As the words fell, Ling Juehan lightly tapped the bell with the index finger of his left hand.
Clang...
A faint, crisp chime rang out. It was not loud, yet in an instant it spread across the entire Arena.
Where the chime passed, space rippled like a lake into which a stone had been dropped.
Every ripple was a wave of Ice Law, spreading in all directions.
Where the waves passed, a thick layer of frost instantly formed across the Arena floor.
The frost spread with astonishing speed, like an ice-blue python racing wildly across the ground. In the blink of an eye, it reached Hong Xiao's feet.
The temperature plummeted in its wake, and every exhaled breath turned to icy dust in an instant.
Even the light seemed to freeze, growing sluggish and heavy.
Frost climbed the railings at the Arena's edge, turning the entire Arena into an ice-blue cage.
Hong Xiao's crimson pupils contracted slightly, then he threw back his head and laughed.
"Now that's interesting!"
He stamped his right foot. His thirty-foot frame shook like a mountain, and the entire Arena trembled with the blow.
The crimson chains wrapped around him rattled at once with a metallic roar.
The dark-red runes on the chains lit up in the same instant, bursting with dazzling crimson light.
A violent surge of bloodline power erupted from within him, and dark-red waves of energy swept outward in every direction.
They exploded across the Arena like a crimson sandstorm, blasting the advancing frost into a storm of fragments.
Amid the flying shards of ice, Hong Xiao strode forward.
Each step shook the Arena. The chains dragging along the ground struck trails of brilliant sparks.
Those sparks landed on the frost with a sizzling hiss.
They melted the ice, only for the cold