Chapter 962: Such Terror!!!

She paused after speaking, and the novel scenes she had skimmed by the roadside began to spill out of her mind automatically.

Titles like "Nine Heavens Sword Sovereign," "Grand Void Immortal Path," "One Sword Pierces the Azure Sky"—all those stock phrases used in novels to describe peerless geniuses flashed through her mind in succession, and she picked the one she thought fit best.

"To clash with the Sword Leader's might while only at the Half‑Step realm; such combat power, across the entire Luofu younger generation, is already top‑tier."

Star read it out in a storyteller's cadence, pausing between each word, and after finishing nodded to herself, "If this child does not meet an early death, they will surely become a great talent in the future."

She paused again, and another even more outlandish line surfaced in her mind.

"Bearing a great destiny!"

"That golden flower must be some ancient inheritance; once fully awakened, even the Imperial Bow Director of Destiny would have to take notice."

Star was momentarily stunned after speaking, feeling the line was a bit over‑the‑top, yet also thinking that in a situation like this, saying something exaggerated was fitting for the earth‑shaking battle before them.

"——Terrifying as this!!!"

She deepened her tone and repeated it, this time raising her fist and swinging it toward the sky, as if delivering a concluding statement to some invisible panel of judges.

"If these two were to wage a life‑or‑death battle here, I fear the entire Luofu would be dragged into this calamity. Then, all living beings would be scorched, heaven would split, earth would crack, the void would shatter, and even the demonic forces beyond the realm would be roused. I—"

Star paused, looked down at herself, then continued resolutely, "Even if I stake this very life, I must—"

Her words were cut off as a shard of ice sprayed from the battlefield, grazing the top of her head, piercing the door of the herb shop behind her, and blasting a fist‑sized hole through it.

Star shrank her neck and squeezed further into the corner.

"I will first bide my time," she revised her plan.

At that moment, a dazzling burst of golden light erupted in the sky, pulling her attention back to the battlefield.

Qingque's fish's Tail was struck by a sword from Jing Liu!

The broad, azure‑colored caudal fin was slashed diagonally from the base by the Ice Sword, and the cut surface spewed Bubbles rapidly, gurgling out milky bubbles.

The severed fin shattered in the air into a dozen or so small Bubbles; after being blown apart, they froze into icy beads before touching the ground, pop—pop— striking the ice below.

Deprived of its Tail's propulsion, the fish's front half shook violently; Qingque clung to the fish's back with all ten fingers, and the fish began to plunge downward.

After cutting off the fish's Tail, Jing Liu's point of leverage was exactly exhausted.

Her body began to fall, but during the descent she swung another sword.

This sword was aimed straight down at herself, its tip tracing a tiny circle in the air.

The circle instantly solidified into an ice mirror about two meters in diameter, hovering in midair, its surface smooth as glass, reflecting the moonlight.

Jing Liu placed the tip of her foot on the exact center of the ice mirror; the mirror shattered instantly, but she gained fresh thrust, propelling herself like a white arrow slanting toward the falling Qingque.

Qingque twisted her body mid‑descent, facing the oncoming Jing Liu, and thrust her right hand forward.

This time she did not release a Bubbles wall, knowing a Bubbles wall couldn't stop Jing Liu in this state.

Qingque gathered all the Bubbles she could summon back into her palm, then clenched it tightly.

The Bubbles in her palm were compressed to the extreme, shifting from milky white to azure, then to almost transparent, shrinking from basketball size to merely ping‑pong ball size.

The highly compressed bubble sphere spun rapidly in Qingque's palm, agitating the surrounding air ever more violently.

She then opened her palm, aiming it toward Jing Liu's direction.

When the compressed Bubbles burst, they spread in the air as one translucent milky ripple after another; each ripple reaching Jing Liu would slow her down a bit.

Jing Liu felt as if she had crashed into a strange zone, the surrounding air thick as if in water—no, as if in glue; every inch of movement required several times the effort needed in normal air.

Jing Liu's sword stance was forced to tilt at an angle.

Her Ice Sword swept past Qingque's ear by only a few centimeters, cleanly cutting off several gray‑white strands behind Qingque's ear.

The few severed strands drifted slowly in the glue‑like air, frozen by the cold into silvery needles that ding—ding— struck Qingque's shoulder.

Qingque seized the brief gap created by Jing Liu's sword deviation, flicking a string of Bubbles from her left hand into the air.

This time the Bubbles did not become weapons; instead they immediately enveloped her own feet and waist, pulling her sideways out of the free‑fall trajectory.

She narrowly slipped away from the front of Jing Liu's sword tip; after sliding out, the Bubbles carried her down further until her right hand pressed again against the nearby ice wall.

The ice wall began to transform the instant her palm touched it.

A whole ice wall as tall as several stories and dozens of meters wide was, in less than a single breath, transformed into a massive Bubbles cloud large enough to blanket half a street.

The Bubbles, after detaching from the wall, rose slowly, crowding together in the air, semi‑transparent in the moonlight, resembling a white cloud rising from the ground.

Qingque lay at the very center of the Bubbles cloud, her gray‑white hair spread over her body, her chest heaving violently, each breath exhaling a puff of white mist.

"What a relief!"

The half‑opened gray‑purple bud on the floral branch of her body opened a bit more, letting out more golden specks through the fissures; against the backdrop of white Bubbles it looked as if someone had stuffed shredded gold into the bud.

The tear in the long‑tube sock on her left leg widened further, stretching from just below the knee to near the ankle; the mist‑gray fabric curled into a narrow slit, revealing cold white skin, speckled with a few droplets of Bubbles residue frozen into icy beads, glittering faintly in the moonlight.

"The fish is gone!"

Her azure swimming fish, after losing its Tail, turned into a cluster of Bubbles and dissipated; it has probably drifted to the other side of the quarantine zone by now.

The Bubbles cloud carried her gently downward, descending from mid‑air to roof height, then to the second‑floor level, finally hovering about three meters above the ground.

Small Bubbles continuously peeled away from the cloud's surface, drifting into the air where residual cold froze them into icy beads that fell to the ground.

Qingque struggled to prop up her upper body, her elbows sinking into the soft foam of the Bubbles cloud.

She looked down at herself first; the cracks in the golden light membrane over her chest had multiplied from one to three, the longest stretching from the membrane's center to its edge, with tiny golden specks seeping out at the fissure.

She turned her head again toward the not‑far distance.

Jing Liu stood less than a hundred meters away from her.

Radiating a crimson glow.