Forced down onto his knees, the man's face flushed nearly crimson, and his entire body trembled. Deep-purple spiritual fire billowed outward from within him, spewing through the ruptures in his torn skin and muscle.
Seeing no way to escape, the power of the Divine Visage inside was attempting to destroy this shell to break free of its constraints.
Yet beyond the sun-like radiance outside, a powerful force field enveloped him. Furthermore, Chen Chuan's platinum Spiritual Fire had permeated into his body, clashing and intertwining with his own spiritual fire, leaving him utterly unable to rupture his form for the moment.
Chen Chuan felt a surge of force expanding outward from the man's head, preventing his palm from landing with full force. His eyes flickered slightly. Raising his hand, he curled his fingers, aimed at the man's face, and ripped downward with a vicious tear—*rip!*—tearing off the man's entire face!
Such acute agony and humiliation provoked a maddened shriek of outrage from the man, forcing even the enveloping force field around him to expand outward.
Had it merely been the physical face of this vessel torn apart, it would hardly have affected him. But with the Divine Visage suppressed inside the body, the two remained as one entity—making this an unmitigated disgrace.
Having ripped off his facial skin and seizing upon this wild fluctuation in his emotions, Chen Chuan took a step back, parrying the cruciform sword aside with a flick of his blade hand. He then surged forward with a step, gripped the hilt in both hands, and cleaved straight down!
In an instant, an arc of saber light split the man cleanly in two. The purple-gold spiritual glow within burst outward to either side, and in that very fraction of a second, an ethereal wisp of Divine Visage light shot out, fleeing frantically toward the outside.
Before it could flee far, however, the sun-like radiance cloaking the surroundings flared intensely, illuminating the entire cavern in an instant. Simultaneously, an invisible force bound it fast. Nor was it alone; even the entity tearing its way out of the fissure was swept into the illuminated grasp, causing the movements of both to freeze.
With a twist of his long saber, Chen Chuan's blade light caught up in the blink of an eye, striking squarely across that patch of Divine Visage light.
The blade felt as though it had struck a tangible body. At the moment of contact, their respective spiritual fires detonated. The entity dimmed noticeably, slipping from the edge in a flash, eager to flee once more.
Chen Chuan sensed a force violently tearing through the containment of his Two Great Stances. Purple qi circulated within him as he pursued with another slash, this strike imbued with even greater power and Spiritual Fire.
Yet the force erupting from the opponent was by no means weak. Having escaped its physical shell, it seemed even more potent than before. Upon impact, Chen Chuan even felt a concussive recoil reverberating back, causing his saber to bounce high.
That wisp of divine qi dimmed further. With a sharp twist, like a shadowy mist piercing rock, it darted through the stone wall and flew outward, reaching the open air in the blink of an eye.
Chen Chuan did not give chase. Instead, raising the saber with both hands, he closed his eyes and sensed for a moment. In those two slashes, purple qi had tainted that wisp of divine qi.
Sensing its location now, a gleam of radiance flowed across the saber's blade, and he swung toward the direction it had fled!
A sharp ray of spiritual light flew from the edge, piercing the stone wall in an instant and slicing clean through that wisp of divine qi!
Beneath the night sky, the wisp of divine qi roiled and tumbled several times. Faint howls seemed to issue from within, and shadowy faces flickered briefly before gradually dispersing, drifting away like dying ashes.
Sensing nothing left attached to his purple qi, Chen Chuan glanced down at the mangled corpse and the fallen face. With an offhand spiritual impact, he pulverized the remains into dust.
Feeling the mountain trembling slightly, he swiftly emerged and arrived before the fissure.
The entity emerging from the fissure was now halfway through. Its colossal form, at least forty to fifty meters tall, wavered between the corporeal and the ethereal, appearing composed of countless rapidly swirling auras of light. Brilliant bursts of color flared intermittently, and countless glowing motes danced along its silhouette.
Beneath this splendid exterior lay terrifying distortion and bizarre horror, with low drones and roars echoing through the surroundings. Chen Chuan did not rush forward. Instead, he observed it for a moment. Perhaps this entity knew something of what lay on this side, understanding that without sufficient power, it would be unable to gain a foothold, and thus sought to force through the maximum strength it could muster in one breath.
Yet likely due to the suppression of the Ring of the World, its emergence proved extraordinarily difficult. Although a portion had broken through, far greater might remained buried behind it.
Having dealt with such entities many times, he knew full well that this body was generated by its psychic power seeping into this realm and coalescing with the physical world.
Yet it was not entirely stable. Taking advantage of this window to eliminate it was by far the simplest path.
The moment this thought surfaced, the entity seemed to perceive the threat. The light within its form churned, spawning pairs of eyes that turned to glare at him, while illusions flickered into being around them.
Chen Chuan remained unmoved. The Grand Radiant Light Forms upon him had not ceased since the beginning; now, driven by his conscious intent, the radiance grew even brighter, gradually concentrating upon the entity.
Under the illumination of this brilliant light, wisps of vapor rose from the entity's body. The form forged from its coalescence with the physical world steadily eroded, yet the process was slow; destroying it through light alone was impossible. Clearly, during that brief span, it had already established a substantial presence.
Yet that did not make it impossible to handle. His figure flickered, appearing right before the entity's form, closing the distance between them.
Countless dense limbs branched out from the entity, smashing down at him. Yet while they were still in midair, two gigantic arms coalescing from the void seized its form. Spreading platinum light, they slammed it hard into the ground to the side!
*Rumble!* Along with a deafening roar, the stony ground shattered, and nebulous light-vapor scattered outward.
The Spiritual Visage's towering form gradually materialized above, pinning the entity's body down securely. In a situation like this, the Spiritual Visage's massive size became a distinct advantage.
Standing there, Chen Chuan sank slightly into his stance. Radiance flared once more within the palm held at his side. Waiting for a brief moment, he pressed his hand upward at an angle, and a fierce spiritual impact burst forth!
A colossal pillar of light surged straight through the entity, pierced through the interior of the mountain, and blasted high into the sky beyond.
This strike not only gouged through the mountain, but tore off nearly the entire summit, leaving a massive chasm in its wake and inflicting catastrophic destruction along its path.
The entire peak shuddered and swayed. Huge boulders overhead broke free, snapping and tumbling downward one after another. Violent tremors surged through the ground as dull, thunderous rumbles roiled up from below. Spiderweb cracks spread across the cavern's inner walls, while rock shards and stone dust rained down in torrents amidst continuous crashes.
One side of the mountain could no longer hold, crumbling into collapse. Billowing plumes of dust and debris rolled into the upper air, forming a roiling murky cloud that dispersed in all directions.
Combat airships dispatched by Center City were flying toward the site at that moment. Watching the spectacle from afar, the crews looked on in shock.
They knew a martial artist had arrived here and was likely clashing with local factions.
Though they were aware that battles between martial artists could cause immense devastation, a spectacle like this still exceeded the limits of their imagination.
To imagine such terrifying power erupting inside an urban center—the consequences would be unthinkable.
As the falling dust and gravel gradually settled, an anomalous luminescence leaked from within.
The observers caught sight of it, their eyes widening in sudden realization. One gasped involuntarily, "A fissure!"
With the ritual and concealments destroyed, the fissure inside the mountain could no longer be hidden. The biological field equipment aboard the airships malfunctioned as a result, shrinking into a tight knot.
Not only that—as the field and ripples radiating from the fissure spread in all directions, large field organisms across neighboring Center Cities sensed it, immediately sounding a danger alert entirely different from before.
Because of this, neighboring Center Cities—including the Federation's capital—learned that a sizable fissure existed in this area.
Upon learning of it, the response team of the Federation's Executive Administration immediately advised dispatching martial artists to handle the situation.
The meeting that had been underway no longer needed to continue; dealing with the fissure had become the paramount priority.
With delegations from various governments and corporations present and watching, the Executive Administration—regardless of whether the fissure had originally been there or just emerged—had to resolve it properly to give a satisfactory explanation.
Amid the collapsed cavern, the radiance enveloping Chen Chuan pushed aside the falling rubble and dust as he floated slowly into the air above.
All around him drifted a sparkling, crystalline mist—the remnants of that entity's scattered power after withstanding the blast.
Gazing downward, he knew well that even though the spiritual impact had blasted away the entity's exposed outer body, as long as the fissure behind remained open and its power conduit was not severed, it would not be destroyed in one blow.
Power on the other side continued to surge, showing no sign of giving up its infiltration.
Such a creature possessed a core—the focal point around which spirit and matter converged. Unless that core was destroyed or the fissure closed, it would continually pour power into this world.
Tilting his wrist, he tightened his grip on the Xuejun Saber.
Then he had no choice but to find it as quickly as possible.
Chapter 1197