A petite figure staggered out of the void, her pearlescent and flawless body now sporting a long and bloody wound that extended from her shoulder straight down to below her chest.
What flowed out of the wound wasn’t red blood, but a white liquid like snow.
This icy blood soaked half of the Frost Fairy’s body as it bloomed into little snowflakes.
Even so, there was no wiping away the pain and savagery in the Frost Fairy’s eyes.
She raised her head and angrily glared at Tang Jie. “How did you find me?”
Although Liu Hongyan had given him a tip on how to break through the spell, she had not offered any kind of detection spell. How had Tang Jie managed to find her so quickly?
She didn’t understand it.
But in response, Tang Jie simply slashed at her again.
Thoughts of mercy had vanished the moment the battle had begun. Unlike with other opponents, Tang Jie did not dare to be distracted around Mind Opening existences, so even answering a question wasn’t something he wanted to do.
With one strike having landed, he now attacked relentlessly with the Heartbreak Saber, saber energy creating a vicious tide of death.
The Frost Fairy shrieked as she backed away, an ice shield appearing in front of her to block this savage offensive. Killing intent appeared in her eyes as she asked, “You really think you can kill me with just this?”
After dodging Tang Jie’s first attack, she hadn’t believed that he would be able to find her so quickly again, and her carelessness resulted in her being wounded. She was now furious and was determined to kill this brat.
Liu Hongyan shouted, “Attack the ice palace!”
Hundreds of kinds of spells, a thousand rays of light, erupted from the ground and exploded on the ice palace, and the entire palace tottered under the fierce salvo.
The offensive made the Frost Fairy panic.
It had to be understood that the ice palace was the foundation of her casting. It wasn’t just for attacking and defending. Its most important advantage was that it greatly accelerated her casting.
The greatest difference between a spell and an art was consumption.
Upon entering the Mortal Shedding Realm, cultivators could link with the heavens and earth, substantially reducing the time it took to cast spell arts, and becoming able to use spell arts of much greater power.
To take the Heavenly King Mara Incantation as an example, it consumed all of a student’s spiritual energy. As spiritual energy was limited, Tang Jie was only able to maintain it for a few seconds.
But once he erected the Heaven-Earth Bridge, the same Heavenly King Mara Incantation could be enabled by using his own power to draw in the power of the world, greatly reducing the amount of energy needed.
This was precisely why the Divine Firmament Sword Classic could be used all the way to Violet Palace. Almost every one of its spell arts had the ability to turn from a spell into an art, having their costs minimized and their power boosted.
But arts had one problem. Drawing in the power of the world took even more time than preparing a spell. Thus, even Mortal Shedding Realm cultivators didn’t rely solely on arts when they did battle.
For example, when Gu Changqing fought with Tang Jie, he had used mostly spells, for spells could be cast more quickly. Of course, at his level, even spells were stronger than those that ordinary students could use.
The Lightning Secret Art that Zhao Xinguo had used in that internal strife, the Thunderstorm Hand, was an actual art, but it could only be cast when working with others.
Spells and arts represented the two attributes of speed and power. Neither could be lacking.
It was only at the Violet Palace Realm, when one could connect to the world with a single thought, that one could unleash major spell arts with a raise of the hand, easily cleaving apart mountains and splitting the seas.
As for this ice palace that the Frost Fairy had created, its greatest benefit was that it massively increased her casting speed. This was precisely how she could cast so many spell arts in a row, each of them considerably powerful.
In terms of spell arts, while in the ice palace, the Frost Fairy could cast with almost the same speed of a Celestial Heart cultivator, but the power of her close-combat spells was still lacking.
One could say that this ice palace was the core of her strength, the foundation of her spell arts. Without the ice palace, the Frost Fairy’s strength would plunge, even struggling to match a Spirit Sea student.
The students attacking the ice palace were far more threatening to her than Tang Jie. Liu Hongyan was a member of the Law Hall and a sharp observer, so she had been able to identify the Frost Fairy’s weakness.
“Go!” The Frost Fairy waved her hand, and a stream of ice shot out from her scepter. At the same time, she waved her left hand, sending a surge of ice at Tang Jie.
The icy fog instantly enveloped Tang Jie, and large chunks of ice practically turned him into a statue. But a moment later, the ice cracked apart, and Tang Jie charged out of the fog even faster than before. His entire body was white and his hair and brows were frosted over, but the ice couldn’t hold him.
Before this battle, Tang Jie had bathed himself using ice-resistant herbs. While the effect was far from what he had gotten with all the thunderspirit grass, it was enough to deal with this kind of freezing!
The Frost Fairy hadn’t expected that Tang Jie would be able to charge out, and she backed away in alarm, ice blooming beneath her feet. While a beautiful sight, there was a dangerous chase playing out here, one person backing away while the other advanced. Their flicking figures reflected throughout the ice palace.
Sheets of ice covered Tang Jie, but under his high-speed charge, they broke off, unable to deal any damage to him.
In this land of ice and snow, Tang Jie charged like a tiger, roaring as he hacked the Heartbreak Saber at the sprite’s right shoulder.
“Aagh!” The Frost Fairy howled in pain.
Though she was at Mind Opening, she was a sprite, not a fiend beast. Sprites were skilled in spell arts, not in physical brawls. In dealing with the thousand students below and Tang Jie before her, her strength was finally showing its limits.
Being struck by the saber again stoked the sprite’s anger. Just when she was about to lunge out and kill this scoundrel, alarm bells rang out in her mind.
As a sprite, she was extremely sensitive to danger, and this sense for danger had saved herself many times over the years.
Spurred on by her intuition, she whistled, and frost appeared in front of her, encasing her in a giant coffin of ice.
There was a golden flash of light that cut through the ice coffin as if it wasn’t even there.
Aghast, the Frost Fairy put aside all her apprehensions and unleashed all her power. Frost power surged out in layers, an endless furious torrent. There was so much spiritual energy that it was clear that she was not some lower-grade, but a middle-grade Mind Opening sprite.
In other words, this sprite was on Gu Changqing’s level, perhaps even surpassing him when it came to spell arts. But even the freezing power of all this frost could only slow down the golden thread. The sprite was alarmed that her endless frost power couldn’t stop this golden thread, and she suddenly opened her mouth. There was a blue flash of light from her body, and a tiny cone of ice shot out of her mouth.
It was a puny little cone that seemed to lack any power, but when it struck the golden thread, there was a bang and an explosion of light. The chill unleashed at that instant almost froze Tang Jie in his steps, and even the golden thread was stopped.
“A sprite core…” Tang Jie cried out in surprise.
He had a clearer view than anyone else, and he could see that the sprite had been forced to use part of her sprite core’s power just now.
Not even Tang Jie could resist this freezing energy. The sprite’s eyes exploded with savagery as she yelled, “You must die!”
Another ice cone was fired, this one containing 80% of her power. No matter what, she had to kill Tang Jie.
“Keep dreaming!” Tang Jie roared. He knew that this was a critical moment. While the golden thread was sharp, it was difficult to attack with it several times in a row. Since this attack had failed, he would have to rely on himself for a bit. All of his strength surged and his body erupted with the crimson light of the Blood Refining Spirit.
Bloodline energy gathered into his saber tip and transformed into a furious wave that rose to meet the ice cone.
As the saber energy and ice cone collided, frost energy exploded outward, sending Tang Jie flying back, and Tang Jie violently spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with ice.
This was the worst injury he had received yet in his battle with the sprite, and he felt like almost all of his blood had been frozen. If not for the Blood Refining Spirit spell protecting him, even his bone marrow might have frozen.
The sprite was about to make a follow-up attack when there was a sharp yell, and a small figure flew up and waved a hand at the sprite. Flowers erupted from the ground and made to wrap around the Frost Fairy. It was none other than Yiyi.
“Bastard! A sprite helping a human!” The Frost Fairy was furious. She pressed her left hand down, and a biting wind froze the flowers rock-solid.
In her rage, she was using all the strength she could muster. Her ice storms were ideal for dealing with large numbers, and her freezing spells truly made one’s blood run cold.
The flowers instantly turned into ice statues, but a moment later, a silver crescent moon appeared, silently gliding toward the Frost Fairy.
Just like the golden thread, it filled the Frost Fairy with fear, and she hastily moved to dodge. As she looked over, she saw a little fox floating in the air, coldly looking at her. It was clearly this little fox that had unleashed that crescent blade just now.
“A Void Fox?” The Frost Fairy’s voice trembled.
On the ground, Wei Tianchong stomped his feet in anger. “I’m your master here!”
This little fox had treated him in an indifferent manner ever since it had started following him. Even after Wei Tianchong rose to Spirit Lake Tier and became much stronger, it only became a little more polite. It was still unwilling to act on his behalf.
But to his surprise, when Tang Jie was injured, the little fox took action without prompting. Wei Tianchong couldn’t help but be sad. He wasn’t angry that the little fox had saved Tang Jie, only that this cold reception to his affection was far too damaging to his dignity.
As the little fox attacked, the little tiger also unleashed his own lightning blade, forcing the Frost Fairy to protect herself.
These three attacking finally gave Tang Jie some space to breathe. He raised his left hand and tossed something out.
This was the eye from the Quadeye Mantipede, one of the few fiend beast items Tang Jie had kept. This eye should have only lasted for three days, with the fiend energy within it dispersing after that. Fortunately, Tang Jie had found an herb that allowed him to extend the storage time, but if he kept it any longer, the energy would scatter. This was the perfect time to use it.
As he threw out the eye, it let out a weak beam of light that struck the Frost Fairy, instantly paralyzing her.
At the same time, Tang Jie flew back and swung down with his saber.
But rather than the Frost Fairy, he hacked at the frozen flowers. “Yiyi!”
Boom!
As the saber came down, ice and flowers went flying into the air.
Countless flowers danced in the air, and they shone with a deadly light, turning around, opening their maws, and rushing at the Frost Fairy. This was the Petal Rain that Yiyi had learned, but when used on her green rose formation, it was even more powerful!
The Frost Fairy was caught off guard, and as the monsterized flowers gnawed on her body, icy liquid flew into the air, and she screamed in pain. Icy energy erupted from her body, instantly freezing the flowers. A moment later, they crashed to the ground and fell to pieces.
Down below, Yiyi’s small face turned ghastly pale.
But as the flowers shattered, Tang Jie swung his blade again.
A third strike!
He penetrated through the fog and savagely hacked at the Frost Fairy’s arm.
Whoosh!
The arm went flying into the air.
“Aaaah!” The sprite let out a heart-rending screech as icy blood flew into the air.
Tang Jie was about to chase after her, but when he raised his foot, the ice palace shuddered, and he began to fall.
It turned out that the Frost Fairy had been so focused on attacking Tang Jie that she didn’t have the power to protect the ice palace.
Under the concerted attack of the students, the ice palace finally collapsed.
The resplendent ice palace that had manifested from nothing instantly collapsed into great streams of ice, and light appeared on the horizon as the fog began to disperse.
It turned out that the ice palace was linked to the illusion formation, and its destruction led the illusion formation to collapse as well. But although the frost formation had dissipated, the Eight Desolations Illusion Formation Tang Jie had laid down was still in place, preventing the students from escaping.
This caused many students to curse, “Damn it! There’s still an illusion formation? Who laid it down? Hurry and remove it!”
Tang Jie ignored them.
The collapse of the palace had caused Tang Jie to lose out on an excellent opportunity. As he fell, he could only watch as the Frost Fairy executed a roll and then turned into a beam of ice that fled into the distance. He roared, “Bao’er!”
The little tiger picked up Tang Jie, and Tang Jie called back the Alarm Gate Banner with a wave of his hand and took off after the Frost Fairy.
There was a high chance that the Frost Fairy was fleeing back to the Ice Cave—the location of the Iceflame Red Lotus, the Frost Fairy’s birthplace, and also the source of her power. This was the perfect chance to chase after her and seize her treasures.
All the students saw what he was doing.
“Chase!”
“After her! Kill the Frost Fairy and take the Iceflame Red Lotus!”
“Watch out for Tang Jie! Don’t let him take the Red Lotus!”
“Everyone, work together and destroy this damned illusion formation!”
All of the students began to shout.
Nearby, Peng Yaolong, Long Dao, Ye Tianshang, and Meng Shixue turned on Tang Jie with shining eyes, and several people began to break down the formation. Without the ice fog and the Alarm Gate Banner, and without anyone to maintain it, the Eight Desolations Illusion Formation was much weaker. It was only a matter of time until the more than one thousand students broke it down.
When everyone was facing down the Frost Fairy, they fought together as comrades. Now that their common foe had been defeated, internal conflicts once more took the forefront!