The pressure in the clearing changed before anyone could react.
It wasn't an immediate explosion. It started as a silent accumulation, a density concentrating around Bīng Xuě. The air near his body began vibrating with irregular frequency, as if something inside him pushed outward without yet finding a stable form.
His energy stopped being transparent.
It became visible.
A dark red tone emerged from his core, extending through his skin in fine lines resembling incandescent cracks. They weren't static. They moved slowly, as if following the flow of something deeper. As that color gained presence, the cold that previously surrounded him became more intense, but also more aggressive.
It wasn't a clean cold.
It was a cold that cut.
His posture changed. His back arched slightly forward, shoulders opened, and his breathing became heavier, more marked. His eyes, previously calm, adopted a harder glow, with an intensity that didn't dilute in distance.
The skin on his forehead tensed.
