As the two were locked in their standoff, both suddenly felt their eyelids twitch. A powerful and ferocious spirit-beast aura was racing toward them from afar, and in the blink of an eye it had arrived right before them!

It was a lizard—but no ordinary lizard. From head to tail it measured a full ten meters or more, its entire body clad in densely packed silver-grey scales. Its massive maw was crowded with hideous fangs, and every so often a glob of drool would drip from it, reeking with a rank stench. Where it fell to the ground, it corroded a deep pit outright—a truly chilling, scalp-numbing sight.

"A Primeval Giant Lizard!" Xue Jianming and Bing Wushuang blurted out almost in unison. There was no mistaking that form: it was one of the ten most vicious and terrifying spirit beasts acknowledged throughout the Ancient Little Jianghu. Who would have thought such a thing existed in this place as well?

The Primeval Giant Lizard did not pause for even a moment, nor did it show the slightest interest in wasting words on the two of them. With a roar, it charged straight at Bing Wushuang, who was nearest.

This was hardly surprising. The Primeval Giant Lizard was famed for its strength—and equally famed for its lack of brains. Beyond an exceedingly strong territorial instinct, there was nothing but chaos inside its skull; it possessed no clear, conscious awareness at all, only the most basic beast instinct remaining.

At its level, any other spirit beast would long since have awakened full intelligence, its wits scarcely inferior to a human's. The Primeval Giant Lizard, alas, was acknowledged as one of the most dim-witted of all spirit beasts. However high its tier of power, in the end it remained a beast that knew only how to kill.

At the sight, Bing Wushuang frowned slightly and hurriedly withdrew, retreating backward. To his surprise, though the Primeval Giant Lizard looked ponderously bulky, its movements were anything but clumsy. On the contrary, it was exceedingly swift, its speed far above that of an ordinary human expert—and even Bing Wushuang was overtaken in an instant.

Seeing that rank, stinking drool of its maw lunging to bite him, Bing Wushuang was startled, and his finest technique, the Heartless Ice Force, poured out at once without reservation. The Primeval Giant Lizard's speed immediately dropped by a notch. Like the black mantis that Leng Leng and the others had encountered before, its greatest weakness was precisely this sort of ice-cold assault—the effect was outstanding.

Bing Wushuang seized the chance to break away. This Primeval Giant Lizard was plainly a match for a consummate Golden Core expert; to be bitten by it meant death or injury, and its drool in particular was utterly ghastly—let a single drop touch you and it would corrode a great hole on the spot. Even if one's vitality were tenacious enough to survive it, one would thereafter be plagued by ailments for the rest of one's life, with no hope of ever recovering.

But before the two could put even three zhang of distance between them, the crimson tongue inside the Primeval Giant Lizard's maw suddenly shot out like a loosed arrow, aimed straight at Bing Wushuang.

This time its speed was more than ten times that of its footwork. Bing Wushuang had no way to escape, and just as disaster seemed certain, his hands flew through hand seals, and a thick wall of ice abruptly appeared behind him. The lizard's crimson tongue came with tremendous force, piercing through the ice wall almost in an instant—but as the wall was broken, it kept thickening all the while, and in the end, by the narrowest of margins, it held.

"Phew! This lizard!" Bing Wushuang let out a breath, not without a lingering chill of fear. On the other side, Xue Jianming's face wore an unconcealable look of regret. If only that tongue had killed Bing Wushuang outright just now—how wonderful that would have been. Not only would one troublesome obstacle be gone, but a rival would be removed at the same time: two birds with one stone. What a pity.

Bing Wushuang could figure out the creature's intent with his toes, so after withstanding the Primeval Giant Lizard's first wave of attack, he had no intention of meeting it head-on. After all, even if he could win such a contest, it would only let Xue Jianming play the fisherman reaping the profit. So he chose to withdraw. In the present situation, conserving strength was the wisest course.

"Hey! You're too crafty!" Xue Jianming had been preparing to gloat, only to see Bing Wushuang fleeing in his direction, with the Primeval Giant Lizard in relentless pursuit behind him. Man and lizard reached him in the blink of an eye.

Xue Jianming reacted half a beat too slow and was instantly left in the lurch by Bing Wushuang, while the Primeval Giant Lizard, now close at hand, lunged in for another bite. Xue Jianming hurriedly brought his sword up to block, only to find that the creature was not merely thick-skinned and fleshy—above all, its silver-grey scales were simply too hard. His full-force strike not only failed to break through, but the recoil numbed his right hand so badly he nearly flung his sword away.

At the same time, the Primeval Giant Lizard, having missed its bite, repeated its old trick: the crimson tongue shot out once more. Do not be fooled by how soft and harmless the tongue itself seemed—it was coated entirely in the most horrifying drool. Let even a trace of it touch you, and you were as good as finished.

Xue Jianming's stance was inevitably a little stiff now from the recoil. Had he not witnessed this move just moments before, he would surely have suffered greatly from being caught off guard. Fortunately, he was prepared: the instant the crimson tongue left the lizard's mouth, he descended from above with his technique, a Sword Falling from the Ninth Heaven, and cut the tongue cleanly down with his blade.

A severed tongue several chi long danced about on the ground, while the Primeval Giant Lizard, having suffered this great loss, let out a piercing shriek. The veins across its entire body bulged and throbbed, and its already hideous beast-eyes instantly flooded with blood—it had plainly begun to go berserk.

Sensing the savage, violent aura radiating from the Primeval Giant Lizard, Xue Jianming's heart skipped a beat. He had kicked a hornet's nest!

Though its intelligence was no more than an unenlightened beast's, the Primeval Giant Lizard still ranked among the ten most fearsome spirit beasts of the Ancient Little Jianghu—its strength was beyond doubt, and at its own tier it was all but invincible. If its original combat power could be counted as one, then in its current berserk state its combat power was at least five, perhaps even more!

Facing such a creature, given Xue Jianming's present strength, never mind whether he could win—even if he truly could, he would inevitably pay with his own life. And there was still Bing Wushuang eyeing him like a tiger from the side. He himself had been scheming against Bing Wushuang just now; it was hard to guarantee Bing Wushuang did not harbor the same designs at this moment.

The moment the Primeval Giant Lizard went berserk, Xue Jianming turned and ran without the slightest hesitation. This time he could no longer afford to hold anything back. In the height of summer, every step he took left a clear snow-print behind him, which swiftly melted away—and with each snow-print that melted, his movement speed rose by a notch. After ten snow-prints, his speed had increased by at least twice over!

"Treading Snow Without a Trace!" Bing Wushuang's heart stirred at the sight! (To be continued.)