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"Ye Lan, you can still admit defeat now!!" Gu Yuena roared.
"My dictionary doesn't contain the word 'give up.'" Ye Lan replied.
Facing the two-hundred-meter-wide "Sun" that blotted out the sky, Ye Lan's heart had lost the solemnity it had earlier; instead, he felt inexplicably calm and relaxed.
That confidence came from the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor.
The Twelve-Winged Origin Angel was a crushing force in terms of raw strength, but the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor possessed a terrifying mechanism of its own.
The Nine-Heart Sacred Armor has only two functions.
First, Ye Lan gains Ye Lengleng's soul power and soul skills.
Second, it restores twenty percent of total soul power every second.
The Nine-Heart Sacred Armor has a single mechanism: infinite soul-power regeneration.
Moreover, unless Ye Lan or Ye Lengleng voluntarily dispels the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor, its duration is effectively limitless.
Confronted with the horrifying "Sun," Ye Lan closed his eyes for a moment and savored the warm embrace of the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor.
Within Ye Lan's mental world, a phantom blue-haired figure held him tightly; she murmured, "Ye Lan, all I have is yours."
Feeling Ye Lengleng's intent, Ye Lan slowly opened his eyes and measured the incoming "Sun," sensing the change in his own power.
With his own soul power combined with Ye Lengleng's, his strength had already reached Soul-King level — and he now possessed the soul power of a Soul King with infinite soul power. Besides his own one yellow and two purple spirit rings, he now also held Lengleng's two yellow and two purple rings.
Ye Lan's second and third spirit rings flared as he shouted:
"Blue-Silver Grass!!"
"Blue-Silver Prophet!!"
Countless strands of Blue-Silver Vines sprouted around Ye Lan, spreading to cover the entire arena. Among the endless grass, eighteen towering "Blue-Silver Priests," each nearly thirty meters tall, rose up. With Soul-King-level soul power, Ye Lan could now summon a total of fifty-four combat Blue-Silver Grass units, and those summoned eighteen Blue-Silver Priests.
The remaining Blue-Silver Grass did not receive the "I Want to Grow" enhancement and were only basic Blue-Silver Grass, but even those were formidable.
"Nature Domain!!"
"Life Sharing!!"
"I Want to Grow" granted the combat Blue-Silver Grass a 700% life bonus.
The Ultimate Water pushed that life bonus even further: the combat Blue-Silver Grass' life rose to 1,600% of the base Blue-Silver Grass life.
Nature Domain then increased the combat Blue-Silver Grass' life by another 50%, bringing them to an astonishing 2,400% of the base.
A Blue-Silver Prophet's life was seventy-two times that of base Blue-Silver Grass, and the eighteen Blue-Silver Priests together increased Ye Lan's effective Blue-Silver Grass life by 1,728 times the base.
At this point, Ye Lan's personal life pool had already reached Soul-Douluo level.
He transferred that tens-of-meters-long life bar to one of the Blue-Silver Priests.
Facing the colossal "Sun," Ye Lan did not mount a defense; instead he spread his arms and walked forward to embrace it.
Instantly, the shared total life atop the Blue-Silver Priest dropped by fifty percent, then began plummeting at an astonishing rate of ten percent per second.
Ye Lan said calmly, "Nine-Heart Begonia, Technique Four — Group Heal!"
At that moment, Lengleng's fourth spirit ring — the seventh ring on the Nine-Heart Begonia — flared with a dazzling purple light.
The golden Nine-Heart Begonia bud on the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor fully bloomed; countless golden petals drifted down and settled onto the eighteen Blue-Silver Priests.
All eighteen Blue-Silver Priests received the begonia's healing effect. Combined with their own healing, the total shared-life restoration reached an incredible nineteenfold!
What had been a life bar on the brink of collapse surged upward at unimaginable speed.
Within seconds, that tens-of-meters life bar was completely restored.
The gathered soul masters watched in shock as the diminutive Ye Lan directly embraced the "Sun." When Ye Lan's form was swallowed by the blazing light, many spectators believed he had committed suicide.
A dozen seconds later, just as everyone assumed Ye Lan had been burned to ash, the blinding "Sun" gradually dimmed and a pale white silhouette began to emerge.
The crowd stared in disbelief at the figure on the arena — Ye Lan stood there quietly, untouched, as if he had just enjoyed a leisurely sunbath.
"How is that possible?!" Di Tian cried, pale with astonishment. Someone with only their flesh resisting the Lord's "Sun"?
Ning Fengzhi's face flushed with joy, though worry gnawed at him inwardly.
He rejoiced because his son-in-law was so outstanding.
He worried because Lengleng and Ye Lan were so perfectly compatible: their Martial Soul Fusion might exceed a hundred percent synergy. Lengleng and Ning Rongrong were both support-type soul masters — now they were competitors.
"Rongrong, work harder — why haven't you won him over yet?" he thought, half amused.
Seeing Ye Lan unscathed, Bibi Dong's lips curled. "How is it impossible now, Di Tian? Do you still believe the outcome is decided?"
"Every defensive soul skill has its limit," Di Tian analyzed calmly. "Even Xiong Jun's Invincible Golden Body was not unbreakable. I still favor Gu Yuena in this fight."
"Then let's wait and see," Bibi Dong said, eyes fixed on the golden-haired figure in the arena.
"Teacher and Lengleng's Martial Soul Fusion seems incredibly powerful. I don't know the exact effect, but from Teacher's expression, this match looks almost certain," Zhu Zhuqing said dreamily. If only she could perform Fusion with the teacher — her own martial soul didn't match his Blue-Silver Grass at all.
"Lengleng, show them — help me beat that silver-haired, big-chested girl!" Du Gu Yan cheered.
Ning Rongrong, crestfallen, whimpered, "So Ye Lan and Lengleng were just exaggerating before. The so-called top support on the continent… false!" Her confidence evaporated when she saw how much power Lengleng lent Ye Lan.
Qian Renxue pondered whether the Fusion of Ye Lan and Lengleng was stronger, or whether the Twelve-Winged Origin Angel was superior. Realizing she couldn't fuse with Ye Lan, she sighed softly.
Gu Yuena stared at the unharmed Ye Lan and murmured, "Such incredible recovery speed. Blue-Silver Grass and the Nine-Heart Begonia — have their Martial Soul Fused to enhance healing?"
She had clearly perceived one Blue-Silver Vine being damaged earlier. After the golden petals drifted over, that wounded vine recovered as if nothing had happened.
If the Golden-Patterned Heavenly Vines could be damaged, then Ye Lan wasn't invincible—his healing was simply overwhelming.
So long as her attack was strong enough, she could shatter his defense. And with her foundations, she believed that even if the battle turned into a war of attrition, Ye Lan could not match her soul power.
With that resolve, Gu Yuena's first, second, and sixth spirit rings flared again.
"Heavenfall!!"
A gray-brown meteor, over a hundred meters in diameter, appeared above Gu Yuena. The instant the Heavenfall formed, the world dimmed: this enormous meteor entirely eclipsed the sun.
Gu Yuena swung her staff; the enormous rock fell straight toward Ye Lan.
The meteor's passage compressed the air; a brutal gale whipped Ye Lan's golden hair into a wild tangle.
Tilting his head to look at the oppressive Heavenfall, Ye Lan did not retreat — he advanced.
That was because Gu Yuena's soul skill range already covered the entire arena.
There was nowhere for Ye Lan to flee; he could only confront the attack.
"Blood Armor — Complete Form!"
Normally, after summoning the Blue-Silver Priests, Ye Lan could not activate Blood Armor Complete Form. But while the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor persisted, he could rely on the Nine-Heart Begonia to heal him.
This allowed him to enjoy the Blue-Silver Priests' massive life bonuses while opening Blood Armor Complete Form.
Blood raced through Ye Lan's body; boiling blood began to vaporize, steam of sanguine mist seeping from his pores.
Then, his calves slammed into the ground, explosive force gathering in his legs. "Flash," "Instant Step" activated together!
Bang!!
Ye Lan crouched, then drove his feet down so hard the arena floor crumbled into a ten-meter-deep pit. Before the jagged black stones had a chance to fly, Ye Lan became a golden afterimage and leapt straight toward the sky-covering meteor.
As a golden afterimage and under the slowed perception of his Golden Eyes, he channeled all his soul power into his legs.
Each time his legs struck the air, Ye Lan used the Invisble Form to create a patch of transparent ground beneath his feet.
Every time he planted his foot on that "air ground," thunderous peals rang out — the sound of sonic booms fused with his Resonant Step.
With the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor granting infinite recovery, Ye Lan could use Resonant Step without limit.
Bang!!
Bang!!
Because his speed exceeded limits, Ye Lan's afterimage vanished.
Thud!!
Before the gathered soul masters had even registered the thunderclaps, one side of the enormous meteor exploded open — Ye Lan had vanished.
At the instant Ye Lan struck the meteor, the shared total life dropped by sixty percent.
He had already pierced into the interior of the Heavenfall; the rock cracked.
From gaps in the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor, eight Ancient Beast Tendrils shot out.
"Flash!"
"Meteor!"
Each tendril flickered with gold and blood-tinted soul light.
The eight Ancient Beast Tendrils, plus Ye Lan's two fists and two legs, produced twelve blood-gold meteors that bombarded the interior of the Heavenfall.
Boom!!
With every strike, stone shards flew in all directions.
The Heavenfall's fall slowed; its speed dropped.
Each of Ye Lan's attacks produced massive recoil that shaved away at the shared total life bar.
But those losses were trivial for Ye Lan, who could restore soul power infinitely. As he attacked, the sixty percent life loss had already been fully restored.
As Ye Lan's assault continued, cracks in the Heavenfall multiplied and deepened.
Thud!!
The cracking Heavenfall smashed into the obsidian arena and the gathered Blue-Silver Priests. The obsidian stage shattered into fragments, and a cloud of dust and rubble surged toward the audience.
Gu Yuena's staff flashed a yellow soul light; the debris froze midair.
When the dust cleared, the once-flat obsidian arena had become a giant pit dozens of meters deep.
At its bottom lay fragments of the Heavenfall and a half-broken core.
Moments later, countless stones burst from the fractured meteor's crown.
A white-armored, golden-haired man crawled out from the Heavenfall — he had punched his way through the meteor!
Ye Lan stood atop the broken meteor, looking over the stunned crowd with a light, satisfied mood.
Although he still could not shatter the meteor with a single punch, piercing it from base to crown by sheer perseverance and infinite soul regeneration was a staggering achievement.
Surveying the ruined arena, Bibi Dong announced, "From now on the Grand Finals of the Continent's Elite Soul Academy Tournament will have no terrain restrictions. Any objections?"
"Long live the Holy Pope!" the staff bowed in unison.
Di Tian nodded, offering no objection.
The Lord's fight with Ye Lan had already demonstrated the ability to reshape the battlefield. With the arena smashed, insisting on previous rules would be pedantic.
Ye Lan nodded, affirming Bibi Dong's decision.
Gu Yuena did not oppose Bibi Dong. Instead she looked up at the golden-haired man turned away from the sun.
Her expression darkened slightly. Even Heavenfall hadn't crushed Ye Lan? If he could not pierce Heavenfall with a single blow, that meant his raw offensive power was definitely lower than hers.
But why was he completely unharmed?
Gu Yuena recalled oddities from the battle with the Tian Dou Royal Academy. Back then, others also remained unharmed, yet when confronted by the "Sun" Ye Lan still cleared his teammates from the arena.
This proved Ye Lan's defensive soul skill wasn't invincible; beyond a certain acceptance limit, he could still be wounded.
For example, he could transfer damage to Blue-Silver Grass.
Blue-Silver Grass?
A glint of understanding lit Gu Yuena's eyes. If he transfers all damage to the Blue-Silver Grass, then she would simply destroy the grass itself!
Her target had always been Ye Lan; now Gu Yuena resolved to root out every Blue-Silver Grass at its source.
In the blink of an eye she changed tactics.
At that moment, the dozen or so Blue-Silver Priests that had exploded in the meteor pit were reborn.
The eighteen Blue-Silver Priests swarmed like vassals around a king, encasing Ye Lan at the center.
A cyan soul light gleamed across Gu Yuena's body.
"Storm!"
Three of Gu Yuena's dark-gold spirit rings flared. An endless tempest surged at the Blue-Silver Priests.
Ground-level Blue-Silver Grass was shredded into golden dust by the whirling wind blades. Hundreds-meter-long gust blades tore toward the priests.
Ye Lan's shared life plummeted.
A Blue-Silver Priest bound to the shared life had its Golden-Patterned Galaxy surface reduced to grass fragments in an instant; in the next moment, it was cut to pieces by the wind blade, and the shared life bar shifted to the next priest.
That priest too was quickly shredded into dust.
In only five seconds, one by one, the giant Blue-Silver Priests turned to golden grass fragments, cleaved by the endless wind blades.
In an instant the shared total life had been halved.
Ye Lan looked at Gu Yuena, grave. He had not expected her to find Life Sharing's weakness so quickly.
Although Life Sharing provided him an enormous life pool, it had to be bound to life units. The Blue-Silver Priests — as summoned life units — were gigantic. While Life Sharing benefited him, area-of-effect attacks could exploit the priests' collective absorption to multiply damage, causing the total shared life to plummet rapidly.
If he lacked the Nine-Heart Sacred Armor, he would have surrendered then and there.
But he was not fighting alone: he fought with Lengleng.
"Soul-power recovery!!"
"Blue-Silver Grass!!"
"Blue-Silver Prophet!!"
"Nine-Heart Begonia, Technique Four — Group Restore!!"
In a flash more huge Blue-Silver Vines sprang up near Ye Lan.
Each time Gu Yuena's Storm cleaved a Blue-Silver Priest, another priest immediately regenerated.
Life Sharing's total life was dropping at a terrifying twenty percent per second.
Yet that twenty-percent loss every second was utterly crushed by the nineteenfold healing of the Nine-Heart Begonia.
Every time the shared life decreased by twenty percent, it refilled instantly.
Gu Yuena madly spun her soul power, drawing countless wind element particles. Grass after grass was annihilated — only to be reborn again.
After a long while, the Storm subsided. Gu Yuena gripped her staff and panted heavily.
The Heavenfall's remaining fragments had been sliced into powder by the gale and blown away.
Ye Lan and the eighteen reborn Blue-Silver Priests stood on an exceptionally flat surface, unharmed.
Breathing hard, the silver-haired girl Gu Yuena faced Ye Lan. He said, "Gu Yuena, give up. This is the power of Lengleng and me — you cannot defeat both of us alone."
Gu Yuena's purple eyes met Ye Lan's golden ones. She breathed, "Your third spirit ring has stayed lit the whole time — that means you've been maintaining a defensive soul technique. But your seventh spirit ring, the fourth ring of the Nine-Heart Begonia, has also remained lit — the begonia's petals have been healing you continuously. In other words, your defense isn't invincible: only by combining the begonia's healing with your defensive soul skill do you achieve this near-invincible effect."
"So if I destroy you and all your Blue-Silver Grass, I win the fight — right?" she concluded.
Ye Lan's expression was calm. "You're right. But you can't do it."
"Then I'll try!" Gu Yuena said, and the first, second, third and sixth of her dark-gold rings flared.
A nine-colored soul light shimmered across her body.
Elemental particles of every kind rose: water, fire, earth, wind, light, dark, ice, thunder — elements converged above her palm.
The Elemental Tide drew every element out.
Elemental Control and her third soul skill, Element Fusion, condensed them into a gray energy sphere.
Elemental Burst instantly expanded that gray sphere from ten meters in diameter to one hundred meters.
"If you want to admit defeat now, you still can. If I'm right, the moment your defensive soul skill is pierced will be your death," Gu Yuena declared solemnly to Ye Lan.
Ye Lan looked up at the terrifying gray sphere above her palm.
Under his Golden Eyes, Gu Yuena's element fusion operations were crystal clear. Countless fused elements formed an Unknown Element — a power far more terrifying than the so-called Ultimate Force.
This was precisely why Ye Lan feared Gu Yuena: as an elemental master of all types, the force she displayed was not merely below Ultimate.
Sure enough, facing him, Gu Yuena had brought out her final trump card.
If he relied only on the Life Sharing life boost, that Unknown Element sphere would annihilate him utterly. Even with infinite regeneration, he could not recover in time — the shared life bar would be emptied in a single blow.
Ye Lan thought for a moment and resolved to meet Gu Yuena head-on. If he could not withstand the Unknown Element sphere, he would use Flash, Instant Step, and Resonant Step stacked together to instant-teleport away — but that would mean conceding defeat. Though the battlefield had no terrain limits now, in Ye Lan's heart, losing was still losing.
A golden glint flashed through Ye Lan's Golden Eyes as he said earnestly, "Gu Yuena, strike!"
"I want to see the limit of what Lengleng and I can do!" he added.
A hint of admiration passed through Gu Yuena's gaze. It was the first time she had admired a human — the first time she felt genuine respect.
"Very well!! Eradicate!!"
"Termination!!!"
Gu Yuena slammed her hand down and the gray energy sphere, Termination, hurtled toward the small golden figure.
Ye Lan, faced with the motionless Terminus, did not dare be casual.
He immediately caused every Blue-Silver Grass and every Blue-Silver Priest to self-sacrifice, converting them all into the Ultimate Light within his body.
"Feel the calm of life!"
"Infinite Origin Light!!!"
The world instantly turned blinding white. Dazzling white lights flared before Ye Lan.
A white hole appeared in Ye Lan's left palm. Fed by infinite regenerative soul power, the white hole began to expand.
With the Terminus closing, Ye Lan no longer had time to continue feeding the Origin Light. He severed the Origin Light's power supply and released the white hole straight at Termination.
A ten-meter-diameter Origin Light shot into the over-one-hundred-meter gray energy sphere.
For a fleeting instant, the Origin Light was completely crushed by Termination. The white hole was driven back toward Ye Lan at tremendous speed.
(End of Chapter)