Free Web NovelChapter 327: Chapter 167: Ignoring Control, Instant Kill
She was keenly aware that Lin Ye was nothing like Lu Jiuxiao, a brute-force opponent she could defeat with composure.
His ghostly, near-teleportation speed had to be completely restricted the very instant the battle began.
Just as this thought crossed her mind, Lin Ye suddenly felt a bone-deep chill.
Although the countdown hadn’t finished, the surrounding air temperature began to plummet at a terrifying rate.
In a single instant, a visible plume of white breath escaped Lin Ye’s lips, and a layer of frost, visible to the naked eye, rapidly formed on the surface of the metal arena beneath his feet.
At the same time, a vast and chilling domain radiated out from Wei Shuying like a ripple, instantly blanketing the entire arena.
This was the mark of a level-three elemental Martial Arts Spirituality: the ability to form one’s own domain!
It completely transformed the battlefield into her home turf, ceaselessly weakening her enemy while strengthening herself.
In the spectator stands, Nie Cang frowned. "The battle hasn’t even started. She’s bending the rules."
Yin Liulan’s gaze, however, remained calm. She said faintly, "Consider it a false start. We’ll deduct some points from her score later, win or lose."
3!
2!
1!
The instant the countdown ended, a cold light flashed in Wei Shuying’s eyes. Without the slightest hesitation, she reached out from a hundred meters away and made a grasping motion in Lin Ye’s direction.
The next moment, Lin Ye felt an incomparably biting chill that actually bypassed his Protective Gang Sha and invaded his body directly.
The chilling energy seemed to have a life of its own, spreading wildly through his meridians and blood vessels, attempting to freeze his blood and even his Gang Sha solid.
This was the very move that had disintegrated Lu Jiuxiao’s formidable Qi and Blood from within, leading to his ultimate defeat.
At the same time, Lin Ye found that at some point his feet had become frozen solid to the ground by thick ice. The ice was even spreading rapidly upward, submerging his knees in the blink of an eye.
"Ice Soul Thousand Edges!"
Wei Shuying’s cold, low cry rang out.
Above the arena, the moisture in the air was instantly sucked dry, condensing into dozens of incredibly sharp ice spikes.
As she lowered her hand, they transformed into a dense barrage of death, screaming through the air as they shot toward Lin Ye!
Control, erosion, and a final killing blow!
The three-stage attack was executed flawlessly, a seamless and fluid combination.
However, faced with an offensive that would drive any opponent of the same realm to despair, Lin Ye merely had to think.
The ever-flowing golden Liquid Gang Sha within him simply pulsed once.
In that instant, all the ice-attribute energy that had invaded his body was like snow under a scorching sun. It was utterly evaporated by the overwhelmingly dominant golden Gang Sha, unable to muster even a shred of resistance.
CLINK! CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!
The dense barrage of ice spikes bombarded the thin layer of golden Gang Sha on Lin Ye’s body, only to produce a series of crisp impacts before shattering into a cloud of icy mist, failing to leave so much as a white scratch.
’It didn’t break through his defense?!’
Wei Shuying’s heart lurched.
CRACK—SHATTER!
An even crisper shattering sound rang out, and the color drained from her face.
It was the sound of the solid ice binding his feet, shattering violently under the force of the golden Gang Sha.
’This is bad!’
Alarms blared in Wei Shuying’s mind. She cast aside all semblance of composure, unleashing her Spiritual Power in a torrent and pushing her internal Spirituality to its absolute limit.
Three solid ice walls, each half a meter thick and shimmering with an eerie blue light, materialized one after another in front of her. It was the strongest defense she could muster.
But in the next second, her pupils contracted violently.
She watched as the three ice walls, each strong enough to withstand heavy artillery fire, proved as fragile as tofu before the tip of Lin Ye’s spear.
Pfft!
It was a sound so faint it was barely audible.
Wei Shuying looked down at the transparent, bowl-sized hole in her chest, her eyes filled with bewilderment and confusion.
The next moment, her body dissolved into motes of light and vanished.
The system’s cold verdict echoed across the silent arena.
[Lin Ye is victorious!]
At that moment, everyone from Dongfang Zhen watching on the sidelines to Nie Cang and Su Yunjin was stunned.
’What just happened?’
From the start of the fight to its conclusion, it hadn’t even been two seconds, at most.
A moment ago, wasn’t Wei Shuying holding the absolute advantage? She had her domain suppression, her ice control... a whole combo that had Lin Ye completely locked down, right?
So how was she just... gone in the blink of an eye?
On the arena, the icy mist slowly dissipated.
Lin Ye withdrew his Star-Piercing Spear. Golden Gang Sha flowed slowly over his body, showing no trace of the frost that had covered him moments before. It was as if the spectacular ice storm had been nothing more than an illusion.
He had simply thrust his spear forward.
The thrust involved no fancy martial arts techniques—it was simply the purest form of attack, condensing his Gang Sha to a single point and stabbing forward.
But that one, deceptively simple thrust had generated a force that parted the icy mist, instantly pierced three ice walls, and finally, ran through Wei Shuying’s chest.
The victory was plain and unadorned, but the power behind it was terrifying enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Lin Ye himself was still reflecting on the feeling of that thrust.
He had thought he might need to use his [Unstoppable] passive trait to break free from Wei Shuying’s icy restraints.
In truth, however, he never even got the chance to test that theory. The golden Gang Sha within him had already taken the initiative, solving all his problems in an absurdly overwhelming fashion.
That thrust had been a probing attack, his first against another human Martial Artist since his breakthrough.
And this was the result.
In the spectator stands, Dongfang Zhen felt his body trembling slightly.
It wasn’t from fear, but from excitement.
It was the towering battle lust that surged from the depths of his soul upon seeing an opponent truly worthy of his full strength—a fighting spirit so intense it felt like it was about to boil over and ignite.
Astonishment and shock were written all over Nie Cang’s face as well.
Nearby, several instructors responsible for recording the trainees’ combat performance and assigning scores were staring at each other, their pens hovering in mid-air, unsure of what to write down.
Record the process? What process was there to record?
Start, CC’d, broke CC, counter-kill, end.
Written out, the entire process would be less than ten words.
"This... How are we supposed to score this?" a young instructor muttered.
Another instructor said with a wry face, "Just give him a perfect score. What else are we supposed to write? ’Combat Performance: Insta-killed his opponent with one spear thrust.’"
"If I hand in that report, the Chief Instructor will probably insta-kill me."
Yin Liulan ignored her subordinates’ predicament. She glanced at Dongfang Zhen, who was now raring for a fight, and then turned to ask Nie Cang, "His Gang Sha... what attribute is it?"
"Fire Attribute? Or Yang Attribute?"
Nie Cang shook his head, his expression grave. "I don’t know. I’ve never seen Gang Sha with that form and color."
"If it were Fire Attribute, the Gang Sha would be orange or red. And while Yang Attribute Gang Sha is also golden, it would distinctly radiate an aura of pure, unyielding masculine energy."
"But I can’t sense any distinct elemental characteristics from his Gang Sha."
Yin Liulan pondered for a moment before making her decision. "We can’t determine if his Gang Sha’s attribute is a natural counter to the ice attribute, or if it was simply a case of being crushed by sheer power."
"For the next match, have him face either Zhang Daoxuan or Ye Qi. We’ll draw from those two."
Yin Liulan had changed the matchup format.
She had already realized that the training camp’s power dynamic had shifted from "one transcendent talent and many strong ones" to "two transcendent talents and many strong ones."
And Lin Ye was the even bigger variable.
She had learned nothing of value from his battle with Wei Shuying.
Even in the previous Illusion Realm assessment, Lin Ye had only demonstrated that bizarre ability to reanimate corpses and fight with them as puppets.
As for the true limits of his personal strength after breaking through to the Gang Condensation Realm, that remained a complete mystery.
Therefore, she needed a harder, more "durable" touchstone to test him against.
