Seven Kills, the True Might of Winter Solstice Sword Intent!

After killing Zhao Gui, the talisman plaque in Jiang Xuan's hand grew faintly warm in his palm. Its icy silver patterns lit up, and the words "One Victory" clearly emerged. Two options appeared beneath them: Rest for half an hour, or continue the duel.

Having expended little energy, Jiang Xuan naturally chose the latter without hesitation.

Whoosh!

As Jiang Xuan made his choice, his vision immediately shifted. When his sight returned to normal, he found that he had gone from the forest to a ruined ancient castle. Thirty meters away, a young man holding a hand seal was warily scanning his surroundings.

When he saw Jiang Xuan, obvious astonishment appeared on his face as well.

"Are you really this badly hurt? Junior Brother, in your state, you might as well withdraw and tend to your wounds..."

Like the previous person, this man also looked down on Jiang Xuan somewhat upon seeing his condition.

But unlike the last match, Jiang Xuan had no desire to say another word this time.

The instant he saw his enemy, an invisible tide of Winter crashed down.

"Whoosh..."

As his mana, divine soul, and the Winter chill that had lingered within his body day and night completely merged, a soul-freezing cold swept across the battlefield. The ease on the young man's face froze instantly, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints. Like Zhao Gui, beneath Jiang Xuan's oppressive aura, he felt the strange sensation of sinking into an icy lake.

Boundless darkness began to cover his vision. The aura of Winter invaded his body and soul; his blood stiffened, and even the circulation of his mana became sluggish. Terror rose across his face.

"What the hell is this?!"

"Break!"

Like the man before him, he roared in fury.

The difference was that this man was far more decisive. Realizing something was wrong, he roared to bolster his courage while stirring his mana and rapidly forming seals with both hands.

Since the chill had not been corroding him for long, he could still maintain the flow of his mana, allowing his spell to take shape.

A huge, blazing fireball floated above his head. Orange-red firelight illuminated his twisted face and let him recover a little of his confidence.

"I don't know what you did, but my Fireball Spell is the strongest! Watch me burn you to ashes!"

As he roared, the young man stared fixedly at Jiang Xuan and flicked his finger, intending to hurl the fireball at him.

Pfft...

Yet just as his arm rose halfway, his movement came to an abrupt halt.

A frigid, piercing pain suddenly exploded from within his abdomen.

The young man lowered his head in disbelief, only to see frost rapidly spreading across his chest. The next second, countless ice spikes burst from inside his body, piercing him until he was riddled with holes.

"What... is this?!"

Until his death, the fireball he had gathered never left his hand.

Then came the third person, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth... Different terrain, different opponents, different spells, yet every outcome was exactly the same.

Every one of his opponents had their chests pierced by frost flying swords before they could react.

Only when he reached the seventh person was Jiang Xuan's attack slightly blocked.

This battlefield was an ancient town shrouded in mist and rain. Jiang Xuan stood atop a roof of blue-gray tiles, while the young man opposite him held a long, narrow saber, his gaze sharp as an eagle's.

He did not mock Jiang Xuan like the previous opponents, nor did he display any unnecessary expression. The instant his form solidified, he tapped the roof tile with his toe and turned into a black bolt of lightning, pouncing straight at Jiang Xuan.

"Whoosh..."

He had no interest in talking, and neither did Jiang Xuan.

The instant he saw his enemy, Jiang Xuan's eyes turned indifferent. A bone-chilling aura of Winter surged forth like a tide, blanketing the entire rooftop in piercing cold.

The saber-wielding youth locked within his gaze bore the overwhelming majority of that Winter aura's pressure.

Still, those who had made it to this round had some skill.

The youth before him was one such person. The Winter aura bearing annihilation and death affected him, making his pupils contract sharply and his face turn pale.

Yet he did not retreat. Instead, he gritted his teeth, and a crimson flash streaked across his brow—he had directly burned the blood essence in his heart!

Boom!

Fierce, blazing blood qi exploded within his body, actually dispersing some of the cold that could freeze the soul.

Furthermore, burning his heart's blood essence abruptly raised his strength by fifty percent.

His soaring power also made him incredibly fast.

In less than a breath, he was only ten meters from Jiang Xuan. And for someone whose blood qi had erupted, those ten meters took only an instant.

"Die!"

The long saber carried the sound of tearing wind as it chopped down at Jiang Xuan's ghostlike figure.

Jiang Xuan remained unmoved.

He continued to watch the youth with an indifferent gaze, watching the sharp saber draw ever closer.

That almost eerie calm instead caused the chill in Mu Lin's heart to overwhelm the feverish heat of his burning blood essence.

Why isn't he moving? The thought surfaced uncontrollably in Mu Lin's mind, but he forcibly crushed it in an instant.

Who cares why? When a person is killed, he dies! You can't block this strike!

As the thought passed through his mind, he added another thirty percent to the strength in his hand.

Yet just as the blade was only half a meter from Jiang Xuan's brow, and its cold wind had already sent the loose strands before his forehead fluttering, Mu Lin's expression changed first.

His pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints, and the savagery on his face froze into utter terror.

"What is that?!"

Crack...

At the final moment, while still in midair, he actually stopped charging and forcibly twisted his body, as if evading some attack.

Even if such a movement injured him, he could no longer care.

His saber viciously cleaved toward the empty space at his side.

Bang!

With a crisp sound, something seemed to shatter in midair, scattering fine ice chips in every direction—he had actually struck something.

Unfortunately, though he had sensed the danger, he had still been one step too slow.

Half of a transparent ice sword was deeply embedded in his abdomen.

But this time, Jiang Xuan did not directly manipulate the ice sword to explode as he had before.

This was the first person capable of reacting beneath his sword, and it made Jiang Xuan speak with slight surprise. "You can see it?"

Facing Jiang Xuan's question, the youth staggered back several steps while gritting his teeth and forcing the ice sword out of his body.

Only after reaching a safe distance did he gasp for breath and look at Jiang Xuan. By then, there was no trace of contempt in his eyes, only solemnity. "I can't see your sword."

Because Jiang Xuan had held something back during the duel, he frankly explained, "I cultivate Absolute Peak's arts. There is a secret technique there called Heartbeat Premonition. It can sharpen a cultivator's sixth sense and allow me to sense lethal danger."

"Just now, I sensed a fatal crisis. I didn't discover your sword."

Having acknowledged Jiang Xuan's strength, the youth then asked him, "Your ice sword is invisible?"

This question left Jiang Xuan feeling slightly embarrassed.

When he had learned Winter Solstice, he had once believed that the Returning to Stillness Annihilation Sword he cultivated was unlike the draw-saber art that emphasized sneak attacks. It was a sword of utmost courage, one that faced death head-on and saw through life and death.

But after learning the First-Nine Sword Art, Jiang Xuan realized that he had spoken too early—and too narrowly.

Winter Solstice was the Dao. It required cultivators to possess the courage to face death directly.

But First-Nine and Second-Nine were different. These two sword forms, which were not named after official solar terms, were merely arts—sharp blades used by Winter Valley disciples to protect their Dao and kill.

And Winter Valley's forebears were pragmatic. They would never bind their own hands and feet. They wanted the Dao's valor, and they wanted the art's lethality as well. Thus, the First-Nine Sword Art after Winter Solstice gained a few chillingly strange qualities.

The First-Nine Sword Art was called Frost Shadow in Pursuit. At first, it merely allowed Jiang Xuan to gather icy, snowy chill into a small flying sword and launch it when his enemy exposed an opening—after all, a flying sword was faster than Jiang Xuan swinging a sword himself.

At the second realm, proficiency, it enhanced the hardness and sharpness of Jiang Xuan's ice flying swords.

By utilizing the qualities of freezing, greater amounts of colder, fiercer chill allowed the ice flying swords Jiang Xuan formed to become as solid as refined steel, incomparably sharp.

But once Jiang Xuan cultivated it to the third realm, minor accomplishment, everything changed. Only then would this sword art's true killing move reveal itself.

The cultivation of minor accomplishment used the traits of ice and snow to turn the ice flying sword into a completely transparent, colorless shadow.

If this stage of cultivation succeeded, this sword art would become difficult to guard against.

Even more brilliantly, Jiang Xuan, while activating Winter Solstice Sword Intent, was himself the most conspicuous target.

Like a winter fiend that had crawled out of the Nine Netherworlds, bone-piercing cold roiled around him. His presence was so intense that no one could ignore it.

Whether his enemies were crushed motionless by that Winter aura or struggled with all their strength to break free from its restraints, all their attention would be nailed firmly upon Jiang Xuan, whose presence was overwhelming.

Under such circumstances, that colorless, invisible ice flying sword became the true ghostly shadow that claimed lives.

The six people Jiang Xuan had defeated before this had all died to this combination.

With all their attention focused on Jiang Xuan's true body, they had not seen what took their lives even as they died.

But now, Jiang Xuan's move had been broken.

"No. It isn't that the sword art is inadequate. It's that my Winter Solstice cultivation is still lacking."

After murmuring to himself, Jiang Xuan raised his eyes toward Mu Lin across from him. There was no panic in his gaze over having his move broken, only increasingly indifferent, icy clarity. "Thank you for letting me see my own flaw."

"As repayment, I'll give you a quick death."

Boom!

Before his words had faded, a burst of chill far sharper than before suddenly erupted from Jiang Xuan.

And this time, the cold he emitted was no longer merely bone-piercing. It carried terrifying killing intent sufficient to freeze the soul.

Whoosh!

The extreme killing intent made every hair on Mu Lin's body stand on end, his body instantly tightening like a fully drawn bow.

What made his expression turn even uglier was that although his Heartbeat Premonition had not failed this time, the vague warning no longer pointed toward a single direction—it came from all sides, from more than a dozen locations in total!

This was the true might of Winter Solstice Sword Intent—to blanket heaven and earth in Winter chill, filling every inch of the enemy's senses with endless danger.

When danger was everywhere, the truly lethal strike would instead be utterly drowned out.

That was precisely the case now.

Within the biting wind, Jiang Xuan's voice rang out like shattering ice:

"Throat, spine, liver, carotid artery, kidneys, heart... Guess where my next sword will pierce?!"

Crack!