“Alright. Xiao Qi, head deeper into the academy and get rid of the enemies there. Don’t go anywhere else for now, we’ll head to the palace together.”

“Okay! Leave it to me!!”

……

Much to the surprise of many, the bird came storming out from the dust clouds toward the Liang-aligned individuals. Like a starving wolf among sheep, the bird charged at them while another individual made it out from the dust clouds.

“Yunfei!!”

Everyone was immediately elated to see Bai Yunfei appear in front of him.

“Headmaster Mo, senior Jiang, and brother Xiao, it’s been a while.” Bai Yunfei nodded at them, “Excuse my lateness, but I…oh?”

He whirled around to look behind him, “He’s not dead yet?”

“Roar!!”

From where the dust cloud was, an abrupt gust of wind blew it all away to reveal a crater on the ground. And at the center of the crater was the howling masked monster, still alive and angrier than ever.

Several holes marked his chest in ways that made him see-throughable. That was where Xiao Qi attacked him. His heart and several other organs were definitely destroyed, if not ruptured; so how was he still alive!?

Bai Yunfei thought back to Dongfang Ming and the demonic core he had. His eyes flew to the strange-looking mask the man wore, “Is that…a demon armament?!”

There was definitely a strange aura flowing from the mask that marked it as a demon armament. And even more suspicious was…

“It’s even got a spirit in it!!”

He was astounded. The amount of malice radiating from the mask wasn’t extremely potent and wasn’t even coming from the person. It was coming from the demon armament! It had a spirit!

“Be careful, Yunfei! That’s an ancient demon armament, ‘Demon Mask’! It’s an incredibly powerful demon armament Wu Tianhun entrusted us to keep sealed away for two thousand years!!”

Mo Huangkong urgently warned Bai Yunfei at once.

“Demon mask? From senior Wu?!” Bai Yunfei’s eyes flickered over to the stone tower at the center of the campus. “So it was sealing a powerful demon armament this entire time? No wonder the Soul Refining School would try to infiltrate it. But…why would senior Wu leave such a dangerous demon armament sealed under the academy?”

“Eh? Demon Mask? Its soul hasn’t died away yet?”

The voice of the Soul Sealing Mandate popped up in Bai Yunfei’s head. “Sealer, what’s the background on this demon armament?” Bai Yunfei asked.

“It’s a powerful but incomplete demon armament. Long time ago, Tianhun came across an opponent who used it to kill a lot of people and forcibly grew a spirit. He killed him, but Tianhun decided it wasn’t the demon armament’s fault. Instead of destroying it, he used a special seal that’d slowly return the demon armament back to normal—looks like it failed. That demon armament is still as powerful as before and its spirit doesn’t look any weaker.”

“I see…” Bai Yunfei nodded, “The demon armament is too dangerous. Leaving it intact only brings more harm, I feel. We may as well destroy it just to be sure.”

“Feel free. Tianhun said before that the demon armament was better off destroyed if the spirit wouldn’t return to normal.”

“Roar!!”

Taking advantage of Bai Yunfei’s talk with the Soul Sealing Mandate, the masked man charged at him. The demon armament could sense the threat Bai Yunfei possessed and decided to take him out with two claws to render Bai Yunfei’s chest apart.

“Bang!!!”

But he never made it to him. Slamming into an orange barrier, the man was flung backward from the sudden obstruction.

The demon armament was powerful, but the body it was making use of was only a Mid-stage Soul Emperor. There was no way it’d be able to overcome the Cataclysmic Seal’s barrier.

Raising his right hand, Bai Yunfei sent the Cataclysmic Seal flying forward to flatten the man and demon armament under its gigantic size!!

“Boom!!”

The Cataclysmic Seal slammed into the ground with devastating force, pushing both the demon armament and man several meters deep into the earth.

It was only when he felt the aura of the man disappear that Bai Yunfei summoned the Cataclysmic Seal back to him. With his opponent dead, Bai Yunfei turned back to speak with Mo Huangkong. Before he could, however, the sudden spike in soulforce from within the crater caught Bai Yunfei’s attention again. “He’s still alive?! But how!?”

“Whoosh!!”

A crimson blob of flesh flew out from the crater. All four limbs were mangled and bent at strange angles, and the body itself didn’t even have a sign of life in it. Somehow…this body was still moving!

“What a strange demon armament…” Bai Yunfei muttered to himself. Snapping his finger, Bai Yunfei summoned something out from his ring and sent it toward the body.

“Whoosh!!”

The black streak of light traveled like lightning from Bai Yunfei to the body and struck it squarely on the forehead!

“Clangg!!”

A loud resonance echoed in the air when it struck. A flash of icy light emerged from the mask and chilled the surrounding air several notches. Somehow, it felt like the screams of the dead were beginning to wail in the wind!

“Crack…”

It was faint, but distinct. The sound of something cracking could be heard as the black light shot through the white light!

It took several seconds for the white light to disappear. First came a ‘thud’ as the corpse fell to the ground, this time for good. Laying on its back, the corpse had the mask revealed to the world. On its surface was a hole the size of a bean with several cracks running away from it.

“Crack…”

The mask cracked again, this time shattering into multiple pieces and fell apart uselessly onto the ground…

“……”

Mo Huangkong and the others were tongue-tied with disbelief. A killing machine had been so readily dispatched in two or three moves? Talk about unbelievable…

“Whoosh…” The black light shot back to Bai Yunfei’s side for him to catch with his fingers. It was the Soul Extinguishing Needle!

As powerful as Demon Mask was, it wasn’t a match for the +12 Soul Extinguishing Needle. It boasted an attack power of over 16000 and could beat out a low-divine tier demon armament like the Demon Mask.

There’d be trouble if it was a Saint that was being controlled by Demon Mask, but that wasn’t the case. Thus, Bai Yunfei had a very easy time destroying the demon armament for good.

……

With his task accomplished, Bai Yunfei stored away the Soul Extinguishing Needle and turned to greet Mo Huangkong.

“Ahh!!!”

A wail of despair echoed across the skies as a rainbow-colored bird flew through the skies and killed every single enemy it came across with alarming speed.

As per Bai Yunfei’s instructions, Xiao Qi was cleaning up the academy of every single enemy and preventing them from escaping. Every single enemy he met became yet another kill.

The speed in which he was killing them all didn’t even allow anyone from the academy time to process it.

“Headmaster Mo, are you and the others alright?” Bai Yunfei asked once he arrived by his side.

He looked to the ones he knew first. Seeing their healthy and stable conditions had him breathing a sigh of relief; he had been worried about arriving too late. But it seemed his worries were for naught.

“All in thanks to your timely intervention. Our academy would most likely be destroyed as a result of Demon Mask…” Mo Huangkong answered, “Yunfei…” he stared suspiciously at the man in front of him, “have you Ascended?!”

It was hard to believe, to be frank. Mo Huangkong remembered when Bai Yunfei first arrived at the academy. At that time, he had only been a Soul Exalt. If not for that memory, Mo Huangkong would never have made the connection between the past and present Bai Yunfei.

Jiang Fan shot Bai Yunfei a surprised glance as well, “What brings you to the Capital, Yunfei? I heard you ‘took’ our entire school away? Where are they now…?”

He had been in the Capital when the Crafting School was relocated. It put him in a panic at the time when he heard the news on how it was attacked. Had he not heard the results and their victory, Jiang Fan would’ve left the Capital to return a great deal earlier.

“As you might know, senior Jiang, the entire Mt. Crimson is in the Core World. Teacher and the headmaster are both in there as well. Let me bring them out…”

Raising his right hand, Bai Yunfei waved it and tore open a hole in space to allow for a group of people to suddenly pop out from it.

It wasn’t just the two people Bai Yunfei mentioned earlier, there were about a hundred people here!

Shen Pojun, Chu Yintian, Zi Jin, Kou Changkong, Ge Yiyun, Li Chengfeng, Jing Mingfeng, Zheng Kai, Tang Xinyun, and the elders from the Crafting and Fate Schools. Everyone was here.

It deeply alarmed Mo Huangkong to see so many people appear out of thin air, but he was surprised to see a few familiar faces. “Zi Jin! Your strength…you’re back to being a Soul Emperor!?”

“It’s been quite some time, my old friend…” Zi Jin laughed, “Indeed, by the good fortune of my disciple, I’ve managed to regain my strength…”

“Teacher! Headmaster!! Elders!” Jiang Fan bowed at once.

“Ah, yes. Jiang Fan, come greet your predecessors.” Zi Jin smiled.

He introduced him to Shen Pojun, Ge Yiyun, and a few others that made even Mo Huangkong bow from surprise and respect.

……

“All done, Yunfei! There were a few people that ran away though.”

It wasn’t long before Xiao Qi returned to Bai Yunfei’s side. All the intruders of the academy were long gone with a good half of them being killed by Xiao Qi and a smaller portion having successfully fled.

“Good.” Bai Yunfei nodded. “Ancestor, we should head over to the palace and help now, shouldn’t we?”

It wasn’t a very good time to be idling about. There were still all sorts of fights breaking out around the Capital.

“Ah yes, let’s head to the palace.” Shen Pojun’s eyes set themselves onto the palace. Grim-faced, he turned to Zi Jin, “Take the students to the various parts of the Capital. Yunfei and I will deal with the Saints!”

……

All at once, all sorts of light shot up from Tianhun Academy before splitting ways in every direction to aid the war effort for the Capital!