“Roar! Roar!!”

Two soulbeasts roared loudly through the plains, accompanied by one tremendous explosion after another and a burst of multi-colored light. From far away, this scene looked almost beautiful to watch.

But from up close, this ‘beautiful’ scene was anything but. Within one of the flickering beams of light was a terrifying-looking soulbeast that was snapping and biting down with its jaws with a bone-chilling ferocity.

There was a total of six soulbeasts and four soul cultivators here. At the current moment, the six soulbeasts were currently surrounding two young men dressed in light green, and the other two soul cultivators were standing on the outside of the entrapment.

Two of six soulbeasts were earth rhinos, one was a brown dire wolf, another was an elephant with four golden tusks, the fifth was a dark-green beetle, and the last was a gray praying mantis.

Not only were the majority of them of different affinities, they were also all late-stage class six soulbeasts! Another distinguishable feature was the crimson-red look in their eyes and their emotionless expressions. They also looked like they were going insane with bloodlust.

The two people the six soulbeasts were fighting were bloodied all over. Their green robes had long since been stained red from all the attacks the soulbeasts had done. Each time the soulbeasts attacked, the two would just barely move away or avoid being hit.

“Boom!!”

There was an explosion as the male on the left lashed out with his sword to block a wave of elemental energy from the praying mantis. Retreating backward to dodge the dire wolf’s attack, he made two backward steps to come back to back with his companion.

“Huff....huff....senior You, I....I can’t hold on for much longer!” The male coughed, his breathing labored and his body heaving with pain. “They’re trying to tire us out, and if we don’t do anything, they’ll completely drain us of energy without them feeling a thing!”

“Don’t give up, the message slip has already been used. I don’t know how vast this pocket is, but if Zihao is nearby, he’ll come running over in no time. We can’t escape, so we must hold out here. We just need to wait for Zihao.”

The other male behind him spoke. This male was thirty-something in age and had a steady but mature face. Though he was in a dangerous predicament, his eyes were unflinchingly determined as he stared at the nearby soulbeasts and spoke to his companion.

This person was none other than the one Bai Yunfei once met when he first became a soul cultivator, an outstanding student of the Wood School from all the way back in Jadewillow City, You Qingfeng!

Many years had passed since Bai Yunfei last saw him, but there wasn’t much that looked different to You Qingfeng now.

“Damn!! If only we didn’t use that much energy in the previous battle, how humiliating is it to be treated by the beast tamers like this?! I never thought that they’d be willing to stoop so low. If they’re willing to kill students from one of the Ten Schools, are they not afraid the others will challenge them?!”

The first man who spoke cried out, his hand balling with anger as he stared at the two beast tamers.

“Killing should be expected if everyone’s aiming for the treasure in this pocket. It’s a safe tactic, and I’m sure they were already planning on weeding out the weaker competitors. If they kill us, who’s going to know they did it? I’m sure most people in this pocket are already aware of this fact....”

You Qingfeng glanced over at the two smiling beast tamers as well, a forced smile on his face. Though he fully anticipated that the Extreme King Pills would have a dreadful battle between the competitors, he never expected the Beast Taming School pick their fights like this.

“Tch! What bastards the beast tamers are, they can control three soulbeasts each! If it was just me versus the tamers, I would’ve knocked the two flat a long time ago!! And if only we had soulbeast partners....”

“......” You Qingfeng couldn’t help but shake his head at the naivety of his fellow student. There was no such thing as having dirty tactics in a battle like this. If the students of the Beast Taming School didn’t use soulbeast puppets to fight, they simply wouldn’t be the Beast Taming School then.

He had to agree with his companion on the aspect of having a soulbeast partner though. Most schools would generally have their students find a soulbeast to contract with, especially if they were among the strongest of their peers. Most of them wanted a soul contract so they could stand a better chance of breaking through, hence why most decided to find one when they became a Soul Exalt. Another common thing was finding a late-stage class six soulbeast to contract with since that soulbeast would have a better chance of becoming a class seven. Needless to say, the result was something that was good for both soul cultivator and soulbeast.

In fact, the group had been on the way to Soulbeast Forest to find a soulbeast to contract in when they were told about the Extreme King Pill and decided to change directions here.

......

“Boom boom boom....”

The earth beneath their feet started to shake, causing both You Qingfeng and his bushy-eyed companion to blanch. They kicked off into the air just in time before the two giant rhinos stampede through the area where they used to be. There was a clash of sparks as the two rhinos hit each other head-on and continued past each other.

They fell back down to the ground just in time for the giant elephant and beetle to come at them next, embroiling them in fierce combat once again. With how tired the two were, they were hardly willing to use any of their more stronger moves. It was more energy-conservative for them to just spend all their effort trying to evade being hit, but even that was a very hard effort.

On the other side of the battlefield, the two beast tamers watched as You Qingfeng and his friend try their best to survive with a look of disdain. “This is the strength of the students of the Wood School? It’s nothing much....I was thinking I’d lose three late-stage class six soulbeast to deal with them.” Spoke the skinny one.

The fatty one next to him laughed. “It’s a lot easier than expected, but it’s best we don’t take any chances just in case they run away.”

The first time they were caught in this encirclement, You Qingfeng unleashed one of his most powerful attacks in order to scatter the crowd and hopefully secure a kill. When the battle started to drag out, You Qingfeng was forced back by a water-type late-stage class six soulbeast.

Not only do the core students of the Beast Taming School have soulbeasts on the same level of strength as You Qingfeng and his companion, but they also had more than just ‘three’ of them. Losing one or two wouldn’t be too devastating of a loss and could easily be replaced.

That was how the Beast Taming School operated.

“Defeating them isn’t really a problem, but....should we just kill them? They’re not the two-bit wandering soul cultivators like the group before. If news of this gets out....” The skinny one hesitated.

The fat beast tamer had a ruthless light in his eye, “Hehe, so what if we kill them? No one is here to see, who’ll know we’re the ones that did it?”

“That’s true, then let’s....eh? Someone’s here!!”

The skinny beast tamer’s head snapped towards a different direction just in time to see a bolt of red light come flying over!

“Fast!” He cried, “Is this someone else from the Wood School?!”

But the fat beast tamer shook his head, “Can’t be, don’t you see he’s a fire-type soul cultivator? Looks like he’s coming towards us, most likely going to try and do something....hmph! He’s looking to die if he’s coming by himself!”

He was already commanding the praying mantis to break out from the encirclement. It turned away from You Qingfeng to fly at the incoming red streak of light!

“Bzz....”

The wings on the back of the mantis back started to flutter, and in no time at all, it started to fly! Like a rocket exploding into orbit, it flew into the skies and unleashed a large blade of elemental wind out from its blade arms.

The incoming person didn’t seem to pay the attack any mind as he flew forward. Just about a hundred meters away now, the person within the red streak of light waved his hand, sending a small red object outwards with increasing speed to block the blade of wind!

“Pow!!”

As if struck by a large wall, the praying mantis came to a screeching halt. It stuck to the red object as it flew in the opposing direction to fly straight into the encirclement!

“Boom!!”

The large object smashed into the ground, coming to a stop only when it was submerged almost a hundred meters into the ground. Beneath the object, a second crater about twenty-meters deep could be seen before the praying mantis staggered on out from it.

“......”

Everyone was deathly silent as they watched the praying mantis fly shakingly upwards. You Qingfeng and his bushy-eyed friend had been at the edge of this ‘giant stone’, and the two beast tamers hadn’t even had time to react to what they saw. And since they were stunned, their soulbeast puppets were doing nothing either.

Right in front of their very eyes, the giant ‘stone’ started to shrink in size before it flew away from everyone to go back to the incoming youth’s side.

Then the youth walked up to You Qingfeng.

“Senior You, it’s been a long time since we last met....”