The giant flame lance was like a python with how it streaked through the skies. Powered by the might of a Soul Emperor, the lance shot straight for Dongfang Ming to strike him dead.

But Dongfang Ming only seemed to laugh even harder at Hu Yang’s fury. He seemed as though he was the only one in the world at the moment with how unrestrained his laughter was. His laughter never stopped even as the lance approached him. Instead, he simply stooped over with his arms against his chest before forcing a wave of dark-red light out from himself!

There was a gleam of light from his right arm. It was hardly noticeable, but anyone with sharp enough eyes would be able to tell it was a soul armament.

“Boom!!!”

The lance flew at Dongfang Ming’s outstretched right arm. Like a ‘serpent’, the lance began to coil and wriggle as it prepared to make contact with his palm!

“……”

It was shocking to say the least with how Dongfang Ming was simply allowing this attack to hit himself!

Hu Yang’s soul armament was the strongest one he had. It wasn’t quite at the level of a lifebound armament, but it was definitely a soulbound armament with at least ninety percent soul compatibility with him. And after Bai Yunfei upgraded the weapon, the soul armament was even stronger than ever.

But…even with all its strength, it was unable to penetrate the glove Dongfang Ming wore!

“What!!”

Hu Yang let out a surprised gasp as he processed what had just happened, “No!!”

He waved his hand back to recall the soul armament, but he was a moment too late. Before the soul armament could even begin to start its way back, Dongfang Ming’s fingers grabbed hold of the soul armament!

“Shing….”

The body of the lance trembled violently as if attempting to escape Dongfang Ming’s grasp, but his grip was far too strong. Like iron bars, Dongfang Ming’s fingers held onto the lance and prevented the soulbound armament from returning to its owner.

Dongfang Ming sneered cruelly at the successful capture of an enemy soul armament. Lifting it up, he began to inspect the lance before grabbing hold of its shaft.

“Bzz…”

A faint hum rose out from the spear as if it was afraid of Dongfang Ming’s touch. Eyes wide open, Hu Yang watched with extreme anxiety as Dongfang Ming lifted the weapon.

Dongfang Ming hadn’t any glove-like soul armament on his left hand, but he did have a strange dark-red light shining forth from his palm. It spread around the lance the moment he touched the two together at an alarming rate. As if its energy was being sapped away from it, the vibrations of the lance slowly calmed while its ‘cries’ grew louder.

“Crack…”

One brief moment later, a loud crack could be heard from the lance. Dongfang Ming had taken the soul armament in both hands and then….snapped it in half as if it was a long tree branch! This wasn’t just any soul armament, it was a high-heaven tier soul armament Bai Yunfei upgraded!!

“Pfttt!!”

A large volume of blood began to be expelled from Hu Yang’s mouth—the destruction of his soul armament meant damage to his soul!

Anyone with over fifty percent soul compatibility with their soulbound armament would feel the same effects in the same situation. And the higher the compatibility, the worse the impact on the soul cultivator when the soulbound armament was destroyed.

This particular soul armament was something Hu Yang left an imprint on as a Soul Emperor, meaning the destruction of the soul armament would do even more damage to him. In one single moment, Hu Yang had lost his soul armament and also a great chunk of his already exhausted soulforce reserves. It was too large of a shock to Hu Yang and nearly caused him to plummet to the ground.

“Impossible!!”

This time, it wasn’t just the Crafting School that was shocked. Huo Zhenting, Qi Ning, the Wind Lightning School, and even the Soul Refining School, they were all equally surprised and looked to Dongfang Ming with fear.

It wasn’t just the fact that Dongfang Ming destroyed Hu Yang’s powerful soul armament. It was the fact that he did it so easily!

They were both Early-stage Soul Emperors, but it was Hu Yang who was so readily defeated!

“How did he do that?!”

It was the question of the century. Huo Zhenting and the others were completely shocked. Dongfang Ming’s strength was definitely beyond what he expected. An unprecedented level of uncertainty and fear spread across the crafters. Their shock was far greater than what Huo Zhenting had. Not even Zi Jin or Yang Yao knew how Dongfang Ming was able to pull that off.

Tossing aside the broken pieces of the lance, Dongfang Ming looked at the light glowing from his left hand with extreme pleasure.

Then his head snapped back to the crafters. The killing intent was back in his eyes again. A dark-red bolt of light shot out from his hand and transformed into a segmented whip to strike at the injured Hu Yang!

Tensions were high now that Dongfang Ming was on the attack. Yang Yao was the first to take action and roared out loud to leap to ward off the incoming streak of light from hitting Hu Yang.

“Clang!!”

His soul armament slammed into the red whip. It managed to deflect the light into four different directions similar to how a droplet of water would scatter everywhere once it hit the floor. And yet, Yang Yao’s golden soul armament was still in one piece.

It was Dongfang Ming who was on the losing side of that clash, but nothing changed in the grand scheme of things. Once he saw that his attack failed to strike his intended target, Dongfang Ming held his hand up to recall the whip back to him.

Almost as if it was alive, the whip wrapped around the longsword of Yang Yao and drew back to Dongfang Ming. Most of the whip retreated into his robes while the part with the longsword was taken into Dongfang Ming’s palm!

“Clang!!”

There was a loud echo as the longsword slammed against Dongfang Ming’s hand. Instead of cutting through his palm as most expected, the sword was simply rendered harmless like the lance before it!

“Impossible!!”

Yang Yao exclaimed. When the soul armament drew close to Dongfang Ming,Yang Yao felt a strange energy of some kind weaken his weapon’s attack power to almost two-thirds of its normal strength!

He also felt his connection with his soul armament weaken. Somehow, his compatibility with his own soul armament had dropped by ten percent!

Frightened by what was going on, Yang Yao summoned his soulforce to him. The soul armament began to wrestle against Dongfang Ming’s grip while all sorts of elemental fire gathered in the air. Like miniature suns, they shined brightly before transforming into hundreds of sharp swords to stab at Dongfang Ming!

Yang Yao was fighting with a level of vigor he didn’t even use before against Huo Zhenting. The Law of Fire was coming out in full force in order to strike down Dongfang Ming with as much power as he could muster.

This was an attack Huo Zhenting would rather dodge than defend against. But Dongfang Ming….only held his head up to look at the attacks around him. Everyone watched with bated breaths as he covered himself in red light and shot higher up into the sky!

Was…was he planning to endure such an attack?!