In the skies above Yao City.

Yao Wuchen stood there in the skies to face off against eleven figures. Down on the ground beneath those eleven figures was an army of over a thousand soul cultivators. 

He knew that the enemy would come. He just didn’t expect them to come so quickly and so easily. The barrier they had protecting the city had shattered so easily…And their numbers…it was terrifying to look at.

Eleven Soul Kings, nearly three hundred Soul Exalts, and seven hundred Soul Ancestors and Soul Sprites!

Behind him stood his father, Yao Tianji. Elder Yu and the other Soul Kings within the clan were there as well, making for a total of nine.

They weren’t hiding anyone anymore. These nine were the strongest the clan had to offer.

Training wasn’t hard for alchemists. If placed in the outside world, these alchemists would most likely be classified as ‘geniuses’. The aid of their pills and other materials just made training a more trivial matter for them.

But that was only applicable for soul cultivators up to the level of a Soul Exalt. Pills that helped one train beyond that level were rare, and the ingredients for them were rare even within the Qimang Mountains. As such, training for Soul Exalts tend to slow back down to normal levels. Unless they had some kind of contribution to the clan, these people would not be given any rare pills and would have to breakthrough on their own after reaching the Peak Late-stage Soul Exalt level.

There was no way a Soul King could rely on pills to train. The Alchemy School failed to protect their furnace of Extreme King Pills from being taken away into the Core Stone and had very little of them. Even after two thousand years of isolation, the school had yet to find enough ingredients to make more. Thus, they had hardly enough Extreme King Pills to be counted on one hand.

Needless to say, there were hardly any pills that could help Soul Kings. Those pills that could help one become a Soul Emperor was naught more than a legend now. Not even the Alchemy School had the capabilities of creating pills like that. Any pills of that level in their storages were rare and heirlooms from a time long before… 

On the inverse, the Qimang Mountains was relatively peaceful in comparison to the outside world. Yes, there were many ferocious soulbeasts, but the city was, for the most part, separated from a life of violence and fights to the death. Very few alchemists within the city had the same thirst for power as the average soul cultivator. The clan had yet to gain a Soul Emperor in the last thousand years.

As they stood today, the clan had Yao Tianji and another elder as Peak Late-stage Soul Kings. There were another two Late-stage Soul Kings—Yao Wuchen included—three Mid-stage Soul Kings and three Early-stage Soul Kings.

The walls to Yao City were filled with countless figures from the clan. Over five hundred Soul Ancestors and Soul Sprites lined the outer walls while over a hundred Soul Exalts stood above them. It wasn’t a small number, but they were still lacking in quantity compared to their enemy.

The two sides stood there in silence. Both were trying to gauge the strength of the other before they did anything.

Ma Xucheng and the men with him heaved a mental sigh in relief. The strength of the alchemists was lower than their initial projections. That was good. Perhaps they’d have an easier time with success then.

“Hmph…how the mighty Alchemy School has fallen. Two thousand years to themselves and they only have these many people? It’s not even a third of what they were before. How pitiful…”

He smiled coldly to Yao Wuchen.

“Listen well to me, alchemists. We will give you one chance to back down. Offer up your pills and swear loyalty to us and we won’t hurt you. We’ll even help escort you from the Qimang Mountains and help restore the glory that was the Alchemy School….”

A sinister glare entered his eyes. “But should you chose to refuse…we will raze your city and take the pills ourselves! We’ll bath your city in bloodshed and truly extinguish the last sparks of the Alchemy School!”

The people standing on the wall to Yao City began to jeer and roar with anger. Those of the younger generations were especially infuriated by what Ma Xucheng was saying. Some of them were even starting to curse at him.

None of the strong ones from the clan said anything. Yao Wuchen merely stared back at Ma Xucheng and his army. “There’s a strong stench of a soulbeast to you, are you a beast tamer?”

His eyes shifted to the person on the right.

“You have a rich aura of elemental wind and lightning, you must be from the Wind Lightning School then.

“And you…”

The last to be addressed was Qin Bangjie and the four with him. 

“You must be the Soul Refining School!”

“What?!”

The five quirked an eyebrow. They were confused about how this person could so easily find out just which school they belonged to.

Xu Qianqing, an elder beside Qin Bangjie, suddenly thought of something. “Feng Mingxu’s scouting group…were they captured by you?!”

They remembered losing contact with one of their scouting groups a little over a month ago. Not a single clue of where they might’ve gone was found no matter how hard they tried. Knowing that the Soul Refining School knew that the scouting group had most likely been captured and killed by the alchemists, but not before having important information being taken from them.

Yao Wuchen ignored Xu Qianqing. His eyes were filled with hatred for the entirety of the Soul Refining School. “Was it the Soul Refining School that killed elder Fengyu when he took several of our students and fled two thousand years ago? Was it your school!?”

“Eh?” Qin Bangjie and Xu Qianqing blinked. “So you found out about it? Our records stated that no one alive should’ve known…how curious. I digress. You should be glad we killed them, else it would’ve been you that’d have died in their stead. But…your days of running is over, we are here now! There’ll be no escaping this time!”

His words shocked even the Beast Taming School and the Wind Lightning School. Neither of the two schools thought there was some kind of grudge between the Alchemy School and the Soul Refining School. Or at least a grudge as big as this. 

In other words, there was no way the Alchemy School would ‘back down’ now.

And that was that. Multiple people began to charge up their soulforce within their bodies in anticipation to battle, and a cold chill began to blow… 

Everyone looked to Qin Bangjie, who had been silent the entire time. 

The man raised his right hand up to withdraw a blood-red sawtooth longblade. 

“Kill!” He cried!

“Boom!!”

“Boom!!!”

At his command, the world was knocked into a series of explosions as multiple energy sources flared up!

Air was the only thing that used to divide the Soul Kings on both sides. But now…soulforce and elemental energy was being flung in both directions and lighting up the world.

“Whoosh…whoosh…”

“Boom…booom…”

Gusts of wind and claps of thunder ran rampant in the area as if a sudden thunderstorm had descended.

“Kill!!!!”

The soul cultivators from the three allied school ran into battle with a loud warcry. The earth beneath their feet trembled as they charged and the skies above them shined with all sorts of light.

The alchemists on the top side of the wall didn’t charge down to meet them.

Instead, several streaks of light shot out from behind them to charge towards the enemies in their stead!

“Roar! Roar! Roar…”

Growls and roars far louder than the sounds of nature could be heard over everything else. And their auras…were even stronger than the enemies!

These were…the soulbeasts!!

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