The Limit

While airborne, Jing Lin raised one hand beside his cheek while extending the other straight forward. As the distance rapidly closed, that leading hand had appeared to be some distance away from Chen Chuan, but at that exact moment, the muscles of the arm writhed, and it abruptly lengthened by a section, reaching right in front of Chen Chuan—on the verge of touching the collar of his neck the next instant. Just then, however, Chen Chuan darted forward, slipping past the reaching hand by a hair's breadth. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Jing Lin, his timing and tempo grasped with immaculate precision. A smug grin spread across Jing Lin's face. Seizing the moment Chen Chuan closed in, he ripped his mouth open with a snap. The corners of his lips split all the way to his ears, revealing the sharp fangs inside as he snapped viciously toward Chen Chuan. Yet the movement had barely begun when a fist carrying tremendous power slammed heavily into his belly, blasting an explosive surge of jin into his body. Jing Lin gave a muffled gasp. The blow arched his back rearward while his hands and feet flew forward, and even his long, snake-like tongue flopped out. Chen Chuan raised his hand again, seized Jing Lin's head, and tossed it aside in disgust. Jing Lin flew sideways through the air, hit the ground, and tumbled several times before slumping awkwardly on his side, unable to right himself. His eyes were rolled back, his mouth agape—completely unconscious. Chen Chuan spared him only a cursory glance before looking ahead once more. From start to finish, his attention had barely lingered on Jing Lin, nor had he clearly heard whatever the man had been rambling about. His focus had remained entirely on the car further back, for he knew that the person inside was the primary opponent he had to deal with today. Inside the car, Tan Wang sat watching the front. When he had returned for his implant reconstruction surgery, he had brought Jing Lin along for some modifications. Though they were all low-grade implants slated for disposal and poorly matched to the young man, his combat strength had undoubtedly improved significantly compared to before. He had thought that if Jing Lin could handle Chen Chuan, he wouldn't need to get his hands dirty, and even if Jing Lin failed, it would still serve as a bit of entertainment. But he hadn't expected Jing Lin to be taken out in a single exchange. It seemed the information in the dossiers hadn't exaggerated much after all. In that case, he would have to do it himself. Regardless of how good he was, Chen Chuan was merely a fighter who had yet to cross that threshold. He pushed the door open, stepped out of the car, smoothed down the imported formal suit he wore, shut the door behind him, and slowly walked toward Chen Chuan. Upon drawing near, he stopped. Glancing first at Jing Lin lying on the ground, he stroked his chin and said with mild displeasure, "You broke my toy. You ought to offer some compensation, don't you think?" Chen Chuan looked at him and said calmly, "Teacher Tan, I know what you're here for." "Oh... so you know." Tan Wang suddenly felt quite bored. "Why say it out loud? That takes all the fun out of it. You could have lived a little longer." Chen Chuan planted his scabbarded blade into the ground, raised his hand to unbutton his collar, and said, "Actually, I'm quite glad to see you today, Teacher Tan." "Oh?" Hearing this, Tan Wang felt a spark of curiosity. Chen Chuan's reaction amused him, and he didn't mind playing along. "And why is that?" Chen Chuan unfastened the buttons one by one, took off his coat, and tossed it aside. Then he gripped the hilt of his blade. With the ends of his hair and his shirt collar fluttering ceaselessly in the wind, he said slowly, "Because you carry enough weight. You are an indispensable piece of the puzzle." At that moment, dark clouds surged overhead, plunging heaven and earth into gloom. The wind blew harder, whipping up countless reeds and leaves across the marsh. A sudden flash of lightning ripped through the sky, closely followed by a low rumble of thunder that rolled past, as if echoing right beside them. Tan Wang narrowed his slender eyes, seemingly displeased with the tone Chen Chuan was using. Yet he also found it strange. Normally, no matter how prey reacted, he never felt annoyance—only curiosity and amusement, never irritation like this. He glanced up at the sky, writing it off as the effect of the weather. With his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, he said, "It's about to rain. I really don't want my newly bought suit to get soaked, so I apologize—I'll have to ask you to die quickly." With those words, he leaned forward. As his feet began to move, the drifting leaves, the stirred-up twigs, and even the tiny droplets of water in the air seemed to slow down. Once a fighter reached that realm... Moreover, he had incorporated implants into his body. Most fighters only strengthened mutated tissue in specific parts of their bodies, which inevitably left deficiencies, like a one-legged giant. But with implants added, many shortcomings could be patched up, granting far more well-rounded capabilities, allowing him to endure greater intensity and sustain this state for much longer. Facing Chen Chuan, his mindset was mostly that of a cat playing with a mouse. Closing in before Chen Chuan, seeing the young man standing seemingly motionless, a teasing smirk appeared on his face. He extended a hand and reached toward Chen Chuan's face. Chen Chuan had been watching Tan Wang intently, yet in his vision, the figure abruptly vanished. But he did not panic. As another flash of lightning tore through the sky, what had just been off to the side... His eyes once again locked onto Tan Wang's figure. Watching the other man's hand gradually closing in, he spun around, smoothly drawing his blade and bringing forth a glittering arc of light! The moment Chen Chuan's gaze fixed upon him, Tan Wang sensed something was wrong. His finely honed danger sense prompted an instantaneous reaction, and he raised his arm. Clang! He blocked the slash directly with his forearm. A look of surprise and suspicion surfaced on his face, for Chen Chuan's speed had suddenly spiked in an instant. Before he could make sense of it, the blade flashed again, cleaving toward him in relentless succession. Tan Wang scrambled backward to evade, continuously using various parts of his body to parry the slashes. Dense scales could be seen surfacing across his cheeks and torso. This was his implanted scale armor. Grown together with his own mutated tissue, and aided by jin and the high-tensile muscles beneath his skin, it could resist small-caliber firearms and the hacking of all kinds of swords and blades. He required no extra weapon, because he was a weapon himself. Only after blocking over a dozen consecutive strikes did he gradually recover from his passive, embattled state. Parrying yet another thrust, the muscles of his legs and back rippled, and he leaped backward with a sudden arched flip, bounding away in an unorthodox posture and instantly escaping the range of the blade's momentum. Once clear, he flipped in midair and landed steadily on his feet. Though he had escaped the onslaught, after that relentless barrage of strikes, even if his body was unharmed, the imported suit he wore had been shredded into strips of cloth. Rumble! Accompanied by another clap of thunder, the torrential rain that had been brewing for so long finally came pouring down, quickly drumming against the earth in a dense, rushing chorus. Holding his long blade with one hand and supporting the spine with the other, Chen Chuan held it angled before him and said, "It seems you won't need to change your clothes after all, Teacher Tan." Tan Wang snorted coldly and tore away the tattered remnants of his clothes, revealing a body covered entirely in grayish-green scales. At the same time, the muscles around his eye sockets squirmed, and his eyes snapped into vertical slits. These were his mutated serpent pupils. By dilating the pupillary area, they could gather more light and heighten visual acuity, making them exceptionally well-suited for fighting in near-dark conditions like this. Chen Chuan glanced at the scales on Tan Wang's body. He had felt earlier that when his blade struck, the force could hardly land solidly; it was deflected by a supple jin. Beyond the effect of the scales themselves, it had clearly been combined with jin dispersion. Tan Wang was a fighter of a higher limit and surely possessed extensive experience in dealing with bladed weapons, so being able to achieve this was no surprise. And in that exchange just now, Chen Chuan hadn't come out on the losing end either, because deflecting attacks with jin consumed physical stamina. Even having reached... Meanwhile, Tan Wang stared at Chen Chuan for a moment, the casual ease of toying with prey long gone from his eyes. He was astonished that Chen Chuan's speed could actually keep up with his own. Had the boy taken some kind of drug? "Is it some new drug from Tiancong Baicao?" That was the most likely explanation. Outside Center City, there were no advanced implants of that caliber, but there was no shortage of unverified contraband drugs circulating, which could indeed produce extraordinary effects on occasion. Yet this effectively brought Chen Chuan's reflexes and speed to nearly the same level as his own, completely nullifying the overwhelming advantage he normally held over fighters below the limit. Fortunately, ordinary drugs had an effective duration. Once that wore off, all that would remain would be an utterly exhausted, perhaps even badly crippled body. Because the human body was an integrated whole, and Chen Chuan had at most reached... A drug like this was still useful. Once this was over, he could interrogate him about where it came from; maybe he could even turn a profit off it to compensate for his losses this time. With these thoughts churning in his mind, he slowly parted his feet and stood in place without attacking. He was waiting for the drug's effects to run out. Chen Chuan chose not to remain in a standoff. He wanted to force Tan Wang into combat. He needed to keep constant pressure on the man, compelling him to continually expend jin to defend and draining his stamina step by step, thereby tilting the odds of victory in his own favor. He took a forward step and slashed diagonally, his blade carving a perfect arc through the torrential rain. To Tan Wang's eyes, however, this action only confirmed his deduction. He gave a scoffing chuckle, stepped back, and shifted rearward with astonishing speed, his form blurring as if he had abruptly vanished from the spot. Yet as Chen Chuan stepped forward, his figure also seemed to disappear, and in the next moment, a rapid barrage of clashing impacts echoed through the air.