Chapter 75: Fighting a Saint Master
The Light Wind Sword was like a hot knife cutting through butter as it split apart the man’s Saint Force. Despite this, the force of his thrust decreased as it was forced through his protective shell. The tip of the sword didn’t falter at all as it continued to stab through towards the middle aged man. The initial two defenses the man had put up had been smashed to pieces, but by the time the Light Wind Sword broke through the hindrances, the man had already drawn upon his wind attribute Saint Force to immediately propel himself backwards.
The middle aged man stood a few meters away as he stared at Jian Chen hard in the face. His own expression hardened as he spoke, “What incredible speed.”
Jian Chen looked back at the man without saying a word. He felt okay even after pushing himself to his limits. He had pushed his speed to a rate he had never achieved before. But his attack was essentially dodged by the man, so if Jian Chen wanted to land a killing blow on this man in the future, it would be a lot harder. After all, the man’s strength was not weaker than Jian Chen’s, and he was also a wind attribute Saint. He would definitely specialize in speed. In other words, it could be said that against this middle-aged man, Jian Chen had lost any type of advantage.
Regardless of how exquisite his swordplay was, if it wasn’t faster than the opponent’s reaction time, everything would be of no use. In addition, since there was a great difference in their strengths, Jian Chen didn’t dare to fight the middle-aged man at close quarters.
“Your strength has already reached Saint Master, right?” Jian Chen asked, his gaze fixed on the middle-aged man opposite of him.
The man didn’t bother to hide his shock, “Correct, my strength is at the Middle Saint Master level.” After saying that, he broke off from talking before looking at Jian Chen with an odd stare, “Your strength on the other hand isn’t all that strong, and neither is your wind attribute. Your speed just now wasn’t slow at all though, so I’m not sure how exactly you reached such a speed.” The man said in a curious tone. Right now his mind really wanted to know the answer. As a person with the wind attribute, if he was beaten in any other aspects, he wouldn’t have thought much about it. But in terms of surpassing him in speed, this raised a question that he couldn’t easily give up on solving. Jian Chen had beaten him in speed while having much less strength than him and without having a wind attributed Saint Force, so the man couldn’t help but be curious.
“My apologies, but I have no comment about this question.” Jian Chen replied evenly.
Hearing this, the other man’s stare hardened as he sneered, “If you tell me what trick you did in order to make yourself faster, then I will let you leave this place alive. Otherwise, hmph, do you think you could be a match for me with that type of speed?”
“Whether or not I am able to keep up, why don’t you come and see?” Jian Chen replied to the man’s threat. Jian Chen wasn’t scared; on the contrary, he was now fully prepared to fight as he clenched the still bloody Light Wind Sword. It continued to emit Sword Qi from the tip of the blade, and it surrounded Jian Chen’s entire body.
The man continued to stare at Jian Chen; the glare in his eye never receded. In his mind, he still had some misgivings about Jian Chen’s speed. Although Jian Chen had such a fast rate of speed, he did not have a wind attributed Saint Force, so he did not have the inborn advantage that the middle aged man had. Still, he wasn’t able to replicate Jian Chen’s speed himself–dodging the sword strike from earlier had taken all of his strength to pull off. If he was just a tiny bit slower, then the man had no doubts that his own heart would have been pierced straight through. For that reason, he was somewhat afraid of the consequences of fighting against Jian Chen.
Not only that, but looking at Jian Chen’s unblemished clothes, he could roughly guess how fast Jian Chen could move without breaking a sweat. If Jian Chen could move so fast continuously like this, then it would eventually take a huge strain on him.
Seeing how the man wasn’t attacking, Jian Chen also began to idle about, and began to slowly watch every single movement. Jian Chen knew that in this case, where his speed was slower than his enemy, then his chances of landing a fatal blow on the man would be practically non-existent. All he could do now was to hinder the man so that he wouldn’t be able to kill the weaker mercenaries. If he waited long enough, then the mercenary experts would come back and help deal with him instead of Jian Chen.
The fighting didn’t stop as the two stared at each other. The sounds of battle could still be heard, as both sides kept losing more of their numbers. The floor was dyed red with blood to the point that on some bumpy ground, puddles of blood had formed.
The bandits continued to fight with everything they had. The people who managed to survive were excellent figures that had either outstanding brains or brawn. At the moment, both the mercenaries and bandits had an equal amount of people.
The two continued to stand there before finally, one of them made a move. With the wind enwrapping the Guan Dao, the blade resembled a crescent moon in the night as the man ran towards Jian Chen with the 2 meter long blade in hand.
Seeing the man come forward to attack, Jian Chen’s eyes flashed dangerously as he brought his Light Wind Sword up in preparation to defend.
The man brought his cyan Guan Dao down towards Jian Chen’s head at an extremely fast speed.
Since he was fighting a Middle Saint Master, Jian Chen didn’t plan on meeting this attack head on, and nimbly dodged to the side.
However, as Jian Chen stabbed with his sword, the man’s Guan Dao changed direction in midair and whistled through the air, as it parried Jian Chen’s sword.
Jian Chen’s face changed as he immediately brought back his sword, reluctant to go against the man’s Guan Dao.
Jian Chen’s Light Wind Sword was the equivalent to his Saint Force’s life. His life was connected to the frail looking sword, so if his sword were to be injured, then Jian Chen’s own life would be too. And if his Light Wind Sword were to break then Jian Chen would lose all of his cultivation, and his life would be threatened.
On the Tian Yuan Continent, the cases in which people had died due to their Saint Weapons being broken were commonly seen. It practically happened everywhere. But with the Saint Weapon being a representation of one’s inner Saint Force’s condensation, when summoned outside the body, it would become unimaginably hard. Moreover, it would grow harder as the owner improved. Thus, unless one were to fight someone stronger than him by a large amount, their Saint Weapons would never break.
Since his opponent’s strength was already at the Middle Saint Master, he was higher than Jian Chen’s strength by two whole levels. So if Jian Chen’s Light Wind Sword were to collide against the man’s Guan Dao, then he would definitely take some damage. Jian Chen couldn’t afford this happening, so he had to try to avoid a collision between the weapons at all cost; after all, he would be the only one to suffer from a loss.
Once again dodging the man’s attack, Jian Chen noticed the man’s defenses momentarily showing a large gap. Taking advantage of the rare opportunity, Jian Chen immediately moved towards the man with a silent Profound Steps and stabbed the Light Wind Sword towards the man’s back with a red flash . The sword whistled silently as it traveled through the air, the sound making it seem like the sword had cut through the air itself. Its speed had reached its peak as it approached the man’s back. Enveloped with Sword Qi, the sword slashed through the man’s clothing, and then embedded itself into his back, breaking through his skin.
Feeling a painful sensation in his back, the man’s face changed immediately, but he displayed no signs of immediate panic. He hadn’t been fully prepared for Jian Chen’s speed, so the wound on his back continued to spray blood as his Saint Force condensed itself to take care of his wounds. At the same time, the man began to glow bright with cyan light as his speed started to increase rapidly. Before he could even leave a shadow on the ground or for Jian Chen’s Light Wind Sword to completely stab into his back, the man immediately leaned towards the side and escaped from the Light Wind Sword’s range.
The man had already guessed that Jian Chen would stab out with all his strength. At this moment Jian Chen’s own guard was at its weakest. Thus, the middle aged man also grasped onto this difficult opportunity. Dodging the stab, he immediately brought his Guan Dao high into the air, causing the twinkling cyan color of light to resemble a dazzling moon in the night. With the Guan Dao left high in the air, it emitted a sharp glow as it flew towards Jian Chen. This blow contained all of the man’s remaining strength.
Seeing how Jian Chen had fought earlier, the man had already known from previous experiences that Jian Chen would be a hard opponent. Due to Jian Chen’s bountiful battle experience, he never had any holes in his defenses. So no matter if it was his attack or defense, his style of fighting could be said to be flawless, with absolutely no gaps. This was especially true since his sword had used all of Jian Chen’s abilities this time. Most likely, the only situation where the man could’ve heavily damaged Jian Chen was if Jian Chen’s technique wasn’t strong enough. Thus, the middle-aged man didn’t have the slightest intention of holding back this attack of his.
The Guan Dao streaked across the air so quickly, that if it was aimed towards weaker people, then they would have had no time to react at all.
“Hua!”
With an explosive shout, the man brought the cyan colored Guan Dao down towards the defenseless Jian Chen’s head. From his upper body stroke, the Guan Dao did not decrease in speed at all and smashed fiercely into the ground.
The smash contained all of the man’s strength as the Guan Dao exploded into the ground. The blade of the Guan Dao sent all of the surrounding dirt flying into the air, creating a huge hole a meter in diameter. At the same time, Jian Chen’s silhouette had completely disintegrated due to this sudden move.
However on the man’s face, not a single trace of happiness could be seen; instead, his face hardened in annoyance.
“An afterimage!” The man cried out in alarm. However, as his mind came to this conclusion, an intense feeling of a crisis struck the man’s thoughts. Without hesitation, the man leapt towards the side with his natural reflexes, simultaneously picking up his Guan Dao from the ground and blindly swinging it behind himself.
“Ding!”
A loud sound could be heard as the man’s Guan Dao swung back and suddenly collided with the Jian Chen’s bloody sword.
Just as the sword and Guan Dao collided, Jian Chen’s face suddenly changed. He immediately paled as he felt an intense churning sensation in his stomach, and he immediately retreated.