Chapter 62.2: The Chaotic Preliminaries

Book 9: Escape

The most important combatant among the six soul masters was naturally the one with the Lion martial soul. He was in charge of taking on Bei Bei’s attacks in order to win some time for his teammates to surround them. However, he didn’t think that a group of Soul Ancestors would be this strong. He’d been sent flying after trying to use just a single soul skill. Moreover, Jiang Nannan had shown mercy. Otherwise, she could’ve easily snapped his neck due to the difference in their power. Despite that, he flew into the air and joined the ranks of people standing next to Elder Xuan after being thrown by Jiang Nannan.

Xu Sanshi chose this moment to make his move. He entered the fray from Bei Bei’s other side, and his enormous Shield of the Xuanwu Turtle suddenly grew in size and simultaneously blocked the skills of two agility-type soul masters and a control-type soul master. This was done in order to let Bei Bei focus all his power on attacking.

At the same time, the outcome of the battle between the lance-wielding Soul Elder and Bei Bei was revealed. In front of Bei Bei’s Thunderous Dragon Claw, his opponent could only last for three seconds before being forced to join his teammate by Elder Xuan’s side.

The soul masters in the rear naturally wouldn’t just sit and watch while Bei Bei and the rest continued their onslaught. And out of them, the fiercest team was Dai Huabin’s temporary team.

The effectiveness of Ning Tian’s Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda revealed itself again. With her support, the strengths of Dai Huabin, Xie Huanyue, Wu Feng, and Zhu Lu were all raised by a single tier. The four of them charged simultaneously, shooting towards Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, and Xiao Xiao like an arrow, with Dai Huabin and Xie Huanyue spearheading the attack while Wu Feng and Zhu Lu flanked them.

Huo Yuhao and the rest were all at the back, while Bei Bei and Jiang Nannan were currently fighting. As a result, a hole had naturally formed in the rear of their formation.

Huo Yuhao paused, then revealed a brilliant smile towards Dai Huabin and the other people who were charging towards him. Right then, several dozen rays of intense white light shot out to intercept them.

With the accurate aim of Huo Yuhao’s Spiritual Detection, every Soul Ray perfectly intercepted the movements of Dai Huabin and the rest of his team.

Among the ranks of these core disciples, the person who was the strongest in terms of combat strength and offensive power wasn’t Bei Bei, nor was it Xu Sanshi. Rather, it was the person who’d just stepped through the threshold of a Class 4 soul engineer, He Caitou.

Under the Soul Emperor rank, soul engineers would have an advantage over soul masters of the same rank. Moreover, He Caitou was Fan Yu’s first inheriting disciple and was hence one the best among his peers in terms of his attainments in the field of soul tool creation. This could easily be seen from the might of his soul tools. His soul tools were at least 20% stronger than those made by soul engineers of the same rank in both offensive and defensive capabilities.

Even Xu Sanshi wasn’t confident that he could survive He Caitou’s all-out barrage of attacks head-on. When facing a soul engineer, a similarly ranked soul master could only do one thing, that was, to do their best to consume their opponent’s soul power in order to have a chance of winning.

The instant Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, and Jiang Nannan released their attacks, He Caitou was already aware of them due to Huo Yuhao’s Spiritual Detection and had changed his strategy accordingly. Because of this, they weren’t worried about the rear of their formation at all. At the very least, for the time being, there was no chance of anybody breaking through the barrage of He Caitou’s firepower.

Naturally, he wasn’t omnipotent. With his current cultivation, he didn’t dare to rashly release long-range attacks. Otherwise, the drain on his soul power would be too large. A soul engineer who had no soul power was equivalent to a tiger with no fangs.

A stationary soul tool was naturally an exception to this but if He Caitou actually dared to use one of them in a test, Fan Yu would definitely not forgive him.

“Form a line and charge!” A fourth-year student made a quick decision and shouted as he took the lead. He was also a defense-type Soul Elder, and he pushed his arms forward, causing them to immediately expand and become unusually thick. A purple thousand year soul ring around his body flickered, and thick scales began to form on his arms. He strode forward and blocked He Caitou’s barrage of attacks.

Though this was their first time working together, they were elites of Shrek Academy’s outer courtyard. Even a single warning would be sufficient to make them change their plans. The panicked group of people who hid behind the defense-type Soul Elder formed an orderly line and charged forward.

This defense-type Soul Elder naturally wasn’t comparable to He Caitou, but he was able to temporarily block the latter’s attacks by relying on his defensive skills. All he needed to do was help the people behind him approach Huo Yuhao’s group.

He Caitou reacted in a composed manner, and proceeded to stop his attacks in a composed manner. As he did so, an enormous cauldron blocked the path of the defense-type Soul Elder.

One of the advantages of advancing in single file was the fact that the range of attacks a team had to withstand would be greatly diminished. Even if He Caitou launched an arced attack, the destructive power of that attack would be greatly decreased. However, advancing in single file had its disadvantages as well. For example, the situation they were in right now. The moment the person at the front of the line was blocked, everyone behind him would have to stop as well. Moreover, a chaotic situation involving collisions of the people behind him could occur.

The people who charged forward felt a slight amount of dizziness flood their minds, and it seemed as though their surroundings had become somewhat illusory.

Huo Yuhao had activated his Spiritual Interference once more.

Spiritual Interference was absolutely not a useless skill. Although it wasn’t especially effective, the slight dizziness caused by it could often change the situation of a battle. Furthermore, the greatest advantage of this skill lay in the fact that the user wouldn’t suffer any backlash no matter what.

An enormous vertical eye soundlessly appeared at the other end of the orderly line and began to flash with a dazzling golden light. As the enormous Radiant Butterfly Goddess embraced and fused with the vertical eye, the golden light blossomed outwards.

The fusion of blue, purple, and gold formed a horizontal halo of dazzling light that left a brilliant Golden Road wherever it passed through. Following that a fantastic scene occurred, the orderly row of twelve core disciples were instantly dyed gold as the golden light passed through them.

Right, they had fallen into Huo Yuhao’s schemes from the very start. As a spiritual control-type soul master, merely releasing his Spiritual Detection wasn’t enough, he was controlling the flow of the entire match.

Regardless of whether it was Dai Huabin, Xie Huanyue, Wu Feng, Ning Tian and the others who were familiar with him, or the third and fourth-year students who were unfamiliar with him, absolutely none of them had thought that the two-ringed and three-ringed duo would be able to pose a threat.

Their attention had been drawn towards the four Soul Ancestors, Huo Yuhao had relied on this, in addition to He Caitou’s powerful offensive capabilities, in order to lure them into a single line. Then, he and Wang Dong released their powerful fusion skill without any hesitation at all.

A Golden Road Amidst Withering Resplendence.

Even the six-ringed Soul Emperor who’d tried to kill them the other day had fallen into his trap, so naturally these core disciples who hadn’t even reached the four-ringed rank didn’t stand a chance.

As the twelve golden statues stood there, some of the students with weaker cultivations such as the Lan sisters and Huang Chutian began to fall into a critical condition.

The astonished Elder Xuan descended from the air and waved his right hand, causing a pure-white ray to envelop the bodies of every frozen student. Every student the ray landed on softly collapsed to the ground one by one.

The three-ringed students were comparatively better off as they were only left in an extremely disheveled state with their clothes corroded and their martial souls temporarily sealed. A large amount of their soul power had been consumed by the corroding Golden Road. However, the other two-ringed Soul Grandmasters had all fainted. If it weren’t for Elder Xuan reacting in time, there was a chance that their lives would’ve been at risk.

Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong never thought that their Golden Road would be this effective and were briefly stunned by its effects. Over on the other side, Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, and Jiang Nannan had also dealt with their six opponents. Impressively, the Soul Duelling Arena was only left with the seven of them.

He Caitou had his mouth wide open from astonishment, and so was Bei Bei’s group of three.

The four Soul Ancestors had never thought that the test would actually end like this. The most decisive move in this battle had actually been Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong’s.

Furthermore, there was even a pair of twins among their opponents who could release a fusion skill. However, their glory had all been overshadowed by Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong’s ‘A Golden Road Amidst Withering Resplendence’.

Dai Huabin was rendered speechless.

Ever since he’d lost to Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, and Xiao Xiao in the finals of the freshmen assessment, he felt very unresigned. He’d always felt that he was much stronger than the three of them.

However, only now did they realize that Du Weilun’s initial evaluation after blocking both of their fusion skills had been impartial. The Golden Road formed by Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong was truly something that their Netherworld White Tiger was unable to compare against. Though Dai Huabin didn’t understand why this was the case, he still knew that he had thoroughly and completely lost after experiencing the evaporation of half of his soul power.

Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong glanced at each other. Other than happiness, what else could they see in each other’s eyes?

The strength of a fusion skill was intimately related to the synergy between the two parties. Their Golden Road wasn’t stronger than the Netherworld White Tiger in terms of the soul skills used, but rather in terms of the compatibility rate their martial souls had. The rarity of a 100% compatible fusion skill was even rarer than an Ultimate martial soul! Only, nobody had asked them about it.

Their cultivations had been steadily rising. Every single one of Huo Yuhao’s soul rings had quietly risen to the 4200 year rank while Wang Dong had obtained the Golden Light soul bone. When compared to the day they’d been ambushed, their cultivations had increased by another level. Furthermore, the cooldown period between each use of the Golden Road had decreased to three days. Though all of their soul power would be drained with each use of the skill, the recovery ability of the Golden Light Left Arm Bone was currently helping the two of them recover their soul power as they held hands.

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