Faced with provocation, Ao Kun did not strike immediately, but his cold gaze alone had already passed sentence on Dustin. This man must die.
“Good. Good. Good.”
The effeminate man repeated the word three times, his voice still smooth and lilting, but now laced with venomous chill. He gently set down his jade cup and rose, straightening his lavender robe with the poise of a performer stepping onto stage.
“To have wounded Qing Mu so grievously—your sword truly has some merit. Unfortunately for you, you’ve met me, Xuan Ming.”
As he named himself, the atmosphere of the entire palace shifted. Moisture thickened in the air. The spiritual liquid in the wine pool rippled without wind. Beads of water condensed upon the luminous pearls inlaid along the walls. Even the spiritual energy hanging in the air felt damp and heavy. Xuan Ming seemed to have become the sovereign of every trace of water essence in the space.
Dustin stood with his sword, his breathing ragged. After such relentless combat—especially the final clash where he had forcefully shattered Qing Mu’s “Extinguishing Divine Thunder” and struck back—the last drops of his true energy were nearly drained dry. Yet his eyes remained sharp as an eagle’s, fixed upon Xuan Ming without a trace of slackness. He could sense it clearly: this seemingly delicate man was far more dangerous than Qing Mu. His aura resembled the deep sea—calm on the surface, but concealing immeasurable, churning currents below.
“Water Dragon Chant.”
Xuan Ming gave him no chance to recover. His fingers extended gracefully, and he pointed lightly toward Dustin. From the wine pool surged torrents of spiritual liquid mingled with draconic resentment, which rose into the air and coalesced into three dark-blue water dragons, their scales and claws gleaming with malevolent brilliance.
These dragons were not mere illusions. They roared with thunderous might, their eyes flashing with the same icy light as their master’s. Carrying unstoppable force and freezing cold, they lunged at Dustin from three directions at once.
Even before the dragons reached him, the chill in the air froze the floor into sheets of white frost. Crystals of ice clung to Dustin’s brows and hair.
He gathered what remained of his true qi, swung his sword, and unleashed a flurry of blade-light. The sword qi scattered like the fanning tail of a peacock, cleaving forth dozens of azure arcs to meet the charging dragons.
“Shhh—shhh—shhh!”
The sword qi collided with the water dragons, tearing through heads and rending torsos. But the broken streams of dark-blue water did not vanish—they swirled in the air and instantly recombined into new dragons, surging toward him again as if endless.
“It’s useless,” Xuan Ming said with a soft laugh, his fingertip flicking once more. “Frozen Abyss Prison.”
At his words, the three water dragons opened their maws and exhaled torrents of ghostly blue frost. Wherever the frost passed, air itself froze solid, and even space seemed to crystallize. The floor sprouted countless jagged ice spikes, bristling toward Dustin like a forest of thorns.
In an instant, the entire battlefield transformed into a realm of freezing death.
Dustin darted between the spikes, sword light circling his body as he shattered spears of ice and cleaved through layers of frost. But the cold was sapping his strength—his movements grew heavy, his protective sword qi eroded by the frigid air. Worse still, the three dragons continued to circle and strike in perfect coordination with the unending ice assaults, leaving him struggling to keep up.
“Mirror of Water—Phantom Form.”
Xuan Ming’s voice echoed again, tinged with mockery. His body blurred—and the next instant, three identical “Xuan Mings” appeared around Dustin, each standing at a different angle, each unleashing attacks in perfect unison.
Water dragons, spears of ice, and eerie ripples charged with soul energy crashed toward Dustin from every direction.
His pupils shrank. Sweeping his divine sense across the battlefield, he found that all three Xuan Mings shared identical auras—no way to tell illusion from reality. He could only rely on instinct and mastery of the sword, moving through the shrinking space like a shadow, parrying and slashing in every direction. His sword light wove an unbroken curtain of defense, cutting down wave after wave of attacks.
But each collision churned his blood and burned through his energy. Were it not for his breakthrough into the Earthly Immortal realm—allowing him to constantly draw upon ambient spiritual qi—he would have already collapsed.
“Found you!”
A glint of insight flashed in Dustin’s eyes. He caught a minute irregularity—a subtle lag in the energy flow of one of the “Xuan Mings.” Without hesitation, he ignored all other attacks, merged himself with his sword, and became a streak of condensed azure light, thrusting straight at that one’s chest.
“Splurt!”
His blade pierced clean through the figure.
But the pierced “Xuan Ming” merely smiled strangely, his form rippling like water before dissolving into a puddle upon the ground. A water clone.
The real Xuan Ming had already appeared behind Dustin.
In his hand gleamed a long sword of deep-blue ice crystal, sharp enough to rend the void itself, driving silently toward Dustin’s back.
The timing, the angle, the speed—perfect beyond compare.
At that deadly instant, Dustin moved as if eyes had grown upon his back. Though still mid-lunge, his waist twisted at an impossible angle, and his sword swept backward in a reflexive arc.
“Clang!”
Steel met ice, the clash ringing clear.
A surge of biting frost erupted from Xuan Ming’s blade, spreading along Dustin’s sword toward his arm. In an instant, his sword hand was sheathed in thick ice, the freezing chill cutting straight through his meridians. - Marinien
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