"Boom!!!"
However, just as the bear paw was about to come down, Lan's figure scattered like ink swept away by the wind, then seemed to blend into the rain, gliding several meters backward with effortless lightness.
His movement was graceful and utterly silent.
"Boom!"
The bear paw struck empty air, smashing a huge crater into the hard stone road and sending gravel flying.
What incredible footwork!
Zhao Wuji's pupils abruptly shrank in his enormous bear eyes.
This brat was like a shadow without a physical form!
He discovered that the aura he used to lock onto anything had no effect on his opponent whatsoever.
He couldn't land a hit!
"Fourth Soul Skill, Position Tracking!"
Zhao Wuji let out a low growl. His fourth Soul Ring suddenly lit up, and an invisible ripple instantly enveloped Lan.
Immediately afterward, his second Soul Ring blazed with light as well.
"Second Soul Skill, Vajra Fist!"
A target locked onto by the fourth Soul Skill would be unable to dodge.
Zhao Wuji believed this without a doubt.
His bear paw, as big as a sandbag, clenched into a fist and came hurtling forward once more, accompanied by a terrifying gale that tore through the curtain of rain.
At the same time, a savage grin split Zhao Wuji's bear face.
His voice rang out clearly, even through the torrential rain.
"Brat, let's see you dodge this!"
Faced with Zhao Wuji's smug, vicious grin, Lan's lips curled into a faint smile of his own.
It was slight, touched with amusement, and seemed almost like pity for an ant.
"Dodge?"
"Why would I?"
He asked softly, yet his voice carried clearly through the pounding rain and reached Zhao Wuji's ears.
Before his words had faded, a ring of light suddenly appeared beneath Lan's feet.
Purple.
Another purple ring.
The savage grin on Zhao Wuji's huge bear face stiffened slightly.
But before he could make sense of it, a third Soul Ring rose into view.
Black!
The fourth was black as well!
The fifth was black too!
The sixth was... black as well!
Zhao Wuji's enormous bear eyes widened until they were like copper bells. His charge came to an abrupt halt, and his massive body carved a long trail through the water on the slick stone road.
Four Ten Thousand Year Soul Rings!
How was this possible?!
How could a youth who looked no older than eighteen or nineteen have absorbed four Ten Thousand Year Soul Rings?!
But the true shock had only just begun.
Above the sixth black Soul Ring, a dazzling blood-red light suddenly blazed, like a flower of death blooming in the rainy night.
That red was eerie and profound, carrying a terrifying aura that made even his soul tremble.
Purple, purple, black, black, black, black, red!
Seven Soul Rings encircled Lan in perfect order, making him look like a demon god who had emerged from the Abyss.
"A Hundred... a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring!!!"
Zhao Wuji cried out in disbelief. His usually deep, powerful voice as the Vajra Bear now trembled with terror, breaking into a falsetto.
His mind went completely blank.
It wasn't an illusion!
It was real—an actual Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring, something that existed only in legends!
A Soul Sage with a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring?
This utterly shattered everything he had understood about the world of Soul Masters for more than seventy years!
No wonder, no wonder Lan dared to act so brazenly!
No wonder he hadn't even lifted an eyelid when faced with his Martial Soul Avatar!
Before such a Soul Ring Configuration, his own seventy-six levels of cultivation were nothing but a joke!
Rainwater streamed down Lan's cold, handsome face.
He raised a hand, as if making nothing more than a casual gesture.
"Seventh Soul Skill, Tidal Surge Return to Void."
His calm voice rang out, and the seventh Soul Ring—the blood-red one—flared brilliantly!
This was the second offensive skill among the two abilities granted by his Shadow Abyss Shark True Form.
Lan casually tossed the short blade in his hand, the Shark Blade named "Wave Breaker," forward.
There was no earth-shaking momentum, nor any howl that split the sky.
After leaving his hand, the Shark Blade streaked through the air in a trail of deep-blue light, as if he had merely thrown an ordinary stone.
But the moment it reached Zhao Wuji, something strange happened!
The Shark Blade abruptly stopped in midair, then began spinning rapidly.
The torrential rain was drawn toward it by an invisible force, surging madly toward the spinning blade.
In the blink of an eye, a deep-blue vortex, formed from rapidly spinning water and countless tiny shark-shaped shadows, appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the long street.
"Vmmmm—"
The vortex made no sound of wind. Instead, it produced a grating, teeth-on-edge rasp, as though billions of blades were grinding together inside it.
Before that vortex, Zhao Wuji's immense Vajra Bear True Form seemed so small.
An irresistible, terrifying force of suction surged from the vortex's center, locking onto him.
"No!"
Zhao Wuji roared in terror. He drove his Soul Power to its limit and dug his feet firmly into the ground, trying to resist the pull.
But it was all in vain.
The bluestone slabs beneath his feet were torn up one after another. His body, weighing a thousand jun, was dragged bit by bit toward the vortex of death, with no chance of escape.
"I can't break free!"
"What is this thing? Why can't I move at all?!"
An unprecedented despair filled Zhao Wuji's heart.
At last, his body was dragged into the vortex.
"Shhk! Shhk!"
Countless streams of water, sharp as blades, mixed with the invisible shark shadows and furiously sliced into the Vajra Bear True Form he had always prided himself on.
His iron-hard fur was torn apart with ease, and his tough muscles were stripped away in pieces.
Pain surged through every nerve like a rising tide.
Just as Zhao Wuji thought he was about to be torn to shreds—
Suddenly.
A deep-blue Shark Blade flashed through the vortex.
It was so fast that he didn't even have time to react.
Pfft!
A thick bear arm, trailing a shower of blood, flew high into the air before crashing into a puddle in the distance and splashing up a bloom of red.
Zhao Wuji froze.
He looked down. His right shoulder was empty.
A smooth cut gushed blood like a fountain.
His hand...
His right hand... had been severed!
An unprecedented terror instantly overwhelmed his mind, already reeling from the pain.
The searing agony swallowed Zhao Wuji's every thought.
"Ahhhhhhh—!"
His shrill scream tore through the rainy night. He could no longer maintain his Martial Soul Avatar, and his enormous bear form shrank rapidly, returning to the shape of a heavily muscled man.
Now he lay miserably in the puddles, the sleeve on his right side hanging empty. Blood mixed with rainwater, staining the bluestone slabs beneath him a dark red.
At a thought from Lan, the deep-blue vortex quietly vanished, as if it had never appeared.
"I yield! I yield!"
Zhao Wuji clutched the wound where his arm had been severed. There was none of the dignity of the Immovable Wisdom King left on his face, only deep terror and pleading.
"Spare me! Please spare me, sir!"
Before you continue