There stood a tall mountain with a point several hundred meters in height. A white pillar of light could be seen at the tip of the point piercing through the layer of clouds above it and disseminating its light throughout. But with the clouds covering the mountain, it was only possible to see the light from where it was heading straight up from. It was like if a giant cover was being placed over the mountain with how the light was seemingly melting with the air. From a distance, not even the pillar could really be seen in its clearest form.
The area around the mountain was seemingly on fire with how the air was bending like a wave. But the strange thing was that it didn’t feel hot here.
Should a s.p.a.ce-type soul cultivator or Soul King be here, they would’ve noticed that the spatial energy in this area was particularly heavy enough to create distortions in the air.
At the top of the mountain stood a platform with two people standing on top of it. One of those two people was an elderly person with black robes and gray hair. This person was perhaps seventy in age but his spirit was still quite robust for his age. There weren’t any signs of soulforce coming from this person, however, making it seem like he was just an ordinary elder.
The other person was a young man dressed in equally black robes. His hair reached his shoulders and his face was exceedingly handsome. The only demerit to his appearance were his eyes, which looked sinisterly dark enough to make anyone think twice about meeting his stare.
This young man was, of course, the junior headmaster of the Soul Refining School, Mo Ni. And the elder was one of the people that had appeared in front of the Black Dragon King back in the Soulbeast Forest, ‘Qin Bangjie’. He was the first elder and overseer for external affairs, a Peak Late-stage Soul King.
In front of him was a half-transparent floating disk made from an unknown material. The disk was pulsating with a soft glow and had several white dots glowing on its surface and moving every so often.
The entrance to the Soul Refining School wasn’t a mountain like the Crafting School. It was in fact a series of mountains spread out farther than what most people could imagine. Soul refiners were rarities in the world, but there was actually a large sum of them hidden away on the school grounds. The school had also seven elders in charge of external matters; each one of them Soul Kings. There were also multiple elders who had secluded themselves from the world and held the t.i.tle of ‘elder’ as well. Those elders were in charge of protecting the interior of the school. Then there were the ‘guest elders’, who were Soul Kings from the outside that had decided to throw their lots in with the Soul Refining School.
No one knew just how many Soul Kings the Soul Refining School had, and not even the people from a millennium ago knew the answer to that riddle…
The mountains Mo Ni and Qin Bangjie stood upon was the origin of where the Agitation Edict was activated from.
At this present moment, Mo Ni was staring off into the distance with a nervous expression on his face. It had been a day since Bai Yunfei was last spotted, and none of their scouts had yet to report any news back to them. The fact that no one had even reported back in general was enough to make Mo Ni feel like choking almost.
If he had to put it into words, Mo Ni would say the situation felt like he was holding onto a giant sword to cut the neck of a serpent. The only thing was, the serpent was still hiding in its hole and refusing to come out…
“I don’t believe for a second that you were able to make it out from the range of the Agitation Edict before it was activated! You’re definitely hiding somewhere to heal yourself! You’re like a tortoise hiding within the Core Stone! Even if no one’s able to find you, we just need to flush you out! I don’t believe it for even a second you’ll be able to live through this!”
Mo Ni’s eyes reflected the s.a.d.i.s.tic glee he had for Bai Yunfei’s misfortune. Though killing Bai Yunfei straight away was something he wanted to prioritize, this game of cat-and-mouse felt equally refres.h.i.+ng, and Mo Ni couldn’t help but feel like Bai Yunfei was a lamb waiting to be pounced on. All he, the wolf, had to do was wait.
“Eh?”
Mo Ni and Qin Bangjie’s eyebrows rose up as they took notice of something from the right. A group of students was running frantically for them. “Junior headmaster, first elder, a message came from the Soul Tablet Palace a moment ago…they said elder Lu’s tablet was broken!”
“What?! He’s finally starting to move!”
Mo Ni’s eyes lit up with excitement rather than shock and anger at the death of one of their own!
A soul tablet was similar to the ‘life jade’ from the Crafting School, but their effects weren’t as strong. A soul tablet couldn’t sense how strong the vitality of its owner was and would break apart when their owner died. Nonetheless, the Soul Refining School had an entire palace with soul tablets to keep an eye on their students.
Not once had the thought of saving elder Lu crossed Mo Ni’s mind. His tablet was still fine in any case, and Mo Ni figured Bai Yunfei would wait until he was fully healed before dealing with the elder.
In fact, Mo Ni was actually waiting for Bai Yunfei to kill the elder. Should that happen, it would mean Bai Yunfei was once again starting to be on the move, and killing the elder meant Bai Yunfei was going to show himself!
There was also the offside that the death of elder Lu meant Bai Yunfei wasn’t as weak as before. Bai Yunfei would most likely be back in his prime state and would definitely not be an easy target to capture. Still, Mo Ni had total confidence in their task. This was the Soul Refining School after all! Bai Yunfei was by himself! Even if he had the power to kill two Late-stage Soul King, that meant little when there were over a dozen Soul Kings ready to take action! Mo Ni had no doubts at all that they would be able to kill Bai Yunfei without much difficulty!
“Notify all the students to be extra careful at once. Bai Yunfei will most defi—what?!”
He wasn’t even done giving the order when Mo Ni took notice of something strange on the floating disk in front of him. Staring at it, Mo Ni began to smile in joy!
One of the white dots on the lower-left corner had suddenly disappeared from the disk!
“South-west…that’s close to the Amethyst Cliff!!” Mo Ni exclaimed, “Bai Yunfei must be there!
“Notify everyone near the Amethyst Cliff to be on the look-out and to be ready for battle! Notify everyone else to surround the place! I want every inch of that place scoured. Do not let Bai Yunfei escape!”
“Yes, junior headmaster!” The student bowed at once before disappearing to do as he was told.
Mo Ni was feeling elated now. Turning to Qin Bangjie, he spoke, “First elder, this Bai Yunfei has plenty of strange techniques to him. I believe it would be prudent for you to go and capture him to avoid any casualties to our students!”
Qin Bangjie had a calm expression on his face as he stared at the strange disk in front of them. “This is no small matter, I will of course take care of it myself. Let’s go.”
The two glowed brightly with light for a moment before they took off towards the south-west!
……
“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…”
The sound of air being displaced could be heard as Bai Yunfei flew through the skies like a demon, his mind racing miles per minute to think of what to do next.
“Again! Yunfei, you just tripped another barrier! Someone’s most likely going to find you!”
Xiao Fang’s voice spoke into Bai Yunfei’s mind again, causing him to narrow his eyes in consternation!
“d.a.m.n! How can they hide those barriers so well?!” Bai Yunfei cursed to himself. Any hope he was feeling was rapidly dwindling away from him with each successive barrier he tripped. It seemed like there wasn’t much of a point hiding his aura and running away!
“I’ve got to charge straight on through before the enemies can gather here!”
Bai Yunfei declared. Soaring into the sky, he leaped onto the Heaven’s Thunder and took off with renewed speed. He didn’t care about hiding himself anymore, it was too late for that. It was time for him to take flight!
It wasn’t for another five kilometers or so before Bai Yunfei met his next obstruction. Several beams of light could be seen within the vicinity. They weren’t flying towards him, but it was obvious they had seen them since they were flying off to the side. It was likely that they were trying to get to safety on a nearby mountain and observe his movements from there.
“Tch!” Bai Yunfei clicked his tongue. He hadn’t the time to deal with the small fry, so Bai Yunfei turned his sword around into a different direction to hopefully shake off his observers.
Noticing that Bai Yunfei wasn’t going to ‘fight’ them, the scouting unit changed directions as well to chase after him!
That only made Bai Yunfei even more sullen. Several more beams of light were already converging onto his general area—two of them were Soul Kings!
“They’re fast!” Bai Yunfei noted in panic.
Then his eyes flickered over to another two beams of light heading his way from his left and right. They were coming in to stop him from all three sides but back!
The formation of his enemies caught Bai Yunfei off guard. There was no escape now!