Fear Suppression

You misunderstood, I just didn't want to be pinned to the ground and rubbed into the floor by a girl...

It's too embarrassing.

Jiang Qian's pupils reflected Ye Xiaojing's figure as she arrived in a flash. Her movement was rapid and eerie, appearing in his blind spot in an instant—as her blade elegantly flipped, the wooden sword carried bone-chilling killing intent as it slashed horizontally toward his face!

A sense of loss of control and overwhelming pressure pulled the trigger simultaneously.

Snake Shadow Stealth!

He barely dodged that incredibly dangerous first strike.

But he ran straight into the second blade!

He couldn't dodge it...

Even if he dodged this strike, the follow-up strike would still force him into a dead end!

In an extremely short span of time, a concept became instantly clear in Jiang Qian's mind: when both were at the First State of combat power, Ye Xiaojing's speed surpassed his. Furthermore, her dual blades amplified this advantage to the point of crushing him.

It made sense; with a mantis's attack speed, even a spider would have to give way, let alone a snake.

But did this mean his Snake Shadow Stealth hadn't reached its maximum potential?

The evolution of the First State: Cognitive Form focused on "plasticity"...

Jiang Qian's brain was highly active at this moment.

However, just as the wooden blade was about to slice his Adam's apple, a surge of vigorous cold air burst from within Jiang Qian's collar!

From Jiang Qian's perspective, a hollow-eyed, twisted mummy clung to the rapidly slashing wooden sword and crawled onto the arm Ye Xiaojing was using to wield her blades!

The Fear Demon Clone had been triggered.

A ripple appeared in Ye Xiaojing's typically indifferent eyes.

A kind of fear, one she had almost forgotten, surged into her heart!

She saw the hand wielding the dual blades snap off at the bone, the tightly clenched fingers detaching from her body, dark green blood splashing everywhere...

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

Jiang Qian watched helplessly as this female swordswoman's state took a sharp turn for the worse.

The next second, the brown trench coat behind her billowed, and massive, covered wings suddenly unfurled, whipping up a violent gale that sent her retreating dozens of meters away from Jiang Qian!

The scene was incredibly magnificent!

Yet, Ye Xiaojing's face was deathly pale, fine beads of cold sweat appearing on her cheeks and temples, her expression one of lingering fear.

Her hand holding the dual blades trembled slightly, no longer possessing the decisive, murderous aura from a second ago.

The Fear Demon was currently perched on her chest, hugging Ye Xiaojing's waist and abdomen... Under Jiang Qian's mental command, it reluctantly jumped down and crawled along the ground all the way back into Jiang Qian's pocket.

Ye Xiaojing was still in the aftershocks of the fright.

After a long while, she slowly retracted her magnificent wings, dropped the wooden sword, and unfastened the wrist guards that restricted the alien state of her arms.

If not for those guards, she likely would have killed her opponent instantly in her stress-induced state.

"What was that..."

For the first time, Jiang Qian heard an emotional fluctuation in Ye Xiaojing's voice.

"Sorry, perhaps your strike just now was too dangerous, and the item triggered passively," he quickly explained. "I didn't mean to, I'm still figuring out how to use it..."

The clouds of doubt on Ye Xiaojing's face gradually dissipated.

"Is that how you tricked the Peacock Spider, too? I saw her corpse; it was covered in signs of self-mutilation."

"Yes."

"It can influence people's emotions?"

Seeing Jiang Qian nod, Ye Xiaojing let out a sigh of realization.

Everything seemed to make sense now.

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

This trauma had tormented her for a long time, once leaving her unable to fight with dual blades, and it had only gradually improved after a year of hypnotherapy.

Now, it had taken Jiang Qian only a second to make her recall that fear.

She had thought today would just be testing the mettle of a rookie, but she had almost capsized in a gutter.

Deep down, a trace of wariness toward Jiang Qian began to grow.

The air grew quiet.

Ye Xiaojing suddenly bent down to pick up the wooden sword, tossed it aside, and the dual blades slotted precisely back into their original positions.

Just as Jiang Qian thought this sparring session was over, Ye Xiaojing suddenly turned her face and asked expressionlessly:

"Can your item be directly blocked?"

"Haven't tried it..." Jiang Qian played dumb. "How about we ask Teacher Lan tomorrow to see if he has a way to block it."

"No need, I have a way."

Ye Xiaojing took a micro-remote control from the slot on the wall, entered a string of passwords with lightning-fast hand speed, and then the lighting in the entire room shifted from incandescent to orange-red.

Ye Xiaojing's indifferent face looked exceptionally "dangerous" under the orange-red light.

"This Safe House has an embedded divine-rank item that acts as a deterrent to item-based lifeforms below the divine rank. We can spar with peace of mind now."

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

"Time waits for no one. After we finish training tonight, you can still get some sleep to recover from your injuries, and then we can continue tomorrow."

"Injuries..."

Jiang Qian had a vague, ominous premonition.

But Ye Xiaojing gave him no room for negotiation; her execution was shockingly strong.

She picked up protective gear from behind the weapon rack and tossed it to Jiang Qian piece by piece: "Put it on. I don't want to use blades today; let's switch to hand-to-hand combat."

Is she holding a grudge against me... Silently putting on the heavy protective gear, Jiang Qian didn't know why, but his sense of security was even worse than before!

Thirty minutes later.

Jiang Qian was covered in bruises as he slammed into the wall, his protective gear nearly shattered, and blood from his mouth and eyes splattered onto his clothes and the floor.

Ye Xiaojing's combat boot pressed against Jiang Qian's chest, her snow-white, beautiful leg extended in a split, pinning him to the wall.

She wore no protective gear, her appearance still elegant and tidy: "That's it for today. Get some good rest; we continue tomorrow."

She said it so nonchalantly, as if the person she was fighting would still be able to crawl up tomorrow.

I feel like I'm about to be beaten to death. She used 180 different moves to pummel me just now, and 80% of the attacks landed on my face. She's really shameless... Jiang Qian gasped for air, unable to speak at all.

Fortunately, he had an immunity to pain, which allowed him to remain silent even as his front teeth were on the verge of shattering.

The lights in the combat arena returned to incandescent.

After Ye Xiaojing took her leave, the medical team attached to the Safe House followed to check Jiang Qian's injuries and bandage him up.

Jiang Qian couldn't sleep at all that night.

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

Even her most lethal moves were filled with a unique sense of beauty in their execution.

"If this were filmed as a movie, I'd probably watch it a second time..."

In the Safe House monitoring room.

Lan Junxian sat in a sofa chair, chin in hand, reviewing the recording of their sparring session.

Ye Xiaojing appeared silently behind him: "Boss."

"How was it?" Lan Junxian asked.

The additional combat training was something Lan Junxian had tacitly approved, as it would more quickly help Jiang Qian adapt to super-species offensive modes.

"No combat experience whatsoever. His movements are clumsily strange. His speed is decent, but he's like a headless fly, not knowing how to leverage his advantages."

Ye Xiaojing summarized concisely, her words sharp.

"Haha, the talent I scouted is being described by you as completely worthless."

At this, Ye Xiaojing changed her tone: "But he is very sensitive to vital points. Although his movements can't keep up, his logic for striking the enemy is correct."

"From the 5th minute on, he tried to counterattack using the moves I had used, but it was useless. Seeing a move clearly doesn't mean understanding the way force is applied, and understanding the way force is applied doesn't mean his body can keep up with his thoughts. By the 10th minute, he was already able to break through simple feints. He's probably been trying to guess my attack logic the whole time."

"This kid is quite shrewd; his learning ability is shockingly strong. So, I let loose. From the 20th minute on, I stopped giving him any chance to react and maxed out the damage to see how far he could hold on."

"And the result?"

Lan Junxian asked with interest, seemingly just as curious about Ye Xiaojing's evaluation of Jiang Qian.

"The result... I got tired."

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

Thanks to: Book friend "Visit the Universe" for the monthly ticket!

And to all the book friends who voted with recommendation tickets, thank you for the encouragement and for following the story!