Bai Yunfei had planned tentatively for a myriad of situations that might occur prior to now.
He had thought that the house of Zhao would muster up their forces to blame and punish the house of Ye for their crimes. And because of that thought, Bai Yunfei had prepared himself for war. He had prepared himself to fight the Soul Ancestor from the Beast Taming School. In the worst case scenario if he couldn’t win against the Beast Taming School, Bai Yunfei was even prepared to use Ge Yiyun or perhaps You Qingfeng’s name in order to intimidate the opponent and drag the house of Liu into this. It wasn’t by any means an honest or kind tactic, but even the Zhao and the Beast Taming School wouldn’t act too hastily if the Liu got involved. But this still didn’t guarantee that the Ye would be safe from fighting.
Bai Yunfei had actually thought that the Zhao would already be prepared for a dark and dirty battle. After their attempt to kidnap Tianming, Bai Yunfei had not discounted the possibility of them preparing to start a raid. He had even considered giving Tianming several upgraded items to help strengthen himself.
There was also yet another plan that should his involvement in the death of the men from the Beast Taming School came to light, Bai Yunfei would disavow himself from the matters of the Ye and run as far away as possible.
He had thought of many possibilities and prepared for plenty of outcomes. But in the end, it had been for naught.
Ye Ting became a Soul Ancestor because of the Thunderbird. The Beast Taming School had left Gaoyi City. And the genius son of the Zhao had finally returned home. Even now, he was making a fair and reasonable apology in an attempt to dissolve the conflict between the Ye and the Zhao.
“Well, it won’t be going down the few anticipated patterns I was expecting at least. He won’t be pretending to be the hero until the very last moment either I’m sure. There shouldn’t be anything going wrong now, or a loss for both sides either. Uh….that’s if the fatty doesn’t try anything else though.”
Bai Yunfei shook his head as if to console himself. But then Zhao Xiluo suddenly spoke out loud after his conversation with Ye Ting, “Ah, might there be a young brother by the name of Bai Yunfei staying as a guest here?”
Even as Zhao Xiluo spoke, his eyes had already traveled to where Bai Yunfei was as if deciding between him and Jing Mingfeng.
Not a single person there had expected to hear Zhao Xiluo suddenly ask for Bai Yunfei. This had prompted Jing Mingfeng to turn his head to his companion, “Ol’Bai, how does he know you, you friends with him?”
Bai Yunfei scrunched his eyebrows together, “Never seen him before.”
Everyone’s eyes had only pointed Bai Yunfei out from the others, causing Zhao Xiluo to be confirmed in his guess. Smiling, he spoke, “You must be brother Bai Yunfei, correct?”
Extending his hand to return the handshake Zhao Xiluo was giving, Bai Yunfei had remained stoic in the face. “I am he, what business might lord Zhao have with me?”
“Haha, I actually came to the house of Ye today for two reasons. One reason was to resolve this conflict between our two houses, and the other was to see you, brother Bai.”
“See me? What for?”
“Ah, I’ve actually heard about you from someone else before. So I’d would like to…..compare notes with you!”
Zhao Xiluo chuckled as he spoke the last part. But as soon as he finished, his feet pushed off from the ground and charged straight at Bai Yunfei!
Zhao Xiluo had clearly been smiling and chatting normally a moment ago. But then in a split-second, he had charged straight towards Bai Yunfei! The people around him had been so caught off guard by this action that only Ye Ting had been fast enough to respond when Zhao Xiluo was already at Bai Yunfei’s front, “Zhao Xiluo, what do you mean by this?”
Bai Yunfei had already been on guard before Zhao Xiluo had reached him. He was after all no stranger to having to protect himself at a moment’s notice and had been on guard since the very beginning. Focusing completely on the person in front of him, Bai Yunfei had been able to react even faster than Ye Ting and the others in the time Zhao Xiluo had taken to act.
In the blink of an eye, Zhao Xiluo had already moved to grab at Bai Yunfei’s right arm. Bai Yunfei on the other hand had shifted his feet so that they intertwined with one another. With a minute burst of the Wave Treading Steps he had managed to master after becoming a Late-stage Soul Sprite, Bai Yunfei was able to shift past Zhao Xiluo without having to move too much to the side.
Zhao Xiluo’s eyes had lit up almost as if he had been expecting this. A faint smile graced his face before his claw-like grip tightened into a fist to punch Bai Yunfei in the shoulder.
Lifting up his right and, Bai Yunfei had been able to block the punch while also taking advantage of the force to step backwards. His right hand drew back to wind up for a punch, and then without hesitation, he let it go at full force at Zhao Xiluo’s chest.
But it had been caught by his opponent’s right palm.
“Thump!”
The sound of fist hitting palm could be heard in the courtyard, but only Zhao Xiluo could be seen taking several staggering steps away from Bai Yunfei with the lights of his eyes gleaming even brighter than before.
“Your punching strength isn’t bad, but it’s not up to my expectations of what I’ve heard about you before. Why don’t you show your actual strength?” Zhao Xiluo gently primed his right arm–even after taking Bai Yunfei’s Ninefold Fist Force, he looked as if he hadn’t been affected in the slightest!
“Aren’t you holding back too?” Bai Yunfei returned the smile. In that short moment of contact, he had already ascertained that Zhao Xiluo was only just testing his strength. Although he didn’t know the reason, Bai Yunfei had felt no reason why he shouldn’t live up to his opponent’ expectations. If anything–he was excited. How coincidental that he could test out his own strength right now!
Zhao Xiluo had been taken back for just a small moment before he laughed, “Okay, you be careful now then!”
With neither of the two at a disadvantage to the other, they begun their second round of ‘comparing notes’ under the stunned eyes of everyone around.
At the drop of his last words, Zhao Xiluo’s right arm had already been thrown outwards. There had been a blue light that permeated from within his fist. And in an instant, it covered his entire body. When he threw the right punch, the blue light had rippled in wave-like motions as if it was water. As it rippled and gathered in his fist, the blue light grew even richer and richer until with just two flashes later, three balls of water had formed from the elemental water he wielded.
In an instant, the ball of water gave a small squirm. A burst of frosty air followed its movements, and with a slight ‘tinkling’ sound, the air around the three spheres had turned them into three short icicles!
From the activation of his elemental water to them freezing over, it had only taken a blink of an eye for Zhao Xiluo to cast. He had only needed to point his hand at Bai Yunfei’s direction to have them shoot out towards him.
But Bai Yunfei hadn’t been foolish enough to wait for his opponent to finish his attack and had already taken the opportunity to charge in.
Just about two steps in, the three icicles could already be heard whistling towards him. It had taken Bai Yunfei a single glance to realize that there was not much time to dodge and that the speed it was traveling at did not seem like it would slow down either. With no other choice, he brought his right arm up to protect himself.
Zhao Xiluo had paled in the face at that. When it came to the power of his own icicles, Zhao Xiluo knew just how deadly they could be. These icicles of his could stab through the arm of the Early-stage Soul Ancestor Ye Ting, let alone the Late-stage Soul Sprite, Bai Yunfei. He had summoned these icicles from the elemental water he controlled and could control them within a short distance with the use of his soulforce that was in it. Zhao Xiluo had thought that Bai Yunfei would decide to dodge the icicles just enough that they would not cause much damage, but how could he possibly predict that Bai Yunfei wouldn’t actually dodge?
He only wanted to to test Bai Yunfei’s strength and see just what made this youngster so special in the eyes of a person like You Qingfeng. If Zhao Xiluo managed to heavily injure Bai Yunfei, then that would not look well for him either. But just as Zhao Xiluo was about to use his soulforce to move away the icicles, Bai Yunfei had already sped up just a bit, and under his astonished eyes Bai Yunfei swung his arms to smack away the icicles!
“Ting Ting Ting?”
Following the sounds of the icicles colliding with something, Zhao Xiluo had been astonished to find out that his icicles that could penetrate into the skin of a Early-stage Soul Ancestor had been knocked away so easily by Bai Yunfei!
Bai Yunfei had been exceptionally timely with the swing of his arm. It had been neither fast nor slow, and when his arm had been slanted in that one moment; the very first icicle had landed at the front of his elbow where the edge of the Flame-edge Bracer was. This had meant the bracer had successfully blocked the first icicle and allowed the second to hit the middle part of it and the third one to hit the other end of the bracer.
And as soon as the bracer blocked all three, Bai Yunfei’s eyes lit up with joy.
“Did I trigger the +10 effect of the Flame-edge Bracer?”