The Broken Soul Pavilion had been transformed into a macabre altar of light and shadow. At the center of the Soul-Grasping Array, Su Qing was no longer the high-and-mighty "Ice Beauty" of the Scarlet Cloud Sect. Her moon-white robes were tattered, fluttering violently in the spiritual vortex, and her once-calm face was a mask of sheer, unadulterated terror.
She was a Rank 6 Qi Condensation genius, possessing the rare Cold Marrow constitution, yet she felt like a lamb caught in the jaws of a starving wolf. Every time she tried to circulate her Ice Qi to shatter the formation, the dark red runes on the floor glowed with a sickly brilliance, greedily drinking her power as if it were wine.
"Hua Sui! You dog! Do you have any idea what you are doing?" Su Qing's voice was a jagged blade of panic, losing its silver-bell clarity. "To lay a hand on a core disciple... the Sect Elders will rip your soul from your body and grind it for eternity!"
Hua Sui walked toward the edge of the pulsating array. He didn't look like a slave anymore. His back was as straight as a spear, and his gaze was as vast and merciless as a winter sky. The grey mist of his Inverse Qi coiled around his arms like ethereal serpents, hissing in anticipation.
"The Sect?" Hua Sui tilted his head, a thin, mocking smile touching his lips. "The Sect that sold me to Old Man Qin for a handful of spirit stones? The Sect that watched as my marrow was melted by poison for five years? To me, the Scarlet Cloud Sect is not a home, Su Qing. It is a slaughterhouse. And tonight, you are the livestock."
With a sudden, violent gesture, Hua Sui slammed his palms onto the outer ring of the array.
Inverse Art: Bone-Freezing Plunder!
The crimson runes turned a deep, bruised purple. The air in the pavilion screamed as the vacuum force intensified. Su Qing let out a soul-shredding shriek as she felt her very essence—the Cold Marrow Spirit-Root—begin to vibrate and detach from her spine. It was a pain beyond physical wounding; it was the feeling of one's destiny being forcibly uprooted.
However, the "Harvest" was far from easy. As the first stream of pure, crystalline Ice Qi entered Hua Sui's body, he felt as if he had swallowed a river of liquid nitrogen.
Crack.
The sound of his own ribs fracturing under the sudden spiritual pressure echoed through the hall. Hua Sui's skin instantly turned a deathly blue, and his breath froze into solid ice before it could leave his lips. His Inverse Meridians, conditioned for years by corrosive toxins and searing medicinal heat, recoiled in agony at the absolute zero of Su Qing's essence.
"You think... your ice can freeze me?" Hua Sui growled through gritted teeth, blood seeping from his gums. "I have survived the heart-corroding fire of a thousand poisons. Your cold is but a cool breeze!"
He forced his Grey Seed to spin with a primal ferocity. He didn't try to harmonize with the Ice Qi—that would be the path of a normal cultivator. Instead, he used his Inverse Qi to crush it. He turned his meridians into a grinding mill, forcing the noble, crystalline Ice Qi into the jagged, dark pathways of his body.
It was a brutal collision of elements. Hua Sui's skin cracked open like parched earth, and crimson blood seeped out, only to be instantly frozen into jagged red crystals that clung to his flesh. The pain was so intense it bordered on a spiritual epiphany. In the depths of this torture, his Inverse Qi began to evolve, absorbing the "Cold" property and turning it into something far more sinister: The Inverse Frost.
Su Qing watched in mute horror. She saw the "slave" she had despised undergoing a metamorphosis that defied the laws of heaven. He was being shredded from the inside out, yet his aura was ballooning at a terrifying rate.
With a final, guttural roar, Hua Sui made a clutching motion toward the air. A blinding flash of crystalline blue light erupted from Su Qing's chest. A pulsating orb of pure Ice Essence was dragged out of her and slammed into Hua Sui's heart.
Boom!
A shockwave of grey-white energy exploded outward, blowing the heavy iron doors of the pavilion off their hinges and shattering every glass vial in the room. The spiritual bottleneck that had held Hua Sui at Rank 4 was not just broken; it was obliterated.
Rank 5 Qi Condensation.
The power surge was intoxicating. Hua Sui's aura flared, a mixture of deathly grey mist and crystalline frost. He felt as if his senses had expanded to cover every inch of the mountain. He could feel the heartbeat of the insects in the walls and the distant hum of the sect's protective array.
As the light of the array faded, the pavilion fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Su Qing slumped to the floor, a heap of moon-white silk and tangled hair. Her once-vibrant black hair was now streaked with white, and her skin had lost its luster. She was alive, but her foundation was a hollow shell.
"Kill me..." she rasped, her eyes vacant.
Hua Sui stood over her, his translucent skin pulsing with obsidian light. He didn't feel pity. He only felt the cold calculation of a survivor.
"Kill you?" Hua Sui knelt, his hand glowing with the dark, slithering threads of the Puppet Soul Seed. "No, Senior Sister. You are far too expensive to waste. You will be my shield. You will be the genius that masks the shadow."
He forced the black pill into her mouth, his Inverse Qi ensuring it wove itself into the very fabric of her soul. Su Qing's body convulsed once, and then her eyes glazed over, the light of her independent will extinguished, replaced by a dull, robotic obedience.
"Master..." she whispered, her head bowing low.
Hua Sui stood up and looked toward the distant, glowing peaks of the Inner Gate. The "Snare" was over. The "Harvest" was complete.
"The withered years are over," Hua Sui said, his voice echoing in the dark hall. "Now, the world shall learn what it means to freeze in the dark."