The two faced each other with swords in hand, barely five feet apart.
[Fire Inquiry] had failed to burn Pei Ye away, and [Clear Mirror] had failed to judge Yan Feiqing.
Yan Feiqing watched the boy standing motionless in the flames, and the boy standing motionless in the flames watched him.
"What sword is that?"
"What sword is that?"
"You must be sick in the head, setting yourself on fire."
"This is tempering the heart through fire, to form a Golden Core." Yan Feiqing glanced around. "Your sword looks a hundred times better than you do."
"..."
Yan Feiqing silently watched the boy growing steadily more at ease in the fire. "Care to cultivate immortality together?"
"No."
Both Heart Swords disintegrated at once. Flame and icy jade flowed away together, and the two fell back onto the real Winter Sword Platform. Most of the fire domain had already dispersed, and Zhurong's Sword had shattered. Pei Ye immediately swept his sword aside, slipping past the force of Yan Feiqing's block, and used [Drifting Returning Wind] to open the distance.
But Yan Feiqing did not let him leave. He raised his heavily scorched hand and loosely closed it toward Pei Ye, chanting softly, "By the Heavenly Venerable's decree: prison."
Nine brilliant white Thunderbolts sprang up around Pei Ye, closing around him like a flower bud to form a sturdy cage.
Pei Ye's sword momentum halted abruptly, like a bird making a graceful flick of its tail in midair.
Pei Ye looked at Yan Feiqing thirty feet away.
The jujube Daoist looked somewhat bedraggled, his face cold, his hair several inches shorter. Most of his Daoist robe had burned away, leaving gray-black scraps and torn ties fluttering about him. His underclothes could still just about be called white.
Vermilion Lotus Flame produced no