The extreme fury completely shattered Zhou Yi's reason.
By now, she had cast aside every last concern. The rules governing teacher-student conduct, the punishment she might face afterward, the public backlash—all of it had been thrown to the back of her mind.
As the Shrek Outer Court's famously strict, iron-blooded devil teacher, she had taught for years, and never once had a fourth-year student dared to defy her in public and challenge her authority.
Su Ming, standing before her, was the first—and the most brazen.
A cold glint flared in her eyes. Her aged face was etched with savage fury, and she no longer cared to consider what sort of uproar might follow if she taught Su Ming a lesson.
At that moment, she had only one thought: to teach this arrogant, disrespectful boy a brutal lesson and make him understand that the dignity of Shrek's teachers must never be profaned!
Vmm—!
A pale silver halo of Soul Power burst from Zhou Yi, and layer upon layer of shadowy masks floated around her, ethereal and eerie.
Her Martial Soul, Eight-Sided Exquisite, instantly flared to life. Eight emotional masks—embodying joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, surprise, and doubt—slowly revolved as wisps of spiritual Soul Power, laden with immense suppressive force, spread in every direction.
Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black—six Soul Rings pulsed in sequence. The vast Soul Power of a Six-Ring Battle Soul Emperor erupted, and the pressure of a high-ranked Soul Master instantly blanketed the entire training ground.
Su Ming's expression turned solemn as he stood tall and straight, like a pine tree. Golden light blazed around him, and his heavy, biting metallic Soul Power surged in waves as the four Soul Rings of a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor shone brilliantly.
He didn't yield an inch. Instead, he proactively drove his Soul Power forward to meet her attack. Their utterly different powers collided with a thunderous crash, making the air shudder violently with a muffled boom.
Violent ripples of Soul Power surged outward from the center of their clash, instantly piercing through the training ground's barrier and shooting straight into the sky.
The upheaval in Soul Power was so conspicuous that it could be clearly felt from the Outer Court teaching buildings, hundreds of meters away.
Every teacher and student in class, resting in the corridors, or training on the grounds was drawn to the powerful aftershock of the battle.
Countless eyes turned toward the training ground. The bustling campus fell silent for an instant, then erupted in waves of commotion.
"It's coming from the training ground! Someone's fighting with everything they've got!"
"That Soul Power is way too strong. This has to be a Soul Emperor-level battle!"
"Let's go see! Anyone who can fight at full strength in the Outer Court definitely isn't ordinary!"
Students abandoned what they were doing and raced toward the training ground, one after another, the crowd gathering like a rising tide.
Several Outer Court teachers on patrol also changed expression and hurried to the scene, astonished. Such an intense private fight was rare in the Outer Court.
When the crowd pushed its way through and saw the two figures facing off at the center of the battlefield, the entire place fell deathly silent—then erupted in an uproar that shook the heavens!
On one side stood Zhou Yi, the devil teacher known and feared by everyone in the Shrek Outer Court. She had overseen its teaching for years and was so strict that even many senior students feared her like a tiger. She was a bona fide Six-Ring Battle Soul Emperor.
On the other side stood none other than Su Ming, merely a fourth-year student and famed as the foremost of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Outer Court!
"Is this for real? Senior Su Ming is actually fighting Teacher Zhou Yi?!"
"My god! That's the devil Zhou Yi! She's whipped countless geniuses from previous classes into line. And Senior Su Ming actually dares to take her head-on?"
"A Four-Ring Soul Ancestor from the fourth year against a Six-Ring Battle Soul Emperor? They're not even in the same league!"
The students stared in shock, their pupils contracting as cries of astonishment rose one after another. This scene, which defied everything they thought they knew, had left everyone utterly stunned.
The Shrek teachers who had rushed over were even more shaken. Their faces were grim, disbelief and alarm surging in their eyes.
They understood Zhou Yi's strength better than the students did! As a veteran teacher, she had tremendous combat experience, and her Six-Ring Soul Emperor Soul Power was solid and profound. An ordinary Five-Ring Soul King would struggle to last even a few dozen moves against her.
Yet here stood a mere fourth-year student with only the cultivation of a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor, standing his ground on the battlefield and meeting Zhou Yi's full-powered assault head-on without falling behind! His talent and combat strength had already surpassed all reason!
On the battlefield, the fight had long since reached its boiling point.
The clash of fists, feet, and Soul Power rang out without end, deafeningly loud. Every exchange sent fragments of Soul Power bursting through the air.
Su Ming calmly weathered Zhou Yi's storm of attacks, privately making a comparison. Although Zhou Yi, a renowned Outer Court teacher, exerted tremendous pressure—
Her attacks were tricky and swift, their feints impossible to read, and her Illusion Mirror Confusion and other illusions came in an endless stream. But compared with Ma Xiaotao, the Inner Court genius he had fought before, she still fell short.
Ma Xiaotao's ultimate Evil Fire carried an overbearing, frenzied force that could destroy everything. The pressure she brought, teetering on the edge of its limits, far surpassed Zhou Yi's current strength.
As for Zhou Yi, fighting at full strength, her shock had already piled up to an unbearable degree. The longer the fight went on, the more astonished she became—and the more unbelievable it all seemed.
She had already drawn on most of her Soul Power and unleashed Skill after Skill in succession. Illusion Mirror Confusion, Flash Shadow Raid, and Emotional Impact layered atop one another, her airtight, razor-sharp assault leaving no opening. She was giving it everything she had.
Yet no matter how fiercely she attacked or how often she changed her moves, she still couldn't truly suppress the boy before her, let alone defeat him.
What made her scalp go numb most of all was Su Ming's physical strength!
Every time the boy raised his hand and threw a punch, it carried tremendous force, the heavy rush of his fist whistling through the air. Whenever they collided head-on, even her formidable Soul Power shuddered, leaving her arms numb.
If she were even slightly too slow to dodge and took one of those heavy punches cleanly, she would definitely suffer serious injuries.
Even stranger was how little effect her attacks had on Su Ming.
Countless sharp slashes of Soul Power and spiritual impacts crashed into his body, yet they only sparked tiny golden flecks. They couldn't even break through his physical defenses, let alone inflict any real damage.
Zhou Yi was rocked by a tempest of disbelief. She had never imagined that a fourth-year student's physical defenses could be so strong as to defy all understanding!
What she didn't know was that an invisible suppression had been covering the entire battlefield from the start.
From the moment the fight began, Su Ming had quietly activated the Domain of Metal exclusive to his Snow Mastiff Armor. Metal streetlights and metal fences stood all around the training ground.
Beneath the ground, steel rebar and metal structures were everywhere. The metal elements scattered all around had become the source of Su Ming's power.
The instant the Domain of Metal spread, all the surrounding metal resonated with Su Ming. A steady stream of pure metal-element power flooded his body, amplifying his strength, defense, and explosive power in every way.
At the same time, the domain's unique suppressive effect quietly took hold, an invisible metallic aura enveloping the area.
It subtly suppressed the circulation of Soul Power in every opponent within its range. Zhou Yi was naturally affected as well; her use of Soul Power grew sluggish and weak, and her combat strength was diminished without her noticing.
As one side weakened and the other grew stronger, Su Ming became more and more composed, handling her attacks with ease. Their fight looked fierce, but he had always held some strength in reserve.
In an instant, Zhou Yi finished unleashing a dense barrage of Soul Skills. Her body faltered slightly as she entered a brief gap between skills—the very weakest moment, when her old strength had just run dry and her new strength had yet to gather!
Now!
Su Ming's eyes narrowed as he seized the fleeting opening without hesitation.
He flipped his right hand, and a massive, imposing Soul Tool appeared in his palm. It was snow-white, with thick, angular lines, like a small steel fortress. It was his personal Soul Tool—the Gatling!