Chapter 6: Fire and Ice
The moment Lin Yun's hand closed around the Blue Lotus Spirit Fire, the world tilted on its axis.
He expected heat.
He expected to be incinerated.
Instead, he felt an absolute, crushing cold.
It wasn't the cold of winter snow; it was the cold of the void. It rushed up his arm, instantly flash freezing his bronze skin. His blood, dense with Dragon Marrow, slowed to a crawl. The frost raced toward his heart, threatening to stop it in a single beat.
"DO NOT LET IT REACH YOUR HEART!" Long Xi's voice roared in his mind, sounding more urgent than he had ever heard her. "Your heart is the engine of the Sovereign Body! If it freezes, you die!"
Lin Yun gritted his teeth, but his jaw was locked tight by ice. He couldn't scream. He could only roar internally.
Burn! he commanded his blood.
The drop of Dragon Blood he had consumed earlier, the seed of his power, flared up in response to the invasion. It was supreme Yang, hot and tyrannical. It clashed with the supreme Yin of the Blue Lotus.
His body became a battlefield. His left side turned blue with frost; his right side glowed red with heat. Steam exploded from his pores with a high pitched shriek.
HISS!
The Frost Venom Python didn't care about Lin Yun's internal struggle. It only saw a thief stealing its treasure.
With a movement that whipped the air into a frenzy, the massive serpent lunged. Its maw, wide enough to swallow a cow, clamped down on Lin Yun's exposed torso.
CRUNCH!
Fangs as long as daggers struck Lin Yun's back and chest.
But they didn't penetrate deep. The Bronze Skin, bolstered by the sudden surge of conflicting energies, held firm. The fangs scraped against his flesh, drawing sparks, sinking only an inch into the muscle before stopping.
"Get... off!" Lin Yun wheezed.
He couldn't move his arms. The fire was consuming all his focus.
The python, realizing its bite failed, began to coil. It wrapped its massive, icy body around Lin Yun, squeezing with thousands of pounds of pressure. It intended to crush his ribs and suffocate him.
"The beast is trying to crush you," Long Xi analyzed coldly. "But it is making a mistake. It is pressing its body against yours while you are a living furnace."
"Use it!" she commanded. "Don't fight the fire and the snake. Feed the fire to the snake!"
Lin Yun's eyes snapped open. One pupil was golden, the other burned with a ghostly blue flame.
He stopped trying to contain the Spirit Fire in his arm. Instead, he opened his meridians, not to store the energy, but to let it flow outward.
He channeled the chaotic, freezing fire through his skin, directly into the coils of the python wrapping him.
WHOOSH!
The effect was instantaneous.
The Blue Lotus Spirit Fire, hungry for fuel, leaped from Lin Yun's skin onto the python's scales.
SCREEEEEECH!
The python released a sound that wasn't of this world. The Spirit Fire didn't just burn its scales; it bypassed the physical defense and burned the beast's blood and soul.
The python frantically uncoiled, thrashing wildly. It tried to dive back into the water to extinguish the flames, but Spirit Fire could not be quenched by water. The blue flames clung to it like tar, turning patches of its white scales into brittle, grey ash.
Lin Yun fell to one knee on the ice, gasping.
The pressure on his body was gone, but the internal battle was reaching its climax. The Dragon Blood and the Spirit Fire were mixing.
"Submit!" Lin Yun roared at the flame in his hand.
He visualized the Sovereign Seal on his heart. He imagined the dragon devouring the lotus.
I am not a vessel for the fire. I am the Master of the fire.
CRACK.
A sound like breaking glass echoed inside his body.
The pain vanished.
The freezing cold and the scorching heat merged into a singular, warm hum. The blue flame in his hand flickered and then sank into his skin. It didn't disappear; it dissolved into his blood.
Lin Yun looked at his hands. Beneath his bronze skin, his veins now pulsed with a faint, rhythmic blue light.
[System Integration Complete: Yin Yang Harmony Achieved]
[Sovereign Body Upgrade: Frost Fire Marrow]
Lin Yun stood up. He felt lighter. The air didn't feel cold anymore. The stagnant, heavy atmosphere of the swamp felt like a refreshing breeze.
He turned his gaze to the thrashing python.
The beast was weakening, the fire slowly eating away its vitality. Seeing Lin Yun stand up, it hissed, realizing the thief had become the predator. Desperate, it gathered the last of its strength for a final strike, aiming a jet of venom directly at Lin Yun's eyes.
Lin Yun didn't dodge.
He raised his right hand. "Burn."
He didn't cast a spell. He didn't use hand signs. He simply punched the air.
His fist ignited. But it wasn't normal fire. It was a condensed, swirling vortex of blue flame and physical force.
The punch connected with the stream of venom. The fire evaporated the poison instantly and continued forward.
BOOM!
Lin Yun's fist slammed into the python's skull.
There was no resistance this time. The combination of his monstrous physical strength and the soul destroying property of the Spirit Fire was too much.
The python's head exploded.
Blood, bone, and brain matter scattered across the ice. The massive body twitched once, then collapsed, the blue flames on its body slowly dying out as the life faded.
Silence returned to the Silent Swamp.
Lin Yun stood over the corpse, steam rising from his body. He felt a hunger, sharp and demanding.
He plunged his hand into the ruined skull of the python.
"Devour."
This time, it was different.
Before, absorbing the boar took effort. Now, with the Spirit Fire acting as a refining agent in his blood, the essence of the Frost Venom Python rushed into him like a flood.
The beast's soul, a cold, slithering energy, was instantly purified by the blue fire in Lin Yun's veins. It was broken down into pure, neutral power and fed directly into his muscles and bones.
Lin Yun groaned in pleasure as he felt his strength skyrocket.
Bronze Skin: Mid Stage.
Physical Strength: 8,000 Jin.
He was now physically stronger than an Early Earth Spirit Realm cultivator.
"Good," Long Xi's voice was filled with satisfaction. "You have successfully integrated the fire. Your body is no longer just a brute's weapon. You carry the chill of the abyss in your blood."
Lin Yun withdrew his hand. The python was now a dry husk.
He turned around.
Ten meters away, Zhang Lie was still lying on the ice. He was alive, barely. The ambient cold of the Spirit Fire had frozen his legs and lower torso, but he had witnessed everything.
His eyes were wide, filled with a terror that transcended death. He looked at Lin Yun not as a fellow disciple, but as a demon.
"You..." Zhang Lie's teeth chattered so hard they cracked. "You... absorbed... the fire..."
Lin Yun walked over slowly. The ice didn't crack under his feet anymore; he controlled his weight perfectly.
He squatted down next to Zhang Lie.
"Senior Brother Zhang," Lin Yun said softly. "You look cold."
"P please..." Zhang Lie wept, his pride completely shattered. "I won't tell... I swear on my Dao heart... I'll tell them the snake killed you... just let me go..."
"You'll tell them the snake killed me?" Lin Yun tilted his head. "Just like Master told everyone I fell?"
He reached out and patted Zhang Lie's frozen cheek. His hand was warm, but it sent a fresh wave of terror through the disciple.
"The problem with loose ends, Zhang Lie, is that they tend to strangle you later."
"No! Wait! I have spirit stones! I have techniques! I"
"I don't need your charity," Lin Yun stood up. "I'll take them from your corpse."
He raised his foot.
"Give my regards to the King of Hell."
STOMP.
Lin Yun crushed Zhang Lie's chest, ending his misery instantly.
He quickly stripped the body of its storage bag and the silver containment box. He kicked the corpse into the open water where the ice had broken, letting the swamp swallow the evidence.
"Clean," Lin Yun muttered.
"Not quite," Long Xi said. "You have caused a commotion. The energy fluctuation of the Spirit Fire being absorbed was massive. Others will come."
"Let them come," Lin Yun said, turning back toward the treeline. He felt the blue fire humming in his veins, a constant reminder of his new power. "I need more fuel."
"We are done here for now," Long Xi corrected. "You need to stabilize your foundation. And there is something else."
"What?"
"In Zhang Lie's storage bag. I sense a token. It emits a frequency similar to the seal trapping me."
Lin Yun paused. He opened the bloody bag and rummaged through it. Aside from the spirit stones and potions, his fingers closed around a heavy, dark iron token.
It had no words on it. Only a carving of a gate with nine chains wrapped around it.
"The Nine Prison Gate," Lin Yun frowned. "This is a token for the ancient ruins that open once every ten years near the sect."
"The ruins," Long Xi's voice turned contemplative. "If that gate is connected to my seal, then your path of revenge just got a shortcut. We are going back to the cave. We need to prepare."
Lin Yun clenched the token. The Spirit Beast Sect would be sending their best disciples to those ruins.
"So," Lin Yun smiled, his golden blue eyes shining in the dark. "A family reunion."