Chapter 464: The Crumbling of the Slave Seal and the Self Destruction of the Soulgem!
Chapter 464: The Crumbling of the Slave Seal and the Self Destruction of the Soulgem!
The art of soulbeast puppetry has long since been a secret. An enigma that no outsider had ever learned the intricacies about. Even the students of the Beast Taming School knew only the ways of manipulation and control. They knew not the deeper secrets, and certainly never had they heard about a way to undo said methods.
In other words, it didn’t exist.
That didn’t mean to say there weren’t people that tried. Undoing the slave seals put onto soulbeasts had been studied for ages, but not a single person was able to find a way, human or soulbeast.
There was a reason for this. The slave seal could…not be ‘touched’!
No matter how strong one was, even a Soul King wasn’t able to try and ‘analyze’ the slave seal!
To come into contact with the slave seal meant only one outcome:
The destruction of the slave seal and the death of the soulbeast!
The slave seal had no leeway and had no second chances! Even a class seven soulbeast puppet would have its soulgem blown up if its slave seal unraveled.
Just like the process of self-destruction, if the slave seal unraveled, the destruction was near instantaneous and thorough.
Either way. The amount of soul cultivators that wanted to study the slave seal and the amount of soulbeasts that detonated was immeasurable.
……
Unfortunately for Bai Yunfei, he didn’t know that.
His actions today had inadvertently activated this ‘mechanism’ and plunged the three of them into danger!
Light started to emit from the soulgem inside the thunderfire wolf. Shaking, its entire body started to feel the pressure that came with the unraveling of its slave seal. A terrifying amount of energy was being let loose, and its body was expanding now with the threat of blowing up.
From its perch on the tree, Xiao Qi’s head snapped up in shock. From what it could see, Bai Yunfei had his hand on top of the wolf’s head while purple and red light was shining out from it so that both were submerged inside of it. All of the elemental lightning and fire from the wolf was starting to swirl around the wolf and spasming violently as if threatening to explode.
Inside the wolf’s mindspace, Bai Yunfei’s soulsense was a little far from the soulgem. Seeing what was about to happen, Bai Yunfei felt himself faint and nearly ready to actually do the fainting!
Two options floated into his mind.
Stop it, or run away.
He had to choose quick.
So Bai Yunfei choose to stop it!
If he chose to run away, that’d be the same as abandoning the thunderfire wolf and watch it blow up. It was futile to try and run anyways. The explosion of a peak late-stage class six soulgem would certainly be a force that Bai Yunfei wouldn’t be able to defend himself from.
There was no way of him knowing the soulgem’s explosion was unstoppable, of course. He had never experienced this before, and the self-destruction he experienced with the eagle back in Gaoyi City was a different story. At that time, the eagle’s self-destruction was caused by its beast tamer. But this explosion was a self-destruct defense mechanism implanted in the slave seal and was on a whole new level.
He didn’t have the time to think about that. Biting his teeth, Bai Yunfei urged his soulforce to aid his soulsense into storming the slave seal before it could fully collapse!
He felt elated for a split-moment. As soon as his soulsense entered the slave seal, the crumbling started to slow down a bit!
But it was only by a bit. His soulsense was then dragged into the ‘maelstrom’ and torn apart as the soulgem’s self-destruction regained pace. It couldn’t be fully stopped and would explode in a few more seconds!
“That’s not enough!!”
Snarling, Bai Yunfei pressed soulforce into the Beast Taming Ring around the wolf’s throat this time. Energy started to spill out from it, but the tremors from the wolf only grew worse! In its eyes, a rarely seen light of resistance could be seen, and the soulgem’s self-destruction suddenly dipped in intensity!
“It’s working!!”
Renewed in hope, Bai Yunfei forced even more soulforce into the Beast Taming Ring in an attempt to curb the soulgem’s destruction.
Never had a scene like this ever happened before. No beast tamer was silly enough to try and touch the slave seal in case it self-destructed. Anyone that tried to do so were always from outside the school and were often people that were trying to steal the soulbeast puppet away. But each study would always lead to this same result of self-destruction.
Many would try to stop the process. Those strong enough could reduce the process by a decent amount, but never completely. What they did was merely delay the inevitable.
But Bai Yunfei was special in that he was using the Beast Taming Ring to fully control the thunderfire wolf! Beast tamers used the slave seal to command the soulbeast, but Bai Yunfei didn’t need to! Perhaps the slave seal wouldn’t be stopped, but the soulgem stood a chance of surviving!
A case of extraordinary circumstances, that was what this was. The destruction of the slave seal and soulgem happens at the same time and normally couldn’t be stopped.
….The situation with the flash eagle back in Gaoyi City was a different matter.
Even if the headmaster of the Beast Taming School were to come, even he’d be unable to prevent the wolf from self-destructing, and neither would he believe it possible.
While useful, the Beast Taming Ring wasn’t able to fully contain and remove the danger!
Bai Yunfei’s mind and soul was completely dedicated to controlling the Beast Taming Ring. Through that as a medium, his soulforce was able to crawl into the wolf’s mindspace to contest over the soulgem with another energy. One side was ordering it to explode, the other side was ordering it to stop.
But the self-destructing process was only getting stronger and stronger. In time, the power would overwhelm the Beast Taming Ring and lead to the wolf’s self-destruction!
Nerves reheightened with the danger, Bai Yunfei poured even more soulforce into the ring, his forehead slick with sweat.
From the side, the hurried chirping of a bird could be heard in his ears. In the wolf’s mindspace, the sudden intrusion of another party of soulforce made itself known! Pausing briefly when it felt what was going on, it immediately started to pour its energy into the Beast Taming Ring to stop the self-destruction sequence as well!
It was Xiao Qi!
Like a god descending upon the earth, Xiao Qi’s arrival had brought wonders to the situation! The trembles in the wolf’s body was already lessening by a substantial margin, and the soulgem suddenly halted!
In a flash, the situation had come to a pause. For several short minutes, the crumbling slave seal could be ‘seen’. Though incomplete, it was visible for Bai Yunfei to look at.
Then the soulgem started to shake again as elemental fire and lightning splashed about. Whether it was his soul or body, Bai Yunfei felt the two energies slam into his mindspace like a piece of driftwood accosted by a storm.
He wouldn’t be able to continue if this lasted any longer! As long as the elemental energy around him subsided, he could continue to force the soulgem to halt its self-destruction!
“Damn damnit damnit!” Bai Yunfei cursed up a storm. His eyes were bloodshot from fear and exertion, but determination was clearly visible in them!
“Try and flood me out, I’ll just suck it all up!”
“Bang!”
A layer of fire appeared around Bai Yunfei’s body. Churling wildly, it took in the near-endless stream of elemental fire and took it into his own body!
But the thunderfire wolf wasn’t capable of only emitting elemental fire. It had another element, and that one was throwing chaos into the mixture!
As he sucked up the elemental fire, his layer of fire was also taking in the elemental lightning!