We're All the Same Age-I Never Meant to Deal a Dimensional Downstrike!

Yan froze when he heard that.

"Hiss... for realsies?"

Yan sucked in a cold breath, his face instantly turning pale.

Why did it feel as though he had offended someone he should never have crossed?

Was it still too late to apologize?

Oh, right!

Lu Xuan was the very person who had told him to come apologize!

Yan had not realized at all that he had already completely abandoned the true will of the bully.

Did someone's identity and background mean he should stop bullying them?

That was wrong!

That was not the true will of the bully at all!

Let it hereby be announced: Yan was officially expelled from the will of the bully!

Hu Liena took a deep breath, only to suddenly think of something.

This isn't right. I wasn't the one who did it, so why should I be nervous?

And so, Hu Liena simply put herself at ease.

"Sorry for the trouble. Could you please announce us and ask Lu Xuan to come out? Tell him someone has come to apologize for offending him earlier!"

Hu Liena spoke to a guard standing outside the entrance.

"Lu Xuan? Do you mean Young Master Xuan?" the guard asked.

"Young Master Xuan? Um... I don't know about that. Anyway, his name is Lu Xuan, and he's about this tall, up to my neck!" Hu Liena gestured as she spoke.

"Then that would be Young Master Xuan!" The guard nodded, then turned and went inside to announce them.

Before long, accompanied by footsteps, Lu Xuan's figure appeared, looking somewhat childish yet carrying a transcendent air.

Yet when Yan saw Lu Xuan's excessively youthful face and his height, which reached only Yan's chest...

The will of the bully that Yan had just suppressed sprang back to life, flourishing endlessly wherever the leaves of Konoha danced!

He instantly straightened his back, folded his arms across his chest, and raised his chin high, striking a defiant pose.

"Oi, brat, you're the one who wants me to apologize?"

"Fine, I can apologize, but you'll have to beat me fair and square first! Sneak attacks don't count as skill!"

Hearing that, the high-ranking guards stationed on either side of the entrance exchanged looks, then could not help whispering among themselves.

"Who's this kid? He wants to fight Young Master Xuan? Seriously?"

"I think he's tired of living. I doubt he'd last even one move against Young Master Xuan."

"No, no, you're thinking too small. I bet fifty Gold Soul Coins he'll wet himself on the spot when he sees Young Master Xuan's terrifying Soul Ring configuration."

"You're all being far too halfhearted. I'll put up a hundred Gold Soul Coins! He won't even need to reveal his Soul Rings. Young Master Xuan could knock this ignorant brat unconscious just by releasing his Soul Power pressure!"

The guards made no particular effort to conceal their whispers, but Yan ignored them outright.

To him, it was nothing more than a bluff.

Lu Xuan raised his eyebrows slightly, a trace of oddness flashing through his eyes.

He truly had not expected anyone in this world to be so eager to get beaten up.

Could this Yan be a scholar with a deep interest in studying letters, deep down inside?

Lu Xuan looked toward Hu Liena a short distance away.

Hu Liena's gaze met his, as though each had understood the other's thoughts.

Hu Liena sighed, pressed a hand to her forehead, and closed her eyes. She felt a knot of air lodged in her chest.

Then she opened her eyes again, turned around, and walked straight over to the steps.

Her hurried attempt to distance herself made it perfectly clear.

Hu Liena: This idiot has nothing to do with me. I don't know him!

"Are you sure you want to fight me?" Lu Xuan asked.

"That's right!" Yan clamored loudly.

"Fine. I'll grant your wish," Lu Xuan said flatly.

The next second, without any warning, a terrifying wave of energy, almost tangible, erupted from Lu Xuan's body!

That was by no means the aura a Soul Grandmaster should possess, but the horrifying pressure of a Soul King!

Violent Soul Power swept toward Yan like the raging waves of a furious sea.

The surrounding air instantly grew unbearably thick.

Before that mountain-toppling, sea-overturning pressure, Yan, who had only just become a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster, was like a lone skiff in a storm.

The arrogance on his face froze instantly. His knees buckled, and he nearly dropped straight to the ground.

Hu Liena, who had retreated into the distance, was utterly stunned as well, her beautiful eyes wide and her red lips slightly parted.

A Soul King at his age?!

How was that possible!

Could he only look like a child, when he was actually already in his teens?

Or... did he have dwarfism?!

At the center of the storm, Yan's mind went blank. I'm fighting a Soul King? Seriously?

"S... sor..." Yan struggled to open his mouth, wanting to surrender and apologize.

But before he could finish, Lu Xuan's figure had already become a blur.

He used no Soul Skill whatsoever, only a plain, unadorned whip kick.

With a sonic boom that tore through the air, it slammed viciously into Yan's chest.

Bang-!

Yan pulled off a perfect impression of a flying acrobat.

His body traced a tragically beautiful arc through the air before crashing heavily onto the distant flagstones.

His eyes rolled back, and he passed out again without the slightest fuss.

Lu Xuan calmly brushed the nonexistent dust from his trouser leg.

Slowly withdrawing that terrifying aura, he turned and walked back into the Worship Hall with unhurried steps, leaving behind only an unfathomable departing figure.

"Ah, we're all the same age. I never meant to deal a dimensional downstrike!"

Hu Liena, below the steps: ...Why am I the one left cleaning up every time?!

Hu Liena looked wordlessly up at the sky.

But for the sake of the little camaraderie she still had left, she walked over anyway.

Looking at Yan sprawled on the ground like a dead dog...

She could not even be bothered to carry him on her back.

She simply grabbed one of Yan's legs and headed toward Spirit Hall Academy, dragging him like a sack.

They were all Soul Masters, after all, with tough skin and thick flesh. What did a few scrapes from the flagstone road matter?

She could just find a healing-type Soul Master to cast a skill on him afterward.

After dumping the half-dead Yan in Spirit Hall Academy's infirmary...

Hu Liena hurried straight to the Papal Palace without stopping, requesting an audience with her teacher, Bibi Dong.

Inside the spacious, imposing Papal Palace, Bibi Dong sat upright upon the lofty papal throne.

After hearing Hu Liena's report, an exceedingly rare look of utter shock and disbelief appeared on her breathtakingly beautiful, majestic face.

"You're saying... that boy from the Worship Hall, the one called Lu Xuan, is already a Soul King?"

Bibi Dong's brows knitted tightly, and she slammed the scepter in her hand against the floor with a deep, resounding thud.

How could she not be shocked?

She remembered clearly that the child had only awakened his Martial Soul at this time last year!

Even if he had possessed level-twenty innate full Soul Power, gaining thirty levels in a single year and crossing three major realms straight into Soul King?

Did that make any sense?! It was utterly absurd!

Bibi Dong was completely bewildered. This lay entirely beyond her understanding of the Soul Master cultivation system.

Just how had Qian Daoliu trained him to produce such a monster?

And what unforeseen changes would this monster bring to her plans to control Spirit Hall in the future?

The great hall fell deathly silent, with only an uncertain, flickering cold light glinting in Bibi Dong's deep eyes.