Brought to Heel

Seeing the lightning wrapped around Bei Bei's arm, Chen Yuan's hand also burst into golden-red flames. In the blink of an eye, Bei Bei appeared before Chen Yuan.

He threw a punch, but Chen Yuan caught his wrist, preventing it from advancing even an inch. The lightning on his scales was extinguished by the flames in Chen Yuan's hand within moments.

Bei Bei's left fist shot straight for Chen Yuan's face, the sharp aura of his dragon claw rushing toward him. Chen Yuan quickly leaned aside to dodge, then punched Bei Bei's dragon-transformed arm.

Bei Bei staggered back several steps. Seeing that his strike had failed, he stepped into the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, and his eyes turned purple as well.

With his speed greatly increased, Bei Bei rapidly closed in and moved around Chen Yuan at high speed, trying to find an opening.

"Bei Bei, aren't you tired from spinning around like that?"

Chen Yuan's eyes remained fixed on Bei Bei's every movement, leaving Bei Bei utterly alarmed. Ever since he had mastered the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, practically no Power Attack System Soul Master of the same rank had been able to keep up with his speed.

Chen Yuan almost laughed. How much could the footwork of an assassin sect accomplish in an open one-on-one space like the Soul Fighting Arena?

Seizing the moment, he swung a flaming fist. The punch was so fast that Bei Bei had no time to dodge and could only hurriedly cross his arms to block it.

Both his arms went numb, and his dragon scales were scorched black. Countless beads of cold sweat appeared on Bei Bei's face.

In that clash just now, he had not even been able to see Chen Yuan make his move. Fortunately, the Tang Sect had the Purple Demon Eye to make up for it somewhat.

Chen Yuan lunged forward and struck Bei Bei beneath the chin with a Rising Dragon Fist, then grabbed his collar and lifted his entire body into the air.

Even with both of Bei Bei's arms dragon-transformed, his martial soul possessed, and his Soul Power circulating at high speed, he could not break free from that tremendous force.

He could only watch helplessly as the floor drew closer and closer. In ancient times, people smashed boulders on their chests; today, the floor smashed Bei Bei.

Mouth open, eyes shut.jpg

After quite a while, once the pain had faded somewhat, Bei Bei forced himself upright and stared at Chen Yuan as though he were a monster.

Over the past few years, he and Chen Yuan had sparred quite often, and scenes like this had happened before. But why had Chen Yuan seemed so relaxed this time?

Could Chen Yuan's physical abilities really be that far beyond his? So far that he could crush Bei Bei at full strength without even activating his martial soul?

"Second Soul Skill, Thunderbolt!"

The wandering electric snakes transformed into countless lightning arrows, covering the entire Soul Fighting Arena and continuously closing in on Chen Yuan.

Since he could not win anyway, Bei Bei naturally would not carefully conserve his Soul Power as he had when fighting Xu Sanshi.

If he did not use his Soul Power now, then once he was beaten to the point of exhaustion later, he would be even less able to use it.

"Fourth Soul Skill, Thunderbolt Dragon Head!"

After confirming that Chen Yuan's position had been considerably restricted, Bei Bei's darkest purple Soul Ring flashed. He squeezed every last bit of Soul Power from his body, continuously converting it into lightning.

A massive amount of lightning condensed into an enormous thunderbolt dragon head, which shot out explosively.

Chen Yuan stomped down heavily with his right foot, leaving spiderweb-like cracks across the Soul Fighting Arena. Without dodging or retreating, he met the Thunderbolt Dragon Head head-on with a fist wrapped in flames.

Lightning crackled. The instant it came into contact with the flames, the dragon head exploded with a boom.

The lightning web formed by Thunderbolt also attacked Chen Yuan at the instant the Thunderbolt Dragon Head exploded. Vast amounts of lightning converged, raising the explosion's power to another level.

Bei Bei looked hopefully toward the black smoke. He could already smell something burning, and he hoped his attack had injured Chen Yuan.

"Bei Bei, that attack of yours actually hurt a little when it hit me."

The black smoke gradually thinned, and Chen Yuan slowly walked out of it. Other than his clothes being somewhat scorched and wrinkled, Bei Bei could not see the slightest injury on him.

Chen Yuan waved his hand, dispersing the flames lingering on his body after the explosion. His expression was extremely ugly.

"Bei Bei, remember to pay me for this uniform later. Your turn is over now. Next is my turn, so prepare yourself!"

Bei Bei's vision blurred, and Chen Yuan vanished from his sight. The wind from a fist brushed his face, and Chen Yuan's fist stopped only two or three centimeters from his cheek.

At that sight, a bitter smile crept onto Bei Bei's face.

Although he had already expected this outcome, he could not help feeling disappointed when the reality stood before him.

After all, who was not a genius? Who did not have some competitive spirit?

His clenched fists slowly loosened. Bei Bei let out a deep breath, and his expression relaxed. He had accepted his fate.

"Now I understand the gap between us."

"So what are you going to do? Train properly, or keep doing what you did before? If you give me the wrong answer, I'll still beat you up."

"Train properly, obviously. What else can I do? My cultivation is already the lowest in the dorm."

Losing now did not mean he would always lose in the future.

Chen Yuan, who had once been about as strong as him, had now become an existence he could not shake. Whether in strength or speed, Bei Bei could not compare to Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan had not even activated his martial soul or used any of his Soul Skills. If he had, he probably could have beaten Bei Bei to death with one punch.

Chen Yuan had said before that no matter how powerful a Soul Skill's enhancement was, it still needed decent base stats. No amount of enhancement could prop up trash with a value of zero.

If he had trained constantly like Chen Yuan over the past few years, would their fight just now have turned out differently?

No one knew the answer, because time that had passed could not be made up for.

Besides, not long after the next semester began, the few of them would participate in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Fighting Tournament as the Reserve Team. If he did not work hard now, he might not even get the chance to compete then.

Silently apologizing to Tang Ya in his heart, Bei Bei secretly resolved to make good use of this vacation and the time before the tournament began.

Seeing that Bei Bei had already run out of strength, Chen Yuan slung him over his shoulder and left the Soul Fighting Arena.

As for the damaged parts of the Soul Fighting Arena? Those ten Gold Soul Coins for admission had not been paid for nothing.

When they returned to the dormitory, Xu Sanshi had come back early as well, since it was the final night of the semester.

The moment he returned, he saw Chen Yuan's scorched clothes on the floor and Bei Bei lying motionless on the bed. He immediately felt terrible.

"What? What did you two do?!"

"Chen Yuan! You bullied Bei Bei without waiting for me to come back and join in!"

"Get lost! Chen Yuan and I just went up to the Soul Fighting Arena for a bit."

Upon hearing that, Xu Sanshi immediately went to Bei Bei's bed. While looking at him sympathetically, he reached out and touched Bei Bei's forehead.

Then he frowned suspiciously.

"No, Bei Bei, you don't have a fever. Why did you go looking for trouble by challenging that freak Chen Yuan to a duel?"

"Heh, I wanted to see how far I could go."

"And what was the result?"

Bei Bei looked at Xu Sanshi speechlessly.

Wasn't the result obvious?

Chen Yuan was sitting there perfectly fine, reading a book, while he was sprawled on the bed. Wasn't the result obvious enough?

Xu Sanshi was somewhat embarrassed after asking that question. Ignoring Bei Bei's resentful stare, he asked, "What are you two planning to do during this vacation?"

"What else? Same as always. Go home, help the children in the village awaken their martial souls, then hunt for the Fifth Soul Ring."

"I'm staying at the academy to train."

"Huh? Bei Bei, aren't you supposed to be accompanying your Xiao Ya? Have you changed?"

"Get lost. I've just figured things out. I need to become stronger. Only then can I help Xiao Ya revive the Tang Sect better."