My Auto Cloning System-Chapter 98: Burden of Wisdom

Chapter 98: Burden of Wisdom

The sound of the massive collision was like a mountain of glass falling onto a floor of solid iron. (KABOOM!) The sheer force of the impact sent a physical shockwave through the hilt of Roaring Tiger, vibrating through Yin Zhe’s arms and making his vision blur into a chaotic mess of blue and black. Lin Xue’s Whispering Snow Sword was pressed hard against his black blade, the two pieces of metal screaming as they ground together. Her face was only inches from his, her skin pale and freezing to the touch, and her eyes were glowing with a terrifying, and supernatural icy light.

"I have you now, you arrogant peasant!" she hissed, with her breath coming out as a thick cloud of frost. The wind around them roared with newfound fury, while also throwing jagged ice shards against Yin Zhe’s back with the force of thrown daggers. (Thud! Thud! Thud!)

Yin Zhe was losing, and he knew it. His legs were shaking like leaves in a storm, and his [Jade Skin] was starting to turn a dull, and brittle grey from the extreme, marrow-deep cold. "I can’t keep this up. She’s a Qi Realm monster with elemental backing, and I’m just a guy with a sword and a very loud mouth," he thought, his mind racing through every survival scenario he had. "If I don’t change the fundamental rules of this fight right now, I’m going to end up as a very handsome, and very dead ice sculpture for the crows to peck at."

With his free hand, he mentally swiped at the invisible air, calling forth his internal system screen. It flickered to life in the darkness of his mind, while glowing with a soft, and neon blue light that only he could see through the haze of the blizzard.

[Current Reactive Points: 69,312] [Skill: All Swords Master - Root Awakening Lv 5] [Upgrade all the way to Lv 8? Cost: 30,000 Reactive Points]

"Do it! I don’t care about the cost! Give me skill tickets!" Yin Zhe screamed internally, his mental voice echoing against the system’s walls.

[Confirmed. Deducting 30,000 Reactive Points for skill tickets...] [Upgrading All Swords Master to Root Awakening Lv 8...]

Suddenly, Yin Zhe’s world exploded into a million fragments of light. (CRACK-BOOM!) It wasn’t a physical explosion that the crowd could see, but it was a mental cataclysm. Thousands of images, movements, and ancient sword techniques, all flooded into his brain all at once. He saw masters from forgotten eras swinging blades of light; he felt the weight and balance of a thousand different hilts in his palms; he suddenly understood the exact mathematical angle needed to deflect a snowflake or parry a thunderbolt with a single flick. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The information was overwhelming. It felt like someone was pouring boiling lead directly into his skull. The pain was so intense that his physical body momentarily forgot to breathe. "AAARGH!" Yin Zhe screamed out loud, his eyes rolling back into his head, and his grip on his sword loosening for a fraction of a second.

Lin Xue saw his sudden distraction and his glazed eyes. She didn’t hesitate. She smiled cruelly and delivered a powerful, essence-infused kick right to his chest. (THUD!) Yin Zhe flew backward like a ragdoll caught in a gale, while sliding across the slick, glass-like ice floor. He hit the stone arena wall with a heavy, and sickening crunch that echoed through the array. (WHAM!)

"Yin Zhe!" Bao Zi thought from the sidelines, his voice cracking with pure terror. "Get up! You have to get up!"

Ren Tie gripped the wooden railing so hard that the thick timber began to splinter and groan under his palms. "He’s in mental shock. His spirit essence is fluctuating too wildly to sustain his defense. If she strikes now, it’s not just a loss. it’s also an execution."

Yin Zhe lay in the melting snow, with his head throbbing as if a drum were being beaten inside his brain. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of unnecessary sword knowledge. But then, as Lin Xue began to walk toward him with the slow, and deliberate pace of a predator, her sword raised for the final killing strike, something inside him finally clicked. The chaotic "noise" in his head settled into a perfect, and quiet melody. He looked at her sword. Like really looked at it. He saw the way she held her wrist, and the way the frost was swirling in specific patterns around the blade, and the way her weight moved.

He didn’t see a "Secret Art" anymore. He saw a flawed, and amateurish technique. He could see the gaps in her blizzard where the wind was weak. He had a sudden, and profound epiphany: her frost wasn’t an unstoppable wall of nature; it was a series of connected points of energy, and if he hit the right point at the right micro-second, the whole structure would shatter like cheap glass.

[Confused Reactive points +1] (Lin Xue seeing him stand up)

[Watched Reactive points +1] (Enforcer Wu observing his change in aura)

Yin Zhe stood up slowly. His movements were no longer clumsy or desperate. They were now smooth, precise, and hauntingly economical, like a veteran general who had fought a hundred wars and won them all. He didn’t look like a shameless prisoner or a joker anymore. He looked like a master of the blade. He raised Roaring Tiger, but he didn’t hold it with the white-knuckled brute force he had used before. He held it lightly, almost delicately, his fingers dancing across the hilt as if it were a musical instrument.

"Your Weeping Blizzard is very pretty to look at, Lin Xue," Yin Zhe said, with his voice calm, low, and steady despite the dark blood trickling from his left ear. "But it’s too heavy on the left side. You’re overcompensating for the wind because you don’t trust your own footing."

"Shut your mouth!" Lin Xue screamed, her face twisting in rage. She lunged forward, her arm moving in a blur as she unleashed a flurry of a dozen stabs. (Swish! Swish! Swish!)

Yin Zhe didn’t move much at all. He just tilted his head an inch to the left, letting a blade graze his hair. He moved the tip of his sword two inches to the right. (Ting! Ting! Ting!) Every single one of her "unavoidable" strikes was parried with a tiny, and effortless flick of his wrist. He wasn’t just blocking; he was countering her essence with her own momentum.