The battle between the two Soul Douluo-level powerhouses erupted instantly.
The dark night sky seemed to be sliced open.
On one side was profound, lightless darkness, and on the other, dazzling lightning.
Every clash between the two in their Martial Soul Avatar states produced terrifying shockwaves and deafening roars.
Even the small island below slowly began to tremble.
Waves crashed against the shore one after another, gradually washing away the bloodstains on the port walls.
Meanwhile, the twenty-plus Imperial Dragon Legion Soul Emperors who had followed Wang Xiao clashed with the converging Western Sea Legion soldiers.
In terms of numbers, the Western Sea Legion obviously had the upper hand.
As one of the Sun Moon Empire’s elite soul engineer legions, a full formation consisted of two hundred soldiers.
Even after Wang Xiao wiped out a small squad on the wall earlier, there were still at least a hundred and sixty men left.
Subtracting the twenty or so soldiers left to guard Xu Zihuang inside the castle, the Western Sea Legion’s forces were still roughly seven times larger than Wang Xiao’s group.
However, in terms of overall cultivation, the Western Sea Legion fell far short.
Every single soldier Wang Xiao brought was a Soul Emperor above rank sixty.
In contrast, the Western Sea Legion had fewer than ten men above rank sixty.
Battles between soul masters and soul engineers were not like conventional army warfare.
Numbers did not equate to an absolute advantage; individual strength mattered much more.
Because soul masters had wildly varied martial souls and ever-changing soul skills, coordinating with each other was not as easy as it seemed.
In the long-standing team spirit arena matches of the Douluo Continent, teams rarely exceeded seven members.
And even such seven-man teams often required years of practice to achieve perfect synergy.
The twenty-plus men of the Imperial Dragon Legion split into small teams of three to five, cutting through the Western Sea Legion’s ranks.
The small teams fought independently while supporting each other perfectly.
With powerful individual strength and flawless coordination, they pushed the Western Sea soldiers back step by step.
This alone was enough to show the terrifying combat power the complete Imperial Dragon Legion once possessed.
“Don’t break formation!
They only have twenty men; their consumption is definitely greater than ours!
As long as we keep wearing them down, the advantage will gradually tilt in our favor!” A steady voice rang out from the front lines of the Western Sea Legion.
Hearing the familiar voice, the panicked Western Sea soldiers subconsciously looked toward the source with joy.
“Deputy Commander Qiu Ying!”
It was a red-faced middle-aged man, also clad in deep blue armor.
He looked much older than Hai Xiao.
He was only about 1.6 meters tall with an extremely thick torso, but bizarrely, his four limbs were incredibly thin, completely disproportionate to his body.
The red-faced middle-aged man hunched over.
Grayish-white pentagonal scales covered him from his face all the way to his back, forming a massive hemispherical shell behind him.
This giant shell almost completely covered his limbs.
This was Qiu Ying, the Deputy Commander of the Western Sea Legion.
His cultivation was second only to Hai Xiao—he was a genuine Soul Sage-level powerhouse!
Qiu Ying’s appearance acted like a tranquilizer, allowing the nearly routed Western Sea troops to quickly regroup.
The three Imperial Dragon soldiers closest to Qiu Ying immediately darkened their expressions.
A skinny youth holding a cyan soul rapier flashed a ruthless look.
The sole black sixth soul ring around him lit up as he transformed into a dozen cyan afterimages, launching a flurry of thrusts at the back of Qiu Ying’s neck.
“Sixth Soul Skill, Cyan Shadow Devour!”
“Qing Mu!
Don’t be rash!
That old bastard’s martial soul is an Armadillo; his defense isn’t that easy to break!” A much steadier middle-aged man beside Qing Mu urgently tried to stop him, but unfortunately, his martial soul wasn’t speed-oriented, so he couldn’t intercept him in time.
In an instant, the dozen cyan afterimages reached Qiu Ying’s back.
The cyan soul rapier rained down like a dense shower, aiming straight for Qiu Ying’s neck.
“Hmph.” Qiu Ying glanced sideways at Qing Mu, whose face was covered in cyan scales, and smiled coldly.
Immediately, his limbs and head fully retracted into the hemispherical shell on his back.
His already hunched body curled even tighter, perfectly forming a complete sphere.
Then, this sphere, covered entirely in grayish-white pentagonal scales, suddenly burst upward from the ground, crashing directly into the dozen afterimages formed by Qing Mu’s Sixth Soul Skill.
As a ten-thousand-year Sixth Soul Skill, Cyan Shadow Devour wasn’t a simple cloning ability.
Each clone possessed fifty percent of Qing Mu’s actual strength.
But correspondingly, if the clones were destroyed, he would suffer considerable backlash.
As Qiu Ying smashed through the afterimages one by one, Qing Mu’s face paled.
Gritting his teeth, he forced the remaining clones to scatter.
Meanwhile, the other two Imperial Dragon soldiers from Qing Mu’s team expertly repelled the surrounding Western Sea soldiers and rushed to his aid.
“Boom, boom, boom—” A series of explosions from soul skills and soul tools clashing rang out as the two men intercepted all incoming attacks.
Behind them, Qing Mu panted heavily, his face pale and filled with shame.
“Brother Tang, Uncle Fu, I was too reckless this time.”
The man called Uncle Fu—the middle-aged man who tried to warn him earlier—looked grim, but he didn’t scold Qing Mu excessively in the heat of battle.
He only barked a reprimand.
“Get up!
Who taught you to turn your back on the enemy during a fight?!” Before he even finished speaking, a wrist-mounted soul shock cannon fired an arm-thick blast that grazed right past Qing Mu’s ear.
A Western Sea soldier fell dead, his warm blood splashing all over Qing Mu.
Qing Mu stiffened, glancing back at the soldier who had been reduced to minced meat.
He quickly scrambled up, gripped his cyan soul rapier tightly, adjusted his breathing, and assumed a defensive stance.
Seeing he failed to eliminate Qing Mu, Qiu Ying felt a bit of regret but didn’t dwell on it.
He firmly believed that if they just dragged the fight out, the Western Sea Legion would win in the end.
But the premise was that their Commander had to stall Wang Xiao.
Thinking of this, Qiu Ying looked up at the sky with shifting expressions, watching the bizarre fish and the twin-winged giant tiger entangled in battle.
To his horror, he realized his Commander was already losing ground.
(END CHAPTER)