Douluo's ice devil Yuhao

Chapter 618 Knockout Round

After several days of competition, the lengthy group stage has finally come to an end, and the four groups have determined the sixteen teams based on their points.

As most people expected, established prestigious schools such as Royal Academies and Shrek Academy from various countries successfully entered the knockout stage. These are all familiar names from previous competitions.

In addition, there's the unexpectedly strong Mingdou Academy. As a newly established school, they made it to the finals in their very first competition. The farcical match between Mingdou and Douling teams, with Mingdou Academy relentlessly pressuring Shrek Academy, showcased Mingdou's formidable strength, further fueling anticipation for their future performances.

The purpose of deliberately making the group stage extremely long has finally become apparent. Apart from the seven or eight established powerhouses and Ming Dou teams, many of the other teams are from Dou Ling academies. Dou Ling teams make up nearly half of the top sixteen, making their performance in this tournament absolutely the best in history. Never before has any country had so many teams achieve such good rankings.

In terms of proportion, Douling's performance in this tournament can definitely be said to be the best in history. No country has ever had so many teams achieve such good rankings at the same time.

Playing on home turf, coupled with a long tournament format, creates opportunities for referees to manipulate the data. However, these methods of embellishing statistics are ultimately just clever tricks and have very limited impact on the real top performers.

The first round of elimination matches basically eliminated these fighting spirit academies. Their strength was already quite good, but they still couldn't compare with the traditional powerhouses like the royal academies. There were no upset results.

The Douling Empire still had some sense of decency and didn't blatantly manipulate the schedule, instead directly pitting these strong teams against each other.

Mingdou Academy defeated their opponent in the first elimination round without any suspense and advanced to the quarterfinals.

In the hotel, inside a room at Mingdou Academy, Huo Yuhao affirmed his team members while outlining the next steps.

He demonstrated on a display screen: "Everyone did a great job. Congratulations on achieving at least a top-eight finish in your first competition at this level."

Every young team member was beaming. As the first batch of students in the new academy, their average age was generally two or three years younger than their opponents. Their unstoppable momentum was something to be proud of.

Now, everyone is no longer satisfied with their current achievements, but believes that the championship that represents first place is not out of reach.

Huo Yuhao could clearly sense their excitement and smiled slightly. From the beginning, he had never put any pressure on his team members, always telling them to just do their best. This confidence and sense of self-assurance came from within the team members themselves.

Although they kept saying "friendship first, competition second," the team members won the championship fairly and squarely, and there was no reason for them to give it away easily. As the team leader, Huo Yuhao also did his job well.

"Your next opponent is the Heavenly Soul Royal Academy. Several of their key players haven't appeared in the group stage, just like us, they're conserving their strength."

"Although other opponents are paying close attention to our main players, you can no longer hide your strength."

Huo Yuhao paused, his gaze sweeping over the team members before finally settling on the captain, who hadn't yet taken to the field: "Ning Yuan, you're the captain, say a few words."

Ning Yuan pondered for a moment, then said, "Actually, I think it shouldn't be too difficult for us to defeat the Heavenly Soul."

He has always been seen as a traditional support-type Soul Master, but his remarks at this moment were somewhat arrogant, going beyond simply encouraging everyone.

Huo Yuhao became interested: "Oh? Tell me your reasons."

“Our main force hasn’t been fully exposed yet, and outsiders don’t know our ultimate moves. Especially the synergistic effect of our humanoid soul tools, plus the double benefit of my Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda for both humanoid soul tools and soul masters,” Ning Tian analyzed.

The synergy effect of soul tools can amplify their power on a large scale, and the Ming Dou team members discovered how to maximize the synergy effect of humanoid soul tools through their daily practice and teamwork.

This kind of coordinated action between multiple Soul Masters is very similar to a Soul Fusion Technique. However, a Soul Fusion Technique requires two Soul Masters to have innate Soul Compatibility, while Soul Tools can be strengthened and linked together through post-natal modifications. The only drawback is that it requires extremely high coordination between them.

In true large-scale team battles, Soul Masters have the advantage. With Captain Ning Yuan's buffs and command, Mingdou Academy's main force is even stronger. And to this day, Mingdou's true strength has never been revealed to outsiders.

Huo Yuhao praised, "Captain is very confident. Have you prepared a strategy for dealing with the secret main force of the Heavenly Soul Team?" He wanted to test Ning Yuan's adaptability. In fact, the main force of other teams were all transparent to him, with no secrets whatsoever.

Ning Yuan nodded: "Actually, I basically know the information about Tianhun's main players."

Huo Yuhao frowned: "How did you know?"

Ning Yuan feigned innocence: "Because... I know them..."

The other team members all looked at Ning Yuan with blank expressions.

"I am also from the Heavenly Soul Empire. The Heavenly Soul Royal Academy is mostly composed of descendants of noble ministers, so I am quite familiar with their appearances."

Ning Yuan looked at another team member and asked, "You're also from the Heavenly Soul Empire, haven't you heard of them?"

The member born with a Heavenly Soul attribute said somewhat awkwardly, "My family is just a minor noble family in Heaven Dou City, and we're not in the same circle as them."

"Alright." Ning Yuan looked helpless, and then began to introduce the information of several hidden main members of the Heavenly Soul Team one by one.

"There are no members of the royal family in this year's team from the Heavenly Soul Royal Academy. The captain is Xiang Weiyang, son of the Marquis of Qingyan, whose martial soul is the Qingyan Beast, making him at least a level 58 fire-attribute power-attack soul master. The vice-captain is..."

He roughly described the martial souls and abilities of those Heavenly Soul main force members, and the team members also had a general idea and direction for dealing with them.

Huo Yuhao was also pleasantly surprised and secretly smiled to himself.

From this perspective, he underestimated these young people. They didn't need his help at all; the team members could handle it themselves. The other academy's main players had no chance of hiding their identities; with a little investigation, they would eventually find out everything.

Especially those high-level martial souls passed down through countless generations, the abilities of each generation are actually quite similar. As long as you know the other party's family background, even if the other party hasn't revealed their soul rings yet, you already know how to deal with them, like following a formula.

To his surprise, another team member, who lived in Tiandou City and came from a noble family, was not as familiar with the opponents of the Tianhun Team as Ning Yuan, who was far away in Jiubao City.

There are also differences in background; the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile School is still at a much higher level.

Huo Yuhao smiled with satisfaction, but then said, "In that case, we can start preparing the tactics for the next match in advance."

He highlighted the opponents after the elimination rounds on the display screen, and below that square were the names of two academies: Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy and Shrek Academy.

The winner from these two academies will join Mingdou Academy as one of the top four, competing for a spot in the finals.

"Based on my analysis of the Sun Moon team and the Shrek team, Shrek's probability of winning should be over 70%, and Shrek will become your opponent in the semi-finals."

Upon hearing that they would soon clash with Shrek Academy, all the team members held their breath, as the pressure of facing the continent's number one academy was immense.

"This year's Shrek Academy students are very strong." Huo Yuhao emphasized the last two words, his tone carrying a hint of urgency.

The team members were a little nervous. If they were to face Shrek in the finals, they would be better prepared mentally. But if it were the semifinals, it would mean that they might miss out on the runner-up position.

Huo Yuhao suddenly changed his tone: "But you're very lucky. The Sun and Moon Team is leading the charge for you; they also use the Soul Master system. Watching their matches will make it easier to see the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. So…"

A wicked smile crept across his lips as he spoke enticingly to the young team members: "Are you confident you can stop the strongest Shrek Academy team on the continent from reaching the semifinals once again?"