"Then there''s nothing more to say." Chen Ping slowly drew the ying Dragon Sword. "Today, I im the Blood Lotus. Stand in my way... and die."


    "Arrogant!" Man Shan bellowed,unching the first strike.


    He stepped forward; the ice beneath his feet cracked. Yet the massive man moved as fast as lightning, covering fifty meters in an instant. His ice-crystal axe descended like a mountain-splitting strike!


    The blow was simple yet brutal, infused with terrifying force principles. Before the axe evennded, the ice under Jared''s feet caved into a massive pit, and the surrounding air screamed under the pressure.


    "Sir, watch out!" ra cried.


    Chen Ping couldn''t take the blow head-on. With a sh of movement, he used the Dragon-Stepping technique to narrowly dodge sideways.


    The axe hit the ice, sending a hundred-meter-long fissure spreading instantly. The shockwave forced Chen Ping to stagger back several steps, blood and qi surging.


    "Quick on your feet," Man Shan sneered. He swung the axe horizontally, carving a crescent of ice-blue energy, cutting off all Chen Ping''s retreat.


    At the same time, Xuan Ming moved. He didn''t advance physically, but his hands darted from his sleeves, fingers moving like ying a deadly piano.


    Each finger flicked out a nearly invisible ice-blue thread. They weren''t solid, but condensed from the pinnacle of icew principles, designed to bypass defenses and attack the soul and meridians.


    "Netherfrost Threads!" ra''s face turned pale. "They target soul and meridians— one hit and it''s fatal! Sir, dodge!"


    Chen Ping sensed the lethal threat. He weaved around Man Shan''s axe while shing chaotic sword energy from his sword, trying to sever the threads.


    But the threads were strange and resilient. The chaotic sword energy barely warped them; it could not cut them. Worse, a few threads slipped through, aiming straight for Chen Ping.


    Heart racing, he unleashed his chaotic celestial energy as a shield. A glint of golden light from his brow burst forth, releasing a trace of dragon aura, barely deflecting the threads. Still, one grazed his arm. Cold shot through his meridians, numbing the limb and slowing the flow of immortal power.


    In a single exchange, ra and Vermilion were both wounded, their efforts to distract the enemies almost nullified.


    Jared felt the weight of their failure settle squarely on his shoulders; the space around him seemed to shrink beneath the twin murderous auras.


    "Kid,sting this long against the two of us is achievement enough," Montar bellowed,ughter rolling like thunder across the field. "But here is where your story stops! Mountain-God Cleaver-Earth-Split!"


    He raised the axe above his head with both hands. Ice-blue light erupted along its de, and the very ground trembled beneath the gathering power. This single swing would be several times stronger than anything he had unleashed before.


    At the same instant, cern''s expression sharpened. The yful chill in his eyes hardened into murderous winter.


    Between his palms, he pressed a silent prayer; the ice-sigil on his brow zed, weaving countless Frost-Silk strands into a thumb-sized, ss-clear blue prism that hovered before him.


    "Netherfrost Spike-Soulbreaker!"


    The prism shot forward without a sound, moving so fast it outraced Jared''s spiritual sense. Wherever it passed, the air froze into hair-thin ck fissures-icew refined to its limit, brushing the skin of space itself.


    Strength and soul-two killing arts descended together like twin verdicts of an unforgiving heaven.


    Jared''s pupils contracted to pinpoints; for the first time in this battle he felt death breathe directly against his neck.


    Can''t meet that head-on.


    In the heartbeat that followed he chose: flight over force.


    With a snap of his wrist, Jared released the small fire unicorn from its talisman. Scarlet mes roared into being, the creature pawing the air, ready to answer its master''s desperate call.


    The small fire unicorn was no ordinary beast. Born of primordial me, it countered every icy art the Northern Abyss Pce could muster.


    "ROAR-!"


    Its bellow rolled across the frozen in like thunder over ss, shivering the miles- wide ice sheet until cracks sang beneath the snow.


    From the storage ring at Jared''s hip strode a creature three stories high, its hide armored in molten-gold scales, its mane a living ze. Each h?of fall boomed scattering fr?st into vapor. Months of hand-feeding deep inside the Beastwood had thickened its muscles and


    broadened its chest. Now its aura surged at Heavenly Immortal Realm Level Seven.


    The gold mes wreathing its body were not mortal fire. They carried a thimble of


    the world''s first me—a power that reduced ice to steam the instant it touched the


    air.


    Sensing its master''s peril and the


    two juggernauts closing in, the unicorn reared. A pir of gold fire-wide as a city gate-erupted from its jaws and shot toward the waraxe Malcolm Jconridge was bringing down. At the same breath it red outward, weaving a burning rampart before Jared.


    "BOOM!"


    The pir met the ice-blue axe head-on. Extreme heat collided with murderous.cold. The detonation tore a crater into the cier, vaporizing ake of ice before sh-freezing the steam into jagged white shards that rained back to earth.


    A cyclone tens of yards wide spun outward, scarring the tundra in rings of melted


    ss and new frost.