Ye Zifeng closed his eyes, straightened his back and stood there in a very imposing manner. Whether someone is using a soul attack or defending against a soul attack, they would need to keep their soul calm in order to display the full force of the attack or defense.

In reality, only a martial practitioner realm cultivator can use a soul attack or defend against one. As a 4th stage qi refiner, he did not have any way to actually defend against an attack by himself. However, after ingesting the soul binding pill, he was able to somewhat stop soul attacks.

“Come on!” Ye Zifeng muttered. An odd wave of energy suddenly appeared from the formation and a strand of cold soul spirit got closer and closer to Ye Zifeng.

This soul attack was not meant to be a fatal attack. The elders only used enough strength to knock Ye Zifeng off the stairway. Afterall, they didn’t want to take his life and have his father find out about it.

However, not only did Ye Zifeng want to defend against the attack, he wants the attacker to pay the price for attacking him as well.
　　……

“How is it? Did you find Ye Zifeng yet?” Shen Li asked Elder Zhao. To a martial practitioner cultivator, controlling a strand of their soul spirit was not so easy.

If there was someone else on the same level as Ye Zifeng, it’ll be very hard for elder Zhao to attack. It might hurt the other person as well. Elder Shen was worried about someone catching up and was impatient.

“Almost there. I’m very close.” Elder Zhao closed his eyes and moved his soul spirit all around the path of suffering. Other than Ye Zifeng, none of the other people in the stairway noticed this change in their surroundings.

“Be careful. Don’t use too much energy. We can’t have the others discover our tracks.” Shen Li looked around at the other elders and whispered.

“I got it. I know my limits. Stop talking and let me concentrate.”

When a martial practitioner realm cultivator sends out a strand of his soul spirit, they have to calm and be in a quiet environment so they can carefully control it.

“Huh? What the…..? How come my soul spirit can’t move anymore…..????”

Elder Zhao was confused. His face showed a shocked expression.

“Hold on. Maybe it’s because I lost control of it. Let me try to do it again.” Elder Zhao awkwardly smiled and then closed his eyes. In a split second, he sent another strand of his soul spirit into the formation again.

However, after a while, he was shocked at what happened again, “How is this possible? Why isn’t my soul spirit moving at all???”

Shen Li glared at him, “How can it not move? As a martial practitioner realm cultivator, do you not know how to control your soul spirit? Did you not learn how to do it or something?”

“… Your mom didn’t learn how to do it. I’ve spent a few years of my life learning how to control my soul spirit.”

“Then tell me this. If you’re not ass at controlling your soul spirit, then why is it not moving? Why is it that you can’t find Ye Zifeng either?”

Elder Zhao coldly snorted. He was very unhappy with the way Shen Li was talking.

“Fine. If you’re so good then why don’t you try? I’ll maintain the formation for you.”

“Useless thing.” Shen Li cursed inwards. This guy was a martial practitioner and he couldn’t even handle a kid like Ye Zifeng. Does this guy have any shame?

“Fine. I’ll do it. You just sit there and maintain the formation. Don’t let anyone notice that something’s wrong.”

Shen Li took a deep breath and sent a strand of his soul spirit into the formation.

Ye Zifeng’s expression suddenly changed. He had been watching the formation carefully this whole time. He saw that there was another change in the formation. There was someone suppressing the change in the formation but Ye Zifeng was able to easily see through it.

Ye Zifeng began to laugh, “So there’s someone else who wants to mess with me. That’s fine. Send me your soul spirits. I’ll bind them all!”
　　……

“How is it? Did you find Ye Zifeng’s location?” Elder Zhao asked anxiously.

After looking around with his soul spirit, Shen Li suddenly opened his eyes, “I got it! See Elder Zhao. What did i tell you. You still got lots more to work on. Look. I…..”

Suddenly, a shocked expression appeared on Shen Li’s face. He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

Elder Zhao raised his brow and asked, “Elder Shen. Elder Shen. What happened? Why aren’t you talking???”

Shen Li looked over at Elder Zhao with his mouth wide open, “How can this be? When my soul spirit discovered Ye Zifeng, it suddenly stopped moving. That’s not possible…..”

Elder Zhao was shocked, “You too?”

“So you’re saying that this happened to you too? Shen Li was shocked.

The two looked at each other and went into deep thoughts. How can such a thing happen? This was the first time that they had experienced something like this. When they used their soul spirit to attack Ye Zifeng, it suddenly stopped moving.

After thinking about it, Elder Zhao turned to Shen Li and asked, “Elder Shen…. Your Ashen Spirit Sect….. Could your sect’s disciple learn some sort of soul techniques at the qi refining stage?

Shen Li immediately shook his head, “No way. Let’s not talk about my Spirit Ashen Sect for now. Even in the entire Martial Spirit Continent, there aren’t any qi refining stage disciples that can learn soul techniques. I believe that even your Tiandao City doesn’t have a genius like this.

Elder Zhao thought about it again. If the Spirit Ashen Sect have qi refining disciples that can learn soul techniques then they’ll probably be the strongest sect in the world. They don’t even need their disciples to reach the Martial Disciple realm to destroy many of their rival sects and clans.

“Then could it be that Ye Zifeng brought some sort of soul treasure into the stairway?” Elder Zhao thought about it and asked again.

Shen Li shook his head again, “That’s not possible either. We searched every participant before they came into the sect. Only when we were sure that they don’t have any items on them did we let them in.”

Every scenario that Elder Zhao came up with was shut down by Shen Li. The two of them didn’t understand what happened.

“How about we stop thinking about it and attack together?”

Elder Zhao had a very fierce look in his eyes. In his entire life, he had never felt such disgrace. Although a few martial soul experts had made a fool out of him before, that was nothing compared to being made a fool by a qi refining stage kid. Because of this kid, he had lost two strands of his soul spirit.

Shen Li quickly shook his head, “No no no. We can’t. If we both go, there won’t be anyone maintaining the formation on our side. At that time, the others will definitely notice.”

Elder Zhao’s face sank, “Don’t tell me that we have to let Ye Zifeng go? We’re just going to let the Ye clan rise like this and not do anything about it?”

“Did you forget? Beside Ye Zifeng, there are other participants from the Ye clan. How about we take care of those two first?”

Elder Zhao’s eyes lit up, “Agreed. I think that they had a girl who’s at the 8th stage of qi refining.”

“She’s called Ye Xueyi. Ye Zifeng’s sister. We can take care of her first….”

Elder Zhao took a deep breath and nodded, “Fine. But who’s going to take care of it?”

“I’ll do it. I’m not that confident in your skills.” Shen Li sighed.

Shen Li then immediately prepared himself and send another strand of his soul spirit into the formation towards Ye Xueyi.

Elder Zhao’s expression froze. He was getting very angry. This Shen Li was being very disrespectful. However, he had to calm himself down. He needs to maintain the formation so the other won’t find out.

“Fine. You can go do it if you’re so confident. I just hope that it won’t be like last…..” Before Elder Zhao even finished talking to himself, Shen Li suddenly gasped.

“What the fuck……” Shen Li’s face sank. A little blood could be seen seeping out of Shen Li’s mouth.

“How could it be like this….” Elder Zhao was startled. He then immediately went over to Elder Shen and helped him up, covering him from the view of the others.

Ye Xueyi was at the 8th stage of qi refining, with much more qi than Ye Zifeng. After taking the Soul Binding Pill, not only was she able to bind the elder’s soul spirits but she was able to reflect the attack back at them. Shen Li didn’t have his guard up and suffered a large blow.

“How can this be? It’s fine if it happens once. It’s a coincidence if it happens twice but for it to happen three times? What is going on with these juniors from the Ye clan. Could they really use soul techniques?” Shen Li was startled and cursed inwards.

Elder Zhao was startled as well. He knew that Shen Li was very strong, otherwise he wouldn’t be the strongest elder of the sect. They both witnessed something inconceivable.

Of course, if they had actually used their full power to attack the Ye clan juniors, they would definitely succeed. But since they had to hide their presence from the other elders, they had to lower their strength. Ye Zifeng took advantage of that and retaliated.

“It seems like we can’t deal with Ye Zifeng and Ye Xueyi right now. How about we deal with that Ye Huichi first.” Shen Li sighed. Right now, his confidence had plummeted straight into the ground. If he failed to attack Ye Huichi then he would definitely be ashamed of himself.

“Yeah. We have to take at least one of them down….” Elder Zhao sighed as well.
　　……
On the other side, Ye Huichi who finally got rid of the Xiao clan’s barricade reached the 19th level.

“Great. I’ve finally reached the 19th level!”

Right after saying that, he felt a cold energy surround him. The cold energy entered his body and his eyes widened. He suddenly trembled and fell backwards. He started to roll down from the 19th level.

He couldn’t talk at all but in his mind, he’s only been thinking about one thing, “Why…. Why me….”