“Ah—!” The crowd immediately flew into an uproar when they saw Xiao Xiao’s two yellow soul rings.
Not even the weakest team would send out a two-ringed student to partic.i.p.ate in a tournament like this!
The Continental Advanced Academy Soul Duelling Tournament required that its partic.i.p.ants be under the age of twenty. If a person couldn’t breakthrough to the Soul Elder rank by the age of twenty, could he even be considered an outstanding student? This was a tournament for high-ranking soul master and soul engineering academies. A two-ringed soul master appearing on the tournament stage had never occurred for an extremely long period of time.
At this moment, however, they were personally witnessing this exact scene. Yet since this was such a rare occurrence that it didn’t feel real.
For example, Tang Xiaolei and Xue Lang. The two of them were involuntarily stunned for a moment by Xiao Xiao’s two rings, to the extent that their movements slowed by a bit. She had previously revealed six rings, but now she only had two of them. Just what was Shrek Academy doing?
They were stunned for a moment, but He Caitou wasn’t.
The moment the referee announced the start of the match, he took a large step forward. Just as everyone was thinking that he was going to use a valiant strategy like the soul tool fort, He Caitou didn’t. He entered a half-squatting position, and an enormous black two-meter cannon appeared on his right shoulder. Its appearance was very similar to that of a stationary soul cannon.
The referee was first stunned at seeing this, but he quickly wiped away all thoughts of interfering. This was because a white light–which was clearly a sign of soul power being gathered– began to flicker from this mouth of the cannon. From this, he could tell that this wasn’t a stationary soul cannon, but an energy-gathering soul cannon.
However… did an energy-gathering soul cannon need to be this large?
The referee was filled with doubt, but Tang Xiaolei and Xue Lang didn’t think the same. The instant He Caitou showed that enormous energy-gathering soul cannon, they suddenly felt a terrifying wave of pressure from him. It seemed as though this cannon would be able to threaten their very lives if it were to be activated.
Normally, a soul engineer who didn’t walk the very edges of the path would equip himself with an energy-gathering soul cannon due to its formidable might. Although it drained a lot of soul power, it would serve as a trump card at crucial moments.
An energy-gathering soul cannon was also called a force-gathering soul cannon because it was a soul tool that condensed and compressed soul power before launching it in a powerful all-out attack. Its main fault lay in the process of gathering soul power, while its main benefit was its powerful attack power. It would normally appear on a soul engineer’s chest, but it would absolutely not be as terrifyingly large as the one He Caitou had on him now.
Most other soul masters were at a loss towards tools like the energy-gathering soul cannons that He Caitou was currently using; only truly powerful soul engineers would understand what this thing was.
The resting area of the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy.
“That, that is? That can’t be. A super energy-gathering soul cannon? Shrek Academy has actually developed a super energy-gathering soul cannon? But, he’s a four-ringed Soul Ancestor. Can he even use a soul tool like this?” Ma Rulong was astonished.
Teacher Ma furrowed his brows tightly and muttered to himself, “It seems like we’ve always been underestimating Shrek Academy’s Soul Tool Department. Their research capabilities aren’t as weak as they seem on the surface.”
Right, the thing equipped on He Caitou’s shoulder was something that completely shouldn’t have appeared within this compet.i.tion. This soul tool was first developed in the Sun Moon Empire, and it was called the super energy-gathering soul cannon; it was also a soul engineer’s singular most powerful weapon.
The simple use of this super energy-gathering soul cannon would drain almost all of a Soul King’s soul power. That was the only way to release most of its might.
He Caitou naturally didn’t have the strength of a Soul King, but the super energy-gathering soul cannon he wielded wasn’t actually a complete one; the core formation within it had been modified slightly, though it seemed identical to the original on the surface. Once he became a Cla.s.s 5 soul engineer and modified it again, he would be able to release the strength of a proper super energy-gathering soul cannon.
Although it wasn’t a complete one, the soul power within He Caitou’s body started to pour into the super energy-gathering soul cannon at an astonis.h.i.+ng rate.
Right, he had a very simple plan—he wanted to finish everything with a single stroke. He was very clear that fighting a Soul King and a Soul Ancestor with his and Xiao Xiao’s strengths would yield practically no chances for him at all. If he wanted to win, he had to stake everything. Because of that, he decided to take out this incomplete super energy-gathering soul cannon.
He Caitou did his utmost to inhale the Thin Cigar in his mouth as he squeezed out every single bit of his soul power and poured it into the cannon. The Thin Cigar actually turned into ash within three puffs due to his furious inhaling.
Xiao Xiao stood by his side, immediately replacing the Thin Cigar for him according to the plan that they had set up beforehand. Furthermore, she even helped light it for him.
The two ends of the tournament stage were separated by a distance of a hundred metres. This was an extremely short distance for soul masters; one could charge through that entire distance within three breaths of time at most. However, He Caitou didn’t dare to be careless at all. He knew from w.a.n.g Yan that one of their two opponents was a soul master who specialised in long-range attacks.
However, he had no other options. They could only stake it all, as doing so would it last give them a sliver of hope; not staking it all would guarantee their defeat. They were originally planning to use the strategy of Tian Ji in the horse race, so although they knew that their opponents were specialised in long-range attacks, He Caitou had no other choice but to carry out his plan.
Tang Xiaolei and Xue Leng were astonished by Xiao Xiao’s soul rings, resulting in them blundering away a bit of time. However, they quickly returned to their senses due to the might of the super energy-gathering soul cannon.
Xue Lang roared wildly, and he exerted strength in his legs to dash out like lightning. A violent transformation occurred to his body as he charged forward; silvery-grey fur started growing wildly on his body, and his muscles and bones grew at an astonis.h.i.+ng speed. The biggest change occurred to his head; his mouth started protruding outwards, revealing a pair of sharp teeth. His legs became extraordinarily thick, and his arms turned into a pair of sharp claws. At the same time, his first soul ring was already flickering.
Xue Lang’s martial soul was the Wolf, the Soulwolf. His martial soul in and of itself wasn’t considered too powerful, but the reason why he was able to enter Justsky Academy’s official team was due to a few relatively powerful soul skills he had gotten his hands on.
For example, there was his first soul skill that he was current releasing: Wolf Transformation.
When a soul master who had a Beast Soul released their martial soul, their strength would be determined by how closely their transformation resembled that of their martial soul. This Wolf Transformation of his was a self-strengthening skill, and its effects were akin to a weakened version of Dai Yueheng’s White Tiger’s Vajra Transformation.
This skill gave Xue Lang an all-round increase in speed, power, and soul power, causing his combat strength to instantly increase.
Xue Lang was an agility-type soul master, but he was able to take on an a.s.sault-type soul master to a certain extent after using his Wolf Transformation.
In contrast to Xue Lang’s rapid charge forward, Tang Xiaolei’s bright eyes instantly turned bright purple, as though a purple flare was being released from his eyes. He raised his left hand, causing a large bow to appear within his palm. He was one of the three Soul Kings who had appeared in this match, and his two yellow and three purple soul rings flickered brightly.
Ye Wuqing clearly had a lot of trust in Tang Xiaolei, seeing that he dared to send him out instead of going himself in this second round.
Tang Xiaolei raised the longbow in his left hand and placed his right on the bowstring, a purple light flickering through his eyes as he did so. Immediately, the energies around his body began to surge at an astonis.h.i.+ng rate. In an instant, the suppressive aura that he generated was actually not inferior to the super energy-gathering soul cannon that He Caitou had.
The longbow in Tang Xiaolei’s hands was 1.8 meters long; its entire body was bright purple, and the luxurious patterns on it shone with a purple halo. It was called the Purpleflower Bow, and Tang Xiaolei had always thought that his martial soul was unique and unmatched. Other than the fact that it wasn’t suited for group battles, it was incomparable among martial souls specialising in long-range attacks.
Although this was something that only he considered, this indirectly proved how powerful his long-range martial soul was.
Tang Xiaolei’s wrist seemed to shake slightly as he drew the Purpleflower Bow with lightning speed. In an instant, a yellow beam of light shot out and practically instantly reached He Caitou. The beam didn’t target He Caitou himself, but the super energy-gathering soul cannon on his shoulder.
The speed of this arrow was simply too quick. Combined with the fact that it gave off no signs beforehand, and the entire process could only be described with the phrase ‘lightning quick’. What was more unusual, however, was the fact that the five soul rings that had originally surrounded Tang Xiaolei had decreased to a total of four after he fired this arrow. He didn’t have any arrows, so what he fired was actually his own soul rings.
The hairs on Xue Lang’s skin stood up involuntarily the moment this arrow of light brushed past him. Even if he knew that this was an attack launched by his partner, a trace of fear still flashed past his eyes. This was because he knew the might of the Purpleflower Bow.
If one were to ask who the person who had the strongest suppressive and instant-attack abilities within Justsky Academy was, the answer to this wouldn’t be Ye Wuqing or Yu Mengdi, but the Purpleflower Bow-wielding long-range soul master who was also a self-proclaimed a.s.sault-type soul master, Tang Xiaolei.
Tang Xiaolei’s martial soul had many flaws. Namely, his Purpleflower Bow required him to use his soul rings as arrows to be fired. Furthermore, his soul power would be fully drained the moment he fired all of his arrows. He had to meditate patiently to recover his soul power, and only when the condition of his soul power return to its peak would he be able to release his soul rings again.
In other words, he could only shoot a total of five arrows in a battle. After shooting those five arrows, he would be as good as dead.
A flaw like this would be fatal to any soul master, but he was still able to represent Justsky Academy to turn up for this tournament in front of more than ten thousand people. This was naturally because his advantages were able to make up for his disadvantages; mainly, his terrifying attack power.
A terrifying consumption of soul power that limited him to just a few attacks made it so that he possessed a terrifying amount of attack power. Furthermore, he didn’t need to gather his energy like He Caitou’s super energy-gathering soul cannon. Because of that, when comparing notes with each other, even Yu Mengdi and Ye Wuqing had to be careful of Tang Xiaolei when he still had soul rings on his body. The only way they could have a chance of winning was by making him waste all of his soul rings.