Chapter 66.1: Victory! Swap!
Elder Xuan’s expression turned strange. After looking at Huo Yuhao seriously for a while, he turned towards the others, “Stay here and don’t move. Wait for a while.”
After that, he grabbed Huo Yuhao and disappeared without a trace.
Huo Yuhao had been taken away by Elder Xuan, leaving Wang Dong somewhat anxious, “Sister Xiaotao, what’s going on?”
“There’s no use asking me anything,” Ma Xiaotao said unhappily, “you should question Huo Yuhao instead. What did he do just now?”
Dai Yueheng’s team was currently surrounding Ling Luochen. The ice on her body was slowly melting, and after a few moments, the armor of ice disappeared. She had a pale expression on her face, and she nearly fell down as her body shook.
Xiao Xiao rushed up to catch up, but she immediately felt as though she was touching ice when she touched her body.
The usually cool Ling Luochen was filled with astonishment at this moment. She didn’t know what had just occurred either. After that strange scorpion had looked at her, she immediately felt as if the soul power in her body had been frozen. This was the first time she’d encountered a situation in which she was completely powerless to even resist. Even a Titled Douluo wouldn’t be able to strip her of her combat strength with a mere glance! However, that scorpion had done just that.
Elder Xuan didn’t bring Huo Yuhao anywhere far; he merely went to a corner of the Assessment Area.
“Just what happened just now? Explain everything in more detail.” Elder Xuan asked, somewhat panicked. When Huo Yuhao had transformed into the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, Elder Xuan’s reaction was that the former was a transformed soul beast. Or rather, a soul beast that had decided to re-cultivate into a human.
After reaching a hundred thousand years of cultivation, a soul beast could choose to re-cultivate into a human. However, this path was extremely difficult, because it would then have to undergo a period of weakness. Furthermore, the aura on its body would still remain that of a soul beast. Once it was discovered by a powerful soul master, the only result was death. Furthermore, it would become that soul master’s soul ring and soul bone. Only after reaching the seven-ringed rank could a soul beast thoroughly mask its aura and become a true human. However, how easy would this process be? Because of this, very few soul beasts would choose this path. With the Ice Empress’ level of power, she wouldn’t dare to risk her life in this way.
Greatly astonished, Elder Xuan examined Huo Yuhao’s body. However, he quickly calmed down. In his heart, he already knew that there was no chance of Huo Yuhao being a soul beast. The most powerful evidence attesting to this fact was his twin martial souls. Re-cultivated soul beasts would definitely maintain their original form, and thus there was no chance of one having a second martial soul. The fact that there was no trace of the aura of a soul beast on Huo Yuhao’s body merely further verified that he was truly a human.
With Elder Xuan’s cultivation, no matter how many brilliant tricks a person had, there was no way to conceal anything from the former when he was holding onto you. However, Elder Xuan was curious! He had no idea how Huo Yuhao had done what he just did. If it was merely an illusion, how did Ling Luochen instantly freeze up and lose all of her fighting power?
“Earlier, sister Xiaotao asked me to release my Ultimate martial soul to suppress sister Ling Luochen.” Huo Yuhao said obediently, “I figured that there’d definitely be no way for me to suppress her by simply releasing my martial soul, due to the massive gap in our cultivation levels. Thus, I used Imitation and imitated the form of my second martial soul. Then, I switched the attribute of that illusion to that of my second martial soul. I did my best to release the aura of an Ultimate martial soul. As for what happened to sister Ling Luochen, I don’t know either.”
He truly didn’t know what had just occurred. When the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion had glanced towards Ling Luochen, Huo Yuhao’s mind had gone into a daze for a bit. In reality, the true charm of that gaze had come from the Ice Empress.
Elder Xuan scratched his head and furrowed his brow. “Ultimate martial soul, Ultimate martial soul… Ah! I understand. Ice, you both have the Ice attribute. It’s actually an absolute suppression. This Ultimate martial soul of yours is too tyrannical. Good, hahahaha, very good! I understand. Go, go back.”
Elder Xuan had truly guessed the approximate essence of the situation. This was absolute suppression!
The key to the problem lay in the differences in their elements. Huo Yuhao and Ling Luochen were both of the Ice element, but Huo Yuhao possessed Ultimate Ice. Thus, he held an absolute elemental superiority over Ling Luochen. The moment he imitated the body of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, the full power of his Ultimate martial soul was released.
Though the three Emperors of the Extreme North all belonged to the chilly Ice element, the Snow Empress was still the strongest in terms of extremely low temperatures. The Snow Empress controlled the power of Snow, while the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion controlled absolute ice as the Ice Empress. In the current Douluo Continent, she was completely deserving of the title ‘Ancestor of Ice’.
In terms of cultivation, Huo Yuhao was naturally nowhere near Ling Luochen. However, the problem lay in the fact that Ling Luochen had used the power of Ice, while Huo Yuhao had coincidentally imitated the aura of the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.
The Ice Empress was one of his intelligent soul rings. Thus, she was always paying attention to him. When Huo Yuhao had imitated her aura, she was able to sense the existence of a hostile intent that originated from ice. Her concentrated gaze wasn’t directed towards Ling Luochen, but the ice she was controlling. Unless there was an ice user who was even stronger than the Ice Empress, every ice element would fall under her control in front of her aura.
This was another fact that showed how weak Huo Yuhao was. If he had the same cultivation level as Ling Luochen, he would be able to possess a sufficient amount of control over his Ultimate Ice as long as the Ice Empress willed it. Then, he would even be able to directly end Ling Luochen’s life with her own ice if she dared to use it against him. This was one of the terrifying aspects of the Ancestor of Ice, the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion. If the powerful four hundred thousand year-old Ice Empress still had her main body, she would be an opponent who was rarely seen on the continent.
Elder Xuan patted Huo Yuhao’s shoulder in a somewhat strange manner. “I was being narrow-minded. I shouldn’t have interrupted your match.” This time around, he held Huo Yuhao by the armpits, and returned back to Ma Xiaotao and the rest with a flash.
“Everything’s normal. Ling Luochen, leave the battle for now. Everyone else, continue.” With that, Elder Xuan stepped into the void and rose back into the air to spectate the match.
Both parties were somewhat baffled. The members of preparatory team from the outer courtyard still had some doubts in their hearts, but the disciples from the inner courtyard were very familiar with Elder Xuan’s temperament. Even if he usually seemed very erratic, he was always a fair person. Since he made Ling Luochen leave the match, he naturally had a reason for doing so.
At this moment, Ma Xiaotao had approximately guessed at a hint of the truth. Among the disciples of the inner courtyard, she was the only one who knew that Huo Yuhao possessed an Ultimate martial soul. However, she didn’t think that it’d be this strong. We can talk about the specifics once the match is over. Winning’s more important now.
Ma Xiaotao let out a long hiss, then started her assault again. This time around, both parties were already very close to each other.
Huo Yuhao reactivated his Spiritual Detection as though nothing had happened. He’d consumed a certain amount of soul power while using his Imitation earlier, but Elder Xuan had accidentally helped him break through a bottleneck when he was probing the state and aura of his soul power. At this moment, his soul power was restored to its peak state.
Gong Yangmo’s Rainbow Dragon finally showed its use now. The opposing Yao Haoxuan’s auxiliary and weakening skill had already ended, but the former’s auxiliary skills were still activated. This was the difference in their martial souls and cultivations.
However, a mere hundred year soul skill didn’t drain much energy. As the opposing team began their attack, Yao Haoxuan hurriedly re-released the skill he’d previously used. Right now, both teams were about to clash head-on.
The person who made the first move was Chen Zifeng. He hadn’t released his martial soul since the beginning of Dai Yueheng’s assault, but just as the opposing team started to make their move, he finally revealed it.
An intense, red light rose from Chen Zifeng’s body. It wasn’t fire-type soul power like Ma Xiaotao possessed, but one that was purely blood-red in color. Following its appearance, Huo Yuhao could smell a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood coming from the former’s body.
Chen Zifeng suddenly raised his head, and the pressure coming from him instantly reached a peak. His eyes turned blood-red, and a fierce killing intent emerged from his body.
He pointed with the index and middle fingers of his right hand, causing a blood-red bolt of lightning to shoot out. The blood-red soul power coming from his body seemed to be drawn towards the bloody light, and actually fused with it.
At this moment, Huo Yuhao could see a blade in Chen Zifeng’s hand; a three foot six inch-long blade that was only an inch wide. The slender body of the sword had no guard on it, but there were three bloody grooves carved into it. Mysteriously, Chen Zifeng’s five soul rings didn’t undulate around his body. On the contrary, they surrounded this blood-red sword.
After pausing for a moment in midair, the thin sword shot towards Ma Xiaotao like a blood-red rainbow. A bloody wound opened wherever the sword passed, and there was already a strong smell of blood filling the air even before the sword had arrived.
This was Chen Zifeng’s martial soul, Soulchasing Sword.
Ma Xiaotao had a serious expression on her face. She spread her arms wide as the lightning-like sword flew towards her, causing her intense, golden-red phoenix flames to blossom out. This was her second soul skill, Phoenix Baptism.
This was an omnidirectional attack. Other than that, her first soul ring flickered as she spit out a streak of fire that went straight after the Soulchasing Sword.
As though it felt pressured, the body of the Soulchasing Sword paused briefly and let out a buzz. Right after that, an extremely sharp bloody light flashed. The Soulchasing Sword spat out three bolts of sword light. Chen Zifeng’g first and second soul rings lit up, shoving away the streak of phoenix fire that was chasing after him. Though it was slowed somewhat, its trajectory didn’t change; it was still headed towards Ma Xiaotao.
This was Chen Zifeng’s first soul skill, Sharpness, and his second one, Destruction. The two soul skills harmonized with each other, filling his originally sharp Soulchasing Sword with destructive power.
Just as he released his Soulchasing Sword, Chen Zifeng slowed down. He stood behind Dai Yuefeng with his right sword finger on his blade, guarding against attacks from the sky.