Fear Suppression

You've got it wrong. I just didn't want a girl pinning me to the ground and beating me senseless...

That'd be so humiliating.

In Jiang Qian's pupils, Ye Xiaojing's figure flashed into view—swift and uncanny, appearing in the one place he'd never expect. Her blade turned elegantly, and the wooden sword swept toward him, carrying a bone-chilling killing intent!

A sense of helplessness and oppression opened the floodgates all at once.

Snake Shadow Stealth!

He barely dodged the first strike, narrowly escaping disaster.

But he ran straight into the second blade!

There was no dodging it...

Even if he avoided this strike, the next one would follow right on its heels and drive him into a corner!

In that fleeting moment, a thought crystallized in Jiang Qian's mind: when they were both at the First State, Ye Xiaojing was faster than he was. And her dual blades magnified that advantage until it became overwhelming.

That made sense. With a mantis's attack speed, even a spider had to keep its distance—let alone a snake.

But did that mean Snake Shadow Stealth still had untapped potential?

The focus of a First State: Cognitive Form's evolution was "malleability"...

Jiang Qian's mind was racing.

But just as the wooden blade was about to slice into his throat, a surging chill burst from inside his collar!

From Jiang Qian's perspective, a twisted, hollow-eyed corpse clung to the wooden blade as it slashed toward him, then crawled up Ye Xiaojing's arms as she wielded her dual blades!

The Fear Demon Clone had been triggered.

A flicker crossed Ye Xiaojing's usually cold eyes.

A fear she'd almost forgotten surged into her heart!

She saw her hands, still gripping the blades, sever at the wrists. Her clenched fingers tore away from her body, and dark green blood splattered...

Pain, panic, and terror instantly filled Ye Xiaojing's face.

Jiang Qian watched helplessly as the swordswoman's condition took a sudden turn for the worse.

The next moment, her brown trench coat billowed. Enormous covered wings unfurled in a flash, whipping up a fierce gale as she retreated dozens of meters from Jiang Qian!

It was a spectacular sight!

But Ye Xiaojing's face had gone deathly pale. Fine beads of cold sweat appeared on her cheeks and temples, and she looked thoroughly shaken.

Her hands trembled as she held her dual blades. The decisive, lethal confidence she'd shown just a second ago was gone.

The Fear Demon was clinging to her chest, its arms wrapped tightly around her waist... Only when Jiang Qian willed it to move did it reluctantly hop down and crawl back along the floor into his pocket.

Ye Xiaojing was still reeling from the shock.

After a long moment, she slowly folded away her magnificent covered wings, dropped the wooden swords, and removed the bracers on her wrists that restricted the inhuman transformation of her arms.

Without those bracers, she might well have killed him in a reflexive response just now.

"What was that..."

For the first time, Jiang Qian heard a trace of emotion in Ye Xiaojing's voice.

"Sorry. Maybe your last strike was so dangerous that the item triggered automatically," he hurriedly explained. "I didn't do it on purpose. I'm still figuring out how it works myself..."

The cloud of suspicion on Ye Xiaojing's face gradually cleared.

"Was that how you tricked the Peacock Spider, too? I saw all the marks of self-harm on her corpse."

"Yes."

"It can affect people's emotions?"

When Jiang Qian nodded, Ye Xiaojing let out a soft sigh of understanding.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

The fear she'd experienced just now had come from a life-or-death crisis in her past.

The trauma response had tormented her for a long time. For a while, she'd been unable to fight with her dual blades at all, and only began to recover after a year of hypnotherapy.

Now, Jiang Qian had made her relive that fear in a single second.

She'd thought she was only testing a rookie today, but she'd nearly been caught off guard herself.

A faint wariness toward Jiang Qian stirred within her.

Silence fell over the room.

Ye Xiaojing suddenly bent down, picked up the wooden swords, and tossed them aside. Her dual blades flew neatly back into their slots.

Just as Jiang Qian thought their sparring match was over, Ye Xiaojing turned her face toward him and asked, expressionless:

"Can that item of yours be suppressed directly?"

"I've never tried..." Jiang Qian played dumb. "Maybe we can ask Teacher Lan tomorrow and see if he knows how to suppress it."

"No need. I have a way."

Ye Xiaojing took a miniature remote from a slot in the wall and entered a string of numbers with astonishing speed. The lights throughout the room shifted from bright white to orange-red.

Under the orange-red lights, Ye Xiaojing's cold face looked especially "dangerous."

"This Safe House has a divine-level item built into it. It exerts Intimidation on item-based lifeforms below the divine level, so we can spar without worry."

"There's no need to go to such lengths..."

"Time waits for no one. Once we finish training tonight, you can sleep and recover from your injuries. Then you can start again tomorrow."

"Injuries..."

Jiang Qian had a bad feeling about this.

But Ye Xiaojing gave him no room to negotiate. Her decisiveness was astonishing.

She took protective gear from behind the weapon rack and tossed the pieces to Jiang Qian one by one. "Put it on. I don't feel like using blades today. Let's switch to hand-to-hand."

Could she be holding a grudge against me...? Jiang Qian silently strapped on the heavy gear. For some reason, he felt even less safe than before!

Thirty minutes later.

Jiang Qian, bruised and battered, slammed into the wall. His protective gear was nearly beaten apart, and blood from the corners of his mouth and eyes had splattered all over his clothes and the floor.

Ye Xiaojing's combat boot pressed against Jiang Qian's chest. Her snow-white legs stretched out in a split, pinning him to the wall.

She wore no protective gear, yet remained elegant and immaculate. "That's enough for today. Get some good rest. We'll continue tomorrow."

She said it so casually, as if he'd still be able to get back up tomorrow.

I feel like I'm about to get beaten to death. She used 180 different moves to beat me just now, and 80% of her attacks landed on my face. She really has no shame... Jiang Qian panted hard, unable to speak.

Fortunately, he was immune to pain, which was the only reason he could keep his mouth shut even with his front teeth flying out.

The lights in the training room returned to bright white.

After Ye Xiaojing left, the Safe House's medical team came in right behind her to examine Jiang Qian's injuries and bandage him up.

That night, Jiang Qian couldn't sleep at all.

His mind was filled with images of Ye Xiaojing beating him mercilessly—agile, elegant, precise...

Even her most devastating moves had a peculiar beauty to them.

"If they made a movie of this, I'd probably watch it twice..."

Inside the Safe House's monitoring room.

Lan Junxian sat in an armchair, chin propped in his hand as he watched the recording of their sparring match.

Ye Xiaojing appeared silently behind him. "Boss."

"How did it go?" Lan Junxian asked.

Lan Junxian had approved the extra combat training. It would help Jiang Qian adapt more quickly to the attack patterns of Super-species.

"He has no combat experience. His movements are unbelievably clumsy. He's reasonably fast, but like a headless chicken, with no idea how to make use of his strengths."

Ye Xiaojing summed it up in a few sharp, concise sentences.

"Haha. You make my chosen talent sound completely worthless."

Then Ye Xiaojing changed tack. "But he's very sensitive to vital points. His movements can't keep up, but he has the right instincts for attacking his opponent."

"Starting at the five-minute mark, he tried to counter with moves I'd used, but it didn't do him any good. Seeing a move doesn't mean you understand how to generate force, and understanding how to generate force doesn't mean your body can keep up with your thoughts. By the ten-minute mark, he could already see through simple feints. He must have been trying to figure out how I'd attack the whole time."

"That kid's pretty sharp. His ability to learn is astonishing. So I let loose. Starting at the twenty-minute mark, I stopped giving him any time to react and went all out, just to see how long he could hold on."

"And the result?"

Lan Junjun asked with interest, as if he were curious about Ye Xiaojing's assessment of Jiang Qian.

"The result... I got tired."

Ye Xiaojing remained expressionless. "A prey that won't beg for mercy is boring."

Thanks to book-friend Cosmic Visitor for the monthly ticket!

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