Watching Chen Chuan walk toward them, Takoda and the other two realized their presence here had been exposed. Looking exceedingly wary, they instinctively fanned out and cast glances at their surroundings.
By their reasoning, someone taking the initiative to seek them out meant the original plan was compromised. The ambushers had surely made preparations, which meant the newcomer was unlikely to be alone—there were probably more enemies lurking nearby.
As Ian searched around, he suddenly looked up and spotted Chaoming wheeling overhead.
He opened his hand, drawing a pebble through the air into his grasp. As it settled into his palm, a brief gleam flickered across it. He raised his hand to aim upward, but just as he was about to flick the stone, Takoda signaled him to stop.
Ian did not act rashly. With this brief delay, Chaoming had already flown farther off. Ian checked their surroundings once more and asked cautiously, "Mr. Semper, is there an issue?"
In fluent Federation speech, Takoda answered earnestly, "All living things possess a spirit. Unless hunting for sustenance, there is no need for wanton slaughter."
Ian gave him an utterly bewildered look. In circumstances like these, hearing such words struck him as incomprehensible.
Yet the world of martial artists was complicated. Bound oaths produced all manner of eccentrics; what seemed entirely natural to one person might be an absolute taboo to another. Since they still had to fight side by side and he had no wish to foster internal friction, Ian did not press the matter. He merely offered a reminder in his Fuluo-accented Federation tongue:
"That could be a combat organism deployed by the enemy."
"I know," Takoda said. "Yet it has not reached the point of threatening us. There is no need to waste our strength." His gaze locked onto the approaching figure. "There is no one else around—only him. This man is far from ordinary. We should focus our attention on him."
Chen Chuan walked forward step by step, Xuejun Saber in hand. His pace was neither rushed nor slow. Gusts of night sea breeze stirred his overcoat, sending the red scarf fluttering outward. Across the jade mask he wore, only a single crimson stroke marked the brow.
With every step he took across the sea, precise ripples stirred across the water's surface, spreading outward long after he had passed to form a drawn-out wake.
At first, the three opponents felt nothing out of the ordinary. Yet as he drew nearer, an overwhelming sense of pressure washed over them, making their muscles tense involuntarily.
It was not a field or anything similar radiating from him. Rather, it was his stride, the rhythm of his body, and the poise and confidence forged through countless life-and-death struggles. When all of these came together, they conveyed an unmistakable warning.
All three were seasoned combatants, fully capable of recognizing how dangerous the newcomer was. In an instant, they treated him as a grave threat and responded accordingly.
Kazama Kagetora swiftly took hold of the hilt of his long saber, letting one end trail against the ground. Pale cyan Flame of Spirituality promptly drifted from his frame, ethereal and faint, barely discernable in the night unless scrutinized closely.
At first, he had merely been focusing his guard, but as Chen Chuan drew nearer, the mounting sense of danger grew heavier. To counter this pressure, he had no choice but to channel his external visage. With a shift of will, his body underwent a sudden metamorphosis, swelling instantly to a height of seven to eight meters.
Curved demon horns sprouted from his brow, and his features contorted into a ferocious grimace like a demon mask. Cold light radiated from his eyes, and mutated tissue erupted outward to trace the contours of Outer Ocean Takama warrior armor. The once-slender blade now rested perfectly in his scaled-up grip.
This was the Sutenki. In Outer Ocean legend, when formidable villains died and refused to enter the nether hells, remaining behind to plague the mortal realm, the Sutenki were the divine spirits dispatched by Chan temples specifically to hunt down and devour these wandering evil souls.
On the other side, Ian crossed his arms before pushing a single palm forward in a vertical hand blade, bracing his other hand against the crook of his forearm. His feet spread slightly front and back, knees bent, lowering his center of gravity.
His expression turned profoundly solemn. The stance carried a heavy sense of religious ritual, and as he assumed it, the faint, translucent silhouette of a giant humanoid formed behind him. What appeared was not his own likeness, but a Chan practitioner holding a mudra with lowered eyelids.
New Binding Style was inherited from Huining Temple, an offshoot of the Chan Sect. Even after branching off on its own, it retained traces of the old religion, and the spiritual visage behind him took the form of a Great Chan Master, draped in wisps of floating orange-red flame.
Takoda made no elaborate display. He simply removed his top hat, knelt to recite a brief prayer, and rose once more. Reaching behind his waist, he drew two battle axes, gave them a twirl, and gripped them firmly in hand.
The waves surged across the sea. Within moments, Chen Chuan set foot upon the shore. He did not pause, advancing toward the three in the very same posture, his rhythm never faltering for a single beat.
This absolute composure set alarm bells ringing in all three minds. The instant he crossed within their defensive perimeter without the slightest hesitation, Ian, standing foremost, struck first.
With a loud shout, Ian remained planted in place with a reverent look upon his face, while the spiritual visage behind him leaned forward. A colossal palm pressed downward through the air.
In that moment, the previously ethereal hand turned as dense and smooth as polished jade, its palm lines clear and distinct, pale golden flames drifting from its edges.
Chen Chuan looked up. He did not dodge, nor did he draw the Xuejun Saber. Instead, he met it straight on with an upward punch. With that strike, a burst of platinum radiance slammed violently into the colossal hand.
Amidst the dark night, the brilliance of the collision lit up the entire area in an instant.
Ian had poured tremendous force into the blow. One advantage of an external visage was that even if it sustained minor damage, the main body remained unharmed, and its striking power exceeded that of his physical frame, allowing him to strike without reservation.
If the opponent slipped up, Ian's follow-up strikes would press the advantage; if the opponent's strength proved beyond expectations, the two behind him would certainly not stand idly by, for their interests were aligned.
Yet the moment fist met palm, Ian realized something was wrong. The Flame of Spirituality over the palm was rapidly dissolving away. Generally speaking, only someone whose spiritual flame was exceptionally dense, powerful, and an entire tier above his own could accomplish such a feat.
There was no time to ponder it; he braced himself immediately for the incoming impact. Sure enough, the moment the spiritual flame over the palm burned away, a ferocious surge of jin crashed forward.
Under this impact, the arm of his external visage turned insubstantial, seemingly on the verge of shattering. Yet as more Flame of Spirituality flowed over the visage, forming rings of defensive chains, it steadily absorbed and neutralized the force.
New Binding Style placed great emphasis on shifting between light and heavy force, stressing layered defense and continuous renewal. A breach in one spot would not collapse the whole. Against a simple impact of jin, even if the opponent's strength was several times his own, he had ways to withstand it.
Yet before this mighty force had fully dissipated, another surge of power crashed in, even more violent than the last.
*Two-stage jin—?*
Ian's expression remained steady. As an experienced martial artist, he had studied all kinds of jin and possessed counters for each. His physical body formed a peculiar mudra, and this incoming power was guided by a strange traction to disperse throughout the spiritual visage, while fresh Flame of Spirituality welled up to resist the impact.
Yet right then, another surge of jin plowed through, arriving with even greater fury than before.
His eyes went wide. *Three-stage jin? No! This is—there's more?!*
He felt surge after surge of power pouring relentlessly from his opponent into his own frame, the spiritual flame rolling forward like the boundless ocean waves crashing against the shore.
What Chen Chuan employed here was the very technique Talu had once used. Whereas Talu had used staff forms to link two-stage jin into an unbroken cascade of force, Chen Chuan now used the strength of the Grand Firmament Forms to chain his strikes, producing a similar, far more devastating force.
Yet to any onlooker, it appeared as nothing more than a single, solid punch!
In an instant, the Flame of Spirituality over Ian's Chan visage withered rapidly. Fine fractures spread from the palm where fist had met hand, creeping up the arm. The giant form flickered between substance and shadow, until at last it could bear no more. It expanded outward for a fraction of a second before detonating with a thunderous roar, dissolving into plumes of scattering mist.
The destruction of the external visage dealt a severe blow to Ian's physical body, for the visage was an extension of himself. Coupled with the massive loss of his spiritual flame, he suffered a momentary freeze.
In the next instant, Chen Chuan's reflection loomed large in his pupils. The man had already closed the distance, five fingers clenched into a fist blazing with torrential platinum fire, driving straight toward his face.
Locked in that split second of paralysis, Ian could not move. Even desperately trying to summon his Flame of Spirituality was futile; there was simply no time.
Chen Chuan's charge carried no trickery—it was sheer speed, the seizing of an opening, and an unerring read of the battlefield.
Yet just as the fist was about to strike Ian's face, a flash of blade light flared from the flank, slashing fiercely toward him!
Chen Chuan showed no intention of altering his strike. And right as the blade was about to carve into him, the red scarf at his neck fluttered. All at once, a veiled woman in red manifested in midair, her yanling saber trailing streams of scarlet light to parry the incoming slash!
Chapter 978