With a tremendous rumble, under the impact of the immense force between both sides, the pavilion beneath Wilhelm's feet violently collapsed and shattered.
Yet in the eyes of both combatants, the world seemed to slow to a crawl. Flying debris from the building and splintered wood from the shattered spear drifted slowly outward, while the two men appeared almost frozen in midair.
Their gazes locked across the open air.
Only now did Wilhelm get a clear look at his opponent—attired in Great Shun military dress, overcoat and scarf billowing behind him, wielding a gleaming saber that had just cleaved his spear apart.
Chen Chuan fixed his eyes on the man. His slash had blown through the weapon entirely. Against such an attack, unless the opponent was prepared in advance, there would be no time to recover; in the very next instant, the saber's momentum would carry through to decapitate the enemy, even if their strength was comparable.
Such was the advantage of seizing the initiative.
Yet Wilhelm had indeed prepared. Amidst the fragments of the exploding spear, a white spear core remained gripped in his hands, still matching the Xuejun Saber in reach.
The weapon's unique design relied on its outer shaft to deflect force; shattering in an instant, the outer layer had dissipated a massive amount of jin, while the Xuejun Saber had actually been deflected slightly off-course by the recoil.
Right at this juncture, Wilhelm thrust the spear core violently toward Chen Chuan's silhouette.
An instant later, a faint gleam flared from the spearhead.
This was undeniably the power of spiritual perception. In a clash between opponents of the same tier, a combatant without the means to defend would fall in an instant.
Chen Chuan gazed straight ahead, his eyes tranquil and unrippled. The Xuejun Saber in his hand had drifted off by half a notch; under normal circumstances, bringing it back would require readjustment, and that window would have been plenty of time for his opponent's spear to pierce him.
Yet at this very moment, the saber snapped back with blistering speed—this was actually a second-tier jin!
As it thrust forward, a faint gleam blossomed along the blade as well!
With a crack, the saber struck square against the flank of the spear core. As the two glows of spiritual perception collided, the surrounding light dimmed for a split second, and even the air seemed to warp.
Spiritual perception could only be countered by spiritual perception, but once the two glows dispersed in mutual neutralization, what followed was the clash of physical force between spear and saber!
The Book of Vanhe practiced by Wilhelm placed immense emphasis on the unity of mind and body: training the flesh cultivated the spirit, and tempering the spirit honed the physique. Thus, within his attacks, the two were seamlessly fused.
A single strike carried both spiritual and physical concussive force working in tandem, achieving far greater destructive power.
Under normal circumstances, very few could withstand a thrust like this, for if a fighter possessed even the slightest disharmony between mind and body, Wilhelm could rip open the flaw in that seam and deal a fatal blow.
Yet this collision defied all his expectations. As a practitioner of the Book of Vanhe, he could sense that his opponent's spirit and flesh had not reached perfect harmony. That was normal—under most cultivation systems, a fighter's bodily and mental progress developed unevenly, and that was precisely the flaw he was poised to exploit.
To his shock, however, he failed to budge his foe in the slightest. The opponent's physical strength vastly outmatched his own, and even his mental power was half a step higher. In truth, whether in spirit or body, as long as one lagged behind, Wilhelm could locate a weakness. But now both aspects surpassed him completely. Instead of breaking through the enemy's stance, he was the one driven back and suppressed by the rebound.
A wave of force traveled down the spear core into his body. Though most of it was absorbed by the mutated tissue within the spear, a portion still slammed into the mutated tissue inside him, hindering his execution of jin. Furthermore, he could foresee that the spear shaft would inevitably be jarred aside, opening a sliver of an opening.
In high-intensity combat, a hairline disparity could decide life and death. An experienced adversary had only to seize upon that discrepancy, maintain the advantage, and gradually press it forward to claim victory.
In a contest between two fighters of comparable rank, such a progression was virtually irreversible—unless the attacker made a blunder.
Yet he would never gamble on Chen Chuan making a mistake; individuals at their level simply did not commit such amateurish blunders.
Thus, having reached this stage in the contest, it appeared he had already lost. Yet at that very moment, starlight seemed to flare in his eyes. The mutated tissue suppressed by the shock of jin suddenly surged with vitality, entirely shaking off the interference and growing even more resilient than before.
This was because he had cultivated and endured the Tribulation Trials recorded in the Book of Vanhe.
Once having passed through these trials, when driven to the edge of desperation, one could catch a renewed breath of vitality—not only mending whatever damage had been sustained, but growing stronger than before.
Having already undergone three Tribulation Trials, he possessed three full opportunities for such resurgence. Each time, his physical condition would soar, and should he reach the third, he believed his power would be unmatched.
Now, appearing wholly untouched by the previous impact, he steadied the vibrating spear core in the nick of time, wrenching it back to clash once more against the oncoming Xuejun Saber.
This time, not only had his strength surged, but his mental elevation had shifted from slightly inferior to half a step superior. That slight edge was enough for him to unleash the full virtue of his jin. So long as he parried the enemy's blade aside by even a fraction, the initiative would fall firmly into his grasp!
Faint gleams clung to both weapons, yet Mind Jin was already radiating outward, causing their forces to collide and grapple before the steel even touched.
Chen Chuan immediately sensed the overall surge in his opponent's power and could roughly deduce that some esoteric art had been invoked.
At this point, all he needed to do was merge with his Second Self to smash through every obstacle before him, yet he refrained.
When the blade clashed once more against the spear, the jin he channeled took on a fresh variation, absorbing the opponent's force completely without disruption and slashing out a third strike in a seamless horizontal sweep!
This was the Turning Spiral Jin belonging to Fan Mo of the Lianwei Heavy Control Company.
He could simulate this jin from the Old State Religion, though he could not execute it with the circular fluidity of Fan Mo. But he had no need for such perfection; absorbing the force while instantly unleashing his next attack was more than sufficient.
His raw power still surpassed his adversary's, so as long as he maintained the momentum of his offense, he retained the upper hand!
When their forces collided again, Wilhelm's enhanced physique still could not fully withstand the shock of jin penetrating his body. Yet his resilient foundation drove his spirit into a state of feverish excitement, and his body instantaneously underwent a second metamorphosis.
What was more, spurred by the incomparable pressure radiating from his foe, he bridged straight from the second metamorphosis into a third reactionary elevation.
This time, his strength, speed, and spirit all soared to heights unprecedented in his entire career as a fighter. With a twist of the spear core, seemingly immune to the shock of collision, he took the initiative and hunted down the Xuejun Saber.
Chen Chuan's gaze remained deep and calm, like a bottomless pool. A flash of brilliance rippled across the Xuejun Saber as he met the blow head-on.
The moment the two weapons engaged, there was no violent clash like before.
The force surging from his opponent seemed to plunge into a void, while at the same time, an explosive power nearly double that of a moment ago erupted from the blade.
Assistant Ling's Void-Piercing Jin!
He was suspended midair and could not channel the enemy's force into the ground, but he could shunt it directly to Hongfu. Though he could not focus multiple times the power into a single pinpoint burst like Assistant Ling, doubling it was more than enough.
With a crack, the saber jarred the spear core aside, and the blade light darted forward, hissing across Wilhelm's neck.
Wilhelm's eyes snapped wide. Though his head was severed, it had not yet had time to part from his shoulders.
Yet in this fleeting breath, the immense stimulation of impending death allowed him to glimpse the fourth Tribulation Trial that had always eluded him.
This trial demanded a complete metamorphosis on the threshold of true death, and right now, he felt it with absolute clarity.
At this moment, his flesh was slain, yet his spirit lived on.
A desperate will to survive fed his spirit back into his body, quietly moving the spear he could no longer feel. He deduced that after this strike, Chen Chuan's strength would be spent to its limit, poised at the edge of exhaustion.
If he could only drive the spear home, he would surely kill his foe in a single blow. Then, under the fierce mental exhilaration of victory, he would pass this Tribulation Trial. When that happened, not only could he reattach his head, but his cultivation would ascend to a whole new level.
Yet before the spear could come around, the long saber in Chen Chuan's hands snapped around. The blade light that had already cut through showed no sign of faltering; instead, it was drawn back once more as he gripped the hilt with both hands and raised it high.
What he invoked now was Flying Dragon Fist Jin!
Flying Dragon Fist Jin was meant for fists, but the underlying principle was identical: executing continuous, looping strikes in midair, using the preceding technique to fuel the next, and borrowing the enemy's momentum so that one's power never ran dry.
And this move could be called the Flying Dragon Saber Strike!
The blade hacked down violently. With a sharp hiss, the blade light flashed from top to bottom through Wilhelm's body, carving a semicircular slash across the air that seemed to cleave the dust and atmosphere in two.
Though they had traded several blows in midair, the exchanges had occurred so swiftly that only now did both men begin to show signs of falling.
With a tap, Chen Chuan's feet touched the ground, and Wilhelm landed at the exact same moment.
All around them, an unending rain of dust, splinters, and rubble clattered down.
Holding his saber, Chen Chuan watched Wilhelm closely. The latter remained frozen in a spearman's stance. Moments later, the light faded from his eyes, and the spear core clattered to the ground. His head toppled off, followed by his headless corpse splitting right down the middle, each half collapsing to either side and kicking up a puff of dust.
Chapter 727