area51novel Chapter 211 Frozen Competition Stage
Chapter 211 Frozen Competition Stage
The existence of these explosive small molecules can be used for defense, as they can effectively neutralize a large portion of the incoming energy during the explosion process; if used for offense, these explosive small molecules will become an effective attack boost.
This level of support, in terms of its amplification, doesn't seem much stronger than the support-type spirit skills released by support-type spirit masters. However, the reason why the Star Crown spirit surpasses all other support-type spirits is definitely not because the Star Crown spirit has attack power, or rather, not only because the Star Crown spirit has attack power. Its true strength lies in the fact that it doesn't require continuous consumption of spirit power. Once the spirit skill's release process is complete, the Star Crown spirit master doesn't need to continue consuming spirit power to maintain the spirit skill's effect.
By harnessing the power of the stars, the soul skills of Star Crown Martial Souls can last for an exceptionally long time. In other words, at the same level, Star Crown Soul Masters possess a far greater reach and influence than normal support-type Soul Masters in terms of assistance abilities. If the number of people requiring assistance is fixed, then the advantage of a Star Crown Soul Master's wide reach translates into endurance.
If we define the scenario as the current battle between Shrek Academy and Star Luo National Academy, then it's not hard to understand why Shrek Academy, despite clearly lacking an advantage in individual strength, is eager to break Star Luo National Academy's formation.
If Shrek Academy fails to disrupt Star Luo National Academy's formation at the start of the battle, Star Luo National Academy's formation will become increasingly stable, to the point that even if Shrek Academy were to achieve a unified mind through the power of soul tools, it would be unable to resist it. It is a force that can move the entire team horizontally upwards.
Having clarified this point, Shrek Academy's primary objective in formulating its tactics was to disrupt the Star Luo National Academy's battle formation. Even if they were not individually superior, they had to prevent Xu Jiujiu from supporting his teammates.
This approach can be considered a fairly traditional combat method to some extent: in any team battle, the first priority is to eliminate the support character. However, Xu Jiujiu is not an ordinary support-type Soul Master, and Shrek Academy is not capable of eliminating him with an instant kill. Therefore, they can only try to use physical space to isolate Xu Jiujiu from supporting his teammates.
Then, leveraging the stronger "teamwork" built up by our side, we can force a multi-on-one battle to quickly eliminate Xu Jiujiu's helpers. Well, we don't need to eliminate them all; just taking down two will make the battle much easier.
Therefore, Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei were able to take advantage of various factors at the very beginning, relying on the power of their soul-guided power armor (including the power of the flight soul tool) and the power of their propulsion soul tool to directly attack the formation of the Star Luo National Academy.
Because the operation was so sudden, the Star Luo National Academy had no time to react, and their formation was quite dense, so Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei's raid was very successful.
Of the two students from Xingluo National Academy standing in the second row, one didn't even have time to evacuate before being forcibly pinned down by the soul-guided power armor controlled by Dai Yueheng. He is now completely under Dai Yueheng's control, which surpasses the power of a regular Soul Emperor.
Another person was also hit by the soul-guided power armor controlled by Bei Bei, but Bei Bei's strength was ultimately inferior to Dai Yueheng's, and the other person still found an opportunity to retreat after being hit.
Having luckily escaped Bei Bei's follow-up attacks, Wang Chenyi, one of the two masters of wind and fire at Xingluo National Academy, retreated a few steps. Her soul rings flashed rapidly, clearly indicating that she was preparing to use her soul skills to take down Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei, the two guys who dared to venture alone into their own territory.
However, Wang Chenyi's plan obviously failed. The speed at which the soul-guided power armor and soul-guided power mecha advanced was far beyond the expectations of the Star Luo National Academy. The barrage of energy bullets left the remaining five members of the Star Luo National Academy busy with defense for a time.
As for Wang Shiying, who was directly controlled by Dai Yueheng, and Huang Heyun, the Dark Tiger Soul King, who was overturned to the ground by the wind and waves deliberately stirred up by Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei when they landed, they were completely passive.
According to the previous description, Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei did launch an attack after falling from the sky, but in reality, that attack was just a side reaction after falling from the sky, a synchronized action that did not consume any processing time.
The first thing Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei did after landing was retreat—retreat at full speed, grabbing their prisoner and retreating as fast as they could towards the rising Yellow River Cloud. Well, calling it a collision wouldn't be entirely wrong.
Let's now sort out what Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei did before they collided with the Yellow River Cloud.
First, there's Dai Yueheng. He used his superior soul power to forcefully suppress a female control-type soul master who was already seeing stars from being unable to dodge, binding her with a set of soul power binding chains—a soul master's shackle. The origin and function of the soul master's shackle will be explained later; now, let's talk about Beibei.
Bei Bei wasn't as lucky as Dai Yueheng; his target, Wang Chenyi, dodged the falling object. Considering he didn't have time to pursue, and it was unlikely he could subdue Wang Chenyi, a fire-attribute control-type Soul Master, while retreating, Bei Bei simply released a lightning-fast electric net in front of himself. His main purpose was to block any Soul Skills Wang Chenyi might unleash, or to stop any opponent with exceptional speed and reflexes.
Okay, let's put the explanation aside for now and take a look at the unfortunate Yellow River Cloud, which was split off to the other side of the formation by falling debris.
Although still a little dizzy, Huang Heyun's ability as the former captain of the Star Luo National Academy's current team and the strongest offensive-type Soul Master was not to be underestimated. Facing the Soul Guidance Power Armor that would crush him in the blink of an eye, Huang Heyun still mustered a Soul Skill to fight back.
However, Huang Heyun was completely unaware that right behind him, the churning milky-white ice mist had silently crept up to his back.
With his spirit rings flashing, Huang Heyun activated his fastest first spirit skill at the last second. However, the milky-white ice mist, which had not previously revealed any power other than obscuring vision, suddenly unleashed the power of ultimate ice at this moment.
Huang Heyun's body did not feel cold, but the power that could freeze blood did affect him, at least affecting the flow of his soul power. Therefore, the first soul skill he was expected to release failed.
The next moment, Beibei's soul-guided powered armor was pressed against Huang Heyun's face. A bright crackling light flashed across Beibei's armor, and the magnetic field on the back of the armor changed instantly. Huang Heyun, whose limbs were already stiffening, found himself being pulled in. It felt as if his body had turned into a large block of iron, and a powerful magnet was placed in front of him.
"chichi"
Under the cover of the rapidly spreading ice mist, two traction ropes quickly pulled Dai Yueheng and Bei Bei, along with their captives, into the ice mist, causing the soul skills launched by Lightning Falcon Soul King Chen Xiaojie and Fire Control King Chen Yi, who were following closely behind, to all fall into empty air.
"call--"
A gentle breeze swept by, and the entire arena fell silent once more. Because of the loss of soul power supply, the icy mist that had previously permeated the arena vanished completely at this moment.
In five seconds, Shrek Academy launched a whirlwind attack, but if anyone had been distracted for five seconds, they would probably have wondered why Star Luo National Academy was missing two people.
Yes, the Shrek Academy team, with the former captain of Star Luo National Academy and a wind-attribute control-type soul master, retreated at full speed all the way back to their own half of the field and changed back to their previous formation.
Under the watchful eyes of the remaining five students of Xingluo National Academy, Huang Heyun and Wang Shiying, who had been shackled with Soul Master shackles and had their Soul Power circulation abilities sealed, were placed one by one by Huo Yuhao below the competition stage.
As mentioned before, Shrek Academy's blitzkrieg was largely driven by a desire to cripple the overall strength of the Star Luo National Academy. Conventional methods to achieve this include carpet bombing or infiltration tactics, but there are other methods as well.
Since this is the team battle arena for the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Battle Tournament, the opponent cannot replenish their manpower after the start of the match. Therefore, Shrek Academy can choose to achieve its goal by reducing the number of the opponent's personnel.
In short, Shrek Academy's high-burst tactic in the opening five seconds was named the "Lightning Kidnapping" plan by its creator, Long You.
Long You didn't remember what Princess Xu Jiujiu's various soul skills were, but he did remember that shortly after the competition began, Xu Jiujiu used her soul skills and soul tools (paid for) to directly divide Shrek Academy into two parts. It was a seemingly insurmountable predicament, making Shrek Academy's path to victory much more difficult. Therefore, Long You now chose to use her own methods against her.
Based on this lazy idea of winning the game more easily, Long You set up this kidnapping tactic and created the corresponding soul tool device for this tactic.
Long You himself modified Bei Bei's soul-guided power armor. The significance of this modification lies in turning the back of the soul-guided power armor into a super electromagnet. Don't ask why a magnet can attract a human body; the answer is that Long You provided the idea, the Book of Witness provided the answer, and then Long You created it.
In the pre-arrival virtual drill, two humanoid cannonballs crashed directly into the center of the Star Luo National Academy's formation, and at least one person was blown away by the shockwave from the impact. This person blown away by the shockwave was the one that Bei Bei needed to capture during the retreat, working with Ling Luo Chen and Huo Yu Hao.
Of course, simply eliminating one person would not achieve the weakening effect that Long You desired, so Long You also put He Caitou to work. He needed He Caitou to make a soul tool that could quickly imprison the soul power of a soul master according to the blueprints.
Long ago, Long You had already created a soul tool that could imprison the soul power within a soul beast. However, that soul tool had a problem: it was slow to take effect. Basically, the soul beast had to be beaten to the point of losing its ability to resist before the soul power within the soul beast could be imprisoned.
The newly developed Soul Master Shackle Soul Tool takes effect much faster. The only limitation is that all five Soul Power Imprisonment Rings must be placed on the opponent for it to take effect.
After repeated virtual simulations, Long You determined that as long as Dai Yueheng's strikes were accurate enough, he would master the thief's stun technique without any instruction. At that point, with Dai Yueheng's superior soul power level, it wouldn't be difficult for him to retreat quickly while grabbing someone and putting something on her body.
As it turned out, Long You's pre-arranged tactics worked. The Star Luo National Academy suffered losses, while Shrek Academy remained a unified entity, and the next attack targeting the Star Luo National Academy was imminent.
Completely concealed by the towering soul-guided mecha and soul-guided armor, Ling Luochen silently held Huo Yuhao's small hand and lit up his fifth soul ring.
So, below—
Welcome to the Ice Age!
The ice mist, which had clearly dissipated into nothingness—no, calling it ice mist is no longer accurate; it was frost—was rapidly covering the entire competition arena at an unbelievable speed.
On Shrek Academy's side, Long You and the others, clad in soul-guided powered armor and soul-guided powered mechs, could hear the auxiliary AI frantically alerting them to changes in the outside temperature. Meanwhile, at Star Luo National Academy, the five people who were regrouping and adjusting their formation all had drastic changes in expression.
Although their bodies hadn't yet come into direct contact with the frost, and their brains hadn't yet transmitted signals of cold, as excellent Soul Masters, they were acutely aware of the state of their own Soul Power. The feeling of stagnation and dullness made the students of Star Luo National Academy realize that they needed to find a way to avoid actually placing themselves in the frost.
The Star Luo National Academy certainly had a solution, but after weighing the pros and cons, it was Princess Xu Jiujiu of Star Luo who took action. Her fourth spirit ring shone, and dark golden starlight surged forth from the star crown on Xu Jiujiu's head. Soon, a layer of dark golden starlight shield enveloped the remaining five members of the Star Luo National Academy, isolating them from the increasingly dangerous frost outside.
But that wasn't the end of it. Because the frost and the resulting mist had completely obscured the field of vision on the competition stage, Xu Jiujiu raised his hand again and released a soul skill.
The starlight shot straight to the top of the arena, and after touching the apex of the protective barrier surrounding the arena, it turned sharply downwards, splitting into seven, each marking the current location of the seven Shrek Academy students.
When you lose sight of your opponent, knowing their current location is a decent way to compensate.