At dawn, the sea was shrouded in mist.

The edge of the sky gradually expanded with a faint white, casting a cold, gray light.

Dark currents pushed the seawater forward, waves crashing against each other, spraying fine white foam.

Fang Cheng maintained a cruising posture close to the sea surface, breaking through wind resistance, speeding ahead.

Feeling the gliding momentum nearing its end, his body began to succumb to gravity, showing a tendency to descend.

Fang Cheng’s gaze slightly tensed and his right leg curved in midair.

The muscles on the inner and outer thighs instantly tightened like a strong bow drawn to its limit.

Then, he locked the air beneath his feet, channeling strength at his sole, boldly pressing down.

Bang!

That super fast footstep unleashed terrifying strength of tens of tons, abruptly compressing the air in that small area to the extreme.

The originally ethereal fluid medium, at that moment, unable to escape in time, was forcibly squeezed into an imperceptible solid air wall.

The violent recoil force instantly propagated upward through the sturdy thigh muscles, reaching the waist.

It was like stepping onto an invisible solid stair.

Fang Cheng’s figure halted, leveraging this counterforce to rise abruptly ten meters in the air.

Immediately, his left foot followed without hesitation, twisting his waist and hips, stomping again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Continuous sonic booms erupted in succession above the open sea.

Like the subdued thunder of early summer breaking the dawn’s silence, reverberating for a long time.

Fang Cheng’s air-stepping frequency increased rapidly, his legs alternating, nearly turning into a blur of afterimages.

He simply abandoned the parallel gliding posture, leaned forward, adopting a sharp angled ascent.

Thus, using the left foot to tread on the right, he tore through gravity with a domineering posture, pointing diagonally at the sky, ascending step by step.

Thud thud thud—

Not far from the port, diesel engines emitted a monotonous roar.

A small fishing boat was leaving the harbor, cutting through the waves.

At the bow, an old fisherman wearing a raincoat clutched a cigarette, yawning while organizing ropes entangled with seaweed.

Suddenly, a dense, deep thunderous sound echoed overhead.

"Strange, the weather forecast didn’t mention thunderstorms today?"

The old fisherman looked up in puzzlement, eyes narrowed into a slit by the wrinkles.

In the next moment, his pupils contracted abruptly.

In mid-air, a figure wearing only red shorts was defying logic, continuously soaring upward.

It seemed as if he was stepping on the air, trailing a straight white vapour stream behind.

In the blink of an eye, the figure shot up hundreds of meters into the sky.

"What the hell!"

The old fisherman’s hand trembled sharply, the burning cigarette fell onto the waterlogged deck, making a gentle "sizzle" sound.

He yanked off the windcap from his head, glaring with bloodshot eyes, shouting with a hoarse voice to the cockpit:

"Old Liu, Old Liu, stop driving the damn boat! Get out quickly, there’s someone flying in the sky!"

The cockpit’s metal door opened with a clatter.

His companion leaned out, holding a chipped enamel mug.

He followed the old fisherman’s gesture and looked for a while.

However, apart from the gray clouds and a few circling seagulls, not even a ghost shadow could be seen.

"Flying, my ass! Did you drink half a pound of cheap liquor last night, and now your mind’s still not clear?"

His companion rolled his eyes extravagantly, cursing as he shrank back inside, slamming the metal door shut.

The old fisherman rubbed his eyes again, looking up at the empty sky.

The chilly sea breeze rushed into his neck, giving him a shiver, his face showing an expression of disbelief.

"What’s actually going on? I clearly saw it just now, am I really just imagining things?"

The old fisherman stood dazed at the bow, sinking into deep self-doubt.

Fang Cheng paid no attention to the small episode below.

He had now broken through the low altitude range, reaching the 1,000-meter altitude boundary.

The fishing boat beneath had shrunk into a tiny black dot, the outline of the port faintly visible in the mist.

The air here was relatively thin, the temperature several degrees lower than at sea level.

The mist lingered around, visibility far less than at lower altitudes.

From a meteorological standpoint, this was the junction between near-ground and high-altitude weather.

Thus, the air currents were particularly turbulent, occasionally hitting with strong crosswinds, sometimes becoming calm and stagnant.

Fang Cheng focused all his attention on coping with the increasingly complex surroundings.

One thousand meters... one thousand two hundred meters... one thousand five hundred meters.

As the altitude climbed rapidly, the wind noise became increasingly sharp.

The chilly airflow surged like tides, constantly battering Fang Cheng, trying to overturn him from above.

Besides, the most direct feeling was—the air density had further decreased.

During the continuous ascent, Fang Cheng kept leveraging by stepping on the air, and could already notice the anomaly.

Bang!

His right foot continued with the previous force and angle, attempting to soar upward once more. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

However, this time, the situation was completely different.

"Sss—"

With a sound like air leaking, the recoil force at his sole was abruptly reduced by half.

His foot stepped into emptiness, his body suddenly losing balance.

The original ascent trajectory with a sharp angle became skewed in an instant.

His whole body started falling to the left like a kite with a broken string.

At the moment of imbalance, a strong high-altitude crosswind, akin to giant waves, slammed mercilessly against his side.

Fang Cheng, caught by this force, rolled continuously twice in midair.

The fierce wind gushed into his mouth and nose, bringing a cutting pain like knife slashes.