Chapter 37: Soul Bone
They arrived at the training grounds in the rear courtyard of the City Lord's Manor. The bluestone paving slabs gleamed with a cold, hard luster under the morning light. The high walls surrounding the arena on all sides cast long shadows, draping the entire field in an atmosphere of grim severity.
Lei Bao and Feng Chuixue stood facing one another, ten zhang apart—a distance that, to warriors of Soul Emperor caliber, was no more than a fleeting instant. Lei Bao's arms were folded across his chest. His bronze-hued muscles gleamed with a metallic sheen beneath the sun, and his eyes blazed with fiery battle-intent. Feng Chuixue, by contrast, wore a flowing blue robe that stirred gently in the breeze. He appeared utterly composed, almost detached—yet within those faintly narrowed eyes flickered a razor-sharp light.
"Lord Feng, there is still time to concede," Lei Bao's voice boomed, laced with provocation. "Spare yourself the embarrassment when I find myself unable to pull back in time."
"Heh." Feng Chuixue let out a contemptuous laugh, his fingers curling slightly within his sleeves. "Lord Lei is rather confident, I see. Though I am curious—just what kind of storm can you stir in the span of one incense stick? It is you who ought to worry about finding a graceful exit when the time comes."
Watching from the sidelines, Long Ziyun furrowed his brow.
He knew Lei Bao all too well. This was a man who never moved without first calculating his path. If he'd dared propose a one-incense-stick time limit today, he surely had something to back it up. Still... defeating Feng Chuixue, a master of control, within a single incense stick? That was no simple feat. Even Long Ziyun himself would struggle to pull it off.
Unless, of course, one was a brute-force maniac like Yan Luo. His Mad Wild Orangutan martial soul—an absolute power-and-defense type—had no use for finesse. Its strategy boiled down to one thing: smash everything with your fists, shattering all techniques with raw strength. Feng Chuixue's control effects would have little purchase on such an opponent.
But then again, Lei Bao was nothing like the hot-tempered, impulsive Yan Luo. He must have some method to overcome Feng Chuixue... Had he already advanced to the Soul Sage level? Or had he obtained something from the Church of the Water God...
Long Ziyun didn't pursue the thought further. The possibility that had crossed his mind seemed far, far too unlikely.
Yan Luo's thoughts, meanwhile, were far simpler. All he wanted to know was what exactly Lei Bao had up his sleeve—what made him so confident he could beat Feng Chuixue. His attitude was purely that of a spectator hoping for a good show.
Since Yan Luo was regarded as the most straightforward and fair-minded of the city lords, both Lei Bao and Feng Chuixue had chosen him to serve as arbiter.
"Are the two of you ready?" Yan Luo's booming voice rang out like a war drum, cutting through Long Ziyun's spiraling thoughts.
Traces of lightning flickered and coiled around Lei Bao's body, the air around him already thickening with an acrid, charged tension. He grinned. "Naturally. Though I wonder—has Lord Feng prepared himself for defeat?"
Feng Chuixue paid the taunt no heed. "Begin."
"Very well. I declare this bout... commenced." The words had barely left Yan Luo's lips before his figure shot backward like an arrow loosed from its string, clearing the field.
In that same instant, two blinding columns of light erupted skyward. Six soul rings blazed beneath each combatant's feet—two yellow, two purple, two black. The textbook configuration of a Soul Emperor. Surging waves of soul power radiated outward with the two men at their epicenter, kicking up clouds of dust from the ground.
A flicker of disappointment passed through Long Ziyun's eyes. As he'd suspected, Lei Bao had yet to break through to Soul Sage. But then his curiosity burned even hotter: if not that, then where did Lei Bao's confidence come from? Had he obtained something truly extraordinary from the Church of the Water God?
Both combatants were beast martial soul wielders. Lei Bao's martial soul was the Thunderclap Tiger—a lightning-attribute assault-type. Among the four present, his attacks were the swiftest and most ferocious. Feng Chuixue's was the Blue Poison Beast—a dual poison- and spirit-attribute control-type martial soul. His soul skills blended poison and spiritual power, making him a master of the unexpected and the insidious, utterly unpredictable and near impossible to guard against.
The two witnesses, Long Ziyun and Yan Luo, also possessed beast martial souls: a Sky-Wing Tyrannosaurus and a Mad Wild Orangutan, respectively. Both were assault-types as well. The former could take to the skies and matched Lei Bao in raw strength, though it lacked Lei Bao's agility. The latter boasted the greatest defense and brute force of the four—and the slowest speed.
The moment their soul rings flared, the battle was officially joined.
Lei Bao struck first. Three amplification soul skills ignited in rapid succession.
"First soul skill—Thunder Claw! Third soul skill—Tiger King Transformation! Fifth soul skill—Wild Thunder!"
The first soul skill, Thunder Claw, imbued his attacks with the lightning attribute while boosting his speed and attack power by five percent. After all, here on the Douluo Continent, even innate elemental properties often required soul skills to awaken—abilities as basic as a plant's natural capacity to entangle could be considered soul skills. Even for a martial soul inherently charged with electricity, releasing lightning required a soul skill to unlock.
The third soul skill, Tiger King Transformation, doubled his attack power and speed.
And the fifth soul skill, Wild Thunder, granted a sixty-percent boost to all attributes.
Beneath this triple-layered amplification, his aura surged higher and higher. Fine cracks began spiderwebbing across the bluestone slabs beneath his feet.
Feng Chuixue's heart jolted, and Long Ziyun watching from the side was equally startled. Stacking all of one's amplification skills was, of course, standard practice—but that assumed the presence of a support-type soul master. Without one, burning through all of them at once left the user severely drained in the aftermath. And the moment Lei Bao unleashed those three skills, both men understood exactly what move his habits and temperament dictated next.
"Sixth soul skill—Galactic Storm Rift!" Lei Bao brought forth his ultimate killing blow without the slightest hesitation.
"Just as I expected." Feng Chuixue felt a strange, contradictory rush of relief and alarm. His brow furrowed. He knew this battle would be decided in the flash of lightning—but defeating him in a contest of speed and surprise should have been impossible unless Lei Bao could force out his most powerful skill...
Unless he had a counter.
Immediately, Feng Chuixue dismissed the thought. Even if Lei Bao had purchased a soul shield (tier five) or an invincibility barrier (tier seven), neither could block his sixth soul skill. His attack was, at its core, spiritual and sonic.
But there was no more time to think. He had to interrupt Lei Bao's attack. If he didn't, defeat was certain.
The Galactic Storm Rift possessed a long-range strike capability, and it would increase Lei Bao's speed by three hundred percent for a full minute. Combined with all the preceding amplifications, once it was launched—even if Feng Chuixue managed to dodge the initial blow by sheer luck—there was absolutely no way he'd survive the next sixty seconds.
At this thought, Feng Chuixue unleashed his own killing stroke without a shred of hesitation. "Sixth soul skill—Netherworld Sonic Wave!"
Sickly blue ripples of sound spread outward from him as their epicenter, like rings upon the surface of a disturbed pond.
The Netherworld Sonic Wave operated primarily through spiritual and sonic assault. Those who heard the sound would be thrown into a state of mental chaos, their spiritual resistance crumbling, whereupon the spiritual attack would forcibly interrupt any offensive soul skill and cause the target to suffer backlash. It bypassed virtually all defensive abilities—even sealing one's ears was useless. And the stronger the soul skill being interrupted, the more devastating the backlash.
Feng Chuixue allowed himself a sliver of certainty. I've already won.
But just as the rippling sonic wave was about to reach Lei Bao, Feng Chuixue saw—with absolute, horrifying clarity—the cold smirk curling at the corner of Lei Bao's mouth.
A brilliant radiance erupted from Lei Bao's left arm. In an instant, his entire body was enveloped in a protective barrier. Strange, intricate patterns swirled across its surface, pulsing and revolving as though alive. The Netherworld Sonic Wave—capable of crippling any ordinary Soul Emperor on contact—struck that barrier and simply... vanished. Like a mud ox sinking into the sea, it dissolved without stirring so much as a single ripple.
"That's... a soul bone?!" Feng Chuixue's pupils contracted to pinpoints. In that instant, he finally understood where Lei Bao's unshakable confidence had come from. He'd calculated every angle, weighed every possibility—and still, he'd missed this. This soul bone clearly possessed an immensely powerful resistance to spiritual attacks. It was the perfect counter to his Netherworld Sonic Wave.
Lei Bao pressed his advantage without mercy. The Galactic Storm Rift's devastating might was undiminished, roaring toward Feng Chuixue with all the force of an avalanche that could shatter forests and level mountains. Manic arcs of lightning turned the entire arena as bright as high noon, the blinding glare forcing even the two spectators to shield their eyes.
In desperation, Feng Chuixue could only condense every last drop of soul power before him, forming a pale blue barrier. But he'd already lost the initiative. There was no turning the tide now.
And deep in his heart, he knew it.