Volume 18, Chapter 159.2: Xenophobia, Bullying, and the Sovereign Descends

In a soul engineer’s defensive arsenal, there are two main types of barriers—one used soul rays with a shell designed for blocking soul power attacks, and the other soul barrier was one that could defend against physical attacks. Both could be used at the same time, but soul engineers would typically only choose one in battle. In the end, it was rare for soul engineers to use physical attacks; even for close-combat soul engineers.

The barrier of golden light released by the handsome youth was meant to defend against physical attacks. But this young girl didn’t have the same accurate judgment, taking Huo Yuhao by surprise, so his large hands immediately clamped down on her neck.

Everything happened far too quickly. In two breath’s time Huo Yuhao had moved to the point when he started to close his fingers around the girl’s neck. Both parties had tremendously quick reactions, but it was undoubtedly Huo Yuhao who came out on top.

The tiny young girl was unexpectedly strong. Still struggling and twisting her body in resistance to Huo Yuhao’s Ice Empress’ Pincer. While she pushed backwards with her hands, her right leg sprung out at the same time to kick Huo Yuhao’s vitals.

Unfortunately, it was to no avail. Her soul barrier blocked off the attacks of the tall youth, but that was it—she felt an intense chill on her neck before a wave of numbness came over her body, and she collapsed to the floor like a ragdoll.

Purplish-golden light erupted from Huo Yuhao’s eyes. He hated it when people dragged in his mother when they were insulting him, and the “little bastard” the tall youth had just called him was at the top of the list in the reasons for his fury and immediately launched a spiritual assault. Predictably, this formidable Purple Demon Eyes’ Spiritual Shock was intended for that tall and lanky youth.

The most frightening feature of spirit-type attacks was that the aforementioned defensive barriers were entirely useless against them, and those struck by such them could only use their own spiritual power to protect themselves.

These four students from the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineering Academy were five-ringed Soul Kings, but their spiritual power absolutely paled in comparison to Huo Yuhao’s.

Blood gushed from the tall youth’s mouth, nose, eyes and ears as he grunted and crashed to the ground. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fainted straightaway.

Huo Yuhao’s movements didn’t stop because of this. His right hand flickered with a dark golden light, and he sliced directly towards the handsome youth. This was because the handsome youth’s sharp sword was stabbing at him as he unleashed his Spiritual Shock.

The handsome youth’s hands were as stable as ever, even under the effects of Huo Yuhao’s Mass Enfeeblement. He stabbed out with his sword and projected three sword shadows into the air. They were like three blooming roses as they struck at all of Huo Yuhao’s vital points.

Huo Yuhao made the right judgment in this split-second that he was inferior to his opponent in terms of close-combat techniques. However, this didn’t mean that his opponent’s actual close-combat power was more fearsome than his—therefore, he gave the handsome youth a complete Darkgolden Terrorclaw swipe.

An enormous dark golden blade slashed down from the sky and crashed against the handsome youth’s soul barrier. The Class 5 soul barrier instantly crumbled, and the “roses” he had formed broke apart next.

Huo Yuhao punched out with his left hand after slashing out with his right. His right foot took a step forward, and Huo Yuhao simply punched forward without any special effects. However, this punch didn’t seem simple at all in this handsome youth’s eyes.

It felt as if all of Huo Yuhao’s spiritual power was concentrated onto this fist. In the handsome youth’s eyes, this fist was all of Huo Yuhao’s being—a fist that sparkled with diamond brilliance.

A golden shield appeared in the handsome youth’s hands. He held the shield up with both hands and infused his Soul King-level soul power inside. Dense soul power rippled, and the shield erupted with golden luster.

“I cannot possibly lose like this!” The handsome youth couldn’t maintain his composure any longer. Two yellow and three purple soul rings sparkled on his body. However, the peculiar three ring combination had already disappeared from Huo Yuhao’s body.

“Boom——”

Huo Yuhao’s fist connected with the shield. What the handsome youth felt in that moment, could only be described as a wretched shattering.

He felt as if his shield wasn’t the only thing being destroyed. His mind was breaking apart simultaneously when a defenseless sensation burst from the bottom of his heart, and he felt as if his entire world was being torn apart.

He puked out a mouthful of blood, and the handsome youth followed in the tall youth’s footsteps, collapsing onto the ground. Blood trickled from his nostrils like miniature snakes, but the shield in his hands didn’t actually break apart in the end.

Huo Yuhao’s eyes now erupted with golden radiance, and he turned towards his last remaining adversary—Ju Zi. At this point, her eyes were a little lackadaisical, and her face was completely pale.

“What are you doing?!” An astonished voice could be heard, and in the next moment a figure appeared in the lab with a flash and stood in front of Ju Zi. The golden radiance in Huo Yuhao’s eyes vanished at nearly the same time, and his previous frightening aura, like he reigned supreme over the world, receded.

The name of his ability was Supreme Reign! It was invented by the Ultimate Douluo, Elder Mu. Yes, this was Supreme Reign. A terrifying ability that combined both physical and spiritual attacks, and Huo Yuhao was the only person in the entire world who had inherited it.

Supreme Reign wasn’t a soul skill—it was better, and it could be used with any soul skill. However, it could only be used to infuse spiritual power into physical attacks. In other words, the underlying foundations of this technique were still in physical attacks. While Huo Yuhao could inject his formidable spiritual power into his physical attacks, he couldn’t flip the process around. In the end, the creator of Supreme Reign wasn’t a spirit-type soul master.

Elder Mu had commented to Huo Yuhao before that if he could find out how to reverse the order, then he would have succeeded in life.

Of course, this was still quite a distance away from Huo Yuhao’s capabilities. There were just too many things that he had to learn, and even with the Ultimate Soldier Plan starting to bear fruit, the path ahead of him was still extremely long.

Xuan Ziwen was overcome with a haze of terror as he stood before Ju Zi, who was ghastly pale at this point. He would’ve taken another fifteen minutes to reach his lab, but he was alarmed by the security sirens going off. He had remote control connection to his door’s access control soul tool, so he was as bewildered as could be when he realized that the incident was coming from his own lab, so he came as fast as he could.

Xuan Ziwen was flabbergasted as he saw his three students unconscious on the ground. Huo Yuhao had mentioned to him before on the first day they’d met each other that he was confident of perishing together with him within a fixed distance. He didn’t pay much attention to that comment at the time, but how couldn’t he be shaken to his very roots by the scene before him?

These four students had been his personal students ever since they had entered Year 6, including Ju Zi. He was naturally acutely aware of his students’ abilities—they were all Soul Kings and Class 5 soul engineers, considered the best of the best amongst their batch. Yet, Huo Yuhao didn’t even have his fourth soul ring, and three of them were actually defeated easily. He had no doubt that Ju Zi would also hit the deck if he had arrived just a second later.

“This child is this fearsome and outrageously powerful at such a young age? No wonder…”

Xuan Ziwen had perused Huo Yuhao’s files and records after meeting him, especially looking over his experiences during the Continental Advanced Academy Soul Dueling Tournament.

His files detailed Huo Yuhao’s performance during several key battles, and it remarked that he had been mentored by the Dragon God Douluo, Mu En, before his passing. He was one of the absolute elites amongst the younger batch of students from Shrek, and he was definitely in line to participate in the upcoming Continental Advanced Academy Soul Dueling Tournament.

Xuan Ziwen still didn’t have much of an impression after browsing through his records. He could see that Huo Yuhao’s records mentioned that he had twin martial souls, but the records also mentioned that Yuhao’s soul power rank was only a little more than twenty during the competition, with only two soul rings. Even though nobody knew his soul rings’ exact ages, his files had clear records of his abilities. One of the more salient notes featured his martial soul fusion skill with Wang Dong, and Xuan Ziwen was more interested in the fact that the two of them could use martial soul fusion skills rather than Huo Yuhao’s personal battle prowess, so he paid less attention to the latter.

Xuan Ziwen suddenly realized that he was wrong. Huo Yuhao’s personal battle prowess was weak? Then, what’s the deal with these three fellas lying on the ground…

Huo Yuhao had crushed these three Class 5 soul engineers even without his fourth soul ring, the fourth wasn’t even fit to continue the battle. This caused Xuan Ziwen to lose all faith and confidence in his previous experiences.

“Teacher Xuan, these guys hacked the access control and barged into the lab. I was afraid they were intruders, so I made the first move. I was going to take them down and hand them over to you. Ju Zi brought them here, so I suspect they are accomplices. Please take care of this, Teacher.” Huo Yuhao spoke as if he were recounting the sincere truth. His face of complete sincerity was totally misleading compared to the ferocious aura he’d emanated during the battle before this.

Ju Zi had recovered by now. Her face was still as pale as ever and she exclaimed, “Nonsense! You intentionally attacked us!”

Huo Yuhao shrugged and replied, “If you guys hadn’t hacked the access control, and insulted me, why would I treat you like intruders? Did I say something wrong? Teacher Xuan, you can inspect the access control soul tool. They deceived me after barging into the lab to step out, and they hacked it afterwards. I had to force my way in to ensure the lab’s safety, so I could take them down. They have only lost their autonomy and ability to move right now, some are slightly injured. It’s not too big a deal.”

Xuan Ziwen was immersed in soul tool research, but he wasn’t a fool. He could tell from Huo Yuhao’s description that Ju Zi and the others had bullied Huo Yuhao, who was new to this place. Huo Yuhao was infuriated, and found an excuse to retaliate.

The process wasn’t that important—what was of far greater significance was that the four of them were nothing before Huo Yuhao, falling one after another, and Huo Yuhao ended up standing there, as clean as jade, untainted by even a speck of dust.

Previous ChapterNext Chapte