A lot had happened in the last few minutes. Bai Yunfei shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind. It was time for him to think about what to do next.

“The Half-emperor was most likely lying about telling me the way to get out of the Lost Swamp. It’s going to be troublesome getting out myself…”

Bai Yunfei was quite annoyed, truth be told. A lot of work had been done on his part in order to escape the Soul Refining School and yet a new problem was popping up. How was he going to get out of this place now?

“The Lost Swamp is said to be extremely large…larger than Black Cloud Valley at least. It’s probably a given that the Soul Refining School will be located at the heart of the swamp too. I don’t even have the slightest of a clue on how to navigate this place, what should I do?”

He scratched his head. “Xiao Fang, have you ever come to the Lost Swamp before?”

Given Xiao Fang’s existence as a spirit as old as several millennia, Bai Yunfei figured that Xiao Fang would surely know a bit about the continent during its travels with Wu Tianhun. Perhaps the Lost Swamp would be one of those locations Xiao Fang traveled to?

But unfortunately for him… 

“Nope. The only one of the three danger zones I’ve seen was Dragon’s Descent Mountains. I don’t know of the other two.”

The Tianhun Continent had three danger zones: a mountain, a valley, and a swamp. Dragon’s Descent Mountain, Black Cloud Valley, and the Lost Swamp. The one place Xiao Fang had traveled to was, in fact, the only other place Bai Yunfei hadn’t been.

“Ugh…well, in that case, we can only try taking this one step at a time…” Bai Yunfei bitterly shook his head. “I should at least be able to travel in a general direction if I follow Xiao Qi’s trace. Maybe I’ll find the way out…”

It was the only plan he had. Bai Yunfei saw a rough outline of the Lost Swamp when he was Soul Scanning the Early-stage Soul King he fought some time ago, but that had only been a ‘crude’ outline of the terrain and of not much help to him. 

“I should’ve grabbed a few soul refiners on my way out. The Soul Exalts should at the very least had some information I could use, d.a.m.n…”

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and Bai Yunfei was feeling the full weight of his regret now that he was here in this situation. 

Standing up, Bai Yunfei prepared himself to step out of the Core World and begin his adventure to escape the swamp.

“Oh—nearly forgot about this...”

His eyes wandered over to the airs.p.a.ce above a certain mountain where the King Caging Bell was. 

Waving his hand, Bai Yunfei watched as the King Caging Bell shrunk in size from being large enough to trap an adult to being a miniature bell that could be held with two fingers.

He closed his eyes and allowed his soulforce to flow into the bell. He was scanning every inch of it as if looking for something… 

What he was looking for was the destroyed imprint of the original owner of the King Caging Bell.

He didn’t fully clear away Qin Bangjie’s soul imprint on the King Caging Bell due to the mess he was in. Not cleaning up the remnants wouldn’t be a problem, but if left alone it’d certainly build up to a problem whenever he used the King Caging Bell. For the sake of safety, it was best to do it now.

“Eh? It’s all gathered here?!”

Several moments pa.s.sed before Bai Yunfei let out a startled gasp. A small corner of the King Caging Bell had actually traces of Qin Bangjie’s soul imprint. The fact that a trace could be found here wasn’t what surprised Bai Yunfei. It was the fact that all of the remaining traces were gathered here!

The traces hadn’t the sensation of trying to wrestle control of the King Caging Bell away from Bai Yunfei. The traces shouldn’t have enough strength for that. So why were all of the traces gathered here then?

This was a conundrum Bai Yunfei hadn’t the foggiest of. He shrugged. Delving into the fragments, Bai Yunfei prepared himself to start the cleaning up process.

“Bzzz….”

A light suddenly started to s.h.i.+ne from the bell the moment Bai Yunfei’s soulsense traveled into the traces. The entirety of the bell turned red as the metal began to heat up to a temperature Bai Yunfei wasn’t prepared for. At the same time when he dropped the bell, Bai Yunfei noticed that something within the traces was starting to pulsate!!

For some reason, Bai Yunfei could hear howls of anger coming from the traces. Somehow…the traces within the King Caging Bell were…sending out a signal of some kind!

“Crack…”

The pulses of soulforce died out two seconds later. It was followed by a crack as the traces crumpled and died away completely this time.

The King Caging Bell was now truly Bai Yunfei’s soulbound armament. Qin Bangjie would never be able to use it now—unless Bai Yunfei was dead and his imprint was destroyed.

But Bai Yunfei didn’t look happy. 

His eyes were wide-open in fact. He was looking panicked!

“c.r.a.p!!!”

Letting out a curse, Bai Yunfei immediately disappeared from the Core World to get outside!

He reappeared in a strange forest within the Lost Swamp. Sweeping up the Core Stone, Bai Yunfei began the preparations to use the Core Stone and teleport away from this place!

“Do you really think…you can run away?”

A voice spoke to Bai Yunfei then, causing him to pale drastically. It was a voice that spoke directly to his mind rather than to his ears!

“Bzz…”

Ripples started to appear all around the air where Bai Yunfei was. As the ripples grew, the white mist that obscured the swamps around Bai Yunfei began to recede away!

The air within five kilometers of Bai Yunfei was clearing up! And what"s more…Bai Yunfei saw a series of spatial barriers go up at the perimeter—he was trapped!

Horrified at being discovered, Bai Yunfei snapped his head up at the sky. Standing high up in the sky were two figures!

The person on the left had a haggard expression on his face and was quite weak in aura. He was clearly quite wounded. The robes to his left were flapping with the wind meaning that there was no physical object there in place to prevent the robes from being affected by the wind. The person had a malevolent expression on his face as he glared at Bai Yunfei. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to rip Bai Yunfei’s body apart limb from limb.

This person was the one Bai Yunfei had severed the arm of and stolen the King Caging Bell from…Qin Bangjie from the Soul Refining School!

It was obvious why he was here. The remnants of his soul imprint within the King Caging Bell was connected to him! Somehow, he managed to set up a connection between his soul imprint and him to alert him of Bai Yunfei’s location! And somehow…he was able to reach Bai Yunfei within seconds of being alerted!

Bai Yunfei’s eyes weren’t focused on him, however. He was staring at the person on the right.

This person was entirely cloaked in a shroud of black light so that his appearance couldn’t be seen clearly. Bai Yunfei couldn’t even see his silhouette. 

For some reason, Bai Yunfei felt like this person wasn’t ‘really’ there, but the light radiating from the person’s eyes was chilling enough to send s.h.i.+vers up his spine. He didn’t dare look at the man directly.

The amount of power coming from this person was enough to make everything within five kilometers submit to his presence. Not even Bai Yunfei was spared from the thought of prostrating himself to this person!

This person was none other but Mo Ni’s father and headmaster of the Soul Refining School…Nether!!