Inside the office, the dim light of the Soul Tool projector flickered across the wall as the footage began to play.
Yan Shaozhe held his breath and leaned forward slightly, his gaze locked onto the projection, afraid to miss even the smallest detail.
As the dean of Shrek Academy's Martial Soul Department, he possessed vast combat experience and an exceptionally sharp eye. He was trying to find a sliver of hope for Shrek before tomorrow's decisive battle.
However, as the footage progressed, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
At the very start of the match, Liu Yuan stood calmly in the arena with his hands behind his back.
He neither released his martial soul nor moved even half a step.
Yet even so, the combat strength displayed by the remaining members of the Sun Moon Royal Team sent a chill through Yan Shaozhe's heart.
Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen's coordination with spirit tool coverage, as well as their precise control over spirit power, had far surpassed their level from five years ago.
What made Yan Shaozhe feel even more unfamiliar—and deeply wary—was the young girl wielding the Golden Dragon Spear: Wang Qiuer.
He watched as Wang Qiuer dominated the battlefield. Relying purely on brute strength and the natural rank suppression of her Golden Dragon martial soul, she forcefully suppressed the Body Sect's core members.
"Where did this Wang Qiuer come from?" Yan Shaozhe muttered, his expression growing increasingly heavy.
He had already evaluated the Body Sect's strength based on prior intelligence reports. These were elites, all possessing body-type martial souls.
And yet, even without Liu Yuan taking part, the Sun Moon Royal Team still seized the initiative and fought with overwhelming momentum.
This meant that what Shrek would face tomorrow was not merely an invincible Liu Yuan—but a fully formed, disciplined team whose overall strength had reached its peak.
Yan Shaozhe realized the situation was far worse than he had anticipated.
If Shrek's other members could not swiftly deal with the Sun Moon team, then once Liu Yuan finally entered the fray, they would be completely surrounded, with no path of retreat.
His gaze remained grave as he continued watching, silently praying that Long Aotian would show some backbone.
As the Body Sect's successor, Yan Shaozhe hoped Long Aotian could at least resort to desperate measures—anything that might force Liu Yuan to reveal key spirit abilities or expose a defensive flaw.
On the screen, the battle finally reached a white-hot stage.
With his pride shattered, Long Aotian indeed erupted in fury.
He unleashed the Body Sect's Unity of Man and Nature technique, and that near-mad offensive finally forced Liu Yuan—who had remained on standby—to act.
The instant Yan Shaozhe saw Liu Yuan's figure flash forward and intercept Wang Qiuer, his nerves were stretched to their absolute limit.
"He's finally moving?" Yan Shaozhe exclaimed softly, a flicker of anticipation rising in his heart.
In his view, the moment Liu Yuan took action, there would inevitably be fluctuations in spirit power—openings created during martial soul activation. Those would be the leverage he needed.
But the scene that followed plunged Yan Shaozhe straight into an icy abyss.
The footage clearly captured Liu Yuan's appearance after martial soul possession.
That emerald-green, half-human, half-dragon form—paired with the blood-red hundred-thousand-year spirit ring beneath his feet—made Yan Shaozhe's breath hitch.
In the recording, Liu Yuan faced Long Aotian's berserk charge with utter indifference.
With nothing more than a direct clash of physical strength—a so-called "normal attack"—he completely shattered Long Aotian's formidable body defense.
Then, the image distorted briefly, as if the recording struggled to keep up.
That was the moment Liu Yuan unleashed Extreme Speed.
In the blink of an eye, he crossed the spatial gap and delivered a perfectly timed punch straight to Long Aotian's face.
There was no chance to resist.
Long Aotian was sent flying like a rag doll, crashing out of the arena and smashing a massive crater into the hardened ground.
The entire counterattack was terrifyingly clean and efficient.
Yan Shaozhe stared blankly at the projection.
After repeatedly watching the scene—and as a Super Douluo above Rank 95—he keenly noticed something unusual in Liu Yuan's spirit power circulation.
Though Liu Yuan's chest was concealed beneath his clothing, the high-grade recording Soul Tool revealed a rhythmic halo pulsing beneath the surface.
That rotating core formed by liquefied spirit power, along with the domineering pull on the surrounding Heaven and Earth Origin Energy, was painfully familiar.
Yan Shaozhe's hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
He abruptly stood up, his once-refined and composed expression twisting in shock as the final line of defense in his heart collapsed.
"Soul core… This is definitely the fluctuation of a soul core. How is this possible?!"
His cry echoed sharply through the empty office.
As a high-ranking figure of Shrek Academy, no one understood better than him how difficult it was to condense a soul core.
Even throughout Shrek's long history, he had never heard of anyone successfully condensing this defining trait of a Titled Douluo at the mere seven-ring Spirit Saint stage.
"A seven-ring Spirit Saint… yet already possessing a soul core…"
Yan Shaozhe collapsed back into his chair, his gaze unfocused.
He had thought Liu Yuan's breakthroughs were limited to strength and speed.
He never imagined that Liu Yuan had already undergone a fundamental transformation at the level of life itself.
A Spirit Saint with a soul core meant that Liu Yuan's spirit power had undergone a qualitative evolution—each punch carrying destructive power on par with a Titled Douluo.
And when combined with that unheard-of top-tier martial soul and the hundred-thousand-year red spirit ring capable of overturning the battlefield…
Staring at the dark figure standing proudly at the center of the arena on the projection, Yan Shaozhe felt an unprecedented sense of helplessness.
All the tactics he had carefully devised—attribute counters, wars of attrition, layered strategies—now seemed absurdly laughable.
"How can our Shrek Team possibly win?" he asked himself bitterly.
He knew that tomorrow's match would no longer be a contest of technique or willpower.
Facing a monster who had already mastered the power of a Titled Douluo ahead of time, if Shrek's children charged in recklessly, their fate would very likely mirror Long Aotian's.
The projector flickered once, then automatically shut down as the recording ended.
The office fell back into darkness.
Yan Shaozhe sat there, unmoving, for a long time.
Those eyes that had once brimmed with confidence were now filled with a single emotion—
Despair.
He understood all too clearly that if Liu Yuan did not hold back tomorrow, the glory Shrek Academy had accumulated over thousands of years would very likely collapse in a single day.
Two consecutive championships.
If the Sun Moon Royal Academy truly achieved such a feat…
Then it would also announce one undeniable truth—
The era of Shrek Academy ruling the Academy world was coming to an end.