Youth is Great, Sleep Like a Log!

"Understood, Teacher Zhou."

The youth named Zhou Yang nodded, his voice low and steady.

He glanced at the lean figure on the stage, his eyes devoid of contempt, holding only gravity.

Zhou Yi had already recounted the details of Liu Ping's crushing defeat—catching a blade between two fingers, a single palm strike to end it.

Such strength was certainly not something an ordinary level thirteen Spirit Master could possess.

Therefore, Zhou Yang steeled himself with absolute focus from the very start.

He would not repeat Liu Ping's mistakes.

Zhou Yang took a deep breath and stepped onto the Soul Fighting Platform.

His gait was steady and powerful; with every step he took, it felt as though he carried the weight of a thousand jun.

Upon reaching the platform, he stood ten meters away from Huo Yuhao, locking his gaze onto his opponent like a predator eyeing its prey.

Huo Yuhao remained standing where he was, hands tucked into his pockets.

He looked at this opponent, who was clearly more composed than Liu Ping, his expression remaining indifferent and his demeanor remarkably relaxed.

Zhou Yang did not utter any harsh words.

Zhou Yi had already informed him of Liu Ping's miserable defeat, so he would not waste time spouting threats before the battle began as Liu Ping had.

He simply stared at Huo Yuhao in silence, his mind racing—the physical strength Huo Yuhao displayed in that palm strike earlier was terrifying.

To be able to catch Liu Ping's full-force blade between two fingers meant his physical constitution far exceeded that of an ordinary person.

Since that was the case, he could not engage in close-quarters combat.

He had to utilize his own advantages: keep his distance, wear him down, and wait for an opening.

The referee glanced at the two, confirmed they were ready, and raised his right hand high—

"Begin!"

The moment the words fell, Zhou Yang moved.

He did not charge toward Huo Yuhao like Liu Ping had; instead, his figure flickered as he quickly retreated two steps, widening the distance between them.

At the same time, he brought his hands together in front of him, and his spirit power surged forth—

Crimson Flame Lion Spirit, manifest!

A circle of blazing red light erupted from his body, condensing into the phantom of a majestic, flaming lion behind him.

The lion roared toward the sky; though there was no sound, the invisible pressure spread outward like a tidal wave.

Simultaneously, two bright yellow spirit rings rose slowly from beneath Zhou Yang's feet, shimmering brilliantly in the sunlight.

Two century-level spirit rings.

Level twenty-five spirit power.

Seeing this scene, the crowd below held their breath—

This Zhou Yang was stronger than Liu Ping!

And he appeared far more cautious than Liu Ping as well!

Huo Yuhao remained standing in place, hands in his pockets, watching Zhou Yang with calm eyes.

Deep within his pupils, a faint, pearlescent light quietly swirled—Spirit Eye Spirit, manifest.

Still, no rings appeared at his feet.

Still, he maintained that light and breezy appearance.

Zhou Yang frowned slightly, but his expression quickly smoothed out.

He gripped the air in front of him, and two clusters of crimson flame suddenly condensed in his palms.

This was his first spirit skill—Crimson Flame.

The temperature of these flames reached over fifty degrees, enough to scorch an opponent's skin or even ignite clothing. Most level twenty-something Spirit Masters would only dare to dodge, not block, such flames.

Since Huo Yuhao's physical strength was great enough to catch Liu Ping's second spirit skill with his bare hands, he would not fight him at close range.

He would fight him from a distance.

He would wear down his stamina.

And then, secure victory with a single strike.

A flash of brilliance crossed Zhou Yang's eyes as he violently swung his hands forward—

"Go!"

The two clusters of crimson flame left his hands, carving two blazing arcs through the air as they shot toward Huo Yuhao!

The flames whistled, and a wave of heat rushed toward him.

The crowd below gasped in alarm—

"It's a long-range attack!"

"No matter how strong Huo Yuhao's physical body is, he can't possibly take those flames head-on, right?"

"Zhou Yang's tactics are clever! He's not giving him any chance to close the distance!"

Within the crowd, Mu Jin's brows furrowed slightly.

She stared at the two rapidly approaching balls of fire, a trace of worry rising in her heart; no matter how strong Huo Yuhao's physical body was, he was still made of flesh and blood.

If he took those fifty-degree flames head-on, he would definitely be injured.

What would he do?

Dodge? Or...

Huo Yuhao watched the two balls of fire flying toward him, his eyes devoid of the slightest ripple.

He muttered to himself: Trying to exhaust me from a distance, are you?

The flames drew closer.

Three zhang.

Two zhang.

One zhang.

A scorching heatwave rushed toward him, baking his cheeks until they burned.

Everyone off the stage held their breath—

Just as the flames were about to strike Huo Yuhao, he moved.

His hands remained in his pockets, never pulled out.

He merely shifted his body slightly, meeting the two balls of fire in a posture that seemed almost eerie.

And then—

He raised his right hand, fingers splayed, and slowly traced an arc in the air.

The movement was extremely slow, so slow that everyone off the stage could see it clearly.

It was so slow that it felt less like a battle and more like the practice of some ancient martial art.

But the moment that arc was traced, an invisible force began to gather, rotate, and flow within Huo Yuhao's palm—

The power was as soft as water, yet as tough as silk.

The two balls of fire crashed into that arc.

There was no explosion.

There were no burns.

There wasn't even a sound.

Those two crimson flames, as if guided by an invisible force, began to rotate along the trajectory traced by Huo Yuhao's palm.

They spun, intertwined, and merged above his palm—like tamed beasts, or perhaps like a guided stream.

Everyone off the stage widened their eyes—

What kind of Soul Skill is this?!

The composure on Zhou Yang's face froze instantly.

He opened his mouth wide, his eyes filled with disbelief—

Catching fireballs with his bare hands?

His Crimson Flame reached temperatures of over fifty degrees; even other Soul Masters at the twentieth level would only dare to dodge, not take it head-on.

He caught them with his bare hands?

And he didn't just take them; he...

Guided them? Controlled them?

Zhou Yang's mind went blank.

But what shocked him even more was yet to come.

Huo Yuhao gave a light push with his palm.

The two balls of fire he had been guiding suddenly reversed direction and shot toward Zhou Yang!

The speed was faster than when they had come!

The flames were more intense than before!

They were no longer Zhou Yang's Crimson Flame.

They were flames whose power had been doubled, bolstered by Huo Yuhao's Heaven Earth Reversal!

This move was called Heaven Earth Reversal.

Just like the Overlapping Wave Palm that defeated Liu Ping in the previous match, it was one of Huo Yuhao's Self-Created Soul Skills.

The Overlapping Wave Palm was a Self-Created Soul Skill Huo Yuhao had comprehended in his past life while observing the rising and falling tides of a lake.

At that time, he was only level thirty, having just fought a battle against Ji Juechen, who had suppressed his own cultivation to the same level.

In that battle, the two fought until the sky turned dark, locked in an inseparable struggle.

After the battle, he sat alone by the lake, watching the waves rise and fall, surging toward the shore layer upon layer, when he suddenly had an epiphany.

Waves, one layer stacked upon another, each stronger than the last.

What would happen if this stacking power were integrated into a palm technique?

Thus, he observed the lake and attained enlightenment, entering a state of deep meditation where his spiritual power reached the vastness of an endless ocean.

The Overlapping Wave Palm was born from this.

The offensive was like a tide, resembling ocean waves that stacked upon one another with infinite power.

When practiced to perfection, seventy-two overlapping waves could be unleashed simultaneously, comparable to a standard ten-thousand-year soul skill.

The Overlapping Wave Palm was divided into six levels: Three-Fold Wave, Six-Fold Wave, Nine-Fold Wave, Eighteen-Fold Wave, Thirty-Six-Fold Wave, and the perfected Seventy-Two-Fold Wave.

Although this palm technique was immensely powerful, it had one fatal flaw: it placed extreme demands on the physical body.

If the body could not meet the requirements of the Overlapping Wave Palm, forcing the technique would result in one's own death rather than the opponent's.

Therefore, it was only after Huo Yuhao had tempered his body with Body Tempering Powder and achieved Copper Skin Golden Muscle that he dared to execute this technique.

As for Heaven Earth Reversal, that was another story entirely.

In his past life, while observing the secret techniques of the Body Sect, he had accidentally come across an ancient text.

The Body Sect had been passed down for thousands of years, and its self-created combat skills and special secret methods were countless.

While flipping through the ancient text, he happened upon the deeds of a top-tier expert known for the "Lightning Five-Chain Whip."

That expert had created a set of Lightning Five-Chain Whip techniques and a three-character mantra—"Receive, Dissolve, Release"—which had resounded throughout the entire Body Sect.

"Receive" meant to catch every attack.

"Dissolve" meant to neutralize all force.

"Release" meant to return the force back with doubled intensity.

The essence of this three-character mantra lay in borrowing force to strike, using softness to overcome hardness, turning the opponent's attack into one's own, and then counterattacking with even greater power.

Deeply inspired, Huo Yuhao studied it day and night until he finally created this move—

Heaven Earth Reversal.

At this moment, this self-created soul skill was revealing its edge on the Soul Fighting Platform for the first time.

"What?!"

Zhou Yang blurted out in shock.

He watched helplessly as the flames he had released flew back toward him at double the speed and double the power, his mind going completely blank.

But he was, after all, a third-year student with rich combat experience. The shock lasted only a moment before he reacted quickly, raising his hands to regain control over those flames.

There was a natural connection between his Crimson Flame Martial Soul and the flames; theoretically, he could reabsorb or disperse the flames he had released.

However—

When he tried to manipulate those flames, he found that his soul power seemed to have collided with an invisible wall.

Those flames had completely slipped out of his control.

They no longer belonged to him.

They now belonged to Huo Yuhao.

Zhou Yang's pupils constricted, and with no time to think, he lunged violently to the side—

"Boom!"

Two clusters of flame whistled past his shoulder, slamming heavily into the Soul Fighting Platform behind him.

The flames exploded, scattering sparks across the sky.

Two shallow pits were blasted into the surface of the Soul Fighting Platform, with gravel flying and smoke and dust filling the air.

Zhou Yang rolled on the ground in a disheveled manner, barely avoiding the strike.

He propped himself up, gasping for air, cold sweat dripping from his forehead.

Just a hair's breadth away.

Just a tiny bit closer, and he would have been struck by his own flames.

Flames of over fifty degrees—if they had hit him head-on, he would have been dead or severely injured.

And just at this moment—

Huo Yuhao moved.

He did not take a step, nor did he run; instead, he—vanished.

In the sight of everyone present, he simply disappeared into thin air.

Only a faint, sharp crack of air remained, echoing above the Soul Fighting Platform.

"What?!"

Zhou Yang's pupils constricted to pinpricks; before his brain could fully recover from the previous shock, a new wave of terror surged over him like a tide.

He had just struggled to push himself up from the ground, his breathing still ragged and his vision not yet fully focused—how could he have time to search for Huo Yuhao's position?

He didn't even have time to turn his head.

He didn't have time to release a soul skill.

He didn't have time to mount any defense.

A bone-chilling cold suddenly shot up from the base of his spine, rushing straight to the crown of his head.

Behind him.

Huo Yuhao was behind him.

Zhou Yang's pupils trembled violently, his body's instincts screaming at him to lunge forward, to roll away, to do something—

But it was already too late.

A palm had already pressed against his back.

The palm was warm, even retaining a trace of heat from when he had caught the flames just moments ago.

Yet, it was this very warm palm that made Zhou Yang feel as if he had fallen into an ice cellar from head to toe.

Below the platform, everyone widened their eyes, yet they couldn't see what had happened at all.

They only saw that Huo Yuhao had been standing ten meters away a moment ago, and in the next instant, he had appeared behind Zhou Yang.

No process, no trajectory.

It was like teleportation, like a ghost.

"What kind of speed is this?!"

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me?!"

"Where is he?! Where did he go?!"

Exclamations rose one after another, yet no one could answer.

Mu Jin and Zhou Yi stood up abruptly, their beautiful eyes filled with shock.

Neither of them had seen how Huo Yuhao moved, and they were Soul Emperors! Six-ring Soul Emperors! How could they fail to see the movement trajectory of a level thirteen Soul Master?

How was this possible?!

On the Soul Fighting Platform.

Huo Yuhao stood behind Zhou Yang, his right hand's fingers pressed together, his palm coiled with potential energy.

The movement technique he had just used was called—

Explosive Step.

This move was not something he had created himself, but a combat technique he had accidentally stumbled upon in the Body Sect Scripture Pavilion in his past life.

The Body Sect had been passed down for thousands of years, and the sect's self-created combat techniques and special secret arts were as vast as the sea.

This "Explosive Step" was one of them, ranked in the middle tier of the Body Sect's movement techniques.

The core principle of Explosive Step was to compress soul power into the legs using a special method, and at the moment of release, detonate the compressed soul power to achieve extreme speed with the force of the explosion.

It sounded simple, but it was extremely dangerous to execute.

Compressing soul power was, in itself, an incredibly delicate operation.

Compressing it into the fragile parts of the legs was even more perilous.

If compressed too much, the meridians in the legs would burst; if compressed too little, the explosive effect would not be achieved.

One careless move, and the entire leg could be crippled.

Therefore, this movement technique had extremely high requirements for the strength of one's body.

And Huo Yuhao—

With the first and second stages of the Myriad Tribulation Indestructible Body achieved, and his Copper Skin Golden Muscle, his physical strength far exceeded that of a Soul Master of the same level.

This movement technique was practically tailor-made for him.

In that instant just now, he had compressed his soul power into his legs and detonated it—

Ten meters of distance, covered in a flash.

Faster than Liu Ping's blade.

Faster than Zhou Yang's reaction.

So fast that no one could see it clearly.

So fast that Zhou Yang didn't even have the chance to turn around.

At this moment, Huo Yuhao stood behind Zhou Yang, his right hand already coiled and ready to strike.

He looked at the opponent before him who was still attempting to turn around, his eyes devoid of the slightest ripple.

Double Layer Overlapping Wave Palm.

Double Wave.

He pushed out a palm, plain and simple.

This strike was faster, fiercer, and heavier than the one that had defeated Liu Ping just moments ago.

The power of a First Layer Overlapping Wave Palm was already enough to instantly defeat a level 23 Soul Grand Master.

The power of a Double Layer Overlapping Wave Palm was twice that of the first layer.

Twice the power, striking directly at the chest.

Zhou Yang had just dodged that reversed flame; his old strength was spent, and his new strength had yet to arise.

His body remained in a half-kneeling posture, his center of gravity unstable, his breath uneven—how could he possibly dodge this palm?

"Bang!"

The palm landed solidly against the center of Zhou Yang's back.

A muffled thud exploded outward, and Zhou Yang felt as if his internal organs had shifted in an instant; a sharp, searing pain swept from his chest through his entire body, nearly tearing him apart.

His eyes widened abruptly, his pupils reflecting the blurred figures beneath the Soul Fighting Platform, his lips parted, yet he could not emit a single sound—

Then, his body flew forward like a kite with its string cut.

No, not flying.

It was being hurled.

His entire person rose into the air, tracing a parabolic arc, crossing the edge of the Soul Fighting Platform, passing over the terrified gazes of the crowd below—

"Bang!"

He slammed heavily onto the ground beneath the Soul Fighting Platform.

Dust and debris scattered everywhere.

Zhou Yang lay flat on his back, eyes tightly shut, his breath faint as he fell completely unconscious.

Being young is truly wonderful; he just drops his head and falls right to sleep!