Mastery

The battle continued.

Li Hanche had already lost count of how many times he had been knocked down.

The dull thud of his back hitting the ground, the blunt pain of his shoulder crashing into ice mounds, the suffocating pressure in his chest when his ribs took a blow.

Those sensations had repeated too many times—so many that his body had begun instinctively adjusting its posture whenever he fell.

He used the thickest muscle groups to absorb the impact, rolled to bleed off the force, and got back up at the smallest possible cost.

Most of his clothes had already been torn away, exposing bruised and mottled skin beneath.

The right leg of his trousers had been ripped open at the knee. A wound carved by an Ice-Armored Dire Bear's bone claw ran down his calf, from his ankle to just below his knee. Flesh curled outward from it, while the edges had turned pale from the cold.

His back had long since been torn to pieces.

Through the rents, the bronze sheen over his back could be seen flowing at a visible speed. Each circulation made the muscles around his wounds contract slightly, pulling the torn tissue back together.

He stood at the center of the snowy valley, the butt of his spear planted on the ground as he gasped for breath.

Every breath carried the taste of rust. His throat felt dry and stinging, as though it had been scraped raw by sandpaper.

The Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear was covered in blood—blood from Nether Ice Wolves, from the Ice-Armored Dire Bear, and from himself.

Mind-Clarity and Nature-Seeing Art kept his consciousness in a state of almost ruthless clarity.

The pain was real. The exhaustion was real. So was the dizziness brought on by blood loss.

But the spiritual cultivation art had isolated all of it at a distance where it could not affect his judgment.

He could clearly sense that his body was nearing its limit, and he could just as clearly sense that the two soul beasts opposite him were in the same state.

The Nether Ice Wolf's left forepaw no longer dared touch the ground at all.

That strike from the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear had shattered its paw bones. The paw that had once trodden atop ghostly blue flames now hung limp, and its body was supported by only three legs. Every step it took was a limp.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear was in even worse condition.

The wound beneath its armpit had been struck repeatedly, expanding from a spear hole into a bloody cavity the size of a fist.

Its left eye was completely ruined. When the Nether Ice Wolf's claws had gouged into it, they had torn out half the eyeball. Now, only a blurry mass of flesh and blood remained in that socket.

Its breathing grew heavier and heavier. Its chest wheezed like a bellows, each breath accompanied by bloody froth.

All three sides were badly wounded.

None of them retreated.

The Nether Ice Wolf moved first.

A three-legged wolf was still a wolf—one of the Far North's most cunning hunters.

It circled behind him, forming a pincer attack with the Ice-Armored Dire Bear.

At the same moment, the Ice-Armored Dire Bear charged.

Snow and shattered ice leaped from the ground from the force of its advance.

Mad, vicious light burned in its remaining right eye as it raised its bear paw high.

Attacked from both front and back. There was nowhere to evade.

Li Hanche's body made its choice a step before his mind did.

His feet turned, and his entire body slipped through the gap between the two attacks like a loach.

Treading Snow Without Trace!

Through repeated evasions and pursuits, his body had gradually grasped that subtle feeling.

What had begun as clumsy and awkward was becoming smoother and more natural.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear's paw struck empty air.

The enormous impact smashed into the ground, blasting a deep crater into the frozen earth as shards of ice scattered like rain.

The Nether Ice Wolf's fangs also bit down on nothing. When its three legs landed, it failed to steady itself. Its injured left forepaw instinctively tried to brace against the ground, but the instant it touched down, it let out a shrill whimper and staggered sideways.

That was the moment.

Li Hanche began turning back the instant he slipped away.

His foot kicked fiercely against the crusted snow, and his entire body shot out like a fully drawn bowstring suddenly released. Man and spear became an icy-blue line, stabbing toward the exposed side of the Nether Ice Wolf's neck.

The Nether Ice Wolf saw that icy-blue flash.

It tried to dodge, but its three-legged body had no strength left to change direction as it stumbled.

It desperately twisted its head and opened its mouth full of fangs, trying to bite down on that light.

Too late.

The tip of the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear pierced into the joint connecting its left foreleg to its torso, punching through the entire connection between limb and body. The spearhead burst out from the other side, bringing with it a spray of scalding wolf blood.

The Nether Ice Wolf let out a heart-rending howl. Its entire body lost balance and crashed heavily onto the frozen ground.

It looked at the Ice-Armored Dire Bear, then at Li Hanche.

Fear and unwillingness filled its ghostly green pupils. The survival instinct engraved into its genes overwhelmed the dignity of a predator.

Then it forced itself up and limped toward the exit of the snowy valley.

It was not fast, but it was resolute enough.

After running several steps, it looked back to make sure that two-legged beast was not pursuing it. Then, without another glance back, it vanished into the wind and snow.

Li Hanche did not give chase.

It was not that he did not want to. He simply could not chase it down. And the Ice-Armored Dire Bear was still here.

He turned to face the giant beast, which stood several times taller than him.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear showed no intention of retreating just because the Nether Ice Wolf had fled. A low rumble came from its chest—the breathing rhythm of a dire bear preparing to deliver its final strike.

Li Hanche stared back at it.

Something inside his body was changing.

It was a feeling difficult to describe accurately with words.

The skin on his back was the first to sense the change.

A warm bronze sheen emerged from deep within his muscles and swiftly spread across his entire back.

Wherever the glow passed, the texture of his skin visibly changed, gaining a metallic quality—dense and resilient.

The bronze sheen spread from his back to his shoulders, from his shoulders to his chest, from his chest to his arms, waist, abdomen, and legs, until every inch of his skin was covered.

The instant the last patch of skin on the top of his left foot was fully wrapped in that bronze sheen, all the light suddenly drew inward and vanished from the surface of his skin, as though nothing had happened.

But he could feel it. His body was different.

The first turn of the Nine-Turn Tyrant Body Art had reached mastery.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear charged.

This was its final charge. All its rage, ferocity, and dying madness were poured into this one attack.

Li Hanche charged forward to meet the giant beast.

One large and one small figure collided explosively in the center of the snowy valley.

The bear paw came down, its bone claws tearing open his left shoulder. The defensive power of Copper Skin at mastery faced its most direct test at this moment.

His spear pierced into the Ice-Armored Dire Bear's chest.

The spearhead broke through its short fur, thick hide, and the tough layer of fat and muscle beneath, plunging into the dire bear's chest cavity.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear released a deafening roar. Its right paw swept sideways, sending him and his spear flying.

He flipped once in midair. When he landed, his feet plowed two long trenches through the frozen earth.

The instant his feet found solid ground, his body arched again and charged forward once more.

The second collision.

The bear paw struck his right ribs, the impact penetrating his body. He could hear the faint crack of his own ribs.

His spear stabbed into the dire bear's lower jaw. The spearhead entered through its chin, pierced through its entire mouth, punched through the upper palate, and drove into its skull.

The icy-blue spearhead burst out from the center of the dire bear's crown, stained with white brain matter and red blood. Beneath the gray-white light of the Far North, it looked like a spear of judgment thrust up from hell.

The Ice-Armored Dire Bear's body collapsed with a thunderous crash.

A purple soul ring slowly rose from its corpse.

Li Hanche stood before the Ice-Armored Dire Bear's corpse, both hands still gripping the shaft of the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear.

There was scarcely an intact patch left on his body.

He remained in that posture, utterly motionless.

Xue Qinghe and Snake Lance Douluo had been standing there for a long time.