Ice Lotus Blooms

"Ice Lotus... First Bloom!"

A frigid voice, like the chime of jade bells, shattered the deathly silence of the training grounds!

Su Qingxue's intensely restrained composure shattered like glass! A terrifying coldness, far purer and sharper than Su Hao's, as if emanating from the deepest abyss of an ancient ice cave, erupted within her like a volcano suppressed for millennia!

Hummm—!

From her feet, a visible wave of white frost surged outwards like an angry tide! The bluestone slabs beneath her instantly cracked with a web of frost, groaning under the strain! Countless tiny ice crystals formed in the air, refracting the autumn sunlight into a dazzling, colorful chill, as if she were clad in a battle dress woven from ice!

Her eyes, like frozen springs, now blazed with an intense cold, like two stars fallen to earth! Her usual aloof and elegant demeanor was completely replaced by a chilling battle intent that seemed to disdain everything!

"What?!" Su Hao's sneer froze on his face! His pupils constricted to pinpricks! The terrifying wave of cold washing over him made his protective aura flicker like a candle in the wind, the bone-chilling cold even seeming to freeze his blood! This was no ordinary One-Star Martial Artist's aura! This girl... she had been hiding her strength?!

Horror, like a venomous serpent, seized his heart! But the arrow was already on the string, and there was no turning back! He forcefully suppressed the tempest raging within him, his eyes burning with even fiercer malice! He pushed his Nine Cold Strengths to the limit, the ice crystals on his right palm instantly thickening several times, emitting a soul-chilling azure glow! His palm strike whistled, carrying a venomous chill that could freeze the soul, striking Su Qingxue with even greater ruthlessness!

"Playing tricks! Shatter!"

As his palm strike passed, the air let out a mournful cry of extreme freezing! His target remained Su Qingxue's chest! He intended to detonate the Jade Balance Hidden Meridian! He wanted to make this ignorant girl fall in extreme pain and humiliation!

Su Qingxue moved!

Facing a fatal palm strike capable of freezing the soul and detonating a hidden meridian, she didn't retreat an inch! Her icy gaze locked onto the meridian of Su Hao's right arm, surging with the True Qi of his Nine Cold Strengths! That was it! The "fuse" node that Lin Xiao had "optimized," now violently fluctuating with Su Hao's full power!

Her Plum Blossom Reflecting Snow Steps unfolded instantly! Her footwork was no longer light and evasive, but carried a peculiar, heavy rhythm, as if she had merged with the frosted ground beneath her feet! She slightly shifted her body, advancing instead of retreating, meeting Su Hao's Cold Jade Palm with mere millimeters to spare! Simultaneously, her left palm formed a blade with her fingers, concentrating a blinding point of icy blue light at her fingertips. It carried a sharpness that could pierce anything, striking directly at the marked "fuse" node beneath Su Hao's right armpit!

Attack the enemy's vital point! A strategic maneuver!

"You're courting death!" Su Hao laughed in fury! The opponent dared to meet his attack head-on? And even attempted to strike his armpit? Utterly clueless! His palm strike remained unchanged, while his left arm slammed down like an iron gate, blocking in front of him, preparing to take Su Qingxue's seemingly fragile finger strike head-on. At the same time, his right palm, the Cold Jade Palm strike, would land on her chest without reservation!

However, in that fleeting moment, when victory and defeat hung in the balance!

Lin Xiao, hidden in the shadows, his bloodshot eyes suddenly erupted with the ferocity of a lone wolf! Now! Su Hao's entire focus was on Su Qingxue, and his footwork was at the critical juncture of his full power output, transitioning from old force to new! It was also the moment he felt most confident and relaxed!

His will, like the final roar of a dying beast, slammed into the azure light screen in his mind!

[Target Locked: Su Hao... Right Foot Yongquan Acupoint Landing Area... Surface Material: Bluestone Slab... Molecular Structure Stability...]

[Modification Plan: Instantly reduce the silicon-oxygen bond energy of the target area! Friction drastically reduced! Duration: 0.1 seconds! Source Energy Points required: 0.3!]

[Warning! Current Source Energy Points: -1.3! Executing this operation will lead to core exhaustion critical state and Viper's Kiss contamination runaway risk!]

0.3 points! This was the last straw that would break the camel's back! His depleted soul cried out in agony! The dark green Viper's Kiss core deep within his right leg pulsed wildly, exuding a chilling greed!

"Move for me—!" Lin Xiao's will roared silently amidst the tearing pain of his soul!

[Command Confirmed! Source Energy Points Deducted: 0.3!]

[Source Energy Points: -1.3 - 0.3 = -1.6!]

[Modification Initiated!]

Hummm—!

A surge of emptiness and pain, far more violent than before, instantly engulfed Lin Xiao! His vision went completely black! A buzzing filled his ears, as if the entire world were receding! The metallic sweetness in his throat could no longer be suppressed, and a trickle of crimson blood slid silently down the corner of his mouth! The dark green core deep within his right leg erupted with a chilling tide, like a viper breaking free from its chains!

[Warning! Core Exhaustion Reached Critical State! Stability Dropped Sharply! Viper's Kiss Contamination Activity: +20%! Erosion Rate: 0.005%! Contamination Spread Risk: Extremely High!]

The chilling notification sounded like a death knell!

In the real world, just as Su Hao's right foot was about to land firmly on that hard bluestone slab, the molecular structure of the seemingly ordinary bluestone beneath his foot underwent an extremely brief but violent rearrangement under the immense power of the Source Energy!

0.1 seconds!

The rough surface of the bluestone, which normally provided stable friction, instantly became as smooth as a mirror at the microscopic level! The binding energy of the silicon-oxygen bonds was forcibly weakened to the extreme!

Splat!

Su Hao's right foot, which had gathered all his strength, prepared to block Su Qingxue's finger strike while simultaneously launching a fatal blow, landed as if on an ice surface coated with thick grease!

There was no grip!

That confident step, imbued with his full aura and power, instantly missed its mark! His body's center of gravity lurched forward uncontrollably! The man stumbled forward as if tripped by an invisible rope, his upper body uncontrollably pitching forward!

"Huh?!" Su Hao's sneer instantly morphed into extreme shock and disbelief! All his calculations, all his power output, were completely disrupted the moment this step missed! His left arm, blocking in front of his chest, shifted its defensive posture due to the loss of balance! His armpit, the vital point, was instantly exposed!

This sudden, completely illogical turn of events left Su Hao's mind blank!

Opportunity!

Su Qingxue's icy eyes, like a precise falcon, instantly seized this once-in-a-lifetime opening! Her finger strike, aimed at Su Hao's armpit "fuse," shifted its trajectory unnaturally upwards the moment his left arm's block faltered!

Ching—!

The icy blue fingertip, like a searing hot iron, precisely struck the "fuse" node on Su Hao's right arm meridian, marked by Lin Xiao and violently fluctuating!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Only a faint "crack," like shattering ice crystals!

Su Hao felt the torrent of Nine Cold Strengths True Qi surging in his right arm, beneath his armpit, as if a block of ancient profound ice had been thrown into it, its trajectory instantly frozen and distorted! A bone-chilling pain, carrying a strong sense of backlash, shot through his entire right arm like an electric current!

"Ah—!" Su Hao let out a piercing scream! His right arm instantly went numb, his right palm, covered in ice crystals, hanging limply like a puppet with a broken string! The condensed Cold Jade Palm strike instantly dissipated! Even more terrifyingly, the yin-cold backlash force, which had been triggered and was meant to surge into Su Qingxue's body, now lacked a target and, like an unbridled wild horse, surged back into his own meridians!

Pfft!

Su Hao's face instantly turned from red to green, then from green to white, as he spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with ice shards! His body seemed to have its bones removed, staggering back several steps, each one leaving a bloody footprint on the frost-covered bluestone! His eyes were filled with extreme pain, confusion, and... unbelievable terror!

Defeated? He... was defeated just like that? Because... he slipped?!

The moment Su Hao's guard dropped and the backlash surged through his body!

Su Qingxue's eyes flashed with cold light! This was the moment she had been waiting for!

"Ice Lotus—Blooms in Anger!"

Her voice, icy and chilling, sounded like a judgment from the deepest abyss!

Her right palm, which had been poised and ready, finally moved!

No longer a probing finger-blade, it was a full-power strike of the "optimized" Ice Lotus Palm, imbued with all her essence, spirit, and energy!

In her palm, a lifelike ice crystal lotus, condensed from the ultimate ice-cold True Qi, suddenly bloomed! The petals were crystal clear, layered upon each other, their edges sharp as knives. At the center of the stamen, a point of deep azure cold light emanated a terrifying aura that could freeze all things!

The palm struck!

The ice lotus spun, emitting a piercing shriek that tore through the air. It seemed to traverse the distance of space, instantly imprinted upon Su Hao's chest, which was wide open and utterly defenseless!

Boom—!!!

There was no deafening roar, only a muffled thud so profound it made one's heart palpitate, like an iceberg collapsing!

Su Hao's body was struck as if by a ten-thousand-ton hammer. His dark martial attire was instantly torn to shreds by the violent, ice-cold palm force! His imposing frame, like a kite with a broken string, was flung high into the air, trailing a dazzling spray of blood mist and ice crystals, tracing a tragic arc before crashing heavily onto the bluestone slabs more than ten meters away like a tattered sack!

Crack! Pfft!

The sound of shattering bones was clearly audible! Su Hao's body twitched a few times on the cold stone slab, blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushing from his mouth. A thick layer of white frost covered his entire body, and his aura instantly weakened to the extreme! Only in his wide, unblinking eyes did a trace of incomprehensible shock, pain, and... endless malice remain!

The entire Su family's martial arts training ground fell into a deathly silence!

Absolute silence!

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

All eyes were fixed intently on the figure standing proudly in the center of the arena.

Su Qingxue slowly retracted her palm, and the deadly ice lotus in her palm gradually dissipated. She was still dressed in her moon-white training clothes, her robes fluttering slightly in the cold wind, spotlessly clean. The blush on her stunning face, a result of the fierce battle, had yet to fade, but her eyes, like a clear spring, had already regained their unfathomable calmness. Yet, beneath this calmness, there seemed to be a trace of something indescribably... complex.

She had won.

As a member of a collateral branch, in a situation everyone believed was a sure loss, she had powerfully defeated Su Hao, the prodigy of the main lineage, under the gaze of all!

Plop!

A teacup slipped from the hand of a young disciple from a collateral branch and fell to the ground, shattering into pieces. This tiny sound, like a stone dropped into a calm lake, instantly broke the deathly silence of the training ground!

"Whoosh—!!!"

A roar of exclamations and disbelieving clamor, like a tsunami, instantly swept across the entire training ground!

"She won? Su Qingxue won?!"

"One move! She only used one move to heavily injure Su Hao?!"

"What kind of palm technique was that?! Ice Lotus?! It's too terrifying!"

"Jade Balance Hidden Meridian! She truly controlled the power of the Jade Balance Hidden Meridian!"

The area for the collateral branches erupted with suppressed ecstasy and cheers! Countless fiery, awestruck, and even fanatical gazes focused on Su Qingxue! She was no longer the orphan from a collateral branch, suppressed by the main lineage. Instead, she had become a hero who, with her own strength, had avenged all the disciples of the collateral branches!

On the main lineage's side, however, the atmosphere was one of deathly silence and ugly expressions. The teacup in Su Zhenshan's hand had long since been crushed into powder. Tea mixed with porcelain shards dripped from between his fingers. He stared intently at his son, who lay on the verge of death in the arena, then at Su Qingxue, who stood proudly. His somber face was like the bottom of a pot, and in the depths of his eyes churned a furious rage and... a hint of imperceptible terror!

The enforcement elder flashed to Su Hao's side, quickly examined him, and announced with a grave expression, "Su Hao is heavily injured and has lost the ability to fight! This match, Su Qingxue wins!"

As the pronouncement fell, the cheers from the collateral branches became even more deafening!

Lin Xiao leaned against the cold corridor pillar, his entire body drenched in cold sweat as if he had just been fished out of water. His violent gasps aggravated the wound on his back and the dark green core deep within his right leg, which had become more active and colder due to the depletion of his Source Energy. The number [-1.6] in his mind was like a red-hot iron brand, each flicker bringing soul-tearing pain. His vision remained blurry, and the buzzing in his ears had not yet subsided.

However, the corners of his mouth slowly pulled into a cold, weary, yet strangely frenzied arc of satisfaction.

It worked!

The moment this satisfaction surged!

[Detected significant event influence fluctuation... Subversive outcome... Influence scope: Su family core circle... Influence level: Medium...]

[Source Energy Points replenished: +0.8!]

[Source Energy Points: -1.6 + 0.8 = -0.8!]

A faint but clear warm current, like a sweet spring, instantly flowed into his depleted soul! Although he was still mired in the negative, the gnawing pain of exhaustion, like a parasite clinging to his bones, had clearly lessened by a fraction!

Lin Xiao suddenly raised his head. His bloodshot eyes, piercing through his blurry vision, passed over the cheering crowd and accurately locked onto the moon-white figure in the arena.

Su Qingxue also seemed to sense something. Her clear spring-like eyes, cutting through the clamor, swept across Lin Xiao's corner for a very brief moment.

Across the surging sea of people and the cold calculations, amidst the swirling dust of ice crystals falling all around, their gazes met silently.