Chapter 4799 — The Ugly Woman

This woman's strength was no trifling matter! Wei Zhao's eyelid gave a faint twitch. The effect of this ice-and-snow domain was not merely to freeze the surroundings; the truly terrifying part was that even the blood flowing in his veins showed faint signs of freezing. It would not freeze him solid, perhaps, but the circulation of his true qi was inevitably hampered—at best he could bring out eight tenths of his full strength.

If even Wei Zhao suffered so, others would fare worse still; some might not even muster half their power. Before this woman, cultivators of the same rank were mere playthings to be toyed with at will. Xiangyun Academy truly did produce geniuses in endless succession!

In an instant Yang Qianshuang had dissolved into a snowy shadow and reappeared beside Ning Xuefei. As before, neither Wei Zhao nor Ning Xuefei was her target; from first to last she wanted only the Beauty Pill, and she paid no heed to anything else.

"Scram!" Wei Zhao shot the woman a cold glance. Formidable as her strength might be, she was, after all, only a cultivator at the consummation of the Nascent Soul stage. To him, who could slay experts of the Profound Ascension stage in the blink of an eye, even the strongest Nascent Soul cultivator posed not the slightest threat.

Before the words had faded, Wei Zhao raised his hand and unleashed a Furious Flame Fist. A roaring blaze erupted from empty air and drove her back once more, melting the ice-and-snow domain away with it. Whenever and wherever it might be, the truth that fire overcomes ice would never change.

Yang Qianshuang's expression shifted, and only now did she truly give Wei Zhao a serious look. Upon first discovering that this fellow was merely at the mid Nascent Soul stage, she had dismissed him from her mind—never imagining his strength to be so great that he could undo her signature ice-and-snow domain with such casual ease!

"I want only the Beauty Pill. I do not wish to hurt anyone—do not force my hand!" Because of her grave injuries, Yang Qianshuang's voice was plainly hoarse, and her breath came shallow and weak.

Only then did Wei Zhao notice the abnormality in her condition. By rights, a consummate Nascent Soul expert bearing such heavy wounds should not still command such fearsome power—unless she were a freak like himself. But judging from appearances, that seemed unlikely.

There was only one possibility: before she was injured, her strength had far surpassed the consummation of the Nascent Soul stage—in other words, she had at least been an expert of the Profound Ascension stage!

This discovery made Wei Zhao click his tongue in secret amazement. Yet even if she had once been a Profound Ascension expert, that was no reason to charge over and snatch the Beauty Pill with such utter unreasonableness, was it? He turned to glance at Ning Xuefei, who clutched the Beauty Pill to her breast like a mother hen guarding her chicks, and was struck speechless. Faced with the temptation of a Beauty Pill, creatures called women truly could not be measured by common sense.

"You come to rob me, and then tell me not to force your hand. Heh, is there something wrong with your head?" Wei Zhao could not help but laugh. Whoever she was, whatever grievance she harbored, there was no room for negotiation today. If he indulged her in this, Ning Xuefei would never be able to establish herself in Xiangyun Academy hereafter.

"Then do not blame me!" A flash of fury passed through Yang Qianshuang's eyes, and the temperature around them plunged once more, far more violently than before. A moment ago the flowers and trees had merely been frosted; now icicles hung from them outright. Without true qi to shield the body, an ordinary person could not endure a single minute in this place.

At the same time Yang Qianshuang struck again. Her form melted into the ice and snow and vanished without a trace, as though she had evaporated into thin air—invisible not only to the naked eye, but even to divine sense for a time.

Wei Zhao's expression turned grave. He had not expected this woman to command such exquisite arts. To deceive even his divine sense as well—she was truly no simple one!

Yet Wei Zhao still caught a trace. This ice-and-snow field could not, in truth, cut off divine sense the way sea mist or miasma did. So long as he willed it, his divine sense could still range through it unimpeded—it simply could not locate her person.

In essence this was an illusion, save that an ordinary illusion deceived only the eye, while the one before him was exceedingly cunning: it deceived divine sense as well.

To put it plainly, it was a supremely skillful form of psychological suggestion. It drew your attention only to what it wished you to notice, and made you subconsciously overlook what it truly meant to hide!

Having grasped this, Wei Zhao's heart settled at once. Though he still could not pin down the woman's position for the moment, he need only rule out the places his divine sense had already swept, and wherever remained must hold her hiding place.

There was one more thing he could exploit: since her target was the Beauty Pill in Ning Xuefei's hand, she would surely seize an opportunity to snatch it. Working backward from that, deducing her hiding place was no difficult matter.

Furious Flame Eight Trigrams Palm! Without the slightest warning, Wei Zhao struck toward the right rear. Ning Xuefei turned to look in bewilderment, and her eyes went wide.

Where Wei Zhao's palm swept past, the empty space suddenly gained a bedraggled figure. Yang Qianshuang was sent flying, spewing a great mouthful of blood. Wounded upon wounded, her face grew ever more ghastly pale, and the look she cast at Wei Zhao was full of shock and disbelief.

"Ah!" Ning Xuefei suddenly cried out, and Wei Zhao's expression changed with hers. The two of them stared at Yang Qianshuang, unable to utter a word. The white cloth over her face had been torn away by the residual true qi, laying bare a hideous visage riddled with wounds and scars!

Wei Zhao frowned. No wonder she had thrown all caution aside to seize the Beauty Pill. Judging by that face, it had been deliberately ruined—first seared by venom, then scorched by fire, or she would never have been reduced to such a ghastly state.

"Ah—ah—ah!" Only now did Yang Qianshuang realize her face lay utterly exposed. She shrieked like one possessed, scrambling backward on the ground in frantic, helpless retreat, far more terrified than the Ning Xuefei she had frightened—a woman gone wholly mad, with not a trace of the expert she had been moments before.

Ning Xuefei, badly startled, ducked behind Wei Zhao. Looking at the woman before them, a measure of pity crept into her eyes. After a moment's thought she took out the Beauty Pill and held it toward Wei Zhao. "Why not just give it to her..."

She was, after all, a kindhearted girl. When the woman had simply come to rob her, she had of course refused; but now, seeing her so pitiful and wretched, Ning Xuefei's heart truly could not bear it. Besides, the Beauty Pill was of little use to her—at most a finishing touch—whereas to this woman it was a straw to clutch at in a drowning sea.

Put herself in the other's place: if her own face had been ruined to such a degree, she would likely have taken her own life long ago, lacking even the courage to struggle on. That this woman could still think of coming out to steal a Beauty Pill meant she was, in truth, already very strong. (To be continued.)