Inscribing the Heavens

Chapter 5: Bare Hands Against Frost

The autumn wind howled across the elevated Martial Ring, sweeping swirling eddies of yellow leaves across the cold flagstones.

Standing on the eastern edge of the stage, Lu Chen let his arms hang loosely inside his azure sleeves. At seventeen years of age, his silhouette was straight and poised as a green bamboo stalk weathering a storm. The golden morning light reflected against his skin, which possessed the flawless luster of carved mutton-fat jade. His long black hair drifted lightly with the breeze, framing features so refined and ethereal that several younger female disciples in the stands could scarcely breathe as they watched him.

Yet opposite him, standing on the western boundary, Murong Feng looked like an incarnation of aristocratic fury.

At eighteen years old, Murong Feng stood tall in his sapphire-embroidered robes. His handsome, blade-like brows were locked in a venomous scowl, and the faint, aristocratic elegance he usually wore was completely stripped away, replaced by raw murderous intent. In his right hand, the Frost-Biting Sword was already drawn. Three feet of forged cold-iron gleamed with a vicious pale-blue frost, causing the air around the blade to hiss and crackle as moisture turned to ice.

"Bare hands?" Murong Feng’s voice was laced with razor-sharp contempt, echoing off the surrounding cliffs. "Lu Chen, do you truly believe that awakening a Heaven-Grade Meridian makes you invincible? In the cultivation world, the difference between the Third Layer and the Fifth Layer Peak is the difference between an ant and an eagle!"

Beneath the ring, the crowd erupted into anxious murmurs.

"Facing a Fifth Layer Peak expert with bare hands... Is Senior Brother Lu insane?"

"He has only broken through for three days! Even with a Flawless Meridian, his spiritual reservoir cannot match Brother Feng’s five years of cultivation! Furthermore, Brother Feng wields an Earth-Grade low-tier weapon and has mastered the Frost-Biting Sword to the realm of Greater Accomplishment!"

"One misstep, and his hands will be severed at the wrists!"

Even on the high VIP pavilion, several academy elders shook their heads in disapproval.

"Youthful arrogance," an elder with silver whiskers sighed. "To achieve a Flawless Meridian at seventeen is indeed a gift from heaven, but to face an opponent two minor realms higher without a weapon is sheer folly."

Beside the elder, Chu Qingxuan remained standing against the carved jade balustrade. Her snow-white robes fluttered in the mountain wind, and her delicate, suet-jade hand rested lightly against the hilt of her cold-jade sword. Her seventeen-year-old face was as still and breathtaking as an unthawed glacial lake, but her cold, starlike eyes never once strayed from Lu Chen’s tranquil posture.

He isn't arrogant, Chu Qingxuan observed silently. His breathing hasn't quickened by a single beat. He isn't standing like someone about to defend... he is standing like an immortal inspecting a mortal’s performance.

"Begin!" Instructor Zhao shouted from the boundary of the ring, stepping back and raising a barrier of yellow spiritual light.

The moment the command dropped, Murong Feng moved.

SHIIIING!

A piercing screech of steel tore through the square. Murong Feng’s feet blurred as he executed the Murong Clan's signature footwork, the Glacial Phantom Steps. His eighteen-year-old physique carried the explosive power of a Fifth Layer Peak cultivator, crossing thirty paces in less than half a breath. A freezing wave of azure frost erupted from his blade, dropping the temperature of the entire ring until the flagstones were coated in thick white rime.

"Frost-Biting Nine Severances—Glacial Serpent Bares Fangs!"

Murong Feng roared, his sword transforming into nine overlapping arcs of icy blue light. Each arc was sharper than a butcher’s cleaver, aimed ruthlessly at Lu Chen’s shoulders, chest, and arms. The sheer pressure of the frost Qi caused the air to whistle like a winter blizzard, kicking up shards of frozen stone.

"Die, arrogant fool!" Murong Feng’s eyes flashed with cruel triumph. At such close range, no Third Layer cultivator could react in time.

The crowd gasped. Several maidens buried their faces in their hands, unable to watch the handsome youth be carved to pieces.

Yet, facing the oncoming blizzard of lethal sword light, Lu Chen did not retreat half a step.

Inside his sea of consciousness, the Wordless Heavenly Scripture opened silently. The ancient, starlit tome revolved, and in the span of a millisecond, Murong Feng’s Frost-Biting Sword was completely deconstructed into nine distinct trajectories, twenty-four flaws in Qi circulation, and three fatal points of overextension.

Three days ago, beneath the weeping willow, Lu Chen had already comprehended the essence of this technique. Today, watching Murong Feng unleash it at full power, Lu Chen saw not a terrifying sword master, but a child swinging a stick.

"Your sword is fast," Lu Chen’s voice drifted through the howling wind, soft and calm. "Yet your heart is chaotic, your center of gravity leans three inches forward, and your frost Qi leaks from your wrist like a sieve."

Whoosh.

Lu Chen took a single, effortless step to the left.

It was a step so light and graceful it seemed to ride upon the autumn breeze itself. The nine overlapping frost arcs swept past his chest, missing his azure robes by less than a hair’s breadth.

Murong Feng’s eyes widened in horror. "What?!"

Before Murong Feng could adjust his momentum, Lu Chen raised his right hand.

His fingers were slender, fair, and jade-like, free of armor or steel. With unhurried precision, Lu Chen extended two fingers like a scholar’s brush and tapped lightly against the flat spine of the Frost-Biting Sword.

TING—!

A crisp, bell-like resonance exploded across the martial stage.

It was not a brute collision of strength. It was the precise injection of Lu Chen’s pure, solar Primordial Qi straight into the structural flaw where Murong Feng’s frost Qi failed to connect with the blade’s core.

CRACK!

The pale-blue frost coating the sword shattered instantly, exploding into a cloud of harmless ice dust. A terrifying counter-shock traveled straight up the blade into Murong Feng’s arm. The tendons in Murong Feng’s wrist burned as though dipped in boiling oil, and the three-foot cold-iron sword nearly flew from his grasp!

"Ngh!" Murong Feng groaned, stumbling four steps backward, his boot heels digging deep furrows into the frost-glazed stone. His right arm hung numb and trembling, his face flushed with a mixture of agony and disbelief.

The entire Central Martial Square fell into a tomb-like silence.

No one spoke. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

A Third Layer cultivator... had deflected the full-power strike of a Fifth Layer Peak master... with two bare fingers!

"Did... did I just see an illusion?" a disciple in the front row stammered, rubbing his eyes violently. "Senior Brother Lu didn't use a shield or a weapon... He just tapped it?!"

"That is impossible! The Frost-Biting Sword carries three thousand pounds of force when wielded by Brother Feng! How could two fingers disperse it?!"

On the high terrace, Elder Tie’s eyes nearly split open in shock. His weathered hand gripped the stone armrest of his chair until it cracked. "That wasn't luck! He didn't overpower the sword; he struck the exact node where the sword intent was weakest! That level of vision... even some Elders cannot achieve it without decades of sword cultivation!"

Standing beside him, Chu Qingxuan’s breath hitched. A faint, rare flush of excitement bloomed on her snowy cheeks, enhancing her breathtaking beauty until she looked like a frost fairy awakening in springtime. Her eyes were locked onto Lu Chen’s fingers.

He didn't just see the flaw, Chu Qingxuan realized with a racing heart. He used Murong Feng’s own momentum against him. Such sublime comprehension... Who in this mortal dynasty can match him?

On the stage, Murong Feng’s trembling arm slowly regained feeling, but the humiliation burning in his soul was ten times worse than the physical pain. Hundreds of disciples were watching him. His fellow clan members were staring at him with pale, horrified faces.

"You... you bastard!" Murong Feng spat, his voice cracking with madness. "You dared to use trickery against me!"

Lu Chen remained where he stood, hands returning loosely to his sleeves. His handsome face was devoid of mockery; there was only a serene, calm detachment that infuriated Murong Feng even more than insults ever could.

"If you call understanding the sword 'trickery,' then you do not deserve to hold steel," Lu Chen said quietly. At seventeen, his words held the weight of an ancient master lecturing a wayward novice. "Your Murong Clan claims this sword art embodies the biting frost of heaven and earth. Yet you only borrow the cold to intimidate others, completely ignorant of the true intent of winter."

"Shut up! Shut up!" Murong Feng roared, completely losing his noble composure.

He bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of essence blood onto the Frost-Biting Sword.

BOOM!

A dark, crimson-tinted frost erupted from the blade. Murong Feng’s Fifth Layer Peak Qi went berserk, causing veins to bulge across his neck and face. His aristocratic handsome features twisted into a grotesque, demonic grimace.

"Forbidden technique: Blood-Frost Severing Moon!"

Murong Feng launched himself into the air, his silhouette blotting out the sun. The Frost-Biting Sword swelled with five feet of blood-colored frost energy, screaming like a dying ghost as it crashed downward toward Lu Chen’s skull with apocalyptic fury!

"Brother Lu, watch out!" Kuang Yan roared from beneath the stage, his bronze muscles bunching as he prepared to storm the ring.

"Stay back, Brother Kuang," Lu Chen’s voice echoed gently in Kuang Yan’s mind.

Standing beneath the descending blood-frost sword, Lu Chen did not dodge. Instead, he lifted his right hand once more, curving his slender fingers into the shape of a plucked willow branch.

Inside his dantian, the Primordial Dao Origin Bloodline surged like an unchained dragon. The Wordless Heavenly Scripture cast an ethereal golden seal behind his eyes, re-inscribing the Murong Clan's flawed frost art into the perfected, ancient Earth-Tier art—Moon-Cleaving Frost Intent!

HUMMMM—!

From Lu Chen’s fingertips, an azure-white light bloomed. It was not Murong Feng's chaotic, violent chill; it was a pristine, crystalline frost that felt ancient, pure, and absolute, carrying the profound sorrow of an autumn moon severing the clouds.

"Watch closely," Lu Chen whispered, his dark obsidian eyes shining like eternal stars. "This is how frost truly cuts."

Lu Chen slashed his two fingers upward like a sword.

SWORD INTENT!

An invisible blade of pure celestial frost tore through the air!

CRACK—CLANGGG!

In the mid-air collision, there was no protracted struggle. The moment Lu Chen’s fingertip sword intent grazed Murong Feng’s descending blade, the blood-frost energy shattered into dust.

Immediately following was the sharp, horrifying sound of snapping metal.

The famed cold-iron Frost-Biting Sword—the prized heirloom of the Murong Clan—snapped cleanly into three pieces!

"AHHHH!"

Murong Feng let out a bloodcurdling scream as the residual frost sword intent struck his chest. His protective Qi tore like wet paper, and his body was hurled backward through the air like a broken kite.

BANG!

Murong Feng slammed violently into the heavy stone pillar at the edge of the Martial Ring, vomiting a fountain of dark blood before collapsing into the dirt, unconscious, his fine sapphire robes shredded and frosted with white ice.

The three shattered fragments of his sword tumbled out of the sky, stabbing into the stone ring right beside his trembling hand.

On the stage, Lu Chen lowered his hand, his azure sleeves fluttering back into place. Not a single thread of his clothing was torn; not a single strand of his hair was displaced. He stood bathed in the autumn sunlight, peerlessly handsome, aloof, and untouched, as though he had merely waved away an annoying fly.

Beneath the ring, thousands of disciples, instructors, and elders stared in absolute, paralyzing awe.

At seventeen years of age, Lu Chen had shattered a clan heirloom, defeated an eighteen-year-old Fifth Layer Peak genius, and crossed two entire cultivation realms... with bare hands!