Chapter 313

As the match wears on, spectators grow impressed that Bai Ning Bing, wielding only rank two icicle Gu, holds even with Yan Tu’s rank three fire pellet Gu while moving. Fang Yuan watches from the crowd in disguise, Wei Yang and Shang Xin Ci beside him. Wei Yang worries her primeval essence will drain as her icicle count rises; Fang Yuan reads her tactic at a glance instead, that she is using her A grade aptitude’s faster essence recovery to offset Yan Tu’s rank four cultivation, since despite his rank he is only B grade. Shang Xin Ci still calls it an uphill battle for her. ^{ch. 313}

Yan Tu escalates first, grabbing from dozens of steps away to summon a rank three fiery claw Gu, an orange, eagle shaped claw that scorches the air before it even lands. Bai Ning Bing had already learned the claw’s reach was limited to several meters from him and tries to widen the distance, but Yan Tu’s rank four movement Gu closes it faster than hers can open it. The claw grazes her shoulder and sets the grassland alight before she freezes the flame with a burst of icicle Gu and a secretly triggered ice explosion Gu, destroying the claw outright, though Yan Tu still catches its imprint before it is lost for good. ^{ch. 313}

Pressing the advantage with two ice blades, Bai Ning Bing is met by twin fiery snakes, rank four Gu that swell from necklace size to the size of pythons in an instant, one blocking her blades while the other circles behind her. The blazing snakes throw the audience into an uproar; one voice names it Yan Tu’s twin snake attack, and another calls it a move that leaves an opponent unable to defend against both sides at once. Her Gu set favors offense over movement and defense, and against two rank four Gu working together she starts losing ground; whenever her attacks damage a snake, Yan Tu simply spends primeval essence to heal it. She burns through frost breath Gu and frost arrow Gu trying to slow them, at real cost to her own reserves, while Yan Tu’s fire pellets both harass her directly and refuel the snakes, a combination he has refined over hundreds of battles that her shorter experience cannot yet match. ^{ch. 313}

With Yan Tu gradually taking the initiative, Bai Ning Bing activates her vital Gu, ice crystal Gu, far earlier than planned, turning her whole body to living ice, her hair frosted rigid and her blades sharpened by the change. She charges straight through the fiery snakes toward Yan Tu himself, breathing frost strong enough to shrink one snake back, and demands he meet her in close combat. Yan Tu wants no part of that. He retreats using his own movement Gu instead, and because her ice form has slowed her own mobility, every frost arrow she fires to catch him misses. He knows, as she does, that ice crystal Gu cannot be sustained forever without risking a permanent transformation, so even with vitality Gu prolonging it, time favors him if he simply keeps his distance. Bai Ning Bing stops moving, weighing whether to use the one move that might still change the fight. ^{ch. 313}