Arthur stretched lazily, watching with calm amusement as the remaining opponents slowly closed in around him, their expressions dark with hostility.
The stands had fallen completely silent. Countless pairs of eyes were fixed on the stage.
The cheering for Shrek had died out at some point, no one quite sure when.
The crowd couldn't follow the finer details of the match. All they knew was that moments ago, lightning had erupted across the entire arena, a web of thunder and electricity swallowing the stage whole until the figures inside were nothing but blurs, their outlines lost in the rolling boom of thunder.
Then a powerful, formless gust had swept through like an invisible hand, there and gone in an instant, scattering the sea of lightning in the blink of an eye.
After that, the Eastsea Academy team had surged forward like tigers descending from the mountain, pressing the Shrek team hard with a storm of fists and soul skill flashes that set the crowd's blood roaring.
Everyone in the stands was a resident of one of the cities in the Eastsea Alliance. With their own team on the verge of winning, who among them would truly cheer for an outsider like Shrek?
Cheers and battle cries shook the arena, hope burning bright in every pair of eyes.
But that hope, barely kindled, was already guttering out. The Eastsea Academy members had failed to hold on, falling one by one across the stage until only Arthur remained, standing alone at the center of the encirclement.
Everyone held their breath. Every gaze locked onto the three pitch-black soul rings behind him.
They recognized the color. None of them had ever imagined that a child who looked so young could possess such a terrifying soul ring configuration.
This substitute, who had seemed like an afterthought, had exceeded everyone's expectations. Meanwhile, the Shrek members across from him were pale-faced and ragged, clearly running on fumes.
"There's still a chance!" A middle-aged man in the front row clenched his fist, his voice dropping low with barely contained excitement.
The people around him nodded eagerly, the light rekindling in their eyes. "That's right! The Shrek members are basically spent. We can still win!"
Anyone who had come specifically to watch a soul master competition understood what three ten-thousand-year soul rings meant.
And yet Arthur, completely surrounded, looked utterly at ease. That composure, set against the exhausted state of the Shrek team, gave every spectator in the Eastsea Alliance a surge of confidence.
"Shrek will not lose!" Glaring at Arthur's unruffled expression, Yu Henglong gritted his teeth. "Ning Xin!"
"Seven Treasures has its fame, first is power, second is speed, third is control!" Ning Xin fought to hold her wavering body upright as the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda flickered back to life in her palm, casting a faint glow.
Three pale golden beams of amplification settled over each of her teammates. The moment the boost landed, the group's auras sharpened, and a trace of color crept back into their pallid faces.
Yu Henglong stamped forward with a thunderous step, the remaining lightning crackling wildly around him. It lacked the ferocity of his peak, but the momentum was still fierce.
"Go down!"
He drove forward in a surge of thunder and swung his fist with unstoppable force.
Arthur didn't move. He even had the presence of mind to recite aloud, "How much soul power do you have left? A soul master's battle is a battle of soul power!"
He released his soul power.
The air around him warped. Soul power surged from his body like a breaking tide.
Pale golden ripples radiated outward with him at the center.
A crushing soul pressure slammed into Yu Henglong, stopping him cold before he could close the distance by even half a step.
"This soul power density..." Yu Henglong's pupils contracted sharply. Caught in the stalemate, his momentum spent and no new force ready to replace it, he had no choice but to retreat.
Arthur was already moving.
Instant-Light.
His left foot drove hard into the stage, the stone slab cracking apart beneath him as his body blurred into a streak of gold, closing the gap between them in an instant.
"Up you go!"
A light laugh escaped him as the invisible sword in his right hand blazed to life with a streak of blue-green wind energy.
The currents of Invisible Air and the golden soul power of Excalibur twisted together into a single indistinct flash of light that smashed squarely into Yu Henglong's face.
A dull, heavy crack.
Yu Henglong never even saw the strike coming. A tremendous force slammed into his cheek, and he flew off like a kite with a snapped string, spinning involuntarily two and a half times through the air before crashing to the ground, twitching twice and going still.
Yu Henglong disconnected.
"What was that?!"
The others nearby had seen it clearly. Arthur hadn't touched Yu Henglong at all.
And yet Yu Henglong had been sent flying as though struck by something solid.
"That's his martial soul!" Ye Xinlan, who had recovered slightly, forced herself to summon her fighting spirit and called out a warning. "An invisible sword!"
She raised the Star-God Sword and planted herself directly in Arthur's path.
Of everyone still standing, she was the only one with any understanding of swordsmanship, enough to at least hold her ground against that unseen blade for a moment.
The others went pale at once. The image of Yu Henglong being launched into the air was still fresh in their minds, and they hadn't caught a single trace of the attack, only Arthur's hand rising in a casual swing.
Now, hearing the words "invisible sword," they each instinctively stepped back half a pace, eyes wide with dread.
"All together!" With Yu Henglong down, Ning Xin assumed command.
The tall, lean boy bit down hard and whipped up a gust of wind. Several wind blades condensed and took shape, screaming through the air as they cut in from the side toward Arthur.
At the same moment, another Shrek team member dug into their remaining soul power and raised an earthen yellow defensive shield, pressing forward in an attempt to box Arthur in and cut off his footing.
"Wind? Funny, so do I."
Arthur flicked his wrist. Excalibur swept a clean arc through the air, and a burst of golden sword energy met the wind blades head-on with a deafening crash.
In the same motion he activated the Hammer of the Wind King, pouring soul power into it as a howling gale tore outward. The cyan shockwave caught the lean boy full-force and hurled him clean off the stage, embedding him into the wall.
The team member who had tried to cut off Arthur's movement froze where they stood, earthen shield still raised, looking faintly ridiculous.
Arthur's steps didn't slow. He flickered, reappearing directly in front of the person, slipping past the useless shield without giving them a moment to react, and dispatched them with ease.
With two more down, Arthur turned his gaze to Ning Xin.
She was ashen. The Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda had dimmed to near invisibility, its light barely there at all. Her soul power had been overdrawn long ago.
Arthur appeared before her in an instant. He curled his fingers and flicked them lightly against her wrist.
A pulse of pale golden soul power flowed in, and Ning Xin felt her entire body go limp and weak. Her legs buckled, and she crumpled to the ground.
Arthur crouched, closed his hand around her wrist, and lifted her with effortless ease before swinging her outward in a smooth arc.
Ning Xin's body swept through the air in a clean curve and landed hard at the base of the stage with a muffled groan, going quiet after that.
The last remaining opponent was dealt with just as simply.
Arthur tilted his head and looked at Zhou Zhangxi, genuinely puzzled. "Why are you still on the stage?"
"Do you need my help getting down?"
As a food-type soul master, Zhou Zhangxi's role had effectively ended the moment he handed out food to his teammates at the start. He could have stepped off at any point.
Zhou Zhangxi shuddered under that gaze and stammered, "I... I..."
He had been too rattled by the chaos of the battle to think straight. Snapping back to his senses now, he turned and scrambled off the stage as fast as his legs would carry him.