Chapter 379: The Subsiding Wave of Beasts
The sun was setting now to make way for dusk.
Corpses and blood littered the expanse of land between the Soulbeast Forest and Beast Suppression Pass, painting a scene not unlike the hells made by an asura. Amongst the countless corpses of soulbeast laid the bodies of several soul cultivators in between, but they numbered few in comparison and were not easily seen.
Mournful cries of soulbeasts would occasionally ring out from the direction of the Town of the Braves, followed by a burst of elemental power. Aside from that, there was only eerie silence to be heard.
The soulbeast wave this time ended in a complete victory for the soul cultivators. Not a single soulbeast had made it into the city and the rest of the soulbeasts had fled back into the forest. Rather than chase them, the soul cultivators chose to stay behind to clean up the field.
……
On the eastern edge of the battlefield in a nameless village.
At the center of the village, the earthen barrier of the Cataclysmic Seal was still holding strong. Though the villagers were huddled together at first, not a single one of them moved from their original spots and were rooted where they were to look off to the west in absolute shock.
Underneath the setting sun, two small ‘mountains’ about the height of a two story house were piled up on the western edge of the village about two hundred meters away. Two figures sat at the very top of the mountains, looking as if they were resting.
The majority of the houses in the western part of the village was totally destroyed, and some of the carcasses of several soulbeasts could be seen soaking the grounds of the village with their blood. But the farther one went west in the village, the more corpses that could be seen ones or maybe even smaller groups.
In fact…..the small mountains that were formed near the village was formed by the carcasses of a great deal of soulbeasts!!
On the mountain to the left, a red spear could be seen stabbed down into the peak of it, and a person leaning against the spear could be seen going through several hand seals. A faint red outline surrounded his body with specks of red light slowly permeating his body–it was Bai Yunfei.
On the other mountain sat a person with two blades placed neatly next to him while he meticulously cleaned off the third blade in his hand. It was Long.
Ten minutes had already passed since the battle had finished, but not a word was spoken between the two, and neither did either of the two look to see what the other was doing. In this moment, all they were trying to do was recover their spent soulforce.
It wasn’t until another ten minutes when the two finally finished what they were doing. Long was just cleaning off his final blade and Bai Yunfei had only just opened his eyes and cracked the muscles in his neck when the two nodded in satisfaction at how much soulforce they recovered.
“Long,” Bai Yunfei spoke first, “thank you for your help….if not for you, I wouldn’t have been able to save the village.”
“Thank me?” Long gave a surprised look at the town behind him, “Are you from the village?”
“Not at all, I’ve nothing to do with this village,” Bai Yunfei shook his head, “You aren’t from the village either, but didn’t you come to their aid without hesitation as well?”
The lips to Long’s face twitched upwards into a small smile, “Then there’s no need to say thanks to me. I was only doing what I could. If I thought it was too dangerous, I would’ve left a long time ago.”
Bai Yunfei chose to look to the corpses of the soulbeasts around them, “Brother Long, your strength is really admirable. Are those three swords of yours mid-earth tier?”
“You’ve good eyes, brother Bai, they are indeed as you say. I managed to get them after a lot of trouble, but it was worth it. Half the power I showed today was because of these three swords.” Long stroked the sword in his hand before storing it away. He looked at the mountain beneath Bai Yunfei’s feet with a curious light in his own eyes. Long’s strength was surprising to Bai Yunfei, but Bai Yunfei’s strength was absolutely stunning to Long.
In the long arduous battle they just had, the strongest adversaries Long managed to kill were only three late-stage class five soulbeasts, and two of those three were already injured to begin with. The rest of the soulbeasts he killed were of low levelled strengths despite the numbers, but he managed to endure through it all with all his strength.
What Bai Yunfei went through was far harder than what Long did, however. He didn’t have the time to pay close attention to Bai Yunfei, but Long was certain that at least a dozen late-stage class five soulbeasts were killed by Bai Yunfei. But most importantly….the three-eyed firebear Bai Yunfei killed at one point was without a doubt an early-stage class six!
Fleeing was a very real thought to Long when the bear first showed up. He was confident in his abilities to kill a late-stage class five soulbeast, but class six soulbeasts was where his confidence stopped. The differences between the two classes was extremely vast, and Long himself wasn’t capable of crossing the two realms in confidence.
But then Bai Yunfei went and killed the bear with an instantaneous strike! In that short moment of time, Long clearly felt Bai Yunfei’s strength spike drastically to levels comparable to a Soul Exalt before killing the bear as swiftly as a bolt of lightning!
A curious light was in Long’s eyes as he regarded Bai Yunfei who was walking back towards the village. Bai Yunfei was an enigma to him, with that strength of his. Practically anyone would be filled with admiration for such a powerful person.
Long sighed. He didn’t know just how Kun and the others managed to invite such a person into their team, but now that Bai Yunfei was here, their trip into the Soulbeast Forest would most likely be a peaceful one….
……
At the center of the village, Bai Yunfei waved his hand to dismiss the barrier. Reclaiming the Cataclysmic back into his ring, Bai Yunfei smiled at the still shocked villagers, “Now that everything’s done and taken care of, is everyone alright?”
“Thud, thud, thud….”
Under Bai Yunfei’s startled eyes, each of the hundred villagers suddenly fell to their knees in worship.
“Wha–what are you all doing?” Heart skipping a beat, Bai Yunfei immediately moved to lift up the village elder to his feet.
“Our thanks to the hero, Bai Yunfei, for saving our lives!” The elderly man’s quivering voice spoke out as Bai Yunfei tried to pick him up, only for him to fall back down to his knees to kowtow his head to the ground again.
“Thank you for saving our lives!” The other villagers behind the elder followed suit.
Bai Yunfei didn’t know what to do in this case since he couldn’t force them back to their feet, so he waited for them to finish their acts of gratitude before helping the elder again to his feet. “Please don’t be like this, everyone get up on your feet.”
Despite standing up now, the elder stooped at the waist, as if afraid to look Bai Yunfei in the eye. “You are our benefactor, Lord soul cultivator. If a mighty person is willing to risk your life and lower yourselves to save the lives of us commoners, then we must do what we can to show our gratitude….”
“Your words are too much, elder. I didn’t risk my life at all, I only did what I was able to do; I couldn’t let people die while I could save them.” Bai Yunfei smiled, “It’s a shame that I wasn’t able to save the village completely….”
With how intense the battle was, stopping the soulbeasts from reaching the village proved far too hard for either Bai Yunfei or Long to prevent, resulting in several of the houses to be totally destroyed. Aside from the several dozen houses in the center, the entire western side of the village was in ruins, and several of the eastern houses had been riddled with stray elemental power.
The elder shook his head. “Houses can always be rebuilt. The fact that we villagers are still alive is the greatest fortune we could have….”
“Yes, that too,” Bai Yunfei nodded, “then lets all tidy up the broken pieces of the houses, we can talk more later.”