“Eh? What’s going on?!”

The Heaven’s Thunder shot through the skies with Bai Yunfei standing on top of it. Right now, he was staring in confusion at the needle in his hand.

A black light escaped from it moments before it started to tremble. Like a headless ant, the needle rolled and twitched in several directions before letting out a mournful vibration.

“What’s wrong, Yunfei?”

Perched on top of Bai Yunfei’s shoulder, Xiao Qi stared curiously at the needle.

“Mo Ni’s soul imprint…I can’t sense it anymore!” Bai Yunfei exclaimed.

“Did he find out I was tracking him? Would he cut off his connection with his demon armament?” Bai Yunfei thought to himself. “Or…did he die?!”

It was a baffling thought, but also not one outside the realms of possibility. “No way…Mo Ni wasn’t that badly hurt when he escaped. As much as the Black Dragon King’s death might hurt, he shouldn’t be in critical condition.

“I bet he’s trying his best to heal right now and cut off his connection so we wouldn’t be able to track him…”

He stared in the direction the needle had last pointed him toward. Never would Bai Yunfei be able to guess that it was Gui Nu that had killed Mo Ni.

“What do we do, keep chasing?”

He hesitated. Turning from the direction of the Fate School then in the direction where Mo Ni fled to, Bai Yunfei sighed. “We’ve chased him this far, let’s keep going. If we can’t find anything in the next few minutes, we’ll call it quits…”

Many of his allies were already returning to the Fate School, meaning Bai Yunfei didn’t have to worry about the Fate School for now. Without any enemy there, the cracks in the Hidden Horizon regenerated and meant the Fate School was safe from any further harm. Li Chengfeng’s wife and kids, by extension, were safe, and didn’t need Bai Yunfei to worry about them either.

Thus, Bai Yunfei was free to chase after Mo Ni and return later to the Fate School.

He couldn’t use the needle to track Mo Ni anymore, but he would still at the very least be able to travel in the direction last pointed to him.

……

Bai Yunfei didn’t feel too confident in his chances on finding Mo Ni. He didn’t really have an idea how far Mo Ni was away from him due to the needle no longer working, and there was no way he’d be able to find out now. 

But when he searched nearly half a kilometer of the area around him, Bai Yunfei took notice of a nearby mountain peak.

“Hmm…”

It wasn’t Mo Ni’s aura he could sense, but rather a far more powerful and sinister-feeling aura. He didn’t even have to be this close to sense it! The owner of this aura wasn’t even bothering to hide himself!

This was confusing to Bai Yunfei. He thought Mo Ni was trying to hide himself when the connection between him and the needle was lost. But now there was someone that was blatantly broadcasting their auras as if to say: “I’m right here!”

“Is it a trap?!”

His first assumption was that this was a trap of Mo Ni, but it didn’t seem likely. Why would Mo Ni try to make a trap like this in his current situation?!

“This aura…that’s Zhang Zhenshan!”

Bai Yunfei raised an eyebrow the moment he realized who that aura belonged to. He distinctly remembered Gui Nu running away with Mo Ni, what was he doing here then? Was Mo Ni there with him too then?

Or…did Mo Ni order Gui Nu to deliberately reveal himself and act as a roadblock so he could escape?

“Wait! His aura…he’s a Late-stage Soul Emperor! But how?”

Then he realized the intensity of Zhang Zhenshan’s aura. A while ago, the man had only been a Mid-stage Soul Emperor, but now he was a stage stronger!

“What’s…going on here?!”

Confused, Bai Yunfei decided that the only thing that could be done was go up that mountain and check.

He wasn’t afraid if this was a ‘trap’. There wasn’t much that could threaten him right not, barring that of a Saint.

“Whoosh!”

Both Bai Yunfei and Xiao Qi touched down on the mountain shortly afterward. Their soulforce scanned the area the moment their feet tapped onto the ground without even bothering to hide their presence.

A second later and Bai Yunfei’s soulsense alerted him to something completely beyond his expectations. 

Finding a cave was within expectations. Finding someone inside of it was also within his expectation. Finding Gui Nu ‘meditating’ right beside a corpse was…not within those expectations.

“Mo…Mo Ni?!”

The corpse wasn’t in one piece anymore, but the clothes and accessories it adorned were familiar enough for Bai Yunfei to make a guess on who it was—Mo Ni!

“Mo Ni is…dead?!”

The thought was hard for Bai Yunfei to compute. He almost thought he was imagining things for a moment, but… 

He recalled that Gui Nu studied the Bloodsoul Dark Artes. If Gui Nu was meditating right now and Mo Ni was dead beside him, there had to be some kind of relation. Piecing together the puzzle pieces, Bai Yunfei began to feel unsettled by the result.

But he didn’t have much time to ponder the situation. When his soulsense scanned the area, Gui Nu included, it caused the man to suddenly awaken!!

“Roar!!”

Eyes red and fingers crooked, Gui Nu let out a loud roar as if battle-ready. A burst of soulforce exploded from him before he…disappeared from where he stood!

“Wha?!”

Alarmed, Bai Yunfei immediately brought out the Cataclysmic Seal. At once, he activated its barrier to protect him and Xiao Qi within it.

A blood-red figure appeared next to the barrier the next second. Rending space open where he appeared, the figure slashed at Bai Yunfei’s face!

“Bang!!”

The barrier trembled violently when the claws made contact with it, but it held. The rebound of the attack had been strong enough to send the blood-red figure flying backward.

The defensive barrier of the Cataclysmic Seal was obscenely powerful now. Not even Shen Pojun’s soul armament, the Flame Dragon Crescent Blade, would be able to cut it apart, let alone Gui Nu’s claws.

“Roar!!”

But that didn’t stop Gui Nu from advancing again. Turning around in midair, he kicked off against the ground back toward Bai Yunfei!

“Boom!”

Gui Nu was thrown backward once again, but Bai Yunfei noticed with alarm that the barrier was trembling even more compared to the first strike this time.

He didn’t move from his spot. Instead, Bai Yunfei decided to take the opportunity to study Gui Nu.

“Zhang Zhenshan…”

He sighed. 

Strangely enough, mentioning that name seemed to illicit a response from Gui Nu. The man had been ready to strike for a third time when he heard the name and immediately came to a stand-still as if frozen there.

The berserk light in his eyes began to dissipate, but only slightly. He was resisting something. Something that was seemingly trying to control the way he thought.

“Huf…huff…Bai…Bai Yunfei…! Bai! Yun! Fei!! Ahhh!!!”

The light of rationality re-entered Gui Nu’s eyes. He glowered at Bai Yunfei as if the person was bringing back memories of something hateful and began to shiver with fury.

Ever since he learned the Bloodsoul Dark Artes and was given the name of ‘Gui Nu’, Zhang Zhenshan had forgotten everything about himself. The seal put in place on his soul had made sure of that. Mo Ni had him turned into a puppet meant to obey orders, meaning there was no need for Zhang Zhenshan to be capable of rational thought. 

The seal wasn’t never supposed to break, but Mo Ni going insane inadvertently saw to the seal breaking up. Combined with the state Mo Ni was in, the seal loosened just enough for Gui Nu to become overexcited and kill his own ‘master’ and absorbed his lifeblood to become stronger.

These factors combined caused a strange mutation to take place and allowed a sliver of rationality to return to Gui Nu.

That was why Gui Nu wasn’t only just thinking about killing Bai Yunfei right now. Seeing Bai Yunfei helped him remember just how much he hated the man and that he used to be called Zhang Zhenshan… 

“Bai Yunfei!! I’ll…I’ll kill you! Ahh!!! Die!!”

It was slight, but the rationality Zhang Zhenshan had was enough for him to let out a growl of hatred for the foe in front of him before he began his charge!

But he did seem to be aware that his attacks wouldn’t do any harm to Bai Yunfei. So he raised his hands and began to go through several handseals!

“Boom!!”

A blood-red light exploded from Zhang Zhenshan before transforming into a sea of blood behind him. A bloody aura filled the cave as his own soulforce began to skyrocket!

“A power-boosting skill?!”

Bai Yunfei gasped. Zhang Zhenshan’s aura had suddenly exploded into the range of a Peak Late-stage Soul Emperor, but…it was still growing!

“Bang!”

A bright flash of light seized hold of Bai Yunfei’s attention. He watched as the barrier around him trembled for a second before…a crack appeared over its surface!

“What?!”

Shocked once again, Bai Yunfei immediately began to retreat with a grim look on his face...

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