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Chen Chuan seemed to have anticipated this outcome. After delivering that single tap, he paid no more attention to the fallen disciple and instead turned his gaze toward Hiroshi Nokane. If what he had channeled earlier was hard jin, then what he was using now was soft jin—a force modeled on the String-Void Jin passed down to him by Chen Bitong. In his conception, this jin was meant to be paired with clinches and open-hand strikes. It was far more insidious and concealed than hard jin, and he had already tested it once before on Utiko. Once striking an opponent, the jin would lie buried within their flesh. If the target subsequently mobilized their mutated tissue, it would detonate in an instant, inflicting severe injury or death. Hiroshi Nokane stood there watching him. The red mist wreathing his body had grown extraordinarily dense, and in just this short span of time, it had billowed through the entire space, enveloping everyone present. The closer to his body, the richer and more vivid the crimson grew, shining like a blazing sun nestled at the center. Shiyuan Ba's eyes were bloodshot as he struggled to suppress the power churning within him. He knew all too well that charging forward now was nothing short of suicide; it would do nothing to alter the clash between the two. He believed Hiroshi Nokane understood that just as clearly. Yet why… Straining, he forced his head up to look at Hiroshi Nokane. The moment he caught the senior disciple's gaze, his body shuddered violently, for those eyes burned with venomous hatred and sheer madness. In that instant, comprehension dawned on him. As the host vessel carrying their master's spiritual presence, this senior brother of his had never possessed autonomy in daily life. Now, he was being treated merely as a disposable tool. Because of that, he wanted them—the disciples who had enjoyed their freedom—to suffer the exact same agony, using their deaths as a twisted vengeance against their master. This was likely the deepest, darkest impulse buried in Hiroshi Nokane's soul, long stifled beneath the surface with no release. Now, under intense spiritual stimulation, it laid itself bare without restraint. Yet even though he had guessed the reason, he had no power to change anything. In truth, barely a breath or two after their companion collapsed, Shiyuan Ba and the other remaining disciple rose from the ground, drew their blades, and charged straight at Chen Chuan. The last sight Shiyuan Ba saw was a single finger pointing directly toward the center of his brow. With two dull thuds, Shiyuan Ba and the other disciple collapsed to the floor. Their assault had accomplished nothing, buying only the briefest delay. Chen Chuan looked at Hiroshi Nokane, sensing that summoning these disciples to their deaths served more than just that purpose. At that moment, as the blood of the fallen men pooled and spread across the floor, the guttural sounds issuing from Nokane's throat grew louder. The entire space began to tremble faintly. Alerted by an instinctual prick of awareness, Chen Chuan glanced to the side. Near the very ceiling of the chamber, a phantom silhouette appeared. It was the same spectral form he had glimpsed earlier. The moment it manifested, it began enacting various martial movements, the regions representing mutated tissue within it pulsing and flashing with light. Wild ecstasy surfaced in Hiroshi Nokane's eyes. *This is it!* The martial arts of Anyao Arena were incomplete. This flaw was not a defect in cultivation, but a gap in cognitive understanding; every practitioner seemed to feel a lingering sense of lack. Like a solar or lunar eclipse, though inherently whole and flawless, a portion was veiled. All along, what they had pursued was to reclaim that other half—and that missing piece was the esoteric secret art of the Danliu School. What had just appeared was precisely what he needed. He did not need to train through standard methods. At times, grasping a single trick or an enlightened insight was enough to complete what one lacked. Yet this process demanded a sacrificial offering. Originally, he had planned to use the Danliu School's disciples. When he later saw Chen Chuan there, he intended to use him instead. But having realized that Chen Chuan was a tough nut to crack, making such an attempt nearly impossible, he could only turn to his own people. In truth, while the desire to drive his fellow disciples to their deaths was indeed Hiroshi Nokane's own impulse, it was also the will of the spirit possessing him. Chen Chuan discerned his objective, yet he made no move to stop him. Instead, he reached up to loosen his collar, stripped off his torn jacket, tossed it aside, and stretched his shoulders. Techniques could be elevated, and the destructive force of jin could be enhanced, but in the end, it all depended on the physical body. So long as the vessel itself underwent no fundamental transformation, the power it could unleash remained bounded. Moreover, he was more than willing to experience a higher echelon of combat art. Hiroshi Nokane watched for a moment, as though coming to an understanding. The mutated tissue within his body shifted in response, undergoing a slight hyperplasia. Though only a subtle adjustment, his internal structure became far more rational and coordinated. After a brief pause, he exhaled a long breath, tossed the short blade in his hand to the floor, and looked at Chen Chuan once more. The moment his gaze locked on, his figure blurred. A faint afterimage lingered where he had stood, while his physical body materialized before Chen Chuan in a smear of speed, a palm thrusting straight toward Chen Chuan's head. Chen Chuan recognized that the speed of this strike far exceeded anything before. Raising his arm in a parry, he intercepted the blow dead-on. A ferocious penetrating force crashed through his guard, immediately followed by another immense wave of propulsive momentum. Though Chen Chuan's feet did not leave the ground, he was shoved back over ten meters, plowing two long, deep furrows into the rugged floor. *The Danliu School's two-stage power, is it?* he thought. But he quickly deduced that Anyao Arena's penetrating jin was interwoven within it as well. Carrying traits of both, he truly seemed to have fused the two distinct forces into one. Maintaining his palm-thrusting posture, Hiroshi Nokane bared his teeth in a grin and sprang forward again. Chen Chuan was not particularly concerned by the evolution of Nokane's jin. What drew his attention was that the man's physical conditioning had spiked yet again, surpassing Chen Chuan's current state. This was undoubtedly the spiritual force behind him providing continuous reinforcement. Yet he knew full well that the stronger a body, the stronger the spirit it could project. By that same token, a powerful spirit demanded a sturdier vessel to bear it. If an imbalance occurred and the spiritual pressure completely crushed what the physical frame could sustain, catastrophic failure would ensue. With that thought, Chen Chuan adjusted his focus. In an instant, he released the suppression over his mutated tissue. Facing the incoming figure, he pushed off the balls of his feet and charged straight back. The moment their fists swung toward each other, Hiroshi Nokane seemed to sense something amiss. He shifted his posture mid-motion, raising one arm to deflect Chen Chuan's strike while thrusting his other palm down violently to intercept the punch aimed at his abdomen. Yet even with Mind Jin shielding him, the point of impact could not endure the sheer concussive momentum surging across. Flesh and skin instantly ruptured, and the five fingers of his hand bent out of shape with a sickening crunch. His pupils shrank. Knowing he could not allow that force to seep into his core, his mutated tissue writhed in rapid succession, unleashing an abrupt burst of strength that shoved Chen Chuan away. Gliding back in a sideways retreat, vital essence pumped from his heart, and his twisted fingers snapped back into alignment amidst the grating sound of shifting bones. Yet he paused for merely a fraction of a second. Digging his heel into the floor, he launched himself forward once more like a cannonball, hurtling toward Chen Chuan. Chen Chuan noted that his speed had surged noticeably beyond the previous bout. As expected, sustained stimulation had allowed him to draw on the spirit to elevate his performance again. Yet underneath Nokane's skin, his blood ran scorchingly hot—a consequence of the rapid, frantic mobilization of mutated tissue. Such signs indicated he was fast approaching the limits of what his body could bear. Chen Chuan kept his eyes locked on his opponent. This time, he did not rely on hard jin for an outright slugfest. Instead, he adopted grappling, throws, and holds to parry and counter. After a brief flurry, Hiroshi Nokane felt the disadvantage and sought to break away, but Chen Chuan gave him no room to catch his breath, pressing in relentlessly for a grinding clinch. This forced Hiroshi Nokane to match his intensity and tempo stroke for stroke. If he wished to disengage, his only option was to ramp up his power and speed further. Within half a minute, fresh blood began seeping from Nokane's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The mist shrouding his body took on a pungent, coppery stench. Rather than backing off, Chen Chuan quickened the pace, disregarding the blows aimed at him to actively force trades of injury for injury. Protected by external conditioning Mind Jin, even taking a hit served only to temper his own internal force. But whenever he landed a blow on Hiroshi Nokane, it invariably shattered whatever part it struck. Under this relentless, suffocating pressure, Hiroshi Nokane's breathing grew ragged and heavy. The muscles across his frame twitched erratically, and bloody fissures resembling cracked porcelain began to spread across his skin. Across his cheeks and over his exposed upper body, these dense, hairline fissures appeared, oozing trails of dark blood. Hiroshi Nokane noticed the deterioration, but faced with Chen Chuan's relentless assault, he could not stop. Breaking free of Chen Chuan demanded still greater strength and higher speed, yet doing so would only accelerate his body's total collapse. After several more minutes of savage combat, a bloody hole burst open on Hiroshi Nokane's shoulder with a sharp crack. A few breaths later, another chunk of flesh on his back ruptured, the damage showing no sign of regeneration. A bizarre expression manifested across Nokane's face: one half seemed paralyzed with stark terror, while the other wore an unnerving, unfathomable calm. A part of his consciousness appeared to be resisting, desperate to speak yet unable to form words, while another part drove him forward, commanding him to press on. As a result, the fissures across his body widened further, one bloody rupture bursting after another. Yet his spirit condensed with terrifying sharpness, as though something monumental was brewing within. The terror on the fearful half of his face gradually faded, steadily overtaken by that profound, eerie composure. Chen Chuan appeared entirely oblivious to the shift, maintaining the exact same ferocious offensive as before. Then, the moment that swelling power crested at its absolute peak, Hiroshi Nokane let out a thunderous roar and threw an all-out punch straight at him. This strike seemed to vaporize and burn away every remaining scrap of his flesh, pouring all of his life essence into the blow. From that total sacrifice, a peerless, devastating might was born, traveling with a speed that left nowhere to dodge. In Chen Chuan's spiritual perception, a titanic fist manifested before him, looking as though it would swallow him whole—an attack impossible to evade. Yet he had no intention of dodging. He drove his own fist straight forward in reply! The two fists collided in an instant. With an earth-shattering boom, the entire space violently shuddered. In that very breath, Hiroshi Nokane's entire body disintegrated, exploding into a shower of pulverized flesh and blood that splattered and pattered against the chamber walls. On the other side, Chen Chuan remained standing where he was, his arm extended in the follow-through of the punch. Upon the surface of his knuckles, a faint, crystalline light flickered quietly.