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**
This was precisely another legacy soul skill of the Elephant Armored Sect—Mammoth Trample.
Though it was foundational, it was easy to learn but difficult to master.
If executed by a high-ranking Diamond Mammoth Martial Soul Master activating their Martial Soul Avatar, a single stomp would cause mountains to collapse and the earth to split, completely incomparable to Huyan Li's small-scale demonstration at this moment.
Once Mammoth Trample was unleashed, any ordinary control-system or agility-attack-system soul master caught off guard would likely be thrown into disarray, their movements severely restricted, leaving them wide open to a savage assault from the Diamond Mammoth master.
This was a technique developed by the members of the Huyan Clan specifically to prevent themselves from being countered by opponents, effectively making up for the Diamond Mammoth Martial Soul's weaknesses in speed and flexibility.
However, Huyan Li had not unleashed this move to prevent Ling Xiao from countering him with speed. He wanted to use it to disrupt Ling Xiao, catching him off-guard and unsettled so that he could not rapidly gather his strength, thereby allowing his own upcoming attack to achieve maximum results.
Regrettably, Huyan Li had still underestimated Ling Xiao.
Faced with the continuous tremors produced by the Mammoth Trample, Ling Xiao was far from helpless. His eyes flashed, making a countermove in an instant. Sinking his hips, he dropped his internal physical energy downward.
Though the ground beneath him shook violently like rolling waves, his feet seemed to take root like an ancient tree, planting themselves firmly into the earth. No matter how the plaza quaked below, his posture remained steady as Mount Tai, unmoving in the slightest.
Yet, merely doing this was not enough to truly break Huyan Li's move. This sinking internal energy could ensure that Ling Xiao would not lose his footing against the earth tremors from the Mammoth Trample, but it could only buy him a temporary reprieve.
This was because the surface tremors were merely the residual shockwaves of the incoming Mammoth Trample force.
As the true power of Huyan Li's stomp drew near, the ground would be torn wide open into massive fissures with flying debris, a force that would inevitably breach his sinking internal energy.
At this split second, the explosive power of the Mammoth Trample proved exceptionally terrifying as its force arrived in the blink of an eye.
Seeing the ground between Ling Xiao and Huyan Li on the verge of completely disintegrating, several huge cracks shot straight toward Ling Xiao. Once the fissures tore through the earth beneath his feet, sinking his energy into the ground would be useless.
After all, if the ground itself split apart, he would lose his footing entirely, rendering even the strongest sinking force utterly pointless.
In Huyan Li's eyes, to avoid exposing a flaw in such a situation, Ling Xiao's only option was to leave the ground. He would either have to erupt his soul power to leap into the air, or utilize that light-as-a-swallow, elegant movement technique from before to dodge.
That would be the perfect moment for Huyan Li to strike.
Stranded mid-air and straining to dodge, Ling Xiao would certainly be unable to instantly gather enough power to block his attack.
Even if Ling Xiao's strength was indeed superior, by striking his weakness with a full-throttle explosion against Ling Xiao's rushed counter, Huyan Li might just succeed in delivering a heavy blow.
However, just as the ground beneath him was about to fracture into pieces, Ling Xiao did not leap up to dodge as Huyan Li anticipated.
Instead, leveraging his steady posture from the sinking energy, Ling Xiao actually copied Huyan Li and stomped forward several steps in rapid succession.
With each step he slammed down, he channeled not only his physical body's strength but also a massive amount of soul power. Utilizing both flesh and soul power to execute Explosive Steps, continuous tremors erupted beneath his feet as well.
The soul power shockwaves from the Explosive Steps fused with his physical strength, violently smashing the ground under him to pieces.
Cracks began to fan out across the plaza with Ling Xiao as the center. Although it lacked the grand momentum and wide-reaching scope of the Mammoth Trample, it still kicked up clouds of dust and flying stones, its localized core power not much weaker.
In this manner, the force Ling Xiao stamped out surged along the ground and collided with the power of the Mammoth Trample, temporarily halting the spread of the shockwaves.
Not far in front of Ling Xiao, a series of sharp explosions rang out from the ground as if it were detonating continuously, making the battlefield instantly chaotic and complex.
However, though Ling Xiao used the force of his Explosive Steps to temporarily block the Mammoth Trample, anyone with a discerning eye could tell that while his Explosive Steps were packed with explosive force that was all they had.
Furthermore, because it was not a technique meant for direct combat, it could not compare to the Mammoth Trample in terms of pure power, merely venting its force through the crude destruction of the terrain.
When it came to controlling force and utilizing the ground to project destruction, it could not compare to a specialized soul skill like the Mammoth Trample.
Ling Xiao's action was merely using the trait of his Explosive Steps to temporarily block the impact of the Mammoth Trample; it could not last. Once the force of the Explosive Steps dispersed, it would be instantly crushed by the continuous, surging waves of the Mammoth Trample.
However, Huyan Li's expression shifted drastically, as if he had suddenly seen through Ling Xiao's true intentions.
Although Huyan Li was by no means a genius—often appearing to be a meathead who relied on reckless, brute force—it had to be said that this exact trait made it easier for him to read Ling Xiao's thoughts in battle.
To a certain degree, his combat style shared a high level of similarity with Ling Xiao's. Both favored raw, overbearing dominance, choosing to clash head-on rather than dodge and seek a flanking angle, even if the latter was far more efficient and secure.
Having faintly guessed Ling Xiao's follow-up move, Huyan Li knitted his brows. Though his instincts told him his original plan was no longer viable, he had no time to waste on regret or hesitation, making a split-second decision.
Channeling his soul power, he stimulated his Martial Soul once more. The massive frame of his Martial Soul form lifted its thick right leg and slammed it down violently, unleashing the Mammoth Trample a second time.
This time, Huyan Li channeled an even greater amount of soul power. He shifted the focus of this technique from fracturing the terrain with surface tremors to maximizing the raw lethality of the force tearing through the ground.
A sound like a clap of thunder exploded beneath his foot as a dense surge of brown soul power coalesced into a single mass. Merging with the momentum of his stomp, the combined forces ripped through the earth and surged straight toward Ling Xiao, clearing everything in its path like a bulldozer.
When this second stomp was executed, the surrounding ground did not fracture into many side cracks, but the centerline between the two fighters was torn apart as if a massive plow had run through it, gouging out a thick, elongated trench.
On the other side, Ling Xiao had taken several rapid steps, using the shockwaves of his Explosive Steps to temporarily halt the first wave of the Mammoth Trample.
Leveraging this brief window of time, he circulated his soul power, gripped the Profound Sky Axe, and delivered a ferocious downward chop.
As the weapon swung down, a dark light flashed across the massive, silvery-white axe blade, instantly manifesting a colossally large, dark red axe radiant.
Shaped like a crescent moon, the radiant condensed upon the Profound Sky Axe, held tightly in check without being released immediately. Having unleashed the Profound Sky Slash, the giant axe radiated an overwhelming, sharp majesty.
Ling Xiao cleaved it directly into the ground before him.
With a tremendous crash, the Profound Sky Axe tore a massive fissure into the plaza.
Under the overbearing strength of the axe, the ground suffered a violent shudder that mirrored Huyan Li's Mammoth Trample. For a moment, it seemed as if both of their attacks were purely aimed at destroying the terrain, leaving the plaza itself as the ultimate victim.
As Ling Xiao's axe finished its descent, a flash of dark red light erupted from the Profound Sky Axe in the next instant. The axe radiant that had been coating the blade broke free entirely, standing vertically atop the earth.
It surged along the ground toward Huyan Li like a curved blade rising from the depths, or a shark's dorsal fin cutting through the water. It ripped the plaza wide open along its path, delivering a resounding bang that cleanly split the force of Huyan Li's first Mammoth Trample.
It shattered his first attack entirely before it could even reach Ling Xiao.
After completely crushing the residual force of Huyan Li's first Mammoth Trample, the axe radiant still retained its residual power. It slammed head-on into the second wave of trampling force that Huyan Li had just unleashed.
In an instant, the dark red crescent axe radiant tore through the earth, hacking directly into that thick, brownish-yellow torrent of energy.
**
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