"Zhou Yi!"
A cry of anguish rang out, jarringly at odds with the joyous atmosphere.
The entire Soul Fighting Zone fell silent again.
Everyone recognized that man.
El turned to look at the silver-gray-haired man who had rushed onto the platform, clutched the charred figure tightly in his arms, and begun using soul power to heal her.
"Teacher Fan Yu."
Yan Shaozhe discreetly shielded El behind him and addressed Fan Yu in a grave, earnest tone.
"Since you're here, you can take Teacher Zhou to the Infirmary."
"Why did you have to hit her so hard?!"
Fortunately, Fan Yu did not lash out in anger and attack anyone, as Yan Shaozhe had feared.
He merely questioned El in a strange tone mingled with anger, resentment, and even a trace of relief.
"?"
Those emotions were so twisted that even El failed to react at first.
"Even if she offended you, you didn't have to hurt her this badly, did you?!"
Looking at Zhou Yi, whose breathing was barely perceptible and whose skin had been carbonized, Fan Yu seemed dazed as he spoke again.
Not long before, while he was researching the Flying Soul Tool in the Soul Tool Department, he had suddenly received word from his disciple, He Caitou.
A first-year freshman wanted to challenge Zhou Yi!
Did he have a death wish?!
The moment he heard the news, Fan Yu put down what he was working on and hurried toward the Soul Fighting Zone.
Students had clashed with Zhou Yi before, but this was the first time it had escalated to the Soul Fighting Arena.
He had to get there as quickly as possible to stop Zhou Yi from killing the student!
But when he reached the Soul Fighting Zone, he discovered that things were rather different from what he had imagined.
That figure whose entire body looked like charcoal-
Was Zhou Yi??!
Fan Yu felt as though lightning had struck him. Almost without thinking, he rushed forward and embraced his wife.
At the same time, however, he felt a sense of release, as though a great weight had fallen from his heart.
This day had finally come.
He knew that Zhou Yi's teaching methods, which amounted to torturing students, would cause trouble sooner or later.
Sooner or later, someone would have a background too powerful for him to handle. Sooner or later, a truly gifted student would take revenge on Zhou Yi.
As a teacher, he knew Zhou Yi was simply making a mess of things and venting her anger; as a husband, however, he could never bring himself to speak harshly to his wife.
Caught between those conflicting roles, he could only turn a blind eye.
Until the moment he could no longer pretend to be blind.
"Oh..."
Looking at the man kneeling on the ground, his face filled with inner conflict and bewilderment, El raised an eyebrow.
This guy hadn't come to argue at all.
He had come to get a scolding!!
El understood at once.
"Why did I hit her so hard?"
"You should ask her that."
"She opened with her first and third soul skills, trying to ambush a twelve-year-old kid like me."
"Then she stopped holding back entirely and unleashed a combination of her sixth and fourth soul skills at full power."
"Teacher Fan Yu, if anyone other than me had been standing on this platform, what do you think would have happened to the student facing her?"
"You could say she was trying to cripple me-or even kill me-with that attack!"
El folded his arms and looked down at Fan Yu, who was kneeling on the ground.
"Tell me, is Teacher Zhou Yi allowed to show murderous intent toward a student like me, while I'm not allowed to fight back?!"
"Is that what you mean, Teacher Fan Yu?"
"No, that's not..."
Fan Yu hurriedly shook his head.
"I just... just..."
"Just what?"
El lifted his head, his chin slightly raised and his crimson eyes gleaming.
"You're standing up for Teacher Zhou Yi just because she has a personal connection to you."
So said El, who, in theory, should not have known for certain that Zhou Yi and Fan Yu were husband and wife.
"What about those students, then? The students Zhou Yi expelled-couldn't they have come here carrying their entire families' hopes and savings, filled with dreams of attending the continent's greatest academy?"
"Only to run into Zhou Yi and get expelled outright over some trivial matter."
"They might even have to spend the rest of their lives carrying hidden injuries, psychological scars, and the scorn of others."
"As a teacher, why don't you spare a thought for those students who are only eleven or twelve?"
"Why does someone feel sorry for an abuser the moment she's punished once, while nobody gives a damn about her victims?!"
El raised both arms and turned in a circle on the platform, as though questioning every student and teacher present:
"Why?"
Then his gaze settled once more on the speechless Fan Yu.
"Besides, Teacher Fan Yu, you knew about Teacher Zhou's behavior, didn't you?"
El leaned toward Fan Yu and met his gaze with his crimson eyes,
Then bared his fangs.
"You knew and didn't report it. You shielded a teacher who abused her students."
"Tell me, Teacher Fan Yu, doesn't that make you an accomplice to Zhou Yi's abuse?"
"After all,"
El straightened, his voice carrying across the arena with soul power.
"When the strong bully the weak, refusing to take either side is, in essence, helping the strong."
"Exactly!"
The instant El finished speaking, a somewhat familiar voice rang out from the stands.
He looked toward the voice. It was Lu Renjia.
He was the student who had nearly been expelled by Zhou Yi when El first arrived in Freshman Class One.
Tears were already streaming down his face, but he still spoke through his sobs:
"Teacher Zhou Yi forced us all to train in the same way. Whether we had beast martial souls or tool martial souls, we had to run laps wearing iron armor!"
"And soul power cultivation was the same. If we failed to meet her standards, we were either severely punished or expelled outright!"
"Whenever we did anything even slightly wrong, she made us do extra training with bodies already pushed to their limits. If we so much as thought the training was unreasonable, she used her Soul Emperor cultivation to forcibly suppress us!"
"To avoid extra training, and to avoid being expelled, all of us put in unimaginable effort. Some even..."
Lu Renjia choked back a sob.
"Some classmates even willingly took drugs that could damage their foundations, just so they wouldn't be expelled."
"Like my friend Bao Huiyi..."
"In fact, his fate was even worse."
"He barely managed to meet Teacher Zhou Yi's standards, but then he questioned her without thinking and was punished with more laps. In the end, he damaged the meridians in his legs, and the academy gave him no treatment whatsoever!
"Because of his leg injury, he couldn't meet Teacher Zhou Yi's requirements the next time, and the academy struck him from its rolls."
"Teacher Fan Yu, when Teacher Zhou Yi suppressed us students with her cultivation, left us injured and disabled, and had us expelled, why didn't you come forward to stand up for us?"
"Why didn't anyone speak up for us students?!"
"All of you stood on her side! You were all her accomplices!"
"I..."
Fan Yu's pupils trembled violently. His mouth opened and closed several times, but he could not get the words he was trying to form past his lips.
"Yet the moment El stood up for us, you came running out! You're her accomplice!"
After venting fiercely, Lu Renjia wiped away his tears, revealed a smile of vindictive satisfaction, and drove in the final knife.
"And Teacher Fan Yu, do you know what Teacher Zhou liked saying to us most?"
"Whenever we questioned her unreasonable orders, her favorite thing to do was show her soul rings and unleash her pressure, then tell us:
"'Because I'm a Soul Emperor! In the Soul Master World, the strong reign supreme! If you can defeat me, I'll listen to you!'"
"Now El has defeated her."
"According to her own theory, whatever the strong do is right. So if she got beaten this badly, she has only herself to blame!"
"The strong reign supreme, huh..."
El nodded.
"Not bad. Very insightful."
That much was true. For once, the old hag had actually taught them something real.
Before you continue