Void Cultivation-Chapter 188- The Foundation Establishment Realm (16)

Grey’s expression darkened the moment the young woman activated her Special Brilliance form. Two radiant balls of spirit fire spun slowly around her figure, bathing her body in an ethereal glow that made her look like some sacred guardian descended from the heavens. But her face... her face told a completely different story. The holiness around her was an illusion; the viciousness twisting her expression was the only true thing present.

Grey didn’t hesitate. The instant those flames ignited, he tapped into his own speed and vanished from his previous location, reappearing dozens of meters away. His face remained grim, but the light swirling inside his eyes was pure, unshakable resolve. He had no plans of backing down now.

Seeing this, the young woman’s expression twisted with fury. "You’re courting death!" she screamed, her voice echoing with killing intent. Both of her hands shot into motion, her fingers blurring as she formed seal after seal with frightening dexterity.

The seals didn’t simply disappear, each one manifested into a thin strand of shimmering light. Those strands wove themselves together at an impossible speed, forming a complicated diagram that seemed to defy logic. Anyone else watching might’ve thought she had spent half a day drawing it. But in truth, from the moment Grey rushed forward to the moment she completed the final seal, only a single second had passed.

Once the last thread locked into place, the woman thrust her hand forward and roared, "Lake of Nine Colors! Seventh Transfiguration!"

The diagram trembled, then expanded outward like a blooming flower. In the blink of an eye it grew to several meters in height before contracting again, condensing into a dense sphere of multicolored light. The instant it finished compressing, the woman clenched her right hand and struck forward with her left.

The diagram exploded.

What replaced it was an illusion of a lake, calm, deep, impossibly vast, its surface rippling with seven dazzling colors. Yet among those colors, the blue was dominant. It glowed brighter than the others, as though it held all the weight and essence of the technique.

"Lake of Nine Colors! Third Transformation, Ice Fall!"

Her shout shook the air. The illusion of the lake shattered silently, collapsing into a single, delicate snowflake. It drifted downward with deceptive gentleness, carrying no aura, no pressure, no visible threat. And yet Grey’s heart tightened painfully. His instincts screamed: If that touches me... I die.

Then, the snowflake pulsed.

It expanded, first to the size of a fist, then a shield, then a house, before suddenly bursting apart. The explosion didn’t create sound but birthed countless smaller snowflakes, each one drifting like the herald of a coming apocalypse.

Winter fell instantly.

The temperature around him plummeted. Frost spread across the air itself. Even Grey’s breath froze the moment it left his mouth. But what made his blood run cold wasn’t the temperature.

It was the sense of absolute death pressing down on his soul.

He looked into that blizzard of silent snowflakes and felt the threat of annihilation descend upon him, sharp, suffocating, and inescapable.

Without a hint of hesitation on his face, Grey brought out a soul weapon he had looted from the fat Soulsmith. It was a black umbrella. But the moment Grey revealed the umbrella, a gloomy aura surrounded his body and made the air turn heavier. The gently falling snowflakes suddenly tumbled from the air and fell unnaturally through the clouds as if disturbed by an unseen force.

Although the black umbrella did not radiate any energy fluctuations of any kind, the young woman couldn’t help but feel a trace of wariness toward it. As Grey slowly opened the umbrella, several blurred shapes appeared and disappeared across its surface. If one looked closely enough, they would realize that the shapes were actually the distorted faces of numerous individuals, each twisted in expressions of pain.

These faces belonged to both male and female, young and old. And although the scene was eerie and malicious enough to chill the bones of any ordinary cultivator, those countless faces did not seem to harbor any ill intent toward Grey. They simply let out silent moans, as though their voices could no longer reach the realm of the living.

As the snowflakes touched the black umbrella, they bounced off like droplets hitting a solid barrier. At this moment, Grey was holding the umbrella with his left hand while forming hand seals with his right hand.

Soon, after he completed the numerous, complicated hand seals, Grey thrust his palm forward rapidly. The air quaked violently as a powerful gust of wind erupted, pushing the falling snowflakes backward. At the same moment the wind blew out, Grey lunged forward while carrying the black umbrella over his head.

His long hair fluttered lightly behind him as he activated his full speed, rushing straight toward the young woman. Anytime a snowflake was about to touch him, he would punch out with his palm, causing another gust of wind to erupt and push the snowflakes away. Despite all this, the cold and sharp glint in his eyes never faded.

In only a matter of seconds, Grey reached the young woman once again. But this time, the young woman was not caught off guard. She was fully aware of Grey’s sudden increase in speed and understood that he could easily change the flow of the battle with speed alone. In fact, she knew very well that if Grey possessed any divine abilities usable in the Foundation Establishment Realm, she might not necessarily be his match. But with him relying only on basic techniques he created himself, she still held the advantage.

When he got within seven feet of her, her shocked expression slowly turned into mockery. She curled her lips into a sly smile and burst into laughter. "Haha, fool!"

Immediately afterward, the woman’s skin began to freeze over with a layer of blue ice, and in the blink of an eye, she transformed into a living ice statue. Even so, she remained able to move and speak freely.

Her voice now sounded extremely cold, almost emotionless. "Fool! I will not fall for your sudden speed again! If you had better abilities, I might not necessarily be able to match you. But as you are now, you are no match for me!"

Right after she finished speaking, she exhaled a large gust of icy breath. The breath condensed into a massive, transparent snowflake that huge, perfectly formed, and eerily clear like sculpted crystal.

In the time it takes for a human eye to blink, the enormous snowflake erupted forward and shot straight toward Grey.

Grey, who was still approaching her, narrowed his pupils sharply as he tried to retreat. But to his surprise, the advancing snowflake was even faster than him.

In no time, it crashed into Grey and sent him staggering backward. As it collided with him, he coughed out a mouthful of blood, though not a large amount.

The umbrella in Grey’s hand trembled violently as the force of the impact blasted the surrounding snowflakes away in every direction. However, while he was staggering back, a few snowflakes still landed on him.

Those few snowflakes quickly dissolved the moment they touched him and seeped into his body. The rebound from the giant snowflake had left him disoriented as well. When clarity finally returned to his eyes, he realized that his body had already turned freezing cold. Frost began forming rapidly across his skin, showing clear signs of turning him into an ice statue similar to the young woman. But unlike her, once he froze, he wouldn’t be able to move or speak at all... forever.

As Grey continued to retreat, a bright glint flashed in his eyes when he glanced at the black umbrella. ’This umbrella was able to shield me from that giant snowflake... It’s just that the rebound force was too strong, and it left me disoriented, causing me to miss the smaller snowflakes.’ Grey thought inwardly as more ice spread across his body.

Eventually, a faint look of understanding appeared in his eyes.