Chen Chuan sensed it carefully and deduced that what blocked him was likely the power of some relic.
At this moment, he carried a relic that happened to be capable of handling the present situation, but he did not deploy it.
When the enemy came forward to attack him, not only were they riding no mounts, but they had not even unleashed their external visages. This suggested they harbored the same thought as he did—to come forward and probe first.
After all, neither side truly knew what the other was keeping hidden. By relentlessly applying pressure, they could force the other to expose more of their bottom line, then formulate tactics according to the specific circumstances.
He thought the exact same way, especially since the relic just now had put him doubly on guard. He needed to reveal as few trump cards as possible; at least until he was fully confident in eliminating certain crucial targets, he had no intention of using them.
And that he dared to act this way also stemmed from absolute confidence in his own strength.
At this moment, the force obstructing him receded. It was exceedingly brief, lasting roughly as long as it took for a single thought to turn in his mind.
Just as he prepared to pursue Yuan Congye once more, someone on the field was already a step ahead. General of the Guard Tie Rugan charged before him, raising a heavy battleaxe to cleave down at him.
Yet Tie Rugan was no different from Yuan Congye. At the exact moment he launched his attack, accompanied by the burst and flicker of a massive flare of spiritual fire, he was sent flying far into the distance.
After slashing out with his saber, Chen Chuan could tell that his attack still had not managed to injure the opponent.
The enemy had indeed come thoroughly prepared; for now, each of them seemed equipped with means to withstand his destructive power.
And after the attack, he detected the influence of that force once more. His figure likewise paused, preventing him from stringing together a continuous offensive.
Now he could be even more certain that what was acting against him was a relic, not an aberrant power.
While the possibility of a similar aberrant power could not be ruled out, it was absolutely impossible for its mechanics to be completely identical down to the exact same effect. Furthermore, the active conscious entity within his external implant had arrived at the same conclusion.
After that brief standstill, a third figure appeared before him.
This time, the newcomer was Yuan Rong, wielding a gilded warhammer. Seizing the moment when Chen Chuan was unable to surge forward, he swung it in a full arc to smash down at him, a majestic wave of rust-colored spiritual fire rippling across the hammerhead.
Yet before the hammer could land, Chen Chuan had already struck the face of the hammer with his saber. The thick, viscous spiritual fire upon it was ripped apart with ease, followed immediately by a surging jin like a vast ocean.
Yet this time, Yuan Rong was not knocked flying like Yuan and Tie; instead, he was brought to a dead stop right where he stood.
This was because Chen Chuan had swapped the rigid force on his blade for yielding jin, forcing Yuan Rong to absorb the full brunt of the power raw.
In that split second, Yuan Rong seemed to swell by a full size.
Chen Chuan's gaze flickered slightly. After this saber strike landed, he discovered that although he still encountered some obstruction that kept him from chaining his moves seamlessly, the effect was far less severe than before.
This showed that if he did not attempt to accelerate his speed or instantly cross vast distances, and merely engaged in close-quarters combat, he could shake off most of the constraint.
It seemed the enemy's relic was specifically designed to limit his speed and disrupt his rhythm.
Even as thoughts turned in his mind, his movements did not pause; the sheathed Xuejun Saber slashed toward Yuan Rong once more.
The fact that the other could block a blow from him and exhibit such a peculiar reaction was clearly the work of an aberrant power—likely some means of dispersing force or absorbing damage, perhaps with other effects that could not yet be discerned.
And since he had decided to make this opponent his first target, he would not simply stop there, and thus swiftly slashed out a second time.
This strike landed square against his chest and abdomen. Yuan Rong seemed to inflate like a balloon, his entire body swelling to nearly double its size.
Chen Chuan saw this and simultaneously perceived that some power was being awakened from within that body.
Yet his expression remained calm, showing no intention of holding back in the least, and a third blow cleaved down onto Yuan Rong's forehead.
Yuan Rong's entire body expanded outward yet again, his face flushing crimson from the rush of blood. An exceedingly unsettling aura rose around him, and the originally rust-colored spiritual fire grew abnormally dense, as if something was about to bore its way out from inside his body.
Right at this moment, light flashed across the sky as Yuan Congye, who had been knocked flying, returned from the distant sky.
Chen Chuan's slash just now had been heavy and powerful, its force virtually irresistible. Even though the black armor on Yuan Congye had warded off much of the damage, the remaining force had still subjected him to an intensely violent impact.
Fortunately, he possessed an aberrant power called 'Vajra Body.'
This aberrant power ensured that his physical body suffered no harm under formidable attacks.
It was just that this aberrant power had a very brief duration. Against ordinary opponents, since an enemy's window of opportunity was usually fleeting, failing to land a hit meant they could be finished off by him, which was more than enough. But facing Chen Chuan, he required the support of a relic; otherwise, when Chen Chuan's second strike followed, he would not be able to withstand it.
Yet that did not mean he lacked a way to deal with Chen Chuan; in fact, the current situation was something they had deliberately orchestrated.
As he arrived close once more, another spear thrust lanced toward Chen Chuan.
Chen Chuan calmly brought his saber down against the spearhead, but to his slight surprise, under this strike the other man's body remained completely motionless, as though he had gained strength comparable to his own in an instant.
However, the opponent's aura and field had not changed in the slightest compared to before, so Chen Chuan immediately judged that this was once again the effect of some aberrant power.
Gleams of strange light flowed through Yuan Congye's eyes; this aberrant power of his was called 'Mountain-Anchoring Form.'
So long as he had been attacked, if the same person attacked him again using the same method, he could endure all the damage.
Suppose he was attacked with a fist; striking him with a fist again would no longer have any effect, requiring the use of knees, elbows, or other attack methods. Naturally, switching weapons would also work against him, but if it was a weapon transformed from oneself, it could likewise only be used once.
And this probing effort was partly structured around this aberrant power of his.
Supported by a certain relic, the three of them would step forward in turns, and he would draw out Chen Chuan's moves time and again. Once Chen Chuan's standard methods proved useless against him, he could pin Chen Chuan down from the front.
Then the others would attack Great Shun's other two martial artists. If Chen Chuan deployed trump cards or lethal moves, they could still adopt their prior tactics to evade them one by one until suppressing him once more.
If Chen Chuan did not make a move, that was fine too; once they cleared away the other distractions, they would concentrate all their methods against Chen Chuan, giving them an extremely high probability of slaying him on the battlefield.
Seeing his saber strike fail, Chen Chuan kicked out from below. His speed was too fast and his strength matchless, so even though Yuan Congye managed to pull his spear back to parry, he was sent flying once again amid an explosive burst of spiritual fire.
Seeing that this blow had repelled him so effortlessly, Chen Chuan felt a slight stir in his mind, intuiting a certain possibility.
And just as the thought turned, the active conscious entity within his external implant swiftly provided several plausible conjectures, one of which was very close to the actual effect of the opposing aberrant power.
Having just forced him back, light arrived from without once more as General of the Guard Tie Rugan also returned.
Chen Chuan waited for him to close in and swung his saber. As axe and blade met, it was as if a bolt of lightning erupted across the night sky. No different from last time, Tie Rugan was flipped far back through the air by the slash without any ability to resist.
These two blows were delivered with the proactive intent of batting the men away rather than seeking sheer lethality as in the first exchange. From the previous information, he already knew that all three who had taken the field in succession possessed Aberrant Visages.
Many aberrant powers were extraordinarily bizarre, and facing multiple aberrant powers at once was exceedingly troublesome, not to mention their coordination with a relic.
Yet most aberrant powers that targeted an enemy required a certain distance to activate, so he simply knocked away the two who were difficult to kill in the short term and focused on dealing with the one before him.
Yuan Rong's behavior was also very strange; even with Yuan Congye and Tie Rugan running interference, he had no intention of retreating, seeming to linger right there waiting to be attacked.
However, Chen Chuan paid it no heed and slashed out without mercy, landing square on the man's neck.
Yuan Rong showed a trace of agony, appearing to have reached his limit.
Chen Chuan was about to strike again when Yuan Congye returned once more at this very moment. But just as he was about to attack Chen Chuan, a figure flashed before his eyes—Jiang Linghuai appeared in front of him, smashing a long staff down with ferocious momentum.
Seeing that Jiang Linghuai came on swift and fierce, Yuan Congye realized that dodging would leave him unable to rescue Yuan Rong anyway. He simply flicked his spear upward. Spear and staff collided, light and energy burst forth, and thunder seemed to rumble across the sky.
Yuan Congye remained unmoving, whereas Jiang Linghuai shuddered violently and stumbled backward.
Yet his objective had been achieved: he successfully obstructed Yuan Congye, keeping him from interfering with Chen Chuan.
Free of outside disruption, Chen Chuan brought down another slash, cleaving directly between Yuan Rong's brows.
And this time, something truly seemed to be awakened. Where the tip of the scabbard struck, it split with a crack. At the same time, the flesh on Yuan Rong's body suddenly tore open, and from within emerged a monstrosity seemingly formed of thick, jointed bones. Yet the bones were mottled with rust, and its entire form was shrouded in foul, turbid miasma.
This was Yuan Rong's Aberrant Visage, 'Kui.'
In legend, this was a serpent dwelling between Yin and Yang that fed on the world's resentment and noxious vapors, dissolving beneath the blazing sun by day and reviving once more under the moon's glow by night.
The aberrant power Yuan Rong possessed was also linked to Kui's traits, requiring him to endure a certain amount of damage first before he could unleash the Aberrant Visage.
The more severe the injuries, the more formidable the Aberrant Visage of Kui would be upon awakening.
It was just that the damage he endured had to be digested by Kui in timely fashion before absorbing more. Therefore, he inevitably could not withstand Chen Chuan's consecutive attacks; fortunately, with the assistance of the relic, Yuan Congye, and Tie Rugan, he was able to quickly swallow the damage during the intervals.
Now, his exotic visage had finally succeeded in awakening.
The defining trait of Kui was that under the cover of night, it feared no harm. Because it could devour resentment and noxious vapor, it was virtually unkillable on the battlefield.
At this moment, its amber-yellow serpentine eyes locked onto Chen Chuan, and with a shift of its colossal serpentine body, it dove down toward him.
Chapter 1402