“I...I’ve never seen so much power!! This isn’t the aura of a Half-emperor...this...this has to be a true Soul Emperor?!”

Bai Yunfei had to clench his teeth to prevent them from chattering against each other in his fear. The tyrannical amount of power being unleashed from this person above him was terrifying Bai Yunfei with the possibility of him being a Soul Emperor.

“To have even the energy within this much distance under his power...this person is without a doubt a Soul Emperor! Be careful, Yunfei!”

Xiao Fang chimed in at that moment to confirm Bai Yunfei’s suspicions. This situation was unfortunately going down the path Bai Yunfei was most fearful of.

“Gulp...”

He swallowed hesitantly, though even the simple act of swallowing his own saliva felt like a risky move in the face of this person. “I’m really up against a Soul Emperor...what do I do?”

He never imagined him going up against a Soul Emperor. It was a mind-boggling thought.

Fighting a Half-emperor was something within the realms of possibility. Bai Yunfei had the confidence of putting up a good fight if he were to fight against one of those.

But against a true Soul Emperor? Bai Yunfei hadn’t the courage for that. The voice in his heart was already telling him his chances of victory—zil!

As the name implies, a Half-emperor was considered to be ‘half’ a Soul Emperor. Bai Yunfei had seen three Half-emperors already; patriarch Qin, Jing Wuying, and the elder that self-destructed earlier in the Core World.

All three of those Half-emperors were definitely people beyond Bai Yunfei’s level of strength, but not even they held a candle to a genuine Soul Emperor! Half a Soul Emperor? Those Half-emperors felt like a world apart from a Soul Emperor in Bai Yunfei’s mind!

The Soul Refining School was pulling out all the stops its seemed if they were using a Soul Emperor to deal with Bai Yunfei. Should he even feel proud of that fact?

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

While Bai Yunfei was debating making even the slightest of actions, Nether was also motionless. He simply stood there up in the skies to stare curiously at Bai Yunfei as one would stare at a test subject.

“I find it hard to imagine a youngling would be able to cause so much destruction to my school and almost get away with it. Not even Zi Jin had the strength for that at your age...”

The black light around Nether’s figure flickered as he spoke, his words conveying to Bai Yunfei a semblance of surprise and regret.

Bai Yunfei said nothing.

“Should you hand over the secrets behind your strengthening of the King Caging Bell, the technique you used to regain your strength, allow yourself to be marked, and swear fealty to me, I will allow you to live.”

Bai Yunfei said nothing again, though the corners of his eyes were crinkling a smidgen in shock.

This person somehow learned about his Upgrade Technique!

But that was something to be expected. With Qin Bangjie being the previous owner of the King Caging Bell, he would, of course, sense the change that took place in the King Caging Bell. It also went without saying that everyone knew the King Caging Bell wasn’t capable of creating a sound wave that could bewitch all that heard it. It’d be very easily deduced that Bai Yunfei had done something to the King Caging Bell.

While they knew Bai Yunfei had done something to the King Caging Bell, no one—Nether included—knew what exactly it was that he did. What kind of mystical art could improve the might of a soul armament several times over within a matter of ten seconds and give the soul armament a new ability on top of that?!

To Nether, Bai Yunfei was simply a rat that had been found within the courtyards. It would be a simple matter for him to step out and arrest Bai Yunfei. He didn’t bother to to begin with since he felt it was beneath his notice. But with all that destruction Bai Yunfei did, Nether had no other choice but to!

When he did decide to take action, the first step he did was to start ‘negotiations’ with Bai Yunfei. This was just a test to see if Bai Yunfei really did have a Regalia and some kind of secret behind his power.

The smallest of reactions from Bai Yunfei didn’t escape Nether’s eye—so it was true!?

“I’ll have my answers one way or another!!”

Nether was committed to taking away every secret from Bai Yunfei. A glimmer of light reflected from his eyes as he prepared to take action!

The glimmer of light was the only thing that had changed about Nether, but the entire area was already submitting to his will. Darkening the skies, Nether was already shaping the energy there into an attack to force Bai Yunfei to submit!

“Damn! A fight it is!!”

The sudden change in the world around him caused Bai Yunfei to snarl in anger and wave his right hand forward!

He wasn’t using an attack of any kind. That much could be seen with how the soulforce within Bai Yunfei’s body was still dormant. But in the skies nearby Nether a series of ripples were already starting to take shape!

“Bzzz...”

An orange light covered Bai Yunfei’s body a moment later as he activated the Cataclysmic Seal. He was shielding himself!

“Oh? This is...”

A curious flicker of light entered Nether’s eyes. Then a second later he registered what it was Bai Yunfei was doing!

From where the ripple had shown up, a chaotic amount of energy was starting to push out from it!

This energy was...the energy from when Song Qing self-destructed!

The energy Bai Yunfei was ‘afraid’ of squandering a moment ago was now being used as a weapon on a Soul Emperor!

“This aura...this is Song Qing!! What is the meaning of this!?”

Not even a Soul Emperor like Nether would be able to remain calm under this attack. He waved his right hand to form a giant barrier of light to protect both him and Qin Bangjie behind it.

Now both Bai Yunfei and Nether were protected. It was like a giant bomb went off as the energy exploded in the world. The entire earth trembled violently as it was bombarded with an explosive force!

“Boom boom boom boom...”

Explosions ran across the earth one after another. From within his barrier, Bai Yunfei spat out a mouthful of blood as he tried to feed even more soulforce into the barrier. He was trying his best to provide enough soulforce so that the barrier wouldn’t give.

He thought about hiding in the Core World at first, but Bai Yunfei was worried that the Core Stone wouldn’t be able to handle the energy assaulting it. If the Core Stone broke with him inside, his life would definitely come to an end...

When he threw out the energy from the Core World, Bai Yunfei had it ‘angled’ so that the worst of the explosion wouldn’t hit him. And yet Bai Yunfei felt like his entire body was about to be torn apart.

If that was how he felt, he didn’t want to imagine what it was like for someone who was standing at the center of it...

The aftermath of the explosion was terrifying to see. Where once had been solid ground was now ‘thin air’. The explosion had destroyed the earth so that he was standing above a giant ‘crater’!

And now the white mist that had been pushed back by Nether was now even further back!

The skies were littered with remnants of elemental darkness like bolts of black lightning. They left giant craters and crevices wherever they landed on the ground, but the true terror was the marks they left in the air. Multiple parts of the air were distorting in on a single point to form ‘holes’. It looked like the sky was being poked full of holes!!

Cracks in space!

Bai Yunfei’s eyes were glued at the part of the sky directly in front of him. That part of the area was what terrified Bai Yunfei the most!

A giant ‘black hole’ was spanned across a hundred meters in the air there!

That had been where the explosion was set off. The force of the explosion had destabilized the space so much that it was now a volatile mass of emptiness that was swallowing up everything it was close to!

Large quantities of energy were being ‘pulled’ into the black hole as if they were being absorbed. Paradoxically, it was the center that looked the most ‘calm’ of it all...

Bai Yunfei was prepared for the amount of devastation, but this sight had truly struck him dead cold. He wasn’t even able to swallow the saliva in his mouth with how dumbstruck he was.

Fear lingered in his eyes still as he muttered to himself. “Are...are they dead?”