Battle Armor

"The Holy Sect's name is not yours to invoke so casually!"

The man in black spread his five fingers, and a pitch-black banner radiating dense evil energy suddenly appeared in his palm.

The banner cloth flapped violently in the wind as countless phantom remnants of wronged souls surged, struggled, and wailed across it.

A heart-rending, scalp-numbing cry rang out, and a chilling aura spread, turning even the surrounding air cold.

Protected behind Wu Zhangkong, Tang Wulin looked at the black-clad man overflowing with evil energy. His heart tightened, and he could not help shrinking his neck.

"Spirit Douluo!!!"

Sensing the aura emanating from the man in black, Wu Zhangkong's expression turned grim.

He had not expected Dark Fengniao to send a Spirit Douluo just to kill him.

"Wu Zhangkong, since you already know this one's cultivation, why not surrender without resistance?"

The man in black spoke in a low, chilling voice as the banner in his hand rustled loudly.

"Perhaps, in this one's mercy, I may grant you and your student a swift death."

"In your dreams!"

Wu Zhangkong answered coldly.

"Since you refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit, do not blame this one for being merciless!"

The man in black lightly shook the Soul Mourning Banner in his hand. A sinister wind immediately swept through the area, while miserable cries poured in from every direction like demonic voices drilling into their ears.

Those sounds could not affect Wu Zhangkong much, but Tang Wulin, standing behind him, was in terrible trouble.

With Tang Wulin's current cultivation, he simply could not withstand the sound waves carrying mental attacks.

Under the influence of those wails, Tang Wulin felt as though his head were about to explode. He covered his ears with a pained expression.

"Hehe~"

"Wu Zhangkong, if you still refuse to surrender, your student will probably bleed from all seven orifices and die shortly."

The man in black did not attack right away. Instead, he used Tang Wulin's safety to threaten Wu Zhangkong.

"Despicable!"

Seeing the enemy actually use Tang Wulin to threaten him, Wu Zhangkong's expression turned terrifyingly cold.

"Teacher Wu... don't agree to him!"

Before Wu Zhangkong could speak, Tang Wulin's weak voice came from behind him.

Though Tang Wulin's voice was exceedingly faint, his tone carried an unprecedented resolve.

"Wulin, endure it for a little longer. Once I deal with him, you'll be fine!"

Wu Zhangkong gently comforted Tang Wulin, then abruptly stepped forward. In a cold voice, he said, "Sky—Ice."

The Sky Frost Sword in Wu Zhangkong's hand seemed to sense something. It transformed into a dazzling streak of light and entered his body.

At the same time, Wu Zhangkong's aura surged outward like towering waves.

He was clearly only a Spirit Emperor, yet the aura he radiated at that moment was actually on par with his opponent's.

Then Wu Zhangkong's entire body lit up. White points of light emerged on his forehead, shoulders, chest, elbows, wrists, palms, waist, hips, knees, and soles.

Streams of light like silver threads rapidly intertwined from those white points, eventually converging into magnificent silver-white patterns.

When the light burst apart, a complete suit of deep-blue armor covered Wu Zhangkong's body.

The armor's lines were cold and sharp, silver-white and ice-blue gleaming together. Faint phantoms of frost and snow even appeared behind him. He looked like an icy sovereign who had emerged from the depths of the Far North Icefield, gazing indifferently down upon all things.

Under the pressure of Wu Zhangkong's terrifying aura, the demonic sounds twisting around Tang Wulin's ears seemed to freeze and vanished instantly.

But before Tang Wulin could breathe a sigh of relief, a new crisis was already bearing down on him.

The icy aura pouring from Wu Zhangkong's body was unimaginably cold. Tang Wulin had merely been a little too close, yet his arms instantly froze stiff, and a thin layer of frost covered his hair and eyebrows.

He nearly turned directly into an ice sculpture!

If Tang San had not noticed something was wrong and promptly protected Tang Wulin with his own power, Tang Wulin might truly have frozen into an ice sculpture.

Tang Wulin's teeth chattered violently from the cold, but he still gritted his teeth and endured it, calling out to Tang San in a trembling voice.

"L-Lao Tang, come out and take a look!"

"Battle Armor. Your teacher is wearing a complete set of Two-Word Battle Armor!"

"It seems your teacher holds no ordinary status in Shrek and the Tang Sect."

Tang San, hidden within Tang Wulin's sea of consciousness, looked at the Battle Armor shining with cold light on Wu Zhangkong's body and spoke with a hint of admiration.

To be honest, Tang San had already prepared to intervene from the very beginning.

But he had not expected Wu Zhangkong to possess an entire set of Two-Word Battle Armor.

Upon hearing the words "Battle Armor," Tang Wulin's eyes widened. A hoarse murmur escaped his throat. "Two-Word... Battle Armor?"

Tang Wulin was no stranger to the concept of Battle Armor.

Back in Class Zero, Wu Zhangkong had already explained the power of Battle Armor to him.

To Soul Masters, Battle Armor was far more valuable than Soul Bones or Soul-Conducting Mecha.

Before Battle Armor had been developed, the sudden emergence of Soul-Conducting Mecha had once put the status of Soul Masters in jeopardy.

Soul-Conducting Mecha suppressed traditional Soul Masters with overwhelming firepower, shaking the status Soul Masters had built upon Martial Souls and cultivation.

At that time, regardless of what kind of Martial Soul one possessed, so long as the difference in Soul Power was not too great, even the most gifted Soul Master could not easily suppress an ordinary person operating a mecha on the battlefield.

The combat strength of Soul Masters and ordinary people was nearly equalized by mechas, and the boundary between them began to blur under the influence of Soul-Conducting Mecha.

Only with the appearance of Battle Armor did everything return to the principle that the strong remained strong.

The enhancement Battle Armor provided to Soul Masters was utterly terrifying. A Soul Master with Battle Armor was more than twenty levels stronger than Soul Masters of the same rank.

It was precisely because Battle Armor was so powerful that the Sun Moon Federation called Soul Masters who possessed it Battle Armor Masters.

The reason Shrek held such an extraordinary status in the Sun Moon Federation was because it had the largest number of Battle Armor Masters on the continent.

Like mechas, Battle Armor had its own classification system.

However, unlike mechas, which were ranked by yellow, purple, black, and red, Battle Armor used the number of characters in its name to represent its rank.

The Two-Word Battle Armor "Sky Ice" worn by Wu Zhangkong had evolved from the One-Word Battle Armor "Ice."

Each time Battle Armor advanced by one rank, its name could gain one more character.

As for why it was classified this way?

Because the first person to invent Battle Armor had named it that way. Later generations followed suit, and it eventually became an unwritten convention.

Seeing Wu Zhangkong don his Two-Word Battle Armor, the smile faded from the black-clad man's face, and his expression became incomparably serious.

As an Evil Soul Master reviled by everyone, he was not as wealthy as Wu Zhangkong, with Battle Armor to protect him.

In other words, the gap in cultivation between him and Wu Zhangkong had already been erased by the Battle Armor Wu Zhangkong wore.

But he was not worried. He had learned about Wu Zhangkong's Two-Word Battle Armor on the way here.

The reason he had dared to swagger into Wu Zhangkong's presence was, naturally, because Wu Zhangkong had brought along a burden.

As long as he could capture Tang Wulin, everything would be easy.

"Eighth Soul Skill—Thousand Soul Evil Thought!"

The man in black gave a low shout and went all out from the start.

A black Soul Ring beneath his feet suddenly lit up, and the Soul Mourning Banner in his hand blazed with sinister light.

A vast tide of departed souls surged from it, turning into clusters of pitch-black ghost mist that rushed toward Wu Zhangkong amid dense evil energy and miserable wails.

The terrifying evil aura released by the ghost mist instantly withered the welcoming pines lining both sides of the cemetery. Their branches and leaves turned to ash and scattered away, while the entire world seemed to be dragged into an endless hell.

Wu Zhangkong did not dare let his guard down. He swiftly summoned his Sky Frost Sword and met the attack head-on.

Under the enhancement of the Sky Ice Battle Armor, the Sky Frost Sword changed not only in appearance and length, becoming slimmer and more translucent, but also in solidity, drawing closer to a physical entity.

Yet what Wu Zhangkong had not expected was that the departed souls unleashed by his opponent seemed endless.

Although every sweep of his sword could freeze and shatter large swathes of ghost mist, the enemy could replenish them just as quickly.

Moreover, the souls were mixed with dense resentment and curses. Even after being cut apart, they turned into threadlike shadows that clung to him, corroding his mind.