Within sight of every spectator,
"Bzz, bzz, bzz-!"
Six humming notes rang out as the Ice Soul carried Gu Qingnian slowly forward, blood-red Soul Rings appearing one after another along the way.
The same terrifying aura surged out with them, instantly filling the entire battlefield with a pressure that chilled everyone to the bone.
That was not all. Once all six Soul Rings had appeared, the Third Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring before Gu Qingnian flashed.
Then Gu Qingnian raised his eyelids slightly. A glimmer passed through his soul-piercing eyes, and a haze of mingled gray and deep purple spread across the battlefield.
In an instant, the seven members of Dou Ling Academy felt a crushing heaviness and a jarring sense of dislocation. The Martial Souls and Soul Skills they were about to unleash all slowed down; even blinking became agonizingly slow.
Gu Qingnian, however, appeared before the seven of them at a terrifying speed. As he reached them, their pupils instinctively tried to contract, but even their thoughts and reflexes were sluggish. To the spectators, the seven looked completely motionless, as though they had turned into statues.
At that moment, the seven could not even form a frightened thought.
Stronger Soul Masters could still see them moving, but each of the seven looked different in their eyes. To a Soul King, for instance, the strongest among them-their captain-looked as though he were appearing in an extreme slow-motion film.
As for the others, it was easy enough to imagine...
To ordinary people, Gu Qingnian seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Even Soul Kings could only glimpse a barely discernible afterimage.
That sight was astonishing enough, but what followed left everyone even more stunned.
Bei Bei and the other five had now approached Gu Qingnian. Bei Bei asked quietly, "Qingnian,