As the giant hammer crashed down, its timing in conjunction with the binding force was seamless, striking at the exact moment Chen Chuan's Flame of Spirituality was suppressed.
Such a grasp of timing and cadence could only have been honed through countless trials in life. Moreover, judging by how the force was applied, it had likely anticipated Chen Chuan's subsequent evasions.
If he continued dodging at his previous speed, the hammer could keep tracking and sweeping inward. Even if it failed to land a hit, it would force him to retreat into an outer ring. Under such intense pressure, if he failed to catch his breath and reset his rhythm, he could very well be struck. In one stroke, the creature could shatter its prior disadvantage and thoroughly turn defense into offense!
Yet having already deduced this tactic, Chen Chuan had prepared his counter-strategy long ago. As the hammer was on the verge of smashing down upon him, his Second Self, which had recovered over the night, instantly merged back into his body.
The instant his Second Self shattered, the Flame of Spirituality within him erupted with a roar. Tilting his torso backward by a hair's breadth, he dodged the low, ground-sweeping upward strike!
The hammer passed by, grazing him so closely that its flickering blue-scarlet flames clashed against the gold-white radiance cloaking his body, melting and splashing in bursts of sparks.
The moment the hammer cleared his vision, he pushed off with both feet, darting forward like a streak of lightning. It coincided precisely with the split second the yaogui raised both hands, exposing an opening. Soaring through the air like a shooting star, Chen Chuan slammed his shoulder forcefully into the hollow of the knee he had previously assaulted!
Under the force of this collision, the Flame of Spirituality protecting that spot scattered immediately. His jin penetrated deep inside, throwing the yaogui off balance. Upon landing, Chen Chuan stomped, pivoted, and delivered a resounding kick to the ankle he had damaged earlier.
With the outermost mutated tissue already ruptured, only the innermost layer of the Flame of Spirituality remained. When Chen Chuan's kick connected, this remaining spiritual power burst apart instantly. His concentrated jin surged inward, wreaking havoc through the creature's interior. Unable to keep its footing, the yaogui stumbled backward, lurching several paces to one side.
Pressing his advantage, Chen Chuan leapt forward into the air once more. Concentrating all his power, he stomped down savagely onto the yaogui's knee!
The mutated tissue there could no longer hold out. Under the immense force, it burst apart, robbing the yaogui of any chance to steady itself. With a thunderous boom, it collapsed into a sideways half-kneel. Chen Chuan used the rebound to somersault backward into the air, driving an inverted back-kick into its jaw. A brilliant blaze erupted, snapping the yaogui's head back.
However, with one hand still grasping the giant hammer planted in the ground, the creature braced itself and avoided toppling completely. Even so, the Flame of Spirituality across the rest of its body flickered violently for a moment.
Flipping down to the ground, Chen Chuan prepared to press the attack, but suddenly noticed light gleaming in its remaining eyes. Sensing danger, he flared his spiritual radiance at once. Sure enough, another wave of suppressing force descended. This time, however, his spiritual radiance was barely dampened; compared to the previous two times, the force was feeble.
Yet the price the yaogui paid was steep. Across its face, only a single eye still held a faint glimmer of light.
He realized immediately that the creature was bluffing to keep him wary. Still, it was undeniably effective. Even knowing it might be a tactical feint, he could not afford to ignore it—especially since the mental surge preceding the attack was entirely genuine.
That momentary pause gave the yaogui a chance to catch its breath. Remaining half-kneeling, an arm on its flank came sweeping down toward him.
Seeing the strike, Chen Chuan did not dodge as the creature expected. Instead, he unexpectedly raised an arm to block. He did so knowing the blow had been delivered in haste without full momentum, merely intended to drive him away and buy time to stand back up. He refused to give it what it wanted.
The next moment, with a resounding boom, his seemingly small frame took the overhead blow head-on, his feet sinking only slightly into the ground.
Diverting the mutated arm aside with a fluid shift of yielding jin, he lunged forward. This time, he employed an explosive technique from the Heaven and Earth Furnace breathing technique—expending a large burst of energy to grant himself overwhelming explosive power.
He slipped through the gaps between several limbs reaching to intercept him like a gust of wind. The grasping arms seemed on the verge of catching him, yet always lagged a fraction behind. Flipping in midair, Chen Chuan delivered a heavy roundhouse kick directly against the knee the yaogui was trying to brace itself on once more!
This time, he made no attempt to protect the rest of his body with his Flame of Spirituality, concentrating every shred of it at the tip of his foot. This all-or-nothing blow unleashed devastating destructive power.
The targeted spot exploded in blinding flashes. First, the shattered outer layer crumbled effortlessly; next, the inner defensive barrier was cleanly pierced. The spiritual power there was utterly destroyed. Unchecked, a wave of hard jin penetrated right behind it. With a loud snap, the yaogui's half-straightened leg snapped clean through at the knee.
It could no longer hold its balance. Its entire frame toppled to the side. Though a hand on that side managed to catch the ground in time to keep it from collapsing completely, it was rendered incapable of any further movement for the moment.
Chen Chuan leapt high into the air, riding the momentum of his descent to drive a heavy punch straight into its chest. Like a meteorite slamming into the earth, light splashed in all directions, the explosive boom echoing across the surrounding terrain. The massive torso was caved in beneath the impact.
Chen Chuan's fists showed no mercy. Standing atop its body, he pounded downward in a relentless barrage. A succession of deafening detonations tore through the atmosphere as concussive shockwaves rippled outward in expanding rings.
After dozens of blows, another surge of jin hammered down with a booming crash. Chen Chuan felt the resistance vanish beneath his knuckles—he had punched clean through the creature's torso!
A gaping wound already marred the yaogui's back; now, with this devastating trauma from the front, a hollow crater tore straight through from chest to spine. The mutated tissue inside was riddled and scorched by his gold-white Flame of Spirituality, wisps of vapor drifting out from the ruin.
Yet even in this state, he could sense that its spiritual power had barely diminished. Furthermore, an extremely dangerous aura emanated from it, as though something was on the verge of erupting.
His gaze flickered. Rather than staying there, he leapt backward to put distance between them.
Moments after he backed away, a massive surge of blue-scarlet radiance flared beneath its body, turning the entire form into a brilliantly blazing torch. The light swelled until it reached a blinding peak, culminating in a deafening explosion that sent billowing clouds of smoke and dust churning outwards.
Chen Chuan stood his ground. The concussive shockwaves made his biological field flicker and wobble, but his eyes never left the haze. He could still feel the creature's mental presence lingering there.
As the dust and light began to clear, he saw a silhouette half-kneeling in the clearing—no longer colossal, but the size of an ordinary human.
A thought crossed his mind. Could it be...?
Just then, the figure stood and stepped slowly out of the dust.
When he saw its appearance clearly, his eyes narrowed. It was not a martial artist reverting from the Visage of the Aberrant as he had initially suspected. Instead, it was a humanoid construct tightly woven from countless slender, limb-like tendrils. Crimson-black throughout, several slits split open across where its face should have been, serving as crude eyes, while blue-scarlet radiance flickered around its exterior.
Evidently, realizing its massive body was too damaged to contend with him, it had gathered and condensed its remaining mutated tissue to reconstruct this new form.
After all, for an aberrant martial artist, mental strength and mutated tissue were what mattered most. So long as these persisted, survival was possible; everything else was secondary.
The yaogui walked over to the giant hammer lying discarded on the ground, seized the handle, and gave it a twist. From within, it drew out a heavy, dark, four-edged mace. After giving it two swift swings, its form vanished from sight, reappearing before Chen Chuan in an instant as the mace came crashing down toward him.
Chen Chuan did not evade. Raising an arm to parry, he blocked the mace amid a burst of scattering sparks. Seeing its blow thwarted, the yaogui did not pause, swinging the four-edged mace in a relentless succession of strikes. Their Flames of Spirituality clashed and flared at blistering speed.
Blocking weapons directly with one's limbs was inherently disadvantageous; the Flame of Spirituality focused onto a weapon was far more concentrated and destructive. Every parry cost him more power, yet Chen Chuan chose to hold his ground, showing no intention of dodging.
However, his stance shifted subtly as he fought, and an unusual power began to manifest around him.
After trading blows for a short while longer, the yaogui's swift movements grew slightly sluggish, as though burdened by a crushing weight. At the same time, a brilliant light began to unfold steadily from Chen Chuan's body.
The twisted mutated tissue on the yaogui's body had been writhing slowly, but the moment the radiance washed over it, it stiffened and froze, as if drained of vitality.
Seeing this opening, Chen Chuan snapped his arms outward, deflecting the incoming mace and seizing the yaogui's weapon-wielding hand. Pivoting, he drove an elbow into where its neck met its torso. At the point where their Flames of Spirituality clashed, the previously ferocious yaogui was jolted as if struck by a catastrophe, stumbling backward. Its form seemed unable to hold together any longer, segments of mutated tissue peeling away and dropping to the ground in rapid succession.
Chen Chuan hurled the seized mace to the ground and walked toward it step by step. The strike just now had been the combined effect of the Grand Firmament Forms and Great Radiance.
The Purist Faction's secret techniques possessed tremendous counter-effectiveness against opposing entities and such mutated creatures. Previously, due to the yaogui's immense size, employing these techniques would have inflicted limited damage while draining his own stamina exorbitantly—an unfavorable trade.
Now, however, the creature had shed the vast majority of its mutated tissue, discarding its advantages in raw strength and sheer size to contest him with superior speed and agility. This played right into the hands of his secret techniques, allowing their true power to shine.
Staggering back several steps, the yaogui realized it needed to put distance between them as more and more of its mutated tissue sloughed off. It turned and fled clumsily.
Yet it had taken only a few strides when a flare of spiritual radiance ignited behind it. With a thunderous blast, the impact struck its back, hurling it into the air. Spinning several times before crashing down, only half of its body remained intact; the rest had shattered across the ground, the spiritual radiance clinging to it dwindled to a feeble flicker.
Chen Chuan approached step by step. Watching the writhing, twisted appendages trying to detach and scurry away, he slowly raised his fist. Platinum-white radiance converged toward his knuckles, and a moment later, he brought the punch crashing down!
A blinding flare detonated at the point of impact, accompanied by a deafening roar. Shockwaves and dust churned outward, and only after a long rumble did the earth finally fall still.
Amid the drifting dust, Chen Chuan remained frozen in his downward-punching follow-through. Before his fist lay only a massive, fan-shaped furrow blasted out by the shockwave. The yaogui was gone without a trace.
……
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Chapter 885