The battlefield that had just held more than a dozen participants was now eerily silent.
Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing hard came from the shadows—it was Xie Xie.
His original three-man squad had already been reduced to just himself. Earlier, he had even teamed up with Tang Wulin to trick his own two teammates to their deaths.
Now, Xie Xie chose to follow Tang Wulin's group from the rear, hoping to seize opportunities to "pick up scraps" or step in at critical moments to help.
Just now, he had been hiding in the treetop of a tall tree. When he saw Nan Fusheng being surrounded, he was ready to make a move. But before he could, he saw Nan Fusheng flash their special hand signal—so he restrained himself.
Because of that, he witnessed the terror of the Five-Colored Lotus more clearly than anyone.
Under that dissolving, all-erasing light, Yang Nianxia didn't even get a chance to resist. He was simply erased from existence. Then the five-colored brilliance expanded suddenly, engulfing Luo Guixing's team as well.
The two students who had been besieged by Luo Guixing's group couldn't even fight back before they were erased.
Next fell two of Luo Guixing's agile-attack teammates, followed by a defensive-type soul master. That one had tried to brace himself against the radiance, but even with his defense, he only lasted a heartbeat before vanishing too.
In the blink of an eye, Luo Guixing's seven-man squad had lost three members.
The survivors were: Luo Guixing himself—who had managed to narrowly offset the Divine Light by activating a spatial vortex just in time—plus a fire-bird spirit soul master (a strong-attack type), one auxiliary-type soul master, and Xu Xiaoyan.
Their strength was now drastically reduced. What remained was one strong-attack, two controllers, and a support.
Meanwhile, Tang Wulin and Gu Yue, thanks to Nan Fusheng's earlier warning, had escaped unscathed. The two now stared wide-eyed at the massive crater before them.
Is she really… a freshman like us?
That thought flashed in Tang Wulin's and Gu Yue's minds—and in Luo Guixing's as well.
"Cough, cough!"
A sudden coughing sound drew everyone's attention. At the edge of the crater, a figure slowly stood up.
Wavy auburn hair, now somewhat disheveled. Her academy uniform was torn in many places, revealing hints of pale skin—though the critical areas remained intact. It was none other than Wu Siduo.
But her appearance was very different from before. Strands of white now threaded through her auburn hair. Her body seemed to have grown slightly larger. Most shocking of all, her four thousand-year soul rings had vanished—replaced by just one.
"Twin Martial Souls!" Luo Guixing cried out instinctively.
Indeed. To switch from four rings to one, with her martial soul transforming completely—this could only mean she had two martial souls.
"Haa… With just my White Tiger martial soul, it's impossible to defeat Forth Woll. Looks like I'll have to use that."
Wu Siduo's tone was calm as she analyzed the situation. She had survived the Five Elements Divine Light only because she'd timed her Nether Cat's first soul skill—Nether Dash—to boost her speed, then used Yang Nianxia as a shield.
At the last moment, before being engulfed, she had switched to her second martial soul, White Tiger, and activated its first soul skill—White Tiger Barrier, enduring the edge of the blast.
She had barely survived.
Fortunately, her flight had already brought her close to the attack's boundary. Though she looked battered, she still had enough soul power to unleash one final trump card.
I must get as close as possible.
That was her conclusion as she stared at the composed figure of Forth Woll. The girl still showed no signs of exhaustion. Wu Siduo didn't dare gamble on whether she could launch another lotus.
And her own trump card couldn't be sustained long. This had to be ended quickly.
Without delay, she switched back to her Nether Cat and bolted straight at Forth Woll.
"Not attacking me?"
Wu Siduo had braced herself for Forth Woll's counterstrike, already planning how to dodge while conserving power.
But her opponent didn't move. She just stood there, smiling slightly, and even crooked a finger at her.
"Come. Let me see just how strong the so-called Nether Wu Siduo really is."
The taunting voice reached her ears. Wu Siduo's gaze grew icier. Since Forth Woll was underestimating her, she would show no mercy. Not that she had planned to hold back anyway.
At five meters away, her body suddenly expanded slightly, a golden light flaring across her frame.
Switching to White Tiger form?
That was Luo Guixing's thought as he watched.
But then came something far stranger—
The golden glow did not replace the black shadowy aura of the Nether Cat. Instead, both remained, overlapping.
A strange dark-gold radiance erupted from her body. Her fur shimmered like crystalline strands, her form twisting and shifting—until her humanoid figure vanished, replaced by a massive, transparent white tiger.
Tang Wulin and Gu Yue gasped in unison.
"This is… a Self Martial Soul Fusion Technique?"
Ordinarily, a Martial Soul Fusion Skill required two soul masters with highly compatible martial souls to fuse their powers in contact, producing devastating results.
But what Wu Siduo displayed went beyond their understanding. She had fused her own twin martial souls into one.
A self-cast fusion technique.
It consumed even more than a shared fusion, but—this was still a true Martial Soul Fusion Skill. In this state, Wu Siduo's power had completely surpassed the Soul Ancestor (four-ring) level.
Her ultimate trump card: Nether White Tiger.
With a body length over five meters, the beast blurred into motion, appearing before Forth Woll in an instant.
A massive tiger claw swung down.
BOOM!