“Bzzz…”

Another tremor traveled across Mt. Crimson. Looking up, everyone watched as the energy all around them froze mid-flow. Then, as if being pulled away by something, the energy began to flow rapidly like a whirlpool around a spot before being compressed into a certain location at an extreme rate!

And it was disappearing from view faster than expected!

At first, no one could tell what was happening. They had to wait a bit until some of the energy was gone before they could see what was standing in the center of the whirlpool… 

A…a dog?!

When they saw the dog, no one could believe it at first.

But there the dog stood! It wore gray ‘armor’ of some kind and gusts of wind flowing from underneath its feet…Lao Sha!

It was Lao Sha!!

The one responsible for taking away a tremendous amount of elemental energy was a ‘fully-armored’ Lao Sha!!

No one could sense any notable power to speak of coming from Lao Sha. The armor it wore made the dog seem impressive, but that was about the extent of it. Thus, it felt a little disjarring at first… 

But the fact that it was absorbing all this elemental energy was definitely the biggest shocker to everyone.

“What is that?!”

Qi Ning roared in disbelief. He thought Lao Sha was some kind of soulbeast at first, but the energy he felt from this animal was definitely telling him that wasn’t the case. It could hardly even be considered a halfling actually! How could something akin to a mosquito in power be able to ‘swallow’ all that elemental energy?!

He didn’t even know if his eyes were working anymore… 

“Boom boom boom!!”

As stunned as everyone was, the single arrival of Lao Sha wasn’t so important that they could forget about fighting. In an instant, the world was back to having explosions ring out every second. 

But things were slightly different now. Yang Yao could relax slightly knowing that Lao Sha was here. He recalled Bai Yunfei talking about the strange ability of Lao Sha once before, though he didn’t understand what he meant at first. If Lao Sha could keep the students safe, then Yang Yao could fight his enemies whole-heartedly again. 

Everything that happened so far deviated their plans tremendously. Yang Yao and the other elders initially planned on seeing what the enemy forces had while they hid behind the barrier. They could think of a plan and act later, but now that the barrier was gone, the only thing they could do now was fight it out and win!

The existence of the barrier meant they had the advantage. But the inverse was true now that the barrier was broken. Without the barrier to protect their weaker students, the Crafting School was at a disadvantage, and that burdened Yang Yao’s mind greatly when he fought!

It wasn’t like he could retreat either. He couldn’t retreat. Retreating meant leaving his students unprotected and free to be attacked by the Soul Emperors. He had to protect everyone within the Crafting School!

……

On the northern peak where the barrier’s destroyed formation was.

Inside another cave.

Several lightstones flickered softly in the dark cave, but not enough to fully illuminate it. A single person appeared without warning at the very end of this cave.

It was Zi Jin.

“Bzzz…”

Then he felt the northern peak rumble as the barrier was destroyed.

Fury filled Zi Jin’s person at once as well as anxiety. Narrowing his eyes, he pushed open the stone doors in front of him and strode inside.

A wave of red light flooded the room as Zi Jin walked in. “Heavenfire.” He spoke.

The air inside the cave froze before the red light swirled together to assume the form Heavenfire usually took.

“What is the matter, Zi Jin?” Heavenfire asked, “The barrier destroyed…who did such a thing?!”

“Dongfang Ming. he infiltrated the school and destroyed the barrier. I am no match for him.”

Admitting such a statement felt like a dagger was being thrusted into his heart. It wasn’t possible for any outsider to bypass the barrier, so Zi Jin had been so confident on maintaining it. He just never expected Dongfang Ming to be among their enemies. As a student of the Crafting School, the barrier wouldn’t make stop him from entering! Because of his wayward student, the powerful barrier had been destroyed!

“Dongfang Ming?! Your old student?! He dares do such a thing! Does he wish to destroy the Crafting School?!”

“With the barrier destroyed, it’s imperative we stop this battle at once. I require your assistance, Heavenfire…”

……

“Boom boom boom…”

The battle outside the Crafting School was an intense one. The crafters were fiercely fighting to protect their home and students and used every soul armament in their arsenal to do so.

With the barrier gone, Mt. Crimson and the students on it were left completely unprotected by the runaway energy from that battle. But every time an attack made its way toward the mountain and cause harm to the students, it would be redirected elsewhere. 

That was because of the floating Lao Sha.

Lao Sha wasn’t awe-inspiring by any means. But what it was doing now was definitely causing people to be awed. He was like a giant vacuum cleaner that was sucking up any and all elemental energy in the area into its stomach.

No one knew how exactly the dog was capable of doing all that, and neither did they know just how much of the energy it could absorb. In any case, Lao Sha was simply taking it all in without even flinching.

“Grrrrr….”

No one could hear the angry growls that slipped from the dog due to the distance. Likewise, no one could see the determination in its eyes as it glared at the several enemies fighting up ahead. Everytime a runaway strand of elemental energy traveled toward Mt. Crimson, Lao Sha would snap into action and redirect it into its mouth.

The act of redirecting that energy into its mouth was about as easy as breathing for the dog.

The armor it wore was something Bai Yunfei crafted for it. Those claw-like soul armaments on all four of its legs were adorned with wind-type primal stones, which Bai Yunfei fashioned to have them function like a flying sword so the dog could fly.

Lao Sha didn’t go with Bai Yunfei when he went to the Water School. It was in the Crafting School instead of the Core World to live a nice and peaceful life. But now that that was being threatened, the dog was naturally furious and did what had to be done!

In Lao Sha’s mind, this place was Bai Yunfei’s home. And Bai Yunfei’s home was its home. There was no way it’d allow anyone to ruin its home. If Bai Yunfei wasn’t home, then Lao Sha would do everything in its ability to protect Mt. Crimson until Bai Yunfei returned!

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