Bai Yunfei’s counterstrike was without a doubt exceedingly fast. The Soul Extinguishing Needle shot straight for Liang Yinshen while the Cataclysmic Seal moved to deflect the Thunder God's Judging Halberd away from Bai Yunfei.
The Cataclysmic Seal was actually faster in flight than the Thunder God's Judging Halberd! Under Bai Yunfei's full control, it was able to close the gap and strike against the halberd with a resonating clang!
"Clang!!"
It was a crisp sound. Instead of being deflected away like a small pebble, the Cataclysmic Seal managed to overpower the other and send the Halberd spinning away into another direction.
"Bzzz…"
A resonating hum arose from the Thunder God's Judging Halberd and Cataclysmic Seal. Red light shined out from the latter while the former began to let out a seemingly sad groan.
The +14 additional effect of the Cataclysmic Seal had failed to activate!
"Ahh!!"
The mournful wails of his own soul armament was as loud as a thunderclap to Liang Yinshen. Furious at what he thought to be an attempt to break it, Liang Yinshen roared in anger and moved back to dodge the Soul Extinguishing Needle.
But the needle pursued him. As if it was joking, the needle followed him in his path, forcing the man to create a barrier of black and violet light to stop it from hitting.
“Whoosh!!”
But rather than watching the needle crash into his barrier, Liang Yinshen was alarmed to see the needle go through it instead!
+12 Additional Effect of the Soul Extinguishing Needle: Ignore darkness-type defenses when attacking.
As a dual-type cultivator in elemental lightning and darkness, Liang Yinshen’s elemental barrier was effectively a net with holes large enough for the Soul Extinguishing Needle to simply go through. There was no challenge at all.
But Liang Yinshen wasn’t flustered, even if the needle was no longer far away enough for him to dodge. Shifting his body so that his left shoulder faced the needle, Liang Yinshen prepared for his soul armor to block it.
“Tzcht…”
But rather than block it, the high-heaven tier soul armor let out a sharp crack when the needle stabbed it and…broke! The needle managed to spear through it!
“Pcht!!”
Liang Yinshen felt his shoulder grow cold. A bone-chilling cold began to spread throughout his body and even his soul! Something was draining away at his life!!
The grey needle wasn’t only capable of piercing through his high-heaven tier soul armor and his flesh—it was capable of inflicting damage to his soul!
“Ahhhh!!!”
Liang Yinshen never would’ve imagined that a small needle would be capable of such a terrifying thing. Frozen stiff from fear, he began to let out a heart-wrenching scream!!
Equipment Grade: High Heaven
Elemental Affinity: Darkness
Upgrade Level: +12
Attack: 8280
Additional Attack: 8000
Soul Compatibility: 40%
Equipment Effect 1: Inflict damage to the target’s soul when a blow is landed.
Equipment Effect 2: A portion of the soul of each killed target is converted into attack. Portion converted is dependent on the strength of the killed target.
+10 Additional Effect: Inflict Soul-frayed once damage has been applied. For 10 seconds, spirit-based attacks do 100% more damage.
+12 Additional Effect: Ignore dark-type defenses.
Upgrade Requirement: 400 Soulpoints
The Soul Extinguishing Needle had over sixteen thousand attack; not even the low-divine tier ‘Demon Mask’ was able to stop itself from being pierced. How could a mere high-heaven tier soul armor hope to do so? After piercing the armor, it was but a simple matter for the Soul Extinguishing Needle to start inflicting damage to the soul.
Retreating was all Liang Yinshen could hope to do right now. Pained by the damage done to his soul, he flew several dozen meters before feeling a presence come at him from behind. Grabbing onto the only-just returned Thunder God’s Judging Halberd, he swung it behind to stop whatever it was that was coming!
“Clang!!”
The halberd smashed into the needle, sending the latter spinning away, but only for a moment. After a while, it came flying back toward Liang Yinshen!
As he prepared to swing his halberd again, Liang Yinshen’s ears perked up at a sudden voice!
“Freeze!!”
Everything went hazy for Liang Yinshen then. He felt his clarity slip for just long enough for the Soul Extinguishing Needle to be within three inches of his forehead!
Panicking, Liang Yinshen snapped his head to the side and just barely avoided the Soul Extinguishing Needle. As it whizzed past his head, Liang Yinshen began to be acutely aware of the sweat that had formed over his skin…
“How is he capable of such a powerful soul attack!?”
Liang Yinshen roared mentally to himself in disbelief. Somehow, a Mid-stage Soul Saint was able to overpower him with a soul attack! He didn’t even have a chance to resist it!
He also didn’t know that Bai Yunfei was feeling quite annoyed. Neither the doubling effect of the Soul Sentinel Scarf or the ability to amplify damage done to the soul from the Soul Extinguishing Needle had activated, meaning the Soul Anchor Technique failed to do what Bai Yunfei had hoped for.
It was becoming more apparent how hard it was trying to fight a Late-stage Soul Saint now. Liang Yinshen’s soul was still far stronger than Bai Yunfei could hope to handle.
But he did manage to gain the advantage with the Soul Extinguishing Needle.
Not allowing Liang Yinshen even a second to rest, Bai Yunfei began to send the Soul Extinguishing Needle back around to attack him while the Cataclysmic Seal chased after Liang Yinshen from the other side.
The Fire-tipped Spear appeared out of thin air after he waved his hand before a silhouette ‘jumped’ out from his person to grab hold of it. It was his avatar! Spear in hand, the avatar flew forward to strike!
“Clang! Clang! Clang…”
In an expertly-executed move, Liang Yinshen managed to use the Thunder God’s Judging Halberd to parry the Soul Extinguishing Needle, the Cataclysmic Seal, and then the Fire-tipped Spear when it came. But the attacks continued.
……
He was being suppressed.
Liang Yinshen was actually being suppressed!
As if weathering a storm of metal, Liang Yinshen was forced to use his own soul armament to fend off soul armament after soul armament without rest!
The pressure he felt was always at its greatest whenever he had to fend off the Cataclysmic Seal. Each time he used the Thunder God’s Judging Halberd, Liang Yinshen always felt a strange energy from it that didn’t sit well with him. To make matters even worse, his halberd was deteriorating more and more every time he used it to block Bai Yunfei’s soul armaments.
Eventually, Liang Yinshen had no other choice but to put his efforts in dodging the soul armaments instead of parrying them. It was far too dangerous a move considering the Soul Extinguishing Needle’s presence. In fact, Liang Yinshen had already a few close encounters with it.
Falling into a trap was hard on the mind, but getting out of it was even harder on the body. Liang Yinshen was already beginning to feel fed up.
Excluding the two thousand years Liang Yinshen had been sealed deep asleep, the man still had a few hundred years of life under his belt. He fought countless battles, one of which included one with Wu Tianhun, but never had he experienced such an annoying battle like this!!
He never would’ve imagined that a weaker opponent would be able to suppress him with a few soul armaments!
He didn’t pay Liang Fu’s words too much attention at first when he was told about Bai Yunfei. Liang Fu said then that each and every single one of Bai Yunfei’s numerous soul armaments were capable of absurd magic, and he didn’t believe it. But now that he experienced it for himself…
From the start of his battle to now, Liang Yinshen estimated that nearly a third of his power was gone. The elemental fire was beginning to grow stronger instead of the other elements, meaning his opponent’s manipulation of the energy around them was starting to outshine his own.
His opponent had the advantage by using an area-type skill of some kind, one he never saw before. He thought it was a soul skill at first, but after thinking about it, he realized that it wasn’t a soul skill at all! It was the special ability of one of his soul armaments!
The most noticeable change was in the Cataclysmic Seal, the soul armament was quite clearly far stronger than before. After absorbing the Bloodbath, the Cataclysmic Seal gained a new ability:
Reduce all attributes of a single opponent by 15%.
This was the ability the Cataclysmic Seal had been using since it started fighting Liang Yinshen.
Other than that, there was also the +12 additional effect of the Soul Sealing Mandate.
+12 Additional Effect: All allies within range gain a 20% increase in all attributes.
All enemies within range have a 10% decrease in all attributes.
Determination of ally or enemy is dependent on user. If unknown, then neither effects will apply.
Duration of 1 hour and cooldown of 24 hours.
And then there was the +12 additional effect of the Core Stone.
+12 Additional Effect: Temporarily increase the activity rate of any type of energy by 100% within an area of the owner’s choosing.
Together, the three effects were able to provide Bai Yunfei a great advantage as long as they were activated. Bai Yunfei didn’t even need to use the Interdimensional Phantasm anymore to gain the advantage.
With Bai Yunfei and his avatar attacking him with the three soul armaments, Liang Yinshen was unable to do anything else but dodge and weave. With the avatar wielding the Soul Extinguishing Needle and the Fire-tipped Spear while Bai Yunfei’s real body controlled the Cataclysmic Seal, Liang Yinshen was forced to bring back out his halberd after a while.
Already, his halberd and the Cataclysmic Seal struck several times, but the +14 additional effect had yet to activate.
“Clang!!!”
The halberd and the Cataclysmic Seal clashed once again for a brief moment before parting so Liang Yinshen could parry the Soul Extinguishing Needle and Fire-tipped Spear. Once again, the +14 additional effect failed to activate.
“This isn’t good!”
Bai Yunfei felt his soulforce drop after that last attack. Alarmed, he realized his soulforce was almost out!
Although he had managed to put Liang Yinshen in a precarious situation, that advantage would be gone if all his soulforce was gone too! He had to use Soul Ignition to regain his energy!
Gritting his teeth, Bai Yunfei formed several handseals and immediately activated Soul Ignition!
His barrage lessened for just a moment, but Liang Yinshen took notice of it right away!
“Aha!!!”
Practically insane now, Liang Yinshen let out a bestial cackle at the opportunity. Black light cloaked his person for a brief second before exploding outward, forcing each of the three Regalia back. He disappeared into a bolt of violet lightning away from the three soul armaments and flew straight for Bai Yunfei!
“Die!!”
Up close to Bai Yunfei, Liang Yinshen hoisted his halberd high above his head. The edge of the halberd shined ominously in the light before he brought it down to split Bai Yunfei’s head in two!