Chapter 48: Killing Intent

Xiu Ye stared.

Tang Wulin stared.

Xie Xie stared fearfully.

Everyone stared.

"What?"

"WHAT?!"

Was what everyone had said, respectively. Xiu Ye and everyone else was taken aback at the sheer volume of disbelief and fear that came from Xie Xie.

Xie Xie blinked and blushed in embarrassment for losing his composure and shouted at his teacher.

"...What?" Wu Zhangkong repeated coldly, causing almost everyone to straighten up. His eyes were set on a trembling Xie Xie. "Do you have a problem with it?"

Staring at those deep cold eyes of Wu Zhangkong, Xie Xie felt like the entire world around him had turned into a frozen hell and front of him was a cold icy blizzard that can easily suck his soul in and froze it.

'Scary!' Xie Xie's face quickly lost all of its colors, he quickly shook his head around and said, "N-No, I don't have any problem with it teacher..."

Wu Zhangkong nodded and turned back towards the standing Xiu Ye. "So, are you interested in joining?"

Xiu Ye thought about for a moment and shrugged. "Sure, why not. But who am I fighting against?"

Wu Zhangkong walked towards the area where the students had fought and stated with a cold tone of voice, "Me."

Xiu Ye blinked his eyes in surprise before he smiled and chuckled, "Alright, works for me." He then followed after Wu Zhangkong.

Everyone stared at the two with slacked jaws, completely dumbfounded. Soon after, they immediately erupted into a frenzy of gossiping.

"D-Did that kid actually accepted to fight against the teacher? The rumored six-ringed Soul Emperor?! He's crazy!"

"Maybe teacher Wu Zhangkong would hold back and use only the same cultivation rank as the Demon Lord?"

"Maybe... Also, during the opening ceremony, didn't he used his martial soul or something? Wasn't it fire related? Do you think his fire would be powerful enough to suppress teacher's ice?"

"Of course it wouldn't be suppressed, teacher is a Soul Emperor! Even if the Demon Lord has a powerful fire type martial soul, it wouldn't matter in the face of ultimate cultivation suppression."

Xie Xie turned towards Tang Wulin and asked. "Hey, aren't you that guy's cousin or something? Do you think he has a chance of winning this?"

Tang Wulin turned to looked at him with a raised brow, his expression calm, and said, "Personally? Xiu Ye has a hundred percent rate of success. Logically? Xiu Ye has a ninety percent rate of success in winning against teacher." Xie Xie's eyes widened in surprise.

"What?! Such a high success rate? We're talking about a Soul Master versus a Soul Emperor. You sure he could win logically and this has nothing to do with your own personal opinion?" What Xie Xie and everyone else doesn't know, Xiu Ye has already brokethrough to the Soul Grandmaster rank. But even if they knew, and would be shocked, the chances of success would still be low.

A Soul Grandmaster and Soul Emperor is separated by four major ranks, this was a huge difference of strength that no one can easily shorten the distance between them. It didn't even add to the fact that Wu Zhangkong is a two-word battle armor master! With this, it makes his combat prowess equal a Soul Douluo.

The difference of strength was too much, except...

Tang Wulin smirked and turned towards the arena. "You just haven't seen the true depth of Ye's power. What he showed you that day, was merely a drop of an ocean."

Deep blue and white swirls of energy, that was what Xiu Ye saw. A deep blue and white colored swirls of energy covered the entire figure of Wu Zhangkong in a protective manner. It was like, he was one with it.

It was the energies of ice and snow, but it should more on the former than the latter. The energies enveloping him is much greater in both quantity and quality compared to others Xiu Ye had observed, in fact, it almost equaled his amount of fire energy that surrounded his body.

'This man, he is beloved by the element of ice.' Xiu Ye wasn't surprised at this discovery. From what he recalls from canon, Wu Zhangkong wasn't that much skilled in using his ice element and he much prefers his sword skills. But his ice element had always caught up to the power of his sword skills, this shows just how much affinity he has to the ice element.

Ever since he had brokethrough to the Spirit Domain Realm, Xiu Ye is now capable of distinguishing the elements of the formless energy molecules in the air. Not only that, but he could tell the level of one's affinity to their element. This, however, wasn't the limit of what one could do with a Spirit Domain Realm level of spiritual power, there are so much more. Sadly, he had only recently achieved this level of power so he isn't capable of doing more until he fully acclimates to his spiritual power.

It was just a matter of time.

Though, there was one other ability Xiu Ye had gained when he reached Spirit Domain Realm.

Xiu Ye's eyes turned towards the top of Wu Zhangkong head, where a beautiful young girl that can almost match with Yu Fei, with long silky brown hair, similar colored eyes, and fair white skin like milk. She strangely wore a white colored kimono, coupled with her beauty and cold facial expression, she was like a beautiful ice goddess that no mortal man can melt her ever frozen heart.

The young woman stared at Xiu Ye in shock, she couldn't understand why the boy in front of her was staring straight at her. Her, a ghost!

It was like he could see her.

'But that's impossible! I'm a spirit! The only way for him to see me is if he has a martial soul that enables him to see souls or his martial soul has been tainted into an evil attribute, giving him the ability to see souls. But he doesn't give off the aura of an evil soul master... What is he?' The ghost woman continued staring at Xiu Ye with a curious and wary look.

She wondered, could this boy help her fulfill her wish for her beloved? She shook her around, not wanting to rise her hope up for nothing.

Xiu Ye eyes remained on the ghost for a brief moment before focusing back on Wu Zhangkong, who had just taken off his belt and used his soul power to straighten it up, similar to reinforcement, it also strengthen the belt up a notch but wasn't as effective as reinforcement.

Wu Zhangkong display of unbuckling his belt, caused most of the surrounding female, and some male, students to explode with embarrassed and mostly excited loud shrills.

Xiu Ye sweat dropped at the display, like seriously, are you doing this purposely or not?

Wu Zhangkong raised his belt sword up and pointed it at Xiu Ye, "What's your current cultivation rank?"

Xiu Ye frowned, "Why ask?"

Wu Zhangkong said, "Because I would lower my cultivation to match yours."

Xiu Ye snorted and shook his head. Instead of replying, he raised his right hand towards his storage ring and brought out a military combat knife, one of the many weapons he crafted.

This military combat knife isn't a normal one, as Xiu Ye had forged it with a blood sacrificed, second grade thousand refined Tungsten. It worked like a normal tungsten crafted knife, but with it thousand refined, it became much sharper, durable, heat resistant and capable of storing fire energy to coat its edge with fire.

Xiu Ye called it, Blaze Cutter.

Xiu Ye turned the knife all around his right hand, examining it, and he turned to point it towards Wu Zhangkong, whose figure began to radiate deep chill, "Teacher, with all due respect, I don't want to tell you and I want to fight you at your full strength." Xiu Ye's body was then surrounded by a glowing orange red color, intense heat radiating off of his body.

The half of the arena of where Wu Zhangkong stands had instantly turned frozen, the temperature around it dropping below -20, causing the students near that area to immediately retreat back.

While the other half of the arena where Xiu Ye stands, a spark of fire appeared around his body and it turned into a ring of blazing inferno surrounding him, causing the temperature around him to rise exponentially.

Both auras of blue and red slammed at each other, causing a small burst of shockwave to scatter.

The atmosphere had changed!

The students had all retreated several meters away from the arena. They all stared at the two with anticipation and excitement on their faces, they're about to see the strongest student fighting against the rumored strongest teacher.

This fight, who will win?

Wu Zhangkong remained quiet for a moment, glaring coldly at a calmly smiling Xiu Ye, before the aura around him fluctuated and it reached the level of a Soul Ancestor. He had decided to go with this level of cultivation because the latter's cultivation or abilities could equal a Soul Ancestor, he wanted to test this kid out and see if he could back up his confidence.

Xiu Ye narrowed his eyes, feeling slightly offended that Wu Zhangkong would only use a fraction of his true strength but thought about it as fair. After all, he is hiding like fifty percent of his true strength at the least.

The two stared at each other, silence took over the entire field as time passes.

They continued on staring at each other, not because they find the other attractive, but because they were trying to find the other's weakpoints that they can exploit.

Xiu Ye could have already seen what Wu Zhangkong's weaknesses in fighting in an instant if he had saw his martial soul and read upon its history.

Is it unfair? Yes. Is it dishonorable? Yes. Would Xiu Ye still use such an ability in the future? Yes. In a fight, you have to use every exploit your enemy has without any hesitation or it would led to your death.

Wu Zhangkong frowned, disappointed at seeing Xiu Ye being so arrogant that he hadn't use any fighting stance to be on guard. He was still standing in place, face calm, a small smile formed from his lips, and his knife was by his side pointing down.

He is completely wide open.

If this was a real life and death fight, Xiu Ye would have already died without knowing why.

'Figures. No matter how one is so talented, if they don't even know how to fight they are useless. I'll just finish this off in a single strike.' Wu Zhangkong took a single step forward, without any techniques or use of soul power, he jumped forward in a burst of physical strength and appeared in front of Xiu Ye in a short while. He raised his sword belt up high, the belt slightly glowed with a chilling red color, almost like blood. He poured in the years of cultivating his combat experience and skills in the virtual and real world: killing intent.

He wanted to teach the boy a lesson, that there are more powerful people than himself and he shouldn't try to be conceited or arrogant just because he's talented, as that will attract him both danger and death.

As the belt was about the head of a still standing Xiu Ye, who might have appeared to have been frozen stiff from fear to anyone, Wu Zhangkong wasn't really too concern in hurting him. He had only made his belt straight, that was all, and it would slack the moment it hit the boy. The real attack was his killing intent, he's pretty sure that the boy–

A flash of red light went passed him.

Death. Wu Zhangkong's eyes widened in fear, death was coming for him, it was unstoppable, it was strong, it was certain, it was inevitable. He will die...

His instincts yelled out for him to back away, and without any hesitation, he did. Using the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Wu Zhangkong moved unpredictably fast backwards, leaving behind blurs of white and even several afterimages behind. He was like a ghost.

Wu Zhangkong appeared a few meters away from his original position, his normally cold eyes was wide, shock and slight fear seen in them, cold sweat dripping down from his pale face.

He saw death, his death. For the first time in several years, ever since that fateful day when he lost his lover, Wu Zhangkong saw the bringer of death once more.

Wu Zhangkong scowled, his eyes glaring at the grinning monster in front of him, he released his grip on his half sliced belt and stood up straight. As the half sliced belt falls down, fire started to appear on it and turned it into ashes moments later.

The aura of soul power around him instantly began to rise exponentially.

The chill became stronger, the frost in the ground around him expended and turned into a deeper color, all the air around him was sucked away and turned into freezing mist that can freeze the inside of someone immediately the moment it enters their windpipe. The pressure it carried and powers it exuded was a hundred times more than it was.

Wu Zhangkong had unleashed his full Soul Emperor soul power!

Xiu Ye scoffed, completely unaffected and unimpressed, as he leisurely tossed his knife, its edge glowing with a deep red color, up and down playfully, "So, are you going to get serious? If you won't, you'll die." Behind him, only seeable to Wu Zhangkong, were mountains of corpses and rivers of blood flowing down.

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