"Ha! Everyone, feast your eyes! This is Tang San, son of the Haotian Douluo himself. Him, Dai Mubai, and Ma Hongjun—drunk out of their minds, causing chaos, even dragging their own teacher into it."
The words landed like a death sentence for the three of them, ringing out across the entire venue. Davis's soul power wasn't quite strong enough to reach every last corner of the crowd, but everyone present was a Soul Master—every single one at least Soul Grandmaster level—which meant every last one of them heard it clearly.
A wave of muttering swept through the audience almost instantly, fingers pointing, whispers spreading, words like "disgraceful" and "unbelievable" passing from mouth to mouth as they stared at Tang San, Dai Mubai, and Ma Hongjun.
Even with all the composure Tang San had carried over from his past life, this cracked it. That drunken night would haunt the three of them for the rest of their days.
He could feel every eye in the arena crawling over them with that same strange, judging look—even their own teammates weren't spared it. Ning Rongrong and Tai Long were visibly fighting back laughter.
Xiao Wu's eyes had gone red on Tang San's behalf, while Oscar, for his part, mostly just felt relief that Davis hadn't mentioned his own name in it.
"You'll pay for that." Tang San's voice went cold as he summoned his Blue Silver Grass, four spirit rings flaring to life—yellow, yellow, purple.
Beside him, Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, and the rest released their own martial souls in turn.
"Oh, is that so?" Davis sneered. "All you've ever seen is Dai Mubai's pathetic little ape-tiger mutt. Let me show you what a real White Tiger martial soul looks like. Come on, boys—let's give them a surprise."
Four spirit rings bloomed to life around Davis, Zhu Zhuyun, and the rest of their team—yellow, yellow, purple. A ripple of shock ran through the crowd as it became clear that six of the seven Star Luo Royal Academy members were Soul Masters.
"Match, begin!" the referee called, and the fight was on.
"Star Luo's lineup is solid," Qian Renxue murmured from the VIP platform. "If Shrek doesn't have something up their sleeve, they're going to take a beating."
"They will indeed," Xiao Se said with a faint smile. Under his subtle influence, the Star Luo team abandoned caution entirely, throwing themselves into reckless one-on-one trades—sacrificing a powerful attacker just to immediately take down support players like Tyrone, Oscar, and Ning Rongrong.
The cost of that gamble showed quickly: they walked straight into Tang San's counter-ambush, losing three Soul Masters of their own in the exchange.
In the resulting four-on-four, the initial gap in raw soul power narrowed considerably—Ning Rongrong and Oscar's support effects lingered even after their elimination, and with the boost from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda and the Sausage martial soul, the two sides were far more evenly matched than the numbers alone suggested.
"Ha, ha, ha... Mubai, you really are pathetic." Davis's laugh rang out mockingly. "Already level 25 when you left home, and five years later, you've only crawled up ten more levels? What a disappointment. And that martial soul—not even a proper monkey, not even a proper tiger. You really think you've got a shot at turning this around?"
He unleashed his first soul skill, White Tiger Protective Barrier, followed immediately by his third, White Tiger Vajra Transformation. His frame surged nearly five inches taller as he completed a second-stage transformation beyond his initial martial soul possession, his tiger claws slashing down at Dai Mubai.
"Enough talk!" Dai Mubai fired back with his own first and third skills—Ape-Tiger Protective Barrier and Ape-Tiger Vajra Transformation—swinging his ape paw to meet the blow head-on.
There was a dull thud. Dai Mubai's paw came away torn and bleeding, no match for Davis's claws.
Sensing the opening, Davis pressed forward, unleashing his second soul skill—White Tiger Blazing Radiance Wave—a pale, milky ball of light streaking toward Dai Mubai.
Not good. Davis's strength was well beyond what Tang San had anticipated. Thinking fast, he yanked the Blue Silver Grass wrapped around Dai Mubai's waist, hauling him out of the blast's path.
Davis's mouth curled into a thin smile as he abruptly redirected the attack, sending the Blazing Radiance Wave streaking instead toward Ma Hongjun, who was locked in his own fight with one of the Star Luo Soul Masters nearby.
The instant Ma Hongjun felt the surge of soul power behind the attack, instinct screamed at him to run.
What happened next stunned everyone watching: the Star Luo Soul Master he was fighting grabbed hold of him instead, pinning him in place.
Without the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's Mind Distraction technique this time around—unlike in the timeline Tang San half-remembered—even his razor reflexes fell just short. Bang! Bang! Bang!
When the dust cleared, both Ma Hongjun and the Star Luo Soul Master lay sprawled on the ground, soaked in blood, neither one moving. Clearly, both were badly hurt.
"Xiao Se, have those Star Luo royals completely lost their minds? They're attacking their own people now!" Ning Rongrong, seated beside him, hadn't bothered returning to Shrek's rest area after her own elimination—she'd drifted over to the VIP section instead.
"No, Davis knows exactly what he's doing," Xiao Se said with a light laugh. "The fight for the Star Luo throne is the most brutal succession struggle on the entire continent. Lose, and you don't just lose the crown—you lose your future. Sometimes your life, too. He's not giving Dai Mubai a single inch to breathe. And sure, Ma Hongjun's soul power isn't the highest on the team, but his raw destructive output is the strongest Shrek's got. Trading him for a weaker Soul Master is a perfectly reasonable exchange."
"What a twisted system." Ning Rongrong wrinkled her nose, though her gaze slid sideways toward him, lingering a beat too long. Something about this mysterious young man kept pulling at her curiosity, more and more with each passing day.
As the two of them talked, the match on the arena had escalated into a full-blown brawl.
The longer it dragged on, the more alarmed Tang San and his teammates grew. It was becoming painfully clear that the Star Luo team knew exactly what each of them could do. Xiao Wu found herself facing a rhinoceros-type Soul Master with a rare stomp ability.
That stomp carried a stun effect, and Xiao Wu's fighting style only worked at close range. Every time she tried closing the distance with her third soul skill—teleportation—the rhino Soul Master would trigger the stomp, locking her out before she could land a single hit.
Tang San, meanwhile, found himself matched against Davis directly. Facing a Soul Master at level 47 who clearly understood his every trick, the fight held at a tense standstill.
Dai Mubai's opponent was Zhu Zhuyun.
"AAAH!" A scream of pure agony tore through the arena. Dai Mubai flew backward off the platform, blood soaking through his lower body, both hands clutching at his groin as he hit the ground and writhed. After a few desperate convulsions, he went still, unconscious.
A collective gasp swept through the crowd. What a merciless woman—she'd left him unable to ever father a child again.
"Mubai!" Flander sprinted to his side, dropping down to check the wound, only to go pale at what he found. There was nothing left down there—just an open wound, blood pouring out freely. If it wasn't stopped soon, it would kill him.
(End of Chapter)
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