The finals

After Qian Daoliu finished speaking, he swept his gaze over the spectator stands out of habit. When he caught sight of a certain figure, his pupils abruptly contracted.

It was a black-haired youth dressed in black, his cold, stern face carrying a faint smile.

Qian Daoliu's expression turned solemn as he looked back at that spot, but the figure he had seen was gone. He let out a long breath. "It seems this old man is seeing things. Great-Great-Grandfather passed away many years ago. How could he appear here?"

"I hereby announce that the finals will officially begin in fifteen minutes!" Qian Daoliu said.

"Since Blazing Fire Academy has forfeited, Skywater Academy and Spirit Hall Academy will now compete for the championship!" the host shouted excitedly into his microphone.

The spectators from the other academies were not surprised by Blazing Fire Academy's forfeiture. After all, the gap in strength was simply too great.

With the host's announcement that the match had begun, Skywater Academy and Spirit Hall Academy officially went to battle.

Astonishingly, Skywater Academy fielded another member for the finals: its captain, Shui Yuewu, a rank fifty-two Soul King. Spirit Hall Academy had also kept a rank fifty-one Soul King hidden.

Qian Daoliu looked at Skywater Academy's students and frowned slightly. "Skywater Academy is a little too strong. The other three elemental academies are no match for them at all."

With his strength as a Peerless Douluo, Qian Daoliu could tell at a glance that Skywater Academy had one rank fifty-two Soul King, two rank forty-four Soul Ancestors, and three rank forty-two Soul Ancestors, with the weakest member at rank forty-one.

Their own Spirit Hall Academy's highest rank was fifty-one, followed by three rank forty-twos and three rank forty-fours. They had no real advantage over Skywater Academy.

"Spirit Hall Academy Team captain, Jingang. Rank fifty-one Power Attack System Battle Soul King." Jingang's voice rumbled, the streamlined muscles across his body trembling lightly as he struggled to make his rather honest-looking face appear ferocious.

Shui Yuewu stepped gracefully forward. "Skywater Academy Team captain, Shui Yuewu. Rank fifty-two Control System Battle Soul King."

"Members of both teams, salute!" the referee called loudly.

Led by Jingang and Shui Yuewu, all fourteen contestants bowed to their opponents at the same time. The atmosphere in the arena immediately grew tense.

"Let the finals begin!"

At the referee's command, the seven-on-seven team battle erupted. Jingang, Spirit Hall Academy's captain, launched the first attack.

"Fifth soul skill-Rampaging Thunder Jingang Fist!"

Jingang gave a low roar. As his martial soul, the great strength vajra bear, possessed him, his entire frame grew even more massive, and the muscles all over his body doubled in size.

He bent his thick legs slightly before leaping into the air. Gold light blazed from his sandbag-sized fist as he drove it straight toward Shui Yuewu's lovely face.

Shui Yuewu was about to dodge when two purple-black vines lashed around her limbs like lightning. They were the Control System soul skills of Spirit Hall Academy's brothers, Ao Ying and Ao Ye.

Spirit Hall Academy's objective was clear: eliminate Skywater Academy's strongest member, Shui Yuewu, first.

A fierce light filled Shui Yuewu's beautiful eyes. Her slender body shook, instantly shattering the vines. At the same time, an ice wall several meters thick abruptly rose before her.

It was Qin Yan of the Skywater Team's fourth soul skill.

Boom!

The fist slammed into the ice wall, scattering ice chips everywhere. Dense cracks spread across its surface, but the single blow failed to shatter it.

Seeing this, Jingang threw another punch, and the tottering ice wall instantly broke apart.

"Sisters, counterattack!" Shui Yuewu called as she leaped away the instant the Ice Wall shattered, escaping Jingang's attack range.

The melee began. Skywater Academy's Zhao Ziyi and Qin Yan flanked Jingang from either side, and with the enhancements provided by the two support Soul Elders behind them, they managed to hold the Soul King in place.

Skywater Academy's two Agility Attack System Soul Elders, Liu Yuting and Liu Yufen, charged straight at Spirit Hall Academy's two support Soul Elders, the sisters Feng Yudie and Feng Yuting, whose martial souls were violets.

By coincidence, Spirit Hall employed the same tactics. Both sides sent their agility attackers after the opposing Support System Soul Masters. The only difference lay in the opponents facing their Soul Kings.

Jingang faced Zhao Ziyi and Qin Yan, while Shui Yuewu faced two unnamed Soul Elders from Spirit Hall Academy. Now it was a matter of which point would collapse first, triggering a chain reaction that would decide the match.

Wind and snow howled across the arena, wind blades raced through the air, and gusts from powerful punches ran rampant as dazzling soul skills appeared one after another.

In the stands, the students and teachers from the other academies nodded and exclaimed from time to time, looking thoroughly impressed by the spectacular battle and the formidable younger generation.

Qian Chongling, seated in the front row, wore a dark expression. He did not even know where to begin criticizing them.

Once the team fight starts, all you know how to do is dive the supports?

Do you think their supports have nine heart begonias and Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagodas?

The nine heart begonia was reputed to be able to heal someone back up as long as they had a single breath left, giving it unrivaled sustain. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda, meanwhile, was known as the strongest Support System Soul Master. A rank forty-one Soul Ancestor wielding it could provide a fifty-percent attribute boost.

Thus, if the enemy had those two types of Support System Soul Masters, they absolutely had to be dealt with first.

But Spirit Hall Academy's Support System Soul Masters had violet martial souls. Their healing was only average, and so were their enhancements. Rather than waste time on them, Skywater Academy would have been better off focusing all their attacks on Jingang. Trading their own two supports for the enemy's strongest damage dealer would be worthwhile no matter how one looked at it.

Their two supports could surely hold off two agility attackers for a few breaths. That was enough time to send Jingang out of the arena several times over.

It was just like the battle between the Shrek Seven Devils and the Imperial Fighting Team in the original timeline. They had concentrated their attacks on Yu Tianheng and severely wounded him. Without Ye Lingling, that incredible healer, Yu Tianheng would have been effectively finished for the rest of the match.

What interested Qian Chongling more, however, was the pair of sisters with violet martial souls. If he remembered correctly, Feng Yuyan and Feng Yushi, the sisters he had formally married, also had violet martial souls.

Later, the younger sister from the collateral branch had borne him a daughter, whose martial soul was not a six-winged angel, but a violet. After his daughter married and a few more generations passed, Qian Chongling stopped keeping track.

Of course, at first he had thought he had been cuckolded. According to the usual principles, his daughter should have inherited his light-dark angel.

Only later did he understand. The negative emotions he possessed were not something an ordinary person could endure, so his daughter could only inherit her mother's martial soul.

Just then, a shrill cry pulled Qian Chongling out of his thoughts.

"Phoenix Cry Across the Nine Heavens!" Shui Yuewu took a soul skill from one of Spirit Hall Academy's Soul Elders head-on and unleashed her fifth soul skill.

A piercing phoenix cry rang from Shui Yuewu's mouth. Rolling sound waves surged outward, instantly enveloping the entire Spirit Hall Team.

Only Jingang, who still had a fairly ample reserve of soul power, could withstand it directly. The other members of the Spirit Hall Team lacked sufficient soul power and could only cover their ears while channeling their soul power to resist the sound waves.

Seeing their chance, the other members of the Skywater Academy Team naturally would not let it slip away. Liu Yuting and Liu Yufen unleashed their agility-system speed, closing in on the opposing team's two Support System Soul Masters and two agility attackers respectively before using their third soul skill-Frost Slash!

The soul skill struck successfully, eliminating those four members of the Spirit Hall Team, who were already arrows at the end of their flight.