Chapter 56: Chen Jiang
"How…"
Gazing dumbly at sword embedded in his chest, completely ignoring the piercing jolts of pain, Weng Dian murmured softly. Jun Meng Chen blinked once, before reaching out to extricate the sword. With a soft sound, the blade slid out, and Weng Dian crumpled to the ground.
"Why don't you meditate on it for a bit?" He spoke. "Perhaps when you wake, the answer to your weakness may be displayed before you."
Watching Jun Meng Chen approach the depths of the cavity, Weng Dian grasped his chest, a dull light flickering in his gaze. As his body dissipated into divine essence, leaving behind a worn-out Buddhist bead glowing with ephemeral inscriptions, a faint whisper echoed throughout.
"Truly, exquisite technique means nothing in face of experience."
Walking while rubbing his right leg, Jun Meng Chen couldn't help but frown slightly. In his last technique, he had overcompensated in his turns due to the steep incline, straining the tendons and ligaments in his right leg and ankle. Infusing a gentle stream of divine essence, the pain and numbness gradually dissipated, with only the slightest dissonance in his step present.
Suddenly, he stopped, before releasing a rueful sigh. Increasing the supply of divine essence directed towards his legs, Jun Meng Chen's figure flickered before vanishing.
Crash!
Just a few meters away from where he once stood, the ground caved in as an immortal was thrown from afar. Leaping up with a strangled cry, he spun in a full circle as he brought his fists together before him, a golden light covering his entire body.
Boom!
Two fists collided against the blade of a halberd, the golden light repulsing the razor-sharp edge from contacting the skin. The weaponless immortal grunted, before slamming his fists together.
His entire skin changing into a healthy bronze from his pale white, gauntlets engraved with tigers and dragons appeared on his fists. Charging towards the wielder of the halberd, a female immortal with an elegant green dress, the gauntlet-wearing immortal drew his right fist back, before heavily slamming it onto the ground.
"<Rupture>!"
Boom!
Following his cry, the ground cracked as the foundation underneath violently exploded, his fist as the epicenter of the blast. The female immortal nimbly leapt from stone to stone, dodging the majority of the shrapnel. Bending her knees and stabbing the halberd into the ground, she dissipated the remaining shockwave, glaring at the gauntlet-wearing youth.
"Always implanting shockwaves into the ground," she hissed, spinning the halberd before aiming the blade towards the youth. "Haven't you learned that it does no effect except draw attention to you?"
"I just like demolishing the earth, what's wrong with that?" replied the youth in an even, gravelly voice. Preparing his body into a combat stance with his left gauntlet supported by his right, he lowered his gaze, the golden light surging from his body once more. "Besides, other than complain all day, what have you done so far, Han Rou?"
Han Rou coldly snorted, thrusting her halberd into the ground once more. Gripping it with both hands, she released a piercing cry as her immortal's construct bloomed into existence behind her, a faint outline of a two-headed eagle.
Within seconds, the image of the eagle had merged with her body, and a leather armor appeared on top of her body, shining with a golden brilliance. Frowning at the inscriptions of a coiled tiger, dragon, and phoenix circling the two-headed eagle throughout her armor, the youth relaxed his stance, allowing his arms to drop to his sides and closing his eyes.
Observing such a scene, Jun Meng Chen instinctively narrowed his eyes, quickly rushing away before spectating from afar.
"In Memory, Awake the Spirit of East!"
The moment those words rang from the youth's mouth, drastic changes began to manifest not only on his body, but also the environment. The engravings on his gauntlets vanished, and the gauntlets themselves shrank to become grey fingerless gloves, the golden light no longer emanating from his body.
However, both Han Rou and Jun Meng Chen's eyes froze, before darting to their respective weapons. Both Jun Meng Chen's sword and Han Rou's halberds were melting away into streams of divine essence, which then sped towards the youth to coil around his waist.
Jun Meng Chen could spot even more strands of divine essence rushing from afar, and the surprised and panicked cries of nearby immortals could be heard everywhere. As more divine essence surrounded the youth, a cobalt belt of scaly python skin appeared on his waist, and an azure light burst from his body.
"In Memory…using such a powerful domain ability that the elders banned before the start, aren't you worried about disqualification, Chen Jiang?" Han Rou spat, apprehension flashing in her eyes. Shifting around warily, her gaze darted around, only to narrow when she noticed that without her ever noticing, more than thirty immortals had arrived at the scene, including Jun Meng Chen.
All of them were weaponless, and the majority were looking at Chen Jiang with distaste in their eyes. When she expanded the range of her perception, she couldn't help but startle in fright. Attracting all of the immortals to this location, what was this fellow planning!?
"In Memory can only be considered a true domain ability when all four Spirits have been awoken," spoke Chen Jiang, gazing around the ring of spectators. "Hence, the Spirit of the East is only considered a powerful wide-radius technique, nothing more. But," his voice became more imposing, the azure light emanating from his body congealing into a set robes covering his bodies. "It's more than enough to deal with all of you!"
The moment the words left his mouth, Chen Jiang's immortal construct blazed into existence, and a massive royal seal hovered above him. Releasing an imposing might, the presence of the royal seal warped the nearby divine essence towards it, casting a multicolored aroura in the afternoon sky.
Spreading his arms, Chen Jiang's words echoed throughout the ears of all sixty-seven immortals remaining, causing them great surprise.
"I, Chen Jiang, was born not as a Holy Son, but an ordinary disciple within the Pavilion of Authority no more than four hundred years ago. The day my immortal construct awakened was merely a week ago during our Pavilion's internal selection. "
"Out of fellowship, I warn you thus. Divine essence will pose no effect towards me, and will instead cause a severe, perhaps even fatal backlash for those who attempt to attack without my permission."
Leveling his gaze, Chen Jiang lowered his arms as inscriptions of divine essence raced down his sleeves. Forming a relaxed grip with his right hand, a translucent blade formed, radiating an invisible, but immense splendor of authority and might. Some of the weaker immortals couldn't help but pale and retreat to evade the enormous pressure.
"The first two to join me shall be granted permission to attack the other immortals without retaliation. This preliminary selection will conclude in this fashion!"
Hearing Chen Jiang's words, Jun Meng Chen furrowed his brows deeply, directing a sharp glance towards his surroundings. Determining that nobody had dared to step forward, he stroked the sheath twice before grasping just above its mouth.
Instead of thin air, the slender handle of a longsword could be felt, causing a gently smile to grace his face. Stepping forward, Jun Meng Chen's elegant voice rang throughout the clearing, disrupting some of the immortals' mental disorientation.
"What if we refuse? The words of a one who has yet to wean, what rapport does it have?"
"Because of strength!"
Chen Jiang's gaze narrowed at Jun Meng Chen's words, firing off a snappy reply. As the imposing aura increased even further, he pointed at Jun Meng Chen, his gravelly voice sounding out.
"Then you shall be the first example of what it means to dissent! Fall, <Dragon of the East>!"
The royal seal released a powerful hum, before an azure dragon rushed out from within, coiling in the air before everyone. With a piercing roar, the within the dragon accumulated a colossal tide of divine essence, released at Jun Meng Chen in the form of a light-blue beam of light.
Seeing Jun Meng Chen enveloped within the beam, many immortals couldn't help but lightly gasp. Even the ground nearby had been corroded away by the sheer collision of divine essence, revealing the shaky foundations underneath collapsing at a fast rate.
In midst of their panic, several immortals rushed to escape the cavity, forfeiting the selection. When the beam had dissipated, a thick mist covered the entire cavity, obscuring everyone's vision by a significant margin.
"With such an attack, he actually dared to brag…even the fogeys at the World Tree Domain could hit harder than that."
Suddenly, a leisured voice interrupted the momentary haze, causing Chen Jiang's expression to distort. Fiercely slashing with his hand, he cleared the mist to see that Jun Meng Chen had manifested a stool to clean his blade with a pale cloth, enveloped by a thin, beige bubble.
Sensing the utter disdain emanating from Jun Meng Chen's body, Chen Jiang trembled with rage, crying out with a harsh voice.
"Fall and sunder, <Dragon of the East>, <Grand Calamity>!"
The dragon from above roared twice more as the light-blue beam descended onto Jun Meng Chen once again. The earth trembled as it spit apart, revealing a great maw of magma that darted forward to swallow Jun Meng Chen's figure.
Unfortunately, despite earning himself the looks of fear and admiration from the surrounding immortals, Chen Jiang's expression couldn't help but darken even further. As if to mock him again, the haze cleared to reveal that the beige bubble hadn't even cracked a single time from the repeated battering.
"…If I don't hurry up, mother will call me a useless son once more."
Softly muttering under his breath, Jun Meng Chen dissipated the stool and the bubble, twirling the sword around his body. Narrowing his eyes, a copious stream of divine essence surged towards his legs, and Jun Meng Chen darted at Chen Jiang, the blade flashing forth.
"Hear the Spirit's will!"
Releasing a shrill cry, the royal seal descended towards the ground, raising plumes of sediment as it embedded itself into the softened earth. As it ascended, the imprint on the soil glowed with a golden light, quickly expanding to cover a third of the cavity.
As it passed over the immortals, they started as the reserves of divine essence within began to drain and wilt at a rapid pace, their movements becoming sluggish. Those with a spiritual core were relatively well-off, with only a slight detriment to their abilities, but the rest visibly withered as they raced to escape from the cavity.
As they fled, they complained in their hearts. This was most definitely a domain ability, why were the elders not interfering? They simply wouldn't be able to comprehend that the elders were musing at Chen Jiang's figure, each with their own conclusions.
As he neared to a meter's distance from Chen Jiang, Jun Meng Chen tossed his sword into the air and clapped his palms, vanishing into a plume of grey smoke. After thrown into the air, the sword tumbled for a second before righting itself, directing the tip at Chen Jiang's snarling figure.
Just before the sword reached Chen Jiang, it vanished before reappearing behind him. The entirety of the right sleeve had been cut, and Chen Jiang whirled around to find Jun Meng Chen smiling gracefully at him, the sword grasped in his left hand.
Above hovered seven grey spears, each supported by multiple layers of stacked arrays formed by the Divine Script, their deadly points directed at Chen Jiang. As Chen Jiang stood riveted, his eyes transfixed on the unassuming, ordinary spears with confusion, Jun Meng Chen's leisurely voice rang out once more.
"Your capacity of divine essence is quite impressive for such a young immortal. However, a divine weapon wielded by an infant, just what could you achieve?"
Extending his right hand towards Chen Jiang, Jun Meng Chen continued. As he spoke, the elders observing from afar all stood instantly, their cries containing shock, admiration, and dread.
"Descend, for I have called thee, <Caladbolg>!"
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