Her body leaped once more, the thunder threads in pursuit, chasing after her slender frame. While still airborne, Xiao Wu's body suddenly folded at the waist — pivoting from her midsection into a position that the human body should have been incapable of achieving — and she twisted through with barely inches to spare from the threads.
Above, the thunder net was already descending. Xiao Wu's body hadn't touched the ground yet, and it looked as though she had nowhere left to dodge. But just then, her head snapped backward, and her long scorpion braid whipped against the ground. Using that small burst of rebound force, she launched herself forward several more meters, buying herself a fraction of a second before the thunder net could envelope her. And that fraction of a second was exactly what she needed for her inverted body to land.
Her palms braced against the ground, and her Waistshot activated. But this time, Xiao Wu didn't dodge away. Her body shot forward like a cannonball, flying straight at the thunder net.
Her legs snapped rigid and straight. In that moment, she resembled an arrow loosed from a bow. What was astonishing was that at the instant her body launched, it was perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the thunder net — and the gap she had chosen to pass through was precisely one of the slightly larger openings in its weave.
With a tearing hiss, Xiao Wu's body cut right through, actually passing clean through the thunder net. But a trail of crackling blue electricity lit up across her body as she emerged.
Outside the arena, Tang San had already risen to his feet, both fists clenched tight. The situation unfolding in the ring was clearly beyond anything he could have planned for. According to the original strategy, Xiao Wu should have conceded defeat long before this point.
Even Tang San hadn't anticipated that Xiao Wu would make such a resolute choice to plunge directly through her opponent's third Soul Skill, and Lei Dong had certainly never considered it either. His thunder net, having been pierced, fell to the ground and dissipated into nothing. Now Xiao Wu was suspended in midair — Lei Dong's third Soul Skill had vanished, placing him in exactly the awkward interval between spent force and unready new power.
If Xiao Wu had been at full strength, she might have seized this opening to close the distance in an instant and finish the match with a single blow. But in reality, she could do nothing at all. Even her body was dropping toward the ground in free fall.
She had successfully penetrated the thunder net and taken the minimum possible damage. But the residual lightning effect had still completely paralyzed the Soul Power-depleted Xiao Wu. Her delicate frame trembled violently, beyond her control, to say nothing of launching any kind of counterattack.
Lei Dong drew a sharp breath. Seeing Xiao Wu's body plummeting, he naturally understood it was the doing of his thunder net. Recovering himself, two more threads of thunder shot from his palms, snaking toward Xiao Wu's body. As long as those threads fully paralyzed his opponent, the match was his.
Landing, then bouncing upward. Lei Dong's judgment was sound, but Xiao Wu delivered a very different answer. At the precise instant her body was about to hit the ground, the paralysis finally wore off. Her hands slapped the ground hard, her Waistshot fired once more, and her body sprang upward just in time to sail over both thunder threads — then she hurtled straight toward Lei Dong without a moment's hesitation.
Lei Dong's eyes went wide in shock. How was this possible? The paralysis from the thunder net should not have worn off that quickly.
Yes, Lei Dong's third Soul Skill was formidable in its restrictive power — but it had to be remembered that when Xiao Wu had passed through the thunder net earlier, she had chosen the weakest point in its coverage. At that moment, Lei Dong had completely failed to anticipate her movement, and therefore couldn't pour his full Soul Power into the area.
The wider the coverage area, the weaker the concentration of attack power within any given section. Even with a thunder-attribute Martial Soul, this principle could not be overcome. Because of this, the lightning damage Xiao Wu had actually sustained was far less than Lei Dong had judged. And that was precisely why she had been able to spring back to life a heartbeat before hitting the ground.
Precise judgment — that was the explanation offered by those with sharp eyes. In truth, while Xiao Wu had done a quick calculation, achieving this result was more a stroke of close fortune than anything else, and she silently thanked her luck.
The distance between the two closed rapidly. Every time Xiao Wu's body touched the ground, it shifted direction in an eerie, unpredictable manner. Even while airborne, her boneless, supple frame twisted into inhumanly flexible positions to evade the blocking strikes of the thunder threads.
Watching Xiao Wu draw closer and closer, unmistakable panic began to flicker in Lei Dong's eyes. Anyone who had followed Shrek Academy's matches would never forget what happened to Soul Masters who let Xiao Wu get into close range. Lei Dong was no exception.
With no other choice, the fourth Soul Ring on Lei Dong's body finally blazed to life. Deploying another thunder net at this point would be far too late — the only thing he could think of that might defeat his opponent immediately was this fourth Soul Skill.
Intense blue light erupted from both of his arms. The eight long blue legs behind him sprang upward, and eight beams of thunderous light shot outward, merging with the radiance pouring from his arms. A ring three meters in diameter and thick as a man's arm materialized before Lei Dong.
This was Lei Dong's fourth Soul Skill — the God-Locking Ring. Like Tang San's fourth Soul Skill, the Blue Silver Prison, the God-Locking Ring could not be evaded. The only path was to endure it head-on with raw Soul Power.
A flash of blue light — and Xiao Wu's eerie, dancing silhouette froze in place. Her entire body had been plunged into complete paralysis. The God-Locking Ring, three meters across at its full diameter, had now contracted until it was only as wide as her waist, clamping Xiao Wu's body in an iron grip.