“Grrr!!!!”
Whilst the Heaven’s Thunder was on the verge of landing an instant kill on the fat Soul King, the permafrost mastiff was embroiled in fierce combat with the butterfly.
The death of the Soul King meant a significant blow to the butterfly, which in turn meant the immediate weakening of the surrounding elemental wind to just a sixth of its original strength!!
The butterfly had already the upper hand over the permafrost mastiff prior to the death of the Early-stage Soul King due to the fact Xiao Qi wasn’t able to control the mastiff. His own battle was intensive enough to force Xiao Qi to have the mastiff follow only one prime directive; ‘attack’. This very basic command left very little for the mastiff to do but attack, leaving it comparatively less flexible in movement than its opponent. As a consequence, the mastiff would occasionally be hit by the wind blades while the butterfly would stare derisively at it.
But everything changed when the fat Soul King died. Wracked with pain from its partner’s death, the butterfly was left defenseless while the permafrost mastiff took the opportunity to strike. Having found an opening, the permafrost mastiff unleashed a bolt of ice onto the butterfly and then pounced at it to snap up the butterfly’s head into its jaw!!
“Chiii!!!” A horrified screech erupted from the butterfly as it realized the terrible truth of its situation. Its entire body started to glow green with light as it tried its best to escape.
“Pcht! Tzk…”
But it was too late. There was a tearing sound as the mastiff’s teeth snapped onto the butterfly. Though the butterfly managed to turn its head around in time, the butterfly still failed to avoid the mastiff from grabbing hold of its right wing!
The teeth of the mastiff were practically inseparable from the wings now that they were touching. And with how hard it was trying to escape from the mastiff, the butterfly accidentally had a fourth of its wing torn off!
Another disastrous blow. Unable to move as fast now because of this attack, the butterfly was left wide open to the mastiff’s next attack—it seemed that this would be the end of the butterfly!
The tides of battle between the permafrost mastiff and the butterfly had been flipped all because of the death of a Soul King. On the other side about a few hundred meters away, Xiao Qi and Long Lan were currently in a fierce battle of their own.
Long Lan was currently fighting a soulbeast not unsimilar to an earthworm that moved characteristically like a python. In their first encounter, Long Lan managed to knock the earthworm into a nearby mountain to fight there. He was already transformed back into a slightly more serpentine form of his wyrm form when he reached the mountain. Soon, the mountain started to shake intensely from their battle. And because of the dust cloud that was being kicked up, it was impossible to tell who was winning over the other.
Both Xiao Qi and the glacial ape were fighting in midair. But unlike the other two battles, Xiao Qi wasn’t just fighting the glacial ape. He was also fighting a group of Soul Exalts.
When Xiao Qi sent the glacial ape flying away, the group of Soul Exalts behind Gui Wei had to split away from the rest of the group. This left about ten Soul Exalts and the glacial ape to fight the prisma oriole. Several of the Soul Exalts were even knocked out from the count after the glacial ape was thrown into them. But even with a good outcome like that, there was no way Xiao Qi was going to let things lie there.
Bai Yunfei had already told them to deal with the problem, so Xiao Qi was determined to do so. The glacial ape was already far away enough to not be a problem for the time being. Spreading his wings out, Xiao Qi began to gather lightning to him so that he was cloaked entirely in it along with the surrounding hundred meters!
All of the Soul Exalts were basically mice in front of Xiao Qi. When the bolts of lightning started to drop, they started to die out one after another!
The glacial ape was back now. Roaring loudly, it charged straight for Xiao Qi, allowing for the remaining six or seven Soul Exalts to retreat.
……
And now back to Bai Yunfei and his fight. The death of the fat Early-stage Soul King had been a stab of surprise to the hearts of the other Soul Kings. Not even the situations of the other soulbeasts were enough to catch their attention now that they were completely focused on trying to follow Bai Yunfei.
Their side had suffered a tragic loss of firepower within practically seconds. What in the world was up with Bai Yunfei? The three of them had definitely unleashed powerful attacks onto him, but it didn’t even seem like Bai Yunfei was even scratched by them…
There was something else that was frightening the three Soul Kings. Even though Bai Yunfei wasn’t there anymore, the fiery maelstrom was…starting to kick back up!
And then another wave of powerful soulforce started to surge out from where Bai Yunfei was!
—Who could possibly say that Bai Yunfei was in any way injured? He was acting as if he was completely unharmed, and he was still increasing in strength even!
“N—no way! No way!! How is he uninjured?! This is impossible!!”
Gui Wei had lost it. He couldn’t even hold back the high-pitched scream now. His pupils were giving a wild dance within his eyeballs as he stared at Bai Yunfei in fear.
This wasn’t just normal fear. This was fear of the unknown…fear of Bai Yunfei!
That was because Bai Yunfei was showing even more soulforce than what Gui Wei had!
If the distance between an Early-stage Soul King and a Mid-stage Soul King could be segmented into three smaller parts, then Bai Yunfei’s soulforce was already past the middle section of an Early-stage Soul King and barely over the last section. He was…very quickly on the path to becoming a Mid-stage Soul King!
Gui Wei wasn’t the only one panicking. The other two Mid-stage Soul Kings were also shivering to themselves. Many years had already passed since the two of them became a Mid-stage Soul King, but neither of the two had ever experienced something like this. Even their very soul was quivering at the sight.
“We…we can’t let him become a Mid-stage Soul King! Kill him! Kill him right now!!”
The white-robed elder roared in a desperate frenzy. Raising both hands, he started to form several complicated seals one after another. The elemental ice gathered all around him immediately began to crystallize at an even faster rate before becoming a hundred-meter tall dragon of ice!
The golden-robed elder was taking action as well. Like his companion, his hands were also forming several dozen hand seals. Even more elemental earth started to flow into the giant mountain above him. Soon, the mountain solidified and take an even larger shape than what it was before. By the time the ice dragon had formed, the mountain was as big as the actual mountains near them!
Gui Wei was just a half-step behind the other two, but he was still also ready to fight. Nine different ten-meter long snakes made of dark miasma formed behind him at once. Their jaws dropped open to roar, but no sound came out. Nonetheless, it was a very intimidating sight.
“Die!!”
That was the signaling call for the three Soul Kings to attack. A white dragon, a gold mountain, and the black snakes all flew forward at once!
These three soul skills were on a completely different level compared to the attacks earlier. These were the signature moves of each of them and used only when they weren’t willing to hold back anymore!
A flaw was present in their plan, however. No matter how fast they reacted to the situation, it still required a good moment for them to control and activate the soul skills. And in that one moment, the three Soul Kings were exposed to a change in events that’d lead to a completely different development!
As if reaching the climax, the maelstrom of fire suddenly came to a stop and then started to suck in all of its energy towards the center!
The center spot was like a black hole. The King’s Phenomena in its entirety was being sucked up into the center and out of sight—straight into Bai Yunfei’s body!
With the Realm Accretion seal unsealed, Bai Yunfei was reaching the finale of his rise in strength!
But even though the King’s Phenomena was disappearing and leaving Bai Yunfei exposed, that didn’t mean there was nothing left in the air. The ice dragon, mountain, and dark snakes were…converging onto him!