Chen Chuan stared downward. The man's advancing strides did not alter in the slightest, yet before he could draw fully near, a formidable surge of mental force crashed abruptly onto Chen Chuan.
A tangible, crushing pressure bore down upon him. He merely gave his head a slight shake, tossing off the mental shock, but that did not mean the pressure had vanished; it continued to roll toward him in relentless waves.
From this alone, the tier of martial power the man commanded was far beyond that of most opponents he had encountered before.
*The Profound Mystery View...?*
Chen Chuan made no move to draw the Xuejun Saber resting nearby. It was not out of some misplaced desire for fairness—he would never discard an advantage against a formidable foe. Rather, he had a faint premonition that relying on the saber in the fight to come might actually work against him.
Trusting his intuition, he walked directly down the slope. Platinum light drifted upward from his body, and standing atop the mountain peak, the radiance seemed to soar straight into the heavens. Viewed from afar, his aura was overwhelming in its sheer ferocity.
On a neighboring crest, the Blood Hunt Cavalry crouched far off in hiding. Following Master Baishi's death in battle, they had received no orders to withdraw, so they had lingered on the perimeter, awaiting the next move from higher up.
Just half a day earlier, a telegram had instructed them to stand by and prepare to take over the Throat of the Star Spirit. That had made them realize the upper echelons were likely mobilizing something massive.
Now, seeing a blinding brilliance suddenly blaze to life on the opposite mountain, the commander felt a jolt of excitement. *Is he finally here?*
At the mouth of the Throat of the Star Spirit, the tall figure watched Chen Chuan approach. His face was set in a perpetual mask of indifference, completely devoid of emotion. A blue-white spiritual fire flickered into being across his frame, but unlike Chen Chuan's soaring radiance, his clung to him like flowing water, wrapping around his body in a thick coat of luminescence.
The two strode toward each other. Midway across the distance, both figures vanished in the exact same instant. When they reappeared, they had already met in the center, and their fists collided head-on.
At first, the clash of knuckles produced no sound at all. Only the surrounding ground rippled violently like ocean swells, followed by the intense, blinding flashing of two spheres of light.
Chen Chuan felt an extraordinarily immense power surge into his frame. Yielding to its momentum, he pushed backward and slid hundreds of meters across the earth.
The tall man, however, did not budge half a step. His body did not so much as waver. Yet across the knuckles of his fist, hairline fractures suddenly fissured, running up his forearm and spreading all the way to his ribs. But with a single glance from him, the cracks knitted back together, and he continued advancing toward Chen Chuan.
*Rumble...*
Only then did a deafening roar and a howling tempest of air erupt across the peak. Dust, pulverized rock, and vegetation tumbled down the mountainside in a cascading torrent. Even the cavalry on the distant ridge felt the earth tremor beneath their feet, their horses stamping nervously until their riders managed to calm them.
The cavalry commander stared across at the clash, eyes wide with astonishment and dread.
Having tested the adversary's power, Chen Chuan drew a breath and engaged the Heaven and Earth Furnace breathing technique without hesitation. A billowing plume of white vapor rose instantly from every limb and bone.
After advancing several paces, the tall man vanished from the spot once more. A split second later, he materialized right before Chen Chuan, his fist driving forward!
This time, Chen Chuan did not evade in the least, throwing a straight punch directly into the attack. As the blows crashed together, he too held his ground without yielding half a step. He noted, however, that only a few faint cracks appeared across the opponent's knuckles this time.
Parrying the first punch, the man drove another straight forward. Chen Chuan returned the blow with equal fury. The two torrents of force met in another dead-center impact. With their transcendent speed and raw power, both men tracked the other's strikes instantly and precisely, neither willing to give ground as both pressed an unrelenting offensive.
In a single breath, they exchanged over a hundred blows. Blurs of spiritual luminescence whipped wildly through the churning air. A low thunder rolled continuously across the summit, the air currents completely stripping away the thermal mists of the hot springs, leaving only swirling storms of light and dust through which gravel and shattered stone spilled down the cliff faces.
As the clash wore on, Chen Chuan clearly sensed that his opponent was adapting at terrifying speed. It felt reminiscent of Zhao Zhenye's Fuming Jin—except rather than adapting to the flow of internal force, the man was adapting to his absolute power and speed. It was as if boundless potential resided within that physique, constantly recalibrating and raising its own ceiling.
Moreover, though the man's layer of spiritual fire was thin, the patches chipped away by Chen Chuan's strikes did not scatter into the wind. Instead, energy flowed in from elsewhere to mend the breaches instantly, and the spiritual fire itself seemed to undergo a subtle shift, growing heavier and more viscous by the second.
Chen Chuan immediately realized that if this escalation continued unchecked, the opponent would overwhelm him in a few more breaths. Even if he had other means to boost his own strength, the enemy would likely scale up alongside him.
Unless he could bring him down in one decisive, overwhelming assault.
*In that case...*
With a flick of his intent, Chen Chuan unlocked the full might of his mutated tissue. But unlike before, ever since the lighting of the purple lamp, the dormant, purple mist-like mutated tissue sleeping within his body awoke alongside it.
A torrential surge of energy flooded his limbs and bones, suffusing every inch of flesh and every fiber of mutated tissue. His presence exploded. Beyond his inner power, his platinum spiritual fire flared violently, thickening until it resembled a river of searing molten gold.
Feeling the boundless power surging through him, Chen Chuan drove an explosive punch outward. Sensing the change, the man refrained from clashing head-on this time, tucking inward and ducking beneath the fist to slip away.
Yet Chen Chuan's speed now surpassed his. Though supreme instinct allowed him to evade the upper blow, he could not dodge the kick sweeping up from below.
A blast of compressed air and radiance detonated as a whip kick slammed squarely into the man's hip. The colossal force not only shattered the protective shell of spiritual fire, but sent the man hurtling through the air!
Chen Chuan's eyes tracked the soaring silhouette. Vaulting forward, he closed the distance instantly to hover directly above him, driving a fist down toward his skull!
Midair, the man tried desperately to reorient his balance. Seeing Chen Chuan's assault coming, he hastily raised his forearms in a guard. But it was useless. The savage, raging power blasted him straight down into the earth!
A dark speck plummeted like a meteor and slammed into the ground, kicking up a massive mushroom cloud of dust and debris.
Having smashed him downward, Chen Chuan kicked against empty air, detonating a sonic shockwave as he plunged after him.
The impact crater gouged deep into the bedrock, but the moment the man's back grazed the floor, his body rebounded upward. To him, the surrounding air and rubble seemed soft and fragile, easily brushed aside by his momentum.
Yet before he could fully regain his stance, Chen Chuan was already upon him. A fist smashed into him so swiftly that dodging was out of the question. The man threw up both arms in desperate defense, but Chen Chuan's strike carried both his own immense strength and the crushing momentum of his descent. The guard buckled, his forearms blown wide apart as the following fist struck his face square-on, completely destroying his balance and driving him back down into the crater!
With a resounding crash, Chen Chuan landed, his fists descending like a torrential storm.
The dense spiritual fire encasing the man was relentlessly chipped away, scattered, and shattered as he was forced to endure the unrelenting barrage from above.
After several breaths of this brutal pounding, a fierce blaze of light abruptly flared within the man's eyes. With a sharp snap, his fingers splayed open, catching one of Chen Chuan's falling fists in an iron grip. As their power locked in contest, his arm gradually exerted force, pushing the fist back up fraction by fraction. His lowered head slowly tilted upward, his gaze cutting toward Chen Chuan like a blade as his bent spine arched upright, inch by inch.
Chen Chuan's gaze sharpened. Raising his other fist, he unleashed the force field of the Grand Firmament Forms, enveloping them both. In the next instant, his fist smashed downward once more, striking the man's face with brutal finality.
A thunderous detonation shook the crater. The man's rising frame was beaten back down, forced onto one knee that cracked into the bedrock.
Chen Chuan did not stop. A second blow followed instantly, crushing the man downward until he was doubled over against the earth. Most of his spiritual radiance shattered, leaving gaping voids that could no longer mend in time.
Chen Chuan thrust both hands high above, palms facing each other. A brilliant light ignited between them, condensing until it grew so dazzling it seemed to swallow all light around it—and with all his might, he hurled it crashing downward!
Chapter 1092