Sword Intent Waved Casually

Han Qi was pulled out of the water and struggled to continue challenging Yun Jingheng, but Shen Mu held him down.

Standing next to Xie Xie, Tang Wulin said, "Looks like he can swim."

Xie Xie chimed in, "Those with agility-based attacks should know it. Even if they don't, they probably already do."

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing the same expression on each other's faces—a desire to laugh but knowing the occasion wasn't right.

Yuanen Yehui glanced at them expressionlessly, and the two immediately suppressed their smiles.

Shen Mu took a deep breath and turned to Yun Jingheng.

His expression had returned to calm, but that "proper" smile was gone.

He looked at Yun Jingheng with a complex and profound gaze.

"Yun Jingheng," Shen Mu said, his voice lower than before, "Your Soul Skill ...would you mind revealing its attribute?"

Yun Jingheng withdrew his gaze from the sea, glanced at Shen Mu, and smiled.

"I didn't use Soul Skill."

Is it convenient to reveal it? No, guess for yourself. I don't believe that no one in the Star Luo Empire knows that I have an elemental Martial Soul.

Silence fell on the deck once more.

No Soul Skill was used.

Facing a level 54 agility-based Soul King, he didn't even use his Soul Skill before throwing the person into the sea.

What if we use it?

Moreover, apart from those few Titled Douluo, no one else present understood what was going on.

"Alright... I'll challenge you."

Shen Mu walked into the circle, each step taken with a measured pace.

Stand still, close your eyes, then open them.

In that instant, his pupils turned amber, and a blazing light surged from the depths of his pupils, like two flames that had been suppressed for too long and were finally released.

He slowly opened his hands at his sides, and fine golden threads stretched between his ten fingers, proof of the high density of condensed Soul Power.

"Boom--"

Shen Mu's Soul Ring lit up.

Four purple and one black Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet, slowly rotating.

The black, Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring was particularly eye-catching, gleaming with a deep luster in the sunlight, like a black halo enveloping him.

The temperature on the deck suddenly rose by several degrees.

His body began to change.

The muscle lines became more defined, and a layer of light golden down appeared on the surface of the skin. It wasn't real hair, but a kind of materialized form created by the outward release of Soul Power.

His hair had grown several inches longer, and its color had changed from dark brown to reddish-gold, like a burning flame.

Then, the Martial Soul manifested in its entirety.

A lion.

A lion formed from pure flames rose up behind Shen Mu.

It was twice the size of a normal lion, its mane was like raging Lie Yan, every hair was burning, and the firelight made the deck glow red.

Its eyes are golden, with vertical pupils, and its gaze is like a furnace, fiery and majestic.

But Yun Jingheng didn't notice these things.

What he noticed was that the lion's ears were drooping.

Like a... sheepdog.

Yun Jingheng was taken aback.

Then--

"Pfft."

He laughed out loud.

The sound wasn't loud, but on the quiet deck, the laughter was like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, creating ripples that everyone heard.

Shen Mu's expression froze.

The majestic, fiery lion, formed from Lie Yan, still hung behind him, burning with imposing grandeur.

But after Yun Jingheng's laughter, the lion suddenly didn't look so majestic anymore.

Yun Jingheng couldn't help himself.

He raised his hand to cover his mouth, but laughter still escaped through his fingers, and his shoulders twitched.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

He tried to suppress his smile, but the curve of his eyes betrayed him. "I just... your name is Shen Mu... and your Martial Soul is... a sheepdog..."

"It's Fire Lion."

Shen Mu's voice was two octaves lower than usual, each word sounding like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth, "Fire, Lion."

"Yes, yes, Fire Lion."

Yun Jingheng nodded repeatedly, his tone so sincere it seemed unreal, but his gaze then drifted to the drooping ears of the "Fire Lion," and the curve of his lips widened even further.

"Its ears... um... are quite cute."

Xu Xiaoyan's pen tip poked at the paper, and the ink smeared into a black dot.

She had originally planned to record an earth-shattering duel, but Yun Jingheng's first reaction was to burst out laughing.

She wrote in her notebook, "Shen Mu's Martial Soul — Fire Lion that looks like a sheepdog. Yun Jingheng thinks it's cute."

He paused, then added a small line of text, "I think so too."

Zhuo Shi old man stroked his beard and burst into laughter.

Cai Yue'er stood beside Zhuo Shi and laughed, "You deserve a beating."

Shen Mu stood inside the circle and took a deep breath.

He was trying hard to maintain his aura.

The Fire Lion burned even brighter behind him, the heat of the flames distorting the surrounding air, and the wooden floor of the deck crackled slightly.

But Yun Jingheng's "pfft" still echoed in his mind.

"Yun Jingheng, classmate."

Shen Mu's voice returned to calm, but that calmness was like a thin layer of ice beneath which churning magma lay. "Can we get serious now?"

Yun Jingheng took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed his smile.

He wiped the moisture from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand—from laughing—then straightened his back and resumed his serious expression.

"That's enough."

He said, but a hint of a smile lingered in his eyes, like a spark in the embers.

Shen Mu fell silent.

The Fire Lion behind him raised its head and let out a silent roar, its mane bristling and flames shooting into the sky, forming a pillar of fire that almost touched the deck ceiling.

A wave of intense heat swept outwards, causing the audience in the front rows to instinctively take a few steps back.

Yun Jingheng's white shirt fluttered in the hot wind, and his face was flushed red in the firelight, but his smile remained.

He raised his right hand and made a loose fist.

A moon-white sword light condensed in his palm.

This time, he did not hesitate.

The moment the Moonlight Sword appeared, the light of all the flames on the deck dimmed for a moment.

Shen Mu's gaze fell on the Moonlight Sword, his pupils contracting slightly.

"Sword Martial Soul?" he said, his tone carrying a sense of relief at finally seeing the answer.

Yun Jingheng didn't reply, he just kept holding his sword.

Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet.

Four black, one red.

The moment that crimson Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring appeared, low gasps of surprise rippled through the deck once more.

Shen Mu's Fire Lion stirred restlessly, and the shape of its flames became briefly disordered.

This is an instinctive reaction from a life-level perspective, and has nothing to do with willpower.

If it weren't for the need to conceal his true Martial Soul, Yun Jingheng would never have wanted to release his Soul Ring.

Shen Mu's voice wasn't loud, but each word was like a hammer striking an anvil, possessing a simple yet undeniable power.

"I have long admired Yun Jingheng's exceptional swordsmanship; today I have the opportunity to experience it for myself."

Yun Jingheng's hand holding the sword paused slightly.

"I've heard so much about you? Don't you have any other polite phrases in your head?"

"Come on," he said.

Shen Mu didn't stand on ceremony.

The Fire Lion merged with Shen Mu and then charged towards Yun Jingheng in a straight line.

Yun Jingheng realized that this guy didn't care whether he won or not; he just wanted to force out his Soul Skill for the academy so that the strongest person in the academy could defeat him.

This type of opponent is the most troublesome.

It's not because he's strong, but because he has a problem.

They are willing to risk their own humiliation to gain information about their opponents.

But trouble as it may be, Yun Jingheng had no intention of granting his wish.

The more you want to see my Soul Skill, the less I'll let you see them.

So Yun Jingheng didn't bother with any more words, thrust out his sword, and then walked towards Cai Yue'er without looking back.

From Shen Mu's perspective, however, it was quite terrifying.

In his perception, the entire world changed the moment Yun Jingheng thrust out that sword.

That moon-white sword was no longer a sword.

It transformed into a ray of light, not one that swept past his eyes, but a ray of moonlight rising from the depths of his soul—cold, silent, and unstoppable.

The moonlight slashed towards him along a straight line, without any fluctuation of Soul Power, without any trace of energy, and without any physical entity that he could detect.

But it's there.

Like a needle, it pierced through all his defenses: the fiery protective Lie Yan of the Fire Lion, the barrier formed by his Soul Power, and even his muscles and bones.

Before anything on the physical level was touched, the sword had already reached the depths of his consciousness.

Sword intent.

Pure sword intent, untouched by any Soul Power.

This is something even more terrifying than Soul Skill.

Soul Skill can be blocked, dodged, or countered with Soul Power.

However, the sword intent just now could not be intercepted by physical means.

His mental defenses were instantly shattered, and his feet left the deck.

His body was as if being pushed backward by an invisible hand.

He was so fast that he didn't even have time to adjust his posture. The Fire Lion dissipated behind him, Lie Yan extinguished in front of him. He was like a stone that had been hit and sent flying, drawing an arc over the heads of the crowd.

The crowd gasped in surprise, everyone looking up at the trajectory of Shen Mu's flight, their mouths agape as if they could fit an egg in them.

Shen Mu's teacher.

A middle-aged man in his forties, the instructor accompanying the Star Luo Royal Academy, stood at the very edge of the crowd.

His strength was considerable, and his reaction was quick; he rushed out the moment he saw Shen Mu being knocked away.

But he underestimated the lingering power of that force.

The moment Shen Mu threw himself into his arms, his expression changed.

The force did not weaken after flying a distance in the air; on the contrary, it seemed to accumulate some kind of potential energy, which was released in full at the moment of impact.

His feet dug two deep furrows in the deck, and he slid backward seven or eight meters before his back slammed against the cabin wall with a thud.

"Bang--"

Fine cracks appeared on the wall, spreading outwards like a spider web.

Shen Mu's teacher grunted, his arms tightly gripping Shen Mu's body to prevent them from falling.

His arms were trembling slightly, not from pain, but because the lingering essence of the sword intent still remained on Shen Mu's body, flowing into his body like an electric current.

The deck was deathly silent.

"It seems I've won." Yun Jingheng looked at Pan Wen outside the arena.

Pan Wen stood at the very front of the crowd, his Mediterranean Sea reflecting the sunlight slightly.

His mouth was slightly open, the scene of Shen Mu being caught by the teacher and the two of them crashing into the cabin wall was still fresh in his mind.

Upon hearing Yun Jingheng's words, he slowly turned his head to look at the thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy.

There was a full three seconds of silence.

"Yes."

Pan Wen said, not loudly, but everyone heard him, "Yun Jingheng, you win."

This sentence is like a pair of scissors, cutting the string that had been stretched taut for two days on the deck.

There was complete silence on the Star Luo Royal Academy side.

Meng Honglian bit her lip, her eyes filled with a complex light, like an overturned palette.

But Shen Mu, who was sweating profusely, grabbed his arm tightly and warned him in a low voice.

"Don't go... don't go..."