The instant the Xuejun Saber was drawn from its scabbard, it let out a long, resonant chime. Wisps of luminous qi blossomed across the metal, turning the entire blade into a platinum hue identical to Spiritual Fire. With a mere slight flick of the saber to the side, Chen Chuan tore open a rift.
Gazing at the figure across from him, he leaped forward. The surrounding scenery receded rapidly to either side. Seeing him advance, the creature opposite leaped backward at the exact same moment.
If measured by the physical distance of true reality, he would have landed right in front of the creature or plunged into the fissure in that single instant. Yet this time, he found that no matter how much he accelerated, he could not catch up to it.
Because they were inside an independently formed domain rather than a purely material world, the distance between them was not what met the eye, but was far more likely determined by mutual perception.
Unless his mental power completely overwhelmed the other side, his perception could simply be denied or rejected by the entity, leaving him no way to close the distance.
Here, the entity could rely on the fissure, drawing upon the power of the spiritual world on the other side to batter him. To protect the others, Chen Chuan had to maintain his own mind and field, inevitably having to endure surge after surge of scouring force.
In this manner, his mental power would be whittled away bit by bit. Once it was depleted, the entity would likely win without a fight.
Yet after swiftly discerning its intentions, Chen Chuan was in no hurry at all.
He was someone who had lit the purple lamp. When the power of the spiritual world opposite projected over, it only caused the energy from the layers of heaven to pour into his body with an even fiercer surge.
Even if he might not outlast this creature in a pure battle of mental attrition, forcing him to his limits would still take an extraordinarily long time.
Within this domain, although the passage of time differed somewhat from the real world, the disparity was not too great. Continuing like this would actually work to his advantage.
Thus, he gave up the chase entirely and halted in his tracks.
Seeing him stop, the creature immediately unleashed its power. The spiritual energy from the other side surged toward him like an endless tide, manifesting as layer upon layer of blinding radiance.
Saber in one hand, Chen Chuan extended his other hand forward, bracing against the radiant tide.
Aside from Chen Chuan himself, the originally black-and-white space was dyed a glaring, brilliant white; only his back and the small patch of ground he occupied retained a few shadowy dark patches.
Without question, the creature across from him wanted to strip away or suppress the material realm to the absolute minimum, thereby securing a decisive advantage.
Yet as long as he stood there, his field and mind holding the line, it was impossible for the other side to transform this place into a purely spiritual realm, and impossible to achieve absolute dominance over him.
The creature whipped up the mental tide to relentlessly wash over him for quite some time. Seeing Chen Chuan standing steadfastly motionless, his breath barely waning at all, it seemed to realize that it could never break him before the ritual's repair concluded, and so it halted the assault.
Standing at the far end of the space, its eyes billowing with black smoke seemed to stare at him. A moment later,
massive tears appeared across its body and face, as if a force were violently pushing its way out from within. Uncontainable mist seeped through the ruptured fractures, igniting into black plumes of flame akin to Spiritual Fire.
It felt as though that mass of black smoke had barely draped a tattered human skin over itself.
Under constant expansion, its form suddenly grew colossally massive. Where its two eyes had been were now hollow voids, while its face turned pitch-black, resembling a gargantuan silhouette.
Chen Chuan tilted his head up to watch. Saber in hand, he stood alone facing this behemoth nearly forty to fifty meters tall. The red cloth on his saber hilt fluttered incessantly while the black-and-white shades around him flickered violently, leaving him as the only vibrant patch of color in this realm.
At that moment, from the void behind him, a gigantic spirit visage gradually coalesced. Standing over forty meters tall, it loomed like a towering titan. Golden armor swiftly clad its form, holding a saber and a spear at its sides. Its robe billowed, jade ribbons fluttered at its elbows, and platinum flames climbed upward from beneath its feet like fire, enveloping its entire body.
After a brief standoff, the creature seemed unwilling to wait any longer and took the initiative to charge straight at him.
The spirit visage also took a step forward, its armor plates clattering. Spinning around, it swung its saber in a savage cleave toward the creature!
The creature held no weapon, brandishing only black mist that clashed against the blade like long ribbons. An extraordinarily violent shockwave erupted between them.
Holes and fissures instantly broke open across the black-and-white domain, and multicolored light burst forth from within—glimpses of the outside mine pit, quickly patched and sealed over.
Yet the spirit visage spun once more, the long spear in its hand sweeping up right after. This strike came at an angle, borrowing leverage from the rebound of the saber clash. Opposite it, the creature lashed out with another mass of black smoke.
The collision between the two behemoths set off another thunderous tremor, inevitably causing further signs of instability to ripple through the surrounding space.
The impact of their clashing might was destabilizing the domain formed by the power leaking from the fissure. Yet under the continuous influx of leaked energy from the other side, it could still mend and restore itself.
All of this was deliberately maintained by the creature. It had no choice; in a purely physical clash in the material world, Chen Chuan could likely suppress it in a single exchange. It had to preserve its home-field advantage.
Chen Chuan remained standing where he was, letting only the spirit visage clash with the creature. His initial charge had already proven that pure physical strength and speed, even if somewhat effective here, yielded little result. The spirit visage, on the other hand, could exert its full power.
Although this demanded more mental power and Spiritual Fire, his profound foundation and the ceaseless influx of energy were more than enough to sustain such a confrontation.
With virtually no room to maneuver, the two behemoths collided over a dozen times in a matter of moments.
Chen Chuan observed the situation closely. While the spirit visage held a slight upper hand, the creature's power was steadily climbing. This came not only from its own strength, but also from the vessel it inhabited. It occupied the body of a martial artist, refined through a long period of adaptation. Using this vessel as a foundation, it could absorb even more power for its own use. It was precisely this layering of powers that covered its shortcomings, allowing it to wage a direct head-on battle.
Chen Chuan pondered. If the creature was deliberately sustaining this deadlock, it meant there might be unforeseen variables ahead. He could not afford to dance to its rhythm.
In that case—
He inhaled deeply. A wisp of purple fire seemed to ignite within his body, and using it as a catalyst, he channeled even more power into the spirit visage.
He had not yet reached the next stage of Visage Dissolution, meaning the spirit visage normally could not withstand such immense energy. Yet within this spiritually inclined domain, it was capable of doing so.
A shroud of purple qi faintly surfaced across the spirit visage, causing its strength to skyrocket in an instant. With a sudden whip of its spear, it struck the creature until its massive body tilted sideways. Unwilling to back down, the creature summoned forth even more power to retaliate.
After several more furious collisions, even wider cracks split across the domain, and massive tears appeared in the black-and-white fabric like shattered glass.
In that brief instant, the foundation of the spiritual world receded, and the material world gained a slight upper hand, causing the creature to freeze for a fraction of a second.
The spirit visage was clearly far better suited to this shift. Pressing forward immediately, it unleashed relentless cleaves with its saber, forcing the creature into frantic, desperate parries and causing even larger fractures to rip through the surrounding domain.
Seeing this, Chen Chuan knew his moment had arrived.
He could not give the entity any chance to mend the ruptures. He had to shatter this confining layer, dragging the fight back into the material world where he held absolute supremacy.
With a single thought, his Two Great Stances expanded outward with tremendous force. The energy that had just poured in from the fissure was swiftly neutralized and dissolved by the Grand Radiant Light Forms, while the force field of the Grand Firmament Forms pulled this domain toward the material world.
Afflicted by this shift, the creature's aura instantly plummeted a level. The spirit visage's momentum surged, pressing relentlessly forward and battering the creature until it stumbled and reeled, utterly overwhelmed.
As the Two Great Stances expanded, a vast amount of pure spiritual energy was stripped away from this space, leaving behind only the barely pieced-together fragments of the black-and-white world.
The spirit visage grew stronger with every strike. With each clash, massive chunks of tissue ruptured from the creature's body, dissolving into gravel-like powder that drifted into the thick clouds of smoke.
Chen Chuan saw that the material world's foundation was now solid enough for him to unleash his full might, and he would not give the creature the slightest chance to turn the tables.
With a light push off his toes, his figure flickered. In an instant, he appeared directly above the creature's head. Raising the Xuejun Saber high with both hands, he paused for a split second, then brought it down as a straight beam of brilliant light!
A platinum-gold arc of blade light slashed down from the creature's skull all the way through to its feet. The strike was blindingly radiant and dazzling, seeming to cleave the entire space in two along with its target!
Amid a faint, crisp sound of shattering, the black-and-white entity abruptly broke apart, dissolving into scattered remnants that vanished without a trace.
Having delivered the fatal slash, Chen Chuan slowly straightened up.
Everything around him had returned to the cavernous mine pit, and the human silhouette still stood before the fissure.
The only difference was that the aura on its body had faded to near nothingness. After a moment, it seemed to twitch slightly, then silently collapsed to the ground, reduced to a heap of crushed, charcoal-like residue.
Chapter 1213