CHAPTER 180.1: FURNACE (PART ONE)

Tan Wang kept weaving in and about the saber flashes to avoid them. He noticed that Chen Chuan’s attacks contained both power and speed but lacked skill. This allowed him to use his experience to avoid the attacks to a certain degree instead of blocking them.

When he could not avoid the attacks, he used the scales to block the slashes. With the help of his refined force, his muscles rippled and minimized the damage.

Since both of them were moving at lightning speed, they seemed to be exchanging blows nonstop and creating gaps in the rain.

Sometimes, before the blasted-apart rain could fall back, another burst would erupt on the other side. Between them, streak after streak of forcibly deflected rain could be seen, rising and falling in succession.

Lightning continued flashing in the sky, while the thunder continued roaring. One moment, it illuminated their bodies, while the next, they vanished. Only the mud and grass on the ground being blasted upon contact revealed their location.

Around ten minutes later, Tan Wang started feeling sick. He had to keep using refined force to parry the saber slashes, which required him to focus his entire attention on the fight. He couldn’t afford the slightest lapse in attention, and it was a huge burden on his stamina and mental endurance.

It had only been ten minutes, so he was still okay, but if the fight dragged on, it would become hard for him to continue staying focused, and he would inevitably make mistakes.

Damn it. I miscalculated, he cursed inwardly.

He had left Central City before completing the gland implant surgery. Otherwise, he could secrete a layer of oil on his scales that would allow him to even more effectively ward off slashing attacks and bullets.

Also, if he had received the venomous gland implant surgery on his upper jaw, he could release a blast of poisonous breath during the fight and kill Chen Chuan with ease. He wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of fighting him.

Chen Chuan’s saber attacks were horrifyingly consistent. They retained the same speed and strength throughout the whole fight. Nothing had changed. It was as if he could deliver the same caliber of attacks until the end of time.

Tan Wang was beginning to doubt his judgment. No medicine’s effects could possibly last this long.

Was this... his real strength?

No. That was impossible.

Tan Wang had never noticed that when anxiety and doubt crept into his mind, it was the first sign of being unable to pay full attention to the fight and his stamina beginning to dip.

Chen Chuan was paying close attention to Tan Wang. It had only been around ten minutes since the fight started. Before this, he had swum in shafts and had to face endless darkness and a suffocating environment for more than an hour. This was nothing to him.

The crash course training had raised his ability to withstand pressure to another level. This fight couldn’t influence his mind whatsoever.

Even if he ran out of time to overlap with his second self, he would continue swinging his saber with unrelenting resolve until either Tan Wang or he collapsed.

After another ten or so minutes, Tan Wang finally felt that something was wrong. His body seemed to be unable to react in time. Even though his experience allowed him to make up for it, he could tell that things weren’t looking good for him.

This had to be because of the implants.

If a set of implants weren’t perfectly compatible with a body, they led to a decline in fighting strength. The Secret Python Cult had an implant specialist and implant cultivation lab, so each cultist got implants suitable for them.

But He Xiaoxing had destroyed all of his original implants, and the most badly damaged one was his offensive implant, which forced him to get another set.

In order to increase his fighting strength, Tan Wang had gone for an upgraded version of the offensive implant, but it was still being cultivated to perfect compatibility with him, so he had to use a general model for the time being.

While he had no problems using it for short periods of time, a long fight would result in it feeling awkward and stiff.

If he took medicine right now, he could overcome it, but he didn’t bring it with him, not that he even had the time to take any medicine right now. He was engaged in a fierce fight and hypersensitive to every minute movement from his opponent.

The moment Tan Wang’s movements started to falter, Chen Chuan sensed it. He noticed that Tan Wang’s rhythm had become a slightly erratic and was no longer as stable as before.

This could only mean one thing—he was on the decline.

At the same time, he realized that if he had noticed this, there was no way that Tan Wang did not. Then, he would surely try to salvage the situation or break the stalemate.

This plan of his might come a little while later but could also come in the next second.

Chen Chuan had to pour even more of his focus into the fight.

Tan Wang didn’t immediately change his strategy. He had a lot of fighting experience and the patience to wait it out. He wanted to drag out the fight. Perhaps Chen Chuan would lose his composure and reveal a weakness.

But Chen Chuan was an opponent with practically no impatient or reckless bone in him, so Tan Wang did not find a chance to turn the tides. Hence, he could only try to create a chance himself.

Once again, he blocked a saber slash with his arm. Before this, he had always used the contractions of his muscles and the toughness of the scales to divert the blade, but this time, he did something new.

The moment he came into contact with the saber, the veins on his arm squirmed, and the skin tore apart to reveal implants resembling snakes. They wrapped themselves around the saber and secured it tightly.

Chen Chuan’s expression stilled, but he didn’t choose to pull the blade back. Instead, he let go of the hilt, moved forward to get into Tan Wang’s personal space, and launched a rapid onslaught of attacks. Tan Wang only blocked with one hand. If he couldn’t do it, he just took the attacks.

While Chen Chuan was a little stronger in terms of physical strength, Tan Wang had incredibly durable mutated muscles. He could easily negate all the punches and kicks, which meant that bare-handed attacks were barely a threat to him. As long as he seized control of the saber, the fight would become much easier.

But after Chen Chuan saw that his attacks weren’t of much use, he immediately switched tactics. When Tan Wang blocked an attack to the face, Chen Chuan unfurled his fist, grabbed Tan Wang’s wrist, and pulled it toward himself. Tan Wang felt a wave of refined force charging into him, and he immediately tensed his muscles, flipped his wrist, and shook off Chen Chuan’s fingers.

Chen Chuan brought his left hand down and grabbed the middle section of his blade before twisting his waist and yanking at the saber. At the same time, he spread his right hand wide and went to grab Tan Wang’s face.