Won't Die

Five words, spoken lightly, as if he were asking whether the neighbor's cat had eaten today.

Zhao Wuji's eyeballs spun wildly. They were the only part of him that could still move.

The next instant.

Yang Xing raised his right hand. Palm facing up, he pressed it against the side of Zhao Wuji's massive metallic head.

"Too tall."

He said.

Then he began to exert force.

His palm slowly pressed downward, carrying an irresistible twisting force.

Zhao Wuji's body began to tilt slowly. His right foot uncontrollably shifted half a step sideways. The three-meter-tall Martial Soul Avatar leaned bit by bit like a tower shoved off its base.

Zhao Wuji struggled.

The muscles all over his body bulged as Soul Power burst from every inch of his skin.

He wrestled against that palm, trying to resist the force tilting his body.

But it was useless.

Until the angle of his falling body passed a certain critical point.

Yang Xing's palm suddenly exerted fierce force.

Not slowly, not gradually.

It was the kind of clean, seamless explosion that unleashed all its pent-up force at once.

Bang!

A dull thud.

The three-meter-tall Diamond Bear was pressed by the head and violently slammed into the ground.

It happened so fast that Zhao Wuji did not even have time to close his eyes.

Then his entire face smashed straight into the dirt.

His face sank more than three inches into the ground, leaving only the back of his head and a thick section of neck exposed.

Dirt flew everywhere, and the ground trembled.

The instant he fell, some inexplicable binding force seemed to dissipate as well.

Zhao Wuji's previously rigid body immediately collapsed, his limbs splayed as he lay prone on the ground.

At that moment.

The three-meter-tall humanoid Diamond Bear lay sprawled in the mud like a heap of sludge, its face buried in the earth.

It did not move at all. A powerful high-level beast Martial Soul Soul Saint above level seventy, renowned for his physical body, had been flattened by a single blow.

Yang Xing withdrew his hand and stepped back.

He looked around.

There was nothing taller than him left in his field of vision.

"Much better." He stretched and patted the dirt from his hands. "The view is finally clear."

On the training ground.

There was deathly silence.

Dai Mubai's face could no longer be described as white. It was a nearly transparent pallor, utterly drained of blood.

His legs had gone weak, his knees were trembling, and if he had not been bracing himself against the statue-like Tang San beside him, he would have collapsed to the ground.

Zhao Wuji.

A level seventy-six Soul Saint.

In Martial Soul Avatar form.

One hand.

Pressed him down, smashed him into the dirt, and he stopped moving?

What kind of joke was this?

Was that dirt indestructible diamond soil?

Even if Ning Rongrong's master was absurdly strong.

He could not have knocked Zhao Wuji unconscious by using the ground, could he?

Tang San's body was frozen in place, but his eyes spun wildly as every theoretical framework in his mind collapsed at that moment.

A level seventy-six Soul Saint in Martial Soul Avatar form had been pressed down by one hand?

What did that mean?

It meant the gap in strength between the two of them was absolutely outrageous.

The Soul Saint level he had previously suspected now seemed impossible?

A Soul Douluo?

Not enough.

Could he possibly be the Title Douluo his teacher had told him about?

No, impossible!

This man was so young...

While Tang San's mind raced madly.

Xiao Wu's grip on Ning Rongrong's arm had tightened to the limit.

Her face was deathly pale, and the fear deep in her pupils was so intense it nearly became tangible.

Zhu Zhuqing stood on Ning Rongrong's other side.

Cracks appeared in her perpetually icy expression for the first time. Her lips parted slightly, and Yang Xing's retreating figure—casually withdrawing his hand, dusting it off, and stretching—was reflected in her catlike eyes.

Beneath her shock, a deeper emotion surged.

This man's strength was indeed formidable.

No wonder he could become the master of someone as nobly born and arrogant as Ning Rongrong, and apparently make her behave so obediently.

For a moment, Zhu Zhuqing felt somewhat moved.

But then, she suddenly seemed to have noticed a blind spot?

Ning Rongrong's mysterious master did not seem to have released a single Soul Ring so far?

What was going on?

Did he not need Soul Rings to use Soul Skills?

Why was his way of using Soul Skills different from theirs, Teacher Zhao's, and Teacher Li's?

Or was it that he simply could not be bothered to use his own Soul Rings and Soul Skills at all right now?

Was he only using those Self-Created Soul Skills Ning Rongrong had mentioned?

Zhu Zhuqing's gaze fell on Yang Xing's right hand, the hand that had just pressed Zhao Wuji's head down. It now casually brushed the dust from its palm, its long fingers clean beneath the moonlight, as if pressing down a Soul Saint had merely been like casually pinching a lump of mud for fun.

A strange thought seemed to gradually take root deep within her heart...

And Ning Rongrong.

Having witnessed everything from beginning to end, Ning Rongrong's expression had completely changed from its initial tension into something else.

Her eyes shone as though two flames burned within them.

The corners of her mouth lifted nearly to her ears.

She released Xiao Wu's arm, rushed before Yang Xing, tilted up her face, and beamed brilliantly.

"Master! You're incredible!"

Yang Xing glanced down at her. "Mm."

"Teacher Zhao is level seventy-six! He even used his Martial Soul Avatar! You pressed him down with one hand!" Ning Rongrong spoke faster and faster, gesturing wildly with both hands before her. "You didn't even release your Soul Rings! One hand! You pressed him down with one hand! So you really weren't bragging to me back then! Could you really be some kind of Title Douluo?"

"Of course."

"Tch, you're bragging! Didn't you say you were only eighteen? How could that be possible? But what you did just now was so cool! Even cooler than when you fought that white-haired old man!"

"All right, all right. Believe it or not, as you please." Yang Xing waved a hand, unconcerned.

Ning Rongrong's excitement continued. But a few seconds later, she suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Zhao Wuji, who lay motionless on the ground.

That massive body had already begun to shrink slowly as the Martial Soul Avatar faded. His metallic skin returned to a normal human color, and his three-meter height shrank back to just over two meters. Yet he was still lying there. His face remained buried in the dirt without moving, and he looked utterly lifeless.

Ning Rongrong's excitement faded somewhat.

Although Zhao Wuji had nearly seriously injured her and Xiao Wu during yesterday's assessment, he was, at heart, only a bad-tempered teacher. He did not deserve to die.

Her lips moved twice as she turned to look at Yang Xing.

"Master." Her tone was more restrained than before. "Teacher Zhao isn't dead, is he?"

Yang Xing glanced back at the gradually human-shaped figure on the ground.

"He won't die." He turned back and smiled openly. "He'll probably just be a little dizzy. A good night's sleep will fix it."