Chapter 171: Beat Up A Grandmaster
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Tianfen was blown away by the boy’s punch!
No one expected such an outcome. To most people, a Grandmaster should be invincible. Unless the military and their heavy artillery were deployed, no one would be able to beat them. The only individual who was able to defeat a Grandmaster was another Grandmaster. Along that line of thinking, people started to wonder if the sixteen year old boy was also a Grandmaster.
“Hold on, he is Master Chen from Jiang Bei, the Young Grandmaster!”
After Lu Yanwu’s warning finally came in, someone exclaimed.
The crowd quickly boiled over. Before seeing the boy in action, everyone thought that the Young Master from Jiang Bei was simply an exaggerated rumor. However, there and then, everyone has seen the proof right before their eyes. The Young Grandmaster was real!
Lu Haixuan stumbled back a few steps in disbelief. He felt that his pride and confidence that he had been wearing over twenty years had all been thrown out of the window by Chen Fan’s display of strength. Lu Haixuan had reached Phenomenal Success in his Internal Force cultivation when he was twenty-five, and that had always been his bragging rights. However, his achievement seemed pathetic compared to a Grandmaster who wasn’t even twenty years old.
“Chen Beixuan!”
Lu Tianfen rose to his feet slowly. His gaze on Chen Fan was icy cold, however, inside of his heart, the angry flames burned belligerently. At his level, nothing was more important to him than his reputation. To have suffered such a huge defeat at the hands of a young boy was something that he could not come to terms with easily.
“Looks like you still want to fight. Well, I shall oblige then.” Chen Fan cracked a smile, revealing a row of white teeth.
After he finished his words, he took a large step forward, covering over ten meters of distance at once. It was as if he had folded the s.p.a.ce so that he could warp himself into the vicinity of Lu Tianfen. When he suddenly appeared before his opponent, he punched at Lu Tianfen again.
“Bang!”
Having learned his lesson and raised his guard, Lu Tianfen was better prepared this time. He folded his hands and summoned the white glow. As the size and the intensity of the white glow grew, he reshaped the wash of light it into a giant glowing hammer and used it to counter Chen Fan’s punch.
The impact sent the Lu Tianfen stumbling back.
“Such power, he is even more powerful than Tong Shan!”
Lu Tianfen was shocked by his opponent’s raw strength. His hands trembled after they were numbed by the powerful impact.
“How could he be so strong at such a young age? Is he already a Physique Refinement Grandmaster?” Lu Tianfen thought incredulously. Becoming a Physique Refinement Grandmaster was much more difficult than becoming a regular Grandmaster. In the recent century, only Chen Longxiang from the Diamond Temple had pulled off such a feat.
However, this was not the time for pondering. Before he could put his questions aside, Chen Fan was already coming at him again…
“Cloud Hand of the Lu family: Thousand Threads!”
Lu Tianfen decided to change his tactics and avoid direct confrontation. As his fingers danced in the air like playing an air guitar, countless silky threads fell from the sky like the drizzling rain of the Jiang Nan region that not only soaked up the land but also wrapped melancholy around one’s heart. In a blink, Chen Fan was entangled in a web formed by countless stringy threads. These threads were made out of True Essence. They might look easy to break—and they were, but their ability to reconnect and reform after being severed was what made the web nearly impossible to escape. Even Tong Shan was wrapped tight in a coc.o.o.n made from these threads, despite his immense strength.
“How is he going to deal with this?”
Everyone rounded their eyes and watched the fight attentively. Lu Tianfen had used this same move and successfully subdued Tong Shan, what would happen to Chen Fan?
“It’s the same art as the Thousand Trickeries.”
Chen Fan cracked a smile. He spread out his arms as a crane would to his wings. He looked like a large bird of prey swooping down from the sky.
“True Martial Thirty-Six Forms, the second form: Humble Cloud Hand!”
The last time Chen Fan used this art, he had only reached the mid-stage of the Foundation Establishment level, and his opponent was Lin Hu who was a peak level Internal Force cultivator. Since then, Chen Fan had progressed to late-stage in his Foundation Establishment and was only half a step away from reaching the Ethereal Enlightenment. Meanwhile, his opponent was a Grandmaster level Transcendent cultivator, the Lord of the Lu family: Lu Tianfen.
In the void s.p.a.ce, two golden flashes of sharp edges appeared for a fleeting second. Chen Fan’s hands turned into bird wings and then the wings into blades made out of True Essence. As he waved both of his arms as a birk fanning out wings, two blades criss crossed each other in the air.
“Sssth-Wack!”
Everything, let it be the glowing white strands or pieces of furniture within three meters around Che Fan were severed in half. The attack had torn through the fabric of s.p.a.ce and even created a sliver of a vacuum along its path. As the air rushed to refill that vacuum, pressure change forced the air to quickly shed the moisture creating a spectacular sight of a ring of white mist.
The two golden flashes had cut through everything in its way.
“What kinds of technique is this?”
Lu Tianfen was staggered by the counter-attack. His face turned dark.
He was convinced that Chen Fan was able to counter his first blow using the element of surprise, however, his second failure proved him wrong and had taken the wind out of his sails.
Lu Tianfen’s chest was also dealt a blow by the golden flashes. His clothes tore along two distinct lines that formed a cross. Blood already seeped through his skin under the torn cloth. If he had pulled back a second later, Chen Fan’s attack would have gone through his Four Righteousness Protection Aura, and outright severed his body from the middle.
The terrifying power of an Immortal cultivator appeared once again on the earth, and it shocked everyone who saw it.
The Four Righteousness Protection Aura could have protected a Grandmaster from attacks of most modern weapons. Because of that, the Grandmasters were able to uphold their status even in this day and age. However, Chen Fan’s attack with condensed Qi could not only shred apart the Four Righteousness Protection Aura on a Grandmaster but also sever a car.
“Come again!”
Chen Fan let out a peal of laughter. The fact that someone could have survived his attack had made him heartened.
Ever since he was reborn, he had been busy with his cultivation and paid little attention to other cultivators around him. The most powerful martial artist he had met before today was Lin Hu and he could not last longer than three exchanges of punches. It occurred to Chen Fan that Grandmasters did indeed hold up better than the others.
He stamped on the ground and shot out both arms to embrace the energy in the Void Dimension. As he channeled more True Essence from the voice s.p.a.ce, the clouds and mist that loomed over the battlefield started to converge toward him.
“Union of Mortal and Heaven!”
Lu Tianfen squinted, he could register the immeasurable power that was stirred up by his opponent. Many Grandmasters created their own arts, but those arts could rarely be used by mortals. They could only be wielded by a powerful cultivator who understood the true nature of reality and who could commanded the Spirit Qi around them.
Let it be the Cloud Hand of the Lu family or the Thousand Trickeries, only those who had reached Grandmaster level could have pulled them off. A normal martial artist couldn’t even project their Internal force outward, much less reshaping them.
Chen Fan doubled down on his art and suddenly robbed his surrounding of all Spirit Qi. Compared to slowly channeling the Spirit Qi, Chen Fan’s technique was much more direct and difficult to control.
“Try to counter this! Skyfall Hammer!”
Chen Fan pulling both arms in slightly before shooting them out, turning his body into a trebuchet. He hurled a large ball of True Essence toward his enemy.
Lu Tianfen hurried to get out of harm’s way. His heart thumped heavily in his chest as he became increasing alert by a nagging sense of crisis. He knew that he could not and should never block the attack. The amount of power in the Arcane energy ball was able to shatter his body into countless molecules.
“Kaboom!”
He dodged out of the way and the True Essence Ball landed on a building behind Lu Tianfen before it exploded. After the dust settled, people were surprised to find out that the explosion had taken off half of the building. Everyone could only stare at Che Fan. The boy’s attack was as powerful as modern artillery.
“Bang Bang!”
Chen Fan charged out and engaged with Lu Tianfen once again.
Chen Fan’s moves were less refined and easier to follow; however, it had a promotional vastness in its intent. His punches and kicks were direct and to the point, but each attack carried enough weight to topple a mountain. On the other hand, Lu Tianfen’s moves made him look like a b.u.t.terfly dancing among flowers of death. It was elusive and unpredictable; strong yet adaptable all at the same time. As the two traded blows, splashes of white glowing mist spilled out in all directions.
“Awesome!”
Chen Fan punched again and shattered a curved white glow that sneaked up on him from behind. He then folded his hands and summoned a meter long golden light and executed the art of Mountain River Cut. The blow nipped a piece of cloth off Lu Tianfen’s s.h.i.+rt and cut a privacy screen —a solid wall of two feet thick —into two halves.
“It has been a while since I could fight such an exhilarating battle!”
Chen Fan conceded that Grandmaster’s power did hold up even before his unrelenting attacks. Lu Tianfen commanded the white cloud around him using powerful True Essence and was able to stand his ground.
Chen Fan was heartened by his opponent’s surprising strength. He had longed for such a fight for a long time. None of his previous opponents could give his such thrill.
If Chen Fan used his Dharma Artifact, and released the power of his Li Fire Golden Eyes, he should be able to burn his opponent to a crisp, however, he hesitated and tried to enjoy every pa.s.sing moment.
As Chen Fan dragged out the battle, Lu Tianfen felt his energy was ebbing away and he was on the brink of collapsing.
“He is a freak! Not only he is strong and tough, but he also had impeccable skills in using his Internal Force. Let it be projecting his Internal energy or condensing the Qi into Four Righteousness aura, he was more than proficient in those techniques. Worse, he was only eighteen, so I have guessed. How did he gain such level of attainments?”
Lu Tianfen felt that he was fighting against a Grandmaster who had mastered both Internal Force as well as Physique Refinement cultivation.
He could not find a single weakness in Chen Fan. Once, he was able to sneak a blow on Chen Fan’s shoulder. The force of the blow was reduced to half when it pa.s.sed through the boy’s True Essence Bulwark. The rest of the force was easily absorbed by Chen Fan’s ice skin and jade bones.
Lu Tianfen was finally on the brink of giving up. Not only he could not harm the boy, but so much as a gentle nudge from Chen Fan could have put him out of the battle for good.
Try as he might, Lu Tianfen was slowly pushed to a corner and was on his last leg.
“Boom!”
Under everyone’s shocked gazes, the two collided again. They had been fighting from one end of the manor to the other, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Let it be the house structures or furniture, they were all in tatters.
“Is he… a human?”
Someone swallowed hard and asked in a trembling voice.
Before seeing this fight, everyone has only a vague concept of a Grandmaster’s power. People knew they were powerful and deadly, but had never seen such power with their own eyes. The fight between Chen Fan and Lu Tianfen put the Grandmaster’s abilities in the spotlight and it was a terrifying sight indeed.
“No wonder they say that Grandmasters are invincible. They were venerated even in the modern age.”
Jin Yi gasped and then said: “He is so powerful that I don’t even think Sect Master could have beat him.”
“Sigh… it’s all my fault.” Elder Qi furrowed his brows and said: “I will ask for Sect Master’s forgiveness when I get back.”
By then, everyone could tell the clear upper hand Chen Fan had in this battle. Chen Fan was the aggressor for most of the time. All it took was a minor slip up from Lu Tianfen for Chen Fan to win the battle and it was just a matter of time for that to happen.
“However powerful he is, I doubt he would do anything to our sect.” Elder Qi said proudly. “Our sect is well connected in China, and therefore is much stronger than the Lu family. That being said, I am sure that the Sect Master will reprimand me for my foolhardiness.”
The old man thought to himself.
Lu Tianlong and other members of the Lu family stared at the two fighters intensely while keeping their fists tightly clenched.
They hoped that Lu Tianfen was able to turn the situation around. Otherwise, the entire Lu Family would be doomed.
“Finally!”
A calm voice drifted out from a plume of dust. A smooth-skinned hand reached out toward one direction, changed its position and readjusted several times in lighting speed until the movement turned the hand into a blurry shadow. Finally, it got hold of Lu Tianfen’s leg.
“s.h.i.+t!”
Everyone’s hearts sank to the bottom.