A few seconds later, the storm of energy finally ebbed like a tide; I staggered back several steps, frost-needle numbness biting the hands clenched around Shattered Light, while Lixue stood like a pine in snow, untouched.

For a breath, death brushed my neck like a cold feather. Her strike had hit harder than I’d expected, and I’d already dismissed my Sword Domain—like lowering a shield mid-squall.

I gambled on Absolute Sword—Reverse Blade; as its name vows, it turns the stream and cuts against the current. Unlike the heavy, head-on arts I’d used before—hammer against ice—it favors craft over brute force.

The Reverse Blade takes the edge of an attack and twists it back to cancel it, like catching a river and folding it into a whirlpool. It sounds simple; it’s threading a needle in rain. Only by burning my Sword Intent and mind down to a single lamp in the wind did I catch a flaw in her blizzard of steel.

Next time, I doubted luck would favor me; the dawning in Lixue’s eyes looked like frost thawing at sunrise.

“You blocked me clean without your Sword Domain—like bare hands against a breaker. Not bad.”

Even so, a flicker of disappointment crossed her face like a cloud veiling the moon. She shook her head. “But that move of yours must burn stamina like oil on a fire. And if I push harder than before, that trick won’t hold.”

“...You’re right. That’s how it is.” The admission sank like a stone in a lake.

I’d seen her age and realm close to mine, and hoped—even if I couldn’t win—I’d at least draw even, or only trail by a hair. Reality? I was a skiff in a gale, pressed under every wave. Our strength was “about the same,” but that “about” hid a canyon wider than I’d guessed.

“Honestly, I’m a little disappointed,” Lixue went on, voice clear as winter water. “You’re from the Mizumi Clan, wielding Shattered Light. You shouldn’t be this weak. Even if you fought your way here to the Palace of Ice Crystal, you improved through those battles. And before facing me, you’d already recovered to peak.”

So that’s why she wasn’t striking again the way she had—her silence was disappointment, a cold hush before snow.

She wasn’t wrong. As I was now, I couldn’t match her. Even a breakthrough in swordplay wouldn’t bridge this river. Lixue isn’t someone you beat with technique alone—unless I reached the far shore, the very limit of the path: the World Sword. That peak was a star too distant. I shook my head and let that mirage fade like mist.

No helping it. If this drags on, I’ll only bleed out my last strength like sand through fingers. But I can’t lay down my blade.

Resolve tightened in my chest like a drawn bow. I looked straight at Lixue. “Don’t worry. Next, I’ll give you a fight worth your time.”

To make an opponent feel disappointed in your strength—shame burns hotter than steel. Grinding my swordplay won’t cut it here. Fine. One more full-force blaze—

Just as I readied myself to ignite, a long-absent voice rippled through my mind like dawn light over frost. Xinuo. My heart leapt.

“Looks like you’re in trouble, Servant,” Xinuo’s tone was calm as morning snow. “You once asked how to draw out Shattered Light’s power. Back then, your strength was far from the mark, so I kept silent. Now you’ve shaped Sword Intent and a Sword Domain. I can tell you. Listen well:

“At your current level, it’s impossible to awaken Shattered Light’s own power. But there is a way to spark a sliver. Condense your entire Sword Domain into a single point, then fuse that point into Shattered Light. Use the Domain’s force to tug awake a thread of Shattered Light itself.

“But this is extremely dangerous. You can’t control Shattered Light’s power, not even a drop. Once it stirs, you must pour all your Sword Intent into suppressing it. Even then, it’s thin ice. At most, you’ll hold it down for five minutes. Past that, death can come at any time.

“That’s all. Choose wisely, Servant.”

“Xiao Nuo, thank you!” Her familiar voice warmed me like tea in winter. “It’s been a while. Are you doing alright?”

“I manage,” she said, a hint of pout like a petal on snow. “Without your care, life’s a bit inconvenient. So hurry and get the Ice Dream Lotus, and come serve me.”

“Got it. Understood.”

The link faded. I stilled the surge in my chest like settling dust, and my confidence rose like a sun over ice.

“Good eyes,” Lixue said, interest glittering like hoarfrost. “I’m looking forward to it.”

She still didn’t move to strike. She was giving me time—kindness wrapped in steel. I couldn’t waste it.

I drew a deep breath, a cold wind filling my lungs, and tossed Shattered Light into the air. My Sword Domain bloomed around me like a ring of winter light.

“Sword Domain—Condense!”

I’d compressed the Domain once before, so this went smoother, but forging it into a single point was still like pressing a mountain into a seed. One error, and I’d shatter like glass.

Seconds later, I was drenched in sweat, chest heaving, but the wide Domain had collapsed to a dot, a star on my palm. I guided it with Sword Intent, inch by inch, and fed it into Shattered Light.

Boom!

The instant the point sank into the blade, a power beyond imagining roared from Shattered Light, like a sun flaring under ice. Fierce, beautiful gold flooded the Palace of Ice Crystal in a heartbeat, washing blue into radiant dawn.

Under that gold, the ice-blue hall looked even more breathtaking, like glaciers lit from within.

“Huff, huff...” The power bucked in my hands like a wild dragon. Without Sword Intent pressing down, I’d have burst like an overripe fruit. Even so, I wouldn’t last long. As Xinuo said, I had maybe four or five minutes. After that, even if I survived, my body would pay—this weight grinds bone and marrow, Sword Intent or not.

“Then, let’s begin again.”

Seeing Shattered Light awaken, Lixue’s eyes shone, excitement crackling like frost underfoot.

“Mm.” I forced out a sound, and slashed. A blade of Sword Aura screamed toward her like a crescent wind.

“Extreme Snow Flash!”

Lixue didn’t dodge the way she could have, easy as sidestepping rain. Instead, she flashed straight at the incoming Sword Aura, and a long, narrow sword-light split the air, a single-stroke line like the character for “one.”

Boom!!

Before that light could fully form, it collided with the Sword Aura midair, and the blast shook heaven and earth, a thunderclap rolling through the Palace of Ice Crystal; the damage spiderwebbed across the hall, slow to knit back together.

Lixue skidded back more than ten meters, hair and robe in disarray like snow scattered by wind. Thin lines of blood marked her skin—first red on white.

“So strong.” Battle hunger burned brighter in her gaze, her aura climbing like a rising storm. “That Sword Aura you just unleashed was stronger than all your earlier attacks combined.”