By then, she had completely transformed into human form. Her skin was whiter than snow, her eyes deep and dark, and an eerie, soul-seizing aura radiated from her entire body.
Her lips curled slightly, carrying a hint of teasing and mystery. Her fingertip gently brushed Chu Ning's temple as she murmured softly:
"Didn't I tell you not to eat the Nine Revolutions Profound Sun Fruit?... Master!" Her voice trembled with bewitchment, her icy fingertip tracing the bulging veins on Chu Ning's body.
Chu Ning's heart was rocked by tempestuous waves, and his mind went blank.
As the final wisp of fire was drawn away, Chu Ning finally saw the person before him clearly. The snow fox cloak had slipped halfway down, revealing a porcelain-white shoulder, while nine illusory fox tails swayed gracefully behind her. Most soul-stirring of all were those azure-gold strange eyes—the left eye was like moonlight reflected in a deep pool, while the right churned like boiling lava.
Yet before he could ask anything, the woman let out a soft laugh. Her gaze rippled as she slowly moved away from him, her sleeves fluttering and seeming to leave behind a trace of lingering fragrance.
She glanced back, her azure pupils as deep as an abyss, the corners of her lips slightly raised.
The snow fox's fingertip slid across the thunder pattern over Chu Ning's heart, and a thread of cold seeped into his skin. "Master, you really are impatient!" Her fox tail swept across Chu Ning's neck, where an icy-blue pattern quietly surfaced.
Chu Ning stared blankly. He slowly raised his hand, and her warmth still lingered on his fingertips.
He watched that alluring figure, his chest heaving violently.
"Where's Little Snow Fox?" Chu Ning rasped. The fire poison remaining in his throat was swept away by the other party with her lips and tongue.
The Azure-Eyed Snow Fox slowly raised her slender, pale finger and lightly pressed it against the corner of his lips. Her eyes were seductive as silk, and she smiled with pursed lips.
"Shh—don't wake it. It's still sleeping."
The secret chamber door was suddenly knocked upon, and a trembling maid's voice came from outside. "Young Master Chu, Miss requests that you go to the sword-testing platform... The commander of the Town Martial Division wants to test your skills."
The instant Chu Ning pushed open the secret chamber door, a white shadow flashed past, and Little Snow Fox leaped onto his shoulder.
A sword cry like a dragon's roar came from the direction of the sword-testing platform. He lifted his eyes and looked over.
Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd was planted in the center of the platform, a head belonging to a Wang Family death warrior skewered on its blade.
Chu Ning's white hair fluttered in the wind, while Purple-Gold Saber Light leaped between his fingers like fluttering banners.
Morning light pierced through the Calamity Cloud and shone upon the frost congealed over the sword-testing platform. Chu Ning's white hair scattered like a silver waterfall in the cold wind. With every step he took, spiderweb-like cracks of ice blossomed across the bluestone ground.
Xie Mingli stood beneath a corridor pillar, her fingertip unconsciously rubbing the Cold Marrow Pendant at her waist. The tribulation lightning at the estate last night had actually cleaved a three-zhang fissure into Marquis Wu's Estate's hundred-year-old Mysterious Iron Formation.
"Chu Ning." She suddenly spoke, her voice unusually tense.
The white-haired young man stopped, but did not turn around. Little Snow Fox on his shoulder raised a bloodstained paw and bared its fangs at her. Just then, a coquettish voice dripping with allure giggled softly beside Chu Ning's ear. "Master, you're even more bloodthirsty than I imagined..."
Yesterday, he had still possessed ink-black hair and kept his edge restrained. Now, overnight, his sideburns had turned entirely white with frost, making Xie Mingli's pupils contract as a thread of unease swept through her heart.
Xie Mingli's gaze passed over Chu Ning's frost-white hair. Fine ice crystals had actually formed at the tips, shattering into stardust with every step he took.
Chu Ning turned his head slightly. Icy-blue and golden patterns flowed around the edges of his pupils, making them seem like demonic eyes. "What Miss Xie should be concerned about is the sword-testing platform."
The instant he looked back, the icy-blue and golden patterns around his pupils moved like living things, reflecting her pale face. Those were no longer human eyes, but strange eyes through which a demon god seemed to have descended into the mortal world.
"You..." Xie Mingli's gaze fell upon the curled-up Little Snow Fox on his shoulder. The little creature was licking the bloodstains from its paw with a scarlet tongue. "The tribulation lightning at the estate last night—was that you breaking through?"
She had thought Chu Ning would certainly die beneath last night's tribulation, yet at this moment, he was standing here with an unfathomably deep aura. Xie Mingli's slender fingers clenched tightly around the Cold Marrow Pendant at her waist, and her heartbeat lost its rhythm. She had clearly seen the battle intent in Zhao Tianyu, and she had also realized that she was, unexpectedly, somewhat afraid.
Little Snow Fox suddenly raised its head, and mockery flashed through its azure eyes. Chu Ning lifted a hand and gently stroked its tail, Purple-Gold Saber Light winding around his fingers. "Why don't Miss Xie inspect it personally?"
Before his words had even faded, Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd had already shattered a stone pillar at the edge of the sword-testing platform. "If you want to represent Marquis Wu's Estate, why aren't you coming up for the trial?"
Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd was planted in the center of the platform, the head skewered on its blade staring wide-eyed. Blood meandered down the halberd shaft, yet upon reaching the area beneath Chu Ning's feet, it strangely congealed into ice crystals.
Zhao Tianyu flicked the halberd blade, sending the head flying toward Chu Ning. Before the blood droplets could even hit the ground, they condensed into ice spikes. Yet upon reaching within three feet of the white-haired young man, they strangely came to a halt in midair.
"The rules of the Town Martial Division's trial." Zhao Tianyu slammed his heavy halberd into the ground, and a dark-blue icy gleam rose from his Meteorite Armor. "Only by surviving three strikes from me will you qualify to enter the Azure Cloud Arena."
"My heavens... Commander Zhao is actually going to test Young Master Chu himself?"
"How is that possible? He's only at the Tenth Rank Lower Grade. How could he possibly block Commander Zhao?"
"He's insane, he's completely insane! What kind of trouble did this fellow stir up?"
The discussions rose and fell like waves, yet the two figures atop the sword-testing platform had already plunged the entire martial arena into oppressive silence.
Butler Qin Henian narrowed his eyes. "Zhao Tianyu's 'Nine Nether Underworld Cold' has already reached the eighth-rank peak. Young Master Chu is probably..."
Chu Ning gripped his saber and slowly climbed onto the platform, his white hair brushing over the ice-and-fire patterns around his neck. "What if I take thirty strikes?"
The crowd abruptly fell silent. Xie Mingli crushed the blood jade in her palm, while the hidden guards of Marquis Wu's Estate quietly sealed off the area around the sword-testing platform.
"Arrogant!" Zhao Tianyu swept his heavy halberd horizontally, and Nine Nether Cold Qi condensed into an ice dragon that lunged to kill. "First strike, Army Breaker!"
"This is bad!" The martial artists watching the battle hurriedly retreated three steps. "Young Master Chu hasn't even raised protective true qi—"
Amid the dragon's roar, the sword-testing platform instantly transformed into an ice cavern. The weaker spectators were actually frozen stiff where they stood.
The cries of alarm abruptly ceased.
The heavy halberd swept horizontally, and Nine Nether Cold Qi condensed into a hundred-zhang ice dragon. The path carved by the halberd blade froze the air. Its scales were formed from profound ice, while fragments of Meteorite Armor were embedded in its dragon eyes. Wherever the ice dragon passed, frost flowers blossomed across the ground, and the white mist exhaled by the spectators instantly condensed into ice chips and fell.
"Crack—"
Chu Ning advanced instead of retreating, Purple-Gold Saber Light wrapped around an illusory fox-tail shadow as it cleaved toward the dragon's head. Wherever the saber light passed, the ice dragon's body shattered into ice shards filling the sky, each shard reflecting Chu Ning's nine-tailed phantom. The phantom's claws gripped lightning, melting the ice shards into a rain of purple-gold fire that swept back over Zhao Tianyu.
"Commander Zhao's cold qi..." Chu Ning's breath frosted the air. "It isn't cold enough."
Zhao Tianyu's pupils contracted sharply. He abruptly thrust his heavy halberd into the ice. "Second strike, Heaven Prison!"
The sword-testing platform shook with a thunderous boom, and nine enormous pillars of profound ice burst from the ground. Cold mist churned between the pillars, condensing into ten thousand ice blades that poured down like a torrential storm.
"Mysterious Ice Prison!" Xie Mingli's eyes flew wide. Her heart trembled, and her voice carried a trace of disbelief. "Back then, Zhao Tianyu used this move to completely freeze an eighth-rank demonic beast!"
When the Mysterious Ice Prison unfolded, the air filled with the fishy, acrid scent of the Northern Frontier's permanently frozen earth. Amid the shrill cries of ice blades ripping through the air was the chattering "clack-clack" of spectators' teeth.
In the storm of ice blades, Chu Ning's figure was instantly submerged. Xie Mingli's fingertip pierced her palm, and the blood droplet had yet to fall before freezing into an ice crystal—she had not even realized that she had stepped into the prison's edge.
"Is he dead?" someone muttered.
The instant the torrential rain of ice blades descended, Chu Ning's perception stretched longer. He "saw" the trajectory of every ice blade, while the illusory fox tails swept thirty-six thousand times within one-thousandth of a breath. In reality, only an instant had passed.
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