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**
"Wait, that's not right!"
Suddenly, after running for less than a minute, Xiao Lin slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. Narrowing his eyes slightly, it hit him that they didn't actually need to run away. Or rather, running away might be the path to an early grave.
"What's wrong?" Ye Lingling and the Shi brothers also halted their steps, voicing their confusion.
"I think we can turn around and wipe them out!"
The moment Xiao Lin's words landed, Ye Lingling and the Shi brothers stared at him, convinced he had probably lost his mind.
For a moment, they were utterly speechless.
"I share the exact same sentiment," Tang Ni chipped in.
She had grown sick and tired of looking at those fellows anyway.
On what grounds did the enemy get to constantly hunt them down while they were forced to flee? In the past, she was always the one hunting others down. Although Tang Ni's decision carried a bit of personal emotion, her core analytical deduction was nearly identical to Xiao Lin's.
She genuinely believed they could execute a counter-kill.
"Xiao Lin, what exactly do you mean by that?" Shi Mo asked.
He knew Xiao Lin wasn't the type to spout nonsense; there had to be a solid analytical framework behind this statement.
"I believe we can win, and those four are dead men walking," Xiao Lin began his explanation, "We hold four absolute advantages that guarantee our victory, while they harbor four critical flaws that guarantee their defeat."
"First of all, our soul power is completely topped off. On the other hand, they had to rush all this way to hunt us down. Their soul power is bound to be heavily depleted, and their physical stamina is severely weakened. There will never be a better window of opportunity than right now."
Hearing this first point, Ye Lingling and the others couldn't help but nod in agreement.
Xiao Lin then continued, "Second, Tang Ni and I previously executed the fallen degenerate at the Ice Powder base. That person was also a Soul Emperor, and he even possessed the advantage of flight to look down on us. These four before us don't have that."
"Since we could slaughter one Soul Emperor, we can naturally slaughter a second."
Regarding this point, Ye Lingling's trio didn't comment, but Tang Ni nodded with absolute seriousness. Even if those four were all Soul Emperors, their individual combat prowess was highly unlikely to surpass that particular degenerate.
The only variable they needed to look out for was the coordination among those four men.
"Third, the sheer gap in our soul skills. Judging by the ages of those individuals, it is impossible for them to have absorbed soul rings that exceeded their natural limits. For them, having a fourth soul ring at the four-thousand-year mark would already be considered exceptional."
"Their fifth soul rings absolutely do not cross the ten-thousand-year threshold, and their sixth soul rings might not even match the age limits of the rings Tang Ni and I possess."
This was their absolute advantage in the quality of their soul skills.
Before Xiao Lin could even finish detailing this aspect, Ye Lingling's trio gave affirmative nods.
They understood this reality all too well. Even their own teacher, Qin Ming, didn't have a ten-thousand-year ring for his fifth soul ring; it was only his sixth soul ring that managed to surpass the age limit of Tang Ni's current rings.
Qin Ming was hailed as the second-youngest genius in history to ever break through to the Soul Emperor rank. If even Qin Ming's ring configuration looked like that, there was no need to mention ordinary cultivation trash.
Furthermore, among those four individuals, three of them couldn't even be described as middle-aged—they were downright elderly. Given the era those old men grew up in, it was completely normal for their first soul rings to be ten-year white rings.
One only needed to look at the various Soul Emperor teachers back at Shrek Academy to see a clear reflection of this.
"Leaving the sheer density and volume of soul power aside, Xiao Lin and Tang Ni hold an immense upper hand, and our martial souls are structurally superior as well." Ye Lingling nodded.
Having heard Xiao Lin lay out the facts, a spark of confidence to counter-kill finally kindled within her. After all, they were a group of elite geniuses; the innate superiority of their martial souls was overwhelmingly obvious.
They all firmly believed that Xiao Lin was fully capable of fighting a Soul Emperor one-on-one, taking it as an absolute given. Then there was Tang Ni; they similarly believed that Tang Ni wouldn't have any issue matching a high-ranking Soul King.
Even the two brothers, Shi Mo and Shi Mo, calculated that they wouldn't have any trouble holding their ground against lower-ranking Soul Kings.
With their formidable defensive capabilities, even if they couldn't outright defeat a low-ranked Soul King, they could easily stall long enough for Xiao Lin to beat a Soul Emperor to death.
Now, the only missing piece of the puzzle they had to consider was whether the Shi brothers, backed by Ye Lingling's unparalleled healing, could hold out long enough to stall a Soul Emperor.
They just needed to buy enough time to grant Xiao Lin and Tang Ni the chance to fight their targets one-on-one.
"The final and most crucial point is a sneak attack. They will absolutely never expect us to turn right back around to ambush them." Xiao Lin licked his dry lips.
He naturally knew there were several other minor advantages at their disposal, but compared to those, the strategic value of a surprise ambush was far more worthy of emphasis.
"With your explosive power, Xiao Lin, a sudden sneak attack should allow you to instantly instakill one Soul Emperor right off the bat." Hearing Xiao Lin bring up a sneak attack, Tang Ni immediately ran the calculations in her mind and spoke up directly in front of everyone.
Ye Lingling and the others might be in the dark, but Tang Ni knew the truth all too well. The terrifying burst potential of an External Soul Bone was nothing to scoff at; let alone a Soul Emperor, even a Soul Saint would be instantly vaporized if they caught them off guard.
Furthermore, if the enemies lacked a healer, a single massive wound would quickly prove fatal in the extreme environment of the Far North.
"If we calculate it like that, Xiao Lin goes in first alone, uses a sneak attack to instakill one Soul Emperor, and then stalls a second one. Tang Ni will tie down a third Soul Emperor, leaving the three of us to stall the final Soul Emperor..."
As Shi Mo spoke, his brow gradually furrowed into a tight knot near the end.
"Wait, that's not right. If we break it down this way, among the remaining Soul Emperors we face, someone on our side must possess the power to outright defeat their opponent. Only then can we cascade that victory to create a numbers advantage."
"What if the enemies refuse to fight you in isolated one-on-one duels?" As Shi Mo pointed this out, Ye Lingling and Shi Mo nodded in rapid succession, finding his concerns entirely reasonable.
This wasn't some controlled, televised tournament between academy teams; this was a brutal, lawless struggle between life and death. The opposing side was definitely not composed of brainless fools.
Knowing that the Shi brothers possessed ultimate defensive capabilities backed by an absolute healing system, why would the enemies waste their breath fighting them head-on?
Besides, this was a battle at the Soul Emperor level.
The current soul skills of the Shi brothers could barely inflict any meaningful damage on such enemies, making it incredibly difficult to even properly pin them down. It wasn't just the two Shi brothers who harbored these anxieties; Ye Lingling shared the exact same worry.
Although her soul skill was classified as area-of-effect healing, once Xiao Lin and Tang Ni fractured the battlefield into isolated sectors, she would be completely unable to extend her healing range to them.
The distance would simply be too vast compared to a standard arena stage, and her current cultivation rank was nowhere near high enough to sustain teammates scattered so far apart.
"Don't worry. Even if all four of them team up to gang up on me, as long as my soul power isn't entirely dried up, they can forget about defeating me."
At this critical juncture, Xiao Lin could no longer afford to hide all of his hidden trumps. He revealed outright that as long as he refrained from unleashing his most devastating, high-consumption soul skills, he possessed a unique ability that barely drained any of his soul power.
The Horned Dragon Staff actually possesses an ability like that?!
The moment everyone heard Xiao Lin's words, they were utterly stunned. Tang Ni, in particular, couldn't help but recall her previous spar with Xiao Lin. No wonder the brat could still manifest a massive soul power barrier even after burning through a barrage of soul skills.
"Not only that, I still have this soul bone." Finally, Xiao Lin fished out the soul bone that had dropped from the fallen degenerate.
Although the quality and age-limit of this soul bone were relatively low—such that Xiao Lin originally looked down on it—they were currently staring down a genuine life-and-death crisis. Xiao Lin naturally wasn't foolish enough to refuse to absorb a soul bone just out of sheer pride.
If he could rely on the massive surge of soul power granted by the soul bone to break through by a single rank, boosting his total reserves, he had the confidence to forcefully burst out a single manifestation of his Tool Soul Avatar.
Furthermore, this ten-thousand-year soul bone carried its own unique soul bone skill.
"Xiao Lin, didn't you say you looked down on this soul bone?"
At this moment, Tang Ni lowered her gaze, staring intently at the object in Xiao Lin's hand as she questioned him. She was acutely aware of Xiao Lin's boundless potential. If absorbing this trash soul bone ended up capping or damaging his future growth...
"We're fresh out of options, and besides, the soul bone skill attached to this piece shouldn't be too weak." Xiao Lin let out a bitter laugh.
What else could he possibly say in a situation like this?
He couldn't just stand by and watch his entire team get wiped out. He personally possessed the means to venture deep into the core region of the Far North entirely on his own without fearing the extreme, lethal cold.
But was he the type of person to abandon his comrades?
Those who abandoned their companions were worse than trash.
**
Hello everyone,
Thank you for your support! If you enjoy my work, you can check out my Patreon—there are 100+ early access and exclusive content. I update 5 advanced chapter from Monday-Saturday
www.patreon.com/c/FanficTranslator
I truly appreciate it!