“Little Rui!”

It was with great concern that Tang Xinyun detached herself from Bai Yunfei’s back to leap out from the room. Huangfu Rui’s cry from outside the room had startled her so much that she tried to leave the room. But she turned her head back around to look at the young girl as she was being dragged underneath by the dark tendrils, “Yunfei!” She cried out, “The girl!”

“Don’t worry, I got it!!” Bai Yunfei called back. Pushing Tang Xinyun out of the room, he stepped further in. “Xiao Qi, protect Xinyun!!”

Xiao Qi had just started to fly into the air towards the tendrils when he was stopped by Bai Yunfei’s command. Turning around, it flew back towards Tang Xinyun.

“Bang! Bang!!”

The Cataclysmic Seal appeared in the room when Bai Yunfei shook his right hand. It struck against the two tendrils coming at him and rebuffed the two with a slight sizzling sound. The two tendrils curled backwards before shrinking back as if hurt.

Bai Yunfei arrived at the front of the bed in a flash. There was a single hole that extended from the middle of the bed down into the ground where he could see the young girl be brought away through a small drop of about thirty meters before turning a small corner and out of sight.

“Tch!!”

Bai Yunfei clicked his tongue. Without thinking twice, Bai Yunfei erected a barrier around him and dropped down the hole after the young girl.

......

While Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun were both dealing with the interior of the room, Long Lan was busy smashing apart a black shadow and getting ready for battle along with the red magiboar. While Huangfu Rui hadn’t been paying attention, a dark-red object had coiled around her waist. Since she hadn’t been expecting to be attacked, Huangfu Rui let out a scream when she realized what was going.

It was however a good thing Long Lan was there and took care of the issue before anything could happen.

By the side, Zheng Kai had used his black fan to cut apart at the two tendrils coming at him and Kou Tingting with a burst of spatial attacks.

“Chirp!!”

While Tang Xinyun was rushing outside in her panic, Xiao Qi let loose a loud chirp. Shining brightly with light, he unleashed a wave of wind blades towards the right and tore apart at the shadows there which dripped dark-red liquid from them.

Xiao Bai was getting ready for battle too. It flapped its wings to provide a protective layering of elemental wind around Tang Xinyun’s body to protect her.

As quick as they came, the ‘things’ that came out from the ground were quickly smashed apart and left to shrink back into the ground.

Aside from the tendrils Xiao Qi had torn apart, the rest of the tendrils fell back down to the ground with a bang where everyone could see ‘what’ exactly it was.....

“What....what is this?!” Zheng Kai cried out in bewilderment. Eyeing what it was in front of him closely, he saw something as thick as his own arm and several meters long. It was shaped like the tail of a snake and was dripping red with something. Bewildered, Zheng Kai managed to find his voice a little later, “Am I seeing things right?! An octopus?!”

He was right! The thing that had attacked everyone just now had been the tentacles of an octopus!!

There over a dozen of these tentacles with suction pads stuck all over them that looked like mouths almost. Even now, the suctions were still opening and closing!

“An octopus that....that can hide in the ground?!” Zheng Kai remarked, “If the tentacles are this big, just how big is the octopus itself?! And...how did we not notice the octopus earlier?!”

Now that everyone was back together, Long Lan peered down towards the ground. “I didn’t even sense it until it attacked. This place is....a little strange. It’s preventing my soulsense from entering....”

Xiao Qi nodded his head from above their heads. “I didn’t sense it either. That thing was hiding deep in the ground as if it was one with it. I can’t even sense where it’s gone now.”

Kou Tingting frowned. “Then what....what should we do now?”

“The very first thing we should do is get out of here. We’re not sure what’s going on here, it’s not safe if we stick around.” Zheng Kai voted.

“But....Yunfei dove into the hole to save that girl....” Tang Xinyun said.

“What?!” Zheng Kai whirled around to look at the room Bai Yunfei had been in. “I can’t sense him....damn! He really did go down that hole?!”

Try as hard as they might, no one in the group could sense Bai Yunfei’s aura from down the hole! It expanded for several hundred meters down and was like a swamp where one could hardly make head or tail of the geographical layout underneath.

“I know where Bai Yunfei is! He’s right now nearly six hundred meters down deep into the ground!” Xiao Qi suddenly spoke up. He was different to Zheng Kai due to his soul contract with Bai Yunfei and could tell the general area Bai Yunfei was in.

“Really?” Tang Xinyun spoke, “How is he doing right now?!”

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

“I can’t tell that,” Xiao Qi shook his head. “But he’s still chasing....no! I have to go in after him!!”

And just like that, Xiao Qi disappeared from the room to dive deep into the hole after Bai Yunfei.

I’m going too!!”

Growing panicked, Tang XInyun moved to go down to but was stopped by Kou Tingting holding onto her arm.

‘Don’t be rash, Xinyun. It’s too dangerous down there, you can’t go.” She shook herh ead.

Tang Xinyun didn’t look convinced, “But....”

“I know you’re worried about Yunfei, but we don’t know what’s down there. It could be a trap, if you can’t help out Yunfei, you might end up getting trapped yourself.”

“Tingting’s right,” Zheng Kai backed her up, “I think it’s best if we leave this place for now. Believe in Yunfei and Xiao Qi. The two of them are a lot stronger than even I’m aware of. Even a mid-stage Soul King won’t easily win against them, believe in them.”

He thought about it a little more. “How about this, if you’re still not convinced, then we can have Long Lan go help them when we get to a safe spot.”

“Sis Yun, why is bro Strawhat gone? Where did he go? And what was that just now, it was so scary.....can we leave this place? I’m scared....” Huangfu Rui clutched at Tang Xinyun’s hand as she trembled.

“I....” A little hesitant, Tang Xinyun finally gave in after a while. “Fine then, we can leave.”

But as everyone prepared to leave the room and take to the skies, yet another development started to take place!

“Bzzz.....”

The ground beneath their feet started to tremble as if an earthquake was starting to take place. Cracks and crevices started to open up, threatening to plunge them down into the earth!!

“Watch out!!”

Zheng Kai cried out to the others, pulling Kou Tingting with him as he did to take off into the skies.

But even as he tried to stabilize a foothold in the air by making use of the elemental energy to dos, Zheng Kai came to the startling realization that he couldn’t! As if there was something from the hole draining their energy, it started to pull everyone towards the ground!

He wasn’t the only person affected. Aside from Long Lan, everyone else was started to be sucked in to the ground!

Long Lan was astonished. He had thought the enemy had already retreated for now and hadn’t thought another surprise attack would come so soon. He crossed over to Tang Xinyun who was the closest and pulled her to him. In another moment, he made his way to Zheng Kai and Kou Tingting a few meters away.

On the other side, Xiao Bai was try to make the most of its flying advantage by pulling Huangfu Rui up with its leg, but it was no use.....

The group fell down beneath the earth and quickly disappeared from sight down the pitch dark hole. There was only a faint crumbling sound as the hole slowly started to squirm a bit. Its mouth grew smaller and smaller until....it closed up on itself!

From what used to be a hundred meter large hole, a completely intact piece of ground was left on it! Not even ten seconds had gone by before the ground was back to normal! Even the sod and stone tiles that had previously been there was back to perfect condition, and it looked like nothing even happened in the first place!

Under the night sky on this earth. In this small courtyard, the mansion, and the city, everything was deathly quiet.....

With Chapter 700 finished, the next chapter will mark the beginning of Book Six, though the last few chapters are actually a part of the chronology of Book Six, I felt it best to not make the split yet. The next installment will have plenty of new stories, such as: A legendary medicine will resurface, a mysterious area will be explored, even more Regalia will appear, and even more prodigies will come out into the spotlight.....What kind of dangers and adventure await Bai Yunfei?

Please look forward to Book Six: Pill Royale!