“Whoos.h.!.+”
The thrust of Bai Yunfei"s spear forced Ceng Quans.h.i.+ to cut back on whatever he wanted to say.
Whatever horror Ceng Quans.h.i.+ felt in his heart was immediately replaced by the desire to live. His mind went blank as he forced his body to act. Bright-orange light flooded out from his body as he threw himself to the side!
A faint m.u.f.fled sound brought Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s heart to a stop for a second. “It"s over.” he thought to himself. That sound surely had to be the result of Bai Yunfei"s spear hitting him…
But the pain didn"t come.
“What?”
He was…unhurt?!
To his complete shock and utter relief…Bai Yunfei"s spear had failed to penetrate his barrier!
“But…it"s not him!?”
Joy shot through Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s face. He had been too cautious; how could this person in front of him possibly be the reaper from three years ago!
“Die then!!”
Having no further fears of Bai Yunfei, Ceng Quans.h.i.+ took the opportunity to strike at Bai Yunfei. As the stronger and faster one, he withdrew a longsword from his s.p.a.ce ring and slashed at Bai Yunfei"s throat with it!
Bai Yunfei"s eyes narrowed. His initial attack might"ve failed to do the trick, but he still had other tricks up his sleeves. Left hand snapping up, Bai Yunfei delivered a slap onto the incoming blade!
“What!?”
Surprised, Ceng Quans.h.i.+ watched as his sword made contact with Bai Yunfei"s left hand. Rather than see his low-heaven tier sword simply cleave through it, Ceng Quans.h.i.+ watched as it simply be…caught within Bai Yunfei"s palm!
Sparks went flying when it stopped by Bai Yunfei"s palm, but the sword didn"t do anything else after that!
Knowing there wasn"t much time to think after he stopped the sword, Bai Yunfei took a half-step back and thrust his spear at Ceng Quans.h.i.+ again!
“Shkkkkttt!”
Ceng Quans.h.i.+ wrestled his longsword away from Bai Yunfei"s grip with ease. Throwing up another barrier to protect himself, he angled his sword so it"d stab into Bai Yunfei"s throat!
He was confident that he"d be safe. Bai Yunfei"s spear stroke failed to do any damage to him the first time, after all. He"d let Bai Yunfei attack him again before finis.h.i.+ng him off with a fatal blow.
At this, Bai Yunfei"s eyes gleamed with an uncharacteristically bright light. His right arm bulged slightly as soulforce flowed from it to the tip of the spear, causing the weapon to tremble a little!
“Whoos.h.!.+ Pcht…”
“Clang…”
The weapons of both fighters struck each other at the same time, but at different places. By s.h.i.+fting his body at the last second, Bai Yunfei was able to have the longsword hit his shoulder rather than his throat. Fortunately for him, the armor he wore covered the part of his shoulder that was. .h.i.t so Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s sword did nothing more than cut away his robes and create a few sparks when it hit the armor.
“But…how…?”
On the other side, Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s face was completely still and his mouth wide open from shock…
Somehow, Bai Yunfei"s spear managed to bypa.s.s his defenses and his armor to spear him straight through the chest!
This…was the +10 additional effect of Bai Yunfei"s spear! An effect that allowed Bai Yunfei to ignore any earth-type defenses!
As mentioned before, the majority of soul refiners generally had a secondary element they practiced in addition to elemental darkness. By having a secondary element, a soul refiner could safeguard their true ident.i.ties as being from the Soul Refining School and also supplement their own training.
One way soul cultivators trained was by taking in the energy of the world or from the energy of primal stones. In the latter case, elemental darkness was relatively rare, so soul refiners would see to a smaller benefit using primal stones if they didn"t have a secondary element.
For that reason, the Soul Refining School was a little unique in being able to have many of their students having an affinity for two elements.
And as things turned out for Ceng Quans.h.i.+, his secondary element was of earth...
And that was the reason why Bai Yunfei was willing to risk his life in this battle: he knew his spear had that +10 additional effect!
“It worked!”
Bai Yunfei knew his spear just by the fact that his soulforce entered the spear. He was already overjoyed before his spear even made it through Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s defense!
What he was afraid of was having his spear be stopped by the enemy"s armor even after breaking past the barrier. But his fears were for naught, and it seemed that the armor his opponent wore was weaker than the spear he used.
There might"ve been some resistance from the armor, but Bai Yunfei was ultimately able to pierce through it and stab deep into Ceng Quans.h.i.+.
And that was more than enough.
For Bai Yunfei had meant for this spear to stab into Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s heart! There was no recovering from such a wound after that!
“Ahhh!!!!”
Whilst Bai Yunfei was overjoyed with his victory over Ceng Quans.h.i.+, he failed to realize that the elder was still alive!
“Die!!” A wail of despair flowed forth from Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s mouth. Like a feral beast struggling to survive, his body exploded with soulforce as he slammed a black misty palm to Bai Yunfei"s face!
Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s last-effort attack was far too sudden for Bai Yunfei to properly dodge. He had only enough time to s.h.i.+ft his head back a bit but…the palm still managed to hit him in the forehead!
“Bang!!”
And just like that, Bai Yunfei was sent flying across the room!
Bai Yunfei"s head should"ve exploded like a watermelon being hit with a bat, but luckily for him the palm strike of Ceng Quans.h.i.+"s managed to hit him on the forehead where a strip of cloth was. The Soul Sentinel Scarf managed to mitigate most of the damage, but that still left a significant portion of it behind to send Bai Yunfei flying.
But the strange thing was…a sliver of black energy flowed from the Soul Sentinel Scarf down and into his nose!
“Boom!!”
Bai Yunfei came flying back down to the ground ten meters away. Only cras.h.i.+ng through a wooden room had stopped him from flying any farther away. The room collapsed in after he fell, leaving Bai Yunfei once again buried underneath a pile of broken planks.
“Thud!”
Ceng Quans.h.i.+ fell to the ground as well. Satisfaction in seeing his "hated" foe struck grievously was prominent in his eyes, but there was also a large amount of reluctance. He knew he was dying, and he was dying quickly, but Ceng Quans.h.i.+ really didn"t want to…
Things were silent for half a minute. Now that no one was left standing to fight, the entire area was completely calm and still.
One person was still standing, actually.
Elder Cheng stood where he originally was with a face dull and sluggard as though he was sleeping. He looked as if he was a man without a spirit or an automaton simply waiting for a command to obey.
A red streak of light flew overhead a while later to reveal a rather adorable-looking young boy.
Yao Feiyun.
His eyes gleamed with a light that seemed uncharacteristically old for his age as he glanced around the room. Eyebrows knitting together, Yao Feiyun tapped a finger to his chin in confusion.
“What…in the world happened here?!”