Chapter 5199 — Unmoved

A silent standoff—the atmosphere turned suddenly heavy and tense. Anyone with even slightly weak composure, even a mere bystander, would have been left gasping for air, let alone the two confronting each other in the arena.

The longer the standoff lasted, the greater the pressure grew, until at a certain point it could crush a person outright, draining away even the courage to strike—a true subduing of the foe without a single blow.

Of course, that was hardly Xue Jianming's intention. What he wanted was not merely a victory but Leng Leng's life; if she were forced to concede of her own accord, that would be an outright failure in his eyes.

At last, after a full stick of incense's worth of standoff, Leng Leng was the first to move.

One step, two steps, three steps—with every stride her speed surged abruptly, until after ten steps not only had her pace reached its limit but her aura had likewise climbed back to its peak.

"Clever!" Xin Yi'an's eyes lit up. The others had yet to catch on, but he understood the deeper meaning.

Wei Zhao nodded as well. Leng Leng was indeed clever. That stick of incense's standoff had done her no good; given the gap in strength between them, she could not possibly outlast Xue Jianming in composure—instead she had invisibly worn away her own most vital sharpness and confidence, so that she was already a round behind before the first blow was even struck.

Anyone with eyes could see the advantage and the cost, and Leng Leng herself knew it perfectly well. But this was her established strategy; she could not lose her footing the moment she began. So even if she had to grit her teeth, she could only hold her standoff with Xue Jianming. When she reached the limit of a stick of incense's endurance, she did not rashly strike first but instead devised this method of regrouping her forces. In a mere ten steps, she had recovered the peak momentum to fight the man before her.

To accomplish that under such enormous pressure, Leng Leng was truly no ordinary figure. Anyone else would have counted it a rare feat merely to avoid collapsing on the spot—like Lie Yingzu, who had made a complete spectacle of himself in the previous round.

"Hmph, so you do have some tricks after all." Xue Jianming was likewise rather surprised, but he quickly sneered with contempt: "Even so, it's a mantis trying to stop a chariot. Can you block this?"

Leng Leng's performance was certainly eye-catching, but it could not change the fact that she was forced to strike. In terms of strategy alone, she had in fact already fallen into a passive position.

Against an opponent like Xue Jianming, seizing the initiative was plainly unrealistic, even if Leng Leng had recovered to her peak state. The flurry of attacks that met him head-on ultimately failed to touch a single hair on Xue Jianming's head; without even drawing his sword, he had easily and calmly evaded every one of her fist and foot strikes.

This stood in stark contrast to Leng Leng's earlier duel with Lie Yingzu. The same attacks had left Lie Yingzu gasping for breath until he was beaten down entirely; now, against Xue Jianming, they posed not the slightest threat. Such was the vast gulf in strength.

"They praise you to the skies, and this is all you amount to? What a disappointment," Xue Jianming mocked.

Leng Leng paid him no heed and kept pressing her assault, head down. Even knowing she could not wound him, she never showed the slightest intention of giving up.

"I see it—she's trying to build up the snow momentum!" At last someone among the spectators grasped it. Xue Jianming's series of evasions were indeed dashing and composed, but at the same time they gave Leng Leng the chance to build her snow momentum with ease. After the two previous rounds, everyone was already deeply impressed by the power of the snow momentum.

"Are you an idiot? What use is snow momentum against Xue Jianming?" someone retorted at once. When it came to mastery of snow momentum, Xue Jianming was surely far more seasoned than Leng Leng. Snow momentum might work against others, but against Xue Jianming it was simply showing off one's meager skills before an expert—and might well end up hoisting a rock only to drop it on her own foot.

"Exactly, and Leng Leng has the Crushed Ice constitution—why would she go to such lengths to build up snow momentum?" another bystander chimed in.

After all, when it came to restraining effects, the Crushed Ice constitution far surpassed snow momentum in innate advantage and was far harder to guard against. If Leng Leng truly did that, she would be sacrificing the essential for the trivial; she was not one to do such meaningless, foolish things.

"But if not to build snow momentum, then what is she doing now? Is she just struggling in vain?" The crowd wore puzzled expressions.

They did not know Xue Jianming's true strength. In their eyes, Leng Leng, though only just broken through, was after all a genius bearing the Crushed Ice constitution, and one who had wrought the legend of breaking through in a single battle. She must therefore be of the same tier as Xue Jianming.

Even if Leng Leng was somewhat weaker in underlying strength, the gap could not be so great—surely she could not be as utterly powerless as she appeared now, unable even to touch the hem of Xue Jianming's robe?

No one would believe such a thing—no one but Xue Jianming himself. Though he had not yet fully revealed his true early Golden Core strength, even so it was far beyond what an ordinary peak Foundation Establishment disciple could match. It was more than enough to deal with an assault of Leng Leng's caliber.

And so Leng Leng pressed her assault for twenty moves in a row, and still Xue Jianming remained untouched. Just as the crowd thought he meant to keep dodging in this almost playful manner, he suddenly drew his snow sword, and his very first strike was the Snow Sword Sect's signature Snow Kill Style!

"Hm?" Xin Yi'an's expression shifted. Though Xue Jianming still had not unleashed his early Golden Core strength, and no one else present had sensed anything unusual, Xin Yi'an was himself an early Golden Core expert and had caught at least a hint of something strange—though for the moment he could not put his finger on it.

"This fellow's confidence really is bursting." Wei Zhao, seeing it, shook his head with a laugh. Xue Jianming's Snow Kill Style had indeed come with extreme suddenness, and in terms of power it ranked among the very best at the peak Foundation Establishment level—an ordinary person truly could not have blocked it. But his opponent was Leng Leng, after all. Was she an ordinary opponent?

Sure enough, Xue Jianming revealed his killing intent in that instant, but Leng Leng seemed to have been on guard all along and had already begun retreating the moment before his sword came out.

Xue Jianming was slightly taken aback, seemingly a little surprised—and the Snow Kill Style was inherently prone to exposing an opening. His momentary daze made that opening all the more obvious.

"A perfect chance!" The spectators' eyes all lit up at once.

Yet just when everyone assumed Leng Leng would surely seize the opening and press her advantage, her choice once again defied all expectation—she remained utterly unmoved.