It took only a moment for this hooded figure to kill two Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt in the blink of an eye, and he didn’t even take a single step from his starting place!
If this was the outside, a feat like this could be rationalized by saying this person was a Soul King. But this was inside the pocket, and no Soul King could be in here without the pocket collapsing. That meant this person was a Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt at strongest!
What a terrifying prospect.
There was something else about how he fought. He had exuded the aura of a Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt when he received the halberd’s edge with his palm, but that was about it. The killing of the two others didn’t even resonate any bit of soulforce from him. He was like a calm pool of water when the deed was done, completely tranquil and without at all exerting his true strength.
He was a Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt, but how could there be such a drastic difference in power like this between him and the others?
The only reasonable explanation available right now would perhaps be that previously unassuming black needle of his….
Killing two people without at all being stopped by elemental energy or soul armaments. Flying fast and true. And being able to be controlled after being thrown.
The most incredible aspect of the needle was how the first person had died.
Compared to him, his female companion had it lucky. Taking the needle through her forehead was without a doubt a surefire way to kill somebody, but the male had the needle go through his abdomen. No vital organ was in the proximity, and neither were there any special meridians that could be blocked. So how could the needle have killed him just as quickly as it did with the female?
The black needle flew back to the hooded figure. He twirled the needle around his fingers a few times before finally holding it in place with his forefinger and thumb with a satisfied smile.
It was only when the needle came to a stop that something special could be seen on it. In the moment the hooded figure pinched the needle, two wisps of black smoke rose up from it as if alive. The eyes of the man shined synchronously with his soulforce pulsating, the two black wisps of smoke then transferring from the needle into his body through his palm.
A flicker of emotion traversed across the person’s eyes as he ‘absorbed’ the wisps of smoke.
It looked as if he was…enjoying something?
“Haha, I’m barely able to use you, but the effects are great. I can’t wait to completely perfect you, how strong will I become…?”
A pleased whisper escaped from him as he stored away the black needle.
He drew in his soulforce after he was done and focused on listening to his surroundings for any fluctuations in the air. “I know I felt the space tremble a moment ago…so this pocket can really only handle the soulforce of a Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt at most? Then in that case…what happens if someone stronger than that were to enter….?”
His eyes wandered over to the halberd he was holding in his left hand as he soliloquized to himself. Sneering, he tossed it down to the ground as if it were a piece of trash. A the edge of the halberd where his hand had been, several cracks could be seen….
On the inverse, on the left hand of this man was a black glove. Not even a single tear or imperfection could be seen on the palm after it was struck. This meant that the glove was a powerfully defensive soul armament.
Blocking the downward swing of the halberd couldn’t be solely placed on the glove though. It still required a tremendous amount of physical strength in order to not be affected by the concussive force, which meant this hooded figure was also terrifyingly strong in the physical sense.
And yet he pulled it off as if it was nothing.
The man looked away from the corpses. Nothing of interest was to be seen there, so he opted to look at the scenery around him instead.
The surveyance of the surrounding scenery showed him something of interest. Of all the mountains in the area, only one of them had a peak glowing red. None of the other mountains or other types of landscape had anything else of extraordinary notice.
His eyes remained on the glowing red peak for a few seconds longer before they shifted slightly to the right. From there, he could see two streaks of light flying across the sky. It was clearly a flying-type soulbeast and a person riding it on top. As he thought, the two figures were flying straight for the strange peak.
“That direction, is it?” The hooded figure looked pensive. “Alright then. That’s the direction to head in, perhaps I’ll be able to find the Extreme King Pills there…”
He sighed after taking another step forward, “Can’t kill the next person I see. I’ll have to question them first…”
Without even looting the space rings or soul armaments of the two people he had just killed, the man left the area soon after.
He had been calm when he talked about the ‘Extreme King Pills’, though his face looked strangely excited when he talked about ‘killing’.
What….was he here for?
…………
On the other side with Bai Yunfei’s group.
For once, Bai Yunfei felt like the saying ‘running a horse dead to a faraway mountain’ finally had some credence to them. He did say before that the mountain peak was roughly ‘twenty-five kilometers’ ahead, but now he was realizing just how off his estimate was…
About thirty-five kilometers had already been traveled by now, and the mountain peak was still ‘off in the distance’....
“Dear heavens, how much longer do we have to run?!”
Zheng Kai cried out at last. “I’ve never run so much before in my life….f*ck this place for not letting us use flying soul armaments! Exhausted has never meant so much to me before than now!”
At some point, even Zheng Kai was starting to pick up on the words Bai Yunfei loved to use.
“It looks like it’s getting close, maybe another two or three mountains…”
Up above, Nangong Yuexia was still seated upon the thundertail bird. She looked much more relaxed than before, and a lot more healthy. All of the soulforce she had used before was more or less recovered, and she was even able to wash out the blood in her robes with her elemental water.
Zheng Kai rolled his eyes and looked enviously at the thundertail bird up above. Right now, he was thinking that life would be great if he had a flying soulbeast partner.
“I should go to Soulbeast Forest after this. I’ll get the Extreme King Pill first, and then find a class seven soulbeast. And if I can’t, I’ll find a peak late-stage class six soulbeast and help it breakthrough….It’ll definitely be a flying-type soulbeast.”
Zheng Kai muttered to himself.
“There’s more and more people here now…”
Yue Feng relayed to the others with just a little bit of growing concern.
From what Bai Yunfei could see in the surrounding kilometer, there were several others traveling either by themselves or in groups towards the same destination. There was even a streak of light flying through the skies above them.
“Seems like everyone has realized that mountain peak is different than the others. Everyone’s rushing on over here.”
Not only had the group seen their fair share of battle scars and such, they were also seeing plenty of soul cultivators traveling the same direction as they were. They were all maintaining a safe distance from one another so as to avoid any possible chance of conflict for until they reached where the Extreme King Pills were.
There were a few people they met earlier that were clearly up to no good. But those people were few, and even less people were willing to try and stop them in favor of paying close attention to them instead.
In the end, it took another hour before they made it over the mountains and forests to reach a large expanse of plainlands. The single mountain that shined red was now in everyone’s sights.
It was just another thousand or two kilometers more to the foot of it. Zheng Kai looked ahead with a keen eye, his mouth dropping slightly at what he saw.
“Damn, there’s that many people here already?”