The moment Ming Yue stepped through the portal, cool water enveloped her like a welcoming embrace. The transition from dry arena air to the aquatic realm sent a thrill through her meridians as her cultivation base immediately began resonating with the endless ocean surrounding her.

Perfect.

She opened her eyes underwater and smiled, watching streams of bubbles escape from her lips before her enhanced physiology automatically adjusted. The gills along her neck, normally sealed and hidden beneath her robes, opened, allowing water to flow through them in a steady rhythm, extracting oxygen with supernatural efficiency.

This was her domain. Her sanctuary. Her advantage.

The Infinite Ocean Realm stretched endlessly in every direction, a boundless expanse of crystal-clear water. Schools of translucent fish swam past in lazy spirals, their movements creating gentle currents that carried the taste of salt and spiritual energy.

And there, floating roughly forty meters away in the center of this aquatic paradise, was her opponent.

Ke Yin hung motionless in the water, his outer sect robes billowing around him like sea kelp. His eyes were closed, and Ming Yue could see the subtle movements of his chest as he held his breath. Probably using some basic breath-holding technique or internal qi circulation to sustain himself without oxygen.

How long could he last? Five minutes? Ten at most?

Ming Yue's smile widened as she assessed the situation.

Sure, Ke Yin was at the Pseudo-Elemental Realm, a minor realm above her ninth stage Qi Condensation cultivation. Under normal circumstances, that gap would be extremely difficult to cross. The difference in qi quality alone would have been enough to shut her down her techniques completely.

But these weren't normal circumstances.

The water around her hummed, every drop eager to obey her commands. Her spiritual essence, which would normally drain steadily during combat, felt almost unlimited here. The ocean itself was feeding her techniques, amplifying her power, reducing the qi cost of her abilities to nearly nothing.

It wasn't just that she had home field advantage. She was quite literally in her element, while Ke Yin was struggling just to breathe.

Ming Yue had studied the tournament recordings extensively, particularly Ke Yin's battles in the Fallen Realm. The village boy who'd arrived at the sect with no apparent special talents had somehow transformed into one of the tournament favorites. His plant manipulation abilities were impressive, and there was something strange about his energy signatures that didn't quite match any cultivation method she recognized.

But none of that mattered now.

In traditional Five Elements theory, water nourished wood. Plants needed moisture to grow and thrive. But there was another aspect that most cultivators overlooked; water could also overwhelm wood. A gentle stream might feed a garden, but a tsunami could wash away entire forests.

And right now, Ming Yue was the tsunami.

Her cultivation method, the Dual Nature Frost-Flow Scripture, had shaped her inner world into something unique among water cultivators. The Flowing Gardens side of her Twilight Confluence realm was a paradise of streams, waterfalls, and gentle pools. Every technique she drew from that domain carried the fluid grace and persistent power of moving water.

The water around her began to move as she activated her first technique. "Flowing River Binding," she whispered, watching threads of condensed liquid spiral outward toward Ke Yin's position.

The attack moved like living serpents, streams of pressurized water that twisted through the ocean. They approached from multiple angles, designed to wrap around his limbs and torso while gradually increasing pressure.

Ke Yin's eyes snapped open. Even underwater, Ming Yue could see the moment he registered the incoming assault. His body twisted, using some kind of movement technique to barely slip between the water bindings.

Interesting. Most cultivators became clumsy underwater, but Ke Yin adapted better than she expected.

The strange energy signature she'd noticed in the recordings flared around his thigh, and suddenly he was moving with explosive speed. Not swimming exactly, but shooting through the water like he'd been fired from a cannon.

Ke Yin materialized behind her, his hand glowing with that same unfamiliar energy. The attack came fast: a palm strike that would have connected cleanly if she'd been a normal opponent.

Instead, Ming Yue activated Mist Step Technique.

Her body dissolved into liquid, becoming one with the surrounding water as the palm strike passed harmlessly through her dispersed form. The technique felt effortless here, requiring barely a whisper of qi to maintain.

She reformed ten meters away, already preparing her counterattack. "Cascading Palm Strike!"

The technique erupted from her hands as bursts of high-pressure water, each one carrying enough force to dent steel. The attacks spread out in a fan pattern, making evasion difficult even with his movement abilities.

Ke Yin raised his arms defensively, and something extraordinary happened. Strange energy flared from somewhere within his body, and suddenly a runic barrier materialized in front of him.

The water bursts slammed into the barrier with tremendous force, but instead of breaking through, they seemed to lose most of their power on contact.

Ming Yue could see the hexagonal sections pulse, each impact causing the geometric pattern to briefly flare with light before dispersing the attack harmlessly.

Only about twenty percent of her technique's force actually reached Ke Yin, barely enough to push him backward through the water. The rest had simply vanished into that strange hexagonal shield.

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Ming Yue blinked in surprise. She'd seen this technique in the recordings, but witnessing it firsthand was different. The defensive construct didn't just block her attacks; it was actively absorbing and neutralizing them, like some kind of advanced formation work compressed into a single barrier.

Before she could respond with another attack, Ke Yin pressed his advantage, that strange energy flaring around his right hand. Thick vines erupted from seemingly nowhere, growing with impossible speed as they reached toward her.

This was more familiar territory. Plant manipulation techniques, even advanced ones, followed predictable patterns. Ming Yue dove deeper, using the three-dimensional nature of their battlefield to her advantage.

The vines followed, but underwater vegetation moved differently than their land-based counterparts. Water resistance slowed their reactions, and the constant pressure affected their structural integrity.

She spun through a graceful spiral, positioning herself above the attacking plants. "Rain of Needles!"

Water vapor condensed around her into thousands of needle-thin projectiles. Each one was perfectly sharp, designed to pierce from multiple angles simultaneously. The barrage descended like a deadly snowfall, forcing Ke Yin to abandon his vine attack in favor of defense.

That hexagonal barrier flared to life again, but even its interlocking pattern couldn't cover every angle of the needle barrage.

Several needles found their mark, drawing thin lines of blood that dispersed in crimson clouds through the water.

First blood to her.

Ke Yin grimaced, pressing one hand against a particularly deep cut on his shoulder. His breathing was becoming more labored, and Ming Yue could see the strain of holding his breath starting to affect his movements.

Time was on her side. Every second that passed weakened him while strengthening her position.

But Ke Yin wasn't finished yet. His eyes darted around the ocean environment, and Ming Yue saw the moment he noticed something she'd overlooked.

Seaweed. Vast forests of it, swaying in the deeper currents.

"Smart," she admitted as his qi flared.

The underwater vegetation responded to his call, rising from the ocean floor in massive tangles. Unlike his conjured vines, these plants were already adapted to aquatic life.

The seaweed forest erupted upward like a living tsunami, each strand thick as her arm and dozens of meters long. They moved with the fluid grace of their natural environment, surrounding her position in a dense cage of plant matter.

Ming Yue activated Whirlpool Prison, spinning the water around herself into a defensive vortex. The technique kept the seaweed at bay while gradually draining qi from any organic matter caught in its influence.

But Ke Yin had anticipated this. His energy signature shifted again, and suddenly the seaweed wasn't just attacking; it was weaving itself into complex geometric patterns. Some kind of formation work, though she couldn't identify the specific type.

Ming Yue's eyes narrowed. Formation work underwater was incredibly difficult due to the way water interfered with qi flow patterns. Either Ke Yin was more skilled than she'd given him credit for, or those vines operated on principles she didn't understand.

She decided not to find out which.

"Cascading Palm Strike!"

Ming Yue shot forward like a spear, her body cutting through the water at tremendous speed. Her palm glowed with concentrated water essence as she aimed for the center of Ke Yin's forming pattern. If she could disrupt his technique before it stabilized...

The impact was tremendous.

Her palm strike connected with some kind of barrier, sending shockwaves through the water that sent schools of fish scattering in all directions.

But instead of shattering Ke Yin's defense, her attack seemed to be absorbed and redirected. The vine formation pulsed with energy, and suddenly the water around her began to behave strangely.

Currents that should have been flowing one way suddenly reversed. Pressure differentials appeared where none should exist. It was like the natural laws governing water movement had been temporarily rewritten in this small area.

"What kind of technique is this?" Ming Yue muttered, genuinely intrigued despite herself.

Ke Yin's response was to point directly at her. The vine formation flared with that strange energy signature, and suddenly Ming Yue found herself trapped in a sphere of crystallized water that responded to none of her commands.

The prison wasn't made of ice, it was still technically water, but it had been somehow locked in place, refusing to flow or change state no matter how much spiritual energy she poured into it.

"Impressive," she admitted, testing the boundaries of her prison. "I didn't think formation techniques could interfere with water manipulation like this."

Through the crystallized walls, she could see Ke Yin preparing what looked like a finishing move. His hands were glowing with that same unusual energy, and she could sense him gathering power for something significant.

This was getting dangerous.

Ming Yue closed her eyes and reached deep into her inner world, past the flowing gardens and peaceful streams, toward the other half of her cultivation. The side she rarely accessed because of what it did to her personality, her perspective on the world.

The side that had no patience for being trapped.

The Twilight Confluence responded to her call, the boundary between her two domains beginning to shift. Cold began to seep through her meridians as power flowed from the Glacier Throne Domain, where every surface gleamed with deadly, razor-sharp frost.

Ming Yue felt the familiar sensation of her consciousness splitting, her warm and gentle personality receding as something far colder took its place. Her spiritual pressure began to change, taking on a crystalline quality that made the water around her sing with harmonics.

When she opened her eyes, they had shifted from their normal brown to a pale, almost white-blue. Her hair, previously black, now gleamed with silver highlights.

"Absolute Zero Touch," she whispered, her voice now carrying none of its previous warmth.

The crystallized water prison began to crack as her body temperature plummeted far below what should have been survivable. Ice crystals formed along the surface of her skin, spreading outward like living fractals that carried her will and intent.

The prison shattered.

Ming Yue rose in the water, her movements now sharp rather than flowing. The gentle currents that had supported her before became rigid, structural, turning the ocean around her into something more like a frozen cathedral than a living sea.

Ke Yin's finishing attack was already in motion, some kind of concentrated burst of that strange energy that would have been devastating if it had connected with her previous state. But Ming Yue was no longer the same opponent he'd been fighting.

She opened her mouth and screamed.

The sound that emerged wasn't quite human. It was the voice of absolute winter, of ice and snow and the kind of cold that turned living things into statues. The scream carried her spiritual pressure outward in a wave of crystalline energy that transformed everything it touched.

The water around them didn't just freeze; it crystallized into a perfect lattice of ice that stretched as far as the eye could see.

Ke Yin's attack dissipated harmlessly against the advancing wall of cold, his energy signature suddenly muffled as the medium that carried it transformed into something that conducted spiritual force entirely differently.

And the village boy himself, caught in the middle of his technique with no time to dodge or defend, simply froze solid.

Ming Yue lowered her hand, the scream fading into silence.

The entire Infinite Ocean Realm had become her domain now, not through the gentle persuasion of water, but through the absolute authority of ice. Every molecule was locked in place according to her will, every surface reflecting her cold light.

The frozen figure of Ke Yin hung suspended in the crystalline matrix, his expression locked in surprise. He was still alive, she could sense his spiritual energy flickering inside the ice, but he was completely immobilized.

The frozen water wouldn't just hold him; it would begin draining his qi, slowly sapping his strength until he had no choice but to surrender.

Ming Yue began walking across the ice toward her trapped opponent, her footsteps creating small crystalline chimes with each step. The cold personality that now in charge felt satisfied with the outcome, but also slightly disappointed. She'd hoped for more of a challenge from someone with such an interesting energy signature.

"You fought well," she said. "But you made a fundamental error in judgment. Water doesn't just nourish wood. Sometimes, it drowns it."

With that, she looked around for the portal to appear.

The tournament rules required victory through surrender, incapacitation, or elimination from the battlefield.

Ke Yin definitely qualified as incapacitated.

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