"The Hell White Tiger... it certainly looks the part."
Jiang Yu withdrew the Light Dragon Blade from Cui Yajie's neck, then said calmly:
"Leave the arena yourself."
Cui Yajie swallowed with difficulty. Her gaze swept over Jiang Yu's face, which remained utterly unruffled even before a Martial Soul Fusion Skill. After a moment's hesitation, she lowered her voice:
"You... be careful. Their Martial Soul Fusion Skill combines the Hell Spirit Cat's swift, unpredictable attacks with the White Tiger's overwhelming might. Even some powerful Soul Ancestors are no match for them."
With that, Cui Yajie hesitated no longer and turned to leave.
Jiang Yu glanced at her retreating figure in mild surprise. The next instant, a terrifying blast of air roared toward him from behind.
Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu had vanished after completing their fusion. In their place stood an enormous white tiger over three meters tall and eight meters long.
The white tiger's entire body was translucent, with white fur, black stripes, violet eyes, and black pupils. It stared coldly at Jiang Yu.
"Roar!"
Another deafening tiger roar rang out. The Hell White Tiger drove its powerful limbs against the ground, launching its enormous body like a cannonball. Its terrifying momentum warped the surrounding air in rippling layers.
Jiang Yu turned slightly sideways. The Light Dragon Dagger scraped against the white tiger's claws with a teeth-grating screech.
The tremendous force drove him two steps backward, and the Light Dragon Dagger in his hand let out a dragon's cry so faint it was almost inaudible.
Boom!
The Hell White Tiger's iron-whip tail slammed down, smashing a web of cracks into the hard stone ground.
Dust billowed everywhere, and a trace of killing intent flashed through the Hell White Tiger's enormous violet eyes.
The Hell White Tiger was a powerful Martial Soul Fusion Skill born entirely for combat. Every part of its body could serve as a deadly weapon.
That heavy tail strike had been intended to catch Jiang Yu off guard. Dai Huabin, who controlled the Hell White Tiger, believed that no matter how quick Jiang Yu's reflexes were, he could never react in so little time.
After taking that blow, surely he was gravely injured, if not dead?
But the instant that thought arose in Dai Huabin's mind, an invisible blade of light suddenly slashed upward. For a moment, the enormous Hell White Tiger felt as though it had nearly been cleaved in half at the waist.
Alarm surged through Dai Huabin. He hurriedly mobilized the Hell White Tiger's supremely condensed soul power, suppressing that sensation of coming apart.
Meanwhile, up in the stands, Qian Duoduo abruptly rose to his feet as he watched Jiang Yu, whose figure seemed to have turned illusory.
"Spatial power? Wait, don't tell me this kid has Twin Martial Souls, too?"
Yan Shaozhe leisurely took a sip of tea, then said:
"Old Qian, calm down, calm down. They're only Twin Martial Souls. Is this really necessary?"
"But he can use both Martial Souls at once!"
"Calm down. As long as the Martial Souls are compatible and the Soul Master's spiritual power is strong enough, using Twin Martial Souls simultaneously after cultivating a secret method is nothing unusual."
"But he can also use both Martial Souls' Soul Skills at once, and even fuse them together!"
Yan Shaozhe paused at that. "Calm down. Perhaps he cultivated some secret method passed down by the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. After all, it's not as though our academy has never seen anything like this..."
"But..."
"Old Qian, you're a Titled Douluo, for goodness' sake. Could you stop making such a fuss over every little thing?"
"Old Yan! I'm not making a fuss, but why are his Twin Martial Souls fusing? Wait, that light is so dazzling..."
Yan Shaozhe kept his eyes half closed. "I already told you, stay calm when something happens! It's only Twin Martial Soul Fusion. Our academy..."
"Wait! What did you say? Twin Martial Soul Fusion?!"
Yan Shaozhe belatedly realized something was wrong.
His eyes flew open. The teacup in his hand wobbled, spilling a few drops of scalding tea onto his hand, but he seemed not to notice. His gaze locked onto Jiang Yu in the Examination Area, whose entire body was wreathed in intertwined gold and silver light.
And indeed, Qian Duoduo had not been mistaken.
After his visit to the Sea God Pavilion, Jiang Yu had devoted himself to two months of painstaking cultivation. At last, he could stir the Space-Time Dragon Bloodline within him on his own.
With the surging power of his bloodline and the understanding of space he had gained through months of contemplating the Heart of Space, Jiang Yu could now unite his Twin Martial Souls and briefly wield the Space-Time Dragon's power.
However, this brief fusion, akin to a self-performed Martial Soul Fusion Skill, was ultimately unstable. Jiang Yu was unsure how far he could push this power.
So he needed to experiment and accumulate experience.
And the Hell White Tiger was undoubtedly the best target for his experiments.
As the gold and silver light around him gradually settled, smooth silver dragon scales bearing faint golden patterns appeared across Jiang Yu's skin.
Jiang Yu's figure had completely emerged from its illusory state. In its place was an elusive, transcendent quality, as though he had broken free of space's shackles.
Profound shock and apprehension flashed through the Hell White Tiger's eyes. But the enormous soul power expenditure required to maintain the Martial Soul Fusion Skill left Dai Huabin no time to compose himself. The Hell White Tiger paused for only an instant before pouncing at Jiang Yu again.
Yet in the next instant, Jiang Yu stepped forward and vanished from where he stood.
The Space-Time Dragon's innate ability, Spatial Traversal!
As a being favored by space and time, even though Jiang Yu could only begin to wield the Space-Time Dragon's power, the instant he struck, the space around the airborne Hell White Tiger froze completely.
The enormous Hell White Tiger hung in midair like a statue. With a mere thought from Jiang Yu, dozens of intertwined gold and silver slashes tore through its entire body from head to tail in a single fleeting instant.
The Hell White Tiger's body gradually turned illusory, a sign that its Martial Soul Fusion Skill was about to collapse. Perhaps realizing this, it raised its head and roared. Terrifying waves of soul power surged from within it, and its ravaged body forcibly broke free of the frozen space-time. Then it gathered every last scrap of soul power and charged at Jiang Yu with the madness of a fish dying as it tore the net apart.
Jiang Yu sneered. Then his entire being entered an extraordinarily profound state.
A crystalline glimmer suddenly appeared within the Hell White Tiger's enormous violet eyes.
An overwhelming sense of danger rose in Dai Huabin's and Zhu Lu's hearts at the same time.
But before they could react, that crystalline glimmer pierced straight through the enormous Hell White Tiger's entire body, starting at its head!
Time-Space Pierce!
Space-time power erupted, instantly shattering the Hell White Tiger completely. Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu both suffered the backlash, screaming and coughing up great mouthfuls of blood before plummeting toward the ground.
A cold gleam flashed in Jiang Yu's eyes. Once again, he mobilized spatial power and rushed toward the two of them.
He knew that with Yan Shaozhe and the others present, he could never kill Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu outright. But he was confident he could leave them with wounds they would remember for the rest of their lives.
Sure enough, when Yan Shaozhe realized Jiang Yu truly intended to kill them, his stunned expression shifted slightly. He then gave Du Weilun beside him a meaningful look.
Du Weilun understood instantly. With a flicker of movement, he appeared beside Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu, surrounded by vast white soul power.
"The match is already over. Student Jiang, you..."
Before he could finish, Jiang Yu's figure instantly turned illusory, then passed straight through Du Weilun's soul power blockade.
Du Weilun's pupils contracted sharply, and his fifth Spirit Ring, a black one, lit up almost instantly.
But it was already too late. With the Light and Shadow Twin Daggers in hand, Jiang Yu surged forward. In the instant before the immense soul power suppressed him, two cold flashes-one golden, one invisible-had already swept past.
Zhu Lu let out a heart-rending scream. Three fingers on her right hand were gone, and blood poured from the wounds.
Using what little strength he had left, Dai Huabin barely managed to attempt an evasive movement in midair, but Jiang Yu was simply too fast.
The Shadow Dragon Blade slashed down, leaving an enormous wound stretching from the right side of Dai Huabin's forehead to the left side of his chest. Unequaled fury, the crushing exhaustion of having his soul power completely drained, and the agony of a grievous wound assaulted him all at once. His eyes rolled back, and he passed out on the spot, finally coming to a stop on the stone ground over a dozen meters away by "braking with his face."
Held down by the suppressing force, Jiang Yu glanced at Dai Huabin's mangled, bloodied face, and a cold sneer curled his lips.
Dai Huabin, oh, Dai Huabin. You'd better pray you can quickly find someone powerful enough to purge both the space-time power and the poison from you.
Otherwise, you'll probably be Scarface for the rest of your life...
Before you continue