Volume One, Chapter 103: A Fight to the Death

The Myriad-Forms Formation.

It gathered every image and shape to serve its wielder.

At this moment, heaven and earth became its true eye, and Clear City lay trapped within the formation.

Everything within the formation could not defy the Celestial Master.

The formation was complete. Wind howled through it, and even the sound itself seemed to rustle in the gale.

Standing not far away, Jiang Chen said, “Leave the sealed relic behind, and I’ll leave you a whole corpse.”

That flat, quiet sentence sent Wang Chang into a frenzy. Thunder loomed overhead, threatening him, and his emotions had already reached a breaking point. He was about to explode.

He closed his eyes and kept pouring thought into his mind.

In response, all sorts of strange beasts kept appearing in the sky, but over and over again, only the same few kinds.

His imagination had run dry.

Jiang Chen said softly, “Wind.”

In an instant, a violent gale rose. The mist was churned into chaos at once, and the field of vision grew wider and wider.

At some point, a layer of armor had appeared over Wang Chang’s entire body. It shimmered with golden light, clearly no ordinary object, and it had evidently been forged by Dream Marsh as well.

What a tempting thing this was.

Jiang Chen muttered inwardly. Something that could be so formidable even in the hands of a fool—if given to someone clever, wouldn’t its power be even greater?

With that thought, Jiang Chen’s determination to obtain it only deepened.

Wang Chang’s buildup had ended. The sweat beading on his forehead showed that his body had already reached its limit.

“Advance! Crush him for me!”

The beasts behind him surged forward all at once, wave after wave like a tidal flood.

Jiang Chen looked at them and said, “Fire.”

The next second, tiny sparks flicked out from his palm.

They were only a few embers, but when they drew near the nine-headed bird that had almost fully recovered, the flames suddenly swelled and turned into a sea of fire in the sky.

The nine-headed bird itself was a fire-attributed beast, yet the instant it met that sea of flames, it was swallowed whole without even a single scream.

This sealed relic of Dream Marsh was monstrously powerful, but in the hands of a fool it could not display even a fraction of its true strength. If the one using it today had been Lin Mo, Jiang Chen did not dare imagine just how far this sealed relic could have been pushed.

Half of the swarming beasts in the sky had already vanished after being blocked by the flames, yet they still charged in one after another, throwing themselves into the fire with no intelligence or instinct to avoid it.

The reason for this was also the one controlling them.

He had already gone mad.

In Wang Chang’s eyes, there was only one thought left: kill Jiang Chen.

And yet he discovered that the Dream Marsh he had always been so proud of was, before this man, unexpectedly fragile. Hadn’t it been said that within the world built by Dream Marsh, he was invincible?

As the flames grew more ferocious, Wang Chang could no longer endure the humiliation.

He had to win, and he had to win. If he lost, what awaited him would be endless darkness.

Jiang Chen could tell from afar, just by looking at his expression, that this boy was prepared to gamble with his life.

Suddenly, a long blade appeared in Wang Chang’s hand. Ignoring the searing fire, he charged straight at Jiang Chen.

Dream Marsh was still formidable. Faced with the blaze, Wang Chang actually forced his way through.

If Wang Chang’s earlier reliance had been on the beasts woven from his imagination, then what he now depended on was the armor he had fashioned with Dream Marsh.

This armor could withstand the flames of the Myriad-Forms Formation, and its defense was truly astonishing. The vast power overflowing from it suggested that its true strength was far beyond this.

Wang Chang was already upon him. Jiang Chen retreated again and said, “Earth.”

The ground of the Myriad-Forms Formation flashed with a yellow-brown light. The earth split open, and a heavy city wall rose from the ground, blocking Wang Chang’s path in an instant.

His first strike went wide.

Wang Chang, who had not yet fully unleashed his power, had bloodshot eyes. His mind no longer wanted to think. The empty surroundings were already shrouded in his mist, but then came a gale that seemed deliberately intent on preventing him from drawing it in.

With a soft murmur, Jiang Chen gathered all the wind in his hands and flicked it toward Wang Chang.

The wind burst at a single point, and the tremendous force of the impact violently disrupted Wang Chang’s next sequence of attacks.

His offensive rhythm stopped there and then.

Jiang Chen smiled and said, “Looks like your sealed relic isn’t all that strong after all. My formation can restrain you. If we drag this out a little longer, your Dream Marsh will probably fail, and your mission will be completely for nothing. Am I right?”

Attack the heart first; siege the walls second. Wang Chang was strong, and in the world fabricated by Dream Marsh, he would still be very hard to defeat. But Jiang Chen did not rely only on brute force.

Sometimes, using one’s head made victory much easier.

“You dare not run if you have the guts! So what if you’re right? Before Dream Marsh drains me dry, everyone in Clear City will be buried with me. I don’t mind dragging this out with you. Worst case, we all die together!”

Those words completely exposed the fact that he still had strength in reserve, enough to carry him until he had absorbed all the fortune of Clear City’s people.

At that, Jiang Chen sighed.

“Fine. I was planning to wear you down a bit longer, but since you’ve said that, I’ll grant your wish.”

He swept a hand through the air, and the Myriad-Forms Formation rose into the sky to cover and support him.

Jiang Chen crooked a finger. “Come on then. Don’t you want to kill me? Come. Let’s see whether your sealed relic, matched with a worthless piece of trash like you, actually has any real power.”

Wang Chang finally could not hold back any longer. The mist behind him erupted with a sonic boom, and his speed exploded fully in that instant, still with plenty of room to increase.

Jiang Chen received the charge with his eyes closed and one hand raised. The long blade came crashing down mercilessly. At the very last instant, Jiang Chen brought two fingers together, clamped the blade, and then twisted his fingers.

Snap.

The long blade actually shattered with a crack.

Caught completely off guard, Wang Chang was thrown into disarray. He staggered back and asked, “This isn’t even a real weapon. How could you possibly break it?”

“Simple. Just like you, what I used wasn’t my real hand.”

As soon as Jiang Chen finished speaking, his body suddenly turned into wood.

And the real Jiang Chen had already appeared behind Wang Chang. His fist was wrapped in blazing red flames as he struck out, and the armor on Wang Chang’s back was instantly blasted open.

The tremendous impact sent Wang Chang crashing hard to the ground.

Jiang Chen gave him no chance to breathe. His figure vanished and reappeared again and again, and the armor over Wang Chang’s chest was shattered to pieces. His chest was covered in fist marks.

“If you want to die, I’ll make you die. Today, even if you don’t want to die, you won’t have a choice.”

Jiang Chen’s fists rained down one after another, endless and relentless, crashing like an overflowing torrent.

A heavy boom. A violent detonation.

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