Chapter 150: All Soul Skills Evolve! Completely Overwhelming the Soul Saint Elder
The sprawling stone expanse of the Body Sect's core martial arts arena was packed to the absolute limit. Disciples and elders alike crowded the viewing galleries, their murmurs blending into a low, expectant hum that vibrated through the air.
Elder Li stood opposite Liu Yuan in the center of the elevated ring. His thick, broad hands hung naturally at his sides, knuckles scarred and calloused. As an assault-system Soul Saint whose Body Martial Soul was his own hands, every joint in his fingers looked abnormally thick and powerful. He exuded a heavy, suffocating pressure, standing as immovable as a weathered mountain peak.
High above the ring, Du Busi hovered in the air. The Body Sect Master looked down with his emerald-green eyes, his gaze sharp and piercing. He raised one hand, silencing the massive crowd in an instant, and let out a steady, decisive shout that echoed like rolling thunder.
"The test begins!"
Elder Li did not rush to launch an attack. He looked across the stone floor at Liu Yuan, his tone steady and carrying the natural authority of a senior.
"Junior Brother Liu Yuan, you are the junior here, and the protagonist of today's test." Elder Li shifted his stance slightly, the stone beneath his boots cracking under his sheer weight. "I am twenty years your senior, and my cultivation is vastly higher than yours. Therefore, you may make the first move. Do not hold anything back. Attack with all your might. Let me see the true quality of this Gold-grade Secondary Awakening."
Liu Yuan nodded slightly. His expression remained entirely calm, devoid of any nervousness or intimidation.
"In that case, please enlighten me, Elder Li," Liu Yuan replied, his voice cool and pragmatic.
The moment the words left his mouth, the first soul ring at Liu Yuan's feet flared to life, casting a vibrant glow over the arena.
Under the unblinking stares of the crowd, Liu Yuan did not summon his domineering Qilin Precious Technique. He did not activate his massive spatial domain. Instead, he opted for his most basic, foundational first Soul Skill.
Spirit Ray.
However, the instant the soul ring flashed, a terrifying transformation occurred. The three overlapping pupils within Liu Yuan's eyes suddenly burst forth with a blinding, purple-gold divine light.
Two thick, concentrated beams of energy erupted from his eyes, tearing through the air.
Originally, this attack manifested as translucent purple spiritual energy. Now, under the absolute enhancement of the Gold-grade Secondary Awakening, the twin rays had mutated into a pure, suffocating dark gold.
More terrifying still were the strange, microscopic dark gold particles flickering along the surface of the beams. These particles danced wildly in the air. Wherever they passed, the surrounding space emitted a sharp, violent sizzling noise, as if the very oxygen was being erased from existence by some higher-dimensional force.
Elder Li remained planted in his spot.
Watching the two dark gold rays rapidly approach, his expression grew grave, yet the ingrained pride of a veteran high-level Soul Master kept him from evading. In his mind, he was a Rank 75 Soul Saint. His soul power was a full twenty ranks higher than the young man before him. Even if Liu Yuan possessed a hundred-thousand-year soul ring and a Gold-grade Secondary Awakening, bridging such a massive cultivation gap with a mere first Soul Skill was a logical impossibility.
"Good! Let them come!" Elder Li roared, his voice booming across the arena.
The third purple soul ring at his feet ignited.
His already massive hands instantly swelled another size. A thick, dark yellow, horn-like layer rapidly grew over his skin, forming a pair of brutal gauntlets. This was his third Soul Skill, Rock-Hard Gauntlets, designed to exponentially multiply the defensive power and sheer density of his flesh.
He crossed his heavily armored arms in front of his chest, fully intending to rely on his physical body and dense soul power to block the Spirit Rays head-on.
The instant the dark gold beams collided with his arms, Elder Li's confident expression shattered.
This was no simple spiritual impact.
Panic flared in his chest as he realized something was fundamentally wrong. The moment Liu Yuan's Spirit Ray struck his defensive layer, it exhibited a completely irrational dissolving property.
He could feel the dense, refined soul power he had cultivated for decades being stripped away. The hardened, horn-like armor on his arms—capable of shrugging off the full-force charge of an ordinary ten-thousand-year soul beast—was disintegrating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Those microscopic dark gold particles acted like a swarm of starving, metal-eating ants, frantically devouring and neutralizing the very structural integrity of his soul power.
"How is this possible?" Elder Li gasped, his eyes widening in pure shock.
A searing, piercing agony shot through his arms. It felt exactly as if someone had pressed a white-hot branding iron directly against his exposed flesh, melting muscle and bone alike. His instincts screamed at him. If he allowed this dissolving force to spread for even a second longer, both of his hands would be permanently crippled.
Elder Li instantly abandoned his dignified senior persona.
Driven by the primal instinct of a life-and-death crisis, he let out a ragged, muffled groan. He dug his boots into the stone, kicking off with explosive force, and threw himself to the side in an incredibly wretched, desperate dodge.
Hiss—!
The dark gold ray grazed his shoulder, tearing away fabric and skin, before slamming into the defensive barrier at the edge of the ring.
Boom!
A charred, smoking hole was instantly blasted through the thick energy shield, a barrier actively maintained by several Soul Emperors working in tandem.
The entire arena plunged into a deathly silence.
Standing below the stage, Long Aotian stared fixedly at Liu Yuan. His chest rose and fell with incredibly heavy breaths, his fists clenched tight.
"The first Soul Skill... actually produced this kind of mutation?" Long Aotian whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackling energy of the damaged barrier. He could sense it clearly. Liu Yuan's Spirit Ray was no longer restricted to attacking the Spiritual Sea. It had evolved to possess a terrifying, material-level decomposition effect.
This fundamental shift in combat logic sent a cold chill racing through his veins.
High in the air, Du Busi nodded secretly, a fierce grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
As someone who had personally experienced the heights of a Gold-grade Secondary Awakening, he saw through the deep mystery of the attack at a single glance.
'Truly worthy of a Gold-grade Secondary Awakening,'Du Busi praised inwardly.'An ordinary awakening merely provides enhancement, while a Gold-grade awakening directly rewrites the very essence of a Soul Skill. This dissolving power already carries a faint trace of Law. With the absolute support of the Double Pupils, a mere first Soul Skill can actually possess such lethal threat.'
Down on the ring, Elder Li scrambled up from the scorched stone floor.
Though he had narrowly avoided taking the brunt of the impact, the right sleeve of his martial robes had been completely burned away. Angry, swollen red burns blistered across his thick forearms.
He looked at Liu Yuan. The casual ease from earlier had completely vanished from his eyes, replaced by a heavy, absolute solemnity.
"What a Liu Yuan! What a Gold-grade Secondary Awakening!" Elder Li barked out a laugh, offering genuine praise. "I have lived for many years, and this is the very first time I have witnessed such a domineering first Soul Skill."
He cracked his neck, his muscles bulging as his aura spiked dangerously.
"Since that is the case, I must treat this with the utmost seriousness. Junior Brother Liu Yuan, watch yourself!"
The moment Elder Li's words fell, the atmosphere around him turned utterly ferocious. As a Rank 75 Soul Saint, the sheer oppressive weight he projected upon putting away his contempt and exerting his full strength was astonishing. The air itself seemed to grow heavy and viscous.
Elder Li launched an all-out assault from every direction. His massive figure moved like a bolt of lightning, constantly shifting positions across the ring, leaving afterimages in his wake.
He cycled through his first, second, and fourth Soul Skills in rapid, fluid succession.
A sky full of heavy palm shadows descended upon Liu Yuan, carrying a crushing wind pressure that sealed off every possible avenue of retreat. Each individual palm strike carried enough kinetic momentum to shatter solid gold and cleave through boulders. Elder Li's strategy was clear: he intended to overwhelm and offset Liu Yuan's bizarre dissolving ability through a dense, suffocating barrage of pure physical force.
However, the scene that unfolded next left the thousands of spectators staring in mounting disbelief.
Facing the all-out, ferocious assault of a veteran Soul Saint, Liu Yuan displayed a near-suffocating, total suppression.
Liu Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly as he activated Extreme Realm Sublimation.
Under the absolute amplification of this ability, his perception of the world shifted. Every movement he made became feather-light, yet surgically precise. To his enhanced vision, Elder Li's overwhelming storm of palm strikes appeared to slow down to a crawl.
Liu Yuan merely shifted his footwork by fractions of an inch. He swayed, pivoted, and stepped, evading the lethal strikes within a hairsbreadth. The violent winds tore at his clothes, but not a single palm managed to touch his skin.
Then, Liu Yuan counterattacked.
He unleashed the Qilin Precious Technique.
This was the divine force of the Qilin, pushed to terrifying new heights by the Gold-grade Secondary Awakening. Liu Yuan's arm blurred into a dark blue phantom. The sheer, concentrated aura of destruction wrapped around his fist was so dense that it forced Elder Li—a man whose entire combat style revolved around head-on physical assault—to flinch and avoid a direct clash.
The two figures collided crazily across the stone ring. Shockwaves of displaced air exploded outward with every exchange, kicking up clouds of dust and debris.
Yet, anyone with a discerning eye could see the brutal reality of the match. Elder Li, a Rank 75 Soul Saint, was being systematically beaten across the arena by Liu Yuan, a Soul King hovering just past Rank 50.
No matter what complex or powerful Soul Skill Elder Li brought to bear, Liu Yuan shattered it instantly using simpler, infinitely more violent means. A punch to break a palm. A kick to shatter a guard.
"This is too outrageous..." Chen Lu muttered from the edge of the stage, his eyes glazed over in shock. "Crossing twenty entire ranks of cultivation to beat down a Soul Saint? Just how absurdly strong is this Gold-grade Secondary Awakening?"
Bang!
Following another deafening collision, Elder Li was sent skidding backward. His boots carved deep trenches into the stone floor as he retreated more than ten steps before finally stabilizing his stance.
His chest heaved like a bellows. Fine beads of cold sweat coated his forehead, dripping down his jaw.
He looked deeply at Liu Yuan, a wry, self-deprecating smile pulling at his lips. He knew full well that if he continued this so-called test in his current state, his dignity as an elder would be entirely ground into the dirt.
"Junior Brother Liu Yuan, your strength has completely shattered my expectations," Elder Li panted, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Without activating my Martial Soul Avatar, I cannot gain even the slightest sliver of an advantage against you."
As Elder Li spoke, the aura radiating from his body began to undergo a violent, qualitative mutation.
His seventh, pitch-black soul ring expanded, emitting an incredibly oppressive, heavy light. The massive reserves of his soul power surged outward, gathering behind his back to form a towering, golden phantom of a giant hand that spanned dozens of feet across.
"Since that is the case, I have no choice but to use my final resort. This next strike will contain my absolute full power." Elder Li's eyes burned with competitive fire. "Junior Brother, take this! Martial Soul Avatar, activate!"
He roared, pouring every ounce of his remaining strength into the Martial Soul Avatar for one final, desperate struggle. After all, the most fundamental, impossible chasm between a Soul King and a Soul Saint lay precisely in the possession of the Martial Soul Avatar.
Seeing the massive golden hand blotting out the sky, Liu Yuan's expression remained entirely impassive. The overlapping pupils in his eyes flashed with a cold, purple-gold brilliance. He had absolutely no intention of showing mercy.
At that exact moment, the fifth soul ring at his feet—a brilliant, blood-red ring of pure terror—flared to life, its crimson glow so intense it completely overshadowed the scorching sun above.
"Forbidden Domain! Activate!"
Liu Yuan's voice was low, cold, and absolute.
In an instant, the space across the entire arena solidified into dead, unbreakable stillness.
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