My Auto Cloning System-Chapter 95: The Frosty Waltz

Chapter 95: The Frosty Waltz

Lin Xue stepped back with a delicate poise, her boots clicking lightly on the frozen patches of sand. (Click!) "My Whispering Snow slows down everything around me. You can’t hit what you can’t reach, and you certainly can’t reach me if your muscles are too frozen and stiff to move." She flicked her slender wrist, and three sharp, and jagged icicles grew out of the thin air, shooting toward Yin Zhe’s chest like bolts from a crossbow. (ZING! ZING! ZING!)

Yin Zhe gritted his teeth, the cold air burning in his lungs. He couldn’t dodge all three of them at this range. he was already committed to his forward momentum. His [Jade Skin], turning his skin into a translucent, tough green hue that looked like polished stone. The icicles hit him square in the ribs. (CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!) They shattered into a million sparkling pieces against his chest, but the cold still seeped into his marrow, making his breath hitch in his throat. (Gasp!)

"Damn, that’s cold! It felt like being poked by frozen needles!" Yin Zhe said in his head, while feeling the Black Fire Seed in his gut flare up in a painful, and boiling response to the frost. "It’s a weird feeling. my stomach is on fire and my skin is freezing. If I let her keep me at a distance, she’ll just turn me into a human popsicle without even breaking a sweat. I need to get inside her guard and make this dirty."

He quickly lowered his head and charged again, but this time he was zig-zagging. He used his [Divine Perception] to map out the arena in a way no one else could see. In his mind’s eye, the colorful world turned into a misty, black-and-white landscape of pure energy. He could see the "heat" of Lin Xue’s essence flowing through her sword and the dangerous cold "dead zones" that she was creating on the floor. He dodged a horizontal slash that would have taken his ear off, the blade whistling past his head with a sound like a screaming winter wind. (SHOOOOOO!)

"Stop running around like a headless chicken, you little coward!" Lin Xue shouted, her calm, icy facade starting to show its first cracks of frustration. She was losing her temper. She was a Qi Realm expert, an elite by all rights, yet this Stage 6 Root Awakening "trash" was dodging her family’s elite sword style with embarrassing ease. She grew tired of the chase and stabbed the ground with her blade. (CRACK!) "Frost Path: Glacial Floor!"

Suddenly, the sand beneath Yin Zhe’s feet didn’t just freeze. it gradually turned into glass-smooth, friction-less ice. (Sliiiiide!) Yin Zhe’s feet flew out from under him as if he had stepped on a banana peel.

"Whoa-oh-no! Not the face!" Yin Zhe flailed his arms like a panicked windmill, while trying to find balance in the air. (Thud!) He hit the ice hard on his back, the air being knocked out of him in a single puff.

Lin Xue didn’t waste a single second of the opening. She lunged forward, with her sword being held low, the tip glowing with a deadly, and piercing blue light. "End of the road for the spirit place jester!"

Meanwhile In Arena 01, the fight had ended. Ren Tie had just finished his opponent, Geng Hu, with a massive, and earth-shaking overhead smash. (BOOM!) He stood over the defeated man, while panting slightly as his brown aura faded. He immediately turned his head toward Arena 02, his eyes narrowing. He saw Yin Zhe flat on his back and the cold beauty lunging forward for a killing blow.

"Yin Zhe! Get your head in the game! Get up!" Ren Tie yelled from across the plaza, with his noble face showing a rare flash of genuine worry. "If he dies here, who’s going to annoy me and keep life interesting for the next ten years?"

Bao Zi, standing at the very edge of the contestant area, was biting his fingernails so hard they were bleeding into his palms. "Move, Yin Zhe! Roll! Do a backflip! Do a shameful crawl! Just do something!" (Whimper!)

Inside the array, Yin Zhe saw the blue tip of the sword coming straight for his heart. His [Primordial Life-force] was working overtime, and forcing his heart to pump hot blood through his veins even as the freezing air tried to stop it. He didn’t panic. Neither did he close his eyes. Instead, he grinned a wide, toothy, and terrifyingly shameless grin. "She thinks she’s finally got the kill. Perfect. Time for her to learn about hardness.

He didn’t even try to dodge the blade. Instead, he raised his left arm, letting the [Jade Skin] glow at its maximum intensity, 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

(SHICK!)

The Whispering Snow Sword almost pierced right through the flesh of Yin Zhe’s forearm. The sound of metal entering meat was sickeningly clear in the quiet arena. But the blade didn’t go through the bone. Yin Zhe had angled his arm just right. The sword was now stuck, and wedged tight between the bones of his forearm.

"Gotcha," Yin Zhe hissed, his voice dropping an octave.

Lin Xue’s eyes widened until they were dinner plates. "Are you insane?! You... you let me stab you just to stop the blade?!"

"A little pain is a small price for a hug from a pretty girl, don’t you think?" Yin Zhe joked, even though his face was turning dangerously pale from the shock. His [Iron Might] body, then his other hand and swung a brutal, and short-range elbow strike toward Lin Xue’s temple with all the weight of his body. (CRACK!)

Lin Xue barely managed to raise her shoulder to take the hit, but the force was so immense that it sent her skidding ten feet across the ice floor. (Screeeech!) She had to yank her sword out of Yin Zhe’s arm as she went, and causing a spray of bright red blood to hit the white frost, steam rising from the liquid. (Drip... splatter...)

Enforcer Wu Tiao was standing on the very edge of the circle, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open. "This kid... he’s playing with his life like it’s a game of dice just to get a single hit in. He’s not a coward at all. He’s a complete and total lunatic. He now gripped his mallet tightly, while wondering if he would have to jump in to save a life before the minute was up.