In Chen Chuan's eyes, Xiang Boqing's spear thrust virtually eclipsed his entire field of vision. At its tip, spiritual fire was intensely concentrated—the very spear point itself—and as it bore down upon him, everything around him seemed squeezed out of existence.
He judged in an instant that, with the spiritual fire he currently possessed, he had no hope of blocking it. Nor could he dodge, for the speed his opponent currently displayed was faster than his own.
Gazing straight ahead, right as the spear point reached his face, a phantom hand suddenly manifested in the air before him, wielding a long mace that swung from the flank to strike the front of the spearhead dead-on!
This was one of the fruits of his training. Though he lagged behind his opponent in seamlessly summoning, dismissing, or manipulating the size of his spiritual visage, he made up for the deficit through nuanced, partial applications.
Yet he knew full well that against power of this magnitude, such measures were not enough.
Sure enough, the long mace was swept aside in an instant, and the phantom hand collapsed on the spot. The spear thrust forward unabated, though thanks to the obstruction, its blazing spiritual fire was considerably weakened.
At that exact moment, Chen Chuan raised the Xuejun Saber across his chest, focusing all his spiritual fire onto the blade.
The spear point slammed into the blade with a deafening boom. The densely concentrated spiritual fire shattered almost entirely, scattering a blinding spray of platinum radiance. Yet beneath that defense, Chen Chuan suffered only the concussive force, flying backward at even greater speed without sustaining an injury.
Still, he was well aware that this was far from over. Successfully blocking this single spear strike did not mean he could withstand the next—especially now that his opponent's speed had surged drastically. The next blow would very likely arrive before his spiritual fire could reconverge.
Even so, the parry had bought him precious time. Earlier, he had felt the fissure responding sluggishly, preventing him from slipping inside right away. The opponent had probably realized he was using it to cross space and taken steps to disrupt it.
Yet such disruptions amounted to nothing more than employing jamming organisms or ritual wards. Measures like that worked only on those at lower tiers. For someone with his extraordinary psychic sensitivity, as long as he knew the fissure existed there and had once forged a connection to it, it was impossible to sever the link completely unless the fissure itself was thoroughly eradicated.
All he needed to do now was deepen his perception. Although it was not as effortless as before and demanded far greater concentration, once he pinpointed the precise entry point and crossed through again, subsequent transitions would cease to be so difficult.
As these thoughts flashed through his mind, right before the opponent's next assault landed, he leaned backward and vanished in an instant.
At that very instant, a spear plunged straight through the space he had just occupied, piercing only a lingering trail of luminous qi. A thunderous roar followed as a concussive shockwave rolled off into the distance.
Xiang Boqing showed little emotion upon seeing him vanish from beneath the spear point; he merely kept a vigilant watch on his surroundings.
Whenever Chen Chuan leaped out of a fissure, ripples would precede his emergence; all Xiang Boqing had to do was track them. With his current sensory capabilities, he could distinguish the true body from a facsimile at a glance. Such maneuvers merely prolonged the inevitable.
Even if Chen Chuan tried to flee outward, there would be no chance, for Xiang Boqing's speed completely surpassed his.
Thus, the outcome of this battle held no real suspense.
Suddenly sensing something, Xiang Boqing sent the flying blade circling around him darting ahead. His own silhouette blurred, appearing in that direction in the blink of an eye.
Chen Chuan leaped from the fissure high in the vault of the sky. The moment he emerged, he swept his saber to deflect the flying blade. At the same time, the phantom silhouette of his spiritual visage manifested around him, slashing down toward Xiang Boqing, who was already closing in. However, the spiritual visage cloaking the latter merely raised its spear and flicked upward, knocking the saber aside, while Xiang Boqing himself thrust his spear in following the momentum.
Chen Chuan slashed back. With a loud blast, the spiritual fire clinging to his blade shattered completely just like before, yet his figure vanished once more.
By the time he reappeared, he was already at another side of the island. Yet Xiang Boqing was so fast that he arrived almost instantaneously, launching a fierce assault that forced Chen Chuan to parry a blow before retreating back into a fissure.
Afterward, no matter where Chen Chuan crossed out from, he was instantly detected and met with the same brutal interception. The slightest misstep in any clash might leave him unable to retreat; he had fallen entirely into a passive struggle.
Fortunately, Hongfu and the external implant's conscious entity provided him with superior tactical advice. Thus, every time he seemed driven into a corner, he consistently managed to slip free.
And through it all, his eyes grew steadily brighter.
He had always hoped to draw out the full potential of his physical body through powerful opponents. Above all, that wisp of purple qi resting within him had never once surged to its utmost peak since the day he acquired it.
It had been so during his battle against the entity from beyond the heavens; it had been so during his recent clash with Crossal; and it had been so even in the fight just now.
Yet placed in so perilous a predicament, the latent potential inside his body was being squeezed out bit by bit. The mutated tissue within him was awakening across the board, gradually adapting to this intensity of combat.
And so, after several minutes of such exchanges, when Chen Chuan burst from a fissure once more, he did not choose to evade the oncoming Xiang Boqing. Instead, he swung his hand; radiance flared violently as he flung a spiritual impact straight toward Xiang Boqing's face!
Though this spiritual impact held relatively little accumulated energy, its speed was supreme. Moreover, the distance between them at the moment of release was so short that Xiang Boqing could not dodge at all. He had no choice but to raise his spear alongside his spiritual visage, focusing his blazing spiritual flames there.
With a thunderous shock, an enormous burst of luminous flame detonated, engulfing Xiang Boqing completely and blasting him backward through the air. Even with his current prowess, it was impossible to nullify the concussive force of that spiritual impact entirely.
At that moment, Xiang Boqing seemed to sense something and dodged to the side just as a spiritual orb hissed past him. Clearly, Chen Chuan's offensive did not stop there. Several more orbs followed in swift succession, forcing him into a series of evasive maneuvers.
On Chen Chuan's end, as he unleashed successive spiritual impacts, a flash of light heralded the flying blade darting toward him. Yet he remained completely unmoved. Just as the weapon was about to pierce him, an enormous phantom palm materialized at his side, wrapped in thick platinum flames that thoroughly blocked the vector.
The flying blade struck in an instant, kicking up a great burst of flames and a rolling thunder of reverberations, but failed to shatter the barrier.
Xiang Boqing dodged five spiritual impacts in a row. After evading the last one, he paused for an infinitesimal fraction of a second before appearing right beside Chen Chuan. Spear gripped in hand, he leveled it forward, while the spiritual visage around him raised its colossal weapon high and stabbed downward from above.
To Xiang Boqing's surprise, Chen Chuan did not immediately duck into a fissure this time. Instead, he took a step back and held his saber horizontally before him, eyes fixed intently on his opponent across the blade. A partial phantom of his spiritual visage manifested behind him, swinging the long mace upward to intercept the spiritual visage's spear.
Xiang Boqing had intended to subdue him with absolute force, but at that exact moment, an unfathomable might erupted from the striking mace. As it collided with the spiritual visage's spear, Xiang Boqing's spiritual fire and mental state suddenly wavered, causing him to pause for an unavoidable instant.
This was precisely the opening Chen Chuan had been waiting for. Stamping his foot, brilliance flared across his body as he slashed toward his opponent!
Because his spiritual fire had faltered, Xiang Boqing could not marshal it in time, leaving him to defend with only what little he could muster. Consequently, the saber tore straight through the outer luminescence and pressed relentlessly toward his brow.
Yet right before the blade could reach his flesh, the spiritual fire suddenly seemed to turn unimaginably dense and viscous, making that sliver of remaining distance feel utterly insurmountable in an instant.
Chen Chuan knew the strike would not land. Just as he prepared to pull back, Xiang Boqing whipped a kick upward from below. Chen Chuan barely managed to bring his saber across to block before being blasted far away with a resounding crash. Seeing Xiang Boqing pursuing him in midair, he raised a hand, light flickering in his palm. The latter hurriedly dodged aside, yet the flash vanished as quickly as it had appeared; meanwhile, Chen Chuan flipped to the flank, narrowly avoiding the flying blade that lunged at him from behind.
Most of his focus was locked onto Xiang Boqing, making it difficult to keep track of peripheral threats. Fortunately, the external implant and Hongfu handled the analysis and alerts, enabling him to anticipate and evade to a certain degree.
Even so, the pressure Xiang Boqing exerted on him was truly tremendous, for his opponent held an advantage over him in virtually every attribute.
Thus, seeing Xiang Boqing close in rapidly once more, he had no intention of clashing head-on. With a mere thought, his form flickered and ducked directly into a fissure.
After catching his breath for a brief moment, he leaped out from another end, charging at Xiang Boqing, who was already waiting for him. He continued the fight, only to retreat once again before lethal danger struck.
This was by no means futile. At the start, he could only withstand one or two moves from Xiang Boqing before having to flee into a fissure; now, he could trade three, four, or even more blows, gradually extending how long he could hold out.
At this moment, he was like a billet of steel being continuously tempered under fierce flames and heavy hammer blows. The strength within his body was stimulated bit by bit, and the once-sluggish purple qi expanded to its heart's content.
Xiang Boqing could not help but admire his tenacity. He, too, noticed that Chen Chuan's strength and speed were steadily climbing.
He assumed Chen Chuan was employing some esoteric technique to boost or sustain his performance, but he was in no hurry. The increase in Chen Chuan's power still had its limits; it was impossible for him to elevate himself to a level comparable to Xiang Boqing's.
In truth, from Xiang Boqing's perspective, the fight was already over; Chen Chuan was merely racking his brains to delay the outcome.
Through such high-intensity clashes, Chen Chuan became increasingly adept at shifting his spiritual visage between substance and illusion. Two or three minutes later, the purple qi within him was finally roused in full, surging with vibrant vitality. He knew that this was the very best state he could achieve under his current circumstances.
Chapter 1257