Chapter 996: The Determination to Fight an Avatar!

“Are you daydreaming?! Do you really think the energy from a Half-emperor would be enough to kill an actual Soul Emperor?! Hurry up and start running!!”

While Bai Yunfei was busy trying to take in the sight in front of him, Xiao Fang was snapping at him to start running away already. Its voice was an urgent one, and Bai Yunfei snapped out of it at once to turn and run!

“Do you…really believe you can get away from me?”

But before he could even make it a hundred steps away, a furious voice stopped him dead in his tracks!

Bai Yunfei’s face dropped several shades of color as he turned his head around. “Go f*ck yourself! Don’t tell me that didn’t do anything!”

A small ball of light had appeared right beside where the black hole was. Melting away, the ball of light revealed Nether and Qin Bangjie—they were unharmed!

Not even the near-instantaneous explosion of a Half-emperor self-destructing was enough to harm a hair on the two!

“This is impossible! Completely and utterly impossible!!”

The tables had turned. The words Bai Yunfei would usually make other people say was now finally being said by him as he tried to calm himself.

With how the black light around Nether’s person was covering him, it was impossible for Bai Yunfei to see if he really was uninjured. But the chilling gleam in Nether’s eyes was multiple times colder than before. 

Nether’s eyes flickered over to where the black hole was. He raised his right hand up before moving it back down as if trying to close it.

Much to Bai Yunfei’s terror, the giant black hole was actually starting to shrink! Nether was actually managing to enforce his will onto it!

And just like that, Nether had managed to close off the black hole! The cracks in space were already starting to fade away now that the source was gone. Somehow, Nether had managed to quell the chaotic influx of energy within the area!

The pupils in Bai Yunfei’s eyes were quivering. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t. A powerful aura was pressing down on him and preventing him from moving!

“What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?!”

Bai Yunfei was terrified beyond his mind. He never felt so terrified as he did now. His mind was racing miles per minute as he tried to think of any kind of plan to escape. It seemed like the only thing he could do was use Berserk Mode to fight for his life...

“Eh? Hold on…this person’s aura is strange!” Xiao Fang’d voice popped up in Bai Yunfei’s mind then. “The aura’s as powerful as ever, but it’s substantially weaker than before. That means the attack just now did something to him, but…I don’t see any signs of his aura recovering!”

“What?” Bai Yunfei blinked. Now that he was thinking about it, he could start to see the differences as well. He wasn’t feeling too happy though. One drop of water was still just a drop. What good was that if Bai Yunfei couldn’t do anything still?

It wasn’t for another while before Xiao Fang spoke again to him. “I’ve got it! This isn’t this person’s real body! This is a body double! Yunfei! This is an avatar!”

“What?!” That caught Bai Yunfei’s attention. His eyes refocused as the words of Xiao Fang took hold of his mind. “An avatar?! You’re saying…he’s not actually here?!”

“Exactly! It has to be!” Xiao Fang replied. “Don’t you see his person? The hazy energy around his person…its like he’s not actually here! This is definitely his avatar! If an avatar is too far away from the actual person, it can’t recover its energy! This avatar is probably at the strength of an Early-stage Soul Emperor then!”

“An Early-stage Soul Emperor…and an avatar!!”

Bai Yunfei’s eyes lit up; this was a piece of information that gave him some hope!

He knew a little about avatar after asking Xiao Fang about Soul Emperor before. It was a technique capable only by a Mid-stage Soul Emperor which allowed for one to separate the soul from the body so the two could independently train. The avatar hadn’t a physical body as it was simply a soul taken shape.

An avatar was the same as having a second person and was able to do several things. But if the avatar were to perish, then the physical body would suffer grievous damage to the soul. It wasn’t a fatal blow, though, and so having an avatar was akin to having a ‘second’ life.\nAvatars lacked a physical body and an actual originseed, so they couldn’t stray too far away from the actual body. They couldn’t replenish their reserves from the ambient energy around them and could only persist on the soulforce granted to them by the true body. The longer an avatar lived on, the less soulforce it would ultimately have.

If this person was an avatar and at the level of an Early-stage Soul Emperor, then maybe…there was a chance he could live!

A spark ignited within Bai Yunfei. Hope was starting to flourish within his mind as he realized what this meant for him. His hands clenched tightly.

“I’ve got to fight!!”

A flurry of soulforce poured out from Bai Yunfei’s body as he began to go through the seals for a certain move. The fireseed within the Cataclysmic Seal was already flying out to enter his body by the time Bai Yunfei’s aura exploded exponentially in power!

Bai Yunfei was overpowering the fear he had for this Soul Emperor with raw determination. He was ready to fight to the death with this man to the best he could offer!

And so the first step was to power up to go from being a Mid-stage Soul King to a Peak Late-stage Soul King!

From ‘Coil’ Form, Bai Yunfei had gone straight into ‘Berserk’ Mode!

His hands continued to form seals after he finished powering up. In response to those seals, strands of fire began to coil around his arms and burn with power behind his back. By the time he was done, the flames were practically covering the entirety of both his arms!

“Haaa!!!”

Grunting out loud, Bai Yunfei punched outwards with both hands to send two gigantic dragons forward! Both dragons contained a trace of violet light in the center along with several specks of gray light.

The Chaotic Dual Dragon Burst!

This was Bai Yunfei’s ultimate attack!

    ……

Several seconds hadn’t even gone by since Xiao Fang warned Bai Yunfei about Nether’s avatar to Bai Yunfei launching his attack. Despite normally needing some time to launch an attack as powerful as this, Bai Yunfei had somehow managed to do so!

“Two fireseeds?! Could this be the Dual Flame Artes?! I saw him powering up twice, this boy lives up to his name…” Nether’s eyes flickered with surprise at what Bai Yunfei was doing.

Then his eyes landed on the Dual Dragon Burst; specifically the gray lights within the two. Right away, his breathing came to a hitch when he identified what they were!

“Chaotic energy?! How is he capable of using that?!”

Nether was quite naturally shocked by what he saw. He had to admit he wasn’t expecting Bai Yunfei being capable of harnessing the power of chaotic energy!

“It’s no wonder Song Qing died by your hand if you have that up your sleeves…it can’t be helped then, you’ll die here!!”

Ultimately, this show of strength was not something Nether felt particularly threatened by. It was a shock, yes, but not so much that he was intimidated by it. A wave of black clouds gathered around him as he harnessed the ambient elemental darkness in the area to his right hand to push it towards Bai Yunfei!

The elemental darkness formed a giant ‘palm’ and flew straight at the Dual Dragon Burst!

This was a soul skill Nether was capable of, the Extinguishing Seal!

Mo Ni used this soul skill on Bai Yunfei once before. It was during their battle within Crushed Stone River. The only difference was that Nether’s usage of it was a thousand times stronger than Mo Ni’s!