“He is too powerful.”
While Chen Fan’s attack clashed with Lei Qianjue, all the spectators by the lakeshore felt only one thing: these two were definitely not mortals, instead. They were sages and immortals who could stir up waves and turn the lake upside down. In a blink, the previously calm lake roiled and swirled and even the air was filled with the smells of smoke and blood.
“Brother Lei’s control of his True Qi is sublime. He could form a wall out of the water and turn raindrops into bolts with a wave of the hand. There was nothing that his True Qi couldn’t manipulate. If I were Chen Beixuan, I would crank up the Tai Chi Qi Energy and try to say alive as long as possible.” Standing before the crashing waves, Chen Jiuyang shook his head and heaved a sigh.
The audience around the old man nodded in agreement.
Those Semi-Transcendent Level family lords could relate the most to the old man’s sentiment. Although they had gotten a handle on projecting their Internal Energy outward, it couldn’t compare with Lei Qianjue’s unimaginable ability to wield the power of Heaven and Earth.
The audience was mesmerized by the two’s display of power as they watched the fight with great admiration.
“Is this the true power of a Grandmaster? To control the elements and reshape them at will like the immortals in legends? This is incredible! I wonder if us average folks could ever reach that state?”
“That being said, Chen Beixuan had held his own before the mighty Lei Qianjue as well. After all, he was able to kill another Grandmaster, Lu Tianfen. He can form Blade Qi at his fingertips and it was so sharp that it could cut through anything in its way. I wager any Grandmaster would have to think twice before attacking him if they didn’t have any weapon to counter Chen Beixuan’s Blade Qi.”
An old man sitting on top of a coiled-up snake said in a hoarse voice.
Under his feet were the head and the neck of a large python. Its triangular head perked up on its three-meter long neck, the slit eyes were golden in color. Its forked tongue slithered in and out of his mouth, it was evident from the cold and heartless gaze of the snake that this was a deadly beast.
The old man with the snake was wearing a green robe suggesting that he was an infamous Grandmaster from the Miao’s Land. His reputation had kept other people at a distance. Rumor had it that he was related to the Dark Witch Sect and that alone would deter anyone to talk to him.
“Brother Du is right.” Chen Jiuyang nodded and said hesitantly. He tried to hide his fear toward the old man in the green robe but failed. “However, Chen Beixuan only relied on his advantage in more powerful True Qi and fancier techniques. I say that Brother Lei was much further along the way in terms of the level of attainment. After all, Brother Lei had the Power of Earth and Heaven at his disposal. This fight might have a chance of ending in a draw if they were not fighting on the West Lake. Fighting close to the water was right up Brother Lei’s alley.”
Hering the judgment of Chen Jiuyang the Grandmaster, everyone nodded in agreement.
Everyone could tell that Lei Qianjue had the initiative since the beginning of the fight. Lei Qianjue’s level of attainment was so high that no one knew exactly what he was capable of, however, they were convinced that Chen Fan’s power was limited to the —although powerful —strength of the Azure Wood Qi Blad.
Meanwhile, ordinary people such as Zhang Yumeng and her friends could only stare.
“Are… are they human?” Yang Chao asked in a trembling voice.
While carried by the misty wings, Lei Qianjue waved a hand and summoned a three-meter tall wall of water, and then with another wave, he conjured a shower of deadly bolts. On the other hand, Chen Fan’s single strike carried enough power to shake the ground. He wielded the Blade Qi and severed the lake in half until the lake bottom was exposed under the sky.
The fight between the two had stirred up huge waves that broke up the surface, threatening to turn the lake upside down.
The power of these fighters was beyond the wildest imagination of Yang Chao and his friends. They had thought that a Grandmaster could wield the equivalent power of a hundred men, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. These two fighters were even more powerful than the glorified depiction of Martial Artist Grandmasters on TV.
Zhang Yumeng and Xu Rongfei were rendered speechless as they tried to come to terms with reality.
Li Yichen clenched his fist tightly as one thought appeared in his mind. “If I could be as powerful as them, I wouldn’t need to work hard for money nor power. I could just wave a hand and kill anyone I didn’t like, such as Chen Fan.”
Jiang Churan sat sulkily and watched the fight with furrowed brows. Unlike the rest of the crew on the boat, she had seen Chen Fan’s unimaginable ability before, so she was the least shocked by what she saw.
“Why do I feel that Chen Beixuan’s voice sounded so familiar? Where have I heard it before?”
Jiang Churan asked herself.
By then, Lei Qianjue had used his coup de grace and trapped Chen Fan within the web of white threads.
“Lei Qianjue’s power had reached borderline Dharma Spells if not Divine powers.” Chen Fan heaved a sigh.
Before Chen Fan had leveled up, he was able to do away with Lu Tianfen with ease. Neither Lu Tianfen’s physical condition nor the potency of his True Qi could compare with that of a cultivator. Even his Art of Cloud Hand was much inferior to the True Martial Celestial Sect’s Martial techniques.
Lei Qianjue was different. He had reached the peak of the Grandmaster Level and therefore technically, he should be as powerful as a cultivator in the late-stage of the Ethereal Enlightenment. His True Qi was a few times more powerful than that of Lu Tianfen, although it was still a few notches below that of Chen Fan. That being said. his True Qi was so condensed that it felt almost like True Essence. Therefore, Chen Fan concluded that Lei Qianjue should be at least as powerful as an early-stage Ethereal Enlightenment level. The only things he lacked were Dharma Spells and Dharma Artifacts.
As for the level of attainment in martial arts, Lei Qianjue was nearly unrivaled. Even those who could surpass his pure martial arts ability would have to rely heavily on spells.
“What a shame, you have arrived three months too late. If you found me three months ago, when my power and energies were spent, you might be able to drag the fight into a draw. However, now I have reached Ethereal Enlightenment. ”
Suddenly, the intensity of the light in Chen Fan’s eyes surged as he fixed his gaze at the Qi Net of the Thousand Trickeries that was coming down on him.
Once a cultivator had reached Ethereal Enlightenment, divine powers would form naturally. By then, he should be able to use any kind of Divine powers at will.
The Ethereal Enlightenment was a much more powerful level than the Foundation Establishment. A cultivator at Foundation Establishment level would only rely on his True Essence during combat, but at the Ethereal Enlightenment level, even the Power of Heaven and Earth would be at the cultivator’s disposal.
“Lei Qianjue, let me show you the true power of Ethereal Enlightenment!”
Chen Fan let go of the Azure Wood Qi Blade, and he reached out a palm, then he closed his fingers to form a fist.
“Kaboom!”
Countless raindrops started to merge and form many water swords. Each water sword was a few inches long and was formed purely by rain waters. The edge of these blades gave off a bright light that reflected and bounced off the crystalline body of the blades. In a blink, the tender autumn scenery on the West Lake turned into that of a hell.
“This is… Impossible!”
Lei Qianjue’s face finally paled.
He waved his hands to deflect incoming crystalline blades. To his surprise, these blades were not only sharp but also packed a hefty punch. It wasn’t long before Lei Qianjue’s hands started to feel numb.
The Qi Net of the Thousand Trickeries that he had spent so many days and night weaving and strengthening into shape were cut into pieces and quickly fell apart.
Chen Fan took a step forward as he traced a line in the air. Suddenly, these crystalline blades turned around and flew behind Chen Fan where they rearranged themselves in a straight row.
“Lei Qianjue, try to counter my Art of Water Swords!”
Chen Fan waved a hand and a huge explosion erupted on the lake. Countless water swords darted over the giant waves toward Lei Qianjue.
It was as if Chen Fan had pressed a button that remotely controlled all these flying swords. In the end, these flying swords converged and formed a sharp Blade Aura of a few hundred meters long. The aura ran from one end of the lake to the other, and the energy emanated from its body forced the water below to split in half, forming a deep chasm.
Even Lei Qianjue could have created bolts out of rain droplets, much less a cultivator at the Ethereal Enlightenment level.
However, unlike Lei Qianjue, Chen Fan didn’t use True Qi, instead, he simply cast a Dharma Spells.
I shall kill Lei Qianjue with the deadliness of a thousand and three hundred sharp crystalline edges.
“Arise!”
Lei Qianjue’s face darkened after seeing the swarm of blades coming at him. He charged up his True Qi as energy billowed out from his sleeves. The energy around him tossed his white hair into loose swirls. Both of his arms rose slowly with great difficulty as if he was lifting up something that weighed a ton.
Meanwhile, the brief tranquility on the calm lake was disturbed once again as a few large walls of water rose from the surface. These walls of water were at least a few meters tall and a meter thick. However, as soon as they rose above the water, they were frozen and turned into ice walls. There and then Lei Qianjue had given everything he got, unleashing all the energy that he had harnessed over the decades on the frigid tundra.
“Boom!”
A thousand and three hundred water swords pierced through the seven walls of ice. These frigid ice walls were at least a meter thick each, yet, they crumbled like a block of tofu under the attack.
However, after totaling the seven walls of ice, the number of water-swords was reduced down to nine hundred from a thousand and three hundred.
It wasn’t long before these nine hundred water swords came to contact with the Qi Net of the Thousand Trickeries.
“Clank, Clank!”
Despite the fact that these water swords were made out of the water, they sounded like metal when they cut through the threads. Lei Qianjue’s Qi Net of the Thousand Trickeries was so sharp and strong that it was able to cut up the weather-hardened ice cover at the Arctic. However, the net quickly fell apart after the attack of the swarming water swords.
Five hundred water swords carrying their Blade Aura finally made their way to Lei Qianjue.
“BOM! Kaboom!”
Lei Qianjue improvised a Four Righteousness Protection Aura within a three meters radius around him. These Four Righteousness Protection Aura was so dense that they seemed to take on physical forms. One could see mist like substance roiling inside the aura; they were pure True Qi. Once condensed into the mist, True Qi was about as strong as steel, if not more so. It was able to stop even a bullet at point-blank.
The Four Righteousness Protection Aura was what made the Grandmasters invincible even during this day and age.
“Swoosh, Swoosh!” The sharp water swords and the dense Four Righteousness Qi clashed into each other. Whenever a water sword spent its energy and fell into the water, the tip of the sword inched closer toward it’s target.
There were five hundred swords left when the tip was three meters away from Lei Qianjue.
Three hundred swords, when it was two meters away.
A hundred swords when it was only a meter away.
Finally, the blades broke through the aura and its rank was reduced to merely nineteen. Lei Qianjue punched at the group of nineteen swords. Without even using his True Qi, he deflected the incoming attack.
“Chen Beixuan, do you really think I have been wasting away my life during the ten years?”
“I have cultivated endlessly at the tundra. Without a strong body, how could I survive on the harsh Tundra for ten years?” Lei Qianjue stood barefoot on the lake and smiled proudly.
He was not only a Transcendent Grandmaster but also a Physique Refinement Grand Master.
“However, I have never expected you to be a Transcendent Grandmaster as well as a Perfected cultivator of Dharma Cultivation Level at the same time. I admire your ability to unite the Dharma Spell and Martial Arts techniques. Unfortunately, you have met me.” Lei Qianjue shook his head and lamented.
“Is that so?”
Chen Fan remained calm and unfazed. He shot out an arm to the surface of the lake.
In a blink, countless columns of water sprout out from the lake. They were so huge in size that some of them even held live shrimps and fishes in them. These water columns merged together and formed a few meter long blades made out of sloshing currents.
When the blade was formed in the sky, it shot out a wave of Balde Qi so powerful that it stopped the rain for a second.
The audience was stunned by the terrifying sight as they wondered if they should call this a fight between two martial artists or a battle between immortals. It was even more astonishing than the fight between Lei Qianjue and Ye Nantian seventeen years ago.
“Lei Qianjue, this sword could kill a Grandmaster with ease. Do you think you can survive it?”
Chen Fan linked his hands behind his back and said calmly.
He had drawn all the water in the West Lake and turn it into an Immoral Sword of unprecedented power. This blade wields enough energy to kill any Grandmaster in the world.
Lei Qianjue’s face paled as his expression grew heavy. A pressing sense of crisis suddenly gripped his heart.