Book 3, Chapter 157: Ritual Tattoo

Xu Xianwen was pretty sharp. When he saw that fighting in the darkness did not put Chen Chuan at a disadvantage, he changed his strategy and retreated while picking up all the broken objects in the temple to throw at him.

Chen Chuan didn’t let down his guard and brandished his saber to either knock them away or block them.

Despite it looking like Xu Xianwen was just casually throwing things Chen Chuan’s way, the heavy and constantly changing refined force in them made it clear that he knew a throwing art.

Learning about this made Chen Chuan even more careful. There had to be a reason behind Xu Xianwen injecting refined force into the objects he was throwing. This should be a prelude to the killing move.

Just as he expected, he soon heard a dull thud. A powerful gust of wind charged at him, and he saw a large, fierce-looking statue flying at him.

Xu Xianwen had actually shoved the broken statue sitting in the shrine at him.

The statue was around six meters tall and had six arms stretched outward. In each hand, it held a weapon. The statue was so large that it practically filled up Chen Chuan’s entire vision, but he didn’t dodge. He brought his hands up, lifted his saber, and swung.

A saber flash shone in the temple. In an instant, the statue was cut in the middle. The refined force Chen Chuan had injected into his attack also caused the statue to shatter inch by inch, and it started falling back.

As the cut pieces flew back, Chen Chuan noticed something and swung his saber to block the spear thrust coming at him from the side, but the power of the thrust felt different, as if the spear had been thrown his way.

His eyelids twitched, and he sensed his opponent drawing closer. Xu Xianwen brought one hand up to shove Chen Chuan’s saber to the side while reaching out with his other.

Chen Chuan didn’t panic. He grabbed the short saber by his waist, drew it, and delivered a few slashes in succession. Since Xu Xianwen could easily block thrusts, all his attacks were injected with slash-type refined forces.

Surprisingly, Xu Xianwen did not avoid his attack. He allowed the short saber to cut into his arm and head while he kept thrusting his arm toward Chen Chuan’s face.

Chen Chuan calmly tilted his head to the side, and he felt a sharp gust of air brush against his cheek. At this point, he no longer had the space to continue attacking, so he abandoned the short saber, clenched his fists, and threw a punch at Xu Xianwen’s face.

Bam!

Xu Xianwen was thrown back so hard that he crashed into the temple’s wall and flew out. Since the sun was starting to rise, light poured in through the newly made hole, and the temple became much brighter.

When Chen Chuan bent down to grab the short saber, he found that he could no longer hear anything through his Realm Pass. Clearly, it was broken. It seemed like all of Xu Xianwen’s actions just now were for this one goal.

But he didn’t mind. He did not care about his Realm Pass, which was why he hadn’t bothered protecting it while avoiding Xu Xianwen’s attacks.

Besides, he was sure that the Resolution Department already knew where they were. Even without the Realm Pass to locate him, they would be able to find him by tracking him down.

With the sabers in hand, Chen Chuan stepped outside through the hole. Behind him, half of the temple’s wall collapsed with a rumble, and waves of dust rolled out, causing his jacket to flutter.

Xu Xianwen had already gotten up from the ground. He was standing by a slope. As he stared at Chen Chuan, he wiped away the blood at the corner of his mouth. Various cuts had been left on his arm, face, and even chest. They were so deep that the skin and flesh rolled back, and Chen Chuan could see bone. But the wounds were closing up.

That wasn’t all the damage Chen Chuan had dealt, though. Since the ritual was still working its magic on him, Xu Xianwen was losing a lot of blood essence to restore energy to his arm as it was seeping out. He had lost around one-tenth of his blood essence by then.

This bit of loss was nothing to him. As he released his blood essence, the energy he lost quickly returned to him in the form of more blood, and in an instant, he recovered fully.

Right now, he held a lasso in his right hand. On the other end of it was his spear. With a tug, he dragged the spear back. He had dared to throw his weapon at Chen Chuan because he had a way to drag it back.

Still, he didn’t choose to continue fighting against Chen Chuan. He just cast a deep look at him and turned around to jump down the mountain.

Chen Chuan followed after him. A large, open space appeared before him. Right in front of him was a clear lake surrounded by reeds. The white reed flowers swayed above the water. One side of the lake was dyed a golden red as the morning sun cast its rays on it.

Chen Chuan saw Xu Xianwen running up another mountain and jumped down to give chase.

***

An SUV was charging through the forest on the other side of the mountain. The man in the backseat kept urging the driver to go faster. “Hurry up! Faster!”

He was Hu Ying, a reporter from Fasttrack News.

Earlier, he had gotten a tip saying that armed criminals had attacked Motie Mountain, and one of its defenders was the Third Limit martial artist who had killed Wei Wusheng outside the arena.

This was a clear opportunity.

Since Motie Mountain was experiencing domain interference and people were intentionally hiding this fact, there was no firsthand information.

But Hu Ying had been nearby, so he immediately had his driver drive down the path Chen Chuan and Xu Xianwen seemed to have taken. Even though this might be dangerous, if Hu Ying actually managed to get a report on this, he was going to get an incredible amount of money and rewards.

“We’re currently taking the same path as the two Third Limit martial artists. Oh God! What’s that?!”

The SUV jerked, and Hu Ying saw a building on a mountain far away collapse with a loud rumble. Excitement filled every fiber of his being. The two Third Limit martial artists were definitely there!

“Can you imagine it, everyone?

“Wherever they go, they leave carnage. Walls are pushed down, cars are overturned, and trees are snapped in two. This is unbelievable! They’re like Fenghai’s Iron Horse trucks!”

After sneakily dropping an advertisement for his sponsor, he started describing his own emotions. “I can feel my entire body trembling. I’m going after them right now, but I don’t know whether this will make them angry. They might suddenly jump over my SUV and kill me...”

Then, he nudged the driver. “But don’t worry, brother. I’ll be with you!”

The driver was driving nervously. When Hu Ying nudged at him, he shuddered and nearly brought the car into a pit. He roared, “Could you not distract me?!”

Hu Ying only laughed excitedly.

As he was reporting the news, more people came to his broadcast. The number of viewers started climbing up, and it showed on his Realm Pass. A lot of them became interested after learning that Chen Chuan was one of the defenders. The spectators who had watched his fight with Wei Wusheng quickly joined the broadcast.

***

The Resolution Department had noticed this. Guan Ziyang cast a look at the broadcast before asking, “Are our guys there yet?”

“They’re on their way!”

After some consideration, Guan Ziyang gave an order. “Distribute some resources to the reporter and ask him to keep a close look so that we can understand what’s going on.”

***

Chen Chuan might have started his chase a little slow, but this time, he was traveling on an open terrain, so nothing blocked his view. He gradually sped up and shortened the distance between him and Xu Xianwen. Then, he threw a few stones.

Xu Xianwen noticed the whistling sounds behind him and moved to the side to avoid them, but because of it, he slowed down a little. Soon, he noticed Chen Chuan closing in on him, and with a shout and a hand on his spear, he turned around and thrust it.

Chen Chuan tilted his head to avoid the spear and pushed his saber forward. With a snap of his wrist, Xu Xianwen brought the spear in front of him and parried the saber. Their refined forces clashed, and the plants around them collapsed.

While his charge unabated, Chen Chuan closed in on Xu Xianwen and forced him back a few steps. Then, he started slashing at him rapidly.

Xu Xianwen took a hit from the clash of refined forces. He kept parrying while stepping back, and wherever he went, his feet created deep pits beneath him, making it hard for him to swiftly break free.

Chen Chuan had pretty much familiarized himself with all of Xu Xianwen’s attacks, and he had also gotten a grasp of Xu Xianwen’s breathing rhythm.

Xu Xianwen was amazing at transforming his refined force, but after figuring out what he practiced, Chen Chuan knew what he needed to do to counter it.

He didn’t need to come up with a plan on the fly. The three university lecturers had given him well-considered suggestions.

There was a problem, though. He might know what to do, but he didn’t actually

know

whether he could execute the suggestions during the fight.

Chen Chuan sucked in a deep breath. From the fight so far, the results of his training over the past few days were obvious. All his mutated tissue had become active and excited; it was at its prime.

After executing a few more slashes, he noticed Xu Xianwen changing his breathing, and with a loud shout, his mutated tissue started churning. All his refined force gathered on his saber before he swung down.

Crack!

The spear was cut in half, but Chen Chuan didn’t stop there. He used the momentum and brought the saber down to the ground, leaving a deep gash running from the middle of Xu Xianwen’s face to his torso.

But when the tip of the saber cut through Xu Xianwen’s flesh, he felt a strong resistance from his muscles, so he wasn’t able to cut too deeply.

Xu Xianwen’s face twisted into a sneer. With a swing of his arms, he threw the cut sections of his spear at Chen Chuan, who just turned his saber around and knocked them away.

Then, Xu Xianwen jumped back and widened the distance between them. Blood kept gushing out of his body and falling on the dirt under him, but in the blink of an eye, Xu Xianwen’s blood essence closed the wound.

Just then, Xu Xianwen gave Chen Chuan a grin showing his teeth and yanked off his torn jacket to reveal a solid, well-defined upper body. Ritual tattoos went up and down his chest and back.

It was a ritual of the Secret Python Cult. Not only could it increase his vitality, but also let him take a lot of medicine without suffering any side effects. Even when he was heavily injured, he could recover quickly.

That wasn’t the real purpose of the ritual, though.

As he watched Chen Chuan come forward with a saber in hand, Xu Xianwen sucked in a deep breath. At the same time, the ritual tattoos on his body disappeared, as if they had sunk into his body. Then, mutated tissue resembling green scales appeared on his face and body, covering his exposed upper body.

He crossed his arms and blocked the saber swinging at him. When his arms came into contact with the blade, there was the sound of metal clashing.