The fighters from the Sagu Boxing School truly seemed to have remarkably resilient bodies. That impact was no less violent than falling from a great height and crashing solidly against a wall of compacted water, yet none of them had suffered much injury, and they attempted to get back on their feet.
Yet for some unknown reason, they seemed suppressed by a force—not any tangible power, but as though the mutated tissue inside their own bodies was refusing to let them do so.
Han Fu did not possess a body as resilient as theirs, and the trauma he had just suffered was all too real. By now, he too sensed something was wrong; the mutated tissue throughout his body seemed to have slipped out of control, refusing to obey the prompting of his will, much less heal him quickly. For the moment, he was left kneeling there, unable to get up.
“What is going on?”
Seeing this scene, the two councilors were somewhat taken aback. They understood martial force conceptually, but lacked any intuitive grasp of it; all they saw was that in a single instant, Han Fu and the other three appeared to have been knocked down.
They could not help looking down on these men as utterly useless, nowhere near as capable as their subordinates had claimed, but they failed to realize anything deeper.
Some discerning fighters, however, felt a jarring sense of dissonance, sensing that something was off, even if they could not put it into words. Moreover, as third-limit fighters, Han Fu and the others moved at blinding speeds; unprepared as they were, some of the field screens were simply incapable of displaying what had transpired in that fleeting instant.
Perhaps because Han Fu and his companions had fallen, the personnel aboard the airships felt they could wait no longer. Three airships gradually closed in, forming an encirclement around the Disposal Bureau building, and issued another warning:
“Repeating for the final time! For the safety of Center City's citizens, all personnel below tainted by contaminants, lower your weapons and surrender immediately! Otherwise, we will open fire!”
Han Fu chuckled raspily. Wiping away the blood at the corner of his mouth, he looked up at Chen Chuan standing before him and said, “I still remember how you humiliated me that day. What you put me through before has finally come around to you today. How does it feel to become the target of everyone's scorn? Not pleasant, is it?”
Chen Chuan looked down at him. “It would be more convincing if you weren't on your knees right now.”
Han Fu's face flushed crimson.
Chen Chuan continued, “As for what you've said, in my eyes...”
He looked up toward the airships in the sky. At that moment, the field around him abruptly expanded outward. The three airships had encircled the plaza, hovering dozens of meters above the ground.
In that instant, as if struck by an invisible blow, their gasbags and hulls ruptured and cracked. After stalling for a moment, they suddenly broke apart, plummeting from the sky one after another.
Chen Chuan continued speaking: “...they are nothing more than toys.”
*Boom! Boom! Boom!* As if punctuating his words, colossal balls of flame erupted from three directions almost simultaneously, sending blazing light and thick smoke billowing into the sky above the plaza.
At this moment, those who had tuned in early were stunned by the spectacle.
What had just happened?
Why had those airships fallen? Had they come under some kind of attack?
Many wanted to understand what had taken place, but earlier, the airships had at least relayed field signals. Now that all three airships had crashed, the angles provided by the field screens were limited and the aerial perspective was inadequate, making it impossible to reach an accurate conclusion.
Han Fu strained to look up at Chen Chuan's standing figure. Backlit by the sun, Chen Chuan's front was obscured in shadow, and Han Fu's body began to tremble uncontrollably.
At such close range, he had directly felt that boundless, staggering power, and an answer sprang into his mind—one he dared not believe.
Chen Chuan looked down at Han Fu kneeling before him. He stepped forward, reached out to remove Han Fu's peaked cap, and seized his hair, forcing his head back.
Han Fu seemed to sense what was coming. A muffled roar tore from his throat as he struggled desperately, but his limbs could barely move; the mutated tissue inside him refused to obey his commands.
Then, he saw a fist rise and strike down toward him!
With a thunderous crash, a blast of intense jin smashed down from above. In that fraction of a second, Han Fu's flesh, internal organs, and mutated tissue were swept completely away by the violent force, spraying across the plaza pavement in a broad fan. Nothing remained except an intact skeleton still tethered to his scalp.
Chen Chuan let go, leaving the skeleton to clatter onto the ground.
Seeing this, Wang Weiguang felt his soul nearly leave his body. The instant he saw Chen Chuan's gaze sweeping toward him, an electric chill surged up his tailbone, jolting him into motion as he spun around and bolted.
Chen Chuan raised a hand, pressing his thumb against his curled index finger. Aiming at Wang Weiguang, he flicked it forward. A tiny glint of light flashed across the air—so blindingly fast that it was imperceptible, and virtually silent.
Wang Weiguang seemed to sense danger, but though his mind registered it, his body had no time to dodge. With a sharp crack, his head blew apart entirely. The momentum of his high-speed movement, driven by the kinetic force, sent his body cartwheeling through the air over a dozen times before it slammed heavily onto the edge of the plaza.
The remaining people in the square looked on in pure terror. Breathing raggedly, they slowly edged away, not daring to make any sudden moves that might draw Chen Chuan's attention.
Chen Chuan indeed paid them no heed. Turning around, he looked toward the opposite side. At that moment, a massive shadow fell across the skyscrapers flanking the area. High in the sky, an immense airship shaped like a flying beast was gliding toward them with deceptive speed.
With the arrival of this airship and the concentration of broadcast resources, the council finally displayed a complete view of the scene to every district across Center City.
Inside the conference hall in Bainiao District, the delegates of the Consortium's delegation had gathered. Watching the scene on the screen, one representative asked, “Is that a monster airship?”
A specialist replied, “Yes, it is a monster airship, internationally rated as a Class 2 war airship. It was jointly built by Great Shun's Longyin Company and Fenghai Company. Center City of Jibei Dao currently has only two of them.”
Measuring three hundred meters from bow to stern, nearly everything from its gasbags to its fuselage was constructed of biological materials. Even with the Municipal Council's financial resources, maintaining and equipping just two was their absolute limit.
The airship was mounted with dozens of ground-bombardment cannons, all loaded with specialized biological ordnance. Beyond handling warfare on a certain scale, they could also be used against extraordinarily powerful fighters.
Even if a powerful fighter could withstand or evade fire from several artillery pieces, none could endure a simultaneous barrage from dozens of guns.
Furthermore, embedded at the forward and aft ends of the airship were two main guns of immense power. Their reload time was slow, making them generally impractical against fighters, but if such targets took cover inside reinforced buildings or narrow terrain, the guns served their purpose.
Accompanying airships flew alongside and behind this behemoth; operating in concert, the two types of vessels covered each other's deficiencies.
At the same time, the field screens atop high-rises throughout every district broadcast the scene unfolding on the Disposal Bureau plaza, with commentators providing live explanations to inform the public of the “culprits” behind the crisis and the reasons for deploying the airships.
Those witnessing this could only stare wide-eyed at the screens. It had never crossed their minds that Center City possessed an airship of such titanic size.
As the behemoth drew near, its cast shadow seemed capable of swallowing both the plaza and the buildings below. Looking at the dark muzzles of the cannons bristling along its underside and flanks, virtually no one believed anyone could survive against such an engine of war.
At this moment, everyone close to Chen Chuan was watching this unfold. Though they had already received word from him beforehand telling them to ignore whatever happened and not to come to his aid, an uneasy feeling still gripped their hearts.
Most of them believed Chen Chuan could handle powerful fighters, but against a war machine of this magnitude, it seemed beyond his power.
On the perimeter of the plaza, the moment Captain Lyu saw the monster airship, he moved to dash onto the square, only for a hand to firmly hold him back.
He turned his head and saw Xu Chan. “Old Xu, what are you doing? We have to help him! How can we leave Supervisor Chen to face something like that alone?”
“No need to go.”
Xu Chan looked up, his tone steady and resolute. “Just watch.”
In Fengde District, inside Changsheng Hall, Yu Hongming and Yue Hongtao, the two elders of the Tianshu Gang, were watching the display on the field screen. Staring at Chen Chuan standing in the center of the plaza, Yue Hongtao sneered. “Wasn't it this very Supervisor Chen who warned us back then? Well, now it's his turn. I doubt he'll be able to get out of this easily, eh?”
Yu Hongming fixed his frosty brows upon the screen, observing the Sagu Boxing School fighters who still remained kneeling and unable to rise. “That remains to be seen,” he said in a low voice.
At this point, perhaps having learned from the fate of the earlier airships and fearing an unknown long-range attack, the small escort airships on either side of the monster airship opened fire with machine guns before they had even drawn close.
Yet an astounding sight occurred. Chen Chuan stood motionless where he was, not even lifting a hand to shield himself. As the bullets entered within dozens of meters of his body, they seemed to plunge into viscous liquid, stirring up ripple after ripple. Their speed slowed to a crawl, and finally, as if their momentum were completely spent, they dropped powerlessly one by one around his feet.
Chen Chuan glanced up at the sky. In his outstretched hand, an orb of flickering golden-white light suddenly flared. The radiance was so dazzling that every field screen flickered erratically and blurred, leaving only the dark outline of his silhouette standing there.
At this moment, the Municipal Council, the Consortium, the Linax Federation, and various other factions were all watching intently. Everyone who understood what this spectacle signified shot to their feet in shock and disbelief: “This is...”
Chen Chuan's gaze was calm and profound. Snapping his head up, he flung his hand upward. The massive orb of blazing golden-white light shot into the sky, instantly plunging into the monster airship.
Moments later, a tremendous detonation shook the entire heavens, and the colossal hull of the monster airship blew apart in midair!
...
...
Chapter 779