The entire arena platform was set ablaze and the two contestants could no longer be seen, but Fenglong’s eyes had never left that slim figure ever since his feet began to move from the tea house on its own. Within the conflagration, his dark sapphire eyes were locked on the slender silhouette of a woman called Huang Baihe.

The heat wave emitting from her body rapidly melted the icicles piercing through her flesh and clothes, not even leaving behind a droplet of water. From the looks of it, Fenglong knew she’d sustained heavy internal injuries as she remained motionless on the ground, not moving even when the fire melted away the frost covering her skin.

Thankfully, the fire was probably from her own spiritual beast, so Baihe was unaffected by the intense heat. Fenglong knew the flames wouldn’t harm her, hence why he didn’t continue charging forward.

A frown appeared on his handsome face. Why did he rush to save her? How come every time they meet, he seems to lose control and forgoes reasoning?

Brilliant sapphire eyes scrutinized his target surrounded by flames — as if he studied her enough, he’d be able to find the answer he was searching for. He concentrated on those dark eyes of hers, framed by beautiful long lashes; if not for the occasional blinking indicating that she was still conscious, he would have suspected she fainted with open eyes — either from the pain or from the massive loss of blood.

A tinge of admiration entered his imperceptible eyes. This woman was tough and resistant with a fighting spirit kindling within her. Why had he never noticed such a fierce will in the past? It was almost like a new soul was born inside the vessel of the infamous Huang Baihe.

A new soul? 

The abrupt idea brought forth another frown as his brows knitted together while his mind began to ponder on the absurd possibility. This time, when his dark sapphire eyes focused on Baihe, it was analytical as his mind started to form possible theories.

♦

The spectators shielded their eyes with their hands as they moved further back from the fighting platform. All of them had wanted a closer inspection of the sudden phenomenon occurring on stage, but the intense heat kept them away. It was like the glorious sun had dropped down and crashed before them — making them want to move closer, but forcing them to maintain their distance instead.

Suddenly, a cry rang out among the people. Curious, everyone turned to the source and followed the person’s line of sight. Tilting their heads upward, a collective gasp was heard from the crowd. They sucked in a deep breath, eyes wide with disbelief and amazement.

“Heavens! It’s a phoenix!”

“Something big is about to happen! A legendary beast has appeared!”

“Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I actually got to see the godly divine beast before I hit my deathbed!”

“Maybe this is heaven’s sign of a new empress soon!”

Their excited voices overlapped one another, even the royal family couldn’t sit still. This was the first time in history a divine beast had descended to the moral realm. How could they not be delighted? In fact, many of them were already coveting the godly beast, turning the cogs in their minds for ways to make the phoenix submit to them.

The flames surrounding the arena platform were extinguished after Qian appeared, revealing … everyone’s eyes bulged. The ladies in the crowd screamed. The funniest expression came from Fei Fei since she was already sporting a pig face at the moment.

There — in the middle of the stage, was the heir to the Huang’s general household — completely naked and encased in a frozen ice prison.

Finally, the crowd remembered about the other contestant. All eyes turned to look at the beauty still lying on the ground, except this time, Baihe was freed from all the icicles and most importantly — completely unharmed by the flames.

It was like she possessed a heat-resistant vessel, not an inch of her was burned — not her clothes nor her hair. It was at this moment, they all came to a sudden realization: The phoenix belongs to Baihe!

Everyone had a different reaction from this earth-shattering revelation. The most exaggerated expressions came from Fei Fei and Empress Feng. The former was worried about her Crown Princess position and if this sudden appearance of the phoenix would jeopardize her future seat to the throne. The latter was extremely afraid she would lose her current phoenix throne because she could see the strong greed and lust in Emperor Feng’s hungry eyes.

Empress Feng clenched her fists tightly. She had accompanied this man through thick and thin, sacrificed her youth to scheme against his enemies and helped him rise to power until he finally gained the dragon throne. But, how can any of that compare to the allure of controlling the godly phoenix beast?

Looking back at the beautiful battered woman on the battlefield, a vicious glint crossed Empress Feng’s eyes. She would never allow another female to steal her Empress title. Want to enter the imperial harem? You would have to be alive for that to happen! 

Back on the arena platform, Ming was still encased in the ice prison he erected himself for protection. He calculated thousand — no ten thousands time, but he would never have imagined such a scenario to occur.

In the last minute, right before he was about to disgrace Baihe in public, her body suddenly flared outward with intense flames. Under normal circumstance, a mere Early Dao Stage 2 elemental attack against a Mid Dao Stage 3 cultivator like him would have been ineffective. Except, the fire she released was anything but normal.

Upon seeing her contractual spiritual beast, Ming finally understood why and his intestines turned green from jealousy. It was the sacred phoenix flame! How could normal fire compare? If he didn’t entomb himself completely in ice at the last second, he was afraid more than just his clothes would have been burned away.

Even with a higher level ice prison, the fire kept melting away the ice. Ming was forced to continuously pour spiritual energy into erecting another ice prison one after another until finally, the flames were extinguished when the phoenix fully emerged.

Acknowledging the dire situation he was in, Ming had no other choice than to fight with everything he got, including his trump card.

Baihe laid on the platform ground, too weak to get up. Although the heat had melted away the frost, the blood flow circulating through her body had been stopped for a long time because of the icicle arrows freezing her blood. Thanks to Qian, she finally started shivering again from the cold — a good sign under these circumstances indicating that her body was attempting to generate heat again.

From her peripheral vision, she saw something flashed out of Ming’s body. Then, appearing next to him was a warrior snow mermaid. Based on her predecessor’s memory, his mermaid came from an elusive sea race and the warrior snow mermaids were from the mermaid king’s direct army, personally trained for combat.

They were bred to be strong, fierce and protective. Baihe could tell from the baleful glare in the warrior snow mermaid’s eyes that she was extremely angry over her master’s injuries.

Her tail slammed the ground and thousands of ice spikes shot up to the sky with the base still rooted to the platform. Qian leaped in a beautiful crescent arc, dancing in the sky as he dodged between the ice spikes chasing after him. The icicles released by the warrior snow mermaid were much stronger than Ming’s. After all, this time it was coming directly from the source and even from one of the rarest sea creature.

As Qian flew to a higher altitude, a smirk came over the warrior snow mermaid’s face. From the edges of the arena platform, ice walls extended from the ground on all four corners, reaching to the highest height of the multiple pillars created by the ice spikes.

Realizing the warrior snow mermaid’s intentions, Qian immediately began descending from the sky, attempting to bridge the distance between them, but it was too late. As the four ice walls reached the same height, another layer of ice wall formed from the top, connecting with the four existing ones to create a durable ice ceiling.

The warrior snow mermaid turned to Baihe — the murderous intent from her aura was extremely thick, to the point even Qian could sense it from outside the ice cage. All along, the warrior snow mermaid’s intention was to separate Baihe from the phoenix so she can finish off this loathsome girl who dared cause such injuries upon her master!

Although Baihe found herself in dire straits, she was more concerned about Qian. Because they were connected, she could feel something was terribly wrong with him — almost as if his presence had greatly faded away and he was slowly disappearing. Alarmed, Baihe tilted her head toward the sky, blocked by the ice ceiling.

“Stupid bird! What the hell have you done?”