Although Drakholm had paused for a brief moment, as a Throne martial artist he possessed the ability to continually adapt and elevate his strength in combat. Thus, faced with this bit of pressure, he quickly adjusted and charged forward once more.
However, because of that mid-stride interruption, his forward momentum had lost its coherence.
Chen Chuan had anticipated this outcome the moment he unleashed the Grand Firmament Forms and was already fully prepared. Right at this instant, he plummeted from the sky, slashing down at Drakholm with his saber!
At the same time, a colossal phantom materialized around his body; most prominently, overlapping his two arms was the silhouette of a titanic saber.
Drakholm raised his shield at once. In a flash, platinum spiritual fire cascaded from the heavens, slamming into the shield with tremendous force.
A blinding glare flared above the cloud layer, while shattered air currents and radiant mist surged violently outward.
One could clearly see the spiritual fire gathered in front of Drakholm's body erupt and scatter, after which his entire frame was flung backward with irresistible momentum.
Though he was the one on the offensive, the momentary hitch halfway through had prevented him from fully mustering his power, leaving him at a distinct disadvantage in this clash.
Having landed a successful strike, Chen Chuan had no intention of relinquishing this hard-won opening.
At this moment, the purple qi within him surged with intense vigor, and the Grand Firmament Forms were driven to full power, propelling him forward in a sudden rush toward the retreating Drakholm.
As for the others on the battlefield, Field had likewise been hindered by the Grand Firmament Forms for a split second.
Possessing an Aberrant Visage, his adjustments were not as swift as Drakholm's. By the time he roughly adapted, he discovered that Chen Chuan was already in hot pursuit of Drakholm.
Meanwhile, Merton and Irose were a beat slower still in recovering. Taking in the situation, they had just considered that they could not let Chen Chuan act unchecked and needed to interfere with him—
Yet at that exact instant, another blaze of light like a radiant sun expanded outward from Chen Chuan, shining directly across to where they stood.
Both men felt their hearts tighten. As martial artists of the Visage of the Divine, they distinctly felt this light suppress their own strength. Moreover, the closer one was to Chen Chuan, the more incandescent the radiance became, forcing them into another involuntary pause.
On Chen Chuan's side, this was the first time since reaching the Longevity View that he had exerted himself truly without reserve. Such an extreme degree of explosive output was something even he could not maintain for long.
Yet it yielded remarkable results. Even without relying on the fissures, he left everyone else far behind, creating a one-on-one confrontation with Drakholm.
Closing in before the man, he delivered a succession of fierce slashes, every blow forcing Drakholm to focus his strength entirely on warding them off again and again. Deprived of any leeway to regain his balance and rhythm, Drakholm was driven flying backward under the repeated collisions.
Chen Chuan knew that this alone would not finish him off. So as his next slash struck the shield, he abruptly switched from chopping to pushing, converting his strength into a yielding, rolling force while simultaneously unleashing a spiritual impact with the swing!
The power unleashed by this strike was immensely ferocious. Bolstered by the forward thrust of the spiritual impact, it blasted Drakholm far away with a resounding boom.
Simultaneously, Chen Chuan pivoted around, facing Field, who had just leaped out of a fissure and was preparing to disrupt him.
If given the choice, Field was undoubtedly his primary target for elimination. His true objective from the start had not been Drakholm, but Field. Thus, the moment he noticed Field approaching, he had driven Drakholm away to ensure he could deal with Field without interference.
When Field met Chen Chuan's deep, calm gaze, he gave a start, knowing things had gone south. He moved to retreat back into the fissure, but at that moment, a heavy weight bore down on him.
The closer Chen Chuan was, the more pronounced the effect of the Grand Firmament Forms became. Earlier, he had not pushed the two great forms to their limit; now, with deliberate reinforcement, they immediately bound Field in place.
Field remembered Igor's recent fate all too clearly. Still, he did not believe he couldn't hold out for even a strike or two—so long as he held on for a few brief moments, even if he couldn't break free of his constraints, the others would surely find a way to come to his aid.
Furthermore, he knew that rather than retreating, he had to press the attack. He gripped his rod-whip and whipped the shaft around with all his might, lashing the fibrous tendrils at the tip toward Chen Chuan.
Watching the long whip lash in, Chen Chuan deflected it with the Xuejun Saber, allowing the tendrils to wrap around the blade. Simultaneously, with his other hand, he drew a cluster of crystalline mist from his field. This was the life-bound weapon he had received from Ikus. With a single turn of his mind, it transformed into an ancient, austere long mace.
He stepped in to meet him, arriving before Field in an instant. As he raised the long mace high, an exceptionally potent force seemed to unfurl, causing even the esoteric rituals around Tianji Peak to churn as if drawn into motion.
Watching the battle from within the fissure, Gao Xu and Long Xian widened their eyes at this sight, and Long Xian could not help rising to his feet.
"This is..."
Field's expression twisted. He frantically gathered all the spiritual fire throughout his body to the front. His stag-headed Aberrant Visage ballooned by a dozen meters in an instant, and the dense purplish-black light surrounding him seemed to tear away an entire patch of the sky.
Chen Chuan appeared blind to it all. His eyes fixed below, he swung the mace downward with a crushing strike!
This blow seemed to haul the very wind and clouds from the heavens.
It was none other than the Demon-Subduing Form from the Diagram of Mystic Spirits Battling Demons!
As the mace descended, with a thunderous bang amidst bursting light and flames, Field's massive visage was instantly smashed into flying gore and severed flesh across the sky.
Without hesitation, Chen Chuan then swept out a burst of Mystic Void Fire.
The elusive flame was just about to consume Field to ashes—
Across the field, Irose's golden eyes stirred, and the fissure behind him trembled in tandem. From the radiance diffusing across the surrounding area, an indistinct entity emerged and proactively intercepted the flames, preventing them from touching Field's mangled flesh.
He did not know the exact properties of the Mystic Void Fire, but he knew that coming into contact with it was definitely disastrous. After all, Crossal, the first to be eliminated from the field, had yet to return even now—pointing to an answer he hardly dared contemplate.
There could absolutely not be another loss of personnel on their side. Thus, at this moment, he sent forward an entity spawned from the blinding radiance to shield Field.
Chen Chuan raised an eyebrow at the sight. In truth, he was not unprepared for this development. After using the Mystic Void Fire twice in succession, experienced martial artists like those present were bound to deduce some of its characteristics.
Perhaps because his attainment was not yet high enough, his Mystic Void Fire currently had certain limitations: it could only target a single quarry at a time. The messages transmitted from the Tianji fish informed him of certain esoteric teachings that could alter this, but there was no time to apply them in the heat of battle.
Yet even if the Mystic Void Fire could not reach its mark for the moment, that did not mean this offensive was over.
Dispelling the long mace in his hand, he raised his palm toward the space where Field had been shattered. A flicker of light gleamed in his palm—
A spiritual impact blasted forth with a roar. As a sky-piercing brilliance detonated ahead, it swept every trace of that shredded flesh entirely away.
By now, Drakholm had finally recovered from the concussive force. Seeing the distant glare, his gaze turned grave. He had never expected Field to be swept from the field by Chen Chuan in less than half a minute after engaging.
Merton had finally completed his transformation, reshaping himself with the power of entities from the world across.
Judging by appearance alone, he had grown seven or eight meters tall. His head was cloaked in a coil of pitch-black mist, and his body radiated an intensely unsettling aura. Reaching down, he slowly drew an obsidian blade from his waist.
Beside Irose, a creature flew into view—it possessed a colossal, browless visage, wore gold-and-red armor, and spread six pairs of wings behind its back.
This being was the "Messenger," an active conscious entity of the New Light Cult. It served as a vessel for his Visage of the Divine, capable of bearing the vast majority of his power; with this body, he possessed the ability for close-quarters combat.
Standing in the open sky and facing the three of them, Chen Chuan slowly leveled his long saber with one hand. Beneath the blazing sun overhead, the long red ribbon affixed to it whipped ceaselessly in the wind.
Checking his condition, he sensed that after the intense clashes just now, the rigid barrier hindering him had noticeably weakened without him realizing it. Even so, breaking through that final obstacle still seemed to lack just a little something.
He looked up at the three opponents and brought his saber slowly across his front, the fire of spirituality around him fluttering violently.
Just then, from behind and to the side of the combatants came a rumble and a flash of illumination that lit up half their bodies.
They all knew this meant Durant and Emperor Capa had begun their clash.
Yet neither side paid any heed to that duel, focusing entirely on preparing for the collision before them.
Elsewhere, beneath the Tianji Sect's fissure, Ming, who had been standing motionless, raised his head slowly as light flickered in his eyes.
His standing still earlier had not been idleness; rather, he had sent out a spiritual qi avatar deep beneath Tianji Peak, unravelling the esoteric ritual there to seize control of the Tianji Plate.
This artifact was the master nexus of the Tianji Sect's surface rituals. Although severing the connection with the fissures meant it could no longer control those rifts directly, the plate itself could still influence the esoteric rituals surrounding Tianji Peak within a certain radius.
At the very least, it could constrict the nearby fissures and prevent Chen Chuan from making full use of them. Beyond that, it served another purpose: supplying him with a steady stream of energy.
Although this could not allow him to reconnect with the Heavenly Lord, an inexhaustible energy supply would at least grant one of his divided spiritual manifestations power closely rivaling his true self.
It had merely taken time to accomplish, and now it was finally complete.
A gale blew from behind, billowing his Xuanist robes. He raised his fingers in an incantation sign, and a silhouette drifted out from Tianji Peak, flying directly toward Chen Chuan's position.
Chapter 1314