Tai Chi Domain

"Is there a problem?"

Ye Xingchen's gaze held nothing back as he stared fixedly at the jade pendant at her waist.

Liu Qingqing was not annoyed. Instead, she gave a slight nod.

"Fine. But I don't want points, nor do I want your spirit stones."

"Oh?" Ye Xingchen raised a brow. "Then what do you want?"

Liu Qingqing flipped her wrist.

A palm-sized, deep-blue crystal appeared in her hand.

Something like liquid seemed to flow within the crystal. The instant it appeared, the surrounding temperature plunged again, and even the air seemed to turn viscous.

"Profound Ice Jade Marrow!"

A knowledgeable disciple below the stage cried out in shock.

"Such a large piece? This is top-grade primary material for forging ice-element magical artifacts! It's priceless on the market!"

"It's worth at least five hundred medium-grade spirit stones! Has Senior Sister Liu gone mad?"

Liu Qingqing held the jade marrow in her palm, her tone as calm as if she were discussing an ordinary stone. "Defeat me, and it's yours."

Five hundred medium-grade spirit stones!

That was equivalent to fifty thousand low-grade spirit stones!

Ye Xingchen's heart skipped half a beat, and his breathing instantly grew heavy.

He was going to get rich!

What iceberg beauty? She was practically a walking treasure-spending child!

Suppressing the urge to rush over and snatch it, he rubbed his hands together and asked with a grin, "Then what if I lose?"

"If you lose..."

Liu Qingqing's cool eyes swept over him, and a trace of barely noticeable cunning flashed through them.

"I heard you're a third-grade artificer? I want you to forge a Black Tier high-grade spirit sword tailored for me, free of charge. I'll provide the materials; you only need to refine it."

"Just forge a weapon?" Ye Xingchen froze. "That seems unfair to you. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Fine! Deal."

Ye Xingchen grinned, baring a mouthful of gleaming white teeth. He had never considered the possibility of losing.

Liu Qingqing said nothing more.

Her right hand closed around empty air.

Buzz!

A longsword that looked as though it had been carved from ice crystal appeared out of thin air. Its tip pointed diagonally at the ground, cold mist curling around it.

The spiritual energy fluctuations of the eighth layer of the Qi Refining Stage erupted without restraint.

It was more than twice as strong as Bai Zhan's had been!

This was suppression on an entirely different level.

Ye Xingchen put away his flippant grin.

He slowly exhaled a breath of stale air and planted his feet shoulder-width apart.

He raised both hands, one before and one behind, assuming a strange stance that had never appeared in the cultivation world.

It carried a seamless, unfathomable steadiness.

It was as though, standing there, he himself was a world.

Faintly, black and white currents seemed to circulate beneath his feet, endlessly renewing themselves.

Tai Chi.

"Come."

Liu Qingqing moved.

Without any opening stance, she tapped her toes against the ground and swept forward like a startled swan reflected in water.

The cold arrived before the blade.

"Freeze... ten thousand miles."

The four chilly words left her lips, and the air across the martial arena instantly solidified.

Crack, crack, crack—

Shrill sounds of ice forming exploded in rapid succession.

With Liu Qingqing at its center, pallid frost frantically devoured the bluestone arena. Moisture in the air was instantly drawn out and condensed into countless tiny ice crystals that floated in midair, refracting a grim, icy gleam.

The disciples below the stage changed color and hurriedly circulated their cultivation to resist the bone-piercing chill.

"What terrifying cold! What kind of technique is this?"

"She's only at the eighth layer of the Qi Refining Stage? What would happen once she reached Foundation Establishment?"

At the center of the storm, Ye Xingchen bore the brunt of it.

A vicious chill drilled from the soles of his feet straight into his meridians, trying to freeze the circulation of his spiritual energy.

"Damn it!"

Just as Ye Xingchen was about to move—

He suddenly let out a strange cry, his upper body jerking backward as both arms windmilled wildly. Like a drowning duck, he floundered on the ice a few times before barely stabilizing himself, avoiding an immediate faceplant.

He looked utterly ridiculous.

"Pfft—" Someone below the stage could not hold back a laugh.

"And that's it? Where did that grandmaster bearing from earlier go?"

"An artificer is still just an artificer. No matter how strong his body is, against this kind of wide-area spell control, he has strength but nowhere to use it."

Liu Qingqing remained expressionless. With a flick of her wrist, three crescent-shaped ice blades skimmed across the ground, shooting straight for Ye Xingchen's lower body.

Facing the incoming ice blades, he traced circles beneath his feet and used an extraordinarily strange footwork to evade their edges by a hair's breadth.

Screech!

The ice blades slashed into the railing, leaving deep white marks that seemed bottomless.

On the high platform, Ye Zhiyu's brows drew together slightly.

"Liu Qingqing possesses the Mystic Ice Jade Physique. Her spiritual energy is more than three times as abundant as that of cultivators at the same level.

Within this snowy domain, both her speed and power are enhanced, while her opponent is like someone stuck in a mud pit, expending extra physical strength with every movement.

Furthermore, the Iceheart Formula she cultivates is a Black Tier high-grade technique, best suited for prolonged battles and battlefield control.

Although Ye Xingchen's body is powerful and his divine sense is strong, both advantages are being tightly restrained at this moment.

If he cannot get close, he will undoubtedly lose."

While Ye Xingchen awkwardly "skated" across the ice, his thoughts spun at high speed.

A divine sense attack?

No.

That brief glance earlier had revealed a faint blue glow protecting the area around Liu Qingqing's sea of consciousness. It was the fluctuation of a divine sense defensive artifact.

On top of that, she was cautious by nature, unlike that fool Bai Zhan, who had left his center wide open. If he forcibly used a divine sense impact and the artifact reflected it back, then being dazed for even one second in this place filled with ice spikes would turn him into a hedgehog.

His only chance was to get close.

He had to close the distance to within ten zhang!

"Your movement technique is not bad, but let's see how you dodge this!"

Liu Qingqing stopped probing him.

"Mystic Ice Needle Rain!"

Her longsword pointed toward the sky, and the floating ice crystals instantly trembled before turning into hundreds of ice needles as thick as fingers.

The sword tip pressed down.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!

Like pear blossoms scattered in a torrential rain, they filled the sky and covered the earth.

This was an all-encompassing attack that sealed off every route of retreat—front, back, left, and right.

"It's over!" someone below the stage cried. "How can he dodge that?"

Ye Xingchen's pupils reflected the ice rain filling the heavens.

Since he could not dodge it—

Then he would not dodge.

The muscles in his thighs suddenly tensed, and the thick ice beneath his feet exploded with a deafening crash.

Rather than retreating, he charged forward!

Puff, puff, puff!

Several ice needles pierced through his protective spiritual energy and cut his cheeks and arms. The moment blood seeped out, it froze into crimson beads.

A cold smile curled across Liu Qingqing's lips.

Courting death.

Once the cold entered his body, his meridians would surely be sealed.

Forty zhang... thirty zhang...

Ye Xingchen's face was pale, and his body staggered as though he were a candle flame flickering in the wind.

Twenty zhang.

Liu Qingqing was just about to swing her final sword and end this farce when she abruptly met Ye Xingchen's eyes.

There was... a trick in those eyes?

Liu Qingqing's heart pounded wildly, and she instinctively retreated.

Too late.

Within ten zhang, one man was a nation's enemy.

Ye Xingchen's previously hunched body instantly straightened. The pallor drained from his face like a receding tide, replaced by a savage grin.

"Got you."

His low voice rang out.

"Tai Chi—Yin-Yang Domain, open!"

Buzz!

The world lost its color.

There was no earth-shaking explosion, only pure black and white expanding tyrannically from Ye Xingchen, covering a radius of ten zhang.

The rules were rewritten.

The ice needles that had been raging wildly turned into ordinary water the moment they touched the boundary between black and white, as though their souls had been ripped away, splashing down all over the ground.

The unbreakable ice layer collapsed in an instant as well, becoming nourishment for the black and white currents.

"My spiritual energy..."

Liu Qingqing's beautiful eyes widened, her face full of shock.

Within this domain, the Mystic Ice spiritual energy she had been so proud of had actually lost contact with her!

Yin and Yang reversed; all techniques were invulnerable!

This was Ye Xingchen's trump card, exchanged for five thousand Source Points. Though it lasted only ten short breaths, in a one-on-one battle, it was nothing less than a miracle.

Black and white light flashed.

The figure that had been ten zhang away appeared beside Liu Qingqing out of thin air.

Shrinking the Earth to an Inch.

Liu Qingqing instinctively raised an arm to block, but her wrist was seized tightly by a large hand like iron pincers.

Violent force surged through her pulse gate, instantly sealing the flow of energy through half her body.

Then—

A hand carrying the warmth of a living body lightly settled upon her slender neck.

Its knuckles were rough, yet as steady as Mount Tai.

With the slightest exertion, it could crush that swanlike, elegant throat.

The wind stopped, and the snow melted.

Ye Xingchen was drenched from head to toe, his clothes torn, yet he held the life and death of the strongest female cultivator in the outer sect firmly in his grasp.

The entire venue fell deathly silent.

Even the sound of breathing vanished.

Just a moment ago, Ye Xingchen had been struggling at death's door. How had the situation completely reversed in the blink of an eye?

Ye Zhiyu's fingers turned faintly white, and an unprecedented light burst forth from her eyes.

"A rudimentary domain... Someone in the Qi Refining Stage actually comprehended a rudimentary domain?!"

This simply overturned the common sense of the cultivation world!

At the center of the arena.

"Still want to fight?"