Chapter 266: Formidable opponent

- At the high table -

"Hehe. How powerful would he be? Don't tell me that he possesses the ability to fight Sky Lord stage cultivators. Also, what family is he from exactly? Are they fierce experts from Greatverses? Haha. I would like to see who your father and mother is after I detain you" The principal of the Scarlet Fire academy said in a harsh tone and cackled.

He had simply forgotten that Alex was battling the others for who would be the husband of the daughter of the Firecloud family.

Anyways, it was the great anger which had surfaced in his mind because of what Alex did to a student of his that caused him to entirely spill out what was in his mind. However, although he knew that he had let the cat out of the bag, he wasn't scared of anything that they might want to do him. He was even sure that none of them would dare to stop him from carrying out his plans. He knew that they definitely wouldn't want to experience the wrath of the extremely vicious founder of the academy where he was employed to be a principal of. 

When the others heard him, they simply smiled and turned their faces away. 

But they knew what he meant by that statement.

As powerful cultivators who were at the Grand Saint Emperor stage or Sage stage, they possessed powerful hearing. So they could clearly hear what Alex said to the geniuses from their academies.

Olivia's mom looked at Olivia and asked with curiosity in her tone "Your lover says that he hasn't even shown his full power? How true is that?"

"Well, what he says is true" Olivia replied with a smile.

"Hmm. Since he can knock back many peak-phase, Earth Adept stage cultivators with only a single attack, then that means his battle power is comparable to that of Sky Lord stage cultivators? That would be outrageous and difficult to believe" Olivia's mom, Stacy said.

Olivia didn't reply.

She only gave a radiant smile.

She couldn't tell her mom that Alex had once slaughtered Sky Lord stage cultivators, and even Heaven Adept stage cultivators. Like the time that he fought Jared's men who were at the Earth Adept stage and Sky Lord stage, he simply butchered them like he was butchering defenseless lambs. So, she couldn't really say anything about that, or it would be totally unbelievable.

"So, where is he from?" Stacy asked.

"Mom, I told you. You would know when you ask him, that's after the battle." Olivia replied.

"Why can't you tell me?" Stacy asked with a strict tone.

"Well, I can't tell you because I am trying to be suspenseful" Olivia said with a playful smile.

"Aii. Okay" Stacy sighed and replied.

Then she placed her gaze back on Alex and couldn't help but gladly smile.

Her daughter had truly found a gem.

***

- Battle Platform -

When Alex's challengers saw the amount of electricity arcs pulsating about on his body, they became frightened and slowly backed away in fear.

They just couldn't bear to be hit by the powerful rumbling electricity arcing about on his entire body like he was an actual god of thunder.

"I didn't think so" Alex said with a cold smile.

With angry gazes that also erupted unbridled killing intents and unwillingness to do what they were about to do next, they jumped down the stage and went back to the seats at different places of the stadium that they all came from.

After they jumped down and left defeatedly and sadly for their seats, Alex then turned his gaze to look at someone on the ground who was also looking at him, with a smile in his face.

This person was Soulstorm, a cultivator of the soul that he met at the moonlight inn which he went to for a wine.

When others climbed the stage, he didn't.

Why he didn't do so was because Alex was surprisingly the person that he was going to battle to win Olivia's hand in marriage.

So, he waited for Alex to finish his battles with the others before climbing up the stage to fight him.

Then after Alex was done chasing away his other challengers, a wide smile appeared in Soulstorm's face which made him look sinister as he went up the stage to meet Alex.

Now looking at Alex who also looked back at him with a smile, he prepared to unleash his attack.

All of a sudden, Alex dashed towards Soulstorm. But before he could get to where Soulstorm stood, Soulstorm quickly aimed a palm at Alex and unleashed a partially-visible, ethereal energy that once it struck Alex, caused his soul to become so cold that it seemed it would freeze into ice.

So this greatly slowed down Alex's movement and affected his powerful thought-processes, as he felt like his mind was frozen in a gigantic block of ice that grew colder every fraction of a second. While Soulstorm who had quickly dashed towards Alex, got to his front and unleashed a powerful uppercut punch.

Bang!

Alex was knocked into the air for twelve feet by the uppercut punch that Soulstorm delivered at his chin. Then with another loud bang, he crashed hard unto the battle platform.

Huh?

This made everyone greatly surprised, including Olivia, her family, and the principals seated at the high table.

They couldn't believe what they just witnessed.

Someone who they thought was invincible at his cultivation stage, had been taken down in the first exchange by this new guy that was battling him.

With the entire stadium now deathly silent like it was graveyard, they all began to watch the match with light of suspense in their eyes.

Alex stood to his feet and looked at Soulstorm who looked back at him and smiled.

Then he clenched his hand into a fist.

"Soul Punch!" Soulstorm said as he abruptly punched out. And before Alex could dodge, despite saturating his eyes with speedforce energy, he couldn't dodge the dense but immaterial fist formed from soulforce energy in time.

The fist penetrated into his body and into his soul-dwelling region where it delivered a powerful punch to Alex's incorporeal soul.

Once the fist impacted his soul, Alex staggered backwards for many feet before regaining his balance.

When the fist-shaped soul attack struck his soul, it was like the enormous base of the handle of a gigantic axe powerfully struck him if he were a mortal. It was simply extremely concussive and intensely painful. He should have directly passed out from just that tyrannical attack that hit his soul, but because Alex possessed a high threshold for physical pain which in turn affected his ability to withstand the pain that would rack his soul that was heightened to a great degree, he was able to stop his awareness from slipping into the unconscious state.

His eyes were red while blood streamed down his nose and mouth from that soul-based attack that Soulstorm sent out.

His vision too was blurry, but it returned to normal a few moments later.

With an intense aching pain that racked his head which slowly abated, Alex looked at Soulstorm and prepared to have a very difficult battle.

He was surprised that the speed-perception augmentation effect of the speedforce energy that permeated his eyes didn't actually have a slow-down effect on the soul-fist attack that shot his way at blazing speed and eventually struck him. Anyways, one couldn't blame him as he had never really fought soul cultivators.

Although he knew about the unusualness and uniqueness of their battle methods, and of the soulforce energy itself just from the books that he had read, it was just that he hadn't exactly fought one to be able to know the level of power of the energy and what it was resistant to.

But now, he knew that speedforce energy didn't have a slow-down effect on the movement of objects condensed from soulforce energy.

With deep inhales and exhales, and his mind immersed into the ocean of thoughts, he contemplated hard of what to do to conquer Soulstorm, who could easily defeat him with the myriad of soul-based battle techniques that he might possess.

"Well, no matter how strong you are, you can't defeat me. Because I can overwhelm your soul with my powerful attacks and knock you off the stage. I am unlike you, who is a body and energy cultivator. I am superior to you. Haha." Soulstorm said and laughed.

Then he continued as he asked "Would you want to continue battling me and keep suffering in extreme agony, or would you rather jump down the stage and let me win the battle?"

Alex looked at him.

"Oh, so you because you are a soul cultivator, you think you are superior to me now?" He asked.

"Sure. No cultivator can defeat a soul cultivator. We are the mighty conquering kings, eternals, supremes. We are just about anything absolutely domineering that you would like to call it." Soulstorm replied in a confident tone.

"So, I would ask again before I overwhelm you. Would you jump down the stage, or you would like me to do it for you?"

Alex's heart was heavy from worry and fear.

He was simply powerless against a soul cultivator, as the attacks that his challenger would release would terribly affect his soul and cause him great excruciating pains.

He simply didn't know how to battle such an opponent.

It was only if he was a fearsome soul cultivator could he go against Soulstorm who was a genius-level soul cultivator. So he thought. And he didn't want to use his tribulation-enhanced energies, or he could kill Soulstorm with only one strike, even if it was low-powered.

'Well, I guess I can only battle him using illusions' Alex said inwardly.

Then he closed his eyes.

Soulstorm was surprised at Alex's action.

'Can he create illusions too? Gosh, where is this guy from? No wonder he said he hasn't shown his true level of power yet' Soulstorm said within as his mind was sent reeling in astonishment from Alex's action.

However, he wasn't fazed by Alex's new method of attack as he knew that he was also going to simply defeat him in this.

How powerful would Alex's illusion-attacks be against that of soul-cultivating experts; cultivators who are masters of illusions as they can produce vast and realistic illusions that would directly affect the souls of people targeted and terribly impact them.

When people saw Alex close his eyes, they began to wonder what he was about to do. Same with the principals at the high table who then figured it out in the next moment that he was about to create illusions.

When they thought of this, they became exceedingly shocked.

Exactly how many energies is this boy cultivating?

***

Alex then moved phantasmforce energy to his hands which began to erupt from it in great quantities.

Once this energy erupted from his hands and began to revolve around him, Alex's eyes snapped open. Then he gazed at Soulstorm...