A Duel in Name, Dog-Teasing in Reality!

The referee's arm slashed down decisively.

"Duel begins!"

Xu Sanshi threw back his head and unleashed a deafening roar. The school uniform over his upper body instantly tore apart and flew off under the strain of his bulging muscles.

Dense black light surged wildly from the pores of his skin. Drawn by its tyrannical pull, the water elements in the surrounding air swiftly condensed into visible black mist.

A broad, heavy black shield covered in ancient tortoise-shell patterns slammed down onto the Diamond Rock platform before him, sending stone fragments flying everywhere.

Three soul rings—yellow, yellow, purple—rose along his body, pulsing around the Dark Tortoise Shield, reputed to possess the strongest defense in the outer academy.

The oppressive aura of water elements swept across the entire dueling platform.

Yun Yi stood where he was without moving a single step.

He raised his left hand before his chest as crimson-gold streams of light crazily compressed and gathered in his palm.

The temperature of the surrounding space soared in an utterly unreasonable manner, and the air warped severely under the heat.

A longbow of ancient design, its body engraved with intricate divine patterns, appeared with imposing force.

He did not release his soul rings.

Against a shameless pest like Xu Sanshi, if he revealed his soul rings outright, the other man might immediately surrender and flee the Soul Duel Arena in a panic.

To completely extinguish this turtle's delusions of continuing to pester Jiang Nannan, Yun Yi chose to conceal all his aura and teach him a lesson through the purest form of force.

Feeling the terrifying heat rushing toward him, Xu Sanshi's heart trembled slightly.

But when he saw that Yun Yi held a bow, his taut nerves instantly relaxed, and a malicious, arrogant grin spread across his lips.

A bow-type martial soul? A fragile ranged fighter who needed distance to display his power?

Xu Sanshi laughed madly in his heart.

The Dark Tortoise Shield was the greatest counter to single-target ranged attacks. Its heavy defense was every archer's nightmare.

As long as he charged through the arrows and closed in, one Dark Tortoise Shock would knock Yun Yi unconscious, leaving this arrogant freshman at his mercy.

In front of Jiang Nannan, he would trample this pretty boy's dignity into dust and vent his anger properly.

"Die!"

The muscles in Xu Sanshi's legs swelled as he stomped down with all his strength.

The hard Diamond Rock cracked into radiating fissures beneath his feet.

With his massive body hidden behind the broad shield, he transformed into a fully armed heavy chariot and charged wildly toward Yun Yi with a low howl of tearing air.

Twenty meters.

Ten meters.

Yun Yi held the bow in one hand, his right arm hanging naturally at his side. He seemed utterly frightened by the savage charge, not even assuming the most basic defensive posture of drawing his bow and nocking an arrow.

Xu Sanshi peeked around the edge of his shield, sneering even more deeply.

A ranged soul master being rushed by a close-range fighter, yet he did not even know to create distance or suppress him with firepower.

This freshman really was a worthless fool with no combat experience. His earlier boasting had merely been an act.

Five meters.

For a Soul Elder, that distance could be crossed in a single step.

Xu Sanshi's first soul ring blazed brightly. The violent Soul Power of Dark Tortoise Shock had already gathered across the shield's surface, ready to erupt.

Just as he was about to take that final step, Yun Yi moved.

His motion was faster than the limit of the eye's ability to follow.

His right hand precisely hooked the bowstring formed from pure light and drew it back into a full moon.

A crimson-gold arrow wreathed in Sun True Fire materialized out of thin air.

Xu Sanshi watched with utter disdain.

Drawing the bow at only five meters? Too late!

My shield has already sealed off every possible line of attack. What can you use to stop me?!

"Tw—ang!"

The shrill scream of the bowstring tore through the arena.

The crimson-gold light arrow became a dazzling afterimage and struck the exact center of the Dark Tortoise Shield without the slightest deviation.

The cruel smile on Xu Sanshi's face instantly froze.

What came through the shield was not the sharp pain of a piercing weapon, but an endless, mountain-crushing wave of terrifying kinetic force!

"Boom!"

Violent flames exploded across the black shield's surface. The extreme heat traveled directly through the shield and invaded the meridians in Xu Sanshi's arms.

He felt the bones in both arms groan under unbearable strain, while the stable foundation he had been so proud of was utterly destroyed.

His powerful body left the ground completely out of control and flew backward.

In midair, he desperately forced down his center of gravity, planting his feet hard against the platform. His heavy boots plowed two scorched trenches through the Diamond Rock floor as sparks flew in every direction.

Only after retreating all the way to the platform's edge did Xu Sanshi barely manage to stop.

He gasped for breath. The hands gripping his shield convulsed violently, and his entire right arm was so numb and sore that it had nearly lost all sensation.

The audience below fell deathly silent.

No one could believe that Xu Sanshi, the outer academy's strongest defender, had been blasted back dozens of meters by a single arrow.

Xu Sanshi gritted his teeth until his eyes turned bloodshot, while a sweet, metallic taste rose in his throat.

He refused to believe it!

He must have been careless just now. His opponent had definitely used some trump-card charged soul skill!

"Again!"

He roared as his second soul ring flashed fiercely. The Dark Tortoise Shield Formation activated, multiplying the defensive power around him.

Black waves rolled across the shield's surface.

He shifted his steps and charged again in an agile, ever-changing S-shaped path, trying to evade his opponent's line of sight.

Eight meters.

Six meters.

Five meters!

The instant he crossed into the five-meter boundary, the death-bringing twang of a bowstring rang out right on cue.

Golden light flashed, and airwaves churned.

Xu Sanshi experienced that despairing monstrous force once more.

The moment his feet left the ground, his entire body flew backward even faster than he had charged, crashing into the exact same spot at the platform's edge.

For a full two and a half minutes.

Across the vast dueling platform, an utterly absurd one-sided mockery played out.

Xu Sanshi flanked from the left and was blasted away by an arrow at five meters.

Xu Sanshi roared and activated his shield-bash skill, charging headlong through the black curtain of water, only to be blasted away by an arrow at five meters again.

No matter how many angles of attack he changed, no matter how he roared and drained his Soul Power, that invisible five-meter line became a deadly boundary he could never cross.

Yun Yi stood in the center of the platform from beginning to end, without shifting his feet even half an inch.

He held the bow in his left hand while his right hand monotonously repeated the motion of drawing and releasing the string.

Every time he blasted Xu Sanshi away, Yun Yi deliberately paused and patiently waited for him to regain his footing and gather himself.

Then, just as Xu Sanshi charged hopefully to within five meters, he ruthlessly shattered that hope with another arrow.

The distance of every knockback was controlled with exquisite precision. It sent Xu Sanshi right to the platform's edge, but never knocked him off, ensuring that the torment could continue.

This was completely like teasing a dog!

With Yun Yi as the center, more than a dozen scorched marks of varying depths radiated across the platform floor. They were all the miserable trails Xu Sanshi had left behind when he was blasted back.

Xu Sanshi was drenched in sweat from head to toe. His tattered clothes were soaked through, then instantly dried by the heat, leaving a layer of white salt stains.

Both his arms had swollen badly, and blood had begun to seep from his muscle fibers under the repeated high-intensity impacts.

Every time he raised his shield, it brought piercing, bone-deep agony.

The arrogance and conceit had long vanished from his bloodshot eyes, replaced by deep fear and humiliation.

This was an all-encompassing mental torment without a single blind spot.

The thousands of spectators throughout the Soul Duel Arena were completely dumbfounded.

The upperclassmen in the stands stared at one another and swallowed hard.

The Dark Tortoise Shield, said to possess invincible defense among those of the same rank, had become a complete joke before a freshman who could not even be bothered to release his soul rings.

This was not a spar between equals. It was plainly a higher being crushing a lower one from an entirely different level.

Wang Dong sat in the front row, waving her fists excitedly.

The frustration from that morning in the dormitory vanished completely. Watching someone else suffer at the hands of this fiend gave her an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.

Xiao Xiao tightly covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide and round as she stared fixedly at the radiant boy on the stage. Her heartbeat thundered like drums.

Jiang Nannan calmly watched Xu Sanshi gasp for breath on the platform, battered and miserable.

There was no sympathy in her gaze.

From now on, this relentlessly clinging turtle would finally have to face reality.

Yun Yi lowered his right arm, and the crimson-gold glow of the Sun-Shooting Divine Bow dimmed slightly.

Looking at Xu Sanshi in the distance, kneeling on one knee and only remaining upright by supporting himself with his shield, a cold curve lifted at Yun Yi's lips.

"Can you still run?" Yun Yi's voice was not loud, yet it rang clearly through the entire arena. "If you can, keep going."