The silence in the Great Spirit Arena was absolute. It was a vacuum, sucking the air out of thousands of lungs simultaneously.
In the center of the stage, the soul rings oscillating around Arthev were not an illusion. They humd with a deep, predatory frequency that vibrated in the teeth of everyone present.
Purple. Purple. Black.
A thousand-year first ring. A thousand-year second ring. And a ten-thousand-year third ring.
On a boy who looked no older than thirteen.
In the VIP Box, the porcelain teacup in Crown Prince Xue Qinghe's hand shattered, spilling hot tea onto his golden robes. He didn't flinch. His eyes, usually warm and guarded, were wide open, staring at the pitch-black ring.
"Snake Lance," Xue Qinghe whispered, his mask of gentleness cracking. "Is that... real?"
From the shadows, the gravelly voice of the Titled Douluo replied, trembling slightly.
"The energy density is authentic, Young Miss. It is over ten thousand years. But... how? His body should have exploded during absorption. The Grandmaster's theory says the limit for the third ring is 1,760 years. This is... five tis that."
"He broke the theory," Xue Qinghe murmured, a terrifying smile slowly forming.
"He didn't just break it. He shattered it."
On the Board of Education's balcony, ng Shen-Ji gripped the railing so hard the marble cracked.
"Impossible," the Soul Contra gasped.
"Purple first ring? That requires a body strong enough to withstand the pressure of a Soul Ancestor at Level 10. Who trained him? What did they feed him? Dragon at?"
Down in the arena, the Royal Team was frozen in shock.
Dugu Yan's snake instincts were screaming. The pressure from Arthev's black ring made her own purple ring feel like a cheap toy.
"Captain..." she hissed, her voice tight. "That energy... be careful."
Yu Tian-Heng, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, stared at Arthev. His face twisted from shock to denial, and finally to humiliated rage.
He was the heir to the Upper Three Sects. He was the genius. Yet, this commoner stood there with a ring configuration that made the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon look ordinary.
"It's a trick," Yu Tian-Heng snarled, electricity arcing violently off his dragon claw.
"An illusion skill! No human absorbs a Black Ring at Level 30! You're trying to scare us!"
Arthev stood calmly in the eye of the storm. He adjusted his gloves, the black ring slowly rotating around him.
"The world is vast, Captain," Arthev said, his voice polite but amplified by the silence.
"Just because you haven't seen the ocean doesn't an it doesn't exist."
The referee, shaking himself out of his stupor, chopped his hand down.
"BEGIN!"
BOOM!
Yu Tian-Heng didn't wait. He exploded forward.
"Third Soult Skill: Thunder Fury!"
His body beca a bolt of blue lightning. Rage fueled his speed. He crossed the fifty ters in a heartbeat, aiming a claw strike directly at Arthev's head to shatter the "illusion."
"DIE!" Yu Tian-Heng roared.
The crowd scread. It was too fast.
Arthev didn't move his feet. He simply raised his right hand.
"First Soul Skill," Arthev whispered.
"Elental Branch: Earth of the Desert."
The Purple ring lit up.
The ground in front of Arthev crack, liquified and then hardened instantly. A massive, twisted root made of compressed, Sand erupted from the floor.it was grinding, heavy earth shaped like a tree limb.
WHAM.
The sand-root caught Yu Tian-Heng's dragon claw mid-air. The lightning discharged into the sand, but the sand didn't break. It clamped around the dragon's arm like a vice.
"Sand?" Yu Tian-Heng gasped, trying to pull his arm free. "You're a Tree spirit!"
"My tree grows in many soils," Arthev said calmly.
He flicked his wrist. The sand-root twisted, flinging the Captain of the Royal Team sideways. Yu Tian-Heng crashed into the stone floor, skidding ten ters.
"Scatter!" Arthev ordered his team.
This was the signal.
The "Roaches" of the Second Team didn't freeze. They didn't watch the spectacle.
They moved.
"Get them!" Graphite shouted, slamming his shield down. "Brothers, block the front!"
The two massive Black Tortoise Soul Masters ford a wall, expecting a head-on collision from Huang Yuan and Jing Ling .
But Huang Yuan didn't charge the shield.
"Don't look at the face," Huang Yuan muttered to himself, rembering Arthev's training. "Look at the feet."
Just before impact, Huang Yuan dropped low, sliding on his knees like a baseball player. He slipped right under Graphite's massive shield arm.
"What?!" Graphite looked down.
Huang Yuan didn't attack. He used his montum to spring up behind the defender, using the turtle shell as a step-ladder to launch himself into the air toward the backline.
"He jumped over ?!" Graphite roared, turning around.
"Focus on your ankles!" Jing Ling shouted, sliding past the other brother, tripping him with a skeletal leg sweep. The heavy defender stumbled, his formation broken.
The crowd gasped. The Second Team wasn't fighting like nobles. They were fighting like water, flowing through the cracks.
"Osler! Defend the rear!" Yu Tian-Heng shouted, getting back to his feet.
Osler, the Wind Bell Bird Soul Master, took to the sky. He saw Jiang Zhu, the healer, standing alone near the back, clutching her staff.
"An easy target!" Osler sneered. "First Soul Skill: Wind Blade Dive!"
He folded his wings and dove like a missile, aiming to take out the support in one hit.
In the stands, the students of the academy winced. Jiang Zhu was known for being timid. She would surely freeze.
Jiang Zhu saw the Wind Master diving. Her heart hamred against her ribs. But inside her head, Arthev's voice was calm. It is a stick. A heavy stick. Create the sphere.
She didn't scream. She planted her feet.
She began to spin.
The heavy ironwood staff blurred. A low vibration filled the air as the centrifugal force built up.
Osler was too fast to stop. He thought he could break through her weak defense.
He was wrong.
THWACK.
The sound echoed through the entire arena.
The end of the five-kilogram ironwood staff caught Osler directly in the ribs. The montum of his dive combined with the spin of the staff created a devastating impact.
Osler didn't even scream. He was batted out of the air like a shuttlecock, spinning uncontrollably until he crashed into the arena wall, sliding down.
"Did..." a student in the stands whispered.
"Did the healer just one-shot the Agility Master?"
"She hit him with a stick!" another scread. "She just whacked him!"
Back in the center, Arthev hadn't moved. He stood like a conductor, watching his team execute the chaos he had orchestrated.
Huang Yuan was now harassing the backline, keeping Yu Feng busy. Jing Ling was tripping the tanks. Jiang Zhu had established a "no-fly zone."
The Royal Team was stronger, yes. But they were confused. They were angry. And they were disorganized.
Yu Tian-Heng looked around. His formation was in shambles. His Agility Master was down. His tanks were tripping over each other.
He looked back at Arthev, who stood watching him with those polite, mocking eyes.
"You..." Yu Tian-Heng shook with fury. "You turned this into a circus!"
"I turned it into a battle, Captain," Arthev replied. "You expected a ceremony."
Dugu Yan, who had been watching in stunned silence, finally snapped. She saw her boyfriend humiliated, her team embarrassed by commoner tactics.
Her green eyes glowed with dangerous, lethal light.
"Enough!" Dugu Yan shrieked, her voice vibrating with venom. "I don't care about the rules anymore! I don't care about honor!"
She stepped forward, her serpent tail lashing. The air around her began to turn a sickly purple.
"Arthev! You want to play gas? Let's see how your 'Roaches' play when they can't breathe!"
"Third Soul Skill: Jade Phosphor Violet Poison!"
She opened her mouth, and a tsunami of concentrated neurotoxin erupted, rolling across the stage like a purple avalanche. It was heavy, inescapable, and lethal.
The crowd scread in horror. That much poison could kill the entire Second Team in seconds.
Arthev watched the cloud approach. He didn't panic. He simply adjusted his gloves.
"Finally," Arthev whispered. "The real test begins."
To be continued....
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