Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng however, didn't realise that Huo Yuhao had buried his fists into the soil beneath him.
Only one wife? He's very self-disciplined when it comes to women? What does my mother count as, then? The hatred he'd suppressed for so long grew even stronger when he heard Dai Yueheng. Perhaps he is a national hero, but he's definitely not a qualified husband or father. If he'd intervened, mom would've…
The sky had already dimmed by this point, such that it was difficult to even see one's own hands in front of them beneath the cover the forest. At that moment, Wang Yan returned.
"Everyone, come here for a moment." Wang Yan waved everyone towards him.
The students from the outer courtyard immediately moved towards him, while the seven from the inner courtyard were somewhat impatient. In terms of cultivation alone, Wang Yan was just a Soul King, which meant that he was merely on par with them. Moreover, he was merely a teacher from the outer courtyard; as students from the inner courtyard, they only recognised strength. As such, they didn't truly respect a teacher like Wang Yan, who wasn't much stronger than them. However, a teacher was still a teacher, thus they still decided to give him some face.
"I just finished scouting out the area around us," Wang Yan said in a low voice, "combined with the observations we made on our journey here, I've made a few discoveries.
"I found a few Warm Mist Trees near us. For those of you who don't know, a Warm Mist Tree is a relatively rare type of tree whose core can be used to produce medicine. Its trunk is as hard as steel, which makes it extremely suitable to be used in various types of furniture. During its growth, it has rather stringent oxygen requirements; only areas that have high levels of vegetation are suitable for them. An old book I once read stated that Warm Mist Trees only grow in areas that're at least fifty miles deep into a forest. Furthermore, it stated that these trees like the coldness of Yin, thus their cores can help soul masters with Yin-attributed martial souls."
Ma Xiaotao furrowed her brows. "Teacher Wang, what're you trying to say?"
Wang Yan replied, "What I mean is that the appearance of these Warm Mist Trees signifies that we've entered the core region of the Ming Dou Mountain Range. At the very least, we've reached its border. Moreover, based on the information we've been given, the leader of the Hand of Death might be an evil soul master. I found this just now."
He then retrieved a tree trunk from his storage-type soul tool. The tree trunk appeared to have been snapped in half by something, and a cylindrical hole was present within it.
Wang Yan said, "This is the Warm Mist Tree. Its core is normally dark-blue, but as you can see, it's missing. In other words, it's been removed by someone. Considering who our target is this time, we can make a bold conjecture that this was done by either the leader of the bandits or by one of his subordinates, then eaten by the leader. If this is really the case, then the likelihood of our enemy being an evil soul master is extremely high. At the same time, that also means that we're not far away from our enemies."
"I can agree with the first point," Ma Xiaotao said, "however, what basis are you relying on to say that we're not far away from our enemies? Don't these Warm Mist Trees grow in other areas?" Wang Yan had actually able to deduce such a large amount of information with just a tiny clue like this; the others couldn't help but admire him because of this. Because of this, Ma Xiaotao had also spoken in a polite manner that befit a student.
Wang Yan smiled confidently. "I mentioned that the Warm Mist Tree is a relatively rare type of tree, right? Since it's rare, it obviously doesn't appear very frequently. I only mentioned the environment required for it to grow, but in reality, the number of places it grows in is still extremely few in number. There are a relatively low number of Warm Mist Trees here, and the one that I found was the largest tree. To soul masters with Yin-attributed martial souls, not only does its core assist them, it can also increase their internal organs' resistance to the coldness of their own Yin attribute. Such a thing is very hard to come by. If it were you, would you give up on something like this? Thus, I can practically guarantee that they aren't far away from here, considering the fact that they've discovered and extracted a core already. We're quite lucky; we were able to find our target without going very far. If we hadn't, considering how large this mountain range is, we would've had to scout from the air tomorrow. If we'd done that, we definitely would've attracted their attention, and thus would've had to defend against them."
Everyone present couldn't help but gain a new level of respect for Wang Yan by the time they'd finished listening to him. Of the fourteen students present, he'd only taught Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, and Xiao Xiao. However, the three of them only knew that he was very knowledgeable and erudite in the field of martial souls; they'd never thought that his experience with the wilderness would be just as abundant.
"Teacher Wang, what should we do now?" Ma Xiaotao asked subconsciously, "Should we just wait for an opportunity to present itself?"
Wang Yan shook his head. "No, we have to take the initiative. When people move about in the forest, they'll always leave a few traces behind. Even though it's already dark and I can't locate these traces by myself, we have Yuhao's Spiritual Detection. Thus, it won't be too hard for us to find them. Yuhao, follow me; listen to my orders and scout ahead."
"Okay." Huo Yuhao quickly walked over to Wang Yan. He also wanted to learn how to locate unknown enemies within a forest.
Wang Yan led them three hundred or so meters deeper into the forest, then stopped in front of a Warm Mist Tree. "Out of all the destroyed Warm Mist Trees I found earlier, the tracks near this one are the most recent. In other words, it was destroyed last. Yuhao, use your Spiritual Detection to search the thirty meters around us."
"Understood." Now that Huo Yuhao's cultivation had increased, he could share his Spiritual Detection with a total of ten people. However, he only shared it with Wang Yan for the sake of improving the accuracy of his probe.
A three-dimensional image of their surroundings immediately appeared in their minds. Huo Yuhao manipulated his spiritual power and stopped his Spiritual Detection from instantly encapsulating the thirty meters around him; instead, he slowly had it extend outwards, one meter at a time. Doing it this way would make it so that the information wouldn't immediately flood Wang Yan's mind. On the contrary, it would appear progressively, which was more beneficial for analysis and scouting.
Wang Yan gave Huo Yuhao a thumbs up. Of the many students he'd taught in the past, the one he liked the most was the person in front of him. Huo Yuhao might not be the smartest student he'd ever taught, but he was definitely the most mature, steady, and hard-working person among his peers. Furthermore, he was also the most talented student he'd ever taught.
"Stop." Wang Yan whispered, afterwich Huo Yuhao's detection radius immediately came to a halt.
Wang Yan motioned for him to stay where he was, then slowly moved to the right and squatted down to a patch of undergrowth. He carefully observed it for a while, and after verifying what he'd seen with Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection, he waved to the rest and slowly moved in the direction of the undergrowth.
Huo Yuhao hurriedly followed behind Wang Yan, making sure to keep his Spiritual Detection activated. The others all followed behind him. Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng flanked the control-type and auxiliary-type soul masters in the middle, while the agility-type Xi Xi and Jiang Nannan vanished into the night, evidently scouting their surroundings. Everyone advanced in an orderly manner, and even though they weren't quick, Wang Yan's pace was extremely stable.
At the same time, Huo Yuhao shared his Spiritual Detection with Ma Xiaotao, Dai Yueheng, and Wang Dong. They began to respect Wang Yan more and more as they continued to carefully observe their surroundings.
Wang Yan was able to discover a few subtle clues with Huo Yuhao's help, such as a few snapped branches, some shallow footprints in the dirt, pieces of cloth on the trees, and a few bloodstains left on the brambles around them.
They gradually left the woods as they continued to these clues, and advanced at the same slow pace for an hour.
"Stop." Wang Yan suddenly raised his hand and said. The students that were following him immediately crouched down and leaned towards him.
"Our search shouldn't have been wrong," Wang Yan whispered, "there are a large number of messy footprints in the area in front of us. Evidently, many people frequently pass through here. Our enemies shouldn't be far away now. Everyone, adjust your conditions. Prepare for battle."
The trees in front of them had become extremely sparse, and even Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng were able to clearly notice the tracks he was talking about with Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection. Wang Yan had clearly discovered the correct location.
"Teacher Wang, amazing." Ma Xiaotao praised him in a low voice. The other students clearly respected him much more now.
Wang Yan smiled bitterly. "My talent in cultivation is quite poor, thus I've focused most of my energy on these sort of miscellaneous things; it's nothing much. Once this tournament is over, it's very likely that I'll become a teacher in the inner courtyard. If you're interested, I can teach you all these skills then. Now then, Yuhao, how far can your Spiritual Detection reach?"
Huo Yuhao paused for a moment. "If I direct it in a straight line, it should be able to reach two hundred meters or so. However, I can't use it that way for very long, as the drain on both my spiritual power and soul power is extremely large."
Wang Yan nodded. "That's fine. Scan the area from our eleven o'clock to three o'clock and see whether you can find anything."
"Okay." Huo Yuhao eyes focused, causing the gold in his pupils to deepen somewhat. He immediately switched his Spiritual Detection from its usual omnidirectional mode to its unidirectional mode, then sent it forwards in the direction that Wang Yan had told him to. His head slightly swayed as he scanned the circular sector per Wang Yan's instructions.
"I can faintly sense a hillside five hundred meters to the left. These footsteps also seem to lead to the bottom of that hill." Huo Yuhao quickly gave an answer as he retracted his Spiritual Detection. A detection like this had drained him by quite a bi.
Wang Yan nodded. "Since that's the case, our enemies should be beneath that hill. If I'm not wrong, the cave that they're hiding in is also there. When we make our move later, we'll have to confirm who they are first. Once we're sure that they're members the Hand of Death, I don't think I need to tell you guys what to do. The preparatory team will be with me, and they'll be in charge of assisting you guys. Xiaotao, we'll be relying on you to attack them."
"No problem, leave it to us." A fierce flame seemed to have been lit in Ma Xiaotao's pinkish-red eyes. Now that they'd found their target, the only thing left for them to do was make their move.
Wang Yan said, "Everyone, change into your outfits. Shrek Guardians, prepare to move out."
As everyone began to move Huo Yuhao felt an indescribable sensation of excitement fill his body. When Wang Yan had said the words 'Shrek Guardians', he'd clearly felt his blood begin to boil. He wasn't even thirteen, yet he was about to fight for Shrek Academy!
Everybody was wearing a Guardian Ring that belonged solely to them, but the smaller a soul tool was, the harder it was to control it. Huo Yuhao wasn't even able to tell what class his Guardian Ring was, but he put it on the index finger of his left hand under Ma Xiaotao's instructions.
He'd already blood-bound the ring to himself during their rest last night. When he put it on, the ring immediately shrunk to fit itself to his finger.
He poured his soul power into the ring, and a bewitching layer of green light immediately flashed across its jade-green surface. He then took out its contents one by one.
The first thing he took out was a set of armor that covered his entire body from to toe; the only things it revealed were his eyes, nose, and mouth. This set of armor was extremely flexible, and was made from some sort unknown material, which made it feel like a very thin piece of leather. Its texture resembled that of skin, yet it was extremely durable. After testing it out for a bit, Huo Yuhao discovered that he was only able to send soul power outwards; he wasn't able to absorb any from the outside while he had it on. The defensive capabilities of this set of armor could be seen without a doubt; a faint layer of thin scales was even visible atop the surface of the armor.
Due to the differences between men and women, everyone naturally changed in two different areas according to their gender. Huo Yuhao had planned to drag Wang Dong along to change, but the latter shot straight into the woods and quickly changed before he could.
Other than armor, everyone had also been provided with a dark-green set of warrior robes and a dark-green mask, as well as a dark-green cloak.
Three Guardian-specialised flares were also strapped to their waists.
When everyone gathered back together, they felt an air of mystery when they looked at each other. Their cloaks covered both their heads and bodies, and were extremely tight-fitting; they seemed to be made out of the same material as their armor. They were very thin, yet seemed to possess a sense of tactility and an extraordinary amount of defensive power.
"Prepare to make a move," Wang Yan whispered, "Xiaotao, you'll lead the fight. I'll be in charge of commanding the preparatory team."
"Alright." Ma Xiaotao immediately replied.
Ma Xiaotao bent her body slightly, then leapt into the air first. Dai Yueheng and Chen Zifeng immediately flanked her on both sides, while the other four inner courtyard disciples quickly moved out as well. They maintained a neat formation as they quietly set out.
Wang Yan waved his hand a few seconds after they'd left and led the preparatory team up as well.
Bei Bei took the lead role of the preparatory team, while Xu Sanshi stayed at the very back. After all, their role was merely to assist their seniors from the inner courtyard; taking care of themselves was of the utmost importance. Under Wang Yan's commands, He Caitou and Jiang Nannan flanked their group on the side. Wang Yan himself, on the other hand, was directly behind Huo Yuhao's trio; he emphasized protecting the three people with the lowest level of cultivation in their group.
Ma Xiaotao and the rest were extremely fast; Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection was simply unable to keep up with them. Fortunately, he was still able to use it on his companions in the preparatory team and on Teacher Wang Yan.
They rapidly arrived at the hillside that Huo Yuhao had spotted earlier. There were no traces of Ma Xiaotao's heptet, but the area was completely silent.
"Let's head down as well," Wang Yan whispered, "Bei Bei, prepare for battle."
"Okay." Bei Bei didn't dare to be negligent. He quickly released his Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, then descended from the hillside first. They quickly spotted a cave that was covered in a large and dense amount of vines. This was, without a doubt, the nest that the bandits had stationed themselves in.
There were already five or six fallen bandits near the entrance to the cave. Undoubtedly, their statuses as members of the Hand of Death had been confirmed, as Ma Xiaotao and the rest had already made their move.
At that moment, a muffled explosion rang out from in the cave. Immediately afterwards, noisy shouts began to ring out from the cave. After that, there were able to hear some muffled sounds and sense strong fluctuations of soul power.
Bei Bei turned his head towards Wang Yan, who said in a solemn voice, "Head inside. Yuhao, release your Spiritual Detection all around us. Everyone, you must be careful."
Huo Yuhao immediately released his Spiritual Detection to the best of his ability, which caused three-dimensional image in everybody's minds to immediately widen.
The entrance to the cave wasn't big, but its interior was extremely vast. Besides the corpses at the entrance, they only saw another corpse after they'd advanced fifty meters.
The dense smell of blood assaulted their senses as they advanced. Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, and He Caitou were still somewhat fine, but the other four had somewhat pale expressions.
"Ah—!" Jiang Nannan suddenly screeched, and her body violently shuddered. Huo Yuhao, who'd originally released his Spiritual Detection in a single plane parallel to the ground, immediately increased its range as he looked upwards following her gaze.
The scene awaiting them didn't seem important, but all of their expressions instantly changed.
Unexpectedly, there were ten sheets of human skin hanging from the walls. There was even an infant's corpse impaled on a stalagmite. Earlier, Jiang Nannan had raised her head when she felt the drops of blood coming from the corpse above them.
"Bastard!" The usually-scholarly Bei Bei angrily roared. These were the sins committed by the Hand of Death bandit group! At that moment, everybody present felt their eyes go bloodshot. These bandits didn't even let little infants off! They were simply worse than beasts.
As they continued forward, the number of corpses began to gradually increase, while the sounds of combat began to grow more intense. The bandits within the cave had died in all sorts of strange ways, but nobody gave them even a shred of sympathy. This was because the two walls of the cave were entirely lined with sheets of human skin hanging from them. From the time they'd entered the cave till now, they'd seen more than a hundred, some of which had even been dried by the wind.
"Rouse yourselves. These are all evil men; killing one of them is equivalent to saving a countless number of people." Wang Yan shouted, causing Huo Yuhao, Wang Dong, Xiao Xiao, and Jiang Nannan's hearts, which were in an extremely nervous state, to shake.
The terrain in front of them suddenly widened, and they finally saw the true situation of the battle that was happening. The constant flickering from soul rings dazzled everyone's eyes. Ma Xiaotao's Evil Phoenix was most noticeable, and none of her enemies were spared from the berserk activation of her scorching flames. Her surroundings were littered with bandit corpses.
Gong Yangmo stood at the very centre of the group, and multi-colored rays of light continuously shot out from his body and landed on his companions. The others had loosely surrounded him and kept him in the middle of them.
Yao Haoxuan had already transformed into his massive body, and was continuously pounding on his chest with his fists. He protected Gong Yangmo's back, while Ling Luochen took the other side. The three of them didn't participate directly in the fight, but if anybody were to assume that they'd be easy to deal with, they would be wrong.
The bandits that still had the ability to fight all had bloodshot eyes. A large number of them were soul masters, with some of them even having relatively strong cultivations; there were even three Soul Kings. However, they were still forced to retreat step-by-step by the inner courtyard disciples of Shrek Academy.
Waves of bandits continued to surge forth from the depths of the cave to participate in the battle, but Ma Xiaotao, Dai Yueheng, Chen Zifeng, and Xi Xi all managed to cover very large areas.
Gong Yangmo���s powerful auxiliary abilities revealed their true capabilities at that moment. There was no need to mention the two who were already Soul Emperors, but the Soul King-ranked Chen Zifeng and Xi Xi weren't the least bit inferior to Soul Emperors with his assistance.
"Roar—" Dai Yueheng tore an enemy Soul King apart, causing his blood to splash everywhere. Immediately afterwards, he sent out a dazzling White Tiger's Meteor Shower in an attempt to blast away the enemies attempting to launch a sneak attack on Gong Yangmo's trio.
Ma Xiaotao's battle was even more spectacular. Nobody knew what she'd done, but her fiery phoenix wings were now more than three meters long. Her wings were the most terrifying weapon she had at her disposal; they would either injure or kill anybody they touched. There was a Soul King in front of her, yet he simply didn't even dare to approach her. He could only put on a false show of bravado from afar.
According to the information they'd been given, the leader of the bandit troupe was a Soul King. Evidently, he was one of the three in front of them. When he saw that the situation seemed to be settled, Wang Yan waved his hand. "Everyone, move. Don't let a single one go. We can't leave any future troubles for ourselves."
The opponents in front of them weren't very powerful. The strongest members of their troupe had been blocked by the inner courtyard disciples, while the remaining few were only Soul Grandmasters and Soul Elders. Some of the bandits weren't even soul masters; they were just ordinary humans.
Bei Bei let out a shout and rushed forward. The others followed behind, and Wang Dong released his dazzling Radiant Butterfly Goddess. In reality, he was still somewhat nervous. The moment he moved, he launched a Light of the Butterfly Goddess towards an area that had a comparatively large number of bandits.
Several dozen bright golden balls were released, which were then amplified by his Golden Light soul bone. This was only a thousand year soul skill, but absolutely none of these bandits had a thousand year soul skill of their own. Moreover, Wang Dong's skill was being boosted by Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection and his own Golden Light Left Arm Bone.
The bandits frantically released their own soul skills in an attempt to defend themselves against Wang Dong's attack, but they were still left in a complete mess and let out bloodcurdling screeches as they were struck.
Once he'd succeeded with his first attack, the panic that Wang Dong felt drastically decreased. Even if he didn't dare to attack anyone near him, wouldn't long-range attacks work?
Xiao Xiao had already released her Threelives Soulcrush Cauldron, and the three large cauldrons formed a "品" shape as they protected the trio. Xiao Xiao had clearly assumed a defensive stance. For a small girl like her to kill someone was simply too difficult.
Huo Yuhao couldn't help but get excited by the thrill of the hunt when he saw Wang Dong succeed. Of the two white-colored soul rings beneath him, the first instantly lit up as he looked towards a one-ringed bandit with his pale gold eyes. Like him, that bandit's lonely first soul ring was only a white-colored one.
A golden radiance immediately shone from Huo Yuhao's eyes as the combined force of both his Purple Demon Eyes and Spiritual Shock soul skill burst forth.
The body of the bandit Huo Yuhao had targeted shook fiercely. However, the scene that followed completely shocked him: the bandit's head exploded like a watermelon. Bright red blood, white brain fluids, and other strangely-colored things flew in all directions, which instantly frightened the bandits around him and made them disperse. They'd yet to understand how their companion had died.
Huo Yuhao was dumbfounded. He hadn't expected his Spiritual Shock to be so powerful. When he saw the headless corpse fall to the ground, he immediately threw up. That person had been alive just a moment ago!
He wasn't the only one to throw up; the nearby Xiao Xiao also puked. She'd been holding it back since they'd first entered the cave, but after this last scene, she couldn't bear it anymore.
At that moment, a sharp voice echoed forth from the depths of the cave, "Who dares to oppose the Envoy of the Death God? All of you will die and become corpses under my control."
The bandits weren't relieved when they heard his voice. Rather, they all began to tremble and quickly retreated.
"Be careful!" Huo Yuhao roared as soon as he'd finished throwing up. Thanks to his Spiritual Detection, he'd discovered that the corpses on the ground had begun to swell at an astonishing speed; they'd also become faintly red in color.
"Boom, boom, boom…" Terrifying explosions began to echo throughout the entire cave. Flesh and blood was scattered all over the cave following each explosion.
The seven members of the preparatory team had just arrived, and since all of them were within the range of Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Detection, they were able to react quickly. All of them ran towards the corpse-free areas of the cave as quickly as they could in order to avoid the explosions.
However, the seven disciples of the inner courtyard—who happened to be in the midst of the corpse-ridden battlefield—weren't so lucky. They found themselves at the center of the explosions!
Luckily, they were able to quickly erect some defenses since they'd heard Huo Yuhao's warning. However… the power wrought by the detonating corpses was just too much. Bones, muscles, and even blood vessels had become weapons because of the explosions. The stronger the corpse had been when it was alive, the stronger the explosion it caused. The corpse of the Soul King that Dai Yueheng had killed caused a particularly earth-shaking explosion when it detonated.
These explosions continued for about ten seconds or so before they stopped. The Shrek Guardians hadn't thought that they'd find themselves in this sort of situation. How could they have expected a group of bandits led by a Soul King to have such a powerful skill? Furthermore, the power of this ability was incredibly high. Its power had far exceeded their imagination, and was the main reason that they took such a big hit.
The old man with messy hair that was sitting outside of the cave drinking alcohol was surprised when he heard the sound of explosions. He immediately turned into a streak of light as he shot into the cave.
Elder Xuan had been following their group since the beginning. He'd checked the auras of the people in the cave as soon as he'd arrived and determined that the strongest one was only a Soul King. Though there was more than one Soul King present, he didn't give it too much thought. These bandits didn't really seem to have a chance against the elite disciples of Shrek Academy. Furthermore, someone as experienced as Wang Yan was in charge of the mission. As such, he'd decided to stay outside and drink alcohol. After all, nobody liked the foul stench of blood.
Even he hadn't expected such a sudden change in their situation. The power from the explosion just now had exceeded that of a Soul King or Soul Emperor.
"Gaga, gagaga… Did you all like the exploding corpses from this envoy? Even if you all were stronger, you'd still die when faced by my consecutive corpse explosions. Furthermore, even if you were survive the explosions, you'd die from the poison!"
The entire cave was now permeated with a thick smell of blood. Moreover, everyone felt like they were wet due to the thick layer of blood covering their bodies. Every single previously dead bandits had had their corpse exploded.
The explosions hadn't distinguished between friend and foe. As such, they didn't only strike the students of the Shrek Academy; even the bandits that were still alive had been hit by the explosions. Despite this, the bandits had been somewhat prepared. Some of them had been able to quickly hide in depressions in the ground to dodge the explosions.
However, the scariest thing was actually the liquid alongside the explosion; it had the same powerful corrosive properties as a strong acid. The 'chi chi' sound of things being corroded echoed throughout the entire cave. Besides the corpses exploding, the hidden soul master had even made them release a deadly poison. It was an extremely vile and cruel tactic.
Everyone had done their best to protect themselves the moment they'd heard Huo Yuhao's warning. However, considering the fact that they all had different martial souls, their defensive capabilities were all different from one another.
Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng were sent flying from the explosion, and they both spat out some blood. Despite their injuries however, their soul skills' protected them from being contaminated by the poisonous blood. Ma Xiaotao landed in a place that not too far off from Huo Yuhao's position.
Ling Luochen's entire body was protected by a layer of ice, but she was still sent flying regardless. However, considering that she'd been in the rear, and that she'd managed to raise her defenses in time, she didn't end up in a bad state. She spat out some blood like Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng had, but she didn't receive any external injuries.
On the other hand, Chen Zifeng wasn't as lucky as them. He was also an assault system battle soul master, and considering the number of soul rings he had, he exceeded both Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng in pure offensive power. However, how was he supposed to protect his entire body with just his Soulchasing Sword? He could only rely on his soul power and protective armor to withstand the explosion.
Once the explosions had finished, he was lying sprawled on his side. His right leg had disappeared, and he'd begun to scream pitifully due to the corrosion of the deadly poison and loss of his limb.
However, he wasn't the only one that had been severely injured. Gong Yangmo wasn't much stronger than him; even if he was the ultimate auxiliary-type soul master, he definitely wasn't specialized in defense! Moreover, the corpses had exploded without much warning at all. Despite Ling Luochen's assistance, his chest, abdomen, and legs had all been badly mangled. Smoke was still rising from his wounds, and he'd lost consciousness.
Yao Haoxuan had met a tragic fate. As his build was the biggest, he'd had to face the brunt of the explosions. Half of his body had simply disappeared—he obviously hadn't been able to survive the explosion.
Xi Xi had it slightly better off. Her thunder and lightning had protected her body, while thanks to her fast speed, only her back had been struck. However, she'd still suffered severe wounds and was lying on the ground in agony.
Regardless of the intensity of their injures, the seven disciples of the inner courtyard had all suffered heavy injuries, while one of them had even died. Even though they'd originally held the advantage, they were now in an extremely pitiful state.
All of this had happened too quickly; the disciples of the outer courtyard didn't suffer any damage since they were on the periphery, but they were still shaken by the outcome.
"Bastard!" A hoarse voice suddenly echoed, causing the entire cave to tremble. An intense white light immediately covered every corner of the cave, afterwich all of the deadly corrosive poison disappeared.
The form of a slovenly old man immediately became visible. Elder Xuan raised his right hand, then made a grabbing motion towards the depths of the cave. A terrifying attractive force erupted from his palm, causing a figure to rapidly fly towards him from the interior of the cave.
The word 'anger' wasn't enough to describe Elder Xuan's current state of mind. His students had been injured to this extent, despite being under his supervision. Furthermore, the ones that had received harm were members of the current Shrek's Seven Monsters! They were supposed to represent the academy at the Elite Continental Soul Master Academy Tournament in a few days, yet now, one of them had died, and the others were all severely injured!
The form that was yanked towards Elder Xuan was shrouded in a black robe. He had a slender build, and his facial features were hidden. Only the radiance of five soul rings, three of which yellow and two of which purple, were visible. This person really was just a Soul King, yet he'd created such a terrifying tragedy!
He let out a terrified scream as soon as he was yanked away by Elder Xuan. He tried his best to struggle free, but how could he struggle against someone as powerful as Elder Xuan? He could only watch helplessly as he was pulled closer and closer to Elder Xuan.
At that moment, the remaining half of Yao Haoxuan's body suddenly began to swell.
"Elder Xuan, be careful!" Huo Yuhao called out in alarm.
Elder Xuan's perception wasn't weak, and his students were much more important than this evil soul master! The academy had already suffered such a huge loss; how could he let more people be injured?
He raised both of his hands, and a ball of white light immediately enveloped Yao Haoxuan's corpse. At the same time, he flicked his finger, which caused the Soul King to feel as if he'd been struck by a huge hammer. However, something strange happened. All five of his soul rings simultaneously shone and he changed into a wisp of smoke. However, he didn't run away. Instead, he pounced towards Huo Yuhao.
His speed was so fast that Huo Yuhao couldn't react even with his Spiritual Detection active. Afterwards he felt the world spin, then heard Elder Xuan's angry yell. There wasn't anything under his feet; they instantly sank through the ground.
A powerful explosion echoed through the cave. Yao Haoxuan's body exploded, and even his skeleton was vaporized. The explosion was contained by Elder Xuan, but it was because of this that he arrived a moment too late to save Huo Yuhao; his hands only grabbed a newly-created slab of stone. Huo Yuhao and the evil soul master had disappeared without a trace.
"Bastard!" Elder Xuan angrily howled. He was now thoroughly enraged. He immediately punched the ground, instantly pulverizing the newly-created slab of stone to. However, he didn't dare to use too much soul power out of fear that he'd harm Huo Yuhao, who might have been below it. As this happened, a series of explosions echoed from the corridor beneath them, causing it collapse. A crafty person always had several ways out of a predicament. That person was, without a doubt, the leader of the group of bandits known as the Hand of Death.