"To master this art, one must first castrate oneself—is that the first line of your cultivation method?" Wu Chengtian snickered. The others burst into laughter at his words, and even Leng Leng could not help but smile. Moments ago they had all been braced for a desperate fight; now the tension had melted away at a stroke.

"Courting death, you bastard!" Xue Jianming came to his senses and flew into a rage. A mere peak early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator dared to mock him, a consummate Golden Core expert—truly, he knew not the meaning of death!

With his present strength, once he made his move it would matter not how united Leng Leng and the others were; it would all be in vain. Whomever he wished dead, died. No one could stop him.

Without hesitation Xue Jianming struck, sweeping with utter recklessness over the heads of the whole group, his hand reaching straight for the crowns of Yu Bing and Wu Chengtian. For beauties like Leng Leng and Qiu Lingshan he intended to spare their lives and savor them at leisure later on—but Yu Bing, Wu Chengtian, and the other men who had recklessly jeered at him: not a single one of them would live.

"You go first!" Leng Leng cried out, charging to meet him. Though last time she had come within a hairsbreadth of defeating an opponent above her level, facing the Xue Jianming of today at the mere consummate Foundation Establishment stage was no different from a mayfly trying to shake a great tree. And yet she had no other choice.

Qiu Lingshan and the others did not dither for even an instant, fleeing without hesitation to the side. To speak of sharing life and death at such a moment would only make them a laughingstock; all they could do was get away as fast as possible and not become a burden dragging Leng Leng down.

"You think you can stop me?" Xue Jianming's face twisted into a mocking smile. Last time he had been left thoroughly humiliated at Leng Leng's hands; this time was the perfect chance to reclaim his face, to let her see for herself what a vast gulf in strength truly meant—what the taste of despair was like.

A consummate Golden Core against a consummate Foundation Establishment: an overwhelming crushing of strength with no suspense whatsoever. Xue Jianming had no need to draw his sword at all—that would be an insult to himself. Besides, he wanted only to toy with Leng Leng for a while; he had not yet decided to take her life outright.

Seeing Leng Leng whip out a sweeping kick and take the initiative, Xue Jianming grinned coldly while unhurriedly raising a hand to block. He knew he need not exert any real force at all; she would topple over on her own.

Bang! With a dull thud of fist against leg, Xue Jianming's figure suddenly lurched to a halt, and a strange look came over his face. Leng Leng had not been knocked back by his blow. He was stunned. "How is that possible?"

Given such an immense gap in strength, even a blow delivered without full force should have left her at least gravely wounded—there was no way she could have held her ground without retreating a single step!

And before Xue Jianming could fully react, Leng Leng struck again, her assault savage and swift beyond measure—she had, it seemed, already brought out the close-quarters instant-strike that Wei Zhao had once taught Ying Ziyu. She might not possess Ying Ziyu's peculiar constitution, so naturally suited to the close-quarters instant-strike, but that did not prevent her from mastering its techniques; when it came to comprehension and innate talent, after all, she was second to none but him.

"This is..." Xue Jianming scrambled hastily to meet her blows, but the situation was far beyond anything he had expected. He, with a full realm's advantage over her, was being suppressed by Leng Leng!

A sense of humiliation he had felt before came rushing back. Xue Jianming could not help but recall the Grand Tournament of the Ancient Trials—that time had been the same. He, an early-stage Golden Core expert, had nearly capsized in a ditch at Leng Leng's hands. Now that he had become a consummate Golden Core expert, he had thought he could wipe away his former shame with ease, only to find himself once more caught in this bizarre predicament.

To fight above one's level was already a rare enough feat; to fight across the threshold of a realm was harder still; and as for someone like Leng Leng, who sought to fight across an entire great realm—that was something that had never been heard of. It was sheer fantasy!

What was more absurd still was that Xue Jianming actually was being suppressed. For the moment he could not even break free!

The close-quarters instant-strike was in itself an extremely clinging, entangling style of combat, and paired with the slowing effect of Leng Leng's Ice Prison Mirror Shatter, even Xue Jianming could not easily shake it off. Had it been only that, it would have been one thing—but the crucial point was the strange condition now manifesting on Leng Leng's body, which was truly alarming. Not only was cold air coiling about her, but the exposed skin of her palms, her neck, and the like had all turned with a chill gleam, as though crystallized into ice!

For the moment Xue Jianming had not worked out what on earth was going on, but his pride would never permit him to be suppressed head-on by a consummate Foundation Establishment expert like Leng Leng. Forced back five steps in a row, he ground his teeth and abruptly halted his retreat, and without pausing to catch his breath he forced out a palm strike to trade blows. Doing so made him highly vulnerable to backlash, but in his furious shame he could no longer care.

Bang! The two palms met. This time Xue Jianming had struck with his full strength, and yet, beyond all expectation, Leng Leng was still not driven back—not only did she not retreat, her assault grew fiercer still.

"Ghosts and monsters!" Xue Jianming's eyes went round as saucers. He could not comprehend in the least what was happening before him; only one thought filled his mind—this world had gone mad.

But after all, he was the leader of the younger generation who set the pace in the Ancient Little Jianghu, and though Leng Leng could barely suppress him, that was chiefly by catching him unawares; at most she had seized the initiative on the field. To truly wound him gravely was well-nigh impossible—there was, after all, a full great realm of difference in strength between them. How could such a gap be smoothed away so easily?

After several more exchanges, Xue Jianming finally caught a glimpse of what was going on. He found that although he traded blows with Leng Leng head-on every time, at the very instant of impact, once his force and true qi reached her hands, they would inexplicably veer astray—the vast majority being shed off to the side, so that in the end perhaps not even a tenth of it truly landed on Leng Leng!

Refusing to believe it, Xue Jianming tried several more times, and every time the result was the same. Amid his shock, a sudden flash of insight lit his mind, and he blurted out: "Could this be the legendary Ice Muscle and Jade Bones?!"

Ice Muscle and Jade Bones—in the Ancient Alliance, and in the Snow Sword Sect above all, this was no mere figure of speech but a genuine body-protecting martial art. It was said that only a very few with extraordinarily special constitutions had any chance of mastering it; once mastered, it could easily dissolve the vast majority of attacks, and made one exceedingly durable, so that even when fighting above one's level one seldom came off the worse.