Ye Ling's eyes shifted slightly upon seeing the sky filled with ice shards. He immediately condensed a shield around himself with runes, enclosing himself in a sphere.
Under such inescapable attacks, even in his state of selflessness, Ye Ling had no way to dodge and could only endure.
"Ice Burial!!!"
Ji Ning shouted, and the ice shards in the sky rapidly pierced towards Ye Ling. A large number of ice shards struck Ye Ling's rune barrier simultaneously.
Almost instantly, many ice shards penetrated Ye Ling's rune barrier and stabbed towards his body.
If not for the heat protection emitted by the Seed of Origin, which melted those ice shards, Ye Ling would have been riddled with holes by Ji Ning's ice shards by now!
Ji Ning did not expect to defeat Ye Ling in one move. She continuously condensed new ice shards in the heavens and earth, smiling at Ye Ling, "Wang Li Ren, I'll see how long you can resist with the Seed of Origin!"
"This is truly troublesome... I have to use the Devouring Domain so soon."
Ye Ling looked at the ice shards shooting from all directions, muttered softly, then covered his runes with the Devouring Domain to devour Ji Ning's attacks.
The overwhelming ice shards turned into Ye Ling's spiritual energy, nourishing his body.
"This kid's domain... can devour my attacks?" Ji Ning's eyes shifted slightly upon seeing Ye Ling's method, and she immediately stopped her offensive.
Seeing Ji Ning cease her attack, Ye Ling breathed a sigh of relief, then looked at Ji Ning and asked with a smile, "Senior, why aren't you continuing with that move?"
Ji Ning asked coldly, "Kid, what was that domain of yours just now?"
Ye Ling smiled, "Senior, this is my trump card. If I let you know it just like that, wouldn't I be accelerating my own death?"
"Hmph! Even if you don't say it, I've already thought of a way to break it!"
Ji Ning snorted coldly, gripped the ice spear in her hand, and fiercely thrust it towards Ye Ling!
A flash of ice light streaked past.
Ye Ling dodged sideways, the ice spear grazing his face.
"Senior, you can't hit me with just martial skills!" Ye Ling dodged Ji Ning's strike and chuckled lightly.
"Whether I hit you or not is not for you to decide!"
Ji Ning sneered, and immediately a scratch appeared on Ye Ling's cheek, the wound freezing over with frost.
"What is this?"
Ye Ling, seeing that he had clearly dodged Ji Ning's attack yet was still injured, his pupils constricted slightly.
However, before Ye Ling could figure out what had happened, Ji Ning attacked again with her spear, launching a tempestuous assault on Ye Ling.
The ice spear blurred into countless afterimages, but Ye Ling perfectly dodged them all through his state of selflessness.
But when Ji Ning withdrew her attack, Ye Ling's entire body was covered in numerous small wounds, all frozen by ice and unable to heal!
Although each wound was insignificant to Ye Ling, the accumulation of quantity led to a change in quality. With more wounds all over his body, Ye Ling felt a bone-chilling cold, and his movements slowed.
These injuries that affected his agility forced Ye Ling to activate the power of the Seed of Origin to melt the frost at his wounds, heal them, and warm his body.
However, Ji Ning's offensive never stopped. Even though Ye Ling could heal his injuries with the Seed of Origin, the number of wounds on his body increased instead of decreasing!
"Senior, what kind of method is this? Can you reveal it to your junior?" Ye Ling asked Ji Ning while dodging her attacks.
"Kid, this is also my trump card. If you find out, how can I still kill you?" Ji Ning sneered at Ye Ling while attacking.
Ye Ling did not expect retribution to come so quickly. He began to try and create distance from Ji Ning, but Ji Ning's speed was almost the same as Ye Ling's. Under passive defense, Ye Ling was unable to create any distance from Ji Ning.
However, as Ye Ling retreated, he noticed that the number of new wounds on his body decreased. Only when Ji Ning rushed forward and attacked again did his wounds increase.
"Could it be..." Ye Ling noticed this pattern and his heart stirred. He immediately condensed a large number of runes in the heavens and earth, attaching his soul power to the runes to examine the battlefield between himself and Ji Ning!
When Ye Ling's divine soul swept over the places where he and Ji Ning had fought, he discovered that in those areas, the space had been torn open by countless invisible fissures. Within those tiny spatial fissures, extremely small and sharp ice shards were hidden!
And whenever Ye Ling's body passed through those spatial fissures, it would be cut by the ice shards!
"So the real killing moves were hidden in the spatial fissures... This entire Dao Province is frozen by ice, everywhere is a world of ice and snow. Those tiny spatial cracks are perfectly concealed by the blizzard..."
"Hiding killing moves in countless tiny spatial cracks. If I want to use the Devouring Domain, I have to infiltrate the Devouring Domain into every spatial crack... Ji Ning's divine soul is stronger than mine. If I continue to wear her down like this, I'm afraid I'll run out of mental energy first!"
"As expected of a supreme expert... When she gets serious, she's much harder to deal with than the careless Jian Shisan!"
Ye Ling muttered to himself, then used the Seed of Origin to strengthen his runes, spreading them throughout the heavens and earth, diffusing his divine soul, marking all the spatial cracks. He discovered that all those spatial cracks were left by Ji Ning's ice spear attacks!
"It seems that to avoid being harmed by those ice shards, I cannot touch any area where Ji Ning's ice spear has passed!"
Having deciphered Ji Ning's method, Ye Ling began to retreat while fighting, and the wounds on his body instantly decreased.
"Kid, being able to see through my methods shows you have some insight, but even if you can tear them apart, so what?"
Ji Ning sneered and directly released her domain, covering the entire Dao Province.
In an instant, the entire great province was filled with tiny spatial fissures!
Even a mosquito tens of thousands of miles away, with a slight flutter of its wings, would be cut into pieces by the ice shards hidden in the spatial fissures!
And Ji Ning, having unleashed such a wide-ranging killing move, seemed to have no consumption at all, still radiating vigor.
The soul power and spiritual energy of a supreme expert were almost infinite!
Ye Ling looked at the dense spatial fissures around him. He took a slight breath, and his heaving chest developed numerous small wounds.
"Wang Li Ren, try using your domain to devour those ice shards? I'd like to see how strong your mental energy is, and how many spatial fissures it can penetrate?" Ji Ning looked at Ye Ling, who was surrounded by tiny spatial fissures, her eyes filled with increasing mockery.
Those spatial fissures, though seemingly near Ye Ling, were actually at different coordinates.
If Ye Ling wanted to devour the ice shards in the spatial fissures, he would have to use the Devouring Domain to pass through the spatial fissures and devour the ice shards from tens of thousands of miles, or even tens of thousands of light-years away!
And those ice shards themselves did not contain much energy. Even if Ye Ling devoured them, it would not compensate for the power consumed in activating the Devouring Domain!
"Senior, you're relying on your infinite soul power to create so many spatial fissures, isn't that cheating?" Ye Ling looked at the countless tiny spatial fissures around him and sighed slightly, complaining to Ji Ning.
Ji Ning's move was purely a war of attrition. Whoever had more spiritual energy would be the final winner, with no technical skill involved!
Ji Ning was a supreme expert, and she could absorb spiritual energy from the heavens and earth to replenish her consumption. Ye Ling, however, was not a supreme expert. His capital to contend with Ji Ning was entirely reliant on the power of the Seed of Origin!
If the power of the Seed of Origin were completely consumed in eliminating the spatial fissures, Ye Ling would surely be worn down to death by Ji Ning!
Ji Ning's eyes were filled with mockery as she smiled at Ye Ling, "If you were a supreme expert, this kind of move of mine would be useless, of course. It's a pity you're not... The spiritual energy you absorb yourself is of inferior quality compared to mine."
"You have an absolute realm gap with me, so this kind of crushing superiority in quality and quantity is most suitable for dealing with you!"
"Wang Li Ren, surrender obediently and hand over the Seed of Origin... I'll at least leave you a complete corpse, and we won't have to waste time."
"Alas... Senior, you're forcing my hand."
Driven into a corner, Ye Ling sighed slightly, looked up at Ji Ning, and numerous small wounds appeared on his face again.
"Oh? What other struggles do you have?" Ji Ning smiled at Ye Ling and asked.
"I'm giving up... Since you're cheating, don't blame me for flipping the table!" Ye Ling said indifferently, then closed his eyes and spread his arms in mid-air.
Ji Ning was initially curious about what Ye Ling intended to do, but she suddenly felt the Seed of Origin within Ye Ling become extremely unstable, and her expression changed drastically.
"You lunatic, are you using the Seed of Origin to play self-destruction with me?"