The moment the white-robed woman’s wide sleeves fell, he saw the shimmering surface of the entire Li River seem to solidify into Sword Qi, which then rained down from all directions.

It was intent!

Sword Intent!

"Wait!"

Xu Yunfan couldn’t help but roar, but before the word left his mouth, the frost pattern drawn by the woman’s joined fingers had already frozen the air.

The hair on Xu Yunfan’s neck stood on end. Muscle memory honed from years of slaughter on the battlefield made him instinctively lean back.

Three veins bulged on his bronze neck as the state of Golden Skin and Jade Veins flared to life. His body contorted with the power of Rigid Ribs and Sinewy Muscles, his formidable chest straining his clothes to the bursting point. Yet, he was still no match for the speed of that cold gleam, a light that seemed capable of piercing a mountain.

SHHNK!

The ring of the sword followed a half-breath later.

Xu Yunfan held the iron bridge pose, and suddenly found he could see the Li River suspended upside down.

The blood-red setting sun spun in his vision. His last glimpse was of his own headless body crashing to its knees, the pillar of blood erupting from his severed neck freezing into an icicle in midair.

’What the hell...’

His lingering consciousness had yet to fade when the icy Sword Qi shot up his spine and into his brain.

When Xu Yunfan opened his eyes for the second time, the phantom pain from his throat being frozen and shattered still lingered in the web of his hand.

He no longer hesitated. With a furious roar that shook the ice shards from his hair, he twisted his powerful waist like a drawn bow. The knotted muscles of his back stretched his cloth shirt, creating a spiderweb of tears.

His Combat Skill, honed on the battlefield, manifested as a Black Tiger Heart Stealing. His five fingers tore through the air, aiming straight for the Danzhong Acupoint of the woman before him.

The woman flicked her white silk sleeve.

Seven ice lotuses suddenly bloomed before Xu Yunfan’s eyes, each petal a solidified blade of Sword Qi.

The instant his knuckles, forged of steel and cast in iron, struck the first lotus, a fine spray of blood beads erupted from the armor-like deltoid of his right arm. It was the path of the Sword Qi burrowing through his pores and into his meridians.

"Break!"

His eyes flew wide with fury. The Blood Qi in his body churned like a furnace as he smashed his left fist, charged with Pure Yang Inner Breath, into his own right shoulder.

The arm, corroded by Sword Qi, exploded from the shoulder. The shattered flesh and bone, however, froze into blood-red Ice Crystals in midair.

The searing pain only stoked his ferocity. He used his mangled torso as a shield to shatter the remaining six ice lotuses, his blood-soaked left hand now just three inches from the woman’s throat.

The woman finally lifted her gaze.

As she pointed her fingers like a sword at his heart, Xu Yunfan heard the crisp crackling of his own ribs freezing inch by inch.

His Pure Yang Inner Breath surged wildly in his chest, but the veins bulging beneath his bronze skin burst one after another. Xu Yunfan’s face flushed crimson as he let out a guttural roar.

"You son of a..."

When he collapsed to the ground, his entire body had become an ice sculpture, an Ice Sword formed from the waters of the Li River embedded where his heart should be.

’Your Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique is being continuously polished. You have grasped the crux of unleashing Shaking Mountain Power in the crucible of life and death. Your Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique Skill Level has increased.’

’The Pure Yang Inner Breath cultivated by your Sunrise Qi Skill seems to have been slightly refined as it flowed with your flesh and blood. Your Sunrise Qi Skill Skill Level has increased.’

’...’

Opening his eyes once more, Xu Yunfan gazed at the woman in white, who again stood atop the mountain peak. The setting sun backlit her, revealing the silhouette of her graceful figure through her robes.

"Linn!"

As Xu Yunfan formed the Linn Character Seal with his hands before his chest, his agitated emotions receded like the tide. All feelings vanished, the seal mirroring the stillness of his mind.

He raised his gaze, looking at the white-robed woman three hundred meters away, standing on a mountain peak across the river.

"I remember now. This is my dream."

A flicker of change finally appeared in the woman’s placid eyes. She didn’t speak, only watched Xu Yunfan quietly. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Xu Yunfan raised a hand, and the phantom image of a six-barreled Gatling gun appeared in it. But it only flickered for a moment before shattering like a soap bubble.

’It seems I need to know the structure to manifest it.’

In the Linn Character State, Xu Yunfan instantly grasped the key point. After a moment of contemplation, he made a grasping motion with one hand, and the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer materialized.

Without the slightest hesitation, the muscles of his right leg swelled by three inches. In the instant his heel crushed the green rock beneath, the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer was already hurtling toward the woman’s face, wrapped in the sound of wind and thunder.

Nine spinning, molten-rock patterns instantly appeared on the hammer’s handle. The Qi Force bursting from its head crackled with arcs of electricity, dragging a hundred-foot tongue of fire across the Li River’s surface and making the inverted Nine Bends River resemble a Purgatory Blood River.

In the Linn Character State, his dormant potential and accumulated reserves began to stir like dragons and snakes rising from the earth, erupting from within him. The Pure Yang Inner Breath surged through his flesh and blood like molten rock, igniting like oil poured on firewood.

His speed and power were several times greater than before!

The white-robed woman flicked her wide sleeve. The Starlight flowing between the white silks suddenly condensed into a barrier of Ice Crystals.

The instant the trailing Hammer Force of the Thousand Jin Hammer struck the barrier, blood burst from the web of Xu Yunfan’s hand. The seemingly fragile Ice Crystals concealed a nine-layered resilient force, reflecting seventy percent of his power right back at him.

At the same time, the woman lifted her slender, pale fingers. Her figure flickered and reappeared in front of him.

CRACK!

Amidst the crisp sound of his skull shattering, Xu Yunfan fell backward into the river.

’Your Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique...’

’Your Linn Character Technique...’

Opening his eyes again, Xu Yunfan glanced at the skill proficiency increase notifications that popped up in his vision. The Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique and the Linn Character Technique had each gained a point in Skill Level.

’Just like that. Perfect!’

"Linn!"

Xu Yunfan’s eyes were calm. Facing the sky full of Sword Qi flying toward him, he suddenly twisted his body into a shape unimaginable for an ordinary person, dodging by a hair’s breadth.

As his clothes ripped apart, he felt a sense of utter liberation. He twisted in midair, completely unrestrained, putting his full force into a swing of the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer.

The white-robed woman facing him saw Xu Yunfan’s naked gaze. Her movements paused imperceptibly, and her expression grew even more profound.

Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique, Third Style: Overlapping Waves Shattering Mountain.

The Thunderfire Qilin Hammer suddenly flew out, splitting into nine afterimages in the air.

This is the most ferocious Stacked Force technique in the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique. It lands nine consecutive hammer strikes on the same point, with the rebounding force transforming into a nine-layered Hidden Force via the Yongquan Acupoint. To execute it, one must dislocate every joint in their body by three inches.

A series of crisp pops, like popping soybeans, erupted from Xu Yunfan’s body. The core muscle groups generating the force were stretched to their absolute limit like steel cables, emitting the terrifying sound of snapping strands. The result was nine hammer shadows that sealed off all the woman’s escape routes.

For the first time, a ripple of emotion appeared in the woman’s eyes.

Her white silk sleeve swept up seven Rusted Swords from the river, their tips precisely striking the points where the hammer’s afterimages shifted between illusion and reality.

Amidst the ringing of metal on metal, Xu Yunfan shot out like a phantom, skimming low across the ground. His calloused left hand shot straight for the woman’s ankle—the killing blow had just been a feint!

RRRIP!

The sound of tearing silk shattered the silence on the river’s surface.

Xu Yunfan clutched a torn piece of white gauze between his fingers, his hand firmly gripping the woman’s snow-white ankle.

’It’s so delicate, like jade.’

Provoked like this, the woman’s icy gaze seemed to grow even sharper.

The Li River suddenly coiled up into the sky. Countless Sword Souls surged from the riverbed, forming a massive Sword Wheel behind the woman.

The next instant, Xu Yunfan’s vision went dark.

Upon his seventh rebirth, the phantom pain of his right arm’s bones being pulverized by the Frost Pattern Sword Qi still lingered.

"Linn!"

Xu Yunfan formed the Linn Character Seal with one hand while gripping the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer in a reverse hold with the other.

As he continued to use the Linn Character State, some kind of imperceptible change seemed to be taking place.