Chapter 314

Resolved, Bai Ning Bing calls her killer move back: ice blade storm. She raises ice edge Gu into blade like extensions of her arms while vitality Gu keeps a warm current moving through her heart and organs, holding off a full transformation into ice. Swirl Gu spins her body, tornado Gu grows the spin into a dark blue funnel, and continuous frost breath, sustainable now that her mouth has become ice, turns the funnel into an icy tornado that flattens grass and coats the field in frost. Between ice edge, ice crystal, swirl, tornado, and frost breath, she is managing five Gu at once, a feat narration credits to her rare physique and ranks, on this one measure, above Fang Yuan himself. ^{ch. 314}

The two fiery snakes charge blindly into the storm and lose most of their bodies to it before flames regrow them, smaller than before. Onlookers, Wei Yang included, call it a killer move nobody has seen from her; Shang Xin Ci begins to hope she can actually win. Fang Yuan has seen ice blade storm before, but never at this strength, and reads her growth as genuine, a talent that keeps refining its signature move rather than discarding it. Rattled by a trump card from a rank three junior, Yan Tu decides the storm must be crushed before it grows further and resolves to answer killer move with a killer move of his own. ^{ch. 314}

He douses the field in fuel oil from fuel oil Gu, too much for the storm’s cold to freeze, turning the grassland into a swamp everywhere but the tornado’s own ground. Fiery snake Gu returns at a cost of twenty percent of his yellow gold primeval essence, and the oiled field ignites into a sea of fire that leaves only Bai Ning Bing’s ice untouched, one terrain split cleanly into fire and ice. Four fiery claw Gu then merge into the two snakes, turning them into clawed fiery dragons, a partial display, the crowd realizes, of the rank five fiery dragon Gu, and Yan Tu’s own killer move: fire sea twin dragon kill. ^{ch. 314}

The dragons claw and coil at the icy pillar again and again, retreating into the flames to heal each time they are cut down, since the burning field itself feeds them. Wei Yang, a kiting specialist himself, notices the storm’s wind has stopped gathering power and urges Bai Ning Bing to start moving; Fang Yuan senses something is wrong too, since she plainly knows better and still is not moving. The truth is worse than either guesses. This is the first time she has used the revised storm in battle, and only now does she discover it can only spin in place, with no forward motion at all. Already stretched managing five Gu at once, she has no spare attention left to fix it, and only Yan Tu’s own attacks, meant to smother her, keep the flaw from being noticed. With no other option, she keeps expanding the storm, hoping the wind itself will eventually grow strong enough to carry it forward. ^{ch. 314}

Both fighters burn through their primeval essence as the fight stretches on, hot and cold winds leaking past the arena barrier to reach the crowd directly. It earns Bai Ning Bing recognition as the battle stage’s third strongest fighter, behind only Yan Tu and Ju Kai Bei, whose own rivalry has run dozens of matches without a clear winner. As the oil burns out and the grass turns to ash, the storm’s wind slackens while the fiery dragons, fed by the dying blaze and Yan Tu’s rank four essence, stay strong. The gap between their cultivations begins to tell, and narration notes she might have fought on longer had she accepted Fang Yuan’s heavenly essence treasure lotus earlier. ^{ch. 314}

Sensing victory, Yan Tu merges his two dragons into one, a secret move he has never shown before, and claws directly at the storm. It is a feint on her part: Bai Ning Bing freezes all four claws with a sudden burst of frost breath and lets the storm engulf most of the dragon’s body, costing it two claws and more than half its size before Yan Tu can pull it back. Fang Yuan realizes what the crowd has not yet grasped, that she spent her last primeval essence on that single counterattack, unable to win outright but determined to make Yan Tu pay for it. Her aperture is dry. Bai Ning Bing concedes on the spot, and the battle stage’s own power pins a furious Yan Tu in place until the result is announced. As victor, he claims her vital Gu, ice crystal Gu, and losing it sends blood from her seven orifices even as she hands it over without complaint. His own losses, a fiery snake Gu and two fiery claw Gu spent or destroyed in the fight, outweigh what he has gained, and narration calls her defeat one that still won her fame. Wei Yang, watching, regrets that she never chose frost demon Gu, the vital Gu better suited to a woman, and wonders aloud whether losing ice crystal Gu might finally let her make the switch. ^{ch. 314}