Take this!
A deep voice rang out as the now-enlarged Wang Jinxi swung his bone dragon claw toward Xie Xie. As Xie Xie tried to dodge, a veil of darkness suddenly enveloped him, and he felt as though he were trapped in a swamp, completely immobilized.
It all happened far too quickly.
Tang Wulin's Blue Silver Grass didn't have time to reach him. All Xie Xie could do was cross his Light Dragon Dagger and Shadow Dragon Dagger in front of himself before the claw smashed him away.
He was still airborne when a mouthful of blood sprayed out.
Tang Wulin even heard the distinct crack of a bone snapping in Xie Xie's arm.
"Xie Xie!"
Tang Wulin dove forward, catching his teammate's body midair.
Xie Xie's eyes were tightly shut, unconscious.
The Light and Shadow Dragon Daggers vanished from his hands, and his aura was faint and unstable.
"Bastard! This is just a competition!"
Tang Wulin roared in fury, rage flooding his entire being. Without a second thought, he charged toward the towering bone dragon form of Wang Jinxi.
As he sprinted forward, golden scales began to shimmer along his right arm, starting from the fingers, thickening the entire limb.
Tang Wulin's eyes gleamed gold, his pupils fully transformed.
He stomped down hard with his left foot—
A deep boom echoed beneath him.
His body launched forward like a cannonball, heading straight for the mutated Wang Jinxi.
Wang Jinxi, now standing two meters tall, flapped his wings, lifting himself slightly. With a twist of his body, his long skeletal tail whipped toward Tang Wulin.
Tang Wulin opened his mouth and expelled a puff of black mist. His right palm grew larger, his fingers extending—five golden claws shot out, forming a dragon's claw.
Unlike Wang Jinxi's bone dragon claws, Tang Wulin's dragon claw had five fingers.
Smack!
Tang Wulin's Golden Dragon Claw slammed into the bone tail with such force that it bent the very air. He was knocked upward by the tail, but a flash of gold shimmered along its surface.
While in mid-air, Tang Wulin tucked his body, flipping as Blue Silver Grass vines latched onto Wang Jinxi's bone body.
Using the momentum, he yanked himself back, driving his Golden Dragon Claw down toward Wang Jinxi's head.
Wang Jinxi raised both of his bone dragon claws, closing them together to block.
But at that moment, a thunderous dragon roar erupted from Tang Wulin's mouth.
A golden ripple of energy burst from his body. Wang Jinxi's movement stuttered, if only for an instant.
That moment was enough.
The Golden Dragon Claw came crashing down.
"Hold back!"
Long Hengxu and Ye Yingluo both shouted the words simultaneously.
But Tang Wulin, his mind clouded by the sight of Xie Xie's brutal injuries, couldn't hear them.
The full force of his Golden Dragon Claw had already been released—there was no pulling it back.
At that exact second, a slender hand appeared out of nowhere, gently tapping Tang Wulin's right arm.
With just that motion, his trajectory shifted.
The claw that was originally aimed at Wang Jinxi's head instead struck his right bone claw.
BANG!
Wang Jinxi—whose mutated body was nearly twice the size of Tang Wulin—was slammed out of the air, crashing hard to the ground.
Tang Wulin himself was redirected by a gentle force, landing safely to the side.
"Enough."
A cold voice echoed in his ears like the toll of a warning bell.
Tang Wulin finally snapped out of it.
Standing beside him was Wu Zhangkong, holding the heavily injured Xie Xie in his arms.
On the other side of the platform, Wang Jinxi's bone dragon form slammed to the ground.
The tail, which had first taken the hit from the Golden Dragon Claw, let out a sharp cracking sound—broken.
His right bone claw drooped uselessly.
Then, the fused body began to unravel within a cloud of dark light.
Two anguished screams erupted from both Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi.
Zhang Yangzi lay sprawled on the floor, both legs broken.
Wang Jinxi had a broken right arm, and the pain was so severe that neither of them could hold back their screams.
No one had expected the class advancement match to escalate into such a brutal confrontation.
"Wu Laoshi, how could you let your student do something so vicious?!"
Ye Yingluo leapt onto the platform, pointing a trembling finger at Wu Zhangkong and shouting in rage.
Wu Zhangkong simply turned to Tang Wulin and said:
"Let's go."
Throughout the exchange, he didn't spare Ye Yingluo a single glance.
She was about to chase after them, but just then, a wave of icy, sharp aura swept from Wu Zhangkong's body, so cold it made her whole body feel frozen stiff.
She hesitated—and ultimately didn't move forward.
Nan Fusheng, Gu Yue, and Tang Wulin, whose arm had already returned to normal, followed Wu Zhangkong off the platform.
On the stage, Long Hengxu's face was as dark as storm clouds.
"This is bad," he muttered.
It was very, very bad.
In a single match, three students had been seriously injured.
As the referee, he bore direct responsibility.
An incident this severe hadn't occurred in many years.
Wu Zhangkong carried Xie Xie straight to the infirmary.
A teacher with a healing-type Martial Soul examined him.
Fortunately, it was only stress fractures—both forearms were broken, and while the injuries were serious, his internal organs were mostly fine, suffering only some trauma.
He would need time to recover.
Tang Wulin's body had also retained some residual dark energy, which the teacher cleansed.
"Wu Laoshi, I—"
Tang Wulin looked at his cold, silent teacher as if wanting to explain.
"There's no need. You did nothing wrong," Wu Zhangkong said flatly.
"You three—go get some rest."
"Okay. What about Xie Xie?"
"I'll stay with him," Wu Zhangkong replied, glancing his way.
The trio left the infirmary together.
Seeing Tang Wulin's guilty expression, Nan Fusheng spoke up:
"Don't beat yourself up. None of us could've predicted what happened."
"If I'm not mistaken, what Wang Jinxi and Zhang Yangzi used…
It was a Martial Soul Fusion Technique."
He paused.
"It's said that such techniques are nearly extinct. Only when two Martial Souls are extremely compatible can they be performed."
As he finished speaking, Nan Fusheng noted that Tang Wulin looked less burdened—and that Gu Yue, walking beside them, seemed like she wanted to say something but held back.
Knowing better, he politely excused himself and headed back to the dorms.
When Nan Fusheng returned to the room, his roommates Wang Ba and the others had yet to arrive.
Sitting on his bed, he reflected on the match.
"Tang Wulin's Golden Dragon Claw is even stronger than I expected...
I held back on purpose during the match, but honestly, my performance today wasn't impressive at all."
"I wonder... based on my showing in the past few rounds—can I still qualify for that new class that hasn't even been formed yet?"
Yes, throughout this match, Nan Fusheng had mostly coasted.
Some of the blame for Xie Xie's injury might even lie with him.