Huo Yuhao's opponents during the semifinals were three Soul Grandmasters from Class 10. Moreover, they possessed somewhat strange martial souls.
Even though their opponents didn't have any three-ringed Soul Elders on their team, they definitely still weren't weak. After all, they'd been able to stand out from the masses and reach their current positions.
The three freshmen from Class 10 were all boys that had heroic and exuberant appearances.
"Class 10, Zhou Sichen. I'm an assault system Soul Grandmaster."
"Class 10, Long Xiangyue. I'm an agility system Soul Grandmaster."
"Class 10, Cao Jinxuan. I'm a control system Soul Grandmaster."
They didn't have any traces of fear in their eyes as they faced Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao.
Wang Dong snorted at their fearlessness while Xiao Xiao gently smiled. But they weren't any less fearless or arrogant in front of them. After all, weren't they the same to reach this far into the competition with two Soul Grandmasters and one Soul Master?
"Yuhao, thoughts?" Wang Dong asked.
"We're going all-out offensive. These guys aren't strong enough to stop us here." Huo Yuhao indifferently said, looking bored.
Xiao Xiao smirked, regardless of what she thinks about Huo Yuhao, there was no denying her trust on her team's combat prowess. "Copy that."
"Match, start!" As soon as the proctor announced it, the semifinals officially began.
Huo Yuhao took the initiative this time and stood in front between Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao, their martial souls were unleashed with Huo Yuhao's eyes quickly attracting the attention of their opponents.
Considering Huo Yuhao's sudden explosiveness in yesterday's match, they'd paid a large amount of attention to him. As such, their opponents instantly released all of their strength the moment the match started.
However, the agility system Long Xiangyue didn't charge forwards straightaway. Instead, he quickly hid behind Zhou Sichen's back. Surprisingly, Cao Jinxuan did the same as well, causing the three of them to stand in a straight line.
'Again with this trick?' Huo Yuhao furrowed his brows in doubt for their frankly idiotic move. Didn't they watch yesterday's match?
However, his doubts were soon cleared as a floating book appeared between Zhou Sichen's hands and with both of his yellow soul rings lighting up, two beasts formed. One of the beasts he'd summoned was a bear covered in yellow light, while the other was a fierce tiger covered in flames.
Both bear and tiger proceeded to pounce on Huo Yuhao's team.
This was Zhou Sichen's special Tool Soul, the Treasure Bible. A martial soul capable of summoning the soul beasts that he killed for soul rings and be used to attack his enemies.
Behind Zhou Sichen, Cao Jinxuan had a look of concentration in his eyes, and was emitting a distorted halo of light as a exquisite clock appeared above his head with two yellow soul rings around his body.
This was Cao Jinxuan's martial soul, a high grade rare martial soul that controls time called the, Time Elapsing Clock.
As for Long Xiangyue, he held a large boomerang in his hand with two yellow soul rings covering him. Both of it lit up as he prepared to throw it towards Huo Yuhao's team.
But in the next instant, his expression changed.
"Long Xiangyue, what the hell are you doing?!" Cao Jinxuan cried out as he stared in horror as the large boomerang almost hit the back of Zhou Sichen's head. It was only thanks to his first soul ring's skill, Time Stop; an ability that freezes an object, person, or even an attack in place for one second, was that it he managed to stop it in time.
"What...B-But I was sure that I was aiming–aaahh!" Long Xiangyue didn't manage to finish his sentence when he felt painful sensation from his left thigh.
He turned his head to find Huo Yuhao standing next to him, a sharp kunai in hand with the tip embedded into his thigh.
"When did you–?!"
Huo Yuhao didn't hesitate to kick him straight to his stomach with enough force that it sent him flying out of the ring.
"Shit!" Cao Jinxuan cursed as he dismissed his soul skill on the boomerang and turned his hand towards Huo Yuhao, the clock above his head made a clicking sound as he used his soul skill on the latter.
They've observed and carefully analyzed their opponents' fights yesterday and knew that the absolute threat to them was Huo Yuhao.
Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao are indeed powerful as well and shouldn't be ignored, but compared to someone with speed like lightning and is incredibly ruthless to his opponents; they rather focus all their attention on him.
Their original plan was for both Long Xiangyue and Zhou Sichen to attack head on at the opponents and when the time was right, Cao Jinxuan would use his Time Stop soul skill to freeze Huo Yuhao in place and kick him off the stage.
Unfortunately however, things didn't accordingly. Instead of Huo Yuhao being thrown out of the arena, it was instead one of their teammates and he didn't intend to stop there either.
Huo Yuhao faintly narrowed his eyes, he saw what Cao Jinxuan was about to do, and he didn't hesitate to throw a couple throwing stars at his hand to stop him.
"Ack!" Cao Jinxuan staggered back, groaning in pain as two small throwing stars embedded into his right hand palm and drawing blood.
He momentarily lost focus and that was enough for Huo Yuhao to reach him and was about to knock him out.
"Oh no, you don't!" Zhou Sichen yelled out, profusely sweating.
Right now, both of his summons were busy keeping off both Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao from approaching them and he knew it wouldn't take them long before they would defeat them. Unfortunately, his summons was about 70-80% as powerful as the original soul beasts because he summoned them both at the same time. Using them needed high amounts of soul power and it would be difficult for him to sustain their attacks for long.
Thinking quickly, Zhou Sichen unhesitatingly threw his martial soul at Huo Yuhao, only for it to pathetically hit the air as if there was a invisible barrier surrounding the latter.
Huo Yuhao looked down at the book and looked up at Zhou Sichen with a raised eyebrow.
Zhou Sichen grinned and said. "Hey, I distracted you didn't I?"
"Time Stop!" Cao Jinxuan exclaimed as he raised his hand once more, blood dripping from his clenched fist as he had taken out the throwing stars, and his first soul ring glowed with a golden lustre around his body and on Huo Yuhao.
Huo Yuhao went still, Time Stop succesfully freezing his movements. However, he retained a calm expression for the entire time.
"Yes!" Cao Jinxuan didn't think much of it and celebrated. Without thinking any further, he charged in towards Huo Yuhao, intending to push him out of the arena while in a frozen state.
However, to his horror, he couldn't touch him. The moment he was a few inches away from him, it was as if there was a invisible wall separating them. Cao Jinxuan's body was repelled backwards, crashing into Zhou Sichen and knocking him off balance.
"What's going on?!" Cao Jinxuan exclaimed, panic evident in his voice.
Huo Yuhao was silent still under the effect of Time Stop, but there was no denying the smug expression that flashed in his eyes.
"Oh no!" Zhou Sichen face turned pale, as he had sensed one of his summons had been killed. He turned around to see Wang Dong flying towards them with his upper wings shining brightly.
In the next moment, he also felt his other summon had also been killed.
Cao Jinxuan realized their situation wasn't good and reluctantly, he raised both his hands up and said. "We surrender!"
Just as he finished speaking, Huo Yuhao's body suddenly shook and the effects of the Time Stop was broken. His lips curled into a smug smirk.
"Match over! Winner of this round, Team Huo Yuhao!" The proctor announced.
Team Huo Yuhao had won yet again, allowing them to advance to the finals.
Cao Jinxuan and Zhou Sichen let out defeated sighs and begrudgingly accepted their defeat. In the first place, the one that was supposed to fight off Huo Yuhao was Long Xiangyue as he had the strongest combat prowess amongst them but he was swiftly defeated in just a few minutes into the fight.
They had researched a lot about their opponents but this was the first they'd ever see Huo Yuhao have a invisible and overpowered barrier surrounding him.
Back when Huo Yuhao faced against the twins, due to the sea of hair that surrounded the arena, except for Wang Yan with a Soul King cultivation, none of the students were able to see the former's Absolute Domain and the twins didn't spread the skill out in fear of retaliation by Huo Yuhao.
As soon as the match ended, they immediately left the Assessment Area and went to a isolated clear area near the dorm. It was highly probable that their last opponent would be the team from Class 5 that Dai Huabin led so they needed to plan out their attack.
"You two just face against Dai Huabin's teammates," Huo Yuhao crossed his arms and leaned against a tree, expressionlessly said. "I'll take care of Dai Huabin myself."
Both Wang Dong and Xiao Xiao frowned. This was the first time that Huo Yuhao took the initiative to tell them that he was going after a particular opponent. Most of the time, he would either act as a support or charged in and overwhelmed their opponents.
"Yuhao, this whole thing... Your sudden shift of personality... Does it have to do with Dai Huabin?" Xiao Xiao lowly asked, her brows furrowed.
Although she didn't have the same connection as Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong have with each other, Xiao Xiao could still sense the change in Huo Yuhao's demeanor when he said Dai Huabin's name.
Wang Dong walked up to Huo Yuhao and quietly held his shoulder for comfort. His gaze was gentle and soft as he looked at Huo Yuhao.
Xiao Xiao glanced at him strangely.
'Seriously, I've had my doubts for a while now and... Is Wang Dong gay?'
Huo Yuhao nodded silently, his eyes filled with determination. "Yes, it does. Dai Huabin and I... we have a bit of a history so to speak. When Wu Feng was talking to me, some of the words she said... triggered something of my past."
His eyes sharpened, "And it involved Dai Huabin."
"So that's why..." Xiao Xiao muttered feeling a bit guilty for being cold to Huo Yuhao but she quickly shook it off. No matter the latter's reason, it was still disrespectful for him to ghost Wu Feng.
Huo Yuhao knew what she was thinking about and looked embarrassed, softly coughing, he said. "I'll talk to Wu Feng after the competition..."
"Hmph! You better be or..." Xiao Xiao puffed her cheeks and raised a clenched fist while Wang Dong giggled by the side before turning towards Huo Yuhao and said, "Don't push yourself so much. We're here for you."
Huo Yuhao smiled before it fell, "Yeah...Thanks guys."
'And with this, I wouldn't be worried anymore about leaving you all.'
They talked a bit before heading back to their dorm room.
Once they got back to their dorms, Wang Dong then suggested, "Hey, wanna try out what our martial fusion skill is? All we've been doing is cultivating, which I'm grateful for since I just reached rank 26, but I am curious what our martial soul fusion is."
Huo Yuhao hummed and nodded his head in agreement. "Alright, sure. Let's head outside of the academy to test it out, though only after I changed clothes."
Wang Dong snorted and went outside, "Don't take too long, I'm gonna change as well."
"... Seriously, what's with that guy? We've been rommates for three months and he's still shy?" Huo Yuhao shook his head and started changing into new clothes.
After he was done changing, he walked out of the room and saw Wang Dong waiting for him outside and latter went in to change as well.
They left the academy together and found a secluded spot in the forest.
"Alright, let's give it a try," Huo Yuhao said.
The two of them spread their arms out and although Wang Dong was still flustered in embarassment, they hugged and began circulating soul power into each other's body.
In that moment, a pair of gigantic red eyes with golden pupils projected above Huo Yuhao's head. It radiated a cold arrogance that seemed to look down at the world, as if they were divine eyes.
While two pairs of beautiful purplish-blue with golden ended butterfly wings spreaded out from above Wang Dong's head. It gave off a gentle and ethereal aura, as if it belonged to a heavenly being.
As their soul powers merged, the two sets of eyes and wings slowly fused together, the boys then emitted a blinding light and a figure emerged.
The figure looked quite handsome, with a lanky muscular build, dark long hair with strands of pink and white mixed in perfectly. He bore a striking resemblance to Huo Yuhao, looking as if this was his adult future self. He wore a regal white robe with gold trimmings and black dragon markings.
But the most peculiar part of this figure was his eyes.
His eyes's pupils took on the appearance of a purplish-gold butterfly that radiated unfathomable power, both his eyes' sclera and irises turned completely blue as the ocean with several concentric circles covering his eyeballs.
Without saying anything, the figure raised his hand and his eyes glowed with a bright light. He then spread his hand out and a gust of wind eerily swept through the area.
With a calm expression, the figure then proclaimed.
"Kami no sabaki(Divine Judgement)!"
A bright light then engulfed the area before the handsome figure, the sound of destruction resounded like a thunderclap.
.....
❄️Shout out to the great Cultivators of my patreon, may you reach the peak of the heavens and conquer the earth!
•Vora
•Muhammad Imam
•Judd
•Shisui34
•kaotic
❄️A bigger shout out to the ones who ascended to become a One Above All!!
•Orion Chung
•Daniel Reis
Wanna read more and support me? Head on over to my patreon!
patreon.com/FroztDouluo