Radiant Sun

Only the short blade remained in Hiroshi Nokane's hand. He stared intently at Chen Chuan, his chest heaving slightly and his eyes filled with shock, suspicion, and excitement—a deeply conflicted mix of emotions. He was unnerved by his opponent's formidable power, yet at the same time, he had yearned for such an adversary. Twisting the short blade in his grip, he assumed a solemn, meticulous stance. Chen Chuan tore off his damaged half-sleeve and strode forward. Guided by the effects of his external conditioning Mind Jin, his entire body was virtually devoid of flaws, making his advance radiate overwhelming pressure. Watching him approach, Hiroshi Nokane's breathing quickened. Blood rushed through his veins with accelerating speed, his nostrils flared, and his pupils began to dilate. Once Chen Chuan closed the distance, Nokane took a sudden, explosive step forward. A burst of sharp white mist flickered at the tip of his short blade, and in a flash, it thrust toward Chen Chuan's face. Chen Chuan tilted his head aside while reaching out to lock his wrist. Having suffered in the close-quarters grapple earlier, Nokane was on high alert. He retracted his arm immediately, retreated swiftly to the side and rear, and used short thrusts of his blade to maintain the distance between them. Because that flurry of combat had intensely stimulated his mind, it accelerated the fusion between his own being and the spiritual essence attached to him. As a result, his movements were markedly faster than when they had first traded blows. Yet this did nothing to alter his unfavorable predicament. Confronted with Chen Chuan's relentless close-range pressure, all he could do was constantly dodge and retreat. With Chen Chuan's external conditioning Mind Jin circulating with fluid perfection, the youth feared neither stabs nor slashes and possessed formidable grappling techniques, leaving Nokane utterly unable to mount an effective counterattack. Inevitably, impatience set in. Nokane knew full well that continuing like this meant certain defeat; he required greater power to overcome his foe. Under this driving resolve, everything aligned toward his immediate need. Everything else—physical damage, the drain of his life force—ceased to matter. The moment he abandoned such concerns, a valve of instinctive resistance within his body seemed to snap open. Within mere breaths, his eyes turned an even deeper crimson, and tiny pores broke out across his skin, oozing wisps of red mist. Almost simultaneously, his strength and speed surged. His movements turned razor-sharp, and techniques flowed from him in rapid succession. Chen Chuan could feel it: each time they drew close and he came into contact with that red mist, a stinging pain pricked at his surface. Off to the side, Shiyuan Ba knelt on one knee, propping himself up with his blade resting against the ground. The dizziness in his head still prevented him from standing, but it did not stop him from watching the fight. He noticed their exchange grew ever faster, until he could no longer discern their individual moves. Yet he could see the red mist wafting from Hiroshi Nokane, trailing fleeting ribbons of crimson through the air as he moved at high speed, expanding outward. Shiyuan Ba gasped in shock. "Could this be... Moon Radiance?" The method of "Moon Radiance" was a technique on par with "Mind Action." In battle, the user's mutated tissue secreted a special substance that constantly eroded the opponent's spirit across its area of dispersal. This forced an opponent to maintain absolute vigilance, yet the substance seeped through every opening. At the slightest lapse in attention, it would invade the body, affecting sections of the victim's mutated tissue and inducing sluggishness. If not resolved in time, the cumulative harm would inevitably become irreversible. However, this technique required one's bodily cultivation to reach a certain echelon. To his knowledge, none among Anyao Arena's disciples had mastered it. Yet recalling the aura that now bore a resemblance to their master's, he could roughly guess the reason: the attached spiritual power must be at work. While Chen Chuan resisted the waves of mental invasion, he could also sense that his opponent's speed continued to mount, the power behind his strikes steadily climbing without any apparent ceiling. If things went on like this, it wouldn't be long before Nokane overpowered him. Seeing this, Chen Chuan held back no longer. He drew a deep breath. Instantly, his breath turned scorching hot, and wisps of white mist rose from his body, drifting upward. The moment the Furnace Breathing Technique went into motion, Chen Chuan launched into an aggressive advance. This time, he eschewed grappling entirely in favor of blindingly swift open-hand strikes. In an instant, heavy, crushing blows rained down on his opponent like a torrential storm. The red mist cloaking Hiroshi Nokane thickened even further. He parried and deflected the oncoming onslaught of punches and kicks while the spiritual power behind him steadily bolstered him, driving his strength and speed higher and refining his execution of jin techniques. His previously clumsy Mind Jin began to operate with practiced fluency. Far from being discouraged, Chen Chuan felt invigorated. Facing the jin surging at him, he neither dodged nor evaded, meeting every blow head-on to continuously adjust and temper his own Mind Jin. Their collisions set off continuous explosive booms in the space, causing the entire creature's interior to tremble violently. Terrified of being caught in the fallout, Shiyuan Ba strained to crawl further back. As for the others lying on the ground, he had neither the thought nor the strength to look after them. Fortunately, they had all collapsed near the entrance, well outside the main radius of the clash. In the clearing, Chen Chuan and Hiroshi Nokane exchanged blows continuously for three to four minutes. Ordinary contests between fighters usually concluded within minutes, to say nothing of such high-intensity clashes, which drained both stamina and spirit at an alarming rate. Yet both men had powerful foundations to draw upon. Far from weakening under the ferocious exchange, their momentum surged ever higher. Two swirling mists—one white, one red—collided and churned within the chamber, tangling and roiling together. Chen Chuan felt an exhilarating sense of satisfaction. Rarely in the past had he encountered an opponent who met him head-on without ceding an inch. With every clash of techniques, he could feel his Mind Jin being forged, his spirit growing clearer and more lucid. After a few more minutes, something clicked within him. A bright gleam shone in his eyes, and he drove a fist violently forward. As the punch shot out, his entire arm was enveloped in a surging coil of white mist. Even before Chen Chuan launched the punch, Nokane's senses must have detected the danger. His pupils snapped tight, and instead of bracing for a direct block as he had before, he swerved aside. In that split second, the fist grazed past his body. A burst of bloody mist exploded from the skin along one side of his torso, while a surge of white vapor blasted forth along the punch's trajectory, letting loose a series of rolling, thunderous rumbles. Every hair on Nokane's body stood on end. Under this extreme shock, the spiritual essence within him underwent yet another sublimation. A faint, sharp glint flared in his eyes, and the red mist dispersing from his body suddenly thickened. Right then, one of the third limit Anyao Arena disciples who had been kneeling on the ground abruptly jerked his head up. Lunging forward, he drew his blade and thrust toward Chen Chuan's flank. Given this disciple's caliber, he should have been entirely unable to track the two men's movements, yet the angle of his thrust was uncannily precise. Glancing at the incoming attack, Chen Chuan casually swung a backfist directly into the man's blade. A burst of white mist traveled instantly down the metal toward the attacker. First, the blade shattered section by section; next, both of his arms blew apart; then, the mutated tissue and muscles throughout his body involved in generating force erupted simultaneously. A mangled mass of flesh and blood, the disciple flew backward and crashed to the ground, rendered completely unrecognizable. Chen Chuan clenched his fingers, and wisps of white mist vented from between them. This was the Mind Jin he had just comprehended. It integrated not only the explosive jin Chen Bitong had taught him, but also techniques from Cloud-Shattering Fist Jin. Most crucially, he had harmonized his own spirit into the circulation of his jin to a flawless degree, allowing him to unleash an immense and unadulterated concussive force in a single instant. Had Hiroshi Nokane braced to take that punch rather than dodge, the point of contact would have been blown apart on the spot. If the trailing force had not been neutralized in time, his body would have been shattered by the jin just like the disciple before them. Hiroshi Nokane used the opening while Chen Chuan dealt with his fellow disciple to back away. Wary of the terrifying jin Chen Chuan had displayed, he did not rush back into the fray. Instead, he crossed his hands and let out a bizarre sound from his mouth. At the same time, Shiyuan Ba and the other two third limit fighters suddenly found their bodies slipping from their control. One of the disciples leaped up almost immediately and charged at Chen Chuan. As he bolted forward, beads of blood seeped from his skin, showing that he was recklessly squeezing every drop of potential and vitality from his body. Shiyuan Ba had already taken a step, but perhaps due to his deeper cultivation, his face flushed scarlet as he forcefully rooted himself in place, wrestling against the power within his body. Another fellow disciple also sensed something was terribly wrong and struggled to resist, though it looked as if he could not hold out for much longer. Seeing that this man's condition mirrored the previous attacker's, Chen Chuan glanced across at Hiroshi Nokane. Recalling what Talu had told him earlier, he thought, *Is this the "Great Radiant Sun"...?* Anyao Arena placed great emphasis on utilizing field-based spirit. Once a fighter attained a certain realm, they could master an esoteric technique known as the "Great Radiant Sun." Once deployed, the user emitted an invisible field capable of influencing an opponent's mutated tissue. In some ways, it resembled the double jin of Danliu School, yet it required no physical contact. Under the influence of this field and spiritual power, the harder mutated tissue resisted, the more severely it was tormented, rapidly suffering necrosis. Although a fighter could recover quickly by expending vital essence, they were inevitably forced onto the defensive. Another byproduct of this esoteric technique was its ability to manipulate fighters of the same school. Once ignited by the Great Radiant Sun, even if they had lost consciousness, their mutated tissue would be compelled into action, turning them into puppets of the instigator. Seeing the man charge in, Chen Chuan raised a finger and tapped it against the disciple's glabella. The man shuddered violently and staggered back several steps. This time, however, Chen Chuan did not seem to employ the destructive jin from before; his strike looked thoroughly effortless. The Anyao Arena disciple appeared largely unharmed. Stumbling back a few paces, he attempted to charge once more. But after just two steps, a rapid series of muffled explosions detonated inside his body, and he collapsed to the ground, twitching helplessly. ... ...