A crisp white short-sleeved shirt and trousers neatly outlined the young girl's slender, still-budding curves. The blonde girl wore her hair in a high ponytail. The beauty who had once been a flower waiting to bloom was gradually coming into her own, her delicate features losing some of their childishness and gaining a sharp, spirited air, like a gallant female knight.
Ye Xinglan's azure eyes swept over the two, whose manner seemed rather intimate. A flicker of puzzlement rose in her heart, but she did not forget the urgent matter that had brought her hurrying over:
"My cousin's at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy. She just messaged me-people from Shrek Academy kicked down their door and came looking for trouble! They're outrageously arrogant, saying all our students are inferior rejects who failed Shrek's entrance exam! Xu Qingjia, Na'er, do you want to go take a look?"
"Huh?" Shocked and furious, Na'er's pretty face flushed red.
A bunch of outsiders actually had the gall to bring the fight right to their doorstep?!
Xu Qingjia's brows knitted tightly at her words, a cold glint passing through his eyes.
Arrogant Shrek.
That was the judgment of Shrek Academy he had heard most often from his elders growing up. "Looking down on everyone" no longer came close to describing their arrogance.
Overbearing and rude, trespassing into military camps, trafficking arms, colluding with enemy nations...
Shrek Academy had long since become more than merely a "state within a state."
They even sought to place Shrek City's rules above the Federation's constitution. Even when Shrek students trespassed into military camps, they claimed the Federation had no right to punish them. Instead, they demanded that the army do everything in its power to protect those students, or they would raise hell. Even if they broke the law within Federation territory, the academy alone retained the final right to punish them!
Not even Spirit Hall at the height of its power had ever thrown its weight around like that!
More contemptible still, Shrek Academy wanted power greater than Spirit Hall's, yet refused to shoulder even a fraction of the responsibility that came with it.
"Get changed. Let's go take a look." Xu Qingjia's voice grew colder.
Most people would naturally welcome a normal exchange between academies. But if a group swaggered around with their noses pointed at the sky, neglected not only to give advance notice but even to knock, kicked the door open, and publicly declared, "Everyone here is trash," then the nature of the visit changed completely.
And this sort of "exchange," bordering on outright provocation, had long been a "tradition" at Shrek Academy.
After all, they believed that "those who dare not stir up trouble are mediocrities."
Ever since the original Shrek Seven Devils became gods, the academy had carried this absurd school rule to its fullest expression, even taking it further with each passing generation.
Xu Qingjia had always detested irritating mosquitoes and flies, but if he encountered them, he did not mind swatting them dead.
Especially when these loathsome pests had already jumped right into his face to provoke him!
The Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy held extraordinary significance for the Sun Moon Federation-the vast majority of the Federation's senior officials had graduated from it, making it one of the Federation's foundations. To the Xu Family, it carried even greater weight. The word "Royal" in the academy's name referred to their family.
How was this merely provocation? They were trampling his family's dignity and openly humiliating them!
The wind was especially boisterous that day.
Mingdu, where daily life usually moved as though someone had pressed fast-forward, suddenly seemed to have been paused. Hurried pedestrians stopped one after another, their gazes fixing on the enormous soul guidance screens mounted outside the towering buildings.
A contest that had countless people on edge was unfolding fiercely on the screens-the rivalry of destiny between Shrek Academy and the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy, a struggle that had lasted ten thousand years.
Would Shrek Academy's twenty-thousand-year legend of invincibility continue? Or could the Sun Moon Soul Engineer Academy, the perennial runner-up for ten thousand years, seize this chance to flip over like a salted fish and wash away its past humiliation?
At the center of a combat arena over fifteen hundred meters in diameter, resembling a gigantic colosseum, stood a young man who looked decidedly exceptional, dressed in a dung-green school uniform. His right arm had transformed completely into a fearsome dragon claw. As a purple soul ring beneath his feet suddenly lit up, countless raging lightning serpents wove themselves into an immense net of thunder, crashing down around the opposing soul master possessed by his Flame Lord martial soul.
Scorching flames roared defiantly, trying to break through the lightning net. But the soul master was already a spent arrow, and in the end, he could only collapse with a heart full of resentment.
Yu Diheng, wielder of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Martial Soul, withdrew his martial soul and turned toward the soul master in Three-Word Battle Armor serving as referee. His bearing was arrogant to the extreme, his nostrils practically pointed at the heavens. "Referee, shouldn't you announce the result?"
By then, all three students from the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy, including the Flame Lord soul master, had fallen. Apart from Yu Diheng, two figures wearing the same dung-green uniforms remained standing in the arena.
The gray-haired girl holding the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda lifted her neck like a proud swan. Ning Yaoyao swept her gaze over the opponents being carried off for treatment by healing-type soul masters, making no attempt to hide the contempt on her face. "The Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy gets worse with every generation. With that pathetic ability, you dare call yourselves rivals of our Shrek Academy?"
"Why waste your breath on them, Sister Yaoyao?" Tang Hao, Clear Sky Hammer in hand, spoke in a booming voice, utterly disregarding the livid faces of nearly ten thousand Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy students in the stands. "They're nothing but defective goods weeded out after failing our Shrek entrance exam."
"Shrek Academy wins." The referee announced the result with a livid expression, then abruptly turned, his icy gaze settling on a silver-haired old woman in the stands. She was the Sea God Pavilion Elder leading Shrek Academy's delegation, the level ninety-seven Silver Moon Douluo, Cai Yue'er. "Besides teaching soul masters theory and practical combat, shouldn't Shrek Academy pay proper attention to its students' character?"
"Heh." The kindly smile on Cai Yue'er's face vanished instantly, replaced by a sneer carrying a bone-piercing chill. "Those who dare not stir up trouble are mediocrities. Our Shrek students ought to possess precisely this sort of pride."
"Besides, I don't believe our students said anything wrong." The Silver Moon Douluo, who had become notorious years ago for doing as she pleased and riding roughshod over the continent, spoke with undisguised mockery. "Let shame spur you to improve. They're encouraging your students, giving them motivation to better themselves."
"You-" The referee was so furious that the soul power within him surged violently.
In the stands, icy gazes shot toward Cai Yue'er in unison.
When had these hot-blooded youths ever suffered such humiliation? These people had arrived uninvited, kicked down their door, called them inferior goods, and now dared say this! If the students had not been mindful that their every word and action represented their academy's dignity, they would have dearly loved to drown the visitors beneath a mouthful of spit apiece.
"What a fine example of 'letting shame spur you to improve'!"
A voice as gentle and smooth as jade, carrying a faint trace of soul power, rang clearly
throughout the entire Arena. Everyone turned toward its source and saw a young man with a jade-like gentleness and an innate air of nobility walking slowly down the steps, accompanied by two exquisitely beautiful girls.
"I never imagined Your Excellency Silver Moon could have such a twisted interpretation of that saying. This junior truly feels ashamed of his own inferiority." Xu Qingjia's voice remained mild, but there was not a trace of a smile in his eyes.
"In that case, Your Excellency, did you attain your profound cultivation by watching the man who once rejected your love spend every day in the intimate company of other women, thus 'letting shame spur you to improve' until you reached where you are today?"