Master of Nine Stars

He didn’t know how much time had passed. It could have been an hour or three hours, a day or three days... Rong Taotao heard a choked, crying voice. ”Kill me, Rong Taotao, I’m... I’m begging you. No... no more... please... kill me!”

”Shhh... shhh!” Gao Lingwei clapped a hand over Ying Jie’s mouth to silence him, the blade in her other hand stabbing forward once more...

No matter how much time Rong Taotao and Ying Jie spent in the world of Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon, in the real world, the person standing outside the east window of the old bungalow went limp in an instant and collapsed backward.

”Taotao?” Gao Lingwei’s reflexes were sharp, and she quickly caught his falling body.

At almost the same moment, the window on the north side of the bungalow shattered violently!

Yin Hu—Chen Bingxun—dove headfirst through it.

BOOM!

With a deafening roar, immense Soul Power erupted. But it didn’t come from Yin Hu’s attack. It came from... Ying Jie, who was clutching his head with both hands, his face twisted and streaming with tears!

Ying Jie’s Soul Power erupted from his body in a massive detonation, and the source of the blast seemed to be the Soul Pearls at his ankles.

’Blast Pearls?’

”AHHHHHH!” Ying Jie’s crazed, weeping shriek echoed through the night sky, his face contorted, a messy smear of snot and tears.

Yin Hu was instantly thrown back by the shockwave, but he executed a nimble flip in mid-air, landed a foot on the ceiling, and then shot down again. With his hands shaped into tiger claws, he lunged like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey.

Though his mind was in chaos and he was on the verge of madness, Ying Jie’s survival instinct was astounding. He stomped on the floor, and in an instant, his entire body transformed into three long, snow-white snakes that slithered into the cracks of the shattered floor tiles.

’A man?’

’Turning into snakes?’

’What kind of Fusion Skill between a Soul Martial Artist and their Lifebound Soul Beast is this?’

”Get out here!” Yin Hu roared, but his actions were faster than his words. He had already kicked off the ceiling and was diving down at an angle!

His steel-like tiger claws tore through the floor tiles, and he yanked out all three snow snakes, hoisting them into the air.

Yin Hu’s incredibly powerful hands looked as if they were about to crush the snakes completely!

”Huuu...” Unable to bear the pain, one of the snow snakes instantly reverted to human form.

Instantly, Yin Hu’s grip was forced wide open. He had been grabbing the snow snake’s tail, but now he was clutching Ying Jie’s lower leg.

Even as the snake in his hand transformed into a man, Yin Hu’s hand shouldn’t have been forced to expand. The problem was, during the transformation, Ying Jie had activated his Iron Snow Armor!

As the highly defensive Frost Snow Armor expanded, it created the scene before them.

Ying Jie was truly worthy of his title as one of the Eight Great Coins specializing in close-quarters combat. Even with his mind severely traumatized, his instinctive reactions in a life-or-death situation were still incredibly formidable!

’So, this is the caliber expected of a Middle Soul School?’

Rong Taotao was slow to realize many things. The last time he led the teachers on a hunt for Mi Tu, Feng Zi, and the Red-clothed Merchant, the mission had gone so smoothly that it seemed to have given him the wrong impression—that the Eight Great Coins were nothing special.

’But looking at the situation now... was any expert who reached this level ever simple?’

’When you got down to it, just how insane was Li Lie’s damage output when he struck first last time? To be able to blast three of their top members in a single exchange, leaving them routed and severely injured?’

Just then, the groggy Rong Taotao heard a familiar word.

It came from Yin Hu’s tiger-like roar: ”Fight!”

’Fight?’

Normal Battle Cries were usually just guttural noises, things like ”Hyaa!” or ”Uraagh!” It was uncommon to hear a single, distinct word like ”Fight!”

But Rong Taotao was quite familiar with that word, because for a time, Gao Lingwei had possessed a special Soul Skill.

The Snow Prison Arena!

’Holy shit!!!’

’No wonder Fu Tiance assigned Yin Hu to this mission! This guy, Yin Hu—Chen Bingxun—is also a master of devastating Spiritual Soul Skills?!’

’The last time we were on a mission with Yin Hu, hunting Cold Flower and two teams of Poachers, Chen Bingxun had communicated with me telepathically. Back then, he must have been using a Telepathy-type Soul Skill.’

’But now he’s swapped it for the Snow Prison Arena?’

’Did he prepare this specifically for Ying Jie?’

Rong Taotao forced his eyes open. Inside the chaotic bungalow, two figures were momentarily frozen in place.

The next moment, Ying Jie’s body remained rigid, but Yin Hu moved. He grabbed Ying Jie by the neck and slammed him violently against the wall!

THWACK!

The back of his head hit the wall, but Ying Jie’s Frost Snow Armor was still active. Instead of him being injured, it was the interior wall that shattered.

Outside the east window, Gao Lingwei supported Rong Taotao, holding him tightly in her arms as she kicked and shattered the window in front of her.

In the world of Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon, this east window had been broken long ago, but in reality, it had been perfectly intact.

”Hold him still!” Gao Lingwei suddenly cried out.

Without a second thought, Yin Hu hoisted Ying Jie into the air.

”Wooooo~!” A shrill, ghostly wail erupted as a red Patterned Mask shot toward Ying Jie.

And behind that red Patterned Mask lurked a Snow Grudge Spirit with a venomous gaze!

Gao Lingwei, wearing the Frost Fearful Face, sent one illusory, linear mask after another—one every few seconds—smashing and piercing into Ying Jie’s mind...

No one knew what Yin Hu and Ying Jie had experienced inside the Snow Prison Arena. But after several impacts from Gao Lingwei’s masks, Ying Jie’s body went limp, and the layer of frost and snow covering him finally shattered.

A multi-pronged spiritual assault: Wind, Flower, Snow, and Moon; Frost Fearful Face; Snow Grudge Spirit; and the Snow Prison Arena...