Wu Shang’s Devouring Chains were of extremely strong make. He didn’t know just how strong it was, but several attempts to see how strong it was before had him concluding that it was close to being a mid-heaven tier soul armament. Heaven-tier soul armaments like this one wouldn’t break even if another one of the same tier were to hit it. But....a mid-heaven tier soul armament would!!

“Is that spear.....a mid-heaven tier!!” The man stared at Bai Yunfei in shock. “No—he destroyed my Devouring Chains with little difficulty, that means....it’s a high-heaven tier!!”

A high-heaven tier soul armament!

Wu Shang could hardly believe his own mind.

A high-heaven tier! Was there even fifty of those known to exist on the continent, and each of them already in the hands of a supreme existence? Soul armaments of that high of a grade were the treasure of any few sects that owned them! Wu Shang found it preposterous that someone who wasn’t even a Soul King yet would own a high-heaven tier soul armament.

Wiping his mouth with his hand, Wu Shang looked down at the blood. Staring blankly at it for a second, his eyes soon began to shine with joy and ‘greed’!

To a mid-stage Soul King, a high-heaven tier soul armament was an irresistible prize to be won!

“I might have lost some energy when the Devouring Chains broke, but it’ll be fine when I go back and let ‘him’ heal. But this spear....I want it!” Wu Shang’s eyes flashed avariciously. “Aside from that spear, there’s still a few other soul armaments of strange make on him. That strange block soul armament that could block the Devouring Chains, that armor he’s wearing, the bracer on his arm, and even his glove....all of those soul armaments are unordinary! They might even be....heaven-tier soul armaments!!”

“Wearing heaven-tier soul armaments all over....” Counting each article of soul armament Bai Yunfei was wearing, Wu Shang felt a feeling of pleasure like none other before in the last hundred years almost. This was a bounty of the utmost proportions—he had only three heaven tier soul armaments himself, and he was a mid-stage Soul King!

So coming across Bai Yunfei with so many heaven-tier soul armaments felt like Wu Shang had come across a free meat pie sent to him by the heavens. If he could take these soul armaments, then....

“Hold on!!”

A sudden thought brought Wu Shang to a sobering start. “He’s very strong despite his young age. A fire-type soul cultivator as well. More importantly, for someone to get so many powerful soul armaments like this, this person has to be....

“The Crafting School! Zi Jin’s newest disciple, Bai Yunfei!!

“That has to be it! It all makes sense if this is him! He has to be Bai Yunfei!”

Wu Shang had finally realized who he was fighting!

......

The thoughts flew through Wu Shang’s mind quickly. By the time he had figured out who Bai Yunfei was, the broken half of his chains was already speeding back into his sleeves.

Though now that he had a good look at the half-melted ruined part of his chains, Wu Shang looked furious. Glaring at Bai Yunfei, he gave him a healthy dose of killing intent!

Now that he knew who Bai Yunfei was, he didn’t even need to interrogate him. Wu Shang could simply....just kill him!

But when he looked up at Bai Yunfei, Wu Shang’s pupils dilated rapidly, and the killing intent he had in them immediately turned into shock.

“Bastard—what are you doing?! Stop!!” He cried out in discomposured anger.

At his last word, Wu Shang lashed out with a soul attack!

The soul attack struck against Bai Yunfei, who wobbled slightly under its influence, but it ultimately failed to stop Bai Yunfei. His actions continued onwards, and the only thing Wu Shang could do was watch as Bai Yunfei brought his right hand down onto the segment of the chain in his left hand still!!

“Pcht!!”

Flustered for a moment, Wu Shang was unable to stop Bai Yunfei and once again had blood spill from his paled face!!

......

Just ten seconds ago.

Bai Yunfei hadn’t hesitated to retreat as soon as he broke the chains with the Eighty-one Fold Stab. Still holding onto a segment of the chains with his left hand, Bai Yunfei flew backwards with at least ten meters of chain unwrapped from his right arm.

Something had inadvertently caught his eyes when he looked at the chains, causing him to stare in confusion.

At the end of the chain—where it had been severed—there seemed to be something....shining red.....

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

It wasn’t the molten metal that’d normally be caused by the explosion, for this was red. Was this....blood?!

There was blood within the chains?!

Confusion ran rampant through Bai Yunfei’s mind for a split second before he came to a realization. Flicking his head towards Wu Shang, Bai Yunfei took notice of the trail of blood spilling from his mouth!

He felt then that Wu Shang’s soulforce was slightly weaker now as well, and that was when it all made sense to him. “Damage done when the armament is damaged.....this is a soulbound armament!”

The state Wu Shang was in was a textbook example of what would happen when a soulbound armament was damaged—this is what happened when the soul was harmed!

What is known as ‘soul compatibility’ is a measure that any soul cultivator and soul armament would have. Soulbound armaments, as known to everyone in the know, were soul armaments that had a soul compatibility of 50% or higher. Aside from Soul Kings, it was generally accepted that only those from the Crafting School would have a soulbound armament (some exceptions may apply). But when one became a Soul King, soulbound armaments were no longer a rare thing.

The nomenclature that are soulbound armaments are something understood by many to be the result of an extremely enigmatic relationship between soul cultivator and soul armament. Once one becomes a Soul King, their understandings about what a ‘soul’ is increases many times over. From there, they can freely ‘force’ any one of their soul armaments to be branded with an imprint of their soul. Over time, this brand can be reinforced to ‘reforge’ the soul armament into a soulbound armament. But this was a method that was many times more troublesome than the method the Crafting School knew.

Soul armaments that could endure this strain of being branded and reforge were only heaven-tier soul armaments, however.

Soulbound armaments are very particular things. When the relationship between a soul armament ad a soul cultivator reached a particular point, a sliver of the soul cultivator would enter the soulbound armament (similar to having the soul armament recognize its ‘master’). This way, the soulbound armament would be able to create feats of strength beyond what it would normally be capable of. Correspondingly, this relationship between the soul cultivator and soul armament meant that should a soulbound armament be injured, it’d cause harm to the soul cultivator.

When a soulbound armament was damaged, the soul was too!!

The amount of damage to the soul was dependent on how large of a compatibility there was between the two. It wouldn’t be lethal, but it also wouldn’t be light either. When damage was done, the soul cultivator would be very clearly affected by it.

A good example would be what was going on in front of him. Wu Shang’s soulbound armament—the Devouring Chains—was heavily damaged, and Wu Shang’s soulforce was noticeably lower than before.

It was an instantaneous judgement on what caused this, but Bai Yunfei’s eyes widened when his mind caught up to the realization!

Soul armaments and soulbound armaments are something only the Crafting School would probably have a great deal of knowledge about. And in this moment as he held a segment of the Devouring Chains in his hands, Bai Yunfei was sure that there was still a sliver of Wu Shang’s soul inside of it. The reason why the tip of this chain could move so fluidly as if it was alive was because of the soul imprint on it and was thus probably the most important part of it.....

Without Wu Shang being able to control this segment of the chain, the part Bai Yunfei was holding would most likely lose the soul imprint it had on it with given time. But if Bai Yunfei were to forcibly remove the imprint.....then it would do a great deal of damage! Furthermore, Wu Shang couldn’t recall this part of the soul armament back since this ‘segment’ was no longer part of the soulbound armament!

Forcibly scrubbing the soul imprint within the damaged Devouring Chains was well within Bai Yunfei’s current abilities.

Putting away the Fire-tipped Spear, Bai Yunfei pushed his soulforce to his hands and then forcibly transmitted a large amount of it into the Devouring Chains.

There was a furious howl from Wu Shang as he caught onto what Bai Yunfei was trying to do. He felt a surge of pain assault his head as Wu Shang’s soul attack hit him head on. Nearly fainting form the pain, Bai Yunfei was able to make a comeback due to the Soul Sentinel Scarf. Blinking, Bai Yunfei raised his right hand and immediately slammed it against the chain!!