With a sliding step, he retreated several meters, and Gu Xechen demanded in shock and fury, "What are you doing?"

James William glared, his voice thick with anger, "You dare resist arrest? Seize him!" The sturdy men behind him simultaneously drew the firearms from their backs. Gu Xechen instantly recognized these as the Cryo-Ray Cannons, special weaponry originating from the Gu Group!

Without a word of explanation, dozens of grayish-white freezing beams shot toward Gu Xechen. The extreme temperature of these cryogenic rays reached two hundred degrees Celsius below zero; even a Venus-level or Mercury-level warrior hit by them would result in complete freezing and sealing. These specialized firearms were costly, deployed only to small units within the Federal Special Management Committee's task forces.

Gu Xechen erupted in fury, dodging violently left and right, leaving several afterimages flickering in the air.

The freezing beams grazed past Gu Xechen’s body. The intense, biting cold gnawed at him, and the suit magically transformed from his Daoist robe suddenly burst into clusters of tiny motes of light. With several sharp cracks, the rays struck the gangway ladder of the battleship behind him. Large sections of the ladder immediately changed color, and the ambient temperature in the surrounding air plummeted straight down.

The sturdy man holding the heavy steel mirror swung the cumbersome weapon—weighing at least two hundred pounds—down in a crushing arc toward Gu Xechen’s head, shouting fiercely, "You dare resist arrest?" The sturdy man holding the psychic restraint device remained silent, driving a punch toward Gu Xechen's back. His fist was veiled in a faint white light. The glow was not strong, but the temperature it radiated was intensely high. The temperature, which had just dropped due to the cryo-rays, suddenly skyrocketed, instantly making the surroundings scorching hot, like a furnace.

James William watched Gu Xechen with a cold sneer, muttering under his breath, "A Realm Warrior who only awakened his domain a month or two ago, hah. Why bother with traps and lures? Just capture him outright!"

Gu Xechen, his face grim, countered with two powerful punches.

The steel mirror shattered into dozens of iron fragments with a crisp snap. His heavy punch smashed through where the mirror had been and connected with the surprised face of the first sturdy man. His prominent nose bone caved deeply into his face, and Gu Xechen blasted him back over ten meters with a single blow. His other fist collided head-on with the heavy punch from the second sturdy man. The faint white light shattered, and the man’s fist fractured from the knuckles all the way to the shoulder with a grating sound of breaking bone. The Xue Po Shen Gang exploded through the muscle and sinew of the man’s arm, and the intense cold instantly froze the shattered limb into a block of red and white ice.

Amidst the piercing shrieks, the cryo-ray cannons held by the sturdy men completed their recharge cycle, and they once again squeezed the triggers toward Gu Xechen.

Dozens more grayish-white beams shot forth. Gu Xechen spun the tip of his foot, effortlessly evading the concentrated assault.

Anger surging within his heart, Gu Xechen stomped both feet down hard and charged directly at James William.

His fingers curled like iron hooks, reaching for James William’s throat. Gu Xechen knew well that while the Cryo-Ray Cannons were incredibly powerful, each shot consumed massive amounts of energy, requiring at least a ten-second recharge time after firing. Ten seconds was enough time for him to capture James William alive.

James William watched with horror as Gu Xechen’s right claw rapidly approached. He roared in indignation, "The intelligence was flawed, he’s too strong!" Two points of blue light flashed in his eyes. Gu Xechen suddenly felt his body sink; the gravity within several meters of his frame increased tenfold out of thin air. This sudden surge of gravity threw off Gu Xechen’s precisely calculated footwork, causing him to stumble forward a few steps. His right claw veered off James William’s windpipe, skimming past his neck instead.

Tch, like a razor-sharp edge, his strike drew a thin line of blood into a tiny jet on James William’s neck, immediately followed by the freezing Gang energy sealing the wound shut.

Gu Xechen’s hand retracted sharply, about to hook back for a counter-grab on James William’s throat, when James William suddenly let out a piercing cry. Two intense blue beams shot from his eyes. The gravity affecting Gu Xechen's body suddenly weakened rapidly. In an instant, the gravity acting on him was as if it were coming from the sky above.

Whoosh! Gu Xechen’s body shot straight upward. His sharp claws swept past James William’s face, cold energy swirling around his fingertips. A patch of skin, palm-sized, was ripped away by the claw strike. A spray of tiny, crimson ice particles—blood droplets that had turned to ice—splattered everywhere as the skin flew off.

"Aargh!" James William let out a harrowing scream. The skin on the left side of his face had been torn away by Gu Xechen’s claw. The intense pain made his vision swim, and he nearly passed out.

Gu Xechen shook his hand, flinging the large piece of skin hanging from his fingertip away. He took a deep breath, his internal Zhenqi churning like thunder, faint rays glowing softly from his cloud boots. He desperately tried to stabilize his body mid-air. James William’s anomalous ability had caught him completely off guard, and without anything to push against in the void, he could only barely maintain his balance.

Dozens of cryo-rays shot out again. This time, Gu Xechen could no longer evade the clustered attack.

With sounds of hissing and sizzling, dozens of freezing beams struck Gu Xechen. The suit, transformed from his Daoist robe, erupted in a bright halo of light, successfully blocking the chilling energy just outside its perimeter. The extreme cold of minus two hundred degrees froze the air around Gu Xechen into light blue snowflakes that scattered everywhere, completely obscuring his form in a dense cloud of gaseous snow.

"Damn it all!"

Even with the protective light generated by the robe/suit automatically guarding his body, faint wisps of cold seeped through the hazy halo and penetrated Gu Xechen’s flesh. Several meridians were instantly frozen stiff by the extreme cold. Gu Xechen managed to circulate his Zhenqi to force open the blocked pathways. As the energy flowed, the meridians experienced sharp pain like being cut by knives. Had the Yi Jing Pian technique not been completely mastered, this single low-temperature assault would have been enough to shatter those few meridians.

"James William!"

Gu Xechen roared in anger. Energy vortices spun rapidly within a dozen major acupoints on his right arm, and surging Zhenqi, accompanied by a faint, muffled sound of flowing ice, converged upon his right index finger. A faint white light flickered on his fingertip. The finger suddenly became nearly transparent, revealing the jade-white bone and the azure, gem-like blood vessels clearly visible beneath. A massive amount of Xue Po Shen Gang condensed at his fingertip, and a strand of cold light, nearly a meter long and sharp as a blade, shot out from the tip.

With a flick of his right arm, the vast Zhenqi concentrated in his index finger transformed into a streak of white light that shot out, aimed directly at James William’s brow from a distance.

James William was terrified. He tumbled to the ground in a clumsy roll. The two sturdy men behind him, unable to dodge in time, were struck by the energy of the Xue Po Shen Zhi. Amidst agonizing shrieks, two bowl-sized transparent holes were blasted through their chests. Massive amounts of cold energy poured into their bodies, freezing them completely.

The jagged wounds were smooth as mirrors, bearing not a single trace of blood where they were sealed by ice.

The two sturdy men fell backward, pointing skyward, as Gu Xechen drifted smoothly down to the ground.