Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Frost Under Heaven
Zhu Wu Shuang was still wrestling with the Snake Demon, but she wasn’t losing.
The silk ribbon in her hand was a First Grade magical tool with 29 layers of Dao-marked restrictions. Each lash struck like iron, cracking the air. On top of that, she cultivated the Lower Grade immortal art Seven-Star Flying Light. Even among mid-stage First Realm cultivators, she ranked among the strongest.
No matter how vicious the Snake Demon became, the battle remained under her control.
Once she killed it, she would turn back and reclaim the jade fruit from that girl.
As for whether “Yan Ning” had seen through her? So what?
Early First Realm. A few tricks. Nothing that mattered.
Zhu Wu Shuang’s advantage widened until she spread the ribbon taut, flattening it like a blade. She stepped in, ready to take the snake’s head—
And her back prickled.
A cold wind seemed to spear up her spine. Instinct screamed.
Rainbow light flickered around Zhu Wu Shuang’s body. She turned intangible in the same breath an arrow arrived, letting it pass straight through her chest as if through mist.
Shao Heng felt a faint twinge of regret—but not annoyance.
That split-second lapse was enough. The Snake Demon twisted out of the killing line and spat a cloud of green venomous mist at Zhu Wu Shuang, rage and desperation boiling over.
The rainbow glow shielded her. Seven sparkling stars flickered across the light barrier, flaring as the poison struck and slid away.
When Zhu Wu Shuang snapped her gaze toward Shao Heng again, all warmth was gone. Her eyes were dark, cold, murderous.
“You’re mid-stage First Realm too,” she said. “I misjudged you.”
Shao Heng didn’t bother answering. She drew and released again and again, arrows falling so fast they looked like a storm.
She deliberately avoided the Snake Demon.
In the snake’s eyes, the stronger enemy was Zhu Wu Shuang. Under the cover of Shao Heng’s relentless bowshots, it lunged and struck, again and again, forcing Zhu Wu Shuang into constant defense.
At the same time, Shao Heng’s Jade Bee Needles sliced through the air like pale ghosts.
They’d been soaked in the deadly poison of Green-Touch Mushroom, then coated with Snake Demon venom. Even a late First Realm cultivator would have to treat such poison with care.
A voice transmission came, tight with urgency.
“Yan Ning, I was reckless earlier. I overlooked the little Snake Demons in the cave. I’m a disciple under Elder Ci Hang of Star-Inquiry Sect. Please forgive me. Once I deal with this Snake Demon, how about we split the jade fruit evenly?”
Shao Heng ignored her.
Either she didn’t act at all, or she acted to the end.
Spiritual power surged through her meridians into the bow, making it blaze with deep blue light. In her qi sea, the Azure Emperor sigil stirred—and then drew on the Yellow Sprout spiritual power she’d cultivated, pulling it into a thick black current that flowed into the arrowhead.
Since she began cultivating, more than three months had passed. In that time, she’d used Grace the Four Directions again and again, condensing spiritual liquid, growing spiritual rice and treasure herbs—accumulating a special kind of life force in the process.
After breaking into mid-stage First Realm, her understanding of that divine ability deepened. The life force she’d stored transformed as it built, and the blue-gold tree-like sigil extended new lines, like a living tree pushing into fresh growth.
A second transformation.
Azure Emperor belonged to the eastern Wood element.
Spring’s Grace the Four Directions was the beginning.
Winter’s Frost Under Heaven was the end.
The final strike she used on Tang Dong—and the strike she formed now—both came from that second transformation.
Frost Under Heaven.
Death qi.
It stripped life from anything but its master. Once it touched a living being, it clung like a parasite sunk into bone, feeding until there was nothing left.
The instant the arrow finished forming, Zhu Wu Shuang seemed to sense it. Her whole body went cold, numb with dread, and she shouted while still fending off the Snake Demon.
“Yan Ning! My master, Elder Ci Hang, has already condensed a divine ability! She excels in divination—she can calculate karma and lock onto the true culprit. How dare you!”
Shao Heng released the string.
The arrow tore through the air like lightning.
“Die.”
Killing intent churned thick in her chest, but her face remained calm.
From the beginning, she’d never believed a stranger met by chance would hand her a real opportunity—especially one that required nothing more than rushing into a den and snatching fruit in the chaos.
It had been too easy.
When three Snake Demons attacked her in the cave, the truth snapped into place. In that instant, Shao Heng decided Zhu Wu Shuang could not be allowed to live.
The arrow screamed toward Zhu Wu Shuang’s heart, shockwaves booming in its wake.
Zhu Wu Shuang grit her teeth and yanked a yellow-brown talisman from her sleeve. Spiritual power flooded it. Runes ignited.
“By decree—summon the soldiers and descend, protect my body!”
A pure golden wall of light rose around her.
A Second Grade talisman: Summon-Soldiers Protection Talisman.
In front, a snake tail lashed like a whip. Behind, the death-qi arrow struck.
Boom.
Sand and snow blasted up in a choking wave. Shao Heng murmured under her breath, and a gale rose before her, scattering the grit. Within the wind, blades condensed—thin, ruthless arcs that slashed forward.
The golden wall had been able to withstand a strike from a Second Realm cultivator, the Mystic Passage Realm, but it was a one-time item. Under Frost Under Heaven and the follow-up wind blades, it shattered and vanished.
Zhu Wu Shuang’s pretty face twisted viciously. Rainbow light flared around her as she forced her way through two wind blades, blood bright against white, and charged straight at Shao Heng.
Seven bright stars gathered on her right palm. They overlapped, condensed, and blazed until the power of the stars reached its peak.
Her strike fell toward Shao Heng’s chest.
“You’re lucky,” Zhu Wu Shuang snarled. “I only recently comprehended Seven-Star Palm, and you’re the first one I’m using it on. Die!”
Shao Heng lifted her eyes and laughed, cold.
“Three-Thousand-Li Moon—Moonlight Phantom Body.”
Silver radiance poured around her as the moonlight essence she’d stored erupted at once. Her figure split into six silver shadows that scattered in different directions.
Zhu Wu Shuang’s eyes widened. She adjusted her spiritual power instantly, forming six palm seals and blasting them out—
Nothing.
Shao Heng had already grasped the essence of the immortal art, but Phantom Body consumed a frightening amount of spiritual power. The moment she widened the distance and returned to her true form, she swallowed an Origin-Restoring Pill and steadied her breath, eyes never leaving the battlefield.
Zhu Wu Shuang was still only mid-stage First Realm. After missing her palm strike and burning power to compensate, fatigue showed in the tightness of her movements.
The white Snake Demon had battled her for too long; its hatred ran deep. And with Shao Heng now farther away, the snake chose the easier prey.
It opened its bloody maw and lunged at Zhu Wu Shuang.
“You beast!” Zhu Wu Shuang shouted, forced to turn and defend.
That was when the Jade Bee Needles arrived.
They moved like ghost shadows, vicious and silent, stabbing straight for Zhu Wu Shuang’s heart.
Crack!
Under Zhu Wu Shuang’s white robes, protective armor flared—another magical tool. Soft light flowed like water, knocking the needles aside. Its quality was no worse than Shao Heng’s own.
But the light flickered.
Shao Heng’s pulse jumped. The armor was already failing.
She drove the needles in again and again, hammering the same points, deepening fractures that spread like spiderwebs.
In the next instant, the snake struck.
Its jaws clamped down with a crunch that turned Shao Heng’s stomach. Demon qi surged sky-high as it ground its teeth.
The armor shattered completely.
Zhu Wu Shuang’s scream cut off mid-breath as the Snake Demon swallowed her whole.
“Good snake,” Shao Heng said, voice almost warm.
Then she lifted the Thousand-Strike Bow and poured Yellow Sprout spiritual power into it again.
Arrows flew toward the snake’s vital points.
She kept her distance with her movement technique—slipping away when it surged forward, pressing when it tried to withdraw. The Snake Demon was exhausted, its desperate counterattacks missing more than they struck, the battle already decided.
At last, it crashed to the ground, body heaving.
Shao Heng formed one final arrow, loaded with Frost Under Heaven’s death qi, and released.
The snake jerked once, twice—
Then lay still.
Only then did the tight cord inside Shao Heng finally snap loose.
She collapsed into the snow, completely drained. One hand covered her face as her body trembled with the aftershock.
A moment later, her breathing steadied.
And Shao Heng started to laugh.
“I won.”
Everything had gone perfectly.