After his attack was parried, a strange light welled up in Fantner's gaze, as though meant to pull one's very focus into its depths.
This was a mental assault capable of placing a heavy burden on an opponent, leaving them unable to concentrate their attention.
Martial artists typically forged steadfast wills through battle and could not be easily shaken, but this manner of disruption was continuous. It slipped into the mind silently and could even conjure illusions within the psyche.
Under normal circumstances, such an effect was easy enough to smooth over, but during combat, even the slightest lapse in focus could prove fatal.
Faced with the crushing pressure bearing down on both mind and body, Chen Chuan remained entirely unmoved, his highly condensed fire of spirituality anchoring him firmly in place.
This was precisely one of the defining traits of a martial artist of the Visage of Man: mind and body were comparatively balanced, with no obvious weaknesses. Consequently, practitioners on this path were either thoroughly mediocre or exceptionally formidable, and he belonged decidedly to the latter category.
Locked in a continuous frontal collision of their fires of spirituality, neither could retreat now. Inevitably, both poured yet more power into the clash, the two masses of blazing light—one cyan and the other platinum—grinding and dissolving against each other at the center.
Strands of platinum brilliance consequently flared within Chen Chuan's eyes. Through this confrontation, he discerned that aside from the traits expected of a martial artist, the fire of spirituality facing him carried an intensely corrosive edge.
This had to be the result of fusing with the power of certain entities from the other side. Others might dread such power and struggle to resist it, but he regarded it as nothing extraordinary.
Even when facing genuine entities from the other side, he had dealt with them numerous times; why would he care about a mere patchwork monstrosity?
The only difference here was that the ground beneath their feet was the far side of the fissure, another world entirely. It only appeared relatively normal because of the field maintained by the sacred tree, which explained why his opponent felt so remarkably at home.
Pressing forward repeatedly, Fantner found himself continuously unable to bear Chen Chuan down. In particular, the young man's reserves of strength seemed bottomless, and Fantner intuitively felt that dragging this out offered no prospect of victory. Still, within his understanding, Chen Chuan belonged to a special breed of human, so such an exhibition came as no great surprise.
As the aggressor who held the initiative, he immediately resolved to alter his approach while his momentum still held.
With a shift in thought, the specks of crystalline light across his body grew searing and dazzling. At the same time, the limbs along his bizarre frame moved in concert, and a compounding surge of power swelled through him.
His current physique was not some arbitrarily warped shape; it had to be structurally coherent and capable of genuine physical manifestation, or else it could not generate force once projected. After all, this place still operated partly under the rules of the material world, sitting in the seams between the two realms, and he could not escape them entirely.
Even so, in terms of sheer output, his offense remained inferior to that of same-tier martial artists belonging to the Visage of the Aberrant or the Visage of Man. After all, he had converted mental power into a physical form, which inherently put him at a disadvantage.
Though Chen Chuan had not attained the Dongxuan View, since his duel against Crossal, nations across the world had already acknowledged him as possessing combat strength on par with a Throne martial artist. Not to mention, his past self had already been surpassed by who he was today.
Therefore, even though the man had redoubled his strength, he still failed to budge Chen Chuan in the slightest.
Seeing this, Fantner shifted his assault once more. He abruptly threw his head back, and while maintaining his offensive posture, the front section of his body extended upward while the rear contracted in tandem.
Looking down from above, one would see his worm-like form crawling directly over Chen Chuan's head.
Accompanying this maneuver, the limbs flanking his torso rained down blows without pause, every strike trailing a violent torrent of spiritual fire. It was clear that to suppress Chen Chuan, he was venting his power with everything he had.
A Throne martial artist had no reason to fear the expenditure of their fire of spirituality, to say nothing of the amplification granted by the sacred tree. Such a tactic appeared wild and reckless, but it was in fact a sensible choice.
This was Chen Chuan's first time clashing against a Throne martial artist of the Visage of the Divine who wielded substantial power. Intending to gain a better grasp of his opponent's capabilities, he had opted for a head-on collision—this was his strength, and the path least prone to error.
However, should the opponent reveal an opening, he had no intention of showing mercy. He now keenly caught a brief lull in the offensive rhythm during the man's transition of power.
With a glint in his eyes, the fire of spirituality in his hand flared abruptly, and without the slightest prelude, a spiritual impact erupted outward.
Never had Fantner imagined that amid the ongoing collision of their fires of spirituality, his opponent could still unleash a spiritual impact.
There was no dodging this strike. Had a practitioner of the Visage of Man or the Visage of the Aberrant been standing here, the battle might have been decided then and there. Yet in that very instant, Fantner's entire body turned as insubstantial as a shadow; the spiritual impact seemed to strike nothing at all, passing straight through him.
In truth, even the Visage of the Divine could not fully evade a spiritual impact; there would always be some degree of effect. However, this evasive maneuver of his was owed to a certain secret transmission. Furthermore, drawing on his combat experience, he had sensed something unusual when Chen Chuan remained rooted in place and had kept his guard up, which was what allowed him to dodge it successfully.
Upon witnessing this, Chen Chuan reacted with blinding speed. The Two Great Stances he had held in reserve expanded outward in a flash.
Simultaneously seizing the split second of the opponent's intangibility, he drove his frame forward, parting the fading fire of spirituality lingering in the surroundings, and smashed a fist forward!
This was yet another strike that caught Fantner unprepared. An unheralded spiritual impact was already shockingly abrupt, yet now Chen Chuan disregarded the brief pause that inevitably followed such a blast, tearing an opening straight through his front.
Fantner had believed this to be an ideal opportunity to counterattack, his body already shifting in accordance with his intent.
Yet now, not only was he unable to follow through, but as the radiance blazing from Chen Chuan washed over him, he was forcibly dragged out of the void back into solid form.
Because this reversion was involuntary, his rhythm slipped by a beat, allowing Chen Chuan's punch to land squarely upon him!
The fire of spirituality he hastily mustered was first shredded by the fist's edge before detonating violently into his massive form. Broken crystalline fragments burst into the air, and the entire mass of divine qi roiled as if on the verge of shattering.
The Visage of the Divine was an aggregation of divine qi, possessing virtually no obvious weak points; however, when struck, the entire entity suffered the blow.
Having landed the strike, Chen Chuan followed up immediately. Yet just as his fist was about to strike home once more, the target was clearly right before him, yet the blow passed straight through as though sweeping through empty air.
Although Fantner could no longer turn his entire body intangible under the suppressive effect of the Two Great Stances, he could still do so with localized sections.
Chen Chuan's gaze narrowed slightly upon realizing this, yet his offense did not falter, and a third punch followed an instant later.
Generally speaking, without the secret transmission of his Two Great Stances, countering the intangibility techniques of the Visage of the Divine would severely test a person's mental strength.
If one's mind could sense the fluctuations of the opponent's psychic field, then by harmonizing to a comparable frequency, one's fire of spirituality could strike home upon the opponent.
Of course, if you could sense it, the opponent could also shift and evade. However, the moment of actual contact lasted only a split second, so an opportunity still existed; this placed great demands on combat experience and personal ability. In short, as long as one's spiritual power was sufficiently strong and paired with outstanding self-coordination, it could be achieved.
And right at this moment, he captured that shifting ripple of psychic flux like a darting fish. The platinum fire of spirituality upon his fist seemed to turn ethereal in that very breath, and the surface of his knuckles struck solidly against substance.
The struck area of Fantner's body was torn open with a gaping rift by the platinum blaze, spraying out dazzling crystalline fragments.
Fantner instantly realized the peril he was in. If he allowed Chen Chuan to press the offensive unchecked, the young man could batter his divine qi punch by punch until it completely collapsed.
In that breath, the light within his body flared violently. His originally long, slender form abruptly ballooned outward. By the time Chen Chuan's next two punches struck him, he had already swelled into a behemoth forty to fifty meters tall, shifting from intangible to solid simultaneously.
A massive frame undoubtedly commanded greater strength and a more resilient constitution. The wounds torn open previously were practically negligible on a physique of such scale. Instead, seizing this chance to catch his breath, the dense thicket of limbs flanking both sides of his torso hammered down in unison upon Chen Chuan below.
Chen Chuan watched the colossal silhouette bearing down on him without the slightest intention of falling back. Light flashed between his brows, and behind him, a gigantic phantom emerged. Sweeping its weapon upward, it slashed into the opponent's chin, snapping his head up.
Meanwhile, Chen Chuan delivered an upward kick, slamming once more into the flank of the opponent's body and sending the massive frame off-balance.
Behind him, the spiritual visage delivered another diagonal slash, catching Fantner squarely across the shoulder and chest and sending him tilting to the side.
Yet the moment he lost balance and toppled over, the colossal, grotesque figure abruptly contracted, reverting in an instant to its original form. His surface, however, had become tattered, with bits of flesh and blood barely adhering to his body of shimmering radiance.
Having cast off the immense size, his speed became even swifter. Seemingly having invoked some explosive secret transmission, the cyan blaze across his body turned furious. Not only did he dodge Chen Chuan's next blow with a flash of movement, but he also spun and thrust a kick straight at Chen Chuan's face. The cyan flame upon this strike was intensely condensed, practically coalescing into a spiritual impact.
Raising both hands in time to parry, Chen Chuan was shoved backward by the tremendous force of the impact, yet his center of gravity never shifted, maintaining his prior guard.
Fantner stomped midair, turning into a streaking cyan fireball of meteoric force, and charged right behind it.
Chapter 1232