Bai Gu looked at Chen Chuan and frowned. "Young man, did someone put you up to this?"
Chen Chuan did not answer the question. Instead, he stepped out of the pavilion and said, "I hope Senior will not disappoint me." As he spoke, a faint luminescence emerged from his body, swiftly swelling into a surging, vaporous golden-white light.
Bai Gu turned slowly as well, a jade-white radiance appearing around her. Their biological fields began pressing and colliding against each other, dense fissures spiderwebbing along the edges of contact.
Right then, a muffled, thunderous roar rolled in from the distance. Though coming from far away, the reverberation still rattled the eardrums, testament to the immense power of the explosion.
Bai Gu's expression shifted slightly. She could tell the sound had come from the direction of the armory. If an explosion happened there, it was either an assault by external enemies or detonated by their own people—and she could guess why someone might do that.
Yet facing Chen Chuan right before her, she could not spare the attention to ponder anything else. In a slow, heavy voice, she said, "Young man, you haven't made a wise choice."
"If you are unwilling to strike, Senior, that is fine too," Chen Chuan said. "We can just keep waiting here."
Bai Gu said no more. She raised the sword in her hand, gripped the hilt, and slowly drew the blade. The mirror-like steel slipped free of the scabbard with a clear clang. A blinding flash of white light instantly flared in all directions, and in that very instant, the sword had already slashed right before Chen Chuan!
At the exact same moment, three figures virtually identical to her materialized to Chen Chuan's left, right, and rear, thrusting their blades forward simultaneously!
Yet as the four sword points drove forward together, they all struck empty air. Chen Chuan had vanished from the spot, leaving only the reverberating shockwave of a shattered biological field.
Bai Gu's eyes flashed. She whipped around and swung her blade. The spiritual light atop the sword suddenly surged into a twenty-meter stream of brilliance that swept horizontally across the area. With a sharp shing, the shimmering light sliced over the lake's surface. In that fraction of a second, the topmost layer of water seemed to vaporize, sending up a swirling mist of steam.
Still, the strike hit nothing. And before she could recover her swing, a fist flashing with vaporous light came crashing down!
Of the three mirror-images that had split off, one rushed in to intercept, only to shatter beneath the fist with a resounding bang. But the second instantly stepped in, only to be crushed just as effortlessly. The third charged next and was likewise scattered with a single blow, yet this bought Bai Gu the time she needed to pull her sword back into position.
With a flash of cold light, the blade cleaved straight toward Chen Chuan. The stroke was swift, fierce, and vicious, nearly impossible to evade at such close range.
Watching the blade close in rapidly, Chen Chuan saw the jade-white radiance shimmering along it like bristling needlepoints, illuminating his face in pure white and throwing the deep-pool stillness of his eyes into stark relief.
He showed no intention of dodging. Instead, he reached out with his bare hand and pressed directly against the incoming blade! In an instant, a torrent of fire of spirituality erupted from the point of contact, splashing outward and rapidly dissolving.
Catching a weapon bare-handed was rarely a wise choice. Mutated weapons could channel and gather greater amounts of the fire of spirituality, and due to their nature, the concentration along the blade's edge was typically far higher than that on a human body. Thus, the fire of spirituality around his hand was burning away at an even faster rate.
Yet his hand clamped firmly onto the blade, refusing to let go, while his other fist drove forward in a follow-up blast!
Bai Gu was taken aback. In all her century-plus of life, she had never encountered an opponent who attacked with such brazen ferocity, entirely reckless and pressing forward without the slightest thought of retreat.
They were too close now; there was no room left to dodge. She could only raise an arm to block. With a booming clash, sparks of spiritual fire burst before their eyes, disintegrating rapidly.
Her parry had been hasty, as most of her spirituality was concentrated in her sword. Even so, her vast experience served her well. Seeing her fire of spirituality dispersing rapidly, before it could completely vanish, she pushed against him with the sword to leverage a swift leap backward, allowing her arm to cleanly disengage from Chen Chuan's fist while also slightly checking his forward momentum.
Yet beyond all expectation, Chen Chuan's punch did not stall in the slightest. It followed through, the spiritual light on his fist surging violently. With a thunderous burst, it crashed into her, not only shattering the final layer of her spiritual defense in an instant, but also driving a lingering strand of vaporous force straight into her body.
Second-tier jin!
Bai Gu's body shuddered. Under the shock of this spiritual impact, numbness paralyzed her for a split second. A gale of wind pressure surged before her as she saw his figure bearing down once more!
She scrambled to set up a defensive posture, but her movements were a fraction too slow. In truth, the fire of spirituality that had penetrated her body was not vast and could not have dealt her severe injury on its own; however, her internal mutated tissue had inevitably been disrupted. And in such an intense, lightning-fast exchange, that slight disruption ballooned into a nearly fatal flaw.
Chen Chuan's fist came crashing down, trailing platinum-gold light. This was no friendly sparring match. Though he hadn't exerted himself to the absolute limit, he made no deliberate effort to hold back his power or speed. The fire of spirituality surged violently around him, an aura of platinum-gold flames swirling wherever he moved.
His performance so utterly eclipsed that of ordinary martial artists that, in the eyes of his opponent, it appeared abnormally ferocious.
Bai Gu had nowhere left to dodge. She knew she likely could not withstand this punch, but as a martial artist cultivating the Divine Visage, she had more than direct physical parries at her disposal. A light flickered in her eyes, piercing into Chen Chuan's spirit like a sharpened spike in an attempt to shake his mind and disrupt or weaken his assault. Yet the strike proved entirely futile, vanishing as if cast into a bottomless ocean.
The moment she realized this, she had only enough time to bring her raised arm across to guard. The next instant, amidst an explosive roar, the incoming fist snuffed out the fire of spirituality on her arm in a heartbeat, obliterated the limb into a spray of mangled flesh and blood, and then plowed onward without losing momentum, smashing right into her cheek!
Even gravely wounded in that split second, as a seasoned martial artist, Bai Gu maintained absolute composure. The destruction of her arm had bought her a sliver of a buffer, allowing her to tilt her head slightly so the blow didn't strike square on her face. Having anticipated the trajectory of the punch, she had concentrated all the fire of spirituality she could muster in that short span onto that point. Even so, her crushed, distorted face was driven backward by the sheer force of Chen Chuan's fist.
Her entire body was flung back by the brutal momentum. Yet a brilliant white glare erupted from her eyes as her spiritual power surged dramatically. As if in response, the sword originally held in her hand flared with sharp radiance and leaped forward on its own without needing an arm to wield it, cleaving down toward Chen Chuan.
That slash momentarily checked Chen Chuan's advance. Seizing the opening, she retreated violently to put distance between them. Skimming across the lake, she reached the opposite shore in an instant, carving a deep furrow across the water's surface as a colossal surge parted like two cleaved walls rushing toward the banks.
Halting his steps, Chen Chuan reached out and snatched the turning sword out of the air. With his other hand, he wiped across the spine of the blade, snuffing out all remaining spiritual force in an instant. The violent trembling and struggle of the sword abruptly ceased. Spinning the weapon around, he hurled it point-first into the ground, then looked up across the water.
On the opposite bank of the small lake, Bai Gu's left arm was gone completely below the elbow, wisps of platinum-gold light still rising from the wound. Half of her cheek was entirely charred black, exposing the white bone beneath and the persistent traces of light clinging stubbornly to it.
In truth, they had exchanged only a handful of blows, yet the displaced air rushed outward in violent gusts. Trees along this side of the lake had all flattened in one direction, and only now did rolling booms begin echoing through the atmosphere.
This area was the garrison residential quarters, so most residents heard the clamor, and windows rattled violently—those closer to the scene shattered outright.
People were bewildered, wondering why thunder was striking out of nowhere at this hour.
Yet those who had seen combat were far more alert. They could tell something was amiss, especially with the earlier rumble, which sounded remarkably like a large-scale ammunition explosion. Though unaware of the exact situation, they instinctively reached for weapons, urged their families to seek shelter in the villa basements, and attempted to contact the outside world via telephone and telegraph to ascertain what was happening.
A few braver souls rushed onto rooftops or out into the yards, scouring the area through binoculars. Before long, they spotted the two figures confronting each other across the lake.
Upon hearing the noise, Han Kuang had immediately ordered his son Han Cheng to take his family along with Yu Wan's family down to the basement. As active-duty military men, he and Nian Qian stepped outside to survey the situation, and they soon laid eyes on the breathtaking spectacle ahead.
Chen Chuan and Bai Gu stood on opposite banks of the lake, vaporous light surging around them. Both were enveloped in dazzling radiance, presenting a sight that hardly seemed mortal.
"Is... is that Consultant Bai?"
Though Han Kuang had never met Bai Gu in person, municipal authorities had used her portrait in public campaigns, and she was widely revered by many.
Yet her current appearance was utterly gruesome. Had it not been for her attire and her radiating aura confirming her identity and masking some of her wretchedness, it would have been unimaginable that this battered figure was her.
"And that... that's Chuan'er, isn't it?" He looked at Chen Chuan next, an overwhelming shock seizing his heart.
"It... it has to be Cousin..." Nian Qian's breath hitched. Looking upon the devastated landscape around the lake, for the first time, he grasped the true meaning of the words martial artist—something that text and video recordings could never truly convey.
"What in the world are they..."
Han Kuang glanced toward the armory, where a billowing plume of dark smoke spiraled into the sky. In a heavy voice, he said, "It seems something immense has happened."
Up ahead, Chen Chuan paid no heed to the outside commotion. Looking across the lake, he said calmly, "You are too weak, Senior. Frankly speaking, you have disappointed me."
Chapter 864