Dai Youheng's mind raced as he dodged, seemingly in disarray.
Though he lacked the god's-eye view provided by Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection Sharing, observation and memory had already allowed him to roughly work out the pattern of the maze's changes.
Combining that with Dai Huabin's approximate starting position, he could deduce the few areas where Dai Huabin was most likely to appear now.
As he fought and retreated, he was taking a roundabout route toward the most likely of those areas.
Sure enough, after passing through several constantly shifting passages, he sensed familiar Soul Power fluctuations coming from beyond a corner ahead.
Savage and brutal, they belonged to the evil-eyed white tiger, yet carried an even gloomier edge. It was Dai Huabin!
Beside him was another, relatively weaker fluctuation of Soul Power that moved extremely quickly. Clearly, Zhu Lu had already joined him.
Dai Youheng steadied himself inwardly. The crucial step of his plan had arrived.
He abruptly stopped fleeing and turned to face Xu Sanshi, who was pursuing him relentlessly. His expression filled with the anger and desperate resolve of someone driven into a corner, and he deliberately raised his voice.
"Senior Xu, we're both core disciples. I respected you as my senior and yielded again and again! Yet over some baseless suspicions, you keep pressing me, refusing to let me go! In that case, I, Dai Youheng, won't hold back any longer today! Even if I'm weaker, I'll fight back with everything I have!"
Those words were less for Xu Sanshi than for the people beyond the corner.
Sure enough, Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu were lurking behind a nearby corner, waiting for an opportunity.
"It's Dai Youheng!" Zhu Lu's eyes lit up as she whispered excitedly, "This is our chance, Huabin! He's fighting someone, and he seems to be losing. If we ambush him now, we can easily eliminate him and get revenge for what happened before!"
A flicker of temptation crossed Dai Huabin's eyes too, but he was ultimately calmer and more cunning than Zhu Lu. He held her back as she eagerly prepared to move and whispered, "Don't rush! Look at the person fighting him. That seems to be Xu Sanshi from the upper years! He's a four-ring soul ancestor, known as the Outer Court's Number One Defender. He's very strong."
"Our goal is to make the top seven, not get revenge on Dai Youheng. Xu Sanshi is another potentially formidable opponent."
A sinister smile appeared on his face. "When the snipe and clam fight, the fisherman reaps the reward. Let those two dogs tear into each other first! Whether we're left with a battered Dai Youheng or an exhausted Xu Sanshi, it'll benefit us. We can clear out a competitor without wasting our strength!"
At his words, Zhu Lu immediately looked at him with admiration. "Huabin, you're the clever one! We'll just wait until they've both been hurt!"
Thus, the two concealed their auras even more carefully and lurked behind the corner, ready to reap the fisherman's reward.
Meanwhile, the battle ahead-or rather, Dai Youheng's one-sided performance of resistance-had erupted once more.
Xu Sanshi paid no attention whatsoever to what Dai Youheng had said. The moment he stopped, Xu Sanshi roared and charged, swinging the Xuanming Shield. Dark light flowed across its black surface, and his attack carried tremendous weight!
Dai Youheng blocked and dodged.
The evil shadow demon tiger's claws collided with the Xuanming Shield with dull thuds. He appeared to be at a disadvantage, yet always evaded the heavy blows at the most critical moments.
Outside, atop the raised platform.
Xuan Zi gulped down some wine and watched the image of Xu Sanshi chasing and attacking Dai Youheng on the light screen through bleary, drunken eyes. He shook his head. "That brat Xu Sanshi has decent talent, and he's made something of his Xuanming Shield, but his brain turns to mush whenever Jiang Nannan is involved. Instead of hurrying to secure a position in the central area, why is he picking a fight with a little second-year?"
Yan Shaozhe also sighed helplessly. "His temperament still needs tempering. Letting emotions sway him and losing his composure like this, he'll never amount to much."
Although he appreciated Dai Youheng's decisive, ruthless fighting style earlier, he did not believe a three-ring soul elder could last long against an enraged four-ring Xu Sanshi.
Qian Duoduo chuckled instead. "I think that boy Dai Youheng is rather interesting. Despite such a vast gap in strength, he's slippery as a loach. Xu Sanshi really won't be able to take him down anytime soon."
Facing Xu Sanshi's storm of attacks, Dai Youheng appeared beleaguered, but every step was precisely calculated. He stopped simply dodging and began looking for opportunities to counterattack.
"First Soul Skill, Demon Tiger Body! Third Soul Skill, Shadow Surge!"
With a low roar, Dai Youheng activated both enhancement Soul Skills simultaneously! The phantom of the evil shadow demon tiger behind him grew more solid, and the shadow markings across his body writhed as though coming alive. A savage, icy aura erupted!
With the two Soul Skills stacked together, his strength, speed, defense, Soul Power, and spiritual power instantly increased by one hundred and fifty percent!
"Hmm?" On the platform outside, the perpetually languid Xuan Zi suddenly sat upright, a sharp gleam flashing through his drunken eyes. "Activating two enhancement Soul Skills at once? And their combined effect is that pronounced? This boy's Martial Soul control and Soul Skill coordination are rather interesting. That evil shadow demon tiger certainly lives up to its heritage as a variant of the white tiger martial soul."
Xu Sanshi also felt the sudden increase in pressure from his opponent, but he had absolute confidence in his defense. He roared, "First Soul Skill, Mysterious Underworld Quake!"
He slammed the Xuanming Shield into the ground. A powerful shock wave mixed with a spiritual assault spread outward from him, attempting to drive Dai Youheng back and stun him.
Yet an instant before the shock wave reached him, Dai Youheng slipped into the nearby shadows like a phantom, narrowly avoiding the direct impact. Only the residual force made him sway.
He can actually merge into the shadows? Troublesome! Xu Sanshi cursed inwardly and immediately changed tactics. "Second Soul Skill, Mysterious Underworld Shield Formation!"
The Xuanming Shield in his hand blazed with dark light and instantly split into several smaller shields. They circled his body, forming a three-dimensional defensive formation without a single blind spot.
"Let's see how you break through my defense!"
Dai Youheng's gaze was icy. He did not choose to clash head-on with the seemingly impregnable shield formation.
He drew a deep breath, and his right palm silently turned black as ink. An intensely concentrated palm force, imbued with the essence of penetration and destruction, gathered in his palm. This was his modified palm technique, incorporating the essence of the Snow Empress's force application in Emperor Palm: Great Cold Without Snow!
He moved, closing on Xu Sanshi's shield formation like lightning. He seemed poised for a head-on collision, but at the instant of contact, his palm force did not erupt. Instead, it darted out with the uncanny motion of a venomous snake!
Pfft!
There was a faint, muffled sound. That palm strike, concentrating 250% of Dai Youheng's strength and imbued with penetrating force, actually ignored the Mysterious Underworld Shield Formation's physical defense. Like striking an ox through a mountain, a cold, uncanny surge of shadow palm force passed through layer after layer of shields and blasted straight into Xu Sanshi's body behind them!
"Ugh!" Xu Sanshi grunted, feeling
an icy, rending force explode among his internal organs. His blood surged, even the circulation of his Soul Power faltered for an instant, and the shield formation surrounding him wavered slightly.
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