The air in the Frostbloom Pavilion didn't just chill bones—it froze time itself.
Li Qing knelt on the glacial dais, her breath crystallizing before it could leave her lips. The sect elders stood in judgment, their frost-veined faces impassive. At the center towered the Ice Matriarch, her crown of shattered diamonds reflecting fractured light across Li Qing's face.
"You left your post." The Matriarch's voice cracked like breaking glaciers. "You abandoned your sword. You let heat into your veins." Her gaze flickered to where Luo Feng hid in shadow. "Defend yourself."
Li Qing's bound hands clenched. Frost spread from her wrists like blooming flowers.
[System Alert: Frost Vein Critical Awakening]
[Mission: Survive the Trial Without Bloodshed]
[Reward: Absolute Zero Technique]
[Failure Penalty: Becoming an Ice Statue in the Hall of Shame]
[The Trial: Three Freezes of Penance]
1. The Freeze of Flesh
The first elder stepped forward, pressing an icicle dagger to Li Qing's throat. "A Lingjian blade never warms in its master's grip. Yet yours melted for him."
The dagger plunged—
—and shattered against skin suddenly harder than permafrost.
Li Qing's Frost Veins pulsed, the hall's temperature dropping another fifty degrees. Elders gasped as their ceremonial frostbeards snapped off.
2. The Freeze of Heart
The Matriarch raised a hand, conjuring a mirror of living ice. "See what you've become."
The reflection showed Li Qing's battle with the Nine-Tails—the moment she'd broken her sword across her knee rather than renounce Luo Feng.
"Pathetic," hissed the elders.
Li Qing touched the mirror. It melted where her fingers met the surface.
"No," she said. "That was the first time I chose."
3. The Freeze of Soul
The Matriarch's crown exploded into a thousand diamond shards. "Last chance. Renounce the Storm Lord, or—"
"Or you'll do what?" Li Qing rose, her Frost Veins now glowing like neutron stars. "Freeze me? I am the cold."
The elders' knees hit the dais first. Then their foreheads.
[The Eclipse: When Frost Meets Void]
Luo Feng couldn't stay hidden any longer. As he stepped from the shadows, the claw-mark screamed in protest—
—just as Li Qing's ice reached for him.
The moment their energies touched, something impossible happened:
Eclipse VE swirled into her frost like ink in milk
Frost Veins branched through his golden claw-mark
The air between them crystallized into a new element
[Fusion Technique Discovered: Event Horizon Frost]
[Effect: Temporarily Freezes Concepts (Like Pain/Time/Regret)]
The Ice Matriarch screeched and attacked—
—only for her body to lock mid-lunge, frozen in a stasis even she couldn't break.
[Check-In Complete (With Benefits)]
[Reward: Absolute Zero Technique]
[Bonus: Frost-Eclipse Fusion Unlocked]
[New Problem: Lingjian Sect Declares Holy War]
As they escaped the crumbling hall, the Matriarch's final decree echoed:
"Let the storms freeze! Let the heavens shatter! No quarter for traitors!"
The Fox Spirit's tails twitched. "Well. That could've gone worse."
Li Qing's hand found Luo Feng's, their fused energies humming.
"Let them come."
END OF THE CHAPTER45