Chapter 819 - 467: Willpower, the Mark of the Mighty_2

He had just handed the person over to the medics when he saw this scene before his eyes, and his mouth couldn’t help but drop open.

He knew exactly how heavy Cheng Zhan’s blade was.

Other people used this thing for its sharpness, but in Cheng Zhan’s hands it was practically no different from a battering ram.

Every swing, under the blessing of top-tier Power, could hack down a Fierce Beast–level expert; forget bare-handed, even if they held weapons, they’d still be flipped by a single strike from him.

In terms of Power alone, Cheng Zhan had definitely stepped into the Tier Three threshold.

Yet that man with the shield had taken over a hundred blows in the span of a few breaths!

Just how terrifying was this Power?!

"Boom, boom, boom——"

Another string of explosion-like impacts; Cheng Zhan was blasted backward, his feet plowing two trenches into the ground, dark soil flying up, the heat waves rolling off the two of them like a lid ripped off a boiling pot, surging so violently that their faces were almost impossible to see.

Even a hundred meters away, the maniacs could clearly hear the two men’s heartbeats.

Two monsters!

As his momentum underfoot briefly slowed, the two Curved Sabers in Cheng Zhan’s hands were already spinning away, not crashing against Liang Kuan’s shield, but curling around him and flying toward his back.

The man didn’t even look at the outcome; he drew out a two-handed heavy axe and wrapped a hook-chain directly around his waist.

"Bang, bang!"

The two Short Knives looped around and came spinning toward Liang Kuan’s neck, but before they could get close, they were sent flying by two gusts of gang wind.

In that brief opening, the heavy axe chopped down at his head again.

"Zzzla——"

The axe scraped across the shield with a twisted sound.

At last, among the hundreds of shallow blade marks, it carved out a three-centimeter "deep" groove—but compared to the shield’s twenty-centimeter thickness, this didn’t even count as a layer of skin.

What’s more, the shield had been cut from the main trunk of a Tier Three locust tree and possessed a certain self-healing effect.

Trying to break its defense by stacking damage was simply impossible.

Liang Kuan’s trapezius muscles suddenly bulged, the muscles of both arms coiling like two great dragons surging; he stomped down and slammed into the shield.

A hint of astonishment flashed in Cheng Zhan’s eyes; his wrist twisted to an exaggerated angle, and the axe head was slapped by the shield, shooting straight toward his face.

At the split second of crisis, Cheng Zhan tilted his head slightly and, hugging the rebounding giant axe, went flying backward.

His chest cavity compressed, blood sprayed, and before he even hit the ground in midair he let out a wild laugh.

"爽!"

If there’s no opening, create one; if there’s no chance, make one. The combat tempo Cheng Zhan had mastered was shattered.

But there was no joy in Liang Kuan’s eyes, still as calm as towering mountains.

The Death Gladiator’s greatest strength wasn’t their mastery of weapons—that was merely a means of combat. What they truly excelled at was battle itself, at mastering every kind of fight!

He didn’t give him the slightest chance to catch his breath; the hook-chain flew in like a snake.

This time its target wasn’t any vital spot, but Liang Kuan’s unprotected feet.

The hook-chain instantly bypassed the shield’s defense, winding around his ankle, its tip stabbing directly into his calf.

Liang Kuan slammed the shield heavily onto the ground at his feet, but didn’t smash the hook-chain; he only drove it deep into the earth. Borrowing the chain’s force, Cheng Zhan sprang into the air.

The heavy axe in his hand had already morphed into a Military Dagger, stabbing toward Liang Kuan’s temple.

"The outcome’s decided."

Su Huan said with a hint of emotion.

Liang Kuan’s overwhelming Power always misled people into thinking he only had Power.

But the human body is an integrated whole; there’s no such thing as one attribute being extremely strong while the others are extremely weak—like that, you’d fall apart with the slightest movement.

If you got into close-quarters grappling with Liang Kuan, you’d find this bastard’s agility was disgustingly high as well.

Just like he said: Liang Kuan had been stabbed into a sieve by Cheng Zhan, but Liang Kuan had paid him back with a headbutt.

The two big men had plunged into a brutal brawl, Flesh and Blood splashing as if it cost nothing.

The crowd’s shouts rose in wave after wave, their blood boiling, fired up by this blow-for-blow, Flesh-and-blood fight.

Though Cheng Zhan held weapons, the huge Power gap between the two easily erased that advantage; Liang Kuan even held the upper hand, and the existence of Pain Dulling kept his movements from distorting, letting him calmly avoid vital points every time.

But Cheng Zhan was like a lone skiff in a storm of wind and rain, battered and tossed.

With one heavy hit, Liang Kuan, at the risk of losing half an arm, knocked Cheng Zhan flying.

The latter finally lost the ability to counterattack like before, crashing to the ground in a wretched heap.

The audience’s roars cut off abruptly, as if someone had pressed mute on the world.

Countless people stared at this scene in disbelief.

"Stand up!"

"Cheng Zhan!"

"Stand up!"

"Cough, cough..."

Liang Kuan spat out a breath laced with blood, propping himself up with his shield.

This fight had been even more satisfying than the one he’d had with that Golden Kite back then.

Just as Liang Kuan was about to turn around, he suddenly lowered his head—the hook-chain wrapped around his left ankle twitched. He couldn’t help but look up: the man drenched in blood was standing.

Half his face was swollen, blood continuously seeping from his mouth and nose, dyeing his gray shirt into an even darker black.

But one hand was still clamped death-tight around the hook-chain!

Even Su Huan was a bit stunned, because the man before him had completely lost consciousness!

A glint of admiration flashed in Liang Kuan’s eyes. "You’re very strong. But continuing to fight has no meaning anymore..."

Cheng Zhan acted as if he hadn’t heard, hauling on the hook-chain, staggering toward Liang Kuan.

The first two steps were shaky, but then they grew surer and surer, from a quick walk into a wild charge, his fierce aura only rising, even surpassing the Tier Two limit.

Only then did Liang Kuan realize the other had entered the node of ascending to Tier Three!

A Defender with Battle Factor was most adept at ascending in the midst of battle!

Someone’s tears, shed in heartbroken grief when Cheng Zhan was knocked down, still hung on their face, and now, seeing this, they howled even more madly through their sobs.

Fight after fight had already lifted Cheng Zhan onto the altar in the hearts of the Dragon Gate people. No one liked to see a hero grow old; they preferred to see a hero struck down again and again, then rise once more, a tragic, majestic saga.

Xing Tian dances with shield and axe, his fierce resolve forever unyielding.

Everyone began to shout; everyone was venting.

They no longer knew their own voices had changed shape, couldn’t even tell whether they were roaring or wailing.

To have survived till now—who the hell wasn’t a lunatic?

Even He Jie and the others in midair were swept up by this wave of frenzy, flailing their arms and yelling, not even knowing which side they were cheering for.

Ruble stopped pretending altogether, clutching Ge Mian’s neck and screaming himself hoarse.

Only Su Huan and Hua Junyan on the field remained calm.

The former simply didn’t care that much; the latter’s mentality was twisted by conflict. Watching the two below locked in their inseparable struggle, he wrestled with himself. "Conductor..."

Su Huan looked down at Cheng Zhan, who had lost conscious will yet still fought on, and said with feeling, "Will—that is the true mark of the strong."

As Cheng Zhan’s pinnacle slash swung down toward Liang Kuan, Su Huan’s figure vanished from midair.

There was no grand display of force.

A black silhouette simply appeared between the two burly men, turning slightly, one hand pinching the blade’s spine.

The audience was just about to erupt when the terrifying aura of a Tier Three Evolver crushed them into utter silence.

The short-sleeved shirt on Cheng Zhan’s body, soaked in blood, suddenly began to blacken and brittle, baked dry and cracked by his scorching body temperature; his heart pounded like a drum, his blood surged like a tide, and the rolling heat wave, when it reached Su Huan, abruptly halted and turned into a cool, quiet night breeze.

Though this wasn’t Su Huan’s first time seeing someone ascend to Tier Three, he still felt a kind of wonder at this change.

In his perception, the Cheng Zhan before him was like an unstable chunk of mosaic.

Flesh and Blood was constantly collapsing, and constantly being reborn.

Life Force was draining away as fast as a flood release, consumed to sustain his Life.

Back when Lin Jin ascended to Tier Three, he had looked like a dried corpse roasted by flames, his whole person charred.

Cheng Zhan was about the same.

Every pore was bleeding, mixed with all kinds of bodily tissue.

This process was on par with any kind of torture, and an Evolver’s only weapon was Will.

Only if you endure it, can you be reborn.