Chen Chuan's spiritual visage was forced back by the thrust. At the same time, waves of spiritual fire surged continuously from the spearhead, causing its armor to groan under the crushing strain.
He reached out and clamped a hand down on the spear's shaft, stemming the flow of spiritual fire and preventing it from penetrating deeper.
However, his long saber was embedded in the opponent's heavy plate armor, making it difficult to pull free to retaliate while retreating. The saber he had dropped earlier happened to be lodged in the ground behind him, so he simply let go of the blade. As he fell back to that spot, he scooped up the fallen weapon and parried upward with all his might.
With a loud crash, the spear was deflected aside. But Xiang Boqing's spiritual visage had anticipated his move and was already prepared. Letting the deflected momentum carry the spear around, the titan pivoted at the waist and struck toward his shoulder.
The advantage of possessing superior spiritual fire manifested in full. The spearhead slammed against the shoulder plate. Amidst the scattering burst of brilliant sparks, a tremendous force seemed to shove the spiritual visage several paces sideways, though this motion conveniently yanked the embedded saber free from the opponent's body.
Xiang Boqing's spear recoiled and snapped forward in a deadly thrust. The saber rose to parry, but propelled by the intense spiritual fire, the strike arrived too quickly, piercing straight through the saber's shadow to strike the breastplate once more. A ball of fiery radiance exploded with a thunderous bang, sending the colossal titan stumbling backward.
This time, a hairline fracture cracked open across the Radiant Armor, and a thread of spiritual fire seeped inside.
By then, Chen Chuan had circled back from outside. Sensing that the enemy's spiritual visage held the upper hand, he moved to provide support. Behind him, a flash of light heralded the flying blade's renewed assault, but he ignored it, darting straight toward the clash of titans while the weapon pursued relentlessly in his wake.
Xiang Boqing anticipated him, appearing atop his own spiritual visage first. Looking down at the oncoming figure, he prepared to block him instantly should Chen Chuan attempt to cross through a fissure right in front of him.
At the same time, Xiang Boqing transmitted a mental command, instructing Gao Xinwen to find a way to disrupt or completely seal the fissures.
Even if this failed to stop Chen Chuan from traversing them entirely, creating some degree of interference would be enough.
Chen Chuan reached his destination and passed straight through his own spiritual visage, heading directly for Xiang Boqing's.
Because he and his spiritual visage were one and the same, there was no boundary between them. The flying blade could not pierce the titan; even if it collided, the impact and the limited spiritual fire it carried would hardly affect such an immense body. Thus, the weapon looped around in an arc to avoid the visage and resumed its pursuit of Chen Chuan.
Looking up at Xiang Boqing, Chen Chuan's figure swayed slightly and vanished in an instant.
Xiang Boqing sensed a ripple behind him. Turning to preempt the attack, he found the conical object hurtling through the air toward him. He struck it aside swiftly, only to see Chen Chuan leap out of a fissure, slashing toward him.
He moved forward to meet the blow, but the moment he shifted, something felt wrong—it was a facsimile!
Just then, another fissure fluctuated on his flank. Xiang Boqing snapped his spear around to guard. Sure enough, Chen Chuan leaped out from that fissure. Saber and spear collided; having had insufficient time to gather full force, Xiang Boqing was forced to retreat several steps.
Chen Chuan pressed his advantage immediately, disregarding the titans' duel.
He knew that due to the disparity in spiritual fire, his spiritual visage was at a disadvantage. Even if he went to help, Xiang Boqing would harass him from the side, leaving him with few viable options.
Therefore, he intended to exploit his mobility through the fissures to suppress Xiang Boqing first. If my spiritual visage cannot match yours, I will strike your true body—it all comes down to who can take down their opponent faster.
Xiang Boqing guessed his intention, but he remained completely unhurried. It was true that Chen Chuan could seize a temporary upper hand using the fissures, but that was hardly decisive power.
Chen Chuan could not possibly defeat him in such a short window. Moreover, as a martial artist of the Dongxuan View, even if an opponent could overpower him, killing him was another matter entirely.
On the contrary, he was certain that unless the flow of combat changed, his spiritual visage would secure victory first.
Chen Chuan naturally understood this truth. Just because he refrained from assisting his spiritual visage in person did not mean he had abandoned it.
With a shift of his will, an extraordinarily dazzling radiance, blazing like a high sun in the heavens, abruptly erupted from his spiritual visage. The light was so intense that it rattled the opposing visage, leaving it fluctuating and indistinct. Simultaneously, a powerful force field blanketed the enemy titan, causing its movements to drag into sudden sluggishness.
The Grand Radiant Light Forms and the Grand Firmament Forms!
Having attained the Visage Resolution realm, his connection with his spiritual visage had deepened, allowing it to execute the Two Great Forms freely without need for prior build-up or preparation.
Although this dramatically increased the consumption of energy, the mutating purple qi coursing within the spiritual visage could draw supplemental energy from beyond the realm on its own, easily sustaining the effort for a short period.
When unleashed by a spiritual visage, the power and scope of the Two Great Forms far surpassed what his true body could project, proving more than enough to hold the enemy titan at bay. This neatly compensated for its shortcomings in agility and spiritual fire, preventing an abrupt defeat.
Taking advantage of the enemy visage's momentary pause under the initial impact of the Two Great Forms, Chen Chuan's visage deflected the incoming spear and reorganized its offensive, launching a relentless barrage with its twin sabers.
Though impeded, Xiang Boqing's spiritual visage still possessed vigorous spiritual fire. After steadying itself, it engaged Chen Chuan's visage in a fierce counter-exchange.
Weapons clashed and cleaved, every impact sending violent tremors through the island and echoing across the sky like deafening rolls of thunder.
Xiang Boqing believed that Chen Chuan's activation of the Two Great Forms was nothing more than a fleeting flare-up. In a battle of attrition, everything ultimately rested on foundational depth; before long, Chen Chuan would be battered back to his limits.
Yet to his surprise, though Chen Chuan's spiritual visage appeared weaker, it possessed extraordinary resilience, proving impossible to bring down quickly.
This was because the purple qi within Chen Chuan's spiritual visage grew increasingly active under the pressure of external force, supplying ever more energy. Consequently, the spiritual fire blanketing its frame rose steadily, showing no sign of waning.
After tangling with Chen Chuan for a while, Xiang Boqing noticed that the opposing visage seemed to grow fiercer the longer it fought. He finally realized that the battle between the titans would not resolve itself on his terms anytime soon.
In that case, the contest had once again devolved into a grinding war of attrition—the very thing he despised most.
Nevertheless, he remained certain that the spiritual visage was Chen Chuan's true vulnerability, and he resolved to force a breakthrough from that angle.
His gaze deepened. The young man was not of the Dongxuan View, after all; differences were bound to remain.
With a prompt of his intent, Xiang Boqing's spiritual visage feinted after knocking aside a saber strike, then delivered a sharp thrust that shoved Chen Chuan's visage back several paces. Propelled by its spiritual fire, it bounded backward, retreating toward the sea in the blink of an eye.
As it did, its colossal frame began to shrink rapidly, contracting until it stood roughly four to five meters tall.
With its size reduced, its speed surged. Completely ignoring Chen Chuan's spiritual visage as it leaped in pursuit, it pivoted sharply and dashed straight toward Chen Chuan himself.
Chen Chuan had been working to press Xiang Boqing, but he remained alert to the surroundings. Seeing the shrunk visage hurtling toward him with its spear thrusting forward, he had no intention of braving a pincer attack between Xiang Boqing and the titan. He stepped back, slipping into a fissure.
Xiang Boqing had already anticipated this. He floated upward just as his spiritual visage surged into him, their forms merging as one.
The visage enveloped him entirely, the phantom image of an iron mask and hooded robe shimmering across his body, radiating an intense, sacred aura bathed in brilliant light.
Xiang Boqing swept his spear outward while his spiritual visage brandished its weapon in another direction. They appeared fused into a single entity, yet each retained its own distinct will.
This was the hallmark capability of a Dongxuan View martial artist. While a spiritual visage's size could alter according to its master's will, shrinking normally led to a corresponding reduction in power and spiritual fire.
Upon reaching this realm, however, neither was diminished in the slightest. Moreover, a martial artist walking the Visage of Man could merge with the visage to fight as one, combining their strength at crucial moments to effectively double their power.
Seeing this development, Chen Chuan willed his own spiritual visage to disperse into rolling mist.
He keenly realized that after shrinking, the enemy would move far faster and more nimbly. His colossal visage would be unable to keep pace with such combat and would only become an easy target. It would be far more effective to manifest only specific portions of it as needed to aid him.
Xiang Boqing shifted slightly forward. He had been a considerable distance from Chen Chuan, yet he materialized before him in an instant, driving his spear straight at him.
Chen Chuan brought up his saber to block, only to feel an immense force reverberate through his body—a force so overwhelming that he could not deflect it aside. This was far beyond the strength Xiang Boqing had possessed moments ago. He retreated, yet just as he moved to step into a fissure, he discovered that its responsiveness was a beat too slow.
Looking up, he saw the spiritual visage enveloping Xiang Boqing wielding its spear like a staff, crashing it downward toward his head.
Chen Chuan dodged sideways, but Xiang Boqing seemed to be waiting for him, sweeping his own spear in a one-handed horizontal slash. Just then, the fissure finally responded, and Chen Chuan vanished from the spot with a soft whoosh.
Yet the moment he emerged from the other end of the fissure, a spear was already thrusting directly at his chest.
Xiang Boqing had anticipated his location and waited there in advance. Merged with his spiritual visage, his strength, speed, and sensory perception had all heightened dramatically, enabling him to intercept Chen Chuan the instant he appeared.
With a resounding boom, the spear impaled the figure. Xiang Boqing twisted his wrist and snapped the spear, detonating the facsimile into dispersion.
Above him, the spiritual visage raised its spear with a loud clang to block Chen Chuan's descending chop. Brilliance flared in Xiang Boqing's eyes as he whipped around, thrusting his spear backward.
Chen Chuan raised his saber to parry, but the force behind the strike was monstrous. A vast sheet of spiritual fire detonated, the immense concussive wave sending his body flying far into the distance, causing hairline fractures to ripple across the armor plating of his implant arm.
Xiang Boqing casually swatted aside the conical stone flying in to obstruct him. Watching Chen Chuan hurtle away through the air, he flickered forward, appearing before him in a flash. With ferocious spiritual flames coiling around the spear, he thrust violently toward him.
Chapter 1256