Baihe felt her heart drop. Fei Fei was protected by her title and status, but what about her? Qian was resting to restore his depleted energy and those sacred phoenix flames won’t be coming back any time soon, nor would he have the strength to fight for her in this battle.

Her survival instincts told her to withdraw from this fight. To head in with her puny Early Dao Stage 2 cultivation against a Mid Dao Stage 3 opponent was akin to a cow walking into a slaughter house. If it were anyone else besides those from the Huang’s family, Baihe would have done just that. Not like she really needed that mermaid pearl necklace or what not.

Assassins must know when to retreat tactfully and search for a better opportunity or risk ending up as a corpse. Their job was to go in for the kill — not to get killed. But, when she saw the look in Ming’s eyes, Baihe knew this wasn’t a fight she could escape from.

Those were the eyes of a predator.

The main reason she was here today was to test out her current strength and observe how the citizens of this world fight. The fact that Ming wasn’t eliminated in the previous rounds meant he was the strongest among the youngsters of this generation — at least among those who had participated. Baihe lit a small candle for the Feng Empire. The future of this country will be ruined sooner or later if he was the best talent this generation has to offer.

The two of them went on stage: one without an expression on her face, but was actually cursing her shitty luck on the inside, while the other was burning with a fierce enthusiasm to dismantle her bones.

Once the fight starts, Baihe knew Ming wouldn’t give her any opportunity; thus, she must create the opportunity herself. This would truly be a fight between life and death. As she had predicted, once the referee shouted “begin!” sharp icicles came flying in her direction.

Baihe was no longer surprised by these people having the ability to manipulate elements out of thin air. Even she herself was able to summon phoenix fire by borrowing the power of her contracted divine beast; however, a fight like this would only put her in an even bigger disadvantage, so Baihe immediately charged through the bullets of icicles, darting her figure in-between the gaps.

Her nimble footwork was quite amazing, but it still wasn’t fast enough to dodge all the icicles coming from a Mid Dao Stage 3 practitioner. Some of them scrapped her skin, leaving behind frostbites and two managed to pierce her shoulder blades. Pain radiated through her as layers of frost covered her skin in a large radius around the icicle arrows lodged in her shoulders, numbing both of her arms.

Shit!

Without the use of her arms, the odds were heavily stacked against her, not that it wasn’t already; but Baihe didn’t stop advancing forward — she still got her legs.

Once Baihe got close enough, she tried to deliver a roundhouse kick to his mid midsection, but Ming caught her ankle easily in midair and swung her around first before flinging her body away. She reacted quickly by twisting her hips slightly in the air and landed on her feet instead of ending up flat on her face.

The moment she regained her equilibrium, she charged forward again with a quick front-snap kick by lifting one of her knees before extending it to connect with his solar plexus. Taking advantage of Ming still being stunned from her counterattack, Baihe immediately retracted her leg and followed up with another kick; but this time she used the instep of her foot to attack his groin.

At his weakest moment with his family jewel in peril, Baihe turned her body sideway as she brought her knee up paralleled to the ground and sent out a strong side kick to Ming’s head.

Anger flared in his heart as his body wobbled. He only got hit because he never expected the trash to not only recover so quickly, but to even retaliate; otherwise, how could a mere Early Dao Stage 2 garbage like her even touch him?

Trying not to lose the momentum, Baihe attempted to hammer her foot down his head, but this time, Ming was prepared for her. He rolled out of the way just as her leg slammed down, missing her target. Moving behind her, Ming sent out a palm strike to Baihe’s back, making her body fly forward before dropping unceremoniously down.

The strike contained the force of a Mid Dao Stage 3 practitioner, so how could Baihe withstand such an attack? She was heavily wounded as she spurted out a mouthful of blood because Ming really didn’t hold anything back. The crowd closed their eyes in pity. Such an unfair match with a huge disparity in strength; the outcome had long been decided.

Instead of cowering in defeat like they all expected, one could only hear Baihe release a sarcastic laugh, her vermilion lips curving upward into a smile with blood dripping down. Even at this moment, she was beautiful like a painting and the people couldn’t help but be stunned by her beauty, feeling it was even more of a tragedy. After all, each male in the audience thought she could potentially become one of their concubines.

“Aiya, why won’t she just surrender?”

“That’s right ah! Just surrender! Even if the mermaid pearl necklace is precious, nothing is more precious than one’s life!”

“Can’t you see? She gone crazy! Look at her still laughing when death is knocking at her door!”

Ming stood arrogantly on stage as he heard the general consensus of the mass population; everyone believed victory was within his grasp. Any time now, with a snap of his finger, Baihe would be frozen six feet under; however, this bitch had dared attack his family jewel, nearly leaving him handicapped. How could he let her die so easily without playing around with her a bit?

The laughter Baihe released was not because she had lost her mind, but because she had successfully riled him up. Enough to the point that he wouldn’t kill her off immediately using the quickest and most accurate method, which meant he wouldn’t be using those icicles again. She wouldn’t stand a chance if they fought with pure elemental strength because it heavily relied on the user’s cultivation level and her phoenix was currently out-of-order.

Instead, he’d go the more traditional route — close combat fighting — exactly what Baihe wanted.

Even if each of his strike was more powerful because of the difference in their strength, at least this way Baihe still stood a fighting chance — if you could only ignore the spiritual qi poured behind each attack. She just needed to dodge more and land her attacks more frequently without the use of her arms.

Easy right?

Accumulating spiritual energy onto the balls of her feet, she pushed off the ground with maximum force and sprinted toward her opponent. Ming didn’t put the trash in his eyes. He stood there leisurely with his arms crossed and legs spread apart as he ignored the throbbing pain on his lower body. As the heir to the Huang’s family, he couldn’t possibly continue to stand there crouching in pain with hands covering his balls now could he?