Bai Gu frowned, anger flickering in her eyes. Spurred by intense mental stimulation, wisps of piercing white light spilled from her body, coalescing behind her into several slender, tentacle-like beams of radiance. After swaying in the air for a moment, they whipped forward with sudden fury.
The glowing tentacles reflected in Chen Chuan's eyes expanded rapidly as they drew near, but in the next instant, he slapped them aside with a bare hand. Spiritual light splashed outward in a ring upon impact.
He fixed his gaze on that radiant tentacle, sensing his second self blurring faintly. There was no question that she had integrated some form of power from the opposite side.
"The Convergence faction, is it...?"
Without waiting for the glowing tendril to lash at him again, he took the initiative and stepped forward onto the lake's surface. Just as she had walked over earlier, he now strode across the water toward her. The platinum radiance cloaking him reflected in the lake, seeming to merge into a single pillar with the white vapor rising into the sky, carrying him steadily toward her under the awestruck gazes of the onlookers in the distance.
Bai Gu said coldly, "Young man, mind your tone. Don't speak so arrogantly!"
Pulling a long hairpin from her chignon to wield as a weapon, she let her hair tumble loose over her shoulders. At the same time, she flicked her long sleeves, stirring the entire surface of the lake into violent waves. The water beneath Chen Chuan's feet surged as well, lifting him upward along with the swell.
Yet he continued forward without pause. Even as the surges churned beneath his feet, his advancing figure did not waver in the slightest—every splashing burst of spray became a stepping stone beneath his stride.
Bai Gu did not linger in place. Gripping the long hairpin, she tapped off the water and dissolved into a streak of light, darting straight toward him.
At the same time, several figures formed of mental power blossomed around her just as before, turning into nearly identical streams of light that converged on Chen Chuan. Rather than flying straight, they weaved, spiraled, and mirrored one another as they darted forward, making it impossible to tell the real one from the false—or perhaps every single one had the potential to be real.
Chen Chuan did not bother dodging. Stamping against the water's surface, he charged straight at one of them. Having engaged the Heaven and Earth Furnace breathing technique, his burst of speed was even greater than before.
He raised his fist, and the fire of spirituality around him blazed with overwhelming intensity. The streams of light struck him one by one, yet as they slammed into his blazing radiance, they shattered and dispersed. When the final stream lunged at him, a massive wave surged from below. Twisting half a turn in midair, he drove an impeccably placed downward punch right into it!
*Boom!*
The downward strike smashed Bai Gu straight into the depths of the water with a deafening roar. The shock of the impact blasted a towering pillar of water into the air. Rising with the momentum, Chen Chuan looked down from above and said calmly, "Is there any difference?"
The water column crashed back down, the churning spray gradually subsiding. Yet just as the surface seemed on the verge of settling, the lake began to roil and churn once more, as if the water below was boiling. A mass of white brilliance emerged beneath the lake bed, shining so brightly it was almost blinding.
Chen Chuan kept his eyes fixed below without blinking. Deep beneath the lake, a colossal figure appeared—what seemed to be the form of a woman sculpted entirely out of light. Her facial features were indiscernible, or perhaps entirely absent, leaving only a rough silhouette.
Bai Gu walked the path of the Divine Visage. The Divine Visage allowed one to shed and replace physical vessels multiple times, but one could also gain greater power without switching bodies. She had chosen the latter path. Not only did this induce bodily adaptations to accommodate the Divine Visage, but when practiced to a profound stage, it could also allow the body to serve as nourishment for ascension.
However, this required an exceptionally solid physical foundation. If the foundation fell short, one was doomed to hit a dead end. Still, there were ways to compensate: if one managed to integrate external power—such as exploiting and siphoning power from certain entities on the opposite side to reinforce oneself—it could be achieved.
Yet integrating such power was a protracted process, and she had to suppress it constantly to keep herself from being tainted. As a result, she had never dared unleash her full strength. But now, having been battered into a fury, she held nothing back and unleashed the full might of her Divine Visage.
Where the woman's face should have been under the lake, two even more blinding beams of light flared, as though she had snapped open her eyes.
With that, the gigantic woman surged upward from beneath the lake, the long hairpin in her hand now resembling a lethal sword lunging toward Chen Chuan.
Arriving alongside it was a powerful wave of mental force, bearing down upon Chen Chuan as if to force back the surging fire of spirituality cloaking him. While it could not bind him completely, it was enough to hinder his movements.
Nor was that all. The moment the giant woman revealed herself, another identical figure appeared, mirrored within the mist hovering above from their clash. Bai Gu's mental power had attached itself to the vapor, coalescing into this reflected manifestation.
The instant she launched her strike from below, the woman above glided down silently, thrusting straight toward Chen Chuan's back!
Chen Chuan did not even turn to look behind him. Facing the pincer attack from above and below, he sprang upward off the surging swell beneath him and flipped in midair. The radiance around him flared brilliantly, turning the entire lake a shimmering golden-white.
At that exact moment, the strikes from above and below hit him almost simultaneously. Yet when that hyper-condensed spiritual radiance struck, it was as if hitting an impenetrable wall. Sparks showered in all directions, and the tip of the hairpin could not pierce him in the slightest. In that split second, he had deployed his external conditioning jin!
Having absorbed the combined assault head-on, his counterattack followed instantly. The momentum of his spinning body channeled immense force, seamlessly converting the external conditioning jin into hard jin. The spiritual radiance on him surged into his elbow and the sole of his foot. Mid-rotation, moving with fluid, supple grace, he struck out at the two gigantic figures simultaneously!
With a sharp crack like something shattering, hairline fractures spread across the two luminous forms before both detonated at once. Countless points of light scattered in all directions, and the lake below was violently compressed by the shockwave, heaving massive waves onto the shore.
Chen Chuan flipped once more in midair, utilizing the recoil to land firmly on the bank, his dazzling radiance pulling back.
Moments later, the parted lake waters rushed back together with a roar. Raindrops continued to fall from the sky, subtle sprinkles brushing against the faces of even the people watching from the distant garrison residential area.
Carried by the churning torrents, Bai Gu's body was swept up from the lake bed and washed ashore. Half of her body was ruined now; she had lost an arm and a leg, and was almost unrecognizable. Wisps of platinum smoke drifted from wounds across her scorched flesh.
Chen Chuan walked slowly over to her. The falling raindrops vaporized before they could even touch him, rising into the air alongside wisps of vaporous light.
In that final strike, he had employed the Grand Radiant Light Forms to directly attack her spirit. Many secret arts of the Purist Faction had been developed specifically to counter entities from the opposite side, making them exceptionally potent and destructive against foreign foulness and otherworldly power.
Under his blow, the alien power Bai Gu had fused into her spirit had almost completely disintegrated. Because it had been violently purged, it had wreaked devastating collateral damage on her own being. She was hanging by a thread, kept from dying on the spot only by a martial artist's formidable vitality.
Of course, killing her had never been Chen Chuan's intention. His comrade had only asked him to stall her, not end her life—doing so would invite countless complications.
Looking down at Bai Gu, he said, "No wonder you spoke of only valuing the present, Senior. It turns out you integrated power from certain entities, relying on that alone to boost your strength. In recent years, you've probably stayed comfortably in Center City without truly fighting anyone, haven't you? Without tempering, without real battles, how could you hope to compete with people like us? How could you ever understand what we pursue?"
Lying there, Bai Gu said feebly, "Young man... you only beat me. But can you beat *them*?"
Her reference to "them" seemed to point to those entities on the other side, but also seemed to implicate certain factions and people.
Chen Chuan asked calmly, "What makes you think they cannot be defeated?"
Bai Gu fell completely silent.
Chen Chuan glanced at her. "Senior, until the outcome is decided, just stay here quietly." With that, he turned and walked back toward where the pavilion had once stood.
When he reached the lakeshore, the pavilion had already collapsed from the shockwaves of their battle. Stepping over to the side, he reached out and pulled free the sword that had been lodged in the ground earlier.
If this operation went smoothly, there was no way Bai Gu would return to her post as a municipal consultant; she would almost certainly be placed under custody. Taking this sword as a war trophy was entirely justified, and he doubted Bai Gu would mind.
Just then, the whirr of rotor blades caught his ear. Looking up, he saw several combat airships flying in the distance toward a single direction. For now, it was unclear which faction they belonged to.
However, he had no reason to worry. After losing their high-end combatant, the targeted faction had no chance of turning the tables.
Besides, the Purist Faction represented by his comrade was not the only party making moves in this operation; other government departments were involved as well. For instance, Mother Ling was almost certainly an operative of the General Affairs Bureau. Now, all he had to do was wait quietly here for the results.
Chapter 865