“Was this person....killed by you?”

Bai Yunfei calmly asked the black-robed person in front of him.

The person stared anxiously at Bai Yunfei, choosing to stay quiet rather than answer his question. Bai Yunfei’s casual neutralization of his two attacks had been more surprising than not. This person was also trying his best to figure out who Bai Yunfei was. Flipping through each and every single prodigy, the person hadn’t even a single clue on who Bai Yunfei was though.

Bai Yunfei waited for two seconds before he decided that he had enough of waiting. Speaking to himself, Bai Yunfei soliloquized, “I get trying to thin out the competition sooner rather than later, but to be this vicious....isn’t that a bit too much?”

“Pah!” The other person overheard Bai Yunfei’s words and sneered. With his grip still on his longsword, the man spoke, “The prize is a treasure nearly a thousand years old. Everyone should’ve realized it’s kill or be killed in here a long time ago. You coddled ‘geniuses’ know nothing about the savage reality of this world....and spare me your high-and-mighty attitude, who cares about that? I highly doubt you never killed anyone before in your life!”

Bai Yunfei was again surprised by this person’s words. From what he was saying, this person had to be a wandering soul cultivator. He rarely saw people like him.

He didn’t even want to talk about morality with this person. It was just meant to be a small quip and not a debate. Ignoring the issue, Bai Yunfei closed his eyes and asked, “Are you planning to kill me too?”

His calm demeanor was unsettling to the other person. His eyes gleamed as they looked all around. No other person or soulbeast was there, meaning it was safe to fight. A murderous gleam entered his eyes.

“Shaa....”

A few meters to the left of this person, the grass there started to rustle with wind. Having been stuck in silence as he waited, Bai Yunfei couldn’t help but look over to the source of the rustling....

“Bzz....”

All at once, the aura of a Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt started to blaze out from the person at once. Like a leopard leaping at its prey, the other person immediately closed the distance between him and Bai Yunfei and struck out with his sword poised to stab into Bai Yunfei’s throat!

That wasn’t the entirety of his attack. At the same time he was moving, a dozen black needles came flying out to strike at Bai Yunfei from the left!

A nasty sneer was on the other man’s face as he lashed out. He fully expected Bai Yunfei to be caught off guard by the two-pronged attack and be stunned into inaction until his death!

But he was in the one that was stunned however. His sword stab had....struck nothing but air!

In that one moment the person took action, Bai Yunfei fell seemingly backwards to be almost parallel with the ground. He zipped backwards and then flew back onto his feet as if nothing had even happened to begin with.

Even with the sword of the other person hitting nothing but air, its relative direction to Bai Yunfei allowed the man to continue forward. Kicking against the ground, he charged after Bai Yunfei to try to attack again with another sword stab towards him.

“Clang clang clang....”

As he was setting forward, the front of Bai Yunfei’s person flashed orange with light. There was a series of clanging sounds as the ten needles were deflected away!

“Whoosh....”

Bai Yunfei’s hand waved while the other person was distracted, summoning a flaming object from his space ring and sending it forwards.

Sweat pooled onto the back of the other person. If this flaming object were to fly straight into him, he wouldn’t have enough time to dodge it!

But the object flew away from him. The very next thing he saw was Bai Yunfei push his palm down towards the ground. The flaming object—now a healthy distance away—came crashing down into the ground like a miniature wall!

`

A muffled thud exploded from the earth along with an equally muffled howl, but the latter was cut short after a second. Paling in the face, the man let out a mouthful of blood next!

The howl that came from the part of the forest behind Bai Yunfei had been from his hidden soulbeast partner. Because of Bai Yunfei, the soulbeast was dead! And the death of his soulbeast partner meant a devastating blow to his soul!

Because of how fast Bai Yunfei attacked, the other person hadn’t even felt his soulbeast partner in trouble until it died. Looking back towards Bai Yunfei, the man’s eyes widened and his face paled yet again!

A flaming red spear was flying straight for his chest!

Spooked beyond belief, the man threw himself backwards and raised his longsword up in an attempt to block the Fire-tipped Spear.

“Clang....pcht!”

A joyous light entered the man’s eyes when he saw the spear collide with his sword. But then horror sunk in when he realized something wrong with his defense....

The Fire-tipped Spear had simply destroyed his high-earth tier crimson longsword when it collided with it. In disbelief, the man could only watch as the spear continue onward through his high-earth tier armor and out his back!

As the life faded away from his body, the man heard one last sentence before he died.

“What you said earlier isn’t wrong. In this world, it’s kill or be killed....”

Bai Yunfei burned the corpses afterwards. He didn’t really feel anything after he killed this person; instead, he felt a lot more ready for anything else now.

In truth, his previous ideology of how the competition for the Extreme King Pills would be a friendly was far too optimistic. The cruel world of soul cultivators hadn’t such a happy sight like that. Killing was fundamentally the fastest and best way to reap the profits, and even if he didn’t want to kill anyone for the pills, he’d be put on the list of being one of the first people to be killed.

“We’re all representatives of the next generation of our schools. Why must we kill each other....?”

Bai Yunfei sighed. It was a fruitless endeavor not to kill, but he had to get his mind back into the game. Calming down, he looked around the place to see what to do.

“Seems like I can’t approach anyone else but friends so easily. Wonder how I’m going to get back to Jing Mingfeng....”

Bai Yunfei was climbing a decently-sized mountain now. He wanted to look at the surrounding area and scout for anything else that might help him.

Suddenly, the air a kilometer above his head started to fluctuate wildly before a single person in blue appeared out from nowhere!

This newcomer was an extremely vigilant one. Already ready for anything when he appeared, his eyes zoomed in onto Bai Yunfei the moment he was in.

The two looked at one another, their eyebrows raised in surprised recognition before they opened their mouths to speak.

“You?!”

Simultaneously. Outside the pocket in Crushed Stone River.

The elder from the Wood School heaved a heavy sigh. “Another youngster has gone in. The competitors are increasing with each wave....”

“Already ten people have come in the last half day.” The elder from the Fire School nodded his head, “It’ll be an even higher number soon enough. There’s by my estimate around a hundred people in the pocket, I wonder what’s going on inside now....”

“Fights are inevitable in there.” The elder from the Metal School commented, “But self-preservation won’t be too hard if they work together.”

None of them knew that the pocket was dividing everyone the moment they entered, and that everyone was already fighting one another with the intent to kill....

The elder from the Wood School raised his head up to look at the skies, “Here comes another!”

Several figures came into view then, allowing each of the elders to see just who they were. “The Underworld School!” One of the elders called out in shock.

Seven beams of light came flying in to land on the top of the mountain on the other side of the river.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

When the light dispersed, the people from the Underworld School and Zheng Kai’s group was revealed!

Now at a stop, the two elders from the Underworld School scanned the area. They were a bit surprised to see all the Soul Kings gathered in the area, but when they saw the transparent bubble and the fluctuating ripples all around it, one of the elders cried out, “The pocket’s already opened! There’s the entrance!”

The first elder’s eyes honed in on the pocket. “So many Soul Kings are already here I see....then have all the little Soul Exalts entered already? I wonder what’s going on inside....”

“Yunfei’s inside it!” Xiao Qi cried out from his perch on Long Lan’s shoulder.

“That must be why your connection with Yunfei got weaker then, he’s inside the pocket. He must’ve saw the pocket open and went in before we got here. Let’s go inside ourselves then!” Zheng Kai suggested.

Zheng Kai was already aware of the deal with the Extreme King Pills. Prior to their arrival here, the first elder had explained the situation with him, Xu Ran, and Han Yue. The latter two looked grim, but they nodded and followed Zheng Kai into the pocket.

The moment the three disappeared, another beam of cyan light flew into the area like a meteor to come to a stop a decent distance away from their group.

The first elder regarded this new beam of light with great shock, “The One Azure Leaf Boat...Yun Liantian! He’s here as well?!”