Dominance

Sister Huan’s pupils contracted as Chen Chuan abruptly materialized before her, along with the descending blade that looked heavy enough to crush her. Yet she did not back down. Relying on the forward momentum of her charge, jin surged up from her waist and back into the tips of her twin thrusting spikes. With two rapid taps against a precise spot on the blade—*ting, ting!*—she deflected it outward. Even from that fleeting clashing deflection, the tremendous force transmitted from the blade still made her body veer uncontrollably to the other side. Just as Chen Chuan was about to square his blade back into position, a violent surge of wind pressure whipped in from his left and right, and the ground trembled. At that very moment, the two remaining operatives had finished steadying themselves and bore down on him in unison. They had coordinated with Sister Huan numerous times; one glance at her maneuver told them her intention: to slow Chen Chuan’s movements by meeting him head-on, giving them the chance to mount a surprise assault. Seizing this window, they darted straight into his inner guard and simultaneously unleashed grappling, locking, and clinching techniques on him. Under their prior contingency plan, someone would pin him down from the front while others sought an opening to entangle and grapple Chen Chuan, denying him the space to move or unleash his full power. Sister Huan possessed a technique known as "Heart-Piercing Thrust." So long as she gathered sufficient momentum, her speed could double in an instant. If they could restrict Chen Chuan—even for the briefest heartbeat—it would create the opening she needed for that fatal strike. Sister Huan had begun regulating her breathing the moment they charged. Now her foot planted down, halting her on the spot. Crouching slightly, twin spikes pointed forward, she maintained a poised stance ready to spring into a lunge. Beneath the tight-fitting suit across her back, her muscles could be seen rippling like water—her mutated tissue was gathering power. Ahead, facing the two men lunging at him, Chen Chuan released his grip on the Xuejun Saber. Extending both hands, he caught each of their thick, reaching arms in a single motion. A surge of jin abruptly invaded their bodies, leaving half their frames sore, numb, and sapped of strength. Realizing immediately that this was a form of grappling jin, their expressions twisted with shock and fury. Just as Chen Chuan secured his hold on the pair, Sister Huan had finished preparing. She pushed off with her toes, carving a crater into the bridge deck beneath her. Crushed stone blasted backward as she shot toward him like an arrow released from a bow! Chen Chuan loosened his hands, releasing the men flanking him. In a flash, he caught the hilt of the Xuejun Saber before it touched the ground and parried upward at an angle. *Clang!* The two joined spikes were deflected aside. Yet the force behind them was indeed formidable; his feet skidded backward across the ground for some distance. Rebounding from his parry, Sister Huan was likewise jarred into a backward leap. Had Chen Chuan seized the momentum to press forward at that instant, she would have had no way to defend herself. Fortunately, her two teammates to either side had already recovered from the numbness. With furious roars, they surged toward Chen Chuan together. Their faces flushed crimson, bodies radiating scalding heat, their frames even seemed to swell by a full margin as the pungent reek of pharmaceuticals practically seeped from their pores. Yet the moment they took their first steps, as though he had calculated it long in advance, Chen Chuan released the Xuejun Saber once more. Lightly extending his hands, he clamped onto their reaching arms and wrists with flawless precision. Just like before, their bodies went involuntarily numb, half of their frames frozen once again. Their faces twisted in disbelief, baffled by how Chen Chuan could anticipate their every strike with pinpoint accuracy—almost as if they were serving themselves directly into his hands. This was because they were moving within Chen Chuan’s field. With no concealment over their field expressions whatsoever, every fraction of physical data, every rhythm of their stride, and every intent they harbored were laid bare for him to read clearly. Sister Huan was still recovering her footing after landing. Seeing her two teammates trapped once more, she knew that unless she acted immediately, Chen Chuan might kill them in the very next heartbeat. She had no choice but to hastily summon her jin and spring into a charge. By now, Chen Chuan had thoroughly gauged her technique. Leaping forward at the same moment, he slipped right between the two operatives. Mid-stride, he snatched the falling Xuejun Saber out of the air, swept the blade overhead with both hands gripping the hilt, and chopped straight down at the oncoming silhouette! Sister Huan tensed at the sight of the descending blade. Charging head-to-head like this, the saber would inevitably strike her first. Even if she didn’t die immediately and managed to drive her twin spikes into Chen Chuan’s body, whatever strength remained behind them would hardly inflict meaningful harm on him. Left with no alternative, she stomped the ground and twisted her body aside to evade the brunt of his strike. As if having anticipated her maneuver all along, Chen Chuan’s sweeping blade ground to an abrupt halt just as it pointed straight forward. Driven by a deliberate transfer of jin, the scabbard slipped from the blade with a sharp *shhhk* and shot out in a straight line. Sister Huan was already veering to the side when she suddenly realized what was happening. Her expression changed drastically, panic flickering across her face. Chen Chuan remained expressionless. Both hands gripping the hilt, he pivoted backward, bringing the blade over his head, and whipped it forward in a fierce diagonal slash. A flash of blade light swept across the two charging men! In an instant, both men’s bodies and limbs were severed into multiple segments midair. Still carried forward by momentum, they finally scattered apart, rolling across the deck in severed chunks far behind him. Chen Chuan held his slashing stance as a gust of wind swept across, billowing smoke over the bridge deck past him while blood flowed outward beneath his feet. Glancing back, he saw Sister Huan had repositioned to the other side. A flicker of terror surfaced in her eyes, only to fade quickly, replaced by a profound, deathly stillness. It was evident she had completely cast aside all thoughts of survival. Taking a deep breath, she tapped the twin spikes together before parting them to either side, her biological field suddenly surging and expanding. The mutated tissue in her body thrashed outward, forming ridged bulges beneath her tight suit as even her musculature and skeletal structure seemed to alter. With total disregard for life and death, she had unleashed every drop of the changeless mind and vital essence she had stored up over time. Sensing that the threshold between life and death was right before it, the mutated tissue in her body launched its final struggle, unleashing its utmost potential. Chen Chuan watched her calmly, wisps of white vapor rising from his body and drifting without dispersing even against the howling gale. Sister Huan slowly sank into a crouch, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Chen Chuan. Veins bulged across her face and forehead, her body temperature spiking rapidly. She knew that without the two teammates to pin him down, failure in this attack meant certain death. Thus, this strike would be her sole remaining opportunity, and she would pour everything she had into it. A moment later, she drove her foot into the ground. Power surged up from the soles of her feet, rippling through her waist, abdomen, and spine. Propelled by the full might of her mutated tissue, she harnessed this force to burst forward, channeling all that built-up momentum into the long spikes extended before her hands. The charge was fast as a fleeting shadow, completely disregarding any follow-through. Yet upon closing in, she swung both arms and hurled them forward! Seeing the spikes fly at him with even greater velocity, Chen Chuan flicked his blade upward from below. *Clang!* One of the spikes was parried aside, but the second came in unavoidable, seemingly poised to pierce straight through his head. A glimmer of hope rose in Sister Huan’s chest at the sight. Yet as the spike struck its target, it passed through what seemed to be nothing more than an afterimage, flying clean across the span. After traversing over thirty meters, it plunged into the safety barrier and embedded itself entirely inside. She was stunned. Carried forward by the sheer momentum of her overexertion, she hurtled straight ahead—only to meet the edge of a palm positioned right at her throat. Her body slammed into it, and with a crisp *crack*, her neck snapped. Chen Chuan held his arm horizontally. Glancing aside, he looked at Sister Huan hanging there. Her entire body had gone completely limp, the tips of her dangling toes suspended slightly above the ground. Her hair spilled over the back of his hand, veiling her face, yet he could sense that she was still stubbornly clinging to a breath of life. After a moment, Sister Huan produced a sound through the vibration of her muscles: "Why?" Chen Chuan knew she was asking about the final strike. He answered earnestly, "I'm sorry. You missed." This was an application of the biological field. Because Sister Huan had poured every ounce of her changeless mind and vital essence into that attack, the hyper-stimulation of her mutated tissue and the explosive surge of emotion had rendered her external senses exceptionally vulnerable to outside disturbance. He had keenly perceived the shifts within her body, seized upon the flaw, and deliberately fed false field information into her perception. Although it caused only a slight disturbance—perhaps lasting no more than a flicker of a moment—in high-speed combat, such a minute discrepancy was enough to determine an entirely different outcome. Perhaps had he chosen to endure it head-on, the result would have been the same. But when the situation was not dire and could be settled with technique, he generally preferred to resolve things through skill. At that moment, the thrum of propeller blades sounded in the distance. Looking up, he saw two small white airships flying toward the scene, emblazoned with the logo of the Convergence Boundary Company. The directional machine guns slung beneath them were clearly visible. On the route map he had handed to Meng Shu earlier, this specific stretch of the overpass had been marked as a focal point. Because it lay precisely between the Bainiao District and the Center City District, it was the one place other garrison forces would struggle to reach in time. Therefore, he had Convergence Boundary’s airships lease a staging area outside, keeping them on standby to provide support and eliminate any hostiles. The moment the convoy came under attack, the airships had set out, and they had now arrived. Noticing a shift, Chen Chuan looked back at Sister Huan. Her breath had ceased completely—not from a depletion of vitality, but because she had chosen to end her own life. He lowered his arm, letting her body drop to the ground. Then, carrying the Xuejun Saber, he stepped through the drifting smoke ahead and walked toward the private car. …… ……