One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

"Absolute Zero!"

"Buzz—"

There were no earth-shattering explosions.

There were no scattered fragments.

Only a ring of deep blue, chilling energy, seemingly capable of freezing the soul, spread out instantly from the center of Catherine's palm!

The cold air spread slowly—it was as slow as a ripple spreading across water. But strangely, along its path, the air made a faint "crackling" sound as if it were freezing. It wasn't that the air was frozen, but rather that the movement of molecules within it was slowed to almost a standstill.

The ice on the ground instantly thickened several times over and was tinged with an eerie deep blue. That deep blue spread outward from the center of the ice layer, and wherever it passed, the originally transparent ice layer turned into an opaque, sapphire-like deep blue solid, several times harder than steel.

This is Catherine's trump card for survival.

It instantly releases an ultra-low temperature close to absolute zero—minus 273 degrees Celsius, less than one degree away from absolute zero. At this temperature, molecular motion almost stops, and all matter becomes as brittle as glass.

The range was extremely small—only a one-meter radius centered on her palm. But within this range, the power was astonishing, enough to freeze and shatter everything it touched instantly.

Fujiwara Sousuke's expression finally changed.

He hadn't expected that his opponent, in that moment of being ambushed and on the brink of death, could launch such a fierce counterattack. And it wasn't a defensive counterattack—it was a near-self-destructive, trade-off-injury style of fighting.

Catherine's lean back brought her back a step closer to Fujiwara Sosuke's fingertips—a suicidal approach. But it was this step that brought the "absolute zero" of her palm closer to Fujiwara Sosuke as well.

This is a classic case of "If you kill me, you die too."

Fujiwara Sousuke's fingertips were less than an inch from Catherine's back—just one more inch and his finger force would have pierced her heart. But that inch of distance, in the instant he was struck by "Absolute Zero," became an insurmountable chasm.

His deadly finger, just an inch before it touched Catherine's heart skin, was struck by the spreading deep blue chill at its tip.

Then comes the forearm.

Then the shoulders.

"Well!"

Fujiwara Sousuke let out a short, muffled groan.

His right hand—from fingertips to wrist, from forearm to elbow, from elbow to shoulder—was instantly covered with a thick layer of dark blue ice crystals that shimmered with an eerie blue light!

Those ice crystals weren't ordinary ice; they were "dead ice" formed at absolute zero. They had no temperature, because the concept of temperature was meaningless before them. They wouldn't melt—because no heat source could provide them with enough heat in a short time. They would simply exist there until the end of time, or until they were shattered by an external force.

An indescribable, chilling cold, as if it were freezing his soul, spread wildly from his fingers throughout his entire body!

That wasn't just ordinary cold.

In ordinary cold weather, you can feel the cold, your body will shiver, and your blood vessels will constrict to keep warm.

But you can't feel this chill at all.

Because the nerve endings freeze instantly upon contact. There is no pain, no numbness, no sensation whatsoever, only a blank, empty feeling, as if that part of the body no longer belongs to oneself… a sense of loss.

In that instant, Fujiwara Sousuke's right hand completely lost sensation.

He knew that if he didn't sever the arm immediately, the chill would spread from his shoulder to his torso, then to his heart, his brain—and then he would turn into an ice sculpture and shatter like glass.

He made a decisive decision.

With his left hand, fingers joined like a knife, enveloped in gray-black "qi," he slashed fiercely at his frozen right shoulder joint!

"Snap!"

There was no blood.

The palm, enveloped in gray-black "qi," was like the sharpest knife—even sharper than a knife—and it severed his right arm at the shoulder!

No blood gushed from the severed arm, not because he stopped the bleeding in time, but because the wound was instantly frozen by the cold. Blood vessels, muscles, bones—everything was frozen at the same moment it was severed. The bright red blood that gushed from the wound turned into dark red ice shards, dripping down with a "rustling" sound.

The severed arm, covered in deep blue ice crystals, lost all life the moment it was severed from the body—not slowly dying, but dying the instant it was separated. Like a meticulously sculpted ice sculpture, it remained in the posture of Fujiwara Sousuke's open palm and forward-pointing fingertips, and then—

"Snapped!"

drop on the floor.

It was smashed to pieces.

It turned into countless sparkling ice shards, like shards of glass scattered on the ground, reflecting glittering light under the lamp.

Fujiwara Sousuke groaned, his face instantly turning ashen. It wasn't blood loss—the wound was frozen, so there was no blood loss—it was pain. The pain wasn't sharp or piercing, but a dull, deep, dull ache, like someone repeatedly grinding a red-hot iron rod into the wound.

The veins on his forehead bulged, his temples throbbed, and his lips were pressed into a thin line, turning white. But he forcefully suppressed the scream—only a muffled groan escaped from deep in his throat, short and suppressed.

The harmless smile that had always graced his aged face finally vanished.

Instead, he wore a sinister, cold, and poisonous expression.

His body moved backward with the speed of a ghost—without his right arm, his balance was slightly affected, and he staggered a little, but his speed was still astonishing. In the blink of an eye, he had created a distance of more than ten meters, retreating to the edge of the lime circle.

Then he stopped.

He stared in horror at Catherine and the deep blue ice ring at her feet that emanated a terrifying chill.

The ring of ice was slowly dissipating—Catherine's "Absolute Zero" could only last for less than three seconds, but those three seconds were enough. On the ground where the ice ring had dissipated, a deep crack remained, as if something had blasted it open from the inside. The ice at the edge of the crack had an eerie dark blue color, as if it had been dyed.

Catherine was also suffering.

Although she managed to repel the fatal blow with "Absolute Zero" and cripple her opponent's arm, she herself was grazed in the back by Fujiwara Sousuke's sharp finger wind—just before his fingertips were frozen, the finger wind wrapped in gray-black "qi" had already penetrated her last layer of shattered ice armor and touched her skin.

Although it was just a glancing blow—not a piercing, but merely the edge of the wind brushing past her back—that condensed, insidious "qi" had already invaded her body, frantically destroying her meridians and internal organs.

That "qi" was like a living snake, slithering through her body. Wherever it passed, her meridians felt like they were being burned, and her internal organs felt like they were being pricked by needles. She could feel her qi dissipating at an unstoppable speed.

"Ugh—"

She felt a sweet taste in her throat, and a warm liquid welled up in her throat.

is blood.

She forcefully suppressed the rising blood pressure—not by swallowing it, but by using her Qi to forcefully hold it back in her chest. If she were to spit out that mouthful of blood, her Qi would instantly dissipate, and at that point, let alone continuing to fight, she would struggle to even stand up.

Her face grew even paler, almost transparently white, like a sheet of paper.

A tear was made in the back of the clothing—not by a blade, but by the condensed wind from the fingers. The edges of the tear were neat and clean, as if it had been cut with scissors. It revealed an inner armor that shimmered with a faint blue light, seemingly made of a special material. The inner armor appeared to be woven from some kind of metal wire and special fiber, with fine, scale-like patterns on its surface, gleaming with an eerie blue light under the lamp.

There was a clear, deep fingerprint indentation about an inch deep on the inner nail—it was a complete fingerprint, with the outline of each segment clearly visible from the fingertip to the base of the finger, as if someone had stamped it on.

If it weren't for this inner armor protecting her, that finger strike would probably have pierced her heart.

Both sides suffer heavy losses!

Moreover, it resulted in a devastating lose-lose situation for both sides.

One was forced to cut off his own arm.

An internal organ is damaged, resulting in enormous consumption.

Silence fell over the hall once again.

Only the heavy breathing of the two could be heard—Catherine's breathing was suppressed and restrained, as she tried to control her breathing to prevent her injuries from worsening; Fujiwara Sosuke's breathing was more pronounced, the pain from his severed arm causing each breath to be accompanied by a slight tremor.

And the patch of glistening ice shards on the ground silently testifies to the perilous clash that had just taken place.

"Wow—this American girl is ruthless! She's even this ruthless to herself!"

Zhang Chulan grimaced as he watched, instinctively touching his back as if the finger had been poking him. His face was contorted in pain, as if he could imagine the agony.

"That old man was even more ruthless—he cut it off without hesitation, without even blinking! Are all ninjas this reckless?"

"In a life-or-death struggle, there is no room for hesitation."

Master Wang Ye said calmly. His eyes were always squinted, as if he were dozing off, but the divination symbols in his pupils were flowing rapidly.

"Fujiwara Sousuke's ninjutsu skills are extremely high, especially his stealth and assassination techniques, which have reached a state of perfection. If Catherine hadn't reacted quickly enough and had such strong trump cards, she would have already lost. But now..."

He paused, his gaze sweeping back and forth between the two men.

"Both of them are seriously injured now. One has lost her right arm—a ninja's hand seals and swordsmanship rely mainly on the hands, and losing an arm reduces their combat power by at least 40%. The other has serious internal injuries—that insidious 'qi' is still rampant in her body, and if it is not forced out as soon as possible, the consequences will be endless."

"So who has the better chance of winning?"

Zhang Chulan pressed for an answer.

"It's hard to say."

Wang Ye shook his head.

"Let's see who can hold out longer, and who has a backup plan."