Zheng Longjiang launched forward like a cannonball fired at point-blank range. The air around him warped and stretched, as though space itself couldn't keep pace with his speed. Before the fist had even arrived, Fan Yue felt a tyrannical pressure bearing down on him — crushing his bones, pressing against his organs.
He was already moving to release his Battle Soul and meet the blow head-on.
Then someone else stepped in front of him.
A massive figure surged forward and threw a counter-punch.
BOOM!
Two fists collided.
The shockwave rolled across the arena like a detonation. The ground beneath their feet cratered, a deep impact hollow radiating cracks in every direction.
The broad figure and Fan Yue both staggered back three steps.
But the critical thing was this: Zheng Longjiang had been stopped.
He looked down at his right fist. Drops of blood had surfaced on his knuckles, shimmering with dark gold light — not his blood. The blood of the creature before him.
It stood over two and a half meters tall. Its body was covered in dense golden fur, muscles swollen and sharply defined, as though cast in metal. Its enormous arms looked capable of crushing a mountain. Fangs jutted from its jaws. Crimson eyes blazed with feral savagery.
The Golden Fatty. Qian Lei's partner.
Qian Lei himself was no longer on the arena as a separate person. He was there — but not apart. He and the Golden Fatty had become one.
"RAAAAR!!!"
The Golden Fatty threw its head back and released a monstrous roar. In that same instant, Zheng Longjiang felt his aura weaken — his bloodline seemed to buckle under pressure. Not a suppression of raw power, but something instinctive, something written into the blood itself. An ancient superiority that didn't argue; it simply was.
And in that precise moment, Dong Qianqiu's ice lance came driving down from above. From the other side, the Golden Fatty exploded forward with a burst of raw momentum.
Zheng Longjiang narrowed his eyes.
That monkey… is irritating.
For the first time in the entire fight, he activated a Spirit Skill. His seventh black ring blazed with blinding light, and a tyrannical aura tore from his body like a tidal wave.
"Seventh Spirit Skill: True Body of the Battle Soul."
His body erupted. Muscles swelled, bones lengthened, dense fur spread across his frame. In an instant, Zheng Longjiang stood ten meters tall — the Great Demonic Ape, fully manifested.
"RAAARRGH!!!!"
His roar shook the arena.
Dong Qianqiu's ice lance was shattered in an instant. Her aura collapsed and her body was flung clean off the arena. Ying Luohun caught her mid-flight.
The third member of the team was out.
The Golden Fatty looked up at the True Body and did not retreat.
Quite the opposite. Its jaws spread into a predatory grin. A golden halo ignited around its body, the pressure doubled, and it leapt forward without a trace of fear.
Its arms swelled. Its muscles strained to their absolute limit. It brought both fists down from above.
BAAAAM!!!
What happened next, no one in the stands would have believed had they not seen it with their own eyes.
Zheng Longjiang's ten-meter body was driven straight into the arena floor. The stone surface exploded outward in every direction, and half his mass sank into the ground as though into soft clay.
The arena shook.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
But the cost of that blow was paid immediately.
The Golden Fatty's aura guttered out. The golden fur lost its luster. The muscles went slack. In the next instant, a human figure tore free from the creature's body.
The Golden Fatty became a beam of light and vanished, drawn back into Qian Lei.
Qian Lei crumpled to the ground, unconscious. His breathing came in shallow, broken gasps, his skin drained to white — as though every last drop of life energy had been wrung out of him.
Ying Luohun was beside him in an instant. She gathered the student carefully and carried him off the arena.
Qian Lei… you surprised me. It seems I need to seriously reconsider how I've been training you.
In the teachers' section, Old Man Shu stroked his beard slowly, his gaze fixed on the arena.
That child surprised me. I didn't expect the awakening of that ape to produce such an explosive surge in power.
Wang Tianyu's eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze moved from Ying Luohun to the unconscious Qian Lei.
Your student is a fortunate one. Lasting ten seconds against Zheng Longjiang — this year's first-years are genuine monsters.
On the arena, Zheng Longjiang's body began to shrink. He returned to his human form, climbed out of the crater, and calmly brushed the dust from his clothes — as though nothing of particular note had occurred. His gaze settled on Lan Xuanyu and Fan Yue.
"Junior," he said, offhand. "How much time has passed?"
"Twenty-eight… twenty-nine seconds," Lan Xuanyu said, beginning his own count.
In that same moment, Fan Yue released his Battle Soul.
Dark-golden scales swept across his body in an instant. Draconic wings spread wide behind him, a tail extended. His hair shifted to a blend of white and gold.
Right eye — gold. Left eye — blazing white.
His gaze didn't leave Zheng Longjiang.
At the same moment, a rainbow light burst from Lan Xuanyu's chest. A pair of nine-colored scales emerged across his chest, his black hair lengthened with white tips, and his arms were covered in seven-colored scales.
"Dragon God Transformation."
In one breath, the entire arena came under the weight of two draconic auras. The air turned viscous and heavy. Zheng Longjiang's blood went still for a fraction of a second. He raised his head slowly. The corners of his lips curved upward.
"It seems," he said calmly, "I should get serious."
In that same instant, his first and second spirit rings flared with blinding light.
"First Spirit Skill: Titan's Strength." "Second Spirit Skill: Air Burst."
His arms swelled abruptly, muscles flooding with what looked like molten metal. He struck at empty air.
The space before him compressed into a dense mass, then shot forward, becoming an invisible battering ram. Nearly simultaneously, Zheng Longjiang opened his palm and drove a second blow.
A massive golden palm woven from spirit power enveloped the air burst, amplifying it beyond its natural limit.
Fan Yue and Lan Xuanyu did not retreat.
Fan Yue raised his right hand. Lan Xuanyu raised his left.
Their palms traced a circle through the air. In the next instant, both struck.
"Three Saints Dragon Shakes the Heavens!" "Dragon God Shakes the Heavens!"
Two draconic projections erupted from each circle.
One woven from the radiance of sun, moon, and stars. The other — ancient and absolute.
They met Zheng Longjiang's attacks head-on.
BAAAAM!!!
The collision rang out like a thunderstrike directly overhead. The stone surface ruptured, leaving a ten-meter crater. The shockwave rolled across the entire arena, and for a moment the spectators forgot how to breathe.
In the first-year stands, eyes filled with something that had been absent until now.
Hope.
Zheng Longjiang staggered — just for a moment. Then he drove forward again.
Fan Yue smiled. His first, third, and fourth rings ignited simultaneously.
"First Spirit Skill: Dragon Body." "Third Spirit Skill: Supreme Dragon Aura." "Fourth Spirit Skill: Three Saints Flash."
The scales across his body deepened, saturating to a rich, dark gold. His claws sharpened. Every muscle strained to its limit. A black-gold draconic aura poured from him in an unbroken stream, wrapping his entire body. Around him, solar, lunar, and stellar light spun in orbit, warping the space nearby.
The ground beneath his feet split — and Fan Yue vanished.
In the next instant, he and Zheng Longjiang were face to face. Both struck at the same moment.
BOOM!
The crack was like lightning hitting the earth at arm's length.
Shockwaves collided, the air shuddered. Neither moved — in that moment their strength was equal. Fan Yue pressed the advantage without pause and attacked again. Zheng Longjiang answered in kind. But in the next instant, a thin line of blood appeared on Zheng Longjiang's cheek.
What? When—
He instinctively pulled back half a step, and the moment he did, he sensed danger at his back.
Lan Xuanyu was there. In his hands was a strange silver staff, and at its tip, two elemental forces — fire and ice — were rapidly condensing into one.
"These juniors," Zheng Longjiang said coldly, "do not stop surprising me."
He had been distracted for a single second.
That was enough.
Fan Yue's second spirit ring blazed with blinding intensity.
"Third Spirit Skill: True Sun Explosion!"
The strike landed squarely in the center of Zheng Longjiang's chest.
He didn't move. But inside his body, a muffled detonation rolled through him. Sharp pain lanced through his ribcage.
A rib… he cracked a rib?!
For the first time in the entire fight, Zheng Longjiang had been wounded — and now it was the second time. Irritation flared in his eyes.
Fan Yue moved to press the attack, but in the next moment Zheng Longjiang vanished from his field of vision and reappeared instantly at his side. A hand closed around Fan Yue's neck, and he was slammed into the ground with tremendous force.
"Second Spirit Skill: Air Burst."
The shockwave detonated around him. Then Zheng Longjiang spun without pausing and drove a blow toward Lan Xuanyu — far faster than anything before.
Lan Xuanyu raised his staff and fired an ice spear with fire blazing at its core. It exploded on impact, dispersing enough of the blow's force to slow it.
In that same moment, Fan Yue broke free of the hold. His leg drove hard into Zheng Longjiang's shin. Almost simultaneously, dozens of ice lances surged in from another direction.
Zheng Longjiang's figure blurred and disappeared. He reappeared at the edge of the arena. His seventh ring flared again — and the Great Demonic Ape stood on the arena once more.
Its massive form vanished immediately and materialized before Lan Xuanyu in the same breath. An enormous fist came crashing down.
"Junior — it seems this game has gone on long enough."
Lan Xuanyu's face was calm as ice. In the next instant, Fan Yue was in front of him. He caught the blow with both hands.
BAM!
The massive fist was stopped dead.
Lan Xuanyu's eyes flashed with cold light. The Sacred Abyss-Splitting Halberd appeared in his hands. He swept it in a single arc, cleaving through space itself. A long wound opened across Zheng Longjiang's chest, blood welling up at once.
"True Sun Explosion!" — Fan Yue seized the opening and drove the strike into Zheng Longjiang's leg.
Bone cracked with a sharp, clean snap.
Zheng Longjiang, unable to slip out of their combined assault, was more irritated than he had been at any point in the fight. His aura darkened sharply.
"Third Spirit Skill: Suppression!"
In the next instant, Fan Yue and Lan Xuanyu felt an unimaginable weight crash down on them. It was as though space itself was pressing them into the earth. Their legs buckled. Breathing became ragged.
"Fourth Spirit Skill: Demonic Palm."
Above the two young men, a colossal spirit-energy palm took shape. It blotted out the sky entirely, pushing away every last trace of light. There was nowhere to go. Every instinct screamed in unison — if this blow landed, it was over.
Ha… what else could you expect. The fourth Spirit Skill — and attack power like that.
There's no other way.
Fan Yue's fifth spirit ring ignited.
Nothing visible happened on the outside. But inside his body, every remaining ounce of power drew together into a single point. He clenched his jaw, his muscles locked, and he leapt upward — straight into the Demonic Palm.
He met the blow with his body.
BAAAAM!!!
The most powerful explosion of the entire fight.
Fan Yue's body was slammed into the ground with monstrous force. The scales covering him went dull, then began disappearing one by one.
But in that same instant, something happened that froze the entire arena.
Cracks spread across the Demonic Palm. They raced outward in every direction — and in the next moment, the palm shattered into fragments of dispersed energy.
For the first time in the entire match, Zheng Longjiang's eyes went wide.
"He tanked it?!"