"Eternal Frost, Sixth Form: Utpala."

I looked up, and saw a great utpala lotus growing out of the sky, facing down over us. Its petals were delicate blues, spreading over the width of the entire arena, and its core was a brilliant sunlike gold, though it radiated not heat but rather cold, a cold that I could feel seeping into my bones, a cold that felt strangely primordial in nature, almost as if it were derived from the essence of the endless expanses of space in the shadow of the sun.

I looked down, and saw all the red color pulling back from my hands, leaving behind pale half-translucent skin and dulled muscles that moved only with the laziness of creaking door hinges. Only moments later, the air around my hands began to freeze solid, entombing my fingers in thin layers of ice.

Frostbite. It was frostbite. If I could not make my blood flow, I would die in only a few moments.

—Flow... flow. That was it. For now, all I had to do was...

Inhaling sharply, I drew out more of Natsuki's power, and aligned it blue as it ran alongside my blood through my body. The heat of my running blood burst through the ice collecting on my skin. And then I began sprinting towards the outer edge of the arena, where I hoped the frost would be less powerful.

As I ran, even the air began freezing into stalagmites, dotting the arena like stormclouds over the a morning sky. And somehow, I felt like they were getting more dense, more cold, as I approached the perimeter of the arena. How could that be? The effect should weaken the farther I got from Wujiu...

—I was still some meters away from the perimeter when walls of ice at least a foot thick condensed out of thin air at the perimeter. Immediately, they began to expand inwards into the arena, inching towards me.

So I thrust the heel of my boot into the ground, and redirected my momentum at an angle away from the wall of ice! And when I did, when I turned my gaze back towards the center of the arena where Wujiu was standing, I knew instantly that my judgement had been wrong. The wall of ice wrapped around the entire perimeter of the arena. Here, at the perimeter, was the most dangerous place to be!

But, seeing this grand circular wall of ice, I had a sudden flash of inspiration, even as the blood in my legs began to solidify and my robes began to harden like steel from my temporary loss of speed.

I began running, not towards anything in particular, but in circles and arcs, tracing over my footsteps, dragging the tip of my sword through the earth at my feet. I had plotted out my path ahead of time, so it was not difficult to keep my speed up. A few more minutes, and—

Wujiu swung her sword down to the side, then twirled it around and pierced it straight into the ground.

"Bai Chunxue!" she called out with a crazed sneer, "if you can survive until I finish casting this next spell, then I shall grant you the honor of a whole corpse!"

She brought her hands together, quickly performing a sequence of twenty-eight hand-signs, though even her fingers were slowed by the frost. She began with the mudra of the moon, and ended with the mudra of the sun.

The inscription on her sword glowed a deep crimson, like the color of dried blood, and she recited her spell invocation:

"Eternal Flame, Sixth Form: Ayaḥśalmalivana."

Her sword burst with rippling red flame, and at that same moment, I felt an impending sense of doom from right overhead. I did not turn to look. I did not have time. Instead, I stabbed my own sword into the ground and swung my body around it, drawing me just out of range of a flaming spike, the shape of a rose-thorn but the size of a sword, that pierced into the ground with the force of a falling star, setting the ground ablaze with flames climbing back towards the sky!

I spun in a full circle around my stationary sword, then leaped over the fallen spike and continued running. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that spikes had fallen elsewhere, and their flames had begun to spread, quickly envelopping almost the entire arena. At my feet I could feel the soles of my boots beginning to soften, and it seemed that by the force of the flames the frost in my legs was subsiding. Panting a sigh of relief, I slowed my pace—

and I felt the blood in my legs begin to coagulate.

No! No, the frost had not subsided! The frost and the flame did not negate each other, but rather like alcohol and caffeine they contradicted each other, so that my body could not detect that I was being killed by both at once!

I accelerated my pace. The only thing I could trust was the sensation of my blood. I didn't need long. Just a bit longer and I would be able to break through Wujiu's qi barrier. I would have to hope that my own qi barrier would protect me from the flames until then.

I approached an ice pillar, planning to arc about two hundred degrees counter-clockwise around it. It was a mere pillar of ice, I thought, and so as long as I did not touch it, I would be fine.

How foolish!

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When I stepped within two meters' distance of the pillar, it suddenly exploded, casting out a ring of flaming spikes at chest-level in all directions!

I did not have time to block! I did not have time to dodge! I did not even have time to grimace! All I could do was— let my knees crumple and fall backwards to the ground!

The spikes passed overhead, though one grazed against my right shoulder, sending a searing pain galloping through my body. A moment later and it would have destroyed my arm! Yet despite the pain, as my body was pulled downwards by gravity, I somehow summoned the force to keep myself a foot above the flames at my feet by hanging onto my sword, which I pinned into the ground. As the robes covering my back began to char and burn, I put all my power into my left arm, then swung myself back up to a standing position using my sword as a pivot.

And then I kept running, dragging the tip of my sword through the flaming dirt, dodging only by the skin of my teeth the flaming rose-thorn spikes that rained down from the sky like hailstones. If I stopped, I would freeze to death. If I got hit, I would immediately lose a limb. This was the power of Wujiu's magic!

—"I'm impressed, Bai Chunxue. You actually made it out."

Surrounded by blazing flames, Wujiu pulled her sword out of the earth and pointed it at me. I kept running.

"Running is the correct choice, yes. But you have only been able to run because I permitted it. Now..."

She flicked her sword upwards, and on all four sides, the flames at my feet shot up towards the sky, surrounding me in a prison of fire!

I staggered back, and as soon as I did, I felt my limbs begin to freeze solid once again. I didn't have time to stop! I needed to move!

If I tried to fly upwards, the utpala lotus yet hovering over the sky would freeze me to death. If I tried to burrow into the ground, the flames would consume me. Thus, I had no choice but to go through the walls of flame around me!

I thrust my sword, yet burning blue, low into the wall of flame before me. It split the fire's flow, opening a gap above it. I leaped through the gap, feet first, spinning as I passed through it. Yet, by some bad luck, when I pulled my left hand holding my sword through the gap, it touched the edge of the wall and caught flame!

I grimaced. But it was fine. This was a normal flame. Turning my sword off, I thrust my left hand into my robes, and with my right hand I pressed down on my robes, smothering the embers. It hurt like hell, but I could still move my fingers. It was fine. I could still do this. I drew my left hand out of my robes, the skin burned a deep crimson, and relit my sword, now black. My plan was just about complete.

"Bai Chunxue, you have some skill in reacting to what is before your eyes. But can you react to what you can't see? Let's see if you really deserve the title of Core Formation."

Wujiu pointed her sword to the sky.

"Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke!"

Suddenly, endless clouds of smoke rose from the burning earth, quickly blotting out my vision, so I could not even see my own arms in front of me. I heard a loud noise from behind me, and then one in front of me, but I could not tell what they were. Not with my eyes.

I needed— I needed Qi Sight. I had used it before a few times, mostly instinctively. But I understood the theory of how to summon it. It was, after all, a sort of alchemical technique, though one that all cultivators had to learn. I closed my eyes and recited the mantra:

First, focus on the sensation of qi flowing through your own body. Envision it, envision its flow, envision it flowing through every artery and vein, intertwined with your blood. Project that vision into the vibrations of the earth undulating under your feet, into the shifting waves of air swimming by your ears. First proximal, then medial, and finally distal. Project your vision upon the world itself.

I saw it. I saw the curling and shifting qi of the smoke clouds, and beyond them? Some distance behind me there was a flaming rose-thorn spike, flying at a downwards angle. And some distance in front of me there was Wujiu, leaping several feet into her air, her sword-arm wrapped around her chest and over her other shoulder, her sword burning bloody crimson, preparing a cyclone slash that I could not possibly hope to block.

Yet at the same time, my plan was complete. My array was complete. Using the wall of ice as an enclosing circle and the lines in the dirt left by my sword as the procedure definition, I had constructed an array over the entire arena. I thrust the heel of my boot into the earth, activating the array—

It didn't activate. There was something wrong.

A wave of terror ran up my limbs. Depending on what had gone wrong, it was possible that I wouldn't have time to fix it. Desperately, hoping to avoid the worst, I projected my qi over the entire arena, trying to detect what it was that I had missed. —There! When I had thrust my left hand into my robes just a few moments ago, I hadn't been able to draw the lines in the ground. There was a small gap in the lines of the array there!

But the location was behind me, and if I turned around, Wujiu would cut right through my spine! I could not run back to fix it, yet at the same time if I did not fix it, I could not stop Wujiu's attack. This knowledge, this fatal dilemma, paralyzed my very mind. How could I break through this paradox? How could I resolve this impossible question? For an impossible question I needed an impossible solution, and how could I, a mere human, find such a solution?

"Natsuki..." I whispered.

—Throw it.

And with that I understood. I understood how I would survive.

I turned my back to Wujiu, and threw my sword.