The Abyss of Snowflame

No one had ever witnessed such a stance; even the many well-informed experts outside the secret realm found themselves utterly baffled by it.

They suspected it was a cultivation technique, yet they had never encountered a single one featuring such an aberrant posture.

Even more peculiar, as Lin Mo adopted this stance, the scorching crimson Snowflame raging around his body abruptly collapsed inward, condensing.

The ethereal blue frost that had been wildly spreading moments before instantly retracted, as if time had reversed, gathering entirely back into his body, now as tranquil as an abyss.

The immense pressure, potent enough to tear space itself, simultaneously dissipated, replaced by a strange ‘void’.

There was no violent aura, no overflowing energy.

Only in the space where he stood did the air manifest an eerie stillness.

Qiu Yue’s smile froze, followed by a flicker of dread deep within her pupils—a tremor she herself had not yet registered.

This figure before her, with an aura terrifyingly restrained, instinctively made her feel an immense threat.

This was no longer the Lin Mo from her memories, the one who could be arbitrarily manipulated, cowering only in her shadow.

This peculiar stance, for reasons unknown, instilled in her a sense of profound danger.

‘Calm and deadly!’

“Darling, playing at being mysterious won’t fool me, you know,” Qiu Yue declared.

She forcefully suppressed the tremor in her heart.

Yet, no matter how nonchalant she feigned, her body proved remarkably honest, retreating several meters.

Her grotesque blood arm flared with surging crimson light, countless scarlet threads, like enraged venomous pythons, tore through the air with piercing shrieks, coiling from all directions to ensnare the abyssal Lin Mo!

They vowed to shred him, skin and bone, along with that bizarre stance, into powder!

Lin Mo’s eyes lifted slightly, a swirling interplay of icy chill and crimson fire deep within his pupils.

To an ordinary observer, his movements remained ‘sluggish’—slow as a slo-mo shot.

His arm carved a perfectly rounded arc, the Snowflame-clad gauntlet sweeping through the air, leaving trails of frost patterns intertwined with flowing embers.

Just as the dense, scarlet threads, imbued with terrifying power capable of tearing space, were about to touch his body, Lin Mo moved.

With astonishing slowness, Lin Mo’s arms swept forward before him, and Snowflame erupted from his palms.

Yet, like flowing water, it coalesced into a colossal vortex before him, drawing in the myriad incoming scarlet threads!

Those tenacious threads, strong enough to slice through protective qi shields, utterly lost their original potency within the vortex, being guided, deflected, amassed, and slowly shredded.

Within this incredibly slow vortex, Qiu Yue’s threads lost their original power, guided, deflected, gathered, and slowly disintegrated, then annihilated.

“What?!”

Qiu Yue felt her control over the blood threads plummeting, and even more unsettlingly, she sensed herself being entangled and dragged by them.

With fluid steps, Lin Mo ghosted half a pace forward, his figure subtly rotating.

His hands, now encased in Snowflame gauntlets, suddenly parted, then pulled inward!

A massive force erupted from the vortex’s core, and Qiu Yue, who should have been controlling the blood threads, found herself manipulated by them instead, her body forcibly dragged towards the swirling maw!

A sudden surge of alarm coursed through Qiu Yue, and she immediately attempted to sever her connection with the blood threads.

However, upon closer inspection, she was horrified to discover that the blood threads, once agile as venomous pythons, had been frozen solid by profound ice at some unknown moment!

Even more bizarrely,

This solid ice had not lost its tenacity?

Unbeknownst to her, her proud blood threads were now covered in…

A pristine white layer of chilling ice!

No sooner said than done! That immense pulling force originating from the Snowflame vortex…

Almost the instant she realized it, it inexorably yanked her body violently towards Lin Mo!

“Water Moon Transformation!” Qiu Yue urgently chanted her mental incantation, attempting to etherealize her body and escape.

Alas, the biting cold had already permeated her entire being—her frost-laden body was utterly rigid, and the etherealization secret art meant for escape had been completely nullified by this bone-chilling freeze!

Pulled before Lin Mo, Qiu Yue was met by his tightly clenched fist.

Upon its surface, pure, burning crimson Snowflame explosively erupted.

This Profound Yin Qi, which should have been the coldest substance in the world, now released an unparalleled heat from Lin Mo’s hand!

He and Ji Xue were almost opposites!

It was clearly fire, yet possessed the ultimate cold.

It was clearly cold, yet held a heat capable of incinerating all things!

‘Could it be that he and Ji Xue… truly had some connection?’

‘This bizarre transformation could absolutely not be achieved through meditation or ordinary cultivation!’

‘Could it be that they truly…?’

But Lin Mo granted Qiu Yue no further time for thought.

Pfft!

His fist, like a falling star, propelled by the immense pulling force, struck Qiu Yue’s abdomen with unerring precision.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a high-frequency reverberation that pierced the ear drums!

Only the paradoxical forces of extreme cold and scorching heat explosively erupted and merged at a single point!

A cascade of ruptures, and vast swathes of scarlet threads, like an oil-soaked spiderweb set ablaze, snapped bit by bit, crumbling into ash beneath Lin Mo’s single punch!

“Ah—!” Qiu Yue let out a wretched howl, a blend of agony and disbelief, as her blood arm violently trembled and instantly disintegrated!

Lin Mo’s punch had forcibly disrupted Qiu Yue’s spiritual energy! At this moment, she couldn’t even maintain the spiritual energy required to construct her arm!

It collapsed instantly.

Lin Mo did not hesitate, his footwork technique again drawing him closer to Qiu Yue.

His arms unfurled like wings, tracing an incredibly fluid, perfectly round trajectory; his left arm slightly bent forward, his right arm slightly closed to his side.

Boom!

The terrifying Snowflame power no longer condensed to a single point but surged outward from his body like a dam breaking.

Crimson mist billowed in layers, carrying an overwhelming, yet not directly impactful, force—like a surging torrent of lava encountering a resilient riverbed, advancing in continuous waves along the most fluid, least resistant path, ceaselessly crashing towards Qiu Yue!

Qiu Yue had just recovered from the searing pain of her severed threads when her vision was engulfed by this surging glacial cloud-flame!

Enduring the intense pain, Qiu Yue forcefully stimulated her spiritual energy, and her blood arm reluctantly reformed, though its shape was far inferior to its initial state.

She swung her arms, attempting to tear open the bizarre, swirling mist that assailed her.

Qiu Yue roared, “Break—for me!”

With a terse command, her vast spiritual energy erupted without reservation, no longer subtle and deadly as before.

From behind her, an incomparably majestic water-attribute spiritual energy surged forth, instantly transforming into a phantom of a raging sea!

A deafening roar of tides echoed through the air; this was not the gentle murmur of a stream, but the bellow of a surging tsunami!

The cerulean light had long shed the gentleness of water, now instead radiating a ferocious, crushing pressure that threatened to obliterate all in its path!

“Do you wish to contend with raw power? Fine! Let us contend! Do not presume your late Foundation Establishment cultivation guarantees victory over me! I am at late Foundation Establishment because I can only reach Foundation Establishment!”

Qiu Yue thrust her palms forward with a fierce push.

The phantom of the raging sea around her boiled in response, and a colossal wave, formed from the purest water spiritual energy, abruptly took shape!

This wave, several meters high, was not clear water but a dark, deep-sea blue, its inner depths churning with a heart-stopping destructive energy.

It held no subtlety, no cleverness, only the purest, most brutal force advancing!

Rumble—!

The colossal wave surged forward with an earth-shattering momentum.

However, her power crashed into the Snowflame flowing clouds as if a heavy punch had landed in a pile of cotton.

Of her full power, ninety percent was continuously eroded, dispersed, and guided away by the enveloping mist, while the concentrated force… seemed to have been dissipated by Lin Mo?

And that wasn’t all!

The section struck by Qiu Yue’s power suddenly erupted with extreme profound cold, instantly freezing the ‘sharpness’ of her attack.

Immediately afterward, the frozen structure, under the impact of the subsequent flowing clouds, abruptly released scorching heat!

Ice and fire rotated, yin and yang giving rise to each other! Every contact, every collision, brought a violent oscillation of both ice and fire attributes, impacting her meridians and internal organs!

“Pfft!” Qiu Yue spat out another mouthful of blood, which carried both a scorching aura and a chilling mist of frost!

Her body violently shook, and she staggered backward repeatedly, each step pressing deep, charred footprints into the cracked ground.

Her steps faltered, her hair disheveled, her face devoid of its former manic triumph, leaving only terror, agony, and endless bewilderment.

‘What is happening?’

‘What in the world is happening?!’

‘How could my power be so easily diffused?! My full-strength strike… just like that, so easily…’

‘This… isn’t this my power?’

‘This… isn’t this… mine?’

Lin Mo immediately seized the moment Qiu Yue’s mind violently reeled and her aura became chaotic, darting forward in an instant to stand before her!

Icy glints exploded in his eyes!

He sank his waist and twisted his hips, his movements fluid and connected, his left leg stepping forward as if rooted to the earth, while his right arm swept up from his lower side, carving a cunning arc like a mountain goat’s horn, piercing through the lingering snowflame clouds, aiming directly for Qiu Yue’s vital center!

The tips of his five fingers held highly condensed Snowflame, no longer mist, but solidified into five ice crystal spikes, each burning with a crimson core!

Within the sharp ice cones, that flickering golden-red speck of light, dazzlingly bright, was the core of the Snowflame—a fusion of yin-yang energy and fiery wind, now aimed at the vital point within Qiu Yue’s chest, which had slightly caved in from pain and shock!

This strike fused the cunning and grappling intent of the ‘Twisted Step’ Taiji footwork! It further compressed the nascent Snowflame spiritual energy to its extreme, sharp as a cold star, embodying Lin Mo’s current killing intent and resolve!

At the brink of death, Qiu Yue unleashed her final potential, her blood marrow hastily moving to defend, yet it was futile!

She positioned her arm across her chest, all her water-attribute spiritual energy frantically compressing into it, attempting to block!

Pfft—!

The crimson ice cone pierced her blood arm!

Time seemed to halt for an instant.

The anticipated violent collision did not occur.

The concentrated, destructive power of ice and fire at the tip of the ice cone, like a searing steel needle plunging into butter, silently ‘melted’ the incredibly tough spiritual energy defense covering the blood arm’s surface!

Sizzle…

An extreme, profound cold instantly invaded the blood arm’s inner core! It froze the writhing blood threads and knotted energy nodes within, instantly rendering them rigid!

Immediately afterward, from the center of the frozen structure—

Crash—!

The front end of the blood arm, where the ice cone had struck, exploded into a bowl-sized cavity from the internally erupting, dual destructive forces of extreme heat and ice! Countless ice shards mixed with foul blood and scattered energy fragments flew in all directions!

“Ah—!!!”

Qiu Yue let out a shrill, agonizing shriek, ten, even a hundred times more painful than before!

Her blood arm, like a punctured balloon, rapidly withered and disintegrated!

Foul blood sprayed from the severed limb, and her body was violently flung away by the explosive aftermath like a torn sack, crashing heavily at the edge of an uncooled lava fissure dozens of meters away, splashing large amounts of scalding magma and shattered rock!

She lay on the cracked ground, half her body soaked in her own gushing foul blood.

Now, only a small stump remained at her shoulder, the wound a bloody mess, its edges displaying bizarre scorch marks and traces of ice crystal freezing.

She struggled to lift her head, her once alluring face now held only extreme agony, incomprehensible shock, and… a bone-deep terror.

She gazed at the figure in the distance, white hair fluttering, surrounded by a strange red and white ice flame, his posture having returned to the steady Taiji standing stance.

Only fear remained.

Yet, the Lin Mo before her, whom she had imprisoned for ten years and regarded as a mere plaything, was now utterly dominating her with an unheard-of power that defied all logic.

She should have crushed Lin Mo’s cultivation, yet—

Beneath his snow-white hair, Lin Mo slowly drew back his stance, his calm eyes sweeping over the disheveled Qiu Yue.

Now, it was time for Qiu Yue’s true final strike.

Lin Mo walked towards Qiu Yue, his steps unhurried, as if strolling leisurely, slowly arriving before her.

He crouched down, his voice steady, as if speaking to a stranger.

“Having been defeated by me, you can no longer even hold onto the last shred of what I might have found appealing.”

“I… I haven’t!” Qiu Yue tried to stand, to prove she still had strength, but her body was drained of all energy, completely unable to move.

Yet, she stubbornly insisted, “You love me… You like me, you can’t possibly dislike me!”

“Look, do I fear you?”

“!”

“Look, do I bear any anger?”

“I…”

“Look into my eyes, is there any lingering affection for you?”

“There… there is… You’re just hiding it… You… you’re just—”

“There isn’t, Qiu Yue.” He tilted his head slightly, his gaze fixed on her, even withholding disappointment or disgust.

“Look, look into my eyes, is it still there?”