Chapter 78
Suddenly Ye Bai stopped. The air trembled. The nearby birds took flight and scattered into the sky. A roar escaped his throat. It was so loud that even the leaves upon distant trees shook. "ENDLESS DREAMS OF THE FROST WINTER!" Instantly frost erupted around him. The earth froze. Ice spread across the ground like a living sea. Behind him a gigantic dragon formed from frozen mist and crystalized frost. Its body coiled around Ye Bai protectively. Blue cracks ran across its scales like rivers of light. The dragon lowered its head and opened glowing eyes while endless streams of cold qi spiraled around Ye Bai. The entire scene looked as though an ancient frozen god had descended into the mortal world. Frost storms spun around him and the dragon roared toward the heavens. Ye Bai pointed the machete at Wuming and shouted, "I WILL KILL YOU AND FEAST UPON YOUR BLOOD!"
Wuming smiled.
"You never had a chance. Neither before nor now. Delusion... it seems delusion governs your bloodline rather well."
The moment he finished speaking Ye Bai vanished. The ground beneath him exploded and in the next instant he appeared above Wuming. His body descended like a falling mountain. Exactly like a meteor crashing from the heavens. The gigantic frost dragon followed his movement and the pressure crushed the earth beneath them. Yet Wuming merely stepped aside. Ye Bai crashed into the ground. BOOM. The earth shattered. Rocks exploded outward. A crater instantly formed beneath him.
Wuming finally sighed and raised his hand. A sword appeared.
Not his black sword.
A different sword.
A beautiful sword.
Elegant.
Ancient.
Silver.
The sword bestowed upon him by the Crown Prince.
Dragon qi flowed along the blade. The moment it appeared a faint dragon roar echoed through the surroundings. Wuming glanced at it. "Time to use this." He swung the sword toward Ye Bai's arm. Immediately layers of frost appeared and formed a defensive shield. The sword struck the frost and sparks erupted.
Wuming's eyes narrowed.
"The Heaven Will Stage. The second level of Endless Dream. It still works the best."
His gaze remained fixed on the frost.
Though you cultivated the best element.
Ice.
Endless Dream can be cultivated through every element.
Yet ice remains the strongest.
His fingers gently brushed the blade.
"Firm and Astute."
The sword vibrated.
As if answering him.
As if it understood.
It possessed a spirit.
A sense of its own.
A rare sword.
Ye Bai laughed loudly.
"You won't be able to kill me with that puny sword!"
Wuming smiled.
"Oh? Who told you I am going to kill you?"
The dragon qi around the blade intensified.
"I am only playing with my friend."
The next moment Ye Bai vanished again. He appeared behind Wuming and swung the machete toward his head. Wuming stepped forward. His body rotated upon a single foot. He spun gracefully and raised Firm and Astute. CLANG. The weapons collided. Frost exploded everywhere. Dragon qi surged outward. The sword was beautiful beyond words. Entire streams of ancient dragon essence flowed through it. Wuming could feel the sleeping fire dragon inside awakening. He swung the sword once and settled into a stance.
Then it happened.
An ice shard suddenly pierced through his neck.
Blood splashed into the air.
Ye Bai grinned.
But the shard immediately began melting.
The dragon essence flowing through Firm and Astute was connected directly to Wuming's body. The ancient dragon's fire rejected every trace of frost. The ice dissolved into mist before it could do any real damage. Meanwhile the frost dragon continued forming beside Ye Bai, becoming larger and larger.
His long silver-white hair flows weightlessly around him, as if he's suspended in some invisible current - or falling through it. He's turned away from ye bai, his slender back exposed, his spine curved in that particular way that tells you his body has simply... given in.
He's not fighting anymore.
His head tilts back slowly, lips barely parted, a thin trace of red at the corner of his mouth. The single eye you can glimpse is half-open - that deep, bleeding golden iris catching no light, focused on nothing. Seeing something else entirely. Something far away, or perhaps nothing at all.
Around him, something moves.
Red. Violent, slashing red - ribbons of energy or something darker - they tear through the air around his body in long curving arcs. They don't seem to hurt him. Or maybe they already have.
His hand reaches toward ye bai - or perhaps just downward - fingers loosely spread, not grasping. Not asking. Just... open.
Wuming slowly closed his eyes while remaining in the exact same stance.
Silence.
Then he opened them.
Excusatio. The three inevtas.
The world changed.
Everything became clearer.
The frost dragon.
Ye Bai.
The frost.
The qi.
Every weakness.
Every flaw.
Everything was visible.
Then Wuming disappeared.
The next moments became nothing but destruction.
Ye Bai's machete tore through mountains of frost while Wuming moved through the attacks like a ghost. Lightning-like currents erupted from shattered earth. Frost storms swallowed entire sections of the battlefield. Dragon qi exploded from Firm and Astute. Craters formed one after another. Ye Bai descended from the sky swinging the machete downward like divine punishment while Wuming rose upward to meet him. The collision shattered the clouds above them. The frost dragon roared and lunged. Wuming answered with a slash carrying the essence of an ancient dragon. Ice and dragon fire collided repeatedly. The ground below cracked apart. Shockwaves spread for hundreds of meters. Trees collapsed. Rocks shattered. Frost covered everything while dragon qi tore through it again and again.
And through all of it Wuming continued smiling.
Not because he was winning.
Not because he was stronger.
But because for the first time in a very long time-
something was finally entertaining.
The battle continued long after either of them should have stopped. Frost and fire covered the battlefield until the land itself no longer resembled a forest. Trees stood frozen like crystal sculptures. Grass had become white glass beneath their feet. Every slash from Ye Bai left behind walls of ice while every movement from Wuming scattered dragon-like flames and waves of heat that cracked the frozen ground apart.
Wuming moved through the destruction with almost insulting ease.
His small frame twisted and turned between attacks as though he was dancing rather than fighting. The red eyes remained calm while the black three-shaped pattern within them rotated slowly. Every time his gaze shifted, a thin crimson line seemed to trail behind it through the air. His body was perfectly suited for this fight. Ye Bai's attacks were powerful, wide, destructive. Wuming's movements were precise, efficient and minimal.
I can't let him run loose.
The thought appeared calmly inside his mind.
He's somehow even dumber than Weiyang.
His battle instincts are excellent. That's why he never learned strategy.
A fool who wins too often never learns to think.
And this fool relies entirely on Endless Dream.
An inheritance he hasn't even explored properly.
Wuming ducked beneath another slash.
The machete swept overhead and split apart an entire row of frozen trees.
The sound echoed through the forest.
He keeps repeating the same movements.
The same patterns.
The same combinations.
As though he memorized them over years.
Doesn't he understand?
A battle changes every second.
The tide never remains the same.
A technique that worked once will fail eventually.
Ye Bai's face twisted with anger.
"Why did you make a fool out of me?!"
The surrounding frost suddenly exploded.
Thousands.
No.
Tens of thousands.
Ice shards appeared throughout the sky.
The entire frozen forest seemed to respond to his rage.
The shards floated around him like a kingdom of blades waiting for a king's command.
His arm slowly rose.
The air trembled.
The shards followed.
Every single one pointed toward Wuming.
Wuming stood in front of him without moving.
Without fear.
Without concern.
Without even lifting his sword.
A smile appeared on his face.
A small one.
Barely noticeable.
"Let's meet again."
Ye Bai's hand dropped.
The sky screamed.
The countless shards shot forward.
For a moment it looked like a storm of stars descending from heaven itself.
They collided together as they traveled.
Thousands became hundreds.
Hundreds became dozens.
Dozens became one.
A gigantic spear of ice formed from the converging shards.
Its point pierced directly through Wuming's chest.
Straight through the heart.
The frozen spear continued forward.
Wuming's body froze instantly.
Ice spread across his skin.
Across his clothes.
Across his face.
Within seconds he became a perfect statue.
Then cracks appeared.
The statue shattered.
It turned into ash.
Ash made of ice.
And scattered into the wind.
Ye Bai froze.
His eyes widened.
"What?"
Silence answered him.
No corpse.
No blood.
Nothing.
The battlefield remained frozen.
Ice trees.
Ice grass.
Ice earth.
Everything looked as though it had been created from frost itself.
Not covered in ice.
Made from ice.
Ye Bai slowly walked forward.
His boots crushed the frozen ground.
Then he stopped.
No blood.
Not a single drop.
His expression darkened.
He crouched and picked up a handful of the drifting ice ash.
The fragments melted slowly between his fingers.
Understanding struck him.
His jaw clenched.
The veins across his forehead bulged violently.
"XUAN YIN WUMING!"
The roar shook the forest.
Birds fled from distant trees.
Mountains echoed with his voice.
"You bastard!"
His hand crushed the remaining ash.
"It was a clone."
His breathing became heavier.
"I was fighting a clone this entire time."
The realization hurt more than any wound.
The entire battle.
The inheritance.
The power.
The anger.
The humiliation.
All of it.
Against a clone.
A single clone.
His face twisted.
"Damned monster..."
Rustling sounds emerged from deeper within the forest.
Several figures appeared.
They wore the insignia of the Ye Clan.
The commander immediately knelt.
"Youth Master. We finally found you."
His eyes widened as he saw the frozen battlefield.
"Youth Master, you're not permitted to use that power outside the estate-"
Ye Bai looked at him.
Only looked.
The commander froze.
A single ice shard formed beside Ye Bai's shoulder.
Then shot forward.
The shard pierced through the man's chest.
Blood exploded outward.
Then froze.
The commander collapsed.
Dead before he touched the ground.
The surrounding guards immediately lowered their heads.
None dared speak.
None dared move.
Ye Bai's eyes remained cold.
His anger had not decreased.
Not even slightly.
"Take me back to the estate."
Nobody argued.
Nobody questioned him.
The guards immediately obeyed.
As they departed the frozen battlefield, Ye Bai looked once more toward the direction where Wuming had disappeared.
The shattered ice crunched beneath his boots.
His fists tightened.
His voice emerged as a low growl.
"I'll see you again, Wuming."
And for the first time in years, Ye Bai wanted something more than victory.
He wanted revenge.
Inside the palace, all six children were still searching for Wuming. The feast was still ongoing, servants moved everywhere carrying trays, nobles laughed loudly, music echoed through the halls, and yet none of them cared about any of it. They had already searched most of the palace. Zheng was beginning to suspect Wuming had somehow disappeared into another world entirely.
Then suddenly Wuming appeared.
Not alone.
Yin Fu was walking beside him with a smile on her face while Wuming himself looked exactly as he always did. Calm. Expressionless. Unbothered.
The moment Meimei saw him, her eyes lit up.
She immediately ran forward with her tiny legs and crashed into him before wrapping her arms around his leg.
"No! Tell us where you went!"
Wuming lowered his gaze toward her. For a moment he simply stared.
Meimei immediately noticed it.
The cold eyes.
The expressionless face.
The same look he wore whenever he didn't wish to speak about something.
She instantly changed her words.
"Where were you, Brother?"
Wuming bent down and lifted her into his arms.
"I went to Mother."
His voice remained calm.
"To pay my respects and my gratitude for the sword and this hanfu."
Yin Fu smiled beside him.
The other children silently exchanged looks.
No wonder Meimei had somehow wormed her way into Wuming's hands.
The boy barely tolerated anyone.
Yet here he was carrying her without complaint.
Ning stretched lazily before laughing.
"Well he's right. We really should've enjoyed the feast instead of searching for him."
Kai nodded.
"So let's enjoy what's left before everything ends."
End of 78