Surprised by Bai Yunfei’s sudden collapse, Xiao Binzi hurried to catch Bai Yunfei from falling to the ground.
When he pushed some soulforce into Bai Yunfei, Xiao Binzi was relieved to find that Bai Yunfei was only suffering from a lack of soulforce.
Then a second discovery caused his face to grow ashen with curiosity and anger.
Noticing the change on Xiao Binzi’s face, Cang Yu was almost afraid to ask, “Senior, what’s wrong?”
“First elder, third elder!”
Jiang Nan and Song Lin came over at that point with the both of them supporting each other up. Upon seeing the state of Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun, Song Lin began to panic, “First elder, how are Yunfei and Xinyun?”
Eyeing the wounds on Jiang Nan’s body, Xiao Binzi’s eyes narrowed slightly. He moved to the male’s side and held his right hand out to Jiang Nan’s left hand to push some soulforce into him. Jiang Nan grunted from the sudden pain and his forehead began to sweat as the black miasma from his left shoulder started to burn because of Xiao Binzi’s elemental fire. Even his wounds were starting to heal at an accelerated rate thanks to Xiao Binzi. The pain was almost unbearable, but Jiang Nan’s face was already looking much better than before. Before, he was on the verge of collapse due to his wounds, but he managed to hold himself together with pure determination alone. With Xiao Binzi here to help him with his wounds, Jiang Nan wouldn’t be in any danger.
Xiao Binzi took back his hand as soon as the elemental darkness in Jiang Nan’s shoulder was removed. He looked around the destroyed battlefield curiously, his eyes stopping for a small moment on the crater left behind on the mountain, “What happened here? Why has Yunfei’s essence fireseed been weakened to the point of being extinguished!?”
“What!? Yunfei’s essence fir—!” Cang Yu gasped. The realization of why Xiao Binzi was acting the way he was earlier suddenly hit Cang Yu. The essence seed was something every soul cultivator in the Soul Sprite realm and beyond depended on. Soul Sprites could control the elements of the world, but aside from using their soulforce to maintain their control, the rest would depend on their essence seed. (This is in regards to one’s own materialization and control, not when a soul armament does it). Healing an injured essence seed was extremely difficult, and there were many whose essence seed would never be able to make a complete recovery!!
From what Xiao Binzi was saying, Bai Yunfei’s essence fireseed was practically extinguished with how weak it was… if it couldn’t be healed, that meant that Bai Yunfei would never be able to make any progress with his elemental fire!
Song Lin blanched. Guilt and worry flooded his mind as he thought about how he had failed to protect Bai Yunfei and Tang Xinyun. The fingers on his fist clenched tightly against each other as he replied swiftly to Xiao Binzi, “I think just a while ago, Yunfei used his essence fireseed to strengthen his lifebound armament…”
“What!?” Xiao Binzi exclaimed, “Using his essence fireseed to strengthen his lifebound armament!! That’s…”
He looked back to Bai Yunfei. With a regretful sigh, Xiao Binzi shook his head, “To think Yunfei would do such a rash action… we are lucky that his essence fireseed is still in existence. This feat is only something that can be done with a lifebound armament…”
Spreading his soulsense a kilometer away, Xiao Binzi’s tone grew icy, “And the enemies? Have they run off?”
Earlier, Cang Yu said that there had been four people that had attacked her and Jiang Nan, but he could only sense the corpse of the middle-aged beast tamer Tang Xinyun killed. If the other three were trying to escape, he’d be sure to destroy them!
Jiang Nan pointed a finger in the direction the black-robed survivor had run off with a shake of his head, “Only the strongest survivor, a mid-stage Soul Exalt, managed to escape. It’s been a while, so I’m afraid the first elder wouldn’t have an easy time finding and catching up to him…”
“Eh? Just him? What of the other two?” Xiao Binzi asked.
“Aside from the mid-stage Soul Ancestor, there was also a late-stage Soul Ancestor and an early-stage Soul Exalt beast tamer…” Song Lin paused to take a breath.
“They… they were both killed by Yunfei…”
“…” Xiao Binzi and Cang Yu were both silent for a second. Under the impression that he had heard wrong, Xiao Binzi asked, “What did you say?”
Song Lin repeated the shocking news for the two elders to hear again, but it was no surprise that the first elder was still surprised. “The mid-stage Soul Ancestor was killed by both Yunfei and Xinyun, and then Bai Yunfei used his lifebound armament to kill the other two because Xinyun was seriously hurt. His lifebound armament was… able to grow a thousand times larger than what it was? Even the early-stage Soul Exalt was unable to defend himself before being crushed to death in that ruined mountain…”
“A thousand times bigger!!” Came the mental thought of Xiao Binzi. Looking back at Bai Yunfei while deep in thought, he said, “We shouldn’t stay here. Yunfei and Xinyun are in a very special predicament. We must carefully observe them to know how to best treat them!”
“First elder,” Jiang Nan spoke up, “I propose that we go to the house of Xiao in Curopia City then.”
Taking a second to consider the proposal, Xiao Binzi then nodded his head, “Very well. We shall go there!”
By the time Bai Yunfei had regained awareness, he noticed that he was lying on top of a very soft bed. He wanted to sit up, but his body refused to listen to him. Uttering an involuntary grunt, Bai Yunfei tried to summon his soulforce to him.
“Ah!! Lord Bai is awake! Lord Bai is awake!!” His voice had alerted the nearby maid who was attending to him, causing her to run out to call for the others.
Full body autonomy came to Bai Yunfei a moment later. His mind was still in a haze and even opening his eyes was a struggle, but he could at the very least sit up in bed like he wanted.
“Yunfei, how are you feeling?”
An elderly voice asked Bai Yunfei from the side, causing him to start. Lifting his head, Bai Yunfei managed to see the first elder Xiao Binzi standing in front of him. Both Jiang Nan and Song Lin were standing behind the elder as they looked at him in concern.
“First elder… I…” Gently shaking his head to rid himself of the fuzz, Bai Yunfei suddenly swung his head to look at Xiao Binzi in alarm, “First elder! How’s Xinyun? Is she okay?”
Pressing gently against Bai Yunfei’s shoulder, Xiao Binzi calmly replied to calm him down, “Don’t get too worked up. Xinyun is being looked after by Cang Yu right now. She is fine.”
“Whew…” A relieved sigh escaped from Bai Yunfei’s lips. Now that he was reassured, his panicked mind was finally starting to calm back down.
There was still something that made him restless, “I’ll… I’ll take a look then…”
His legs swung over the bed onto the ground. Right as the first step was about to be had, Bai Yunfei found himself suddenly staggering back down onto his bed as if his body was powerless to support himself.
Stunned, Bai Yunfei tried to circulate his soulforce to heal his tired body. When he tried, the results surprised him. He held his hands up and looked at them with wide open eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Upon seeing Bai Yunfei’s reaction, Xiao Binzi couldn’t help but sigh. “Yunfei, you shouldn’t worry about Xinyun. Her wounds are stabilized for the time being, but you should listen to me, you’re…”
He hadn’t finished speaking when Bai Yunfei jerked his head up in panic and confusion.
“What’s… what’s going on!? First elder, I… why can’t I feel any elemental fire in me!?”