Ji Ye's Four Heaven-Defying Soul Skills

He raised his right arm, palm splayed, and reached his five fingers into the void.

A ripple spread through the air.

Ji Ye slowly pulled his right hand back.

A sword was drawn out from the void.

The blade was translucent, radiating the light of the void from within.

The space along the edges of the blade twisted slightly.

"Void."

Beneath Ji Ye's feet, four soul rings rose.

Purple, purple, black, black.

The four soul rings rotated slowly, the purple and black lights intertwining.

The plaza fell silent in an instant.

The maids, who had been chattering away just a moment ago, all shut their mouths.

A guard dropped his sword, the clatter against the stone floor ringing out, yet no one went to pick it up.

"Wait, wait, wait... am I seeing things?"

"Purple, purple, black, black? Four rings? The third soul ring is ten-thousand-year-level?"

"How is this possible? Isn't a ten-thousand-year soul ring only absorbable at the Soul King level? And his first two rings are actually both thousand-year-level!"

"How old is he? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Whose child is this among the elder council? Isn't this talent a bit too monstrous?"

"Even those in the Golden Generation weren't this outrageous..."

The guards chattered among themselves, their tone shifting from shock to envy, and from envy to begrudging respect.

A maid suddenly spoke up, her voice not loud, but clearly audible in the quiet crowd.

"Have you noticed his looks..."

Another maid beside her chimed in.

"His hands, his fingers are so long... I wonder if it would hurt if he curled them..."

"Pah, you little hussy, you won't even spare someone this young."

"But his face is so handsome too!"

The smile at the corner of Demon Subduing Douluo's mouth stiffened.

The maids who had been calling him handsome just moments ago were now all staring at Ji Ye.

Their eyes were brighter than the last.

Each one more brazen than the last.

Demon Subduing Douluo curled his lip and muttered under his breath.

"Tch, what's the use of being handsome."

He gripped his Coiling Dragon Staff and tilted his chin at Ji Ye.

"Little guy, let's begin."

Demon Subduing Douluo moved.

He didn't use his full strength, nor did he use any soul skills.

The Coiling Dragon Staff simply thrust forward with seven parts of his strength, his speed suppressed to the Soul King level.

Taking this strike head-on would be too much for even a four-ring Soul Ancestor to bear.

Ji Ye didn't take it.

With a tap of his foot, he retreated half a zhang.

The tip of the Coiling Dragon Staff swept past his chest, missing by two fingers' breadth.

"You dodge quickly." Demon Subduing Douluo grinned, sweeping the staff horizontally.

The strike covered a range of three zhang, the whistling wind making one's scalp tingle.

Ji Ye didn't dodge this time.

His first soul ring lit up.

"First soul skill."

"Void: Traceless."

A ghostly light flashed across the translucent blade.

Ji Ye raised his sword to meet the Coiling Dragon Staff.

The guards watching from the sidelines gasped in unison.

A four-ring Soul Ancestor using a sword to meet a Titled Douluo's Coiling Dragon Staff head-on?

Isn't that just asking for death?

The sword and staff collided.

There was no sound of metal clashing.

The Void Sword passed through the body of the Coiling Dragon Staff as if it were passing through air, meeting no resistance whatsoever.

The tip of the sword continued forward, heading straight for the Demon Subduing Douluo's shoulder.

The Demon Subduing Douluo's eyes widened sharply.

In the nearly two hundred years he had lived, this was the first time he had ever seen such a thing.

The Coiling Dragon Staff couldn't block the opponent's sword?

What the hell kind of sorcery was this?

In the nick of time, the Demon Subduing Douluo threw his body backward, and the translucent blade grazed past his shoulder.

His clothes tore, and a thin line of blood seeped out on his shoulder.

The space around the wound twisted slightly, as if something invisible were tearing at it.

The Demon Subduing Douluo retreated three steps and looked down at the wound on his shoulder.

The bleeding wouldn't stop.

Moreover, the healing speed was ten times slower than a normal wound.

There was a strange tearing sensation at the injury, as if something were preventing the flesh from knitting back together.

"Your sword... can it ignore defense?"

Ji Ye held the sword horizontally in front of him.

"Something like that."

The Demon Subduing Douluo took a deep breath, his expression shifting from casual to serious.

"Good lad, then I won't hold back either."

With that, the Demon Subduing Douluo increased his speed.

He surged from the level of a Soul King to that of a Soul Emperor.

The Coiling Dragon Staff moved like a living dragon, leaving trails of afterimages in the air, each strike carrying enough force to shatter a boulder.

Ji Ye did not clash with him head-on.

His second soul ring lit up.

"Second Soul Skill."

"Void: Inch-Distance."

Ji Ye's figure suddenly vanished.

The next instant, he appeared three feet behind the Demon Subduing Douluo.

The Void Sword thrust silently toward the Demon Subduing Douluo's lower back.

The Demon Subduing Douluo felt a chill down his spine; it was the instinctive reaction of a Titled Douluo.

He didn't have time to turn around, so he swept the Coiling Dragon Staff behind him while lunging forward.

The tip of the sword carved a gash into his lower back—not deep, but painful enough.

The Demon Subduing Douluo turned around to see Ji Ye had already retreated two zhang away, his sword stained with his blood.

"Teleportation?" The Demon Subduing Douluo frowned.

"It's not teleportation. There was no soul power fluctuation when you moved. How did you do that?"

"Space folding," Ji Ye said.

"...What?"

"I folded the space between us, allowing me to cross it in a single step."

The Demon Subduing Douluo opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He decided not to ask; asking any further would just make him look uneducated.

The Coiling Dragon Staff smashed down again, this time with his speed elevated to the level of a Soul Saint.

Shadows of the staff filled the sky.

Ji Ye's "Inch-Distance" activated repeatedly, his figure flickering across the plaza.

One moment he was in the east, the next in the west, and the moment after that, he was already above the Demon Subduing Douluo's head.

The Demon Subduing Douluo's staff missed by just a hair every single time.

It clearly looked like it was about to land, but each swing hit nothing but air.

There were a few times the staff touched Ji Ye's clothes, but in that instant, his figure would vanish again, leaving only a faint afterimage to be shredded by the wind of the staff.

Demon Subduing Douluo grew increasingly irritable as the fight dragged on.

As a Titled Douluo, he had been fighting a four-ringed Soul Ancestor for so long without even grazing the hem of his robe?

It would be mortifying if word got out.

"Can't you just stand still and fight, kid?"

"Senior, who stands still to get beaten up in a fight?"

Demon Subduing Douluo laughed in anger.

Fine, if you won't stand still, I won't let you run.

He pushed his speed to the level of a Soul Douluo.

The soul power on his Coiling Dragon Staff surged, each swing accompanied by a low roar that sent several stone slabs on the plaza flying from the force of the wind.

Ji Ye's pressure increased abruptly.

Although Inch-Distance allowed for teleportation, it required a very brief interval to activate.

Demon Subduing Douluo's attack frequency was too high; the moment he flashed to a new position, the staff was already following him.

His third ten-thousand-year soul ring lit up.

"Third Soul Skill."

"Void: Absolute Domain."

Centered on Ji Ye, a spherical space ten meters in diameter twisted violently.

The moment Demon Subduing Douluo was pulled into the domain, he sensed something amiss.

Every strike he swung with his Coiling Dragon Staff had its trajectory deflected.

He was clearly aiming for Ji Ye's head, yet the staff slid right past his shoulder.

It wasn't that he had missed; the space within the domain had distorted the trajectory of his attacks.