Since elder Jin and another ten Soul Kings left with Bai Yunfei to aid the Water School, that left roughly thirty Soul Kings back in the Crafting School to deal with this invasion. Despite having only half the numbers of their enemies, the Crafting School was clearly the dominating side of the war!

Every crafter was met with an attack or two and yet not a single one of them was even hit! They simply smashed straight through the attacks to continue onward toward their enemies!

Among those Soul Kings was the Peak Late-stage Soul King, Kou Changkong. With his pale-white flamesword in hand, he cleaved through any obstruction in his path to fly toward a Half-emperor of the Wind Lightning School!

Not even the students like Song Lin or Li Tiechui were content fighting just one enemy. They were fighting two, some even fighting three, with fearless ferocity!

Soon, there was a giant battle taking place kilometers away from the barrier protecting the Crafting School!

Huo Zhenting and Qi Ning were taking part in the battle now too. Fighting with impressive vigor, those two were currently embroiled in a battle with Yang Yao, Hu Yang, and Yang Ying.

Seconds passed before the space beside Qi Ning began to warp in on itself. Soon, a black cloud fog began to disseminate before revealing a black-robed elder inside of it.

“An Early-stage Soul Emperor from the Soul Refining School!”

Yang Yao and the other two Soul Emperors grew alert at once. The appearance of this Soul Emperor meant both sides were now equal in numbers and strength. Was it a coincidence? Or was the enemy doing this on purpose?

“It’s possible there’s still more Soul Emperors hidden, be careful as you fight!”

Yang Yao warned the other two via soul communication. Exploding with energy, he shot toward Huo Zhenting to attack!

A half-step later, Hu Yang and Yang Ying flew with him!

The three flew in formation as if planned. In response, Huo Zhenting and the other two flew in the opposite direction to gain some distance between one another.

It was rare to see attacks done in formation like this. Generally speaking, only soul cultivators with a soulbeast partner would do such a thing. Most battles were fought one-on-one.

But it was common knowledge that fighting a crafter one-on-one wouldn’t normally end well for the opponent. Why did they have the confidence to split themselves up then?

The answer would be revealed very soon…

It wasn’t until Yang Yao and Huo Zhenting were a few kilometers in the air and ready to truly start the battle when…

“Boom!!”

There was a world-deafening crack of thunder as the dark clouds above began to rumble, as if it was being disturbed by an extremely powerful figure. Then from the clouds, a giant figure shot out from it to swipe at Yang Yao!!

“What?!”

Yang Yao was justifiably alarmed at this sudden event. He hadn’t sensed anyone hiding within the clouds at all!

“Hah!!”

Having a giant black figure reach out for him was surprising, but not so surprising that he’d let it take him. Shouting out loud, Yang Yao exploded with red light. The light coiled like fire in tremendous amounts before taking on the form of a giant fire deity. Raising both arms up, the deity grabbed hold of the incoming black figure.

“Boom!!”

There was a giant explosion as the two met. But the one to come out on top was the black figure! It had simply destroyed the fire deity and turned it into wisps of light!

“Ugh!” Yang Yao paled upon seeing his attack disappear. He could see what had attacked the fire deity—a giant gray claw about several dozen meters in length! And judging from its shape…this was the claw of a dragon!

The claw didn’t stop after hitting the fire deity either. Whistling through the air, the claw continued downward onto Yang Yao!

Waving his hand, Yang Yao summoned a brilliant golden longsword to his hand. Grabbing hold of it, he crouched low and sent a swift sword stroke upward!

“Clang!!” A brilliant stroke of elemental fire and metal traveled upward from the sword’s blade. Melding together, this sword stroke flew on to strike the claw!

“Pcht!!”

The two forces struck at once. Everyone could hear the sound of flesh being cut…Yang Yao’s attack had cut into flesh!

It was at this moment Yang Yao’s eyes widened once again in disbelief!

He could sense something was off. The ‘enemy’ didn’t even bother to evade or block his attack, they simply allowed it to cut through the dragon’s claw!

A portion of the claw was successfully separated from the main body and fell away, but the claw was…still traveling down to smash Yang Yao!

This action defied the common sense Yang Yao was aware with. Caught so off-guard by this strange behavior, he could only lift his sword into a defensive position before enwrapping himself in a bubble of elemental energy.

“Bang!!”

Like a cannon ball, Yang Yao was sent flying several hundred meters before he could steady himself. The bubble of energy around him had collapsed upon collision, revealing Yang Yao with his left hand dangling uselessly and his right hand trembling greatly! Blood was even spilling from his mouth in a healthy amount!

He was wounded…and greatly too!

“Crack…Crack…”

The dragon claw he struck fell to the ground at that time, but at that same time, a pungent liquid began to sprinkle down from the clouds!

“A soulbeast puppet!”

Yang Yao declared. He finally realized what it was that had ‘ambushed’ him, and why it didn’t have any energy!

It was a giant pitch-dark and rotten soulbeast!

Its shape resembled that of a giant lizard or dragon from the west, a shape that was drastically different from the form of the Black Dragon King. But its size was…terrifyingly huge!

The most terrifying aspect of this dragonic soulbeast was the fact that it didn’t have any ‘vitality’ to it. Shriveled in flesh, this soulbeast had plenty of holes and scars running throughout its rotten body…it was as if this was a corpse rather than a still-living soulbeast!

Yang Yao declared this to be a soulbeast puppet, but even those had to be alive still in order to function. This soulbeast standing right in front of him was clearly…not alive!

To his shock, Yang Yao noticed that there was a small sign of ‘life’ within the head of this giant dragon!

The clouds above the rotten dragon began to split apart at the same time Yang Yao was staring. Standing right there on top of the dragon’s head was a single person…

An eerily terrifying voice began to speak out across the lands:

“Kekeke...the Crafting School and its members will…die!!”