Chapter 149

When the next thunderclap struck, she truly looked like someone enduring a heavenly tribulation. The spectators had long since retreated from the arena, leaving only the final contest on the shattered stage.

The white-robed disciple's face was deathly pale. The immense drain on his spiritual power left his legs weak, yet a smile gradually crept across his lips—the proud smile of one on the verge of victory.

But that smile slowly froze.

Gu Ruoshui had assumed Qing Zhouxue used many techniques, but she refused to believe that a sword cultivator skilled in spells could outmatch a natural spellcaster. So she had her junior expend his energy—that would secure this victory.

What she never expected was for Qing Zhouxue to not defend at all. Instead, she walked slowly out from behind the barrier of snowflakes.

Did she not fear death?

Gu Ruoshui froze for a moment. When she got a clear look at Qing Zhouxue, she stepped back.

A thunderbolt struck, and half of the white-robed woman's body was drenched in blood, her cheeks torn and mangled. Yet her eyes were a solid sheet of silver, as if she felt no pain.

The next instant, her charred skin healed anew, returning to that ethereal, peerlessly beautiful face.

The frost-colored sword dragged along the ground. With her spiritual power surging, even the lightest touch carved deep, jagged scars of ice into the stone.

Fear drove the thunder to intensify, plunging the entire arena into darkness.

Ji Linjiang rose to her feet again, hesitating. This intensity clearly surpassed ordinary combat. Anyone else would have been shattered to pieces by now—but Qing Zhouxue seemed utterly unconcerned.

Ji Linjiang watched her wounds split open and mend in the blink of an eye, and for a moment, she found it deeply unsettling.

Was that girl's medical skill truly so powerful?

*

Tang Wuyue's brief lapse allowed the water dragon to split into three streams, piercing through both her shoulders and her abdomen.

The polished floor of the hall was smeared with layers of demonic blood. With her wings broken and her vitality severely drained, a bloody crimson slowly seeped into her eyes.

Yun Shuchen's figure hovered in the distance, faint and indistinct. In truth, she was already seven-tenths certain that if she kept dragging this out, she would eventually drain the woman's last breath.

But just as her brow began to relax, Yun Shuchen's heart suddenly clenched.

The pull of their soul bond made her heart ache.

Qing'er... what had happened to her?

Why did she always get into trouble during competitions?

Qing Zhouxue's spiritual energy had already become disordered, on the verge of spiraling out of control. That precarious instability unsettled Yun Shuchen, as if she might take a misstep and fall at any moment.

The ache in her heart solidified into a suffocating pressure.

In that single instant of distraction, her pace faltered. Tang Wuyue suddenly appeared before her, finally seizing the opportunity for close combat. She seized Yun Shuchen's throat, and the cold demonic qi surged into her heart, causing Tang Wuyue's aura to swell dramatically.

*

Gu Ruoshui's heart also lurched. She stumbled back a few steps, gripping her sword so tightly her knuckles went white.

But Qing Zhouxue kept advancing. Because the thunderbolts were relentlessly striking, her pace was not fast, and occasionally her steps were unsteady, yet she exuded an overwhelming pressure.

Gu Ruoshui stared hard at her eyes. Only when spiritual power was pushed to its absolute limits would the color of one's pupils change.

Qing Zhouxue was eerily calm. Her eyes did not see the Immortal Ascension Assembly before her. Instead, she saw... blood everywhere... her master's blood... the blood of the elders... a sky dark with no light, and thunderclaps that rattled the ears.

Mortals feared the God of Thunder and the Goddess of Lightning, dreading heavenly retribution. Cultivators believed that lightning tribulation could temper the body, eventually leading to immortality.

But she alone, when she looked up at the sky, felt neither reverence nor belief. Every time their gazes met, it was a battle to the death.

The white-robed disciple wanted to withdraw, but it seemed too late—

That spot was one of the sources of the thunder.

The white-robed disciple's form seemed to become a vortex within the storm, much like the fissure she had stabbed all those years ago.

She struck the great eye.

A commotion erupted around them—shouts of alarm, cries of astonishment. Qing Zhouxue had just delivered a single sword strike, and the posture was the simplest move in the Taichu Sect: "Gentle Cloud Emerging from the Ravine"—the first sword form.

An utterly ordinary sword strike.

But Gu Ruoshui failed to block it.

Her wrist went limp, and the black sword entwined with countless sword spirits was pressed down and knocked aside.

Her junior could only watch helplessly as the straight sword drove toward his chest. Using what little spiritual power remained, the white-robed disciple tried to reflect Qing Zhouxue's spirit root, hoping to hold his ground against her for a brief moment.

The mirror could indeed reflect all things in the world—wind became wind, water became water.

But once shattered, all phenomena turned to void.

When the Qingshuang Sword was pulled free, it brought with it fragments and gore that fell to the ground, quickly covered by a layer of fine white snow.

*

Yun Shuchen felt ice creep up her neck, and the sudden chill made her tilt her head back uncomfortably.

"I should never have let you walk out of there alive," the woman said with a smile.

Though at a disadvantage, Yun Shuchen sneered at the words: "Back then... it was not your call to make. Your mother wanted my life."

The woman's eyes grew bloodshot. Yun Shuchen felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and let out a muffled groan as something jagged pierced through her body. Intense agony wracked her, and she began to tremble. "Cousin... do you think she favored me? Hm? She was strict with me from a young age, beating and scolding me whenever I did anything wrong. But she never cared what you did, even when you were indulgent and extravagant... You once thought that was her doting on you."

"The truth is—"

Her face was pale as paper, but her words cut like a blade, and the faint smile on her lips honed that blade to a razor's edge. "The truth is... she never intended to leave you any of it—the Jialuo Palace, or the entire Demon Realm. Isn't that right?"

A low roar finally burst out: "...Shut up!"

Tang Wuyue almost lost control. She grabbed Yun Shuchen by the collar and slammed her hard against the wall.

Yun Shuchen's back was slick with blood.

But in that moment, a dagger slipped from her sleeve. She gripped it tightly and, seizing the opportunity, delivered a shallow stab before quickly withdrawing it again.

The blade was laced with something she had managed to procure from some pastries.

Linglongzi.

Harmless to cultivators.

But it could destabilize the bloodline and disrupt the dantian of the Demonic Race.

Tang Wuyue, already agitated and mid-combat, was in serious danger every time she tried to channel her power, risking backlash at any moment.

Yun Shuchen had intended it as a last resort. After all, she had never expected to get this close to an opponent during a duel.

Once the tip of the blade broke skin, the Linglongzi spread quickly through Tang Wuyue's bloodstream.

Yun Shuchen watched her closely. Before long, the demonic markings on Tang Wuyue's face began to grow, and her expression gradually lost all coherence.

*

Gu Ruoshui remained composed on the surface, yet she could not shake the feeling that Qing Zhouxue had lost her mind.

Logically, their cultivation levels were comparable. But thanks to the natural swiftness of a thunder spirit root, Gu Ruoshui was confident Qing Zhouxue could not catch her—and so it had seemed until now.

Now, she had barely registered the sword movement before her own sword was broken, and her junior was gravely wounded, on the verge of elimination.

The thunder had quieted considerably, but stray bolts still crackled. Qing Zhouxue's wounds healed faster and faster, over and over, as if she were an immortal, unkillable body. The wood-phase spiritual energy enveloped her, casting a soft glow around her entire form.

Gu Ruoshui calmed herself and set her gaze on Bai Su.

She could not let that healer live.

She turned into a streak of lightning, feinting before Qing Zhouxue's eyes, planning to dart around her.

Qing Zhouxue stared straight ahead, not appearing to look at her, but when the lightning bolt approached, her brows knitted tightly. She suddenly swung her sword, slicing the lightning cleanly in two.

Gu Ruoshui spat blood and fell to the ground.

It was thunder... Qing Zhouxue narrowed her eyes as the scene before her began to twist. Her eyes grew brighter and brighter, and her spiritual energy began to surge wildly, stronger and more dangerous with every passing moment.

These symptoms resembled the onset of qi deviation.

Lin Xunzhen recognized it clearly. Qi deviation indeed caused a sudden surge in power, but... it would also cause the cultivator to collapse as their meridians snapped from backlash.

"Qing Zhouxue!"

Qing Zhouxue thrust her sword into the ground, raising towering, jagged icicles that stretched wildly across the arena.

Gu Ruoshui had not yet recovered her breath, but she narrowly dodged, the razor-sharp ice nearly catching her throat.

...She was trying to eliminate the thunder from all directions.

Gu Ruoshui's thunder spirit root was aggravating her. Those emotionless, desireless eyes turned toward Gu Ruoshui. With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed an impenetrable flurry of sword strokes.

Gu Ruoshui was exceptionally gifted and had a stellar record since childhood, so she was bound to harbor some pride. When she was knocked to the ground, after a moment of shock, she felt no fear—instead, she tightened her grip on her sword.

That black sword, forged from countless sword spirits, had absorbed who knew how many famed blades, making it truly unmatched.

In the bone-chilling cold, she gritted her teeth and met Qing Zhouxue's strike with her own sword, adopting a stance of desperate, all-or-nothing defiance.

*

As pain exploded in her dantian, Tang Wuyue had no idea what other tricks Yun Shuchen had up her sleeve. The Linglongzi toxin muddled her thoughts, and with several serious wounds, the only clear thought left was—

Even if her time was up, she would drag Yun Shuchen down with her.

Ignoring the deep wounds bleeding freely, she pushed her fingers deeper into Yun Shuchen's abdomen, intending to crush her dantian, then scatter her primordial spirit, ensuring she would never reincarnate.

A trace of protective spiritual energy lingering in Yun Shuchen's earth spirit root held firm, blocking Tang Wuyue's hand, and the two remained locked in a stalemate.

Tang Wuyue's demonic qi grew more frenzied and chaotic by the second, and her strength gradually increased. Yun Shuchen's lips moved, and blood bubbled up from her throat, trickling down slowly.

Drop by drop.

Meanwhile, her heart was still wracked with pain. When her vision blurred, a white figure suddenly emerged in the haze, indistinct and dreamlike, as if it were an illusion.

*

The crowd outside also thought they were seeing things.

On the shattered, sunken arena floor, Gu Ruoshui's black sword suddenly began to multiply, like a thousand-armed Guanyin, splitting into a dense forest of sword shadows.

Each one was different, but every single one was a dazzling, radiant treasure sword.

She raised her hand to meet Qing Zhouxue's sword, all the sword shadows dancing around her movement.

"This match has gone on for nearly three hours," Ji Linjiang said. "Both sides remain evenly matched, neither willing to concede. Per the rules of previous years, if no victor is determined within the final half hour, the outcome is decided by the number of combatants remaining on the field."

Gu Ruoshui blocked Qing Zhouxue's strike, her wrist numb from the impact. Not lingering, she darted toward Bai Su and Lin Xunzhen. One was a healer, the other lacked spiritual power—forcing them out of the ring would be as easy as turning over her hand.

Lin Xunzhen felt a flash of lightning, and then she could not see.

Her heart sank. Junior Qing's current state... she seemed deaf to the world, probably not even hearing Ji Linjiang's ultimatum.

She had just gravely wounded the white-robed disciple, but after the thunder subsided, she had walked past him without a second glance, as if she could not even see him. It seemed she was no longer competing in a match—she was eliminating anything she perceived as a threat: thunder and lightning.

Gu Ruoshui, in contrast, was fully alert. The black-robed disciple and the white-robed disciple were currently leaning on each other miserably, but they would not be eliminated.

All she needed was to force Bai Su and Lin Xunzhen out of the ring, then fight Qing Zhouxue to a draw for the remaining half hour... that would suffice.

Gu Ruoshui's sword was too fast. She raised it and struck down, her movement so clean it was almost cruel—

Lin Xunzhen squeezed her eyes shut, but the expected pain never came.

Nor did she feel a breeze.

She opened her eyes in surprise and found Bai Su with her fingers forming a hand seal, her face pale, a bead of sweat trembling on her eyelashes.

Lin Xunzhen froze for a moment, and when she opened her eyes fully, she witnessed a staggering sight.

Gu Ruoshui's sword was raised, its crackling lightning nearly touching Bai Su's neck.

The next instant, she could have sent Bai Su flying—

But the sword remained frozen in Gu Ruoshui's hand, immobile.

Lin Xunzhen was close enough to see the taut lines in Gu Ruoshui's arm from the strain, yet the sword simply hovered there, unable to descend no matter how hard she tried.

Bai Su's eyes were squeezed shut, her spiritual power guiding Gu Ruoshui's body—restraining each strand of muscle, then gradually pulling it back.

Her master was capable of such feats, and though she herself had never succeeded... now, she had no choice but to believe in herself.

Every ounce of Bai Su's spiritual power was mobilized, pouring out from her dantian. She radiated a soft halo, and from the very floor of the arena, vibrant flowers and grasses began to sprout.

Gu Ruoshui's sword did not retreat, but it held her in place, pausing her for an instant.

In a lifetime, there are many moments.

But often, victory is decided in a single one.

In the next instant, Gu Ruoshui broke through the restraint, and the lightning around her hand flared brilliantly for a moment. But then came the unmistakable sound of flesh being cut, and her eyes flew wide.

She felt a chill in her abdomen, as if a blade of ice had sliced her open and then packed the wound with snow—so cold it pierced to the bone.

She turned her head inch by inch. Behind her, the white-robed sword cultivator's expression had not changed. Her eyes were indifferent, looking at Gu Ruoshui as if she were just a stone that happened to be in her way, split apart without a thought.

Suddenly, as if by a spring breeze overnight, swirling snow rose again from the ground, dancing and spinning with overwhelming force.

Gu Ruoshui was lifted by a single hand and hurled into the swirling snow, her lightning marks flickering faintly before dimming. She was struck again, sent flying toward the void. She spat blood and, with the last of her strength, summoned her sword. She formed a hand seal, and her figure began to blur.

She transformed into a bolt of lightning, descending with ten thousand peals of thunder.

This was her final counterattack.

But the light in Qing Zhouxue's eyes only grew brighter.

Above, the snow continued its furious dance.

The onlookers could feel the temperature plummeting.

The moment the lightning fell, from the thick snow emerged bud after bud, growing at incredible speed, layering upon each other—here a cluster, there a cluster, quivering with unnerving vitality.

The ice lotus opened its first petal, then the second, the third, the fourth, then millions, all at once—

In the biting cold, they bloomed in magnificent fury.

Crystalline and pure. When fully open, the petals shot out in all directions like blades, their glinting cold light more ethereal and dazzling than the lightning itself.

When that immense cascade of icy stars finally fell, the entire arena fell silent.

The world was a vast expanse of white.

A figure emerged, then slowly dropped to one knee. She braced herself against the ground, coughing violently, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the snow, staining the ice lotus a tragic, vivid red.

Gu Ruoshui, leaning on her sword, knelt half-upright, her eyes slowly closing, turning into a frozen statue amidst the wind and snow.

In the dead silence, Ji Linjiang's voice rang out slowly. She counted to ten as before, then glanced at the Liuyun Sect, and finally at Qing Zhouxue, the only one still standing.

"Does the Liuyun Sect have anyone else who can fight?"

The white-robed and black-robed disciples stood rooted in place, weakly supporting each other, their eyes fixed on the blood-soaked center of the lotus and Gu Ruoshui, unconscious against her sword.

No one could fight.

A deep, resounding bell tolled, its sound rolling outward, pushing over the upturned eaves of the Liuyun Sect, then echoing back in countless waves.

Qing Zhouxue stood in place for a long time, the light in her eyes slowly fading until her pupils returned to their normal hue.

The thunder had ceased, and a sudden relief flooded her chest. All the danger was buried beneath the pure white snow.

She seemed to wake from a dream, turning slowly, everything around her silent.

The snow was still falling, turning her black hair white.

She turned sharply and met the relieved smiles of Bai Su and Lin Xunzhen.