"Go!"
Flander growled, forcibly suppressing the storm of shock in his heart and his instinctive fear.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward against the gravitational field and spiritual pressure that seemed capable of crushing a person to pieces. Bringing Shao Xin and Lu Qibin with him, the three of them struggled toward where Lin Xia stood like three tiny boats sailing against a raging current.
Every step felt as though his legs had been filled with lead, while his Soul Power was being rapidly drained.
When they finally managed to reach a spot not far in front of Lin Xia, their feet sinking into the soft sand, Flander could even clearly hear his own teeth chattering.
Flander took a deep breath. The scorching air, thick with the smell of sand and dust, poured into his lungs and stung painfully.
He forced his slightly hunched back straight and tried his best to make his voice sound composed. However, the tremble and caution in his voice were impossible to conceal.
"Y-Your Excellency! Please forgive Flander for his ignorance. I did not know who you were. Why have you attacked a teacher of Shrek Academy so severely?"
Flander quickly glanced at Lin Xia's calm face before anxiously turning his gaze toward the increasingly faint golden light at the center of the storm.
"Teacher Zhao, he can't hold on much longer! I humbly ask Your Excellency to show mercy!"
Flander's heart was in his throat. He was terrified that the young man controlling such a terrifying existence might suddenly turn against them.
Shao Xin and Lu Qibin were even more wary. They secretly circulated their Soul Power, but neither dared show the slightest intention of attacking. In front of that enormous beast, they felt pitifully insignificant.
Lin Xia finally withdrew his gaze from the center of the storm and looked at Flander. The corners of his lips curved into the faintest smile, yet that smile made the three of them feel as though they had fallen into an icy abyss.
He did not answer immediately, as though Flander's question were completely insignificant.
Or perhaps, he was waiting for someone more suitable to explain what had happened.
Sure enough, Li Yusong, who had been standing there as though his soul had left his body, suddenly jolted awake!
The moment he saw Flander, it was as though he had grabbed a lifeline, or perhaps found an outlet for all his pent-up emotions. He scrambled over, practically crawling on all fours, grabbed Flander's leg, and shouted hoarsely and incoherently.
"Dean! Dean! It's a misunderstanding! It's a huge misunderstanding! It wasn't this gentleman who started the fight!"
Li Yusong pointed toward the storm.
"It was Zhao Wou That reckless bastard Zhao Wou brought this upon himself!"
Afraid that Flander might not believe him, or perhaps that Lin Xia might lose patience, Li Yusong spoke so quickly that his words poured out like beans from a tipped sack.
"This gentleman! This gentleman is Lord Lin Xia, the City Lord of Gengjin City! He brought Miss Zhu Zhuqing here to enroll in our academy!"
"That young lady Zhu is only eleven years old and already Level 33! That's already absolutely astonishing!"
"But Lord Lin...he's twelve years old and a Level 58 Soul King!"
"Twelve years old... Level 58... Soul King?!"
Every word carried a bloody weight, crashing heavily into Flander's heart and making his vision darken while his ears rang.
Absurd? Unbelievable? Even those words were far too weak.
Flander instinctively raised a hand to push up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, only for his fingers to touch nothing.
The pair of glasses he never went anywhere without had somehow shattered while he forced his way through the devastating pressure just moments ago.
His rough fingers uselessly brushed across the bridge of his nose, touching nothing but cold sweat and tiny grains of sand.
With his vision somewhat blurred, he focused on the young man in blue standing beyond the storm.
Tall and composed, he was as calm as a bottomless, freezing pool.
Against the backdrop of that world-destroying sandstorm, the boy's figure appeared tiny, yet his presence carried a terrifying majesty that seemed capable of freezing one's soul.
Twelve years old?
Flander's mind was filled with chaotic buzzing. All that remained was a memory of himself at twelve years old, when he had ventured to the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest to obtain his Second Soul Ring.
Back then, he had been chased around by a Hundred-year-old Spotted Cat, desperately scrambling for his life, and had only survived because his teacher had risked his own life to save him.
A deep chill slowly seeped out from his very bones, freezing his entire body.
Shao Xin and Lu Qibin stood there like wooden puppets. All color had drained from their faces, and they stared blankly at Lin Xia, their mouths opening and closing unconsciously without being able to utter a single word.
A twelve-year-old Soul King?
An existence capable of controlling that world-destroying giant beast?
This was no longer merely a shattering of their understanding.
It was as if the worldview they had built over the past several decades had been completely crushed and then ground into the mud beneath their feet!
"Whew..."
Flander suddenly inhaled a deep breath of scorching, dust-filled air, as though a drowning man had finally grasped his last lifeline.
The bloody, earthy scent stung his lungs painfully, but it also brought him a trace of almost self-destructive clarity.
Without the slightest hesitation, he suddenly stepped forward and bent deeply at the waist toward Lin Xia, bowing nearly ninety degrees.
He bent so low that Shao Xin and Lu Qibin's hearts pounded violently beside him, fearing that he might actually prostrate himself on the ground the next moment.
"I sincerely apologize, City Lord!"
Flander's voice was hoarse and dry, filled with almost pleading fear as it struggled to carry through the fading roar of the sandstorm.
"It was my Shrek Academy's failure to discipline our people properly! Zhao Wuji was blind to your greatness and failed to recognize the presence of Mount Tai. He offended the divine might of the City Lord. Such a crime truly deserves death!"
"As the Dean, I bear responsibility for failing to teach him properly! I cannot escape blame! I humbly beg you, my lord, to consider that Teacher Zhao that, in the end, he only acted out of a sincere desire to discover talented individuals. He was merely too reckless in the way he went about it Please, show mercy!"
Flander lowered his head even further, his sparse hair trembling slightly in the turbulent airflow.
"Please, City Lord stop! Whatever punishment you deem appropriate, Shrek Academy. I, Flander will accept it all!"
Every word seemed to be forced through clenched teeth, carrying a heavy weight as though stained with blood.
Behind him, Shao Xin and Lu Qibin hurriedly bowed deeply as well, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
At the edge of the storm, Lin Xia finally shifted his gaze away from Flander's nearly folded body and toward the center of the sandstorm.
Within that devastating, yellow-hued apocalypse, the light of Zhao Wuji's Martial Soul True Body had long since dimmed like a candle flickering in the wind. Only an extremely faint golden glow continued to struggle within the violently churning walls of sand, accompanied by muffled, despairing roars of pain that were torn apart by the countless grains of sand.
"Oh?"
The corner of Lin Xia's lips lifted slightly. The curve was faint, yet there was a hint of amusement in his eyes, as though he saw through everything.
"Desire to nurture talented individuals?"
Lin Xia glanced at Tyranitar, then smiled.
"Very well."
His voice was not loud, yet it clearly pierced through the howling wind of the storm, cold and indifferent like a drop of icy spring water falling into a deep pool.
"Since this was all a misunderstanding, little one, that's enough. Withdraw your power."
The instant his words fell, the terrifying sandstorm that had engulfed the heavens and earth suddenly came to an abrupt halt!
Millions upon millions of grains of sand, spinning at tremendous speed and generating scorching heat through friction, seemed to be seized and frozen by an invisible giant hand!
The next second, the yellow sand that had blotted out the sky suddenly dispersed and descended with a thunderous roar, like the tide retreating from the shore!
Rumble—!
Amid the deep, muffled thunder, the heavy sand and dust that had been violently swept into the sky lost their support and collapsed downward, surging back toward the ground!
---
For additional chapter's
Join pateron.com/Translaterappu