Chapter 69 Thunderous Fury, But Mere Embers at the Fingertips
As dawn broke, the streets surrounding the Heaven Dou Grand Arena were already packed with people. Today's highlight was the undefeated "Glory Team" facing off against the veteran powerhouse "Thunder Academy".
A sweltering heat permeated the air, not only from the shouts of tens of thousands of spectators, but also from the violent electrical charges emanating from the seven members of Thunder Academy. As they entered the waiting area, the scorch marks left by lightning were even faintly visible on the stone pavement beneath their feet.
"Have you heard? Things seemed a bit unsettled with the Glory team last night." "I heard too. Apparently, a Soul Saint-level expert launched a night raid, but they didn't even manage to take a single hair. Just who is this Ye Feng?"
Inside the lounge, Huo Wu clenched her fists in frustration, her knuckles cracking. She glanced out the window every now and then, then at Ye Feng, who sat motionless in the center. Today, Ye Feng was dressed in light, practical clothes, leaning against his signature black umbrella on his right, exuding a profound and unfathomable calm.
"Captain, are you really not planning to make the first move?" Huo Wu finally couldn't help but ask. "Those guys from Thunder Academy are notoriously insane in terms of attack power. If Yu Tianxin and those two Thunder Spider Soul Masters work together, once the lightning net is spread out, our living space will be extremely compressed."
Ye Feng slowly opened his eyes, not looking at Huo Wu, but at Ning Rongrong who was adjusting her arm guards.
"Rongrong, did you remember the 'Stepping the Dipper and Fighting' technique I taught you last night?"
Ning Rongrong stiffened slightly, then nodded vigorously, a stubborn glint in her eyes: "I remember. Use yourself as bait to lure the lightning into the trap."
"Alright." Ye Feng stood up, the Thousand Chance Umbrella smoothly landing in his palm. "Today, we won't fight tactics, we'll fight 'despair'."
When the two teams stood in the center of the arena, the cheers from the crowd reached their peak.
On Thunder Academy's side, Yu Tianxin stood at the forefront. Having suffered a humiliation at Ning Rongrong's hands yesterday, his eyes were terrifyingly sinister today. Not only him, but the other six members of Thunder Academy also possessed extremely aggressive martial souls: Thunder Eagle, Thunder Spider, and Electric Cat—a purely violent lineup designed to destroy their opponents.
"Ye Feng, you've finally decided to step onto the stage." Yu Tianxin gritted her teeth, blue-purple arcs of electricity crackling wildly around her. "I'll show you that in the face of absolute destructive power, those underhanded tricks are nothing but a joke!"
Ye Feng smiled politely, but did not activate his martial soul. He simply held the umbrella with one hand, like a noble young master who had accidentally wandered into a battlefield.
"Referee, you may begin," Ye Feng said calmly.
"The match begins!"
With the referee's whistle, Thunder Academy erupted instantly.
"Third Soul Skill: Thunderous Might!" "Fourth Soul Skill: Thunder Net of the Underworld!"
Yu Tianxin and the two Thunder Spider Soul Masters launched their attack almost simultaneously. A dense, impenetrable net of lightning descended from the sky, completely enveloping the half of the field where the Glory Team was located. It was a terrifying attack capable of instantly paralyzing a Soul Master and killing a Soul Venerable on the spot.
Faced with the overwhelming lightning, the Glory team's positioning appeared extremely strange.
Huo Wu and Shui Bing'er didn't stand at the front; instead, they quickly retreated. Standing at the very front was surprisingly Ning Rongrong, a support-type character.
"Has she gone mad?" Tang San, standing in the audience, suddenly stood up. He knew that lightning attacks had a wide range and high speed; without strong defense, Ning Rongrong would be instantly turned into charcoal.
However, the next second, everyone's pupils contracted violently.
Ning Rongrong moved. Her movements were not fast, but rather possessed a dreamlike rhythm. Whenever an arc of electricity was about to strike her, she would lightly tap her toes, and her body would shift to the side with an extremely slight movement.
"That's..." Sword Douluo Chen Xin let out a soft exclamation from the VIP seats, "Using the opponent's strength? No, that's predicting the trajectory of the lightning's ions!"
This was exactly what Ye Feng had taught her last night—to find a "safe zone" for lightning protection in advance by observing changes in humidity and points of charge accumulation in the air. In Ye Feng's view, although lightning is violent, it is essentially a physical phenomenon, and as long as it is a physical phenomenon, there are clues to follow.
Ning Rongrong weaved through the dense sea of lightning, her skirt billowing, her movements as elegant as a dance of death. For a full thirty seconds, not a single one of the dozens of lightning bolts managed to touch her body!
"Don't just watch, it's our turn."
Ye Feng's figure had appeared above the sea of thunder at some point. He didn't have a flight soul skill, but instead used the wind pressure from the open canopy of the Thousand Manifestations Umbrella to achieve a brief period of airtime.
"Yu Tianxin, watch carefully."
The Thousand Manifestations Umbrella in Ye Feng's hand folded and compressed in mid-air. Under the frenzied infusion of soul power, the originally slender umbrella body expanded dramatically, transforming into an extremely heavy, pitch-black giant sword.
That's the abnormal burst of power from the swordsman class in The Mastermind – Mountain Crash!
Ye Feng descended from the sky, his jet-black giant sword accompanied by a piercing sound of air being torn apart, its momentum seemingly capable of splitting the entire arena in two.
"Arrogant! Thunder Dragon Head!" Yu Tianxin roared, clasped his hands together, and a huge blue lightning dragon broke through the air, rushing straight towards Ye Feng.
boom--!
The greatsword clashed with the thunder dragon in mid-air. There was no clash of soul skills, only pure power suppression. Ye Feng's greatsword struck precisely at the center of the thunder dragon's horn—the weakest point in the entire soul skill structure.
The lightning shattered instantly, transforming into countless fireflies. Ye Feng's figure only paused slightly as the aftershock of the heavy sword slammed heavily into the ground.
The entire battle arena trembled violently, and the stone path within a ten-meter radius of Ye Feng shattered and flew into the air. The powerful shockwave blasted the three support members of Thunder Academy directly out of the arena.
"Fire Dance, now's the time!" Ye Feng shouted.
Huo Wu took a deep breath; she didn't unleash a wide-range Hokage attack as usual. Under Ye Feng's tutelage, she had learned to compress her attacks.
She condensed all the fire elements in her palm, transforming it into a fireball no bigger than a fist, almost incandescent in color. This wasn't a spirit ring skill; it was an application of the "gunpowder dynamics" technique that Ye Feng had taught her.
"Go!" The fireball flew out of his hand, but its trajectory was not a straight line. Instead, it drew a strange "S" shape in the air.
The agility-type Soul Master from Thunder Academy tried to intercept it, but found that the fireball suddenly exploded the instant it approached. It didn't explode outwards, but rather collapsed inwards, generating an extremely strong suction force.
"Frost Wave Sword!" Shui Bing'er also moved.
With a casual wave of her hand, a long dragon of ice crystals followed closely behind the fireball. The ice crystals instantly filled the vacuum as the fireball collapsed. The sudden shift from extreme heat to extreme cold caused the remaining members of Thunder Academy to scream in agony.
This kind of paralysis and internal organ tremor caused by drastic temperature changes is far more deadly than simple freezing or burning.
"This...this isn't fighting, this is pushing the limits of the human body!" Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang in the stands had cold sweat on his palms. He had been studying martial spirit theory for a long time, but he had never seen anyone use the elements to this extent.
Yu Tianxin went completely insane. His pride as the Blue Lightning Tyrannosaurus Rex was shattered into pieces at this moment.
"Ye Feng! I'll kill you! Fourth Soul Skill - Blue Lightning Dragon Swiftness!"
He exhausted all his soul power, transforming into a massive pillar of lightning. This went beyond the scope of a competition; it was a desperate act.
Ye Feng stared at Yu Tianxin charging towards him, his eyes devoid of any emotion. The heavy sword in his hand shifted again, the clicking and clattering of its mechanical blades sounding like a countdown to death.
The longsword retracted into a tube, and the umbrella surface closed to form a support. In a mere second, the Thousand-Machine Umbrella transformed into a heavy hand cannon with a striking industrial aesthetic.
"Gunner Skill - Anti-Tank Gun".
Ye Feng pulled the trigger.
Three dark red light orbs, arranged in a triangular shape, shot out. The first one shattered the tip of the lightning pillar; the second one pierced through Yu Tianxin's defensive soul power; and the third one exploded with a bang half an inch from Yu Tianxin's chest.
This was not a simple explosion, but an armor-piercing explosion with violent rotation.
Thump.
Yu Tianxin, his body billowing black smoke, crashed heavily to the ground like a kite with a broken string. His chest was blasted to pieces, and although he was not in mortal danger, he was definitely not going to be able to fight again anytime soon.
The entire venue was deathly silent.
Ye Feng put away his hand cannon, transforming it back into a long umbrella. He leisurely dusted off the dust on his shoulders and looked at the referee.
"They have no one left standing. Prove the verdict."
In a corner of the stands, Tang San clung tightly to the railing.
He saw it. He saw Ning Rongrong's almost divine skill in movement, and Ye Feng's unpredictable weapon forms. That feeling of powerlessness gnawed at his heart like a venomous snake.
"If these techniques were mine... if those weapons were made by me..." Tang San's eyes gradually darkened.
The black secret letter in his arms seemed to be burning hot.
"Teacher, I have to go out tonight." Tang San turned and left the stands, his back view conveying a sense of determination.
Yu Xiaogang opened his mouth, but couldn't utter the words to stop him. He could sense that Tang San's mentality had completely spiraled out of balance. If he wasn't allowed to vent his frustrations and find a so-called "opportunity," this genius might suffer a qi deviation on the spot.
Meanwhile, Ye Feng, far away on the arena, keenly noticed the direction Tang San had gone.
A barely perceptible smile curved the corners of his lips.
"The first batch of fish has been caught. Sect Leader Ning, you'd better watch the show carefully from here on out." Ye Feng turned his head to look at Ning Fengzhi in the VIP seats and silently mouthed the words.
Back at their base, the girls from the Glory team were still basking in the joy of victory.
"Captain! Did you see that? Yu Tianxin's expression, haha, I'm so cool!" Ning Rongrong skipped and hopped towards Ye Feng, ignoring the sweat on her body, and tried to pull Ye Feng's sleeve.
Suddenly, a sharp claw appeared silently between the two men.
Zhu Zhuqing's cool voice rang out: "He's tired."
Huo Wu, not to be outdone, leaned in and raised an eyebrow: "What's so tiring about it? When fighting someone like Yu Tianxin, the captain didn't even break a sweat. But Rongrong, you almost twisted your back with that last movement. I'll have to give the captain a shoulder massage."
Shui Bing'er sighed and rubbed her forehead: "Stop fooling around. Don't forget, tonight is the key night."
Ye Feng looked at the beautiful women surrounding him and shook his head helplessly. He took out the "Skull of Condensed Wisdom" from his pocket and tossed it around casually.
As soon as the colorful light appeared, the surroundings fell silent.
"Tonight, I'm going to Sunset Forest to take care of some personal business. I'll be carrying this bone with me," Ye Feng said, surprising everyone. "If any of you can come with me to the core area of Sunset Forest without alerting anyone, I'll give you this bone in advance."
The three women's expressions changed instantly.
This is no joke; this is the highest level of stealth assessment.
"I will definitely follow you," Zhu Zhuqing said softly, her figure already blurring as she disappeared into the shadows of the room.
"This young lady is not only good at dancing!" Ning Rongrong clenched her fist.
Ye Feng watched their departing figures, his eyes gradually turning cold. He looked towards the Sunset Forest, where not only were there the Spirit Hall's ambush troops and Tang San's resentment, but also his true goal for this trip—the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Eye, known as the "Holy Land of Medicine."
The moon was dark and the wind was high.
Deep within the Sunset Forest, the occasional mournful roars of soul beasts could be heard.
Tang San arrived as scheduled at the edge of a massive poison array. He gripped the Zhuge Crossbow tightly in his hand, his eyes warily scanning his surroundings.
"I've arrived. Who are you?"
From the shadows, several figures dressed in the robes of bishops of the Spirit Hall slowly emerged. Leading them was Salas.
"Tang San, it's been a long time." Salas let out a sinister laugh.
"The Spirit Hall?" Tang San's pupils contracted slightly. "What do you want with me?"
"I'm here to help you reclaim what rightfully belongs to you." Salas pointed into the depths of the forest. "Ye Feng is heading this way with that ten-thousand-year-old skull. He seems to have discovered the secret of this place. If he gets what's inside, you'll never be able to surpass him in this lifetime."
Tang San looked in the direction Salas pointed and saw a strange plant faintly visible within the poison array, emitting an alluring fragrance.
"That's... a divine herb?" As a descendant of the Tang Clan, Tang San had an extremely keen sense for herbs.
"That's right. Ye Feng's target is them," Salas coaxed. "We can help you block his escape route. You just need to use your best hidden weapon to kill him. Then, the soul bone and the immortal herb will be yours. Our Spirit Hall only wants his life."
Tang San's breathing became heavy. Hatred and greed overcame his last shred of reason at this moment.
"Deal," he said in a low voice.
However, none of them noticed that right above their heads, in the treetops, a long black umbrella was silently suspended in mid-air.
Ye Feng squatted on the umbrella, holding a simple monocular telescope (a homemade optical soul guide) in his hand, watching the good show of "going along with the crowd" below.
"With two villains together, the script definitely flows much more smoothly."
He put down his binoculars and gently stroked the handle of the Thousand Chance Umbrella, where there was a mark pointing to "Mechanic Form - High Explosive Mine".
"Tonight, none of them will escape."
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