Golden Dragon Claw! (Please Keep Reading~)

Tang Wulin followed the sound and looked over. A figure stood at the center of the arena, dressed in a dark gray inner academy training uniform with the collar slightly open, revealing the firm lines of muscle beneath.

That person had already retracted his martial soul, but the sight of him jumping down from the arena remained fresh in everyone's eyes. The bluestone slab beneath his feet had been shaken into several fine cracks.

The senior he had defeated was rubbing his chest as he climbed to his feet from the other side of the arena. He cupped his hands toward the man, then slunk off the stage in embarrassment.

The broad figure turned around to face Tang Wulin's direction. He flashed a hearty, confident grin and waved at him from across more than half the stands. The meaning could not have been clearer.

Tang Wulin met his gaze.

Xu Sanshi!

Cough, cough, cough. Oh no, why did he suddenly think of that guy digging holes inside the Bronze Gate?

And Jiang Nannan... Jiang Nan...

Oh no, this was unbearable to look at!

A smile spread across his face, and his eyes gleamed with eagerness, as if he were saying, "Kid, dare to come up and play a couple rounds?"

Several upperclassmen nearby joined in the heckling. Someone whistled, while another slapped the back of his chair and shouted, "Xu Sanshi, aren't you ashamed of bullying a first-year freshman?"

Tang Wulin smiled, rose to his feet, and brushed nonexistent dust from his robe. Then he stepped over the railing at the edge of the stands, tapped lightly off the ground, and landed steadily on the sun-warmed bluestone slabs at the center of the arena.

His feet made almost no sound as they touched down. He was as nimble as a leopard.

Tang Wulin turned toward the teacher seated at the referee's stand by the arena and gave him a slight nod. His voice was clear and steady. "Teacher, first-year Tang Wulin challenges fifth-year Xu Sanshi."

The stands fell silent for a moment before erupting with whistles and applause.

The smile on Xu Sanshi's face froze for a beat, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

He had thought the other boy would at most reply with something like, "Another day." He had not expected the kid to jump up without another word.

He was caught between a rock and a hard place, but the trace of awkwardness was quickly covered by the smile he put back on his face.

He nodded to the referee as well, crossed his arms before his chest, and rolled his wrists, shoulders, and neck, producing several faint cracks from his joints.

The referee was a middle-aged man standing behind the referee's stand at the edge of the arena. Seeing that both sides were ready, he raised his right hand and chopped it down crisply. "Begin."

The instant his words fell, Xu Sanshi stomped his foot. Three soul rings rose from beneath him simultaneously—yellow, yellow, purple. The three rings of light circled his waist in turn, radiating a deep, solid aura.

A dark cyan phantom of a turtle shell surfaced over his body. The thick outline of a shell rose from his shoulders and back, while his pupils darkened slightly. The aura around him seemed to be suddenly compressed as his whole body sank lower, his feet rooting firmly into the arena.

Second soul skill, Xuanming Shield Formation.

Three translucent turtle-shell shields split out at his sides, floating in a triangular formation before him—one ahead, one to the left, and one to the right. Rings of rippling patterns flowed across their surfaces. Thick and sturdy, they resembled three small mobile city walls.

Tang Wulin did not rush to attack.

He stood on the other side of the arena, flexed his fingers slightly, then slowly raised both hands.

The skin of his left and right hands simultaneously took on a dark golden sheen. Starting from his fingertips, it spread like molten gold over his entire arms. Beneath his skin, fine, even scale patterns faintly emerged, every scale glinting with a metallic chill.

Golden Dragon Claw!

His nails lengthened and thickened slightly, curving into claw-like shapes. A sharp dark golden gleam shone from his fingertips, flickering beneath the sunlight.

Xu Sanshi's expression finally changed.

He could clearly feel a heavy pressure rolling toward him from the young man opposite him. It carried an extremely ancient power, as though it were pressing down directly from the depths of his bloodline. It bypassed his defensive soul skill, bypassed his Soul Power protection, and landed precisely upon the depths of his soul, making his back tense involuntarily.

Then, three rings of light slowly rose beneath Tang Wulin's feet—three pure golden Blood Essence Soul Rings. There were no differentiated colors, no age markings. The three golden rings encircled his ankles, and every rotation carried a dull heartbeat like the pounding of war drums, making even the dust on the arena surface lightly bounce.

The stands fell silent.

No one had ever seen golden soul rings like these. The upperclassmen who had been cracking melon seeds and chatting all stopped what they were doing, their eyes fixed on the young man in the center of the arena, surrounded by golden Blood Essence radiance. Their gazes held curiosity and scrutiny.

Even the referee could not help looking twice, but he did not call a halt.

The match continued.

Xu Sanshi moved first.

He strode forward, each step landing with tremendous force and making the bluestone slabs tremble slightly beneath his feet. The three Dark Nether Shields of his second soul skill pushed forward at the same time, sealing off Tang Wulin's frontal and lateral attack angles. The rippling patterns on the shields flashed brightly for an instant as their defensive power soared.

Tang Wulin neither dodged nor retreated.

He exerted slight force beneath his feet, and the footwork of Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track unfolded in an instant. An afterimage remained where he stood, while his true body had already appeared two meters to Xu Sanshi's left. His right Golden Dragon Claw swept out in a dark golden arc and struck directly at the edge of a Dark Nether Shield.

"Clang—"

A piercing metallic tearing sound exploded across the arena.

Tang Wulin's five claw blades sank deeply into the surface of the Dark Nether Shield. A shower of tiny sparks burst from where the claw tips met the shield.

The shield shuddered violently. The rippling patterns over its surface spread outward in layer after layer, like water struck by a stone. Cracks extended from the claw marks in every direction, rapidly spreading like a spiderweb.

Xu Sanshi's pupils contracted. He let out a low shout as his first soul skill, Xuanming Shock, erupted at the same time!

A dull shockwave spread outward from him, kicking up a layer of dust from the arena surface. That force, carrying a blend of water and earth elemental power, crashed toward Tang Wulin's face.

Tang Wulin did not take it head-on. With a twist of his wrist, he pulled the Golden Dragon Claw from the shield and borrowed the recoil to drift two light steps backward, landing at the edge of the shockwave.

As the tremor swept past beneath his feet, he lowered his waist and abdomen, sank his center of gravity, and remained utterly unmoving, like an old tree lashed by the wind yet firmly rooted in the earth.

Seeing that his strike had missed, Xu Sanshi switched to his third soul skill without hesitation: Power of Xuanming.

Dark cyan light surged from his body. In that instant, his physique visibly expanded by half a size. His muscles swelled and bulged, thick turtle-shell patterns surfaced across his skin, and his entire aura rose sharply.