Book 3, Chapter 112: Weapons Aren’t Necessary For Victory

Mr. Bai’s expression was grim. He noticed that Wei Wusheng was intentionally bringing the fight over, and he unbuttoned his collar.

While capturing Wei Wusheng wasn’t any of his business, and he had no interest in getting involved, Wei Wusheng was looking down on him if he came over.

Just then, he noticed something and looked over to see a man standing on a streetlight with his hands in his pockets. He looked like a proper rascal, and when he met Mr. Bai’s gaze, he smiled and vanished.

Mr. Bai’s gaze hardened. It was another Third Limit martial artist, though he couldn’t identify the man. Based on the situation, though, it was highly likely that he was in cahoots with Wei Wusheng.

If that were the case, he couldn’t be reckless. Immediately, he said to the students, “The bus has been modified. Stay inside, where you’re within my sight.”

Once the fight came within ten meters of the bus, a layer of dust spread out with a boom. The sound was followed by the clash of a saber and hammer, and the fight stopped approaching.

The dust settled, and the two martial artists became visible. Chen Chuan and Wei Wusheng stood across from each other while the Frost King Saber pushed against the hammer in a contest of strength.

A moment later, the sound of metal scratching against metal came from the contact point between the two weapons. The hammer and saber trembled slightly before both Chen Chuan and Wei Wusheng pushed against each other with all their strength and jumped back. The momentum caused them to take several steps back after they landed.

Even though they were just widening the distance between them, like all martial artists did in a fight, the crazy amount of strength and speed they displayed caused them to separate until they were around eighteen meters apart.

Creak...

The top half of a box truck, which had stood in their path, slid down slowly before crashing down. It revealed a perfectly clean, even cut.

Further back, a bus with two burst tires tilted slowly to the side. When it eventually crashed down, it stirred up a cloud of dust, and countless glass shards, along with other things, scattered all over the road.

Chen Chuan and Wei Wusheng kept their eyes trained on each other as they regulated their breathing.

They might have fought for only twenty seconds or so, but the high-speed movement, the clash of strength, and the negation and pushing forward of refined force made them push their mutated tissue into overdrive. Both of them used this moment to catch a breath and relax their tense mutated tissue.

The hearts of students in the bus raced. They weren’t that far from Chen Chuan and Wei Wusheng and were mature martial artists. Even at this moment, they dared to watch the two.

Due to everything that Wei Wusheng had done, all of them had heard about him before, but as for Chen Chuan?

He seldom said anything on the university platform, so they had thought that there was nothing special about him aside from having better than average looks.

To their surprise, this student, typically so unassuming, was actually a Third Limit martial artist.

Tan Zhi’s shock was the greatest. His head hurt, as if something was pushing against his skull from inside. He cradled his head, and fragmented memories from Rhinoceros’ Horn appeared in his mind.

Finally, he realized something.

Could it be that back then...

***

While keeping his eyes on Wei Wusheng, Chen Chuan used both his hands to bring the Frost King Saber to his center. It seemed like he couldn’t overpower Wei Wusheng with pure strength in his pre-fusion state. He was actually far from being able to do so. All his attacks just now only gained power from the momentum created by his high speed. If he had delivered his slashes without building any momentum, he wouldn’t have been able to bring about any power.

As for speed, while they were matched in the beginning, Chen Chuan noticed that as he continued attacking, Wei Wusheng’s speed kept increasing.

No. The speed at the end should be his real speed. The pressure from Chen Chuan’s attacks had just made Wei Wusheng get used to Chen Chuan’s speed and warm-up enough to reveal his actual standard.

Chen Chuan could understand that. Martial artists, who focused on body-hardening, got into the zone slower than other people, but their endurance and adaptability reached astonishing levels.

In his current state, Chen Chuan wouldn’t be able to win against Wei Wusheng. He would soon be overpowered if they continued to fight.

If that were the case, then...

Determination settled in Chen Chuan’s eyes as he let go of all his inhibitions.

In an instant, everything around him became clearer. The changes in the light shows, the drifting dust in the air, the noise around him, and the movements of everyone became obvious. Once he focused, the world seemed to move slower.

He flipped his wrists and brought the saber to the side of his head while looking completely relaxed.

Everything around him seemed to have come to a stop. With his eyes fixed on Wei Wusheng, Chen Chuan pushed off the ground and charged forward. At the same time, he brought the saber down to deliver a diagonal slash upward.

Mr. Bai had been watching and was on guard against any potential threats. Even so, he only saw a blur, which was followed by a loud crash. When he finally saw what was going on, the image presented before him made his eyes fly wide open.

Chen Chuan’s body was turned to the side, and the saber’s hilt was positioned by his waist. Meanwhile, the blade had been thrust into Wei Wusheng’s stomach, and a portion of it came out through his back.

“What?!”

Mr. Bai stared at this in complete shock. What had happened just now? He hadn’t been able to see Chen Chuan’s movements at all.

The students behind him also started breathing faster while crying out in surprise.

Chen Chuan, however, kept his eyes trained on Wei Wusheng’s body. Blood flowed down from the man’s neck, and there was a long, diagonal slash over his chest.

Just now, Chen Chuan had attacked six times with the intent of using his speed to behead Wei Wusheng.

If he succeeded, then no matter how great a body hardening expert Wei Wusheng was, he wouldn’t be able to use his skills.

But just as he was about to remove his head, Wei Wusheng displayed reflexes and speed far greater than what he had shown earlier and used his hammer to block Chen Chuan’s attack. Then, he blocked all the others too. The only one he didn’t manage to block was the final thrust.

Or rather, he had intentionally let Chen Chuan thrust his saber through him.

Chen Chuan could sense his saber being locked in Wei Wusheng’s body. A dense yielding force wrapped around the blade, which was being kept in place by Wei Wusheng’s muscles and mutated tissue.

Wei Wusheng lifted his arms up. His movements were slow, but had great power. The Second Limit students in the bus could see clearly as he brought the hammer above his head.

At that moment, his body completely covered the sunlight shining from behind him, and the hammer seemed to fill with all of his power.

After a brief pause, the hammer swung down.

This scene was almost a complete repeat of what had happened on Rhinoceros’ Horn.

Chen Chuan watched the hammer swing down. If he didn’t give up on his saber, the hammer would land on his head.

He twisted his waist while the hammer was halfway through its trajectory and had yet to gather its full power. Then, he pushed his palms upward to deliver a flexible wave of refined force into the hammer, which locked it in place and prevented it from coming down any further.

Inevitably, Chen Chuan had to withstand the wave of power that could crush everything in its wake. His mutated tissue channeled refined force and guided it to every part of his body in order to continuously negate it.

It was clear that Wei Wusheng had put all of his power into the attack. Despite that, Chen Chuan managed to negate it with almost zero effort.

This was the result of his technique training over the past few months.

Next, all Chen Chuan needed to do was to use the mutated tissue he hadn’t activated to counterattack while Wei Wusheng had yet to recover his power. He could either draw his saber out or make Wei Wusheng’s injury worse.

But before Chen Chuan could do anything, a yielding force charged into him from the hammer.

The chaining of the two refined forces caught him off guard. The second one had come charging in before the first wave had even disappeared.

The sudden attack from the second wave made Chen Chuan mobilize the set of mutated tissue he had originally intended to use for his counterattack.

Even though he was uninjured, his back caved a little, and his feet sunk into the ground.

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Immediately, Chen Chuan realized that things were going south for him. Wei Wusheng wanted to pin him in place. If he couldn’t get away, he was going to end up wedged into the ground and be caught in the same dire situation as Phantom Form once had.

Still, Chen Chuan’s eyes remained calm as he jostled the Frost King Saber. The blade started trembling, as if responding to his movements.

Wei Wusheng felt like the saber had come to life, and his mutated tissue was almost unable to keep it in place. The moment he let his guard down, the saber would break free.

His gaze turned dark. Then, he did something surprising.

He let go of the hammer to spread his arms in an attempt to grab Chen Chuan’s shoulder.

Surprise flashed in Chen Chuan’s eyes, and alarm bells blared in his head. He didn’t try to yank the Frost King Saber out. Instead, he let go as well and tilted backward. At the same time, he grabbed Wei Wusheng’s hammer.

Despite only moving his upper body a little and not changing his stance much, Chen Chuan managed to move ten meters away from Wei Wusheng.

He cast a glance at his opponent. The man had chosen to stay in place instead of chasing after him. Then, he took a look at the hammer in his hand.

Since he wasn’t familiar with it, he tossed it aside.

Meanwhile, Wei Wusheng grabbed the Frost King Saber’s blade and drew it out. Just like Chen Chuan, he threw the weapon aside.

The wound in his stomach closed rapidly. The wounds on his neck and forehead were gone to the point where if it were not for the blood on the skin, Chen Chuan would have seen no proof of his saber ever cutting Wei Wusheng.

Chen Chuan noticed that not only had Wei Wusheng become stronger compared to last time, but there was also an extra refined force in him that was completely different from the one Wei Wusheng used in their previous fight.

It wasn’t the same as how martial artists split the mutated tissue in different parts of the body into two different sets with a technique and used them separately. His refined force came from an entirely different set of mutated tissue that seemed to have originated from another martial artist, as if there were two people that made up Wei Wusheng. It allowed him to use two waves of refined force at full strength instead of splitting his own into two batches.

The two sets of mutated tissue seemed to exist as two separate entities, but when Wei Wusheng’s life was in danger, they merged perfectly together.

Chen Chuan removed the wide-brim hat and set it on the bonnet of a car next to him. At the same time, he unbuttoned his collar.

Since he couldn’t use his weapon anymore, he would end the fight with his fists.