Fighting Together
"Teacher Wu! Isn't it a bit... beneath your dignity to ambush a student like this?" Xie Xie yelped, his eyes widening as the glacial point of the Heavenly Frost Sword aimed unerringly for his center of mass. Even as he protested, his body reacted on instinct. Soul power surged through his legs, and he blurred backward in a frantic retreat, leaving a faint afterimage in his wake.
"On the battlefield, there is no dignity, only victory and defeat. There is no 'ambush,' only tactical initiation." Wu Zhangkong's reply was as cold and precise as his sword thrust. Though Xie Xie moved with the speed befitting his martial soul, Wu Zhangkong's advance was an exercise in chilling efficiency. His feet seemed to glide over the arena floor, the sword's tip maintaining its lethal distance, closing the gap to less than five meters in the span of a heartbeat.
Seeing their teammate targeted, the others moved as one.
Yao Xuan was first. There was no grand summoning, only a deep, resonant hum as the air before him thickened. Nine-colored motes of light, faint as dust in a sunbeam, coalesced into the majestic, semi-transparent form of the Ancestral Dragon. It did not roar; it simply turned its ancient gaze upon Yao Xuan and flowed into him. The transformation was swift: intricate golden scales patterned his skin, and his hands elongated into formidable, razor-sharp claws that gleamed under the arena's light. His first soul ring ignited—that deep, sun-yellow band of light—and energy crackled around him.
"Ancestral Dragon Sky-Splitting Strike!"
He didn't charge wildly. He unleashed himself. His body became a golden streak, claws crossed before him in a diagonal 'X' that seemed to tear at the very fabric of the air. The attack wasn't aimed to kill, but to maim, to force a defense, to relieve the pressure on Xie Xie. It carried a palpable weight, a sense of primordial severance.
Simultaneously, Gu Yue acted. Her soul ring flashed, and a cyan halo—the color of a deep, clear sky—wreathed her. With a dismissive flick of her wrist, the moisture in the air crystallized. Not one, but a volley of a dozen ice spikes, each as long as a hand and sharp as a needle, materialized and shot forth with the sound of shattering glass. They didn't follow a single path; they fanned out, seeking to hem Wu Zhangkong in, to find the gaps in his posture.
Tang Wulin, though half a beat slower, moved with determined grit. Blue light flashed in his palm, and a small, shimmering golden snake—his soul spirit—coiled around his shoulder. His first, milky-white soul ring glowed as he thrust his hands forward. "Entanglement!"
Thick vines of mutated Blue Silver Grass, glowing with a resilient blue light, erupted from the arena floor directly in Wu Zhangkong's path. They weren't meant to hold a Soul Emperor; they were meant to snag a boot, to disrupt a stride, to buy a single, crucial second.
"Coordinated. Acceptable."
Wu Zhangkong's assessment was a flat murmur. He did not break his stride toward Xie Xie. His sword arm moved.
First, the Blue Silver Grass. The Heavenly Frost Sword didn't slash; it tapped the leading vine. A wave of profound cold instantly flashed through the plant. With a sound like cracking pottery, the resilient vine froze solid and then shattered into brittle, icy fragments. The backlash of energy drained Tang Wulin's soul power violently; he gasped, his face paling as he felt a third of his reserves vanish from that single, casual parry.
Next, the ice spikes. Wu Zhangkong's wrist became a blur. The Heavenly Frost Sword wove a net of pale blue light in front of him. Each precise, minimal movement intercepted a spike at its exact center of mass. Tink-tink-tink-tink! A rapid-fire chorus of crystalline shatters filled the air as the spikes exploded into harmless glittering dust.
Finally, Yao Xuan's devastating cross-claw strike arrived. For the first time, Wu Zhangkong's expression shifted from detached analysis to focused intent. He halted his advance on Xie Xie, planting his feet. The first soul ring at his ankle pulsed. "Frost Mark."
Dozens of hair-thin strands of sword energy, colder than midwinter, erupted from his blade and interlaced, forming a hexagonal shield of shimmering ice directly between him and Yao Xuan's claws.
BOOM!
The impact was a deep, thunderous concussion that vibrated through the arena's protective barrier. The icy shield shuddered violently, a spiderweb of cracks racing across its surface, but it held. Unlike their previous clash, Wu Zhangkong had not restricted himself to Level 18 soul power. He had elevated it to the threshold of a Great Soul Master—Level 21. The difference was profound, not just in quantity, but in the density and control of the energy. The shield, reinforced, did not break.
Yet, the force of Yao Xuan's blow and the need to defend against it finally broke Wu Zhangkong's relentless pursuit. His sword's thrust, now deprived of its forward momentum, was easily dodged by Xie Xie, who added a burst of speed courtesy of a timely gust from Gu Yue's wind element.
"Again."
Wu Zhangkong's voice was a calm command. He shifted his focus. The primary threat had been identified. His body pivoted, and the Heavenly Frost Sword rose, its point now leveled at Yao Xuan. The first soul ring flashed once more.
"Frost Mark."
This time, the skill was not defensive. The sword threads did not form a shield. They unspooled from the blade like a dozen independent, intelligent serpents made of frozen light. They wove through the air in complex, interlocking patterns, hissing with cold, their trajectories unpredictable yet forming a net that closed off every avenue of retreat. Each thread carried a penetrative, chilling force that Yao Xuan instinctively knew could pierce his dragon scales if they struck true.
'He's serious now,' Yao Xuan thought, his mind accelerating into hyper-awareness. The casual teacher was gone, replaced by a battlefield tactician. The sheer density of the attack was staggering; individually, each thread matched a Soul Venerable's strike, and together they formed an inescapable cage.
His combat instincts, sharpened by the Ancestral Dragon's legacy, analyzed the patterns in a microsecond. There was a gap—a slight weakness in the net's weave on the lower left, where two threads crossed at a less-than-optimal angle. It was his only exit.
Without hesitation, he channeled his soul power. The Ancestral Dragon Shattering Void Step activated not for a long dash, but for a micro-shift, a burst of speed that carried him through the narrowing gap even as the freezing threads grazed his uniform, leaving trails of rime. Simultaneously, he crossed his arms and unleashed another "Ancestral Dragon Sky-Splitting Strike," not at Wu Zhangkong, but at the converging threads themselves, using the force to blast a clearer path.
As Yao Xuan became the focus, the others attacked without needing a signal.
Gu Yue's eyes narrowed. The halo behind her shimmered into pure white. She raised a hand, and a sphere of condensed, blinding white light—not fire, not ice, but raw, amplified elemental energy from her "Elemental Tide"—shot forth. It didn't aim to injure, but to disorient, exploding in a silent, brilliant flash directly before Wu Zhangkong's eyes.
Xie Xie, seizing the moment of distraction, vanished. Using the ghostly steps of his family, he reappeared behind Wu Zhangkong in a whisper of displaced air. The Light Dragon Dagger gleamed in his hand as he stabbed with precision, not for a killing blow, but for the back of the knee—a disabling strike.
Tang Wulin, learning rapidly, abandoned direct spirit skill confrontation. He remembered Yao Xuan's unorthodox tactic. With a determined grunt, he summoned his Thousand-Forged Tungsten Steel Hammer from his spatial bracelet. He didn't have Yao Xuan's finesse, but he had tremendous raw power. He lunged forward, not at the center of mass, but in a low, sweeping arc aimed at Wu Zhangkong's supporting leg, the heavy hammer humming through the air.
Four attacks, from four directions, launched in near-perfect synergy. The special training had truly begun.