Book 4, Chapter 161: Grabbing Spirit Light With His Hand

The top layer of the ground was practically completely gone, making it look like a crater left behind by a meteor. Chen Chuan stood in it with his fists pointed downward. The light on them and his forearms slowly faded away.

Chen Chuan had gathered all of his spirit flames into one spot before hurling them forward to deal incredible damage.

While he hadn’t practiced it before and no one told him how to do it, this was something he instinctively knew. It was as if he had been born with the knowledge, and he managed to use it naturally during the fight.

Wei Guochan lay in the pit with most of his body sunken into the ground. White smoke rose from his head and three remaining arms—the unburied parts.

His entire body was charred black, and his shattered armor had practically melted into it.

Even so, he wasn’t dead. The vitalized tissue stubbornly crawled out of his body to repair it. Tentacles also crawled out of his torn limbs to regrow them.

Chen Chuan watched all of it. Wei Guochan opened his eyes wide, and with a whoosh, he shot out, but the moment he pulled out of the ground, he froze.

Chen Chuan had grabbed his shoulder.

Tentacles were wriggling about like worms over half of his back. They were making rowing motions, which Wei Guochan had used to get out. Now, he tried to grab Chen Chuan’s hand with two of his three remaining arms.

But Chen Chuan dragged him over, grabbed an arm, twisted it backward, and broke it with a loud snap before tossing him on the ground. Then, he stomped on the other arm and broke it as well before swinging his leg back. Once he brought his leg as far back as he could, he kicked Wei Guochan.

The light from the tip of his foot shot past Wei Guochan’s neck like a saber, and his head flew out of the crater and rolled to the side.

The moment the head was removed, all the vitalized tissue froze before shriveling up like a withered plant. More white smoke came from Wei Guochan’s body, and in just a while, it crushed the charred body into bits.

Zhao Zhenye saw this. Silver-white light shot up from him, and he pushed forward with both hands. Yao Zhiyi and Xiao Wan’s expressions changed. They sensed an incredibly violent energy, so they got into defensive stances.

The next instant, a large ball of light flashed, and they were forced back. They even left behind deep lines on the ground.

When they looked up, they saw smoke rolling in the distance as the silver-white light left.

Upon seeing this, Xiao Wan brought his hand up, grabbed more than ten spikes from his waist so fast his hand became a blur, and threw them. Afterimages of him showed up on the plains, and ten or so pits were blasted open on the ground at the same time. Sonic booms kept tearing through the air.

However, once the vermilion-light-wrapped spikes entered the silver white light, nothing happened. After a few flashes, they disappeared.

“He’s good,” Xiao Wan gasped in shock and amazement.

With a grim expression, Yao Zhiyi watched the retreating light. When Wei Guochan went to grab the artifact, he had wanted to help Chen Chuan, but Zhao Zhenye was unexpectedly good. Even with the both of them going up against him, they only managed to fight on equal grounds. If either one of them was fighting alone, they would have lost, so neither of them could step away from the fight.

Besides, he could sense something dangerous from Zhao Zhenye. This man was truly extraordinary. His fighting prowess was much stronger than that of the both of them combined.

“He’s so fast. It’s a pity that he escaped,” Xiao Wan said regretfully.

Yao Zhiyi shook his head. “In any other situation, we wouldn’t have been able to win even if we fought him together.”

“You’re joking, right?” Xiao Wan was stunned.

“I’m not. Couldn’t you tell? He’s injured, yet he fought us anyway. He wouldn’t have been able to last much longer. I think someone got in his way here.”

Since they knew that Zhao Zhenye was in the merged space, there was no way they wouldn’t have been on guard against him. They had specifically called upon an ally to come and deal with him.

By the looks of it, that person had found Zhao Zhenye and injured him during the fight, so he wasn’t able to fight at full strength against Yao Zhiyi and Xiao Wan.

Since Zhao Zhenye helped the imperial army, he was branded an enemy of the Great Shun Republic.

Even though they had managed to take out Wei Guochan, they learned that the imperial army had Zhao Zhenye, who was even stronger. If they weighed the pros and cons this way, the situation hadn’t changed much.

No... The situation had changed.

Yao Zhiyi looked toward Chen Chuan. They, too, had gotten a strong martial arts master, and one who could change the balance of the entire region.

He hefted his saber and said to Xiao Wan, “Come. Let’s go meet him.”

Chen Chuan walked out of the crater and stopped before the head. Just as expected, all the imperial army soldiers were vitalized. If their body got too damaged, they could just find another one as long as their brains remained intact and continue thriving.

Chen Chuan had kept Wei Guochan alive because he didn’t know what the Great Shun Republic wanted to do with him. What if they had some sort of plan? It was better to wait on those who knew the plan before killing him.

Yao Zhiyi and Xiao Wan were walking over to him, so he approached them. “Mr. Yao. I’m Chen Chuan, a lecturer at Jibei Road’s Martial Valor University and a lead investigator at the Resolution Department. I was sent over by the World Ring Defense System, the Department of Administrative Affairs, and the Resolution Department to liaise with the artifact-retrieval team”

Yao Zhiyi raised his eyebrows. “You’re a lecturer from Martial Valor University?”

Chen Chuan nodded. “Yes.”

Yao Zhiyi observed him before sighing. “It looks like it’s been far too long since I went back to the campus. I didn’t even know that someone as talented as you had appeared among us.”

Xiao Wan regarded Chen Chuan in a far friendlier manner than before. “You’re my junior, then. I’m Wan Yunshan. I think I graduated more than a decade before you? My file has been made confidential, so it’s unlikely you’d have heard of me. Honestly, though, there’s no need for that. Plenty of people back then knew me and how strong I was. When word that another martial arts master appeared, they could have easily figured out who it was—”

“Enough. Stop for a bit. We need to wrap things up here,” Yao Zhiyi interrupted Wan Yunshan’s excited ramble. If he didn’t, Wan Yunshan would continue chattering nonstop. The mission to kill Wei Guochan was the only reason Yao Zhiyi tolerated him. Otherwise, he would have much preferred that Wan Yunshan continued to stay at the World Ring.

Chen Chuan removed the ball from his pocket. “Mr. Yao, this is the artifact I retrieved.”

Yao Zhiyi guessed that someone had revealed their plan to Chen Chuan ahead of time. Even so, he willingly brought the artifact toward the base. His courage was admirable. “Since you got it, you should bring it back.”

Chen Chuan didn’t make too much of a fuss about it. He put the artifact back into his pocket and turned to the side so that they could see the situation behind him. “Mr. Yao, Senior Wan, Wei Guochan’s head is right there, but I don’t know what to do with it. Please take care of it.”

When Yao Zhiyi looked at the head, he felt emotions well within him. “Leave it to us.”

“I need to step away for a bit,” Chen Chuan said before giving them a nod and heading back to where the gap was.

***

Zhuan Liang was far behind the gap, sitting on a shattered rock. The ground around him was heavily damaged, and most of his mask was ruined. Parts of it were hanging for dear life on his face.

His clothes were in tatters, and half of his pants were missing. Silver-white smoke came out of his exposed calf and other damaged parts of his body.

“We failed to stop him,” he lamented.

Light shone from the mask, and his mouth moved. “It can’t be helped. How could we have known that Zhao Zhenye would be so strong? Even with both of us working together, we couldn’t take him down. I think he’s practicing some sort of secret technique. He didn’t use his full strength when fighting us.

“Over the years, it seems that aside from getting some secret techniques from the fusion faction, he also got some from the refined training faction. He then modified all of them so that they suit him better. Looks like we need to revise the assessment of his strength.

“He truly is a genius. It’s honestly a pity. He could have been our pillar.”

Zhuan Liang waited for him to finish speaking, and his facial muscles relaxed. “His strength and destructive power only go to show how wrong we were in the past.”

“But we can’t do anything about it now, can we? We can only think of ways to make up for it. Thank goodness we’ve taken in quite a lot of talented people, like that Bao boy and Lead Investigator Chen. I have greater hopes for the latter. It’s highly likely that he will become our next martial arts master. With him around, we’ll be able to set up a branch in Jibei Road’s Central City again. Still, considering how much trouble Zhao Zhenye is, Lead Investigator Chen is going to be under a lot of pressure,” the mask remarked.

Zhuan Liang stood up. The silver-white light on him slowly faded away, and he looked at the light from the artifact before grabbing his suitcase. Then, he started walking over.

“Hey! It’s better for you to find an airship!” the mask cried out.

Zhuan Liang scoffed. The light was so obvious. There was no way he was going to lose his way.

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