When those words rang in Durant's ears, flashes of lightning flickered in his eyes. As if stung to the quick, he violently thrashed, a surge of tremendous power erupting from his body all at once.
Chen Chuan sensed it and simply released his grip, stepping back a few paces with a calm gaze.
Spinning around swiftly, Durant lunged forward shrouded in a raging blaze of spiritual fire, throwing flurry after flurry of punches. His speed had burst forth even faster than before, evidently having employed some kind of explosive technique.
After dodging several punches in succession, Chen Chuan extended a hand and gave a push, sending Durant flying backward once more.
Durant crashed into the mountain wall, carving out a deep pit. Driven inward as though pressed incessantly by an unseen force, he seemed momentarily trapped within.
Every time, Chen Chuan's force would first blast apart the thick spiritual fire coating his surface before transmitting the jin straight into his body.
Although his aberrant power sustained him and spared him from substantive harm, that did not mean the jin had no effect on his body.
A moment later, Durant dissipated the binding jin and floated into the air. His eyes flickered, and without the slightest omen, a potent spiritual impact materialized out of thin air and shot toward Chen Chuan.
Durant charged right behind it, his momentum not slowing in the slightest after unleashing the spiritual impact.
Because his body had undergone a degree of enhancement through Chen Chuan's repeated pummeling earlier, his speed had become extraordinarily swift—appearing almost as though he were shoving the spiritual impact forward as he advanced.
Chen Chuan clenched his five fingers, light shimmering across his knuckles. He did not employ a spiritual impact; it was merely an anomaly formed by the natural convergence of his sheer power.
Facing the spiritual impact, he neither dodged nor evaded, driving a punch straight into it. His fist did not appear to gather much spiritual fire, yet it pierced clean through the spiritual impact first and immediately smashed into Durant's face behind it. Durant's features instantly warped under the tremendous impact, and he flew backward once again—only for a hand to clamp onto his ankle before his body could clear away, violently slinging him toward the ground.
Durant knew at once that if he hit the ground again, what followed would certainly be another barrage of pummeling.
Though a gap in strength still separated him from Chen Chuan, he was no longer utterly powerless to fight back. His heart thudded violently and his abdomen contracted, curling his whole body inward as he seized the momentum of being dragged back to ram into Chen Chuan.
He sought to borrow Chen Chuan's own force, utilizing his indestructible physique to crash into him.
Chen Chuan stood motionless, allowing the man's body to slam against his spiritual visage. Upon collision, it was as if two colossal clusters of light crashed together, momentarily illuminating the ravines of the battered mountain.
Aboard the airships, everyone felt a piercing glare sting their eyes, followed once more by the familiar, muffled rumble.
Over a minute later, Durant was hurled into the mountain wall once again. A torrent of boulders and rubble cascaded down from above like a waterfall, burying his figure in an instant.
Yet in the next moment, deep-blue light flashed as a figure burst through the exploding debris. But before he could break fully free, a spiritual impact blasted him right back. The beam of light tore through uninterrupted, shooting straight into the distant sky and leaving behind a gaping cavern in the rock.
Durant had shifted his body just in time to avoid being carried away by the colossal blast. Even though his body could not be destroyed, withstanding such external force rapidly drained his stamina.
Plumes of steam now rose from his body, the spiritual light showing faint signs of instability and his breathing turning erratic—clear signs of exhaustion setting in.
Primarily, Chen Chuan had suppressed him throughout the entire engagement, forcing him to exert his maximum power without a second's rest. Combined with the sustained operation of three aberrant powers, his stamina had dwindled drastically from when they began.
Chen Chuan glanced at his second self. Waves of ripples could currently be seen passing over it—the lingering influence of a continuous aberrant power acting upon him.
Based on his experience, this was not direct harm, but rather some form of mental influence. As for what exactly it was, since the second self blocked it, there was no need for him to fret over it.
The purpose of "Titan's Vow" was to prevent an opponent from fleeing, but he had never intended to leave in the first place.
Seeing Durant standing motionless as if trying to steady his breath, Chen Chuan had no intention of granting him any respite. He immediately took the initiative and closed in, appearing before the man in a flash and burying a punch unreservedly into his abdomen.
Durant's body bent double uncontrollably, lifting off the ground. He had risen only halfway when Chen Chuan slammed an elbow into his back, crushing the rubble below with a resounding boom and fracturing the ground into spiderwebs of cracks.
This devastation was caused purely by Durant's own body, as Chen Chuan's jin penetrated flawlessly into him most of the time.
Before he could even rise, Chen Chuan kicked out again, driving him back into the mountain wall.
Chen Chuan intended to press forward to keep up his offensive rhythm, but this time, he sensed an anomaly emerging in Durant's aura, so he paused.
The ground began to shake, the entire mountain shuddering as muffled rumbles echoed from deep within. Collapsing rocks and dust continuously rolled down the cliff face. It looked as though the mountains on either side were being slowly forced apart down the middle, after which a gigantic Titan emerged from within.
A colossal shadow fell across the earth, its leaning torso completely blocking out the sunlight from behind. The oppressive aura was overwhelmingly intense, and judging by its sheer height, it appeared even taller than what he had previously displayed.
This was Durant unleashing his fourth and final aberrant power, known as "Titan's Might."
When he expended his stamina with reckless abandon, his strength could surge violently for a brief period. Due to his prior depletion, this state could only be maintained for a minute or two at most. Thus, invoking this aberrant power meant he was prepared for a fight to the death.
He had no other choice. His strength had reached its absolute limit, incapable of climbing any higher; yet even so, it remained vastly inferior to Chen Chuan's.
Such a thing had never occurred before; the ceiling of his opponent's power simply exceeded his comprehension. This meant that what awaited him was still a one-sided pummeling until the fight ended.
He was a martial artist after all, and he would never tolerate falling in such a humiliating fashion. Therefore, he did not hesitate to lay down his final card for one last stand.
Seeing this, Chen Chuan resolved to grant him a dignified end. A glint flashed between his brows, and the spiritual visage enveloping him expanded once more to its previous colossal proportions.
Because the fusion of his physical body and spiritual visage was a unification of power rather than a mere superficial blending of form, doing so did not cause him to lose the strength of their combined state.
He could feel that Durant's power had indeed increased after giant-sizing his body this time, but evidently at a steep cost; otherwise, he wouldn't have been driven to such extremes before bringing it out.
Thus, a conservative and energy-saving approach would be to evade and play for time. Once the man exhausted his stamina, he would collapse without a fight.
Yet he had no wish to do that. As a martial artist, in what was still a reasonably fair duel, he preferred to defeat his opponent at the peak of their strength.
To show his opponent sufficient respect, he shifted his intent, and the force field of the Grand Firmament Forms instantly enveloped Durant, causing his body to sink noticeably and his movements to appear considerably slower.
Chen Chuan charged head-on. Making no attempt to dodge the incoming fists, he raised all four arms, raining strikes continuously onto Durant's body with the blinding speed of afterimages.
Refusing to be outdone, Durant seemed to abandon defense entirely, trading blow for blow with Chen Chuan.
After trading over a dozen punches in quick succession, Durant's taut body could finally endure no longer. It cracked first in the clash, stumbling back several paces before a heavy fist smashed into his forehead, instantly throwing off his center of gravity.
Spreading his hands, he clawed at the mountainside as he reeled back. Before he could regain his footing, a subsequent kick sent him crashing to the ground. As his gargantuan body toppled, the ground and mountain trembled violently once more.
Chen Chuan followed right behind, stomping down hard to drive Durant's head deep into the crater. Leaning down and pinning him with a knee, Chen Chuan briefly gathered power in his hands before pounding relentlessly into his head. Every strike that fell triggered a violent earthquake.
The onlookers nearby could not make out the specific details now, but from the shifting terrain, the crumbling mountains, and the undulating tremors and rumbling reverberations of the earth, they could feel the sheer destructive power and intensity of the battle.
All of them were struck with awe and terror. Even a clash of gods in legend could hardly be more than this!
After lasting only a dozen or so seconds, Durant exhausted his stamina beneath the tempestuous barrage and could no longer maintain his aberrant power. His colossal arms snapped and collapsed first, dropping away like rubble, before his entire body swiftly dissolved into rolling billows of dissipating vapor.
Once the vapor completely dispersed, Durant was visible having reverted to his original form. Both his arms were broken, his clothes hung in tatters, and he lay among the heaps of rubble, barely breathing.
In exchange for extreme strength, he had abandoned his body's activation capability. This meant that at this moment, just like ordinary martial artists, he was incapable of rapidly regenerating severed or fractured limbs, and if his head were crushed, he would die all the same.
Chen Chuan withdrew his spiritual visage and walked slowly over. Seeing that Durant's arms had not recovered, he was unsure whether Durant lacked the stamina to do so or simply couldn't; he felt the latter was more likely.
However, since matters had come to blows, he had no intention of showing mercy. Extending a hand, a spark of light flared at his fingertips. Yet just as he was about to kill him once and for all, an odd sensation suddenly arose, prompting him to look up into the high sky.
That solemn, awe-inspiring presence he had once felt in the Vea State and before entering the border had vaguely reappeared.
A defense mechanism?
Chen Chuan fell into thought. Based on what Delegation Leader Xie had told him, this was likely a privilege reserved for high-ranking Federation officials: once an incumbent high official of the central executive faced mortal danger, it would trigger protection from higher powers.
He currently had no way to contend with such power. He glanced at Durant lying there, considered for a moment, and dissipated the light in his hand. After carefully sensing and memorizing the signature of this power, he leaped up, turning into a streak of light and soaring into the high sky.
Chapter 1324