Chapter 190: Tianshui vs. Blazing Fire
"Fifth Soul Skill, Thunder Blast!"
Yu Luomian gave pursuit, his fifth ring lighting up beneath his feet. With a lunge of both claws, dozens of thick, purple-black lightning bolts spewed out, each as wide as a barrel. They all struck Flender. As electric radiance flickered, the accumulated thunder force abruptly exploded.
Through the resultant haze of smoke, Flender plummeted, his entire body scorched black and emitting the aroma of roasted meat, completely resembling a barbecued owl.
"Boss Flend! Damn it, Sixth Soul Skill—Rage Thunder!"
Under Liu Erlong's feet, her sixth ring lit. She let out a dragon's roar; the blue fire fused with lightning spread from her as its center. Sweltering heat and raging thunder battered even Yu Luomian—who, having transformed into a dragon, had greatly boosted combat strength—leaving him in noticeable pain.
She had poured all her strength into that strike.
Liu Erlong's mutated Fire Dragon spirit initially looked on par with the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, with the latter's lightning mutated into flame. However, once a Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon user cultivated to rank 70 and awakened the "Dragon Transformation" skill, their combat strength soared in all aspects. The gap between them and Liu Erlong widened dramatically, because her Fire Dragon spirit had no Dragon Transformation of its own.
If Yu Luomian had not activated Dragon Transformation, elevating his defense considerably, being struck by Liu Erlong's fully unleashed sixth soul skill might have severely wounded him.
But seeing his daughter treat him—her father—so harshly for some outsider, Yu Luomian was thoroughly furious. His eighth soul ring lit up.
"Eighth Soul Skill: Dragon Soars, Heaven's Thunder Blast!"
Deep blue radiance flared across Yu Luomian's form. His blue soul power shot into the sky and condensed into dark-blue storm clouds that blanketed the entire forest of Blue Tyrant Academy. Within the clouds, thick black lightning bolts, each as wide as a water vat, rained down in a frenzy.
"Ah—!" x2
Two piercing screams followed. Flender and Liu Erlong were both utterly reduced to a pair of black silhouettes, shining a dark glow over the forest below.
All the students of Blue Tyrant Academy stared at the countless black lightning flashes with dread. This was the power of a Soul Douluo—truly terrifying.
Meanwhile, inside Yue Xuan:
Tang Yuehua was already so drained she slumped limply in place, unable to keep bracing against the door. As a result, Qian Xunji lifted her torso onto a table, gripping her legs in both hands while letting them dangle weakly around his waist.
Observing how the battle in Heaven Dou City ended so quickly—less than half an hour—Qian Xunji revealed a trace of disappointment. He hastily poured a bit of his angelic soul power into Tang Yuehua to replenish her stamina. Otherwise, she would have dozed off right here on the table before he continued.
Back at Blue Tyrant Academy, the black "light bulbs" illuminating the sky for half a minute finally winked out. The dark-blue thunderclouds overhead dispersed, letting normal light return. Two charred silhouettes dropped heavily to the ground.
Yu Luomian put away his spirit, landing and gasping several times for breath. Glancing at Liu Erlong—then quickly looking away—he realized she had lost all her clothes.
After all, Liu Erlong's seventh soul skill, the Crimson Dragon Avatar, had unleashed such fierce flames that, lacking fine control, she'd burned her clothes to ash. Ordinarily, whenever Liu Erlong finished off an enemy, she would retract her spirit and hide somewhere to change, but now Yu Luomian had literally zapped her unconscious.
He immediately beckoned two female students from Blue Tyrant Academy to change her clothes. Liu Erlong's fiery, mature figure made those girls quite envious.
After they finished dressing her, Yu Luomian ordered someone to deliver Liu Erlong back to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, and told another to dump Flender and Yu Xiaogang outside the academy. He then busied himself taking control of Blue Tyrant Academy, sending word for his clan's men to arrive and assume command. He would come up with a random excuse to placate the Heaven Dou City patrols.
Outside Blue Tyrant Academy, Ning Fengzhi, Bone Douluo, and Gu Chen—these three culprits who orchestrated the farce—had originally planned to return to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan. But seeing Flender and Yu Xiaogang discarded from the academy gate as though they were garbage, they paused.
Ning Fengzhi mulled it over briefly and said, "Uncle Bone, let's bring Flender and Yu Xiaogang back to the Yaohui Hotel."
Bone Douluo instantly understood Ning Fengzhi's plan to "play the nice guy." They were offering charcoal in snowy weather, forging good ties with Flender, a Soul Sage who would likely reach Soul Douluo in the future—maybe it'd come in handy. If not, there was no real downside.
Flender probably wouldn't guess for his entire life that everything at Blue Tyrant Academy that day was staged by these men behind the scenes—like having one's legs broken, only for the mastermind to come by offering a crutch.
The melee at Blue Tyrant Academy didn't disrupt the tournament; the preliminaries went on. Once the tenth round ended, the various teams participating in Heaven Dou City's preliminaries had begun to show gaps in strength.
Tianshui Academy, with a perfect record of ten wins, sat firmly in first place. Several other teams with equally perfect records included four of the Five Element Academies (minus Elephant Armored) plus Heaven Dou Team Two.
In truth, across these ten victories, Tianshui Academy had barely fought two real matches. Once their spirit rings came forth—two of them Soul Kings, plus two Soul Ancestors—most opponents surrendered without a fight. They knew from past tournaments that even the winning champion teams, such as Spirit Hall, typically had only one Soul King. Seeing Tianshui Academy's two Soul Kings, how were they supposed to fight? It was simply masochism.
In other news, within Heaven Dou Team Two, Tang San finally snapped out of his slump after who-knew-how-many days. Tang Hao had rushed back to the Clear Sky Clan and tricked the Crystal Blood Dragon Ginseng from White Crane's possession, all before the clan heard the news that Yu Xiaogang had "ruined" Tang San. Had the clan discovered that fiasco earlier, which disgraced the Clear Sky Clan again thanks to Tang Hao and Tang San, the elders would have rebelled, certainly preventing Tang Hao from getting the ginseng.
After devouring this top-notch medicinal herb that massively replenished blood and qi, Tang San's Blue Silver Grass got a large dose of nutrients, finally breaking through the bottleneck. The "thirty-thousand-year Blue Silver King," damaged again and again by poison, advanced to a forty-thousand-year Blue Silver King. Then Tang Hao took him to Star Dou Forest to obtain a fourth spirit ring imbued with either life or holy light.
Otherwise, if he tried to absorb any more poison rings, lacking a life- or light-attribute ring upgrade akin to the Crystal Blood Dragon Ginseng, Tang San would be stuck again after reaching rank 49. By then, he'd be out of resources to fix it.
"Round One, central stage, Tianshui Academy versus Blazing Academy." The host called out the lineups as both teams strode proudly into the arena.
Sweeping his gaze over the VIP section, Qian Renchuan found that his father, Qian Xunji, still hadn't appeared.
The Blazing Academy squad was fully aware they couldn't stand against Tianshui Academy. They'd learned that two years ago. But they refused to forfeit, for they bore the honor of one of the Empire's "Four Element Academies"—Blazing Academy—on their shoulders.
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