Chapter 972: Back to Normal

Within the Core World.

The area around where Bai Yunfei was was dyed with a crimson hue as the elemental fire from his person pressed down onto it. It moved almost like water to swirl around like a whirlpool with Bai Yunfei at its center.

The whirlpool of elemental fire began to pick up speed. As it did, it quickly closed in on itself to be reabsorbed back into Bai Yunfei’s body to be digested.

Once the last of the elemental fire was gone, the mountain was back to its normal pigmentation. The only difference now was that Bai Yunfei had a layer of faint red light glowing around his person.

“Whew…”

Bai Yunfei finally exhaled the breath he had been holding in before opening his eyes.

Aside from the dilapidated state of his clothes, Bai Yunfei was essentially back to normal. He was feeling even better than he ever felt even, whether it was physically or mentally.

He clenched his right hand to test for its strength. Nodding at the sensation of that and the energy around him, Bai Yunfei smiled.

“Seems like I managed to heal from everything. Lucky.”

He was glad that he managed to recover from his usage of Soul Ignition. The backlash might’ve been painful, but the path of recovery was many times easier than that brief moment. He could see that his essence originseed was perfectly fine and concluded that a minute of using Soul Ignition had done nothing permanent. What would happen if he used it for even longer than that, Bai Yunfei didn’t want to know.

“Whoosh.”

There was a black blur as Lao Sha suddenly sprung up from the ground with its tail wagging excitedly behind it.

Bai Yunfei laughed. Retrieving two mid-grade primal stones from his space ring, he tossed them to Lao Sha to eat.

The dog’s eyes gleamed brightly with joy before it sprung onto the primal stones. In two distinctive gulps, the dog swallowed the items down with relish.

“How long have I been recuperating for, Xiao Fang?” Bai Yunfei asked.

“I estimate twenty hours.” An illusion of Xiao Fang appeared right in front of him.

“Has it really been that long?” He was surprised by the length.

“How is the Early-stage Soul King I captured earlier?”

“He’s here still. I trapped him inside a different dimension.” Xiao Fang replied. “He was going crazy for a while, but he’s calmed down now that he’s powerless.”

“Can you bring him out?” 

“Alright.”

The space in front of Bai Yunfei warped in on itself for a moment before a person was ‘thrown’ unceremoniously out from it.

“Ah!!”

There was a yelp as the person cried out as he fell. But upon realizing how close in proximity he was to Bai Yunfei, the person immediately exploded with orange and black light as he prepared to attack.

“Freeze!”

Like before, the soulforce within his body came to a grinding halt as the word spoken by Bai Yunfei exploded into his ears. He was frozen yet again!

Bai Yunfei grabbed hold of the man’s arm and then began to press upon certain locations of his body with his finger. With each jab onto the person, a sliver of soulforce was forced in and sealed up the acupoint there. Soon the man was left unable to circulate even a sliver of soulforce.

Flustered, the man tried his best to urge his soulforce to him, but it was useless. He wouldn’t be able to break free from his binds even if he was at his strongest. The man had been rendered useless so fast that he wasn’t even able to self-destruct now even if he wanted… 

What Bai Yunfei did was suppress the ability for the man to circulate his soulforce, but not his ability to move. When he let go, the man staggered back in fear and stumbled to the ground.

“Wh-who are you?!” He cried out.

He was in a state of fear far beyond anything he had ever felt before. The past twenty hours had been absolutely harrowing to his nerves—being stuck in an area of nothingness with no hope of escape even after going all out onto his invisible confines. It was truly enough to make many people insane.

And then when he was brought out from that place, it was to a completely different area than the grounds of the Soul Refining School. Had…had his captor already escaped from the Soul Refining School?!

“You don’t need to know that. I’ll give you two choices. Answer me honestly and I will perhaps spare your life, or I’ll kill you right now. Choose.”

“Yo—” The man grew incensed at the way he was being spoken to, but the threat Bai Yunfei gave him was quick to shut him up.

A second passed as the man thought a little harder on the reality of his situation. Contrary to what Bai Yunfei expected, the man began to laugh rather than show any fear like before!

“Ha! Do you take me for a three-year-old? You appeared within the Soul Refining School and then killed dozens of the students here. You’re a cruel one…do you really think I’d believe you’d spare my life?” He snarled, “Kill me if you must, but give up on getting anything from me! Do you think I’m afraid of death?!”

This person was far more strong-willed than he thought.

“....”

It was to be expected, after all. What Soul King hadn’t been through a life-or-death battle? There were hardly any Soul King that was so afraid of death they’d sell their secrets out.

“In that case…I’ll just have to find out what I want to know myself…”

Bai Yunfei muttered after a moment of thinking. Reaching his hand out, he grabbed hold of the other person to peer into his soul!

“What are you do—agh!!!”

The man froze up straight away when Bai Yunfei grabbed hold of him and began to scream in pain!

The Charm Bracelet on Bai Yunfei’s left hand began to shine as he drew into the man’s mindspace. He intruded onto it without any obstructions and began to forcibly go through the man’s memories!

Soul Scanning!!

Time was of the essence now, and Bai Yunfei had no desire to slowly coax the information out from him. It was better to use this violent method and get the information he needed!

Wails of pain erupted from the man as Bai Yunfei dug through his memories. It was so frightful that even Lao Sha hid into a nearby cave. It was too afraid to even poke its head out to look.

But it was over soon enough. The screams soon became hoarse before ultimately dying out completely—just like the man’s lifeforce itself!

“Thud…”

Bai Yunfei released the man and watched as the corpse fell to the ground. His eyes shined with multiple sources of light as he sorted through the myriad of images he got from the man’s memories.

The area was silent once again.

    ……

From within the depths of a certain lake, a sliver of light began to shine out from it.

A small stone rose out from the small crack within the lake and began to distribute a ripple of waves before Bai Yunfei appeared out from it.

The water around Bai Yunfei was pushed away with a wave of energy as he stored the Core Stone away. Looking around himself, Bai Yunfei rose up out from the water and into the air.

He wasn’t planning to use any soulsense since he had to keep a low profile still. He was even using the long-unused Walk-on Strawhat to ensure he would be hidden for as long as possible.

Not sensing anything around, Bai Yunfei slowly started to leak a bit of soulsense to look within the surrounding kilometer. When he saw nothing, he let another pulse at double the range. Still nothing.

“Whew…”

Bai Yunfei began to breathe out a sigh of relief at his luck, but then all of a sudden… 

“Someone’s coming!!”