Life and Death Zone

The Great Spirit Arena was a highly unusual force on Douluo Dalu. In virtually every major city across Douluo Dalu, one could find a Great Spirit Arena.

Nominally, the Great Spirit Arena had been founded jointly by seven soul master families. In reality, however, those seven families alone could never have kept the Great Spirit Arena running.

After all, Great Spirit Arenas were spread across all of Douluo Dalu. Even places such as Heaven Dou City, Star Luo City, and Spirit City had them.

Under normal circumstances, unless the rulers of the two great empires and Spirit Hall had something wrong with their heads, they would never allow another force to establish itself so freely in their own strongholds.

Thus, the seven soul master families were merely the operators and representatives of the Great Spirit Arena. The shareholders standing behind it included the two great empires, Spirit Hall, the Seven Great Sects, and the major powers of Douluo Dalu.

This naturally included the Black Beast Kingdom and the Mercenary Association. As the king of the Black Beast Kingdom and president of the Mercenary Association, Li Ang owned a small portion of the Great Spirit Arena's shares and received considerable dividends from it every year.

Of course, money was not the most important thing to the major powers.

The major powers had jointly established the Great Spirit Arena not only to fleece people through it, but more importantly, to scout talent.

However, ordinary spirit fighting matches could not uncover any truly worthwhile talent. Such matches were merely for entertaining the public and fleecing them.

Soul masters fought above while ordinary people watched below, betting on the contestants they supported. The ordinary people gained entertainment, while the Great Spirit Arena made money—a win-win situation!

Therefore, ordinary matches were all conducted with restraint. Under normal circumstances, no one died. It was simply unrealistic to select talent through such child's play.

To make it easier to identify genuine combat talent, the Great Spirit Arena had specifically established a Life and Death Zone. Matches held in this area were called Life and Death Battles.

Life and Death Battles could be divided into two types: Gambling Duels and Death Duels.

Gambling Duels were used to settle conflicts between soul masters. If soul masters had a dispute, they could conduct a Gambling Duel under the Great Spirit Arena's witness and resolve their conflict through battle.

The other kind, Death Duels, were an advanced version of ordinary spirit fighting matches—true battles of life and death. During combat, contestants could resort to any means necessary. Every battle ended only once one side's contestant had died, and the side that survived was the victor.

To make the matches more appealing to contestants, the Great Spirit Arena offered high prizes to the winners. The victor of each match could receive rewards ranging from one thousand to one hundred thousand gold soul coins.

Those powerful figures active in the Death Duel arena, regardless of their Soul Power level, would generally be recruited by the major powers, gaining wealth and status beyond the imagination of ordinary soul masters in a short time.

However, Shrek Academy clearly did not have the nerve to let its students participate in Death Duels, especially since each of its current students had a more extraordinary background than the last.

Oscar and Ma Hongjun were fine, as neither had much of a background. But aside from those two, Shrek Academy did not dare provoke any of the remaining five students.

There was no need to mention Tang San. He was a direct descendant of the Clear Sky Sect, and his father was Haotian Douluo Tang Hao, the ruthless figure who had beaten Spirit Hall's previous Pope to death.

Zhu Zhuqing and Dai Mubai, meanwhile, came from the Xingluo Imperial Family. Though their position in the Throne Seizing Battle was unfavorable, if anything happened to them at Shrek Academy, the Xingluo Imperial Family could absolutely wipe out the entire academy.

As for Ning Rongrong, she was the little princess of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Flender had dared to rebuke Ning Rongrong before only because Ning Fengzhi had agreed to let his daughter suffer a little. But if Ning Rongrong truly came to harm, Shrek Academy would definitely be razed to the ground by two Super Douluo.

Beyond that, Xiao Wu, the last one, appeared relatively ordinary, but her identity was equally extraordinary. She was a transformed 100,000-year Soul Beast, and Xiao Wu also had two 100,000-year Soul Beast-level underlings in the Star Dou Great Forest... In short, the forces behind her were also enough to destroy Shrek Academy.

Therefore, no matter how mad Flender was or how eager he was for quick results, he did not dare act recklessly. The practical combat training merely had the Shrek Seven Devils take part in ordinary spirit fighting matches.

Although spirit fighting matches could indeed improve the students' practical combat ability, this kind of arena battle was fundamentally different from real combat.

At the very least, Li Ang looked down on it.

Back when he trained disciples, his method had been to first find a soul beast forest and throw his disciple inside. He would occasionally go over to offer guidance, and after a year or so, if the disciple was still alive, they would continue honing themselves in the Death Duel arena.

Unfortunately, there was no decent soul beast forest around Suotuo City, and Zhu Zhuqing still had to continue studying at Shrek Academy.

Thus, they could only skip the first stage for now. But it was not a major problem. She could go straight into Death Duels instead. The Great Spirit Arena had many formats now: not only ordinary one-on-one matches, but also one-versus-many, many-versus-many, and even dedicated soul beast battles, where soul masters fought soul beasts to the death.

That would satisfy Li Ang's current teaching needs.

"I understand." As Li Ang's voice fell, Zhu Zhuqing nodded.

She had actually heard of Death Duels before. Of course, as a direct descendant of the Zhu family of the Star Luo Empire, Zhu Zhuqing had certainly never participated in one.

Yet merely from the name, Zhu Zhuqing could understand the brutality of these so-called Death Duels.

"Then go to the Life and Death Zone to register. Keep the first match simple—a one-on-one Death Duel will do."

Under Li Ang's guidance, Zhu Zhuqing soon left the Gambling Zone and headed alone to the Life and Death Zone within the Suotuo Great Spirit Arena.

Compared to the bustling Gambling Zone, the Life and Death Zone felt somewhat lifeless.

The stands in the Life and Death Zone were small, with only a scattered few spectators seated there. Yet without exception, they were all soul masters, and a chilling murderous aura permeated their bodies. Clearly, none of them were decent people.

Ordinary people were not permitted to watch the Great Spirit Arena's Death Duels. Thus, aside from the staff, the only people in the competition zone were contestants.

Therefore, the few soul masters in the stands were actually soul masters intending to participate in Death Duels.

With the staff's assistance, Zhu Zhuqing quickly completed her registration.

However, her match did not begin immediately, so Zhu Zhuqing was able to first watch the matches of the other contestants.