73 Disqualified

"Those two are going to destroy your boundary." Master Haniki observed. Koo Minchii was sitting next to him in a section specially reserved for the two of them. From there, they could see everything happening on the combat grounds.

Though Master Haniki had been closely observing Savyrran since the Combat School trials began, this was the first time he was seeing the full extent of the girl's power. In less than three minutes, the fearsome clash between Savyrran and the boy was weakening Koo's invisible wall. Koo had used Naa Vah to enclose the combat grounds so that no matter how powerful an attack was, it would still stay within the combat grounds and not hurt anyone outside it. Who would have thought that the clash between these two would pose a problem to the boundary?

"Indeed. If they keep at it, they will definitely break down the boundary." Koo agreed. He scrutinised the axe wielder for a while before adding, "that boy is Shezzi Eyizza and he is currently the most powerful applicant solely based on essence and soul armos. He is a green user with an evolved soul armos. Still, it is amazing how well he's mastered quiescence at such a young age."

Generally, a person with a more powerful essence could oppress the soul and body of someone with a weaker essence. This is done by putting immense pressure on the weak person thereby making them even weaker. But the oppressive nature of an essence when mastered properly, could be even deadlier than mere pressure on the body and soul. Thus, there were three forms of essence oppression; bloodlust, quiescence and beguilement. Usually, in a person's lifetime, they are able to master one of these techniques. A few people however, can use more than one of these techniques.

In Shezzi's case, he had mastered quiescence. With this form of essence oppression, pressure from Shezzi's essence rendered his victims unconscious thus sending them into a deep slumber for a period of time. The applicants who were affected by Shezzi's quiescence were those whose souls were too weak to withstand the onslaught, standing in the nearest radius to him. The fact that he had affected more than two thirds of all the applicants was proof that he was indeed strong.

"Savyrran seems to be matching up to the him but obviously he is the stronger of the two. With an evolved soul armos, he is nothing like the boy with the ape soul armos."

Master Koo Minchii nodded slowly. He had also seen that though Savyrran was skillfully evading most of the attacks, she was not having it as easy as when she fought Chanras and his friends. Even within the same essence level, a person with an evolved soul armos was much more powerful than someone whose soul armos was only in the primordial state. Koo himself was an evolved blue user, which meant that Naa Vah was an evolved soul armos. Only a few blue users who had not evolved yet would dare pick a fight with him.

Seeing how Savyrran was slightly struggling against an evolved green user, Koo knew that he did the right thing when he refused to have the legendary beast attack the girl. The girl may be strong, but clearly, she had a limit to her strength. Still, it was quite impressive how she was fighting back even though she had neither essence nor soul armos.

"The bell should go off any moment from now." Koo said. The five minutes was almost up and within that time, many of the applicants were already defeated and had either been thrown out of the combat grounds or were lying unconscious within the combat grounds.

But of course, Shezzi and Savyrran were still going strong. After a constant barrage of assault of his axe, and seeing that it was still not breaking through Savyrran's defense, Shezzi finally summoned his axe back into his soul. He decided to try something else. A surprise attack was likely to throw the girl off balance.

Seeing that the boy was no longer using his axe, and was rather about to use his fists, Savyrran subtly rubbed her space ring and her sword disappeared back into the ring. She slowly cracked her knuckles, a wide smile plastered on her face. What are you up to? She thought.

For a moment, the two stood still, sizing each other up like two fearsome predators. Even the other applicants had totally refused to get involved with the fight between them mostly because no one was stupid enough to fight a green user with an evolved soul armos.

"Your soul armos looks really heavy. It must take a lot of physical strength to wield it with such ease." Savyrran said. She had noticed how easily the boy wielded the axe with one hand. After only a few minutes of fighting him, Savyrran knew that this boy was far stronger and faster than Chanras. In fact, she strongly believed that he was the strongest person she had ever fought in her entire life. Master Bufan may be a lot more experienced than he was, but when it came to raw physical strength and essence power, this axe wielder was stronger than Master Bufan.

"I don't need my soul armos to crush you. I will do it with my bare hands."

Savyrran raised an eyebrow, a little confused. And then in all sincerity, she asked, "but you could not even do that with your soul armos so how do you plan on doing it with your bare hands?"

Her words must have struck a nerve in Shezzi because the green flames surrounding him burned with even more fury. "You… I'm going to enjoy killing you."

"You will be breaking the rules if you did that. Well, not that you can kill me anyway. But I feel you should know about the rules."

"Shut up." Shezzi snapped. Then he began to harness a ball of green light in his palms. When a person's soul armos evolves, their essence and soul armos gain special properties that those with primordial soul armos don't have. For example, a person with an evolved soul armos could harness their essence and emit it from outside their body thereby using the essence for both offense and defense. People who have not evolved could not do this since their essence can only hover around them and not be emitted outside their bodies.

The green ball of light in Shezzi's palm grew larger and larger and he had to support it with both hands. Meanwhile, Savyrran was too intrigued by the boy's unique use of his evolved essence. She knew his essence was evolved because it was a lot purer, brighter and more abundant than Chanras' green essence. Even if a person's oppressive essence had no effect on her, she could still tell the difference between a primordial and an evolved essence.

Master Bufan had an evolved yellow essence and soul armos. Thus, unlike any ordinary yellow user, Master Bufan's yellow essence was rather golden in colour. It was for the same reason that this boy's green essence was more of a deep rich emerald tone. And the ball of light growing in his hands was like a massive ball of emerald light.

Before Shezzi could do anything with his ball of green light, the bell suddenly rang. Savyrran relaxed her guard, after all, it had been said that the trial would be over once the bell rang.

Shezzi, on the other hand had other ideas.

When he remembered how this girl and another boy, who must have been her sibling, disrespected him a few days ago, he could not help but feel stifled within. In all those past days, he had harboured that anger and had simply waited for the time to unleash his wrath. His joy knew no bounds when he saw that the girl was actually one of the applicants in the same school as him. In the first trials, due to their great numbers, he did not see her. But now that their numbers had reduced greatly, he was able to see her again. Perhaps, she was lucky he had not seen her during the collection of the soul beast cores.

Had he done that, he would have killed her and no one would have been the wiser. Right now, he knew the consequences of breaking the rules, yet his pride would not allow him to let this grievance go. Hence, even after the bell had rang to signal the end of the battle royale, Shezzi was still ready to attack.

Everyone held their breath, not daring to breath too loudly, when the realisation finally dawned on them. The boy with the evolved soul armos was planning on continuing with the attack.

Master Haniki squinted his eyes in wary when he saw the massive ball in the boy's hands. He knew exactly what this attack was and if the boy used it, it was likely to destroy the entire combat grounds and everyone within it. Given how already weakened the boundary was, that attack could totally shatter the boundary and the attack may even go beyond the combat grounds. They had to stop the boy.

"Koo. Get there at once and stop him."

Koo Minchii nodded and then stood up on his feet. A flash of deep blue light surrounded his body and his deep brown eyes transformed into two orbs of sapphire. In an instant, Koo disappeared leaving behind a trail of blue light.

Back on the combat grounds, Shezzi had finally charged up his massive ball of green light. With a wicked glint in his eyes, he hurled the ball of light with incredible might towards Savyrran. But as the ball of light sped toward his nemesis, a deep blue light suddenly materialized out of nowhere right between Savyrran and Shezzi. Within the blue light was a tall man with fiery blue eyes. Shezzi instantly recognised him as the Vice Head of the Combat School. What was he doing here?

Koo Minchii outstretched his right hand towards the ball of green light speeding towards him. As soon as the massive ball of green light collided with Koo Minchii's palm, its momentum stopped instantly. Then the ball disappeared into thin air as though it had escaped into some invisible portal.

Shezzi's eyes twitched in disbelief when he saw how easily the man had stopped his strongest attack with a single hand. That mass of essence he threw was capable of bringing down several buildings at once. Yet, Master Minchii had merely stopped it like it was nothing at all. Was this the fearsome power of the blue user?

"This fight is over." Master Koo Minchii announced in a booming voice. "Only those left standing within the combat grounds have passed the trials. But you," he pointed to the axe wielder, "Shezzi Eyizzi, have been disqualified."

"What!" Shezzi shouted as though he could not possibly believe that someone like him could be disqualified. He was clearly the strongest applicant in the arena so how could they even think about disqualifying him?

"This is all your fault." Shezzi angrily pointed to Savyrran. "You will pay for this." Without any more words, Shezzi ran out of the arena with incredible speed. He was so fast that one would think he actually vanished.

Meanwhile, Savyrran was too stunned by the whole thing. What did she do and how did this whole thing become her fault? The boy was the one who tried to attack her even after the bell rang, so why was he blaming her for his own mistakes? She chuckled lightly. She had not anticipated that this phase of the trial would be this eventful.

Completely ignoring Shezzi's outburst, Master Minchii continued. "Those of you have qualified should meet me outside for an announcement."

Just as Master Minchii had suddenly appeared in the combat grounds, he was no more.

Savyrran ran her hands through her long dreadlocks, a smirk on her face. So this was it? This was all there was to the second phase of the trials? She had not expected the trials to end this quickly. It wasn't even ten minutes yet, and it was all over. This was just too boring. It was still early in the afternoon, what were they going to do with all the free time? Well, perhaps Master Minchii would tell them what was next once they met him outside.