Chapter 98: Trump Card

“Lin… Lin!”

Hearing Chen Chong’s sinister, savage laugh, and finally confirming the identity of the headless female corpse, Diris felt his scalp explode, as if thunder had struck him down.

How could this be!

How could this be!

Lin’s strength was clearly on par with a Transcendent’s; how could someone have killed her!

With the truth right before his eyes, Diris’s mind went blank, nearly driving him insane.

Yet at that very moment when Diris’s mind blanked out, a sudden boom echoed!

Leaving Diris no time for grief, Chen Chong’s tyrannosaurus-like, powerful body stomped down on the iron plate. The force under his feet exploded, leaving a huge dent behind, whipping up howling gusts of wind as he brought a hammer-like fist crashing down towards Diris’s head!

The view before him instantly darkened, as if a grim reaper cackled madly within the wind.

An unprecedented lethal crisis rushed straight towards him, setting off alarm bells in Diris’s heart in an instant! Overwhelmed by terror and rage, he had no time to dodge. In great haste, he could only cross his arms, hoping to block this punch!

Clang!

Chen Chong’s iron fist landed on Diris’s steel gauntlets, emitting a crisp sound of clashing metal. Diris looked as if he had been hit head-on by heavy artillery; his expression twisted violently. With a muffled grunt, he stumbled backwards, thud after thud!

Blocking that single punch, Diris felt as if he had been rammed by a truck, a sharp pain shooting through his arms. The bones in his entire body instantly rattled, while a buzzing noise filled his ears, like a dozen gongs clanging by his ear. His whole body felt like it was about to fall apart.

Who was this bastard! How could his strength be so great!

Even though surging hatred and brutality filled his heart, sensing these changes in his body, Diris immediately understood the opponent’s strength overpowered his own. He had to humiliatingly retreat rapidly to avoid the brunt of the attack.

And as Diris retreated violently, Chen Chong, without even looking, clenched his fingers. Then he stomped down, charged forward in an instant, the air erupting with a sharp pop, and launched another speeding punch straight at Diris’s face!

“Just die!”

Malevolent winds blew fiercely. Facing Chen Chong’s relentless assault, Diris’s heart pounded wildly. Gnashing his teeth, he kicked off fiercely, his Original Force erupting throughout his body. He brought his fists together and rushed upwards at an angle, the force also causing the surrounding winds to explode, showing how fierce his counterattack was!

Boom!

The three fists, glowing with a similar metallic sheen, collided against each other. A fierce gale suddenly roared and blew as if a bomb had detonated in mid-air. It felt like a force-8 gale sweeping through the dining hall. The iron plates beneath both Chen Chong and Diris warped and deformed simultaneously, their figures hurled in opposite directions from the impact.

However, the difference was this: Chen Chong staggered back only five or six steps, while Diris stumbled back more than ten.

“Huff…”

Stopping the momentum, and feeling that Diris’s frenzied punch force had shaken even his own astonishingly defensive body, Chen Chong exhaled a breath that faintly carried the scent of blood. He abruptly looked up, and his gaze upon Diris turned excited:

“Not bad, good punch!”

Over ten meters away, Diris looked far worse than Chen Chong. His handsome face was frighteningly pale, with traces of blood at the corners of his mouth and nostrils. Most notably, the steel gauntlets in his hands were now completely deformed, almost unrecognizable from their original shape.

It wasn’t just that; right now, he felt the muscles and bones all over his body trembling and numb, and his pair of fists ached terribly. This showed just how overbearing Chen Chong’s Body Tempering Iron Body truly was!

Seeing this, Long Ying, the leader of the Dawn Gathering Place who was barely sustaining himself on a seriously injured body and had shrunk into a corner of the dining hall, felt his heart tremble.

How could someone with his discernment not see that this suddenly appearing, dark-skinned giant possessed astonishing strength, and was clearly overpowering the previously unstoppable Diris?!

“Where did this Transcendent come from? Who is he?”

Barely able to make out Chen Chong’s Asian features, but unable to match him to any Transcendent he knew, Long Ying panted rapidly, puzzled to the extreme.

Still, the enemy of his enemy was his friend. Although he didn’t know the stranger’s origin, his appearance had temporarily saved Long Ying from the fate of defeat and death. For Long Ying, that was a silver lining in his misfortune.

“Who are you…”

Meanwhile, Diris slowly lifted his head, his expression ferocious and twisted. The gaze he cast upon Chen Chong was filled with sorrow, resentment, brutality, disbelief, and many other emotions. His tone was like a chilly breeze from hell itself:

“Why did you kill Lin… why…”

Even now, though this unwelcome intruder who appeared out of nowhere surpassed him in strength, Diris felt no trace of fear. Instead, he seemed like a volcano about to erupt, giving off an indescribable sense of oppression.

“Hahaha, Diris, you don’t recognize me?”

Seeing the once universally feared base supervisor retreat under his fist, Chen Chong burst into loud laughter and pointed at his own face:

“Take a good look, who exactly am I?”

Chen Chong’s loud laughter echoed through the dining hall, but Diris suddenly froze. His gaze fixed firmly onto Chen Chong’s face, which had a faint dark-cyan hue. After a long moment, his gaze gradually shifted, as if seeing something unbelievable. Finally, his expression changed dramatically:

“416… Chen Chong! You are Chen Chong?”

It wasn’t Diris’s fault he could only barely identify Chen Chong now, even with the prompt. Chen Chong’s transformation was simply too astonishing. Before escaping the base prison, Chen Chong had a thin, weak frame and was definitely under 1.8 meters tall; yet the one appearing before him now was a small giant with exploding muscles all over, nearly two meters tall. So, even though Diris vaguely felt Chen Chong’s face was familiar, he hadn’t connected it to Chen Chong at all.

With Chen Chong’s identity revealed, Long Ying in the corner also paled slightly, remembering the name Lin Kun had once mentioned. Diris’s eyes were filled with utter disbelief, and he cried out involuntarily:

“Impossible! Chen Chong was supposed to be nothing more than an Initial Awakener, but you…”

“If your little lover could come back from the dead and advance so much in such a short time, why couldn’t I?”

Chen Chong chuckled darkly, cutting him off:

“Speaking of which, I’m more curious about your origins. Where exactly did you come from? You’re no match for me. If you honestly reveal where you came from, I might let you live. How about that?”

The reason Chen Chong stopped to spout this nonsense at Diris was naturally because he developed a strong curiosity about the forces behind Diris and Katherine and wanted to fish out what information Diris knew. As for his promise to let him go, it was of course a lying trick. Regardless of whether Diris talked or not, he was destined to be hammered to death on the spot, with absolutely no exception.

Bringing up Katherine seemed to rip open Diris’s bloody wound once more. New hatred and old grudges surged into his heart simultaneously, and his handsome face twisted into a grin.

“Heh, indeed, you are clearly stronger than me, but do you think you’ve already secured the victory… Whoever you are…”

The very next moment, no longer fixating on Chen Chong’s identity or strength, Diris let out a hoarse, suppressed growl from his throat:

“I, Diris, stake all my glory and faith. Even if it costs me everything, I will use your blood and your heart to make an offering for my beloved!”

Shing.

His words unfinished, Diris’s hand brushed across his belt, and he whipped out a small bottle, thumb-sized, filled with a deep blue potion. He threw it into his mouth and bit down, shattering it!