Velurya's breath left her—cold, sharp, deliberate.
But it wasn't calm anymore.
Not poised.
Not elegant.
It was pressurized.
Her eyes no longer held indifference.
They glared.
Focused. Burning—not with heat, but with something far more volatile.
Pride, fractured.
Control, compromised.
Ice, weaponized.
The temperature around them dropped—not gradually, but like a plummet off a cliff. Frost cracked through the soil in jagged pulses. The air itself stiffened, thin crystals forming midair and drifting like white ash.
Velurya lifted her sword. Slowly. Deliberately.
No announcement.
No flourish.
But when her lips parted, her voice echoed—not loudly, but with absolute clarity:
"Cryoform Technique…"
Her foot slid forward, sword raised, hips turning just slightly as her stance narrowed.
"First Pattern: Pale Execution."
She vanished.
No—she moved—but so fast that sight had to catch up.
A whisper of motion carved through the frozen air—a slash from below—a diagonal arc surging from hip to temple. Not exaggerated. Not cinematic.
Just fast.
Fast enough to kill.
And Yanwei—he moved.
No thought.
No analysis.
Just sheer reaction.
His torso bent back—not dramatically, just enough.
But it was enough.
Barely.
If he had hair—if he had bangs across his forehead—they'd be gone.
Cleanly sliced by the invisible edge of her sword.
He didn't have time to reset.
Because she didn't stop.
She rotated—follow-through becoming a kick, leg whipping upward like a blade herself.
A slash of a kick.
Yanwei raised his arm—his healthy one—the inner forearm crossing his head, instinctively protecting the brain like any human would in a close-range ambush.
And then—
A click.
The edge of her boot split open.
A blade—thin, glinting, hidden in the heel—snapped forward in mid-air.
His eyes widened.
Too late.
He jerked his uninjured hand back—barely escaping the surprise blade.
His other arm moved up instead—the ruined one—now just a block of translucent ice.
It met the strike—
CRACK.
The sound rang sharp as a bell.
The boot-blade shattered part of the ice.
Two of Yanwei's fingers split from the rest—breaking off like frozen bark from a tree.
Flesh didn't scream, but his nerves did.
Blood trickled through the cracks. Steam hissed from the contact.
Still—
He moved.
Even as the pain flared, he twisted his body—used the momentum—and threw.
A dagger.
Straight at her.
Not wild.
Not angry.
Precise.
It spun through the cold—whistling past the mist.
Thunk.
It embedded itself in her right shoulder—clean entry, not deep enough to cripple, but deep enough to matter.
She gasped—not loud.
But her step faltered.
For a heartbeat—they both stood bloodied.
Breathing.
Watching.
Her shoulder bled freely, the dark red staining the rim of her white robes.
His fingers lay broken on the ground, steaming in the frost.
Yanwei adjusted his stance—calm, unhurried—despite the missing fingers, the ruined flesh, the dagger still slick with her blood.
And he smiled.
That same damn smile.
Not wide. Not smug.
Just… quiet.
Like he enjoyed seeing the truth slowly click into place.
"Is that your technique?" he asked, voice even, unshaken.
A breath passed.
"What a flawless strike, I would say."
Another pause.
His smile deepened—just barely.
"If I don't exist… maybe you're invincible in Rank 1."
Velurya's sword twitched.
Her shoulder screamed in pain. Her aura flared again—sharper, colder—ready to strike back with the second movement, to shut him up, to end this exchange.
But then—
She stopped.
Not because he moved.
Not because of pain.
But because something snapped in her perception.
He hadn't used it.
Not a second talent.
Not even a technique.
Nothing she'd recognize from sparring scrolls or recorded duels.
He fought with—
No form.
No spell.
No style.
No cultivation method.
Just motion.
Just instinct.
Just the terrifying, real-time logic of survival.
The kicks.
The dagger throws.
The impossible dodges.
The mid-strike pivots.
They weren't elegant.
They weren't beautiful.
They weren't designed.
They were pure combat sense.
Raw form distilled by experience, not inheritance.
Reflexes sharpened on the edge of death, not by bloodline or teacher.
The kind of movement that doesn't impress masters—it unsettles them.
Because it doesn't belong to a system. It belongs to a problem that refused to die.
She realized—
He was never fighting to win.
He was fighting to exist.
Every dodge had the desperation of someone who had bled before.
Every throw had the weight of someone who'd had to kill without time to think.
Every shift in tempo carried the rhythm of someone who learned in chaos.
A survivor's rhythm.
A predator's instinct.
A presence that defied structure.
Her pulse fluttered.
Not in panic.
In recognition.
The back of her neck prickled. Her body—trained to remain calm under pressure—tightened with unease.
Her mind whispered excuses.
He's hiding it.
He's masking it somehow.
There's no way a man like this doesn't have a second talent.
She didn't believe for a second that he lacked one.
She couldn't.
Because if he was doing all of this—pressuring her, wounding her, breaking her rhythm—without a second talent?
Then it would mean he was something outside the system she trusted.
Outside the order she understood.
Outside the rules that defined genius.
And she would rather die than accept that.
Even if she died right here—
She'd go to her grave swearing the man in front of her had one.
Because if she didn't—
Then she wasn't looking at a barbarian.
She was looking at the natural ceiling of all geniuses.
A man who existed outside of every cultivation path she respected.
And even worse—
He was keeping up.
Without even trying to look elegant.
Yanwei shifted just slightly—enough to bend his upper body forward, like a predator stalking its prey.
One arm hung loose at his side, fingers curled casually, bloodied but steady.
The other remained lowered, the cracked, ice-frozen hand motionless as if it were a weightless extension of his will.
He licked his lips slowly, eyes locked onto hers with an unsettling calm.
There was no tension in his muscles.
No urgency in his breath.
Just the quiet menace of something unyielding and inevitable.
He wasn't advancing.
He wasn't retreating.
He was simply standing there—like a zombie, slow and steady, patient beyond reason—ready to strike the moment she slipped.
Velurya's eyes narrowed, unable to tear away from his form.
The posture was strange—almost unnatural.
His upper body bent forward like a predator stalking, yet his arms hung loose and limp.
The motion was slow, even lazy.
But beneath the oddness—
Her body screamed danger.
A silent alarm blared deep in her nerves.
Something primal and ancient ignited inside her.
A burst of sharp awareness clawed through the haze of pain and calculation.
Her muscles tensed before her mind could catch up.
Her heart hammered—a raw, pulsing surge that was neither fear nor anger, but pure survival.
Her heart hammered—a raw, pulsing surge of adrenaline—the chemical flood that primes the body to fight or flee.
Her whole being screamed: Dodge. Move. Live.
No matter how weird or slow his stance looked—
That posture meant one thing.
A predator ready to strike.
And she was its prey.