The sky had not fully brightened yet.
Bing Yekong stood before the Frost Platform in the courtyard, his fingertips brushing over the spine of the Heavenly Frost Sword. The icy-blue dragon scale patterns on the blade glimmered with an extremely faint golden light in the dawn, echoing the pale gold edging along the External Soul Bone, the Icy Twin Wings.
He closed his eyes. The red halo of his sixth Soul Ring slowly revolved within his sea of consciousness. The sacrificial power of the Frost Giant Dragon still lay like lava deep in his bloodline, occasionally surging and sending a tingling tremor through his entire body.
A Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring truly was different.
He opened his eyes and exhaled a long breath of white mist. It condensed into fine ice crystals in the air and rustled down across the ground.
"Training in secret again."
Shui Bing'er's voice came from the courtyard entrance, as cool and faint as morning frost. She stood there in a water-blue outer robe, her long hair loosely pinned up with an ice hairpin. She had clearly just gotten up, and a trace of lingering drowsiness remained between her brows, yet her eyes were already clear and bright. When she looked at him, there was the familiar scrutiny she always carried.
Bing Yekong sheathed his sword and smiled. "I'm not training. I'm getting a feel for it."
"A feel for what?"
"A feel for how not to mess up using my new Soul Ring."
Shui Bing'er did not respond. She merely stepped closer and naturally came to stand at his side.
Less than a foot separated them, a distance born from the tacit understanding they had built through countless nights of dual cultivation. It was neither overly intimate nor distant and unfamiliar.
She tilted her head and