Heart's Intent

Wei Wusheng murmured, "So there's one more." With a sharp snap, he crushed the pebble in his hand to powder, turned around to face him, and fixed his gaze on the approaching figure. Chen Chuan strode forward at an unhurried pace. A shallow layer of water covered the floor, each of his footsteps sending up a distinct splash. Looking past him from behind, every other fighter had collapsed to the ground in that brief span of time. He halted in front of Wei Wusheng, standing right where Gao Qiu and Lu Shiqi had clashed. Overhead, the spotlights originally trained on those two combatants now cast their illumination over the two of them. Looking at Wei Wusheng, he asked, "I have a question. Did you come here merely to kill—or rather, to hunt down fighters?" Wei Wusheng regarded him for a moment. "It seems you still don't understand." He gestured toward the two men lying sprawled on the floor. "They understood perfectly well. But I don't mind telling you. "This is a necessary step. Once I established my intent, I had to carry out an act to fulfill it." He pointed toward his own heart. "It tells me that having made my resolve, I must relish untamed, exhilarating combat, and slaughter enough fighters. It doesn't matter what method I use, who they are, or where they appear. So long as they are dead, it will grant me an ample reward. "Originally, I thought the people present might not be quite enough. But your appearance here is a welcome surprise. With you added to the count, perhaps it will be satisfied." Chen Chuan looked at him. "And if it's still not satisfied?" Wei Wusheng answered without hesitation, "Then I keep killing. A cruise ship this large will surely have enough targets to satisfy it." Chen Chuan said no more. Raising the Xuejun Saber, he held it horizontally before him, caught the sheath with his other hand, and with a light flick, sent the scabbard flying away. Turning his body slightly, he gripped the hilt with both hands and slowly drew it up to his flank. Looking at the man, he asked, "What are you waiting for, sir?" Wei Wusheng let out a roar: "Come!" and charged straight at him. Chen Chuan tracked his silhouette, pivoted, and brought the blade down in a head-on slash! Wei Wusheng swung his hammer outward to parry, the head striking the blade with dead accuracy. Yet there was hardly any force behind the saber; Chen Chuan stepped back, rolled his wrist in a circle, and slashed diagonally upward from below. Wei Wusheng ignored the incoming blow entirely. His hammer crashed straight down toward Chen Chuan's skull. Chen Chuan tilted his head slightly, letting the hammer slam into his shoulder. With a heavy bang, an impact that should have pulverized his entire shoulder struck him—yet he appeared completely unscathed. Wei Wusheng's eyes narrowed, a flicker of surprise showing on his face. Chen Chuan saw the Second Self flicker, more than half of its form fading sharply into translucence. Not wasting the opening, he poured force into his grip and drove the blade directly into Wei Wusheng's flank. In his past experience, even if such a slash failed to bisect an opponent, it would bite deep into the chest and abdomen to inflict devastating trauma. Yet this time the blade penetrated only slightly before feeling gripped by an immense clamping force, unable to sink in any further. Right at that moment, Wei Wusheng raised his hammer high once more, both hands gripping the handle. Though the two men were roughly equal in height, at this instant, Wei Wusheng's shadow seemed to engulf Chen Chuan entirely. Chen Chuan felt a fierce sense of danger prickling his skin. Instead of backing away, he lunged forward, five fingers rigid as blades, and thrust straight into the throat exposed by Wei Wusheng's arched posture. Yet when the blow landed, his fingers felt as though they had jabbed into a solid steel wall. The jin meant to disrupt the man's center of gravity vanished without a trace, and Wei Wusheng's body did not budge in the slightest. At that instant, Wei Wusheng violently swung both hands downward like driving a pile, bringing the hammer crashing straight toward him! This technique was known as the ground-slamming jin. The instant before unleashing it, the resilient mutated tissue throughout the user's body tightened at once, leaving virtually no flaw; whatever stood in its path would be crushed beneath the blow until driven into the floor and shattered together. Chen Chuan raised both hands, crossing his forearms overhead to meet the hammer. In doing so, he did not rely entirely on the Second Self. Instead, he naturally applied the jin neutralization and redirection he had practiced before; though that technique had been wielded with a saber, the underlying principle remained the same. With a thunderous crash, colossal force crashed down, driving his entire body downward. The jin surged in like rolling waves; the floor beneath his feet groaned under the unbearable strain, fine fissures spreading outward to both sides. Yet he held firm. "What?!" Having vented most of his full-body jin, Wei Wusheng stiffened where he stood. Seizing that split second, Chen Chuan drove his knee upward and kicked him square in the chin, snapping his head backward. Taking advantage of the opening, Chen Chuan stepped back, gripped his saber's hilt, and dragged it downward. A spray of blood burst forth. Pausing for a bare fraction of a second, he took the hilt with both hands and thrust violently forward, sinking the tip straight into the chest with a wet hiss. Yet it penetrated only halfway before Wei Wusheng caught his breath. An enormous resistance instantly clamped the front of the blade, preventing it from penetrating any deeper. Twisting his torso, Wei Wusheng leaped back and raised his hammer, knocking the blade aside. He backed away several steps as his wounds writhed and tightly knit themselves shut. Chen Chuan held the hilt with both hands, resting the saber beside his waist with the tip pointing diagonally toward his adversary. Wei Wusheng stared back at Chen Chuan, feet slightly apart, resting his hammer to one side. Just then, a series of mechanical clicks echoed from behind. The doors gradually swung open, and squads of security personnel rushed in from outside. Wei Wusheng frowned, giving Chen Chuan one deep, lingering look. Spinning around, he charged outward. The security guards immediately raised their weapons and opened fire. A staccato burst of gunfire erupted across the arena. Yet Wei Wusheng wore no protective suit; the bullets striking him merely lodged in his muscles, not a single one piercing through his body. Chen Chuan had not used the Furnace Breathing Technique just now. He was on someone else's cruise ship, without knowing the situation outside; he needed to keep a trump card in reserve rather than expend all his strength here. However... Reaching down, he drew the Shock Thunder from his waist, aimed at Wei Wusheng's back, and pulled the trigger. With a deafening boom, the entire arena shuddered. A fist-sized hole blasted open in Wei Wusheng's back, flesh turned inside out and bone faintly visible within. His body jolted, but he never stopped—his running speed did not even falter. Crashing through the security guards, he broke straight out, followed by the violent sounds of clashing combat outside. After a while, the distant sound of a heavy splash drifted in. Inside the hall, the guards kept their firearms trained squarely on Chen Chuan until footsteps approached from outside. Senior Sun walked in, surveyed the surroundings, and noticed Chen Chuan standing there. He immediately barked to both sides, "He's one of us! Lower your weapons!" At his order, all the guards lowered their guns and stood down. Medical staff rushed in from outside and began tending to the people sprawled across the floor. Before long, someone reported to Senior Sun that the two third-limit fighters were still alive. Senior Sun felt a slight sense of relief. *That's good.* This match was both a theoretical contest between two schools and a test to examine and refine their results and shortcomings. If either participant had died in the duel itself, both parties could have accepted it. Yet if they had perished due to unforeseen outside factors, even if Canglong Company was not afraid of the trouble, he, as the primary person in charge, would most likely be scapegoated—and his future might have gone down with it. Straightening his clothes, he walked over to Chen Chuan and looked at him. "Junior Chen, it seems you were the one who stopped Wei Wusheng. I doubt anyone else here could have pulled that off." He had looked into this junior's background earlier and knew he had caught the eye of the Disposal Bureau, and had even resolved a third-limit expert while under the influence of medication. From the looks of it today, this junior had likely relied on medicine again to preserve his sanity and fend off Wei Wusheng. Wei Wusheng was no ordinary third-limit expert. Possessing Vajra external conditioning jin combined with the regenerative power unique to the third limit, he was practically a synonym for unkillable in the Tianshu Gang. Chen Chuan said, "It's also because you arrived in time." Senior Sun smiled and said in all sincerity, "Junior Chen, you did me an enormous favor this time. I know what kind of price one has to pay to face a third-limit fighter. I won't let your efforts go unrewarded; I will give you compensation you're satisfied with." On the shore, Wei Wusheng walked out of the water. Wisps of white vapor rose from his clothes, slowly steaming dry. As he paced up the beach, the hole in his back was gradually closing, and even the blade wounds across his chest and ribs were knitting together. The bullet slugs lodged in his body were squeezed out of his muscles one by one, dropping onto the ground. In his mind, a voice suddenly spoke: *Senior Brother, you didn't satisfy it.* It felt like an auditory hallucination, yet he had truly heard it. Wei Wusheng said in a deep voice, "I will." Back when the Zhenbao docked, he had gone to meet Xiong Jianyi as agreed. Xiong Jianyi had given him half of his own heart; by piecing the two hearts together, they could complete a secret art of their sect. Once successful, the mutated tissue Xiong Jianyi possessed would grow inside Wei Wusheng's body, and the grappling soft jin Xiong Jianyi had mastered would also belong to him, granting one man the strengths of two and uniting hard and soft into a single whole. Only by fulfilling the vessel of this "heart's intent" could Wei Wusheng fully absorb everything Xiong Jianyi had entrusted to him, remold his foundation, and qualify to break through to an even higher realm. Looking back at the cruise ship behind him, he said in a low voice, "I'll kill more fighters to satisfy it. And I'll track down every fighter I saw today, one by one, and kill them." The voice gradually faded away, as though it had never existed. Wei Wusheng cast a final look at the cruise ship behind him, left deep footprints in the beach, and strode off toward Center City.