Book 3, Chapter 251: Peculiar

Chen Chuan observed Ding Mai a little. The muscles on his upper body were incredibly well-developed, whereas his legs, while powerful and strong, looked almost delicate. He looked unbalanced.

Most of the martial artists Chen Chuan had met had balanced body proportions that gave them a sense of harmony. Usually, if a martial artist’s body developed like Ding Mai’s did, it was because certain parts of their mutated tissue were overdeveloped. This meant that Ding Mai had to have extraordinary abilities in certain fighting styles.

Ding Mai had also clearly picked up some biofield techniques. Chen Chuan could sense a thick, sturdy biofield, though he couldn’t decipher any specifics until Ding Mai started moving.

When Ding Mai said that he was supposed to have been sent to fight the Iron Monster, he didn’t seem to be lying. Besides, no one ever said that they could only fight mano a mano against the Iron Monster.

Chen Chuan had no reason to say no to the fight. After all, fighting against a strong martial artist was a great way to improve. Besides, there was no way Chen Chuan would back down from a spar.

He cast a glance at Ding Mai’s epaulette and said, “If you’d like to spar, let’s do it, Officer Ding.”

The moment the others heard that, excitement shone on their faces. They immediately stepped back to give them a large space to fight.

Some of them didn’t recognize Chen Chuan and asked their friends about him.

Most of the crowd had served in the merged space and didn’t know much about Chen Chuan’s achievements before he went there. They just knew that he had killed the Iron Monster and should be strong.

“Do you think Lao Ding can win?”

“I can’t say. You know just how troublesome the Iron Monster is. If this Chen Chuan guy managed to kill him, then he’s no pushover, even if he killed him with his team members’ help.”

“He became a squad captain at such a young age, huh?” a few people lamented.

Their voices contained some longing, but no hint of jealousy. After all, they were all soldiers at the front lines. Some strong martial artists did not have high ranks, but none of those with high ranks were weak, because such people got killed early on.

Even though the crowd knew Ding Mai better, they cared about achievements. No matter how strong a person proclaimed themselves to be, it was not as convincing as showing their true strength.

While they were talking, the boy stepped out of the way, but kept his eyes trained on Chen Chuan and Ding Mai. Excitement shone in his gaze.

A tall young man walked over and said, “Captain Chen, Officer Ding, I’m Fang Zhixin, Instructor Chen’s assistant and temporary person-in-charge of the training center. Since you’re going to spar, allow me to be the referee.

“Also, since both of you are pillars of the World Ring’s defense, I’d suggest not to use any weapons. It won’t do us any good if either of you is injured. How about a barehanded fight?”

Ding Mai rolled his neck to relax it. “I’m fine with it.”

“Sure,” Chen Chuan said with a smile.

They removed their coats and went to the center of the hall.

Fang Zhixin cast them a cursory glance before saying, “Since you’re ready, let us begin.”

Upon those words, the whispers instantly faded away, and everyone trained their eyes on the two people.

Chen Chuan watched Ding Mai for a bit and became sure that while he had some biofield techniques, he hadn’t begun mental training. This didn’t mean that the man was weak. After all, when martial artists fought, various factors decided who would ultimately win.

When Ding Mai saw that Chen Chuan was remaining still, he didn’t hesitate. Upon bringing his arms up and positioning them in front of him, he took a step and leaned forward. With his eyes trained on Chen Chuan, he charged forward.

The muscles on his upper body swelled up like a balloon, and his skin turned a different color, as if a silver-gray layer of metal had covered it.

Loud booming sounds came from his feet when he stomped on the floorboards, giving him an intimidating momentum.

While he ran, he kept his eyes trained on Chen Chuan through the gap between his arms.

He had made his mutated tissue go through a specialized transformation, which allowed him to concentrate all his strengths in front. Once he started charging, he was practically unstoppable. If the Iron Monster were standing in front of him right now, Ding Mai was confident that he could knock him over, along with his dragon-nose horse.

Usually, his opponents chose to avoid him. It had nothing to do with whether they were scared or not. After all, anyone would instinctively choose to avoid an aggressive attack when they knew nothing about its nature. Then, they would search for a weakness and opening before attacking.

That was precisely what Ding Mai wanted to see, because the real deciding move wasn’t his charge. Due to the unique nature of how he generated his power, he could instantly increase his speed and strength if he changed his direction while charging. Once he did that, it became impossible for his opponents to avoid him, and he would crash into them.

Those who encountered his attack for the first time almost always fell for it.

When the onlookers saw Ding Mai charging at Chen Chuan, they all looked forward to him dodging, because they wanted to know what he was going to do after the collision.

But after seeing what Ding Mai was doing, Chen Chuan did something against everyone’s expectations. He took a step back, shifted his center of gravity forward, reached out, and grabbed Ding Mai’s arm that was coming at him.

He chose to face Ding Mai headon.

Their refined forces crashed into each other, and Ding Mai’s charge came to a screeching halt.

The observant people saw waves of refined force appearing in the form of ripples on Ding Mai’s clothes. They started from his calves and shifted up before gathering at the point of contact.

They could sense the power coming from Ding Mai, but Chen Chuan managed to block it, and with one hand at that.

The floorboards under his feet sank a little, as if he withstood just a bit of power.

His mutated tissue had negated the refined force that charged into him, so not much of it was transferred to his feet.

Of course, that wasn’t the most important part. When their bodies came into contact, their minds and biofields clashed into each other too. Chen Chuan had figured out Ding Mai’s hidden biofield information through the clashing parts, then understood Ding Mai’s flow and direction of power.

Before today, even if Chen Chuan had seen these things and could block the charge, he would have been pushed back or sunk down into the floor. With his mental energy, though, his mind and body were highly synchronized, and he could make adjustments and allocations based on every ounce of power Ding Mai sent into him.

Chen Chuan wasn’t just negating Ding Mai’s charge either. He was also gathering the power needed for a counterattack.

When Ding Mai’s strength reached its peak, Chen Chuan’s eyes flashed. He tightened his grip over Ding Mai’s arm before lifting the man up in the air. Then, as he moved along the refined force in his body, he threw Ding Mai on the floor.

Boom!

Ripples spread out on the floorboards in the training hall. The onlookers could feel the floorboards under their feet fluctuating.

Despite crashing into the floor, Ding Mai wasn’t injured. He instinctively hunched his body and tried to get back on his feet, but a fist rammed into his forehead. It sent the back of his head crashing against the floorboard.

The impact wasn’t too strong, but the refined force from the punch had crashed into his brain and caused his vision to turn dark for a moment. His body went numb, and his limbs became lax. He could only stare at the ceiling with a blank gaze.

“Good match, Officer Ding,” Chen Chuan said and stood up.

The hall was silent as the people watched in shock. They had expected that the fight would end quickly, but they weren’t expecting it to end

this

quickly. The victor was decided in just a single exchange of blows.

The expected outcome did not happen.

Just then, they heard cracking sounds. Shocked, they looked over and found that the sounds came from a puppet.

It was the puppet Chen Chuan had attacked earlier. Suddenly, the sounds of things breaking and shattering came from its body. Then, its joints broke as it fell apart and landed on the floor in shattered bits.

This was because Chen Chuan’s attack had shattered its structure and all of its joints. The violent tremors through the floorboards created during the spar caused it to break apart.

The crowd couldn’t understand what they were seeing, but the boy watched in shock and clenched his fists tightly. Then, he turned to Chen Chuan with idolization on his face.

Fang Zhixin finally registered what had happened and declared, “Captain Chen won.”

He quickly went over to help Ding Mai negate the refined force in him and recover faster.

He had thought that this would be an easy matter. After all, he had done it plenty of times before, but after trying a few times, Ding Mai was still lying on the floor. His eyes were moving, but that was all he could do. He couldn’t even say anything.

Upon seeing this, a few more people came over to help, but it was useless. Some of them even took out medicine and used refined force to help him swallow, but they still couldn’t help Ding Mai get up.

At this point, they realized that something was horribly wrong.

Ding Mai was a Third Limit martial artist. Forget getting incapacitated by a punch. Even if he was hit in the head with a hammer, he could recover quickly, as long as his head didn’t shatter or explode on the spot. So, they couldn’t understand what was going on.

Fang Zhixin, though, knew that he had to address the cause of this, so he went to Chen Chuan and said sincerely, “Please show mercy, Captain Chen.”

Chen Chuan hadn’t expected this either, so he began wondering what he had done. A possible reason came to him in a moment. During the last attack, he hadn’t just used refined force, but had also injected some mental energy. He had used it instinctively and didn’t even think much about it.

Could this be the reason?

When he walked over, the crowd parted, and he stopped in front of Ding Mai. The man stared at him, so Chen Chuan put his hand on Ding Mai’s forehead to sense what was going on and found that his theory was correct.

Due to his mental energy, Ding Mai’s mutated tissue was unable to receive any signals from his mind. The mental energy was blocking Ding Mai from controlling it. Because of this, Ding Mai wouldn’t be able to recover on his own and move.

This had happened because Ding Mai had passed out for a brief second when he fell on the floor. In any other situation, his mutated tissue would have remained one with his mind, and he wouldn’t have been paralyzed so easily. This was just a coincidence.

Chen Chuan didn’t offer any explanation and just negated the mental energy. Once the block was gone, Ding Mai immediately recovered, and his body started healing.

Then, as the people cast inquisitive and respectful gazes, Chen Chuan stood up. “He’s okay now.”