"Ha, hahaha."
The corner of Quan Lin's eye twitched, but in the end, he had no choice but to accept reality.
His gaze gradually turned serious, and his body naturally assumed the exact same opening stance as the Black Iron Gauntlets before him.
As the countdown to the side finally reached zero.
Both sides lunged almost simultaneously. A faint black film of Soul Power appeared over Quan Lin's hands, while a faint purple hue and intense Mental Power fluctuations appeared in his eyes.
Gang! Clang!
Right fist met right fist head-on, erupting in a crisp metallic ring.
Quan Lin's enhanced charged punch was powerful enough to pose a considerable threat to a Soul Grandmaster.
However, the toughness of a Tool Martial Soul easily surpassed Soul Power condensed through Gang. Tip against tip, Quan Lin only felt as if his fingers were about to snap, triggering a burst of intense pain.
Fortunately, both sides' strength was identical, so Quan Lin gritted his teeth and endured the pain, stopping the tip from attacking his body.
Their fists knocked apart, and Quan Lin swiftly retreated.
After this probing exchange, he had gathered a great deal of information.
First, the Black Iron Gauntlets' strength was astonishingly similar to his own. If he had been blindfolded, he would have thought he was fighting himself.
Second, his current opponent had no physical body in the human sense. Or rather, the Martial Soul itself was its physical body.
In other words, the attack methods aimed at the human body that he had learned in Combat Training had all become completely useless.
If he wanted to defeat his opponent, he could only strike the Martial Soul's main body directly without hesitation.
This meant he had to use his own mortal flesh to collide with the extremely tough metal