In the atmosphere, clusters of Mystic Void Fire easily penetrated the gentle radiance, showering onto Lord Anshi.
Wherever they touched, flames quickly caught. Yet Lord Anshi maintained his standing posture unchanged, his expression as serene and tranquil as before.
Only ripples, like fine drizzle falling upon a lake, spread around his body, accompanied by the bubbling murmur of flowing water. Glistening drops of dew seemed to seep out from within him.
Though the Mystic Void Fire continued to burn, it was carried away by the flowing, dripping dew; while it still blazed unceasingly, it could no longer reach his true form.
Chen Chuan felt no surprise at this sight. The true terror of Mystic Void Fire lay in its immense lethality that obliterated things from their very root, perhaps coupled with a formidable frontal armor-shattering power.
Yet when one was prepared, it could be defended against. Because Mystic Void Fire required a process of burning and spreading, and incinerated only what it touched, there were ways to withstand it.
After all, if even Irose could devise a countermeasure, there was no reason a god like Lord Anshi could not.
Even so, that did not stop him from opening with it. At the very least, it forced the opponent to take defensive action.
Furthermore, having to dispel the Mystic Void Fire proved that even as a deity, he still feared it. Deployed at a critical juncture, it could still deal direct, fatal damage.
At that moment, his blade swept down toward Lord Anshi, while the Grand Firmament Forms naturally unfolded from his body, expanding to engulf the opponent.
Yet in his perception, the other's presence was hollow and indistinct, almost imperceptible.
It did not matter either way. Unfolding the Two Great Forms was as effortless as breathing so long as he did not forcefully drive them to their peak; even if they failed to bind the foe, they still aided his offense.
His offensive strategy was sound and his speed blistering. Moreover, the Xuejun Saber seemed to carry a distinct advantage against entities of this kind. With a single slash, it cleaved straight through the spiritual fire cloaking Lord Anshi and struck his body.
As the blade sliced through him, threads of finely burning golden light rose from the cleft wound.
Following the first slash came another. In an instant, over a dozen strokes swept through Lord Anshi, carving him into over a dozen pieces in the blink of an eye, and the shattered body naturally drifted apart.
Yet Lord Anshi's expression did not change in the slightest. Even with his head severed into three sections, he remained utterly unruffled, as if that body were not his own.
Right at this moment, across the distant sky directly behind Lord Anshi, a halo like a bright moon appeared. Standing within it was an identical figure. The pure, gleaming radiance, paired with his attire and bearing, formed an extraordinarily magnificent spectacle.
Only now did his cleaved body let out a crisp sound like shattering colored glaze, before disintegrating on its own into even finer particles.
Yet at the same time, the figure within the bright moon halo behind grew increasingly vivid.
To all appearances, the one shattered earlier was merely a phantom, while the one behind was the true body.
Yet the moment that figure appeared, Chen Chuan had already smashed through the disintegrating remnants of the previous body and arrived before him. With a slight lift of the blade tip, an unadorned slash cleaved downward.
Yet at that moment, further transformations unfolded in the sky. One bright moon halo after another bloomed from nothingness across the heavens, each radiance enshrining a Lord Anshi.
On the surface they appeared identical, but careful scrutiny revealed that the sixteen arms behind each of them struck distinct postures.
After shattering the radiant halo before him with a single slash, Chen Chuan did not rush to strike again. Instead, he cast his gaze over the halos encircling him.
At this moment, the number of halos matched the number of pieces he had severed earlier. It seemed as though however many cuts he made, that many halos would appear.
Of course, it could also be a psychological tactic; after all, practitioners of the Visage of the Divine excelled at such ploys above all else.
Once this path reached a higher realm, the methods wielded were often wondrous beyond measure, evoking the legendary arts of immortals and gods.
In particular, the Divine Visage was reputed to be capable of manifesting thousands of avatars. In the hands of a master who chose purely to evade, one might never be able to lay a finger on them. Among the three paths, its survivability was unquestionably the greatest.
Presently, from surface appearances alone, there was no telling which Lord Anshi was real and which was false. It was possible all were illusions, yet equally possible all were genuine, merely divided into so many—with even more potentially on the way.
Within the fissure, Gao Xu watched this spectacle and said in a heavy voice, "'One begets two, two begets three, three transforms into myriad forms'—this is the art of 'Mirror Moon Layered Voids.'"
Long Xian said, "This is an ancient secret transmission. Since Ming used Lord Anshi as a vessel, he has presumably mastered Lord Anshi's esoteric arts as well." He added with concern, "The divine breath of this technique is indeterminate. I fear our esteemed guest may not be able to locate his true root."
He proposed, "Why don't the two of us divine it for him? That way—"
Gao Xu's expression suddenly hardened. "Hold."
Long Xian looked at him in confusion. Gao Xu said in a low voice, "If we divine Lord Anshi, our divine qi will inevitably intersect with his. He might then seize upon our qi to descend into the esoteric ritual."
Long Xian took in a sharp breath. That was entirely possible. If Lord Anshi's goal were precisely this, then once he entered here, everything Chen Chuan had fought to prevent would instantly unravel. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed, leaving him cold with lingering dread.
Yet they could not simply do nothing either. Thus, they conveyed what they knew to Chen Chuan via the Tianji fish.
As Chen Chuan observed the situation, he received the message from the two. It informed him that this Lord Anshi was ultimately an avatar hosted by Ming; even if the two had merged into one, there had to be a fundamental core—the repository of all his memories, knowledge, and cognition.
Only by destroying this core could he be slain.
Chen Chuan nodded slightly. He recalled that the beings he had fought previously all possessed cores; only by shattering those cores could they be permanently dealt with. The principle was the same.
The difference here was that the core of an avatar was merely a conceptual condensation, not a physical object. The Tianji Sect had a method for locating it, but that was a technique belonging to the Visage of the Divine; practitioners of the Visage of Man could not employ it.
Hence, they advised him to defend cautiously for now and avoid falling into the enemy's traps, allowing the Tianji fish to trace that thread of flux first. A follow-up strike in its wake might then kill him.
Chen Chuan glanced at the Tianji fish. It circled around him, flicking its tail now and then, remarkably agile and lively.
His thoughts turned. He disliked handing over the initiative in an attack to an opponent. Even if this treasure could locate that fleeting opening, he did not necessarily have to walk that path.
It was not as though he were truly out of options.
Just as he was considering his tactics and seeking an opportunity, Lord Anshi made his move.
Within the dozens of halos, the Lord Anshis simultaneously stretched out the sixteen arms at their backs, each striking different mudras. Moments later, threads of spiritual light drifted down through the atmosphere like rain.
Where the rainy threads touched the spiritual fire coating Chen Chuan, sparks of light burst forth; as they fell incessantly, the points of contact flared and flickered without pause.
He took a look. Although these rainy threads seemed to produce only minor reactions upon contact, he knew full well that each was no less potent than a spiritual impact—their gentle appearance was profoundly deceptive.
Only he could withstand it; anyone else would likely have been unable to hold their ground here.
Yet he would not simply allow the other to press the attack. Ordinary straightforward strikes indeed could not pin down the opponent, but combined with another method, that was no longer the case.
Earlier, after cutting down two of Lord Anshi's phantoms, his strikes had made direct contact with the other's divine qi, naturally allowing the purple qi to taint and spread onto him.
At this moment, he could vaguely sense the true location. It was not in any single spot, but flitting about erratically among these numerous phantoms. This meant all of them were real, yet capable of turning from real to illusory at any moment.
Knowing just that was enough. Theoretically, so long as he was fast enough and destroyed enough of them in a single instant, then even the simplest brute-force approach could break and slay him.
With this thought, he hesitated no longer. The purple qi around him instantly boiled.
In the next instant, he split into dozens of figures in a flash, each unleashing a slash toward a figure within the halos—and every single blade was wreathed in Mystic Void Fire.
Across the vault of the sky, dozens of blazing trails of Mystic Void Fire erupted simultaneously. This was no small expenditure; it amounted to expelling a vast amount of energy from his body in an instant.
If other enemies had been watching from the sidelines, this might have been an opening. But the purple qi within his body continually channeled more energy into him, more than enough to sustain his assault.
Lord Anshi could clearly perceive his actions, yet Chen Chuan's speed was simply too fast—so fast that this hosted avatar's body had no way to react, capable only of watching the blade slash toward it in utter helplessness.
The moment Chen Chuan's blades came down, the halos shattered under the edge. Yet at the exact same moment, more halos were born beside them, one after another.
At the same time, Chen Chuan could sense that the core had shifted into those newly divided figures. But it was useless. For every new one that divided, he stepped forward and cut it down.
The Visage of Man, when pushed to the extreme, was just this simple. There was no need to consider your myriad variations or subtle techniques; all I need do is hack to pieces and hammer to dust every enemy and obstacle before me!
At this moment, Lord Anshi had no recourse other than dividing incessantly, as that was the sole action his current reflexes allowed him to take.
Yet avatar duplication in the Divine Visage was not limitless. In particular, the energy sustaining his existence was drawn by Ming from the esoteric ritual through the Tianji Plate. With every avatar destroyed, a portion of that energy was lost. Once it was completely depleted, Chen Chuan would not even need to locate any core—he could simply grind him to death.
Fortunately, after exhausting nearly a third of that energy, the body was finally able to react.
Chapter 1326