The disciples below the stage fell deathly silent. The sight of Wang Meng sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath in sorry condition, struck everyone's heart like a sledgehammer.
The disciples who had been clamoring to teach Toji a lesson were like chickens with their throats clenched shut, their faces red but unable to make a sound.
Wang Meng was already among the strongest Soul Ancestors, yet even he had been easily defeated by Toji.
Toji's performance had completely overturned their understanding of what it meant to have "no Soul Power."
"Is this guy... really a monster?" someone murmured. "Can a person without Soul Power really do that much?"
"Even Wang Meng lost. Wouldn't we just be humiliating ourselves if we went up there?"
"But we can't just let this go, can we? He's the one who killed a whole squad of our disciples..."
The disciples talked among themselves. They were unwilling to accept it, and they were also fiercely protective and overbearing when it came to their own people.
But faced with Toji's overwhelming strength, they had to admit that he really was formidable.
Several more Soul Ancestor disciples went up, but Toji likewise took them down within a few exchanges, securing five consecutive victories.
That record left some of the stronger disciples unable to sit still.
A tall, slender young man dressed in black, with a silver chain hanging at his waist, stepped forward and caught Toji's attention.
His gaze was sharp as lightning, and he gave off a violent presence.
He was somewhat like Toji in that respect, with the bearing of someone who had fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
The young man in black looked straight at Toji and said coldly:
"Seeing that your cultivation was only at level thirty-nine, I originally thought it would be enough to send the Soul Ancestor disciples against you. That way, we wouldn't gain a reputation for bullying you, either."
"Your five consecutive wins have shown me your true strength. You're strong enough to qualify as an opponent for a Soul King."
He cupped his fists toward Toji and said in a deep voice:
"Body Sect disciple, Lin Xuan, level fifty-three Soul King."
Toji's expression grew grave. The real challenge was coming, and he couldn't tell what type of Body Martial Soul Lin Xuan had at all.
That meant he couldn't judge Lin Xuan's fighting style right away.
Is this guy a scrub or an expert?
"Toji, level thirty-nine."
His words were as concise as ever.
"Begin!"
Lin Xuan moved first and activated his Martial Soul. Bone blades suddenly jutted out from the elbows of both arms, and a Soul Ring Configuration of three purple and two black rings circled his arms, an extremely eerie sight.
The light and shadow behind him also erupted with the radiance of the white-eye level.
It was a silver-level Martial Soul Second Awakening. It seemed this man was among the strongest of his peers and a favored son of heaven in the Body Sect.
His Soul Ring Configuration in particular showed just how terrifyingly strong he was. He had relied entirely on his Second Martial Soul Awakening to elevate his Soul Rings, right?
Not one of these Body Sect people's Soul Rings was normal.
Toji's hand was already reaching into his Storage Soul Tool.
Against an opponent of this level, not using a Soul Tool would be doing himself a disservice, deliberately making things hard for himself.
Then Toji suddenly noticed that the air on the stage had become viscous.
Lin Xuan's third Soul Ring had already lit up. The bone blades at his elbows glimmered with a ghostly blue sheen, and venom dripping from their tips ate tiny holes into the bluestone floor.
He took half a step forward with his left foot, and a layer of frost appeared on the ground out of thin air.
Toji didn't know what it was, but his instincts told him nothing good would come of touching that layer of frost.
Lin Xuan's figure flashed like a bolt of black lightning, closing in on Toji in an instant.
The bone blades on his arms gleamed coldly in the sunlight, their tips trembling slightly like vipers flicking their tongues, ready to deliver a fatal blow at any moment.
As he moved, he also left a great deal of frost on the ground, giving Toji no room to dodge. At the same time, his fourth Soul Ring slowly rose.
Lin Xuan swung both arms fiercely, sending the pair of bone blades sweeping toward Toji.
Toji suddenly closed his eyes.
Gasps rang out below the stage. Under the crowd's bewildered gazes, he tilted his head slightly, his nostrils twitching. When the bone blades were only three inches from his throat, he moved.
"Clang!"
The clash of metal rang out explosively.
A pitch-black dagger had appeared in Toji's right hand at some point, precisely blocking a bone blade. At the same time, the five fingers of his left hand curled into a claw and snapped toward Lin Xuan's throat.
"This is... a Soul Tool?!"
Lin Xuan raised his other bone blade with all his might, but just before Toji's hand touched him, Toji abruptly checked his strike and grabbed the silver chain at Lin Xuan's waist instead.
Lin Xuan's pupils shrank. He felt Toji give a tug, and the silver chain pulled his whole body through a semicircle in the air.
Toji spun with the momentum, winding the silver chain three times around his wrist and hurling Lin Xuan toward the ground like a meteor hammer.
"Boom!"
Spiderweb cracks burst across the arena floor. At the last moment, Lin Xuan braced himself against the ground with a bone blade, plowing a trench three zhang long through the stone slabs.
He actually... broke my Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Skill that easily?
This man has so much actual combat experience.
Lin Xuan knelt on one knee, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His expression turned ferocious as his fifth Soul Ring appeared behind him, and the pair of bone blades suddenly erupted with a dazzling blood-red light.
A blood-red, crescent-shaped slash of Soul Power swept across the arena, distorting the air in its path as it sped straight toward Toji. This was Lin Xuan's strongest killing move.
Toji shot forward like an arrow released from the bow, charging straight at the slash as a hexagonal Soul Tool shield sprang from the bracer on his left wrist.
The instant the Soul Tool shield collided with the slash, the erupted Soul Power lit the entire arena as bright as day.
Under cover of the explosion, Toji pulled a great saber from his Storage Soul Tool with his right hand at some point and slipped behind Lin Xuan at a terrifying speed.
By the time Lin Xuan reacted, Toji had already placed the blade against his throat.
Soul Tools.
At least all around level five.
He completely outclasses me in actual combat experience.
At that thought, Lin Xuan couldn't help but give a bitter smile.
Although his cultivation far surpassed Toji's, it was as if they weren't on the same level at all. His Soul Skills were powerful, but Toji always had a way to deal with them and simply refused to meet them head-on.
No matter how strong your Soul Skills are, you still have to hit your opponent.
And he uses the simplest, most direct methods of fighting.
Every attack is aimed at a vital spot. Even if you want to block him, you can't.
It's all efficiency.
"I lost."
Lin Xuan sighed.
If this had been a battle to the death, he would already be dead.
So he had no reason to be dissatisfied.
"Toji wins!"
The elder announced Toji's victory once again, and his sixth consecutive win sent the Body Sect disciples into an uproar.
"Wait, this match wasn't fair! He broke the rules! He used a Soul Tool!"
"He didn't win the match through his own abilities at all!"
At this time, everyone in the Body Sect hated Soul Tools and held those who borrowed their power in great contempt.
They all followed the principle that Soul Masters were supreme and that only being strong oneself was true strength. As for Soul Tools, what the hell were those?
So it was only natural that some people still refused to accept the result.
Toji found their protests somewhat amusing, but he still faced them with a calm expression:
"First, I have no Soul Power, and second, I have no Soul Skills. Yet you can use the power of your Second Martial Soul Awakening to strengthen yourselves, and you can use all kinds of Soul Skills. That's fair to you, but is it really fair to me? The moment I use a Soul Tool, it's unfair?"
Toji made a shushing gesture and smiled slightly:
"Although I have no Soul Power, it doesn't change the fact that I'm stronger than you."