—none took the post before forty, old pines all.

This one, barely twenty, and look at him, a comet.

With a little honing, he'd become the Empire’s greatest general, a blade bright as dawn.

His deeds would outshine them all, maybe more than all of them combined, stars drowned by a rising sun.

But... alas, a wasted talent, rain on sand.

The twin currents of disappointment and sorrow flooded him, two rivers meeting.

He sighed long and closed his eyes, a curtain falling.

He didn't want to watch a talent die, body shredded by a tornado; he had no taste for that spectacle, a feast for crows.

One—!!