Long Lan wasn’t the type of person that liked to lose. He didn’t want Bai Yunfei to interfere in his own battle, and Bai Yunfei respected that. He and Xiao Qi would stay on the sidelines and wait then, but if there was ever a moment they felt Long Lan was in danger, then the two wouldn’t hesitate to interfere at once.

But luckily, it seemed their worries were for nothing. Long Lan had actually managed to defeat the Black Dragon King with his own strength.

Bai Yunfei smiled when he felt the aura of the Black Dragon King start to wane and grow weaker. He knew then that Long Lan had won!

“Roar!!”

A faint cry escaped from the gigantic blue ball of light. It was faint, but Bai Yunfei could hear the terror and despair contained within it.

Then, when the last of the Black Dragon King’s aura had faded, everyone knew that the Black Dragon King, a mighty being that once shook the continent, was now dead.

“Haha! Xiao Lan won!!”

Xiao Qi chirped with excitement, his wings beating several times in joy.

“Yes. The Black Dragon King’s finally dead, this’ll be great for Long Lan.” Bai Yunfei nodded.

Neither Xiao Binzi nor Hu Yang said a word. Stunned, they stared at the blue ball of light with all sorts of emotions running through their minds. Long Lan wasn’t a stranger to them, the both of them met Long Lan once before when he was just a class seven soulbeast. That wasn’t too long ago, but now he was a class eight soulbeast? And then he came and managed to kill the Black Dragon King when the two of them combined weren’t able to?

“I wonder how Long Lan will be after he absorbs the rest of the Black Dragon King’s lifeblood?” Bai Yunfei thought aloud. While he didn’t know the answer, he was sure Long Lan would be able to power up by a decent amount at the very least.

“It’s not safe here, let’s bring him back into the Core World.”

He waved his right hand to activate the Core Stone. At once, all sorts of elemental energy began to be siphoned into the Core World while the stone tried to bring Long Lan in.

There was no reaction nor resistance from Long Lan, allowing Bai Yunfei to bring in him and the blue ball of light around him into the Core World without trouble..

......

Now that Long Lan was taken care of, Bai Yunfei decided to take a good look around the battlefield to inspect its current state. There weren’t many people left fighting in their original positions now that the retreat order was given. People from both sides were flying like shooting stars in every direction away from the battlefield; the enemies being the ones retreating and his own side being the ones to give chase. No one even knew where the four Saints had gone, let alone see where they were.

Given that Shangguan Xiongyan had the Triumphant Flame, the Frostfeather Saint would have a hard time capturing him. They’d have to wait and see if Shen Pojun would be able to kill Gu Jimie.

“Yunfei!”

A figure landed right next to Bai Yunfei at that moment, it was Li Chengfeng.

“Yunfei,” He repeated, anxiety splayed across his face. “How is my master?”

“Senior Ge is resting in the Core World. You can relax, he’s alive and well.”

“That’s good...” Li Chengfeng exhaled, relieved. “Hey, Yunfei? Are you going to chase after Mo Ni?”

“Eh?”

The battle with Long Lan costed Bai Yunfei the opportunity to chase after Mo Ni, and now he didn’t know where Gui Nu had taken him. It was a shame, but Bai Yunfei figured he’d have another time in the future to kill him.

But when he heard Li Chengfeng ask that question, hope began to rekindle in Bai Yunfei. “Don’t tell me you have a way to track him? Or do you know where he is?”

“I can’t tell where he ran off to, but...I do have a way to track him. Take a look...”

He flourished a small object for Bai Yunfei to look at.

“Isn’t...isn’t that Mo Ni’s soul armament?!” Bai Yunfei gasped, the black needle already being transferred from Li Chengfeng to himself.

“Bzz...”

The black needle seemed to vibrate and tremble as if trying to escape from Bai Yunfei’s fingers. “Is...is there a spirit in here?!”

Bai Yunfei could feel something within the needle ‘resisting’ him!

“Could this also be a Regalia?!”

It was a frightening thought, but Bai Yunfei was determined to find out. Concentrating a little longer, he began to inspect the soul armament to a greater degree. After a while, Bai Yunfei concluded that there wasn’t a genuine ‘spirit’ inside of it, but it was indeed, beginning to become sentient. This was roughly the same feeling Bai Yunfei had when he reforged and upgraded the Cataclysmic Seal to +14.

Surprised, Bai Yunfei decided to inspect its stats next.

Elemental Affinity: Darkness

Attack: 8280

Equipment Effect 1: Inflict damage to the target’s soul when a blow is landed.

Equipment Effect 2: A portion of the soul of each killed target is converted into attack. Portion converted is dependent on the strength of the killed target.

Upgrade Requirement: 400 Soulpoints

Bai Yunfei was stunned, he knew what this soul armament was...

“A demon armament!!”

That was his first thought. His second thought was how...overpowered it was!

The killing intent rising from the black needle was without a doubt a tellmark sign of it being a demon armament. And its equipment effect was even stronger than the Double Dragon Spectre and the Heaven’s Bloodtear Sword!

—A demon armament that could damage the soul! Even more...it could ‘grow’ by devouring the souls of those it killed!

It was basically the same as the +14 additional effect of the Cataclysmic Seal, but the difference was that the Cataclysmic Seal devoured other soul armaments. This black needle devoured souls!

Bai Yunfei would never be able to imagine that the black needle Mo Ni always wielded would be such a powerful demon armament!

“The black needle hadn’t been that powerful back during the battle for the Extreme King Pills, but it’s a high-heaven tier now. It’s also starting to grow a spirit...how many people did Mo Ni kill for it to grow this much!?”

The air around Bai Yunfei seemed to drop several degrees as he pondered that last thought. Only now did Bai Yunfei start to feel as though the black needle was trembling not due to resistance, but because of the wails of those who died. Truly, a bone-chilling thought.

“What’s wrong, Yunfei?” Li Chengfeng asked after seeing the great change in expression on Bai Yunfei’s face. “With how strange it is, this has to be a soul armament, right? I can tell it has a will of its own with how it keeps trying to return to its ‘owner’. Is this Mo Ni’s lifebound armament then? Could we find where he is if we use this as a compass?”

That snapped Bai Yunfei back to reality. He looked at Li Chengfeng, his eyes bright with optimism, “We can. Thanks to its bond with Mo Ni, we can follow this demon armament back to where Mo Ni is!”

Any other person probably wouldn’t have been able to use the needle to track it back to Mo Ni, but Bai Yunfei could!

He raised the needle and thought of a single word:

“Upgrade!”

......

A while later.

Elemental Affinity: Darkness

Upgrade Level: +12

Attack: 8280

Additional Attack: 8000

Soul Compatibility: 40%

Equipment Effect 1: Inflict damage to the target’s soul when a blow is landed.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Equipment Effect 2: A portion of the soul of each killed target is converted into attack. Portion converted is dependent on the strength of the killed target.

+10 Additional Effect: Inflict Soul-frayed once damage has been applied. For 10 seconds, spirit-based attacks do 100% more damage.

+12 Additional Effect: Ignore dark-type defenses.

Upgrade Requirement: 400 Soulpoints

“......”

Bai Yunfei could hardly stop himself from smirking once he saw the newly-upgraded needle, but he schooled his emotions to focus on the task at hand. The ‘spirit’ was much stronger than before, so strong, in fact, that Bai Yunfei was confident it’d truly gain true sentience if he upgraded it to +13. But that wasn’t important. Quickly, he dove into the depth of the demon armament to find its imprint.

Right now, the needle had about forty percent compatibility with Bai Yunfei. It wasn’t at the level of a soulbound armament, but it was still significant enough. Given time and effort, he was sure he could erode Mo Ni’s imprint and turn it into his own.

But that wasn’t the goal either. If he did that, then Bai Yunfei wouldn’t be able to track Mo Ni anymore.

For a while, Bai Yunfei did nothing. He laid his palm out, allowing the needle to rest over it. Slowly, the needle began to spin until it came to a stop in a certain direction.

“That way!” Bai Yunfei exclaimed.