Among the congested vehicles was a dark green convertible carrying the wealthy brother and sister who had once been turned back by Chen Chuan and Sun Rao.
The bodyguard responsible for their safety sat in the back seat, seemingly oblivious to the chaos before them, as if none of it concerned him in the least.
"Damn it, what's going on?"
The young man spat several curses. Finding that his boundary credential had abruptly stopped working, he grew even more irritable, leaning heavily on the horn without pause.
Just then, he saw a tall figure leap into the air ahead. With a heavy thud, the figure slammed onto the roof of a distant vehicle, instantly flattening it, before springing up again and landing upon another car further along. The vehicle beneath met the same fate, and faint screams could be heard coming from inside.
Seeing that this person was heading in their direction, the youth felt no fear; instead, excitement flared in his chest. He turned his head, pointed forward, and ordered, "You, go up there and take him out."
The guard, previously expressionless, underwent a drastic change in demeanor upon seeing the man. He barked in a low voice at the siblings, "Run!"
"Run? Why should we run?"
Displeased, the youth's eyes darted about. He suddenly pulled out a gun meant for self-defense, raised it with practiced speed, and pulled the trigger. A loud gunshot cracked through the air. Smugly, he declared, "I'm only acting in self-def—"
The guard's face drained of all color. Recognizing the newcomer, he had concentrated all his attention on the threat ahead, not daring to move a muscle for fear of provoking a reaction. For that very reason, he had failed to stop the youth from firing in time.
Now, it was too late.
The youth was clearly a decent shot; the bullet struck the figure dead-on. Yet it seemed to have little effect, merely lodging into the surface flesh. Instead, it drew the man's attention, causing him to look straight their way.
Cold sweat broke out on the guard's forehead. Casting everything else aside, he seized the collars of the two siblings and leaped clear of the car.
No sooner had he left the vehicle than a figure dropped from mid-air, landing heavily in front of the car with a dull crash. Reaching down, the man gripped the front bumper. Beneath his fingers, metal groaned and twisted out of shape. With a casual flick of his arm, he hurled the entire car straight toward the three of them.
Watching the car loom larger in his vision, the guard knew he could not dodge. He had no choice but to release the siblings and thrust both hands forward to block it.
Yet upon impact, he discovered that beneath the seemingly devastating momentum of the chassis lay an extraordinarily supple force. The moment his palms made contact, he found it impossible to deflect or shift away. Forced to absorb the brunt of the impact directly into his body, he froze stiff where he stood.
Having been dumped onto the ground, the brother and sister shrieked in terror as they saw the vehicle flying toward them, hurriedly raising their arms and turning their heads aside. After a moment, however, when no further sounds came, they opened their eyes to find their guard standing before them, still bracing against the car.
Spurred on by the surge of adrenaline, the youth lashed out furiously, "Useless trash! Why are you just standing there? Go beat him to death!"
Yet after several shouts, the guard remained entirely motionless. Though he was still on his feet, the jin had thoroughly pulverized his internal organs, ending his life where he stood.
Before the agitated youth could say another word, a deformed bullet punched straight through his forehead. His head jerked violently back. With his mouth gaping wide, he toppled backward like a felled log.
Behind him, the young girl stared blankly. It took her several seconds to grasp what had just transpired. Screaming, she scrambled to her feet to flee. But after only a few steps, a sudden wave of weakness washed over her. Only then did she realize that a hole had punched clean through her abdomen. Clutching the wound, she took two unsteady steps before collapsing headfirst onto the pavement.
By now, passengers and drivers in the surrounding vehicles had realized something was terribly wrong. Some even recognized the assailant. Panicked, people abandoned their cars, screaming as they fled toward the rear. Lost shoes littered the ground, people stumbled and fell, and the entire street descended into utter turmoil.
Wei Wusheng paid no heed to the crowd. His gaze looked straight ahead. At the other end of the road, a figure carrying a saber was walking toward him. Shifting his weight, Wei Wusheng stepped forward to meet him.
Chen Chuan fixed his gaze on the towering figure before him, his dark eyes calm and untroubled. Panicked people fled past him in terror, but none disrupted the steady cadence of his stride.
The stationary cars jammed along the street blocked the sunlight streaming from one side, but each time he passed another vehicle, a beam of light broke through the gap to fall across his body. In this manner, he walked steadily forward, emerging from the woven interplay of light and shadow.
Approaching from opposite directions, the two drew closer, each locking onto his target.
When they were roughly twenty meters apart, both halted at the same instant.
In a low, heavy voice, Wei Wusheng said, "We didn't finish last time. Today, we can continue."
Chen Chuan looked at him. "I only hope your honor will not depart prematurely as you did before."
Wei Wusheng unhooked the hammer from his waist, his fingers tightening firmly around the haft. "No one will disturb us this time," he said. "Until this is over, I will not leave."
Chen Chuan lifted his saber, holding it horizontally before his eyes. With a gentle flick of his right hand, the scabbard slipped away and clattered to the roadside, revealing the gleaming, snow-bright blade. The crimson line tracing the spine was extraordinarily vivid, and from his vantage point, it aligned directly across Wei Wusheng's neck.
"Nothing could be better," Chen Chuan said.
Their current location was already quite close to the arena tournament venue. Though the field signal was weak here, traces of it could still be received, and quite a few people were standing on the surrounding rooftops and balconies.
Most had been drawn by the sudden commotion on the street. Several immediately recognized Wei Wusheng, who had been appearing constantly in recent news reports.
Who was the person confronting him?
Judging by the uniform, was he from the Disposal Bureau?
The onlookers grew excited, hurriedly trying to transmit the news via their boundary credentials. Yet with the field abruptly jammed, their credentials were rendered useless, eliciting a chorus of angry curses.
Further back, the Wuyi students learned from the fleeing crowd that the newcomer was Wei Wusheng, and a chill of dread swept through them.
How could Wei Wusheng be here?
This was not far from the competition venue, which held a massive concentration of Center City security forces. Yet on second thought, that might be precisely why Wei Wusheng dared to appear here: the security deployed at the venue could not be easily pulled away, and communications were currently severed...
Accompanying the group, Teacher Bai looked toward the intersection with a grave expression. He saw Chen Chuan stepping forward, facing off against Wei Wusheng.
A student was no match for Wei Wusheng. Yet this student wore the uniform of the Disposal Bureau and had taken the initiative to engage him. Could this be an arrangement by the bureau?
If so, then perhaps nearby there were...
Just as he was scanning the surroundings for bureau personnel, he saw Chen Chuan suddenly lunge forward. To the students watching from behind, Chen Chuan merely leaned his torso, and his figure vanished from where he stood. In the very next instant, he materialized right before Wei Wusheng.
Teacher Bai was thoroughly startled. *This is...*
Airborne, Chen Chuan gripped his saber with both hands, bringing it down straight at Wei Wusheng's head!
At present, he was maintaining a low state of physical expression. Yet standards differed from person to person. Zhouyuan Jin called for full coverage across one's mutated tissue; thus, even if he remained a single step shy of that threshold, in anyone else, it would already be the genuine article.
As the strike fell, a grand silver crescent carved through the air. The ambient light and the sunbeams from above seemed to dim abruptly, creating the fleeting illusion that space itself had been cleaved in two.
Wei Wusheng's expression hardened. In battle, he frequently sustained injuries, but that was not due to a lack of ability; it was determined by the nature of his combat style. Trading wound for wound and life for life was his way.
Yet such exchanges had to hold value, rather than being squandered in reckless clashes under meaningless conditions.
This strike had gathered momentum before its release; the power and speed behind it far exceeded ordinary bounds. If he evaded, he would inevitably be swept into the trailing momentum of the saber technique, falling into a passive disadvantage.
He could not allow his opponent to seize the initiative; this opening surge had to be suppressed.
Even as his gaze locked onto the flash of the blade, his battle-hardened body reacted faster than conscious thought, executing the most optimal response. Gripping the hammer haft with both hands, he parried upward!
An instant later, blade and hammer collided!
For a fleeting moment, time seemed to freeze. Chen Chuan held the saber in both hands mid-slash, his body appearing suspended in mid-air as the gathered force continued to bore downward.
Wei Wusheng maintained his posture, bracing the hammer with both hands, but the pavement beneath his feet cracked and splintered with sharp snaps.
After what felt like a breath or two, Chen Chuan seized the remaining momentum and was the first to shift his technique. The instant his feet touched the ground, he kicked off, sweeping toward the front-right. Dragging the blade diagonally with both hands, he relied purely on speed and momentum to slice at his opponent.
The dragged blade met the parry of the hammer. In a single crossing, Chen Chuan was already more than ten meters behind Wei Wusheng.
Yet his immense speed and strength not only expanded his combat radius, but also permitted far more exaggerated maneuvers. When fighting without restraint, such a distance was practically point-blank for both him and Wei Wusheng.
Sweeping the long saber out with one hand, Chen Chuan stomped the ground, spun around, and charged once more.
His clothes clung tight against his frame, and his hair streamed backward as if something were dragging him from behind.
Amidst the ringing clash of blade against hammer, the two crossed paths once again. Yet this was merely the beginning; as he built up his momentum, his speed climbed higher with every successive assault.
Faced with such an onslaught, Wei Wusheng could no longer remain anchored in place and began to move as well.
In the eyes of the surrounding onlookers and the students behind, both silhouettes blurred almost simultaneously, darting and flickering across the area in rapid sweeps. Only Teacher Bai at the rear could clearly follow the flow of the battle.
From the air came only the sharp sounds of the atmosphere being cleaved apart. Fragments and debris erupted from the ground, carved open in long, narrow fissures. With a sudden groan of twisting metal, a streetlamp toppled diagonally, crashing heavily to the pavement.
Moments later, with a roaring boom, an empty passenger bus drifted sideways across the road, a massive hole punched through its middle as if pierced by an artillery shell. In the very next breath, an empty sedan on the opposite side was abruptly sliced in two out of thin air, every object along the path shredded and shattered to pieces.
As this expanding zone of devastation continued to widen, it began steadily creeping toward the bus carrying the students.
Chapter 340