When Fang Yuan and Bai Ningbing left Qing Mao Mountain, Tie Daoku and his group had been eating dust behind their backs. Even during the White Bone Mountain inheritance and the final chase battle, Fang Yuan and Bai Ningbing never crossed paths with Tie Daoku.
It was only recently, when Tie Daoku and the Bai family group arrived at Merchant City, that he came face to face with Fang Yuan for the first time.
Then Fang Yuan led them into the Lion Tower. After a conversation, the Bai family members sold everything they had and fled, abandoning fifty thousand and running off. They left Tie Daoku alone, captured by the Lion Tower and assigned as a guard outside the gate tower.
Bai Ningbing naturally had no idea about any of this.
But Tie Daoku knew Bai Ningbing.
From the Bai family's wanted poster, he had long since memorized the faces of Fang Yuan and Bai Ningbing, deep in the innermost recesses of his heart.
Now, upon seeing Bai Ningbing, he was naturally overcome with wild joy.
Heaven has not treated me unfair — the heavens have eyes, giving me such a quick chance for revenge!
But after his wild joy came towering rage.
Bai Ningbing's casual "Who are you?" stirred up all the frustration, fury, hatred, and humiliation in Tie Daoku's heart, forming a surging torrent of vengeful fury like molten lava!
You murderer! You killed my young master! You nearly got me killed! You got me forced into being a door guard by the pleasure house! You got me spotted by acquaintances, my reputation destroyed!
All of this is because of you, you arch-villain! And you — you actually don't even know who I am!
"Aaaargh!" Tie Daoku roared toward the sky, his face red and neck bulging, dense killing intent erupting without any concealment.
Clang — !
The battle began. Tie Daoku charged at Bai Ningbing without a moment's hesitation.
Sensing the sharp killing intent from her opponent, Bai Ningbing narrowed her blue eyes, gave a cold snort, and charged forward fiercely.
Both sides closed in at tremendous speed, arriving before each other in the blink of an eye.
Iron Hand Gu! Hand Blade Gu!
In an instant, Tie Daoku's hands turned to steel, while the edges of his palms sharpened into blades.
Ice Blade Gu!
Bai Ningbing pressed her palms together, then pulled them apart. In an instant, an ice crystal battle blade materialized.
Clang!
A crisp ring sounded — iron hands like blades against the freezing edge of ice, clashing once.
Both sides passed each other, carried by momentum for five or six steps. Bai Ningbing twisted at the waist and flicked her hand. Chichichi. Three ice spikes shot toward Tie Daoku's back.
Tie Daoku gave a low shout, forced himself into a hard turn, and swept his arms — shuashuashua — shattering all the ice spikes. Then he charged at Bai Ningbing fiercely once more.
Bai Ningbing's gaze sharpened.
From the brief exchange just now, she already understood that this person was a formidable opponent.
"Good. I can use him to test my gu combination." Battle intent surged within Bai Ningbing.
She was not a freak like Fang Yuan with vast experience — she could only try things out one by one. Participating in the martial competitions served two purposes: earning Yuan Stones, and tempering her own gu combination through combat.
Swift Shadow Gu!
At that moment, Tie Daoku's speed surged dramatically, leaving an afterimage trailing behind him like a tail.
He suddenly accelerated, and in the span of a few blinks, he was already in front of Bai Ningbing.
"So fast!" Bai Ningbing's pupils contracted.
Tie Daoku had already extended both arms, raising them high overhead, and brought them down from above. With the force of an axe chop, he hacked viciously toward Bai Ningbing.
Before the blow even landed, a sharp wind blasted toward her face, whipping Bai Ningbing's silver hair backward and sending a chill across her skin.
The arms were like two sharp blades, rapidly expanding in Bai Ningbing's vision!
Tie Daoku first used Iron Hand Gu, then Hand Blade Gu, making the edges of his palms as keen as knives.
But that wasn't all. The inner and outer sides of both his forearms also transformed into flat, razor-sharp blades.
This strike from Tie Daoku was powerful and heavy, irresistibly sharp — it could cleave through boulders, let alone a fragile human body?
Even with Bai Ningbing's Ice Skin Jade Bones protecting her, she didn't dare meet the attack head-on and could only retreat temporarily.
Bai Ningbing retreated while swinging her ice blade to block.
Tie Daoku whirled both arms like windmill blades, each hand-blade strike coming in rapid succession.
Clang, clang, clang…
The sound of ice blades and hand blades colliding rang out without cease.
Bai Ningbing condensed another ice blade, wielding twin blades in hand as she retreated step by step, fending off Tie Daoku's fierce onslaught.
Ice Blade Gu was an advanced evolution of the Second Transformation Ice Knife Gu — harder blade body, keener edge.
But Tie Daoku simultaneously operated Third Transformation gu. He used Iron Hand Gu and Hand Blade Gu in combination, and the Hand Blade Gu was the core of his entire gu set.
For a time, ice shards flew everywhere, and the surface of her ice blade was riddled with deep slash marks.
Tie Daoku whipped up a storm of iron blades. He was older than Bai Ningbing, more seasoned, and with his rage at full force his momentum was unstoppable. Without pausing for a breath, he pushed Bai Ningbing back a full several hundred steps.
The fact that Tie Daoku had been chosen by the Tie family's young master and valued as a right-hand man naturally spoke to his extraordinary capabilities.
If the Tie family's young master were to become patriarch in the future, then Tie Daoku would become an elder minister of the caliber of Wei Yang!
Bai Ningbing was pressed hard on the defensive. He who defends for long must eventually falter — several bloody cuts appeared on her body, blood splattering along the path of retreat.
"This won't do… Frost Breath Gu!" Bai Ningbing suddenly mobilized her True Essence, pouring it into her tongue.
On her tongue, there was a pale blue hexagonal ice-flower mark — the symbol of the Frost Breath Gu's resting place.
She puffed out both cheeks and exhaled a breath of frigid air.
The pale blue cold air immediately enveloped Tie Daoku, coating both his arms and most of his chest in a layer of frost.