Xie Xie and the others dared not make a sound.
They were terrified of drawing attention.
When gods clash, mortals suffer.
Either Na'er or Gu Yue alone could wipe the floor with any of them.
Arthur had already quietly slipped to the back of the group without anyone noticing.
When two women are fighting over you, don't even think about trying to mediate, because taking either side will only make things worse. The best move is to run. Just run. If you're not there, they have no reason to keep arguing.
His Skyshatter Eagle soul spirit materialized in an instant, snatched him up, and carried him away. He left behind a single instruction: "Gu Yue, look after everyone. If anything dangerous comes up, let me know."
In this forest, Gu Yue was not only strong in her own right, she could also contact Arthur through the elements at any moment. With her watching over the group, Arthur felt at ease.
"Wait for me!"
Seeing this, Na'er dropped her argument with Gu Yue immediately, and went crashing headlong into the dense forest, barreling in the direction Arthur had gone.
The little devil had descended upon the soul beast forest once again.
Na'er charged ahead at full speed. Trees in her path were knocked flat, beasts were sent flying.
The rest of the group exchanged glances.
Gu Yue could only sigh helplessly. Na'er was an absolute embarrassment to the Silver Dragon King name.
Not far away, two figures looked up involuntarily: one male, one female, one older, one young.
The male was a young man of about seventeen or eighteen, two yellow rings and one purple ring orbiting him, marking him as a Spirit Elder.
He carried a snow-white staff with a blue crystal set into its tip, a dense yellow halo of spirit power radiating from his body. He was scanning the surroundings with vigilance. A Spirit Ascension Platform in the frenzy period was genuinely dangerous, every step a potential trap.
Behind him trailed a little girl of about nine, her light-blue hair tied in small braids, her features exquisitely beautiful.
She held a matching miniature ice staff and bore only a single yellow ring.
Her adorable face was etched with fright as she stared at the massive bird that had flashed across the sky in the distance. Her lips parted slightly, her voice trembling: "Brother... what... what was that thing?"
She had reassured herself before entering that as long as her brother was with her, nothing could go wrong.
But now that she was actually inside, she couldn't help being scared.
"Just some soul master with a death wish," Xu Xiaoyu replied dismissively. The platform's cap was Spirit Elder, so as far as he was concerned, that was simply a soul master with a flying soul skill.
To not only avoid concealing yourself on a frenzied Spirit Ascension Platform, but to actively expose yourself in open sky for every soul beast and soul master below to see, was no different from asking to die.
"Oh." Xu Xiaoyan blinked, not entirely sure what to make of it. So it was just another soul master? Now that she thought about it, there did seem to be a human figure dangling beneath that giant bird.
Today, the soul beasts of the entry-level Spirit Ascension Platform had met their reckoning.
From up high, everything was visible.
After locking onto every soul beast in sight, Arthur said nothing and simply unleashed a continuous barrage of Invisible Air Hammers.
The Skyshatter Eagle beat its wings, hovering in place above the cloud layer.
Arthur gripped Excalibur and stood upon the high sky.
Soul power surged around him like a flooding river.
With each sweep of his hand, Invisible Air Hammers tore shrieking through the air and plummeted earthward like meteors. At the same time, Excalibur hummed, its sharp sword energy slashing out in crisscrossing arcs, weaving together with the howling wind hammers to form a lethal net of destruction.
Wherever the wind hammers landed, century-old soul beasts were pulverized into pulp on impact, their spirit power exploding outward in great bursts.
Where the sword energy passed, the hardened scales of thousand-year soul beasts crumbled like paper, sliced apart with ease, their massive bodies splitting open as tremendous spirit power came gushing forth.
Viewed from above, the ground was a tapestry of wind and blade, punctuated by the constant percussion of shockwave blasts and the dying cries of soul beasts.
What had been a teeming, swarming mass of creatures was now collapsing in swathes, spirit power blooming up through the trees like a spreading sea of violet flowers.
"I'm here! Brother, wait for me!"
Na'er's figure burst out of the dense undergrowth, spirit power surging beneath her feet as she hurtled forward like a torrent.
The towering golden dragon projection behind her demolished everything in her path without exception: trees, soul beasts, it made no difference. Anything that came too close was torn apart by the phantom looming in her wake.
Arthur glanced down at Na'er rushing to catch up, and had the Skyshatter Eagle ease off its speed, though his attacks never let up for a moment.
The Invisible Air Hammers and sword energy worked in tandem, alternating between the hammer's wide sweeping strikes that stunned entire groups of soul beasts, and the sword energy's precise, targeted cuts that hunted down fleeing higher-tier soul beasts, with far greater efficiency than either technique could achieve alone.
The spirit power released from century-old and thousand-year soul beasts was middling in quality, but what quality lacked, quantity could compensate.
His immense Spiritual Power radiated outward in all directions, blanketing everything within range.
Drawn by its pull, spirit power from every direction came surging frantically toward him, forming a vortex of energy that was nearly visible to the naked eye.
The Skyshatter Eagle drank it in greedily, its aura climbing at a rate one could see with the naked eye.
Meanwhile, in the depths of the forest, Xu Xiaoyu and his little sister, who had only just managed to find their way over, were scared out of their wits.
They crouched behind a large boulder, watching helplessly as that solitary silhouette of a boy stood in the high sky like a deity looking down from above.
The vortex of spirit power rising from the ground toward the heavens swallowed up nearly half the visible sky, and the sheer pressure of it made even breathing feel laborious for Xu Xiaoyu.
"Brother, he... who on earth is he...?"
Xu Xiaoyan clutched the hem of Xu Xiaoyu's clothes with both hands, her voice shaking uncontrollably, her adorable little face drained of all color.
"Brother, can we please leave...?"
She had never seen a soul master this terrifying in her life. That sky full of roaring wind and slashing sword energy was unlike anything she had ever witnessed.
If any of that hit them, they'd be scattered in pieces.
Xu Xiaoyu's face had gone ashen. His throat bobbed up and down several times before he finally managed to force out the words: "Doesn't this place only allow three-ring soul masters?"
With that kind of power making the heavens and earth change color, you're telling me this is a three-ring soul master?
Is my own three-ring cultivation fake?!
Every trace of his earlier arrogance had long since evaporated, replaced entirely by deep, bone-cold fear.
He grabbed Xu Xiaoyan's hand and fled as far away as his legs would carry him.
That attack was too terrifying. The range was too vast.
If they got caught in the blast radius even by accident...
Xu Xiaoyu was confident they would die instantly. Without even a sound.
Deeper in the forest, Tang Wulin and the others were picking their way forward with careful, measured steps.
Then all at once, the dense chain of shockwave blasts and soul power fluctuations rolling in from ahead made every one of them stop in their tracks.
The earth-shaking commotion rooted them to the spot.
"That has to be Arthur, right?" Xie Xie's eyes lit up. He stood on tiptoe, craning to see toward the source of the sound.
Dense thickets of trees blocked most of the view, but the overwhelming pressure that shook heaven and earth carried across the distance all the same, and left him clicking his tongue in disbelief.
"Good lord, did Arthur just sweep up every soul beast in the whole forest in one go?" Wang Jinxi swallowed, his face a mask of amazement. "This is insane. No wonder Teacher Wu has always had a different eye for Arthur. So this is what Arthur looks like going all out. This is horrifying."
Zhang Yangzi rubbed his hands together, his face bright with barely contained excitement: "This is why having Arthur around makes all the difference. Once he's done, we can all ride his coattails straight for thousand-year soul rings!"
"Just thinking about it gets me fired up. After this, I'll be someone with a thousand-year ring too!" He spoke and gestured at the same time, as if he could already picture his soul ring upgrading before his very eyes.
Tang Wulin looked toward the direction of the sound, and a glimmer of longing and resolve flickered through his eyes: "Arthur's strength is staggering. That's exactly why we need to push ourselves harder, not keep leaning on him."
He tightened his grip on the blue silver grass: "While Arthur has drawn most of the attention, let's go find some suitable soul beasts of our own to train against and build up some spirit power."
(Author's Note: The "modified combat power" I mentioned is about raising the ceiling of what's expressible in action. Setting aside battle armor, Arthur right now is at roughly the level of one-shotting Spirit Kings and holding even against Spirit Sages. That's the kind of presence a Spirit Sage conveys. Once he reaches the Spirit Saint level, the expressible power will undergo another qualitative leap. But none of this changes the protagonist's cross-tier fighting ability: however many levels above he's supposed to be able to fight, that stays exactly the same.)