When Delegation Leader Xie, Chen Chuan, Gui Zihan, and the others stepped down from the motorcade, most of the administration of Veia State Center City was already present.
Besides them, two legislators from the West Coast Faction and notaries from the International Martial Artists Council Association were in attendance.
There were also special envoys dispatched days earlier from the East Coast by the Federation Executive Government, reporters from internal Federation media outlets, as well as a handful of local corporate executives and civil figures from Veia State Center City, including representatives sent by the East Continent Settlement and the Tawatinia Settlement.
Further along the periphery were martial artists of Tawatinian descent who had traveled from afar; upon hearing the news of the scheduled duel between Rossard and Chen Chuan, they had rushed here, though most held Federation citizenship.
Delegation Leader Xie stepped forward, meeting and shaking hands one by one with the personnel waiting there. Then he glanced to both sides. "I heard Mr. Crossal has returned. May I ask where he is? Did he come today?"
Ryan smiled and replied, "Mr. Crossal has pressing business to attend to. We have reserved a seat for him, but we are not certain whether he will attend in person today."
"What a pity," Delegation Leader Xie said regretfully. "I had hoped to greet him in person." Turning to Chen Chuan beside him, he added, "Section Chief Chen, shall we head inside first?"
Chen Chuan gave a word of agreement.
The arena executive waiting nearby bowed slightly, gesturing in welcome. "Mr. Chen, Mr. Rossard has already arrived. Please come this way."
Nodding slightly, Chen Chuan bid farewell to Delegation Leader Xie's group, and with his orderly, assistants, and personal security detail in tow, followed the arena executive through a dedicated corridor into the fighting arena.
Delegation Leader Xie and the others proceeded inside as well, heading up to the viewing stands. The corporate representatives from the East Continent Settlement and the representatives from Tawatinia sat well apart, and the gazes the latter directed toward them carried an unmistakable hostility.
The Great Shun armed personnel stared back just as coldly. Tawatinia had no particularly prominent world-class corporations, and its own technological level was rather feeble; even the one or two large enterprises it possessed were essentially controlled from behind the scenes by the Federation. While their overall capability was nothing impressive, they went out of their way to target the East Continent at every turn.
The root of this antagonism could be traced back through history. The Tawatinian people were among the earliest Yono Continent colonists to arrive on the Ying Continent, roughly four to five hundred years ago.
As they continuously carved out settlements across the continent, clashes with the First People were inevitable, and compounded by differences in religious doctrine, friction had naturally followed.
However, the First People's eastern dynasties had maintained long-standing ties with the former imperial household of the East Continent and received considerable backing from them. As a result, the Yono colonists had never been able to gain the upper hand, and had even come close to being completely driven from the continent on several occasions—leaving them to harbor deep hatred toward the East Continent.
This state of affairs persisted until the end of the Old Era. At that time, the Chiluojiaduo Confederation was engulfed in civil war, while the numerous colonies in the Southern Ying Continent were seeking statehood and desperately needed population support. Thus, large waves of Confederation immigrants arrived on the Ying Continent. With the East Continent preoccupied and unable to intervene, the Confederation immigrants gradually allied with the Yono colonists, finally turning the tide in their conflict against the First People and ultimately forming the primary population of modern Tawatinia.
Having suffered suppression under successive East Continent imperial dynasties, Chiluojiaduo carried inherited memories of fear and enmity toward the East Continent. This shared hostility, fueled and stoked by the Federation, had kept Tawatinia's antagonism toward the East Continent burning to this very day.
Having entered the venue, both sides parted ways and took seats far apart from one another.
The few Tawatinian martial artists in attendance looked relaxed, brimming with confidence in Rossard.
Although rumors claimed Chen Chuan was stronger, they dismissed such talk with contempt. They had always believed their people were the finest of all, lacking only a proper stage to demonstrate their might.
Rossard was an idol they had revered for years, the benchmark each of them had pursued while coming of age. In their hearts, the possibility of Rossard losing simply did not exist. Moreover, they had long believed that without Rossard and Tawatinia's aid, the Federation would never have been founded in the first place.
In their eyes, all they had to do was enjoy the spectacle and wait to cheer in triumph at the end.
On the other side of the arena, the martial artists from the Martial Artists Council were making records. This was a public challenge match involving Secret Palace martial artists; taking into account the identities and national affiliations of both parties, they had to ensure no extraneous factors interfered with or influenced the fight, as any mishandling could easily spark a diplomatic and political crisis.
After going through the required procedures arranged by the Martial Artists Council, Chen Chuan stepped out from beneath the arena stands.
Almost simultaneously, Rossard emerged from the opposite side.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the two walked toward the center of the arena floor.
Today, Chen Chuan was still dressed in his uniform, holding the Xuejun Saber in hand, the red cloth on its hilt striking and vivid.
Rossard had shed his Federation military uniform and donned traditional Tawatinian attire: tall boots, a vest with delicate rows of buttons over a ruffled turn-down collar shirt, a feathered tricorn hat on his head, a lavish half-cape draped over him, and a ceremonial longsword hanging at his hip.
Chen Chuan glanced at it, sensing nothing from the sword; it likely lacked even mutated tissue. But the man's true strength lay in his fists, so the sword was probably purely decorative. Still, having a weapon was better than none.
"Mr. Rossard," Chen Chuan said, "I have come as agreed."
Rossard said with utmost solemnity, "Mr. Chen, I will not hold back in the bout to follow, so I ask that you show no mercy either. Whatever the outcome may be, I am fully prepared."
Chen Chuan said, "Rest assured, Mr. Rossard, I will not hold back." As he spoke, he planted the Xuejun Saber into the ground beside him.
Seeing this, Rossard asked in a serious tone, "Mr. Chen, you will not be using a weapon?"
"For this fight, it is not necessary," Chen Chuan replied. The main reason was that the Xuejun Saber was still slumbering after devouring something from the Wanderer; though it was nearly awake now, he genuinely had no need to use it against Rossard.
Rossard nodded. He did not take this as Chen Chuan looking down on him, assuming instead that Chen Chuan was doing so out of political and reputational considerations.
That was understandable. Winning barehanded would be seen as an indisputably fair match, whereas if he won with a weapon, uninformed observers outside might construe the victory as having relied on the weapon's power.
On the other side of the arena platform, Ryan stood alongside several martial artists from other Center Cities, exchanging opinions.
Though the fight below had not yet begun, merely seeing the two standing there made the difference obvious.
Rossard's expression was grave, as if confronting a mortal threat. Chen Chuan, meanwhile, looked entirely calm—neither overly tense nor overly relaxed. It was an ideal state of mind; even between two combatants of comparable strength, the one maintaining such poise would hold the greater advantage.
Ryan could not comprehend why Rossard insisted on going through with this duel. Having witnessed Chen Chuan's performance that day, none of them believed Rossard had a real chance of winning. While a martial artist would never retreat without a fight, Rossard was not merely a martial artist—he was a banner, a figure of immense political and popular influence.
In Ryan's view, Rossard should have canceled the challenge outright, which would have preserved his reputation as a Federation hero.
If he lost, he would be one no longer.
Even as these thoughts crossed Ryan's mind, the fighters present involuntarily tensed up as the confrontation unfolded on the arena floor, feeling an unspeakable sense of danger rise in their hearts.
It was the fields emanating from the two men, prompting the mutated tissue inside the spectators' bodies to issue instinctive warnings.
In the space between the two combatants, fine fractures appeared in the very air—the consequence of their colliding fields.
At their level, it was difficult to discern an opponent's true depth solely through fields, yet the disparity in strength was readily apparent.
The fractures were noticeably denser on Rossard's side. Knowing he could not afford to prolong the standoff, he drew a deep breath. In the air behind him, a massive spiritual visage coalesced in an instant, swiftly engulfed by a burst of orange-yellow fire of spirituality.
Gazing at Chen Chuan, his fighting spirit surged. He knew that the odds were heavily against him, and whether he lived or died in this battle might rest entirely on his opponent's whim. Yet this realization freed him completely from all restraint, making his fire of spirituality burn hotter and fiercer than ever before.
Chen Chuan had no trouble sensing the resolve radiating from his opponent, and he now had a general idea of what the man was thinking. In that case...
Shifting his center of gravity forward, Chen Chuan burst with platinum-gold radiant flame as he lunged ahead.
The spectators outside watched with bated breath. While they could clearly see Chen Chuan make his initial motion to strike,
the moment he launched himself, his figure seemed to vanish from their sight entirely.
Chen Chuan was already right in front of Rossard; his speed was so extreme that hardly anyone in the arena could follow it, save for a bare few.
Rossard himself had been unable to react visually, but knowing well in advance that Chen Chuan possessed blistering speed beyond his visual tracking, he had abandoned looking with his eyes from the outset, relying entirely on his consciousness to sense his opponent.
Under the crushing pressure of a mortal threat, bodily instincts would naturally keep pace.
Yet this was an exceptionally perilous gamble. Intuition could be relied upon once or twice, but it was almost impossible to sustain through a high-intensity, blistering exchange—and because his opponent's strikes would inevitably target vital points, the slightest misjudgment could get him killed on the spot.
Even so, this was the best tactic he could possibly devise.
Reaching out with one hand, he managed to slap squarely against Chen Chuan's incoming fist, while bringing his other elbow forward to meet the incoming strike, executing a classic Tawatinian vertical-angle parry.
He had indeed anticipated the point of impact through pure bodily instinct. Yet the very next moment, the fire of spirituality clustered before him blasted open with a deafening crash, followed by an irresistible force crashing through. The bones in his arms shattered inch by inch in an instant, and the force surged through his entire body like a furious tidal tempest, sending him hurtling backward through the air.
Chapter 1162