"Hm."Huo Yuhao nodded silently, activating his Spiritual Detection and Spiritual Sharing abilities.
Due to the subtle nature of these two skills, they were nearly impossible to detect—even Elder Xuan, watching from the sidelines, didn't notice anything.
Suddenly, Xu Sanshi, who was on the battlefield, paused in confusion. A clearer and more three-dimensional image of the entire battlefield appeared in his mind, including Shi Yu's exact location.
"Is Huo Yuhao helping me?"
Xu Sanshi couldn't help but glance toward Beibei and the others. He saw Huo Yuhao beside Beibei, and Beibei gave him a slight nod.
Everything became clear in that moment. Xu Sanshi understood Beibei's intentions and thought to himself:
"Good brother."
Grinning, he muttered,
"Let's see where you can hide now."
With that, he charged toward where Shi Yu had just appeared. His reaction speed had clearly increased.
However, he still couldn't predict where Shi Yu would land ahead of time. He had to wait until Shi Yu appeared to react.
Huo Yuhao tried to preemptively locate Shi Yu by tracking minute energy fluctuations—but Shi Yu's teleportation emitted almost no detectable energy, so faint that even Soul Saints or Soul Douluos would struggle to perceive it. With Huo Yuhao's current strength, it was still beyond him.
Thus, while the information he shared did help Xu Sanshi react faster, it didn't allow him to predict Shi Yu's movement.
Soon, Shi Yu disappeared again, then reappeared to pull Xu Sanshi before retreating to maintain some distance.
Shi Yu furrowed his brows.
"Xu Sanshi's reactions have clearly gotten faster. What's going on? Did he suddenly get better at reading my moves?"
He couldn't sense anything unusual. Plus, during battle, he didn't have time to overthink it.
Xu Sanshi—despite being a defensive-type soul master—launched dozens of attacks, all of which failed.
Instead, Shi Yu found openings to slash him four times with the Eight Spider Lances.
Xu Sanshi tried using his first three soul skills, but Shi Yu countered them all.
While Shi Yu lacked powerful offensive moves, when it came to evasion, he was nearly unmatched among soul masters of his level. Even those at level 40 or 50 would struggle to match his agility.
The audience could clearly see that Shi Yu was toying with Xu Sanshi, making him look like a fool.
"He's not stronger than Xu Sanshi, but he can do this much? Impressive," Yan Shaozhe muttered.
Xu Sanshi, a Soul Sect, undoubtedly had stronger raw power. But Shi Yu's unique martial soul gave him the tools to handle—and even dominate—a Soul Sect.
Elder Xuan nodded in appreciation:
"This kid's worth paying attention to. He's a rare talent."
"Agreed," Yan Shaozhe replied thoughtfully, already hatching plans in his mind.
On the battlefield, Xu Sanshi stopped blindly attacking. It was pointless.
Shi Yu also paused, standing with a slight smirk meant to provoke.
Xu Sanshi glared at him, his expression furious, and began trash-talking, trying to make Shi Yu lose his composure.
But Shi Yu wasn't about to take that lying down. If Xu Sanshi wanted to talk trash—Shi Yu would return it tenfold. Sometimes, being shameless was a strategy too.
The two stood still, exchanging insults for a while.
While Shi Yu remained calm and collected, Xu Sanshi grew red-faced and tense.
Xu Sanshi was usually thick-skinned and excellent at verbal sparring—but against Shi Yu's modern, cutting jabs, he was clearly outmatched.
His attempt to unnerve Shi Yu backfired, leaving him emotionally shaken. His surrounding soul power grew violent and unstable.
"Am I pushing him to awaken Xuanwu's power?"
Shi Yu hesitated.
He lacked a strong finisher, so his current strategy was to stall the fight until the poison from his Eight Spider Lances fully activated, weakening Xu Sanshi.
Then, he'd end it with a solid blow—he owed him payback for the threats, insults, and his attempt to destroy Shi Yu's soul ring.
However, there was a risk: if he delayed too long, Xu Sanshi might awaken the Xuanwu Divine Power, driven by rage.
That would drastically change the fight. Could he survive the resulting onslaught?
He wasn't sure.
In the original timeline, Xu Sanshi had killed an opponent when this power was unleashed. That spoke volumes about its danger.
"Once that explodes, who knows what might happen..."
"I'll kill you!" Xu Sanshi roared and charged again. His fourth soul ring started glowing.
Shi Yu's eyes narrowed.
"Is he trying to close the distance and use his fourth skill to lock my position?"
Not willing to risk it, Shi Yu immediately began retreating, trying to put more space between them.
At the same time, he prepared his second soul skill—he also had a replacement technique.
Xu Sanshi continued pursuing, and Shi Yu vanished again.
At that moment, before Xu Sanshi's Xuanming Replacement vanished, he activated his fourth soul skill: Xuanming Replacement.
The energy thread of replacement locked onto Shi Yu.
To Shi Yu's surprise, his space teleportation was forcibly interrupted by the Xuanming Replacement.
He was caught off guard—he hadn't expected Xu Sanshi's skill to be this domineering, able to cancel his space ability.
The two swapped places.
Xu Sanshi, appearing right beside Shi Yu, immediately launched a fierce attack.
It was a golden opportunity to land a heavy blow.
The audience held their breath. This was a pivotal moment.
"Replace!"
Shi Yu called out softly.
At the same time, he activated his own second soul skill and threw out a cloth he had hidden in his uniform pocket.
He had prepped the cloth earlier, folding it into a ball and storing space energy within it.
Now, the cloth resonated with Xu Sanshi's own space energy.
Just as Xu Sanshi's shield was about to crash into Shi Yu's chest, Shi Yu vanished, replaced by the cloth.
The cloth appeared in front of Xu Sanshi, absorbing the blow harmlessly.
Xu Sanshi, meanwhile, reappeared where the cloth had been thrown, stumbling forward with nothing to hit.
"You… you also know Xuanming Replacement?!"
After regaining his footing, Xu Sanshi turned to Shi Yu in disbelief.
Thanks to Huo Yuhao's mental detection, he'd seen everything and finally understood what had just happened—leaving him utterly stunned.