From the moment the black-robed man appeared, Li Ban pegged his strength as a 4th Tier or 5th Tier Spirit Practitioner.
But seeing Cat Girl dangling in midair, lifted by the scruff of her neck without the slightest ability to resist—like a literal stray cat—Li Ban knew he could throw 4th Tier and 5th Tier right out the window.
Aside from the bandages wrapped around her arm, Cat Girl showed no other signs of injury.
Her complexion was awful, though. It was likely her internal injuries acting up again.
Li Ban firmly believed that even if her internal injuries were flaring up, as long as she hadn't passed out from the pain, she would never just let herself fall into enemy hands.
So what exactly had the black-robed man used to trap Little Cat?
Just as Li Ban was analyzing the gap in their strength, the man suddenly looked his way.
His gaze swept over without a single ounce of hesitation, locking perfectly onto him.
'He's looking right at me! He can see through Shadow Meld!'
He simply stepped out of the shadows, deciding to conserve his spiritual rhinoceros and stamina.
Since he had already been discovered, staying hidden would just be a joke.
In the blink of an eye, the black-robed man appeared right in front of Li Ban, dangling Cat Girl from his grip.
'Teleportation?' Li Ban inhaled sharply, doing his best to maintain a calm facade. 'This man's strength is unfathomable. If possible, I need to avoid a fight.'
Li Ban cast another glance at the immobilized but otherwise unharmed Little Cat and spoke up, "Sir—"
The man suddenly cut him off.
His voice was incredibly pleasant, yet his words gave Li Ban a massive shock.
"To think I would run into a Priest here."
Li Ban's expression shifted slightly. An ominous premonition suddenly washed over him.
A terrifying pressure descended immediately after. In an instant, it pressed down so heavily that his limbs stiffened, leaving him almost entirely unable to move.
He finally understood why Cat Girl couldn't budge.
She had also been trapped by this inexplicable pressure.
Just as Li Ban fought against the crushing weight, the clouds and mist within his consciousness began to churn. The powerful spiritual rhinoceros radiating from the mist made his knees tremble, but it kept him from collapsing straight to the ground like Cat Girl.
He even managed to stubbornly lift a hand.
A look of surprise crossed the black-robed priest's face. He set Cat Girl down on the ground and swept his gaze over Li Ban.
"To withstand my Terror Spell—your strength isn't bad. But looking at you, you aren't a White Robe, nor are you a Black Robe. Could you be a Gray Robe who just happened to pick up a fragment?"
A fragment?
A Wizard Embryo Fragment?
Once he realized what the man was talking about, a question immediately flashed through Li Ban's mind.
Black, white, and gray—were these faction divisions?
The black-robed priest raised a hand and reached for Li Ban's head.
His speed was blinding. By the time Li Ban reacted, the man's fingers were already pressed against the skin between his eyebrows.
Danger!
Li Ban's brain screamed in warning.
His body could barely make any large movements, but he still unleashed a Mental Piercing directly at the black-robed priest.
Knowing the man's identity, Li Ban didn't hold back in the slightest with this strike. He poured out almost all the spiritual rhinoceros contained within the Flute Sound.
The black-robed priest's head jerked backward as if he had suffered a heavy blow.
Yet his hand never stopped. It continued forward—plunging straight into Li Ban's skull.
It was as if, at that moment, his head and his hand were governed by two entirely separate consciousnesses.
Watching this scene unfold, Cat Girl's mind went completely blank.
But she quickly noticed something wasn't right.
The black-robed priest thrusting his hand into Li Ban's forehead seemed to be nothing more than an illusion.
No blood dripped from Li Ban's brow. Even the skin around the black-robed priest's fingers showed no signs of tearing, wrinkling, or turning pale from damage.
The black-robed priest's head slowly returned to its original position. A faint golden crescent moon materialized right between his eyebrows.
The crescent moon gave off a faint glow, flashed twice, and sank back beneath his skin.
"A decent element ability. However, for a Priest to still rely on element abilities to resist during a crisis... you really are a rookie who understands absolutely nothing."
"Such a green rookie—I can't just leave you to benefit those White Robes."
Li Ban immediately stifled his urge to unleash flames.
He had just felt his mental attack slam into the man's brain, only for it to be blocked by something at the very last second.
It likely had something to do with that Dark Moon on his forehead.
His opponent was a genuine, vastly experienced Priest whose abilities far surpassed his own.
Without absolute certainty of success, Li Ban could not afford to expose any more of his trump cards.
Li Ban halted his movements, but the black-robed priest did not.
His fingers groped around inside Li Ban's skull. Though they hadn't physically pierced his brain, the action directly impacted Li Ban's consciousness.
The agonizing sensation of his nerves being torn apart made his face turn deathly pale in waves, yet he gritted his teeth and refused to close his eyes.
Suddenly, Li Ban felt his black and white fragment shift, as if it had been plucked by an invisible finger.
"Found it. It is indeed a shattered fragment. Only half of one? You have fantastic luck to stumble upon a fragment this large."
He was trying to snatch his Wizard Embryo Fragment!
The Ring World Laboratory of the past hadn't understood Wizards thoroughly enough.
Their knowledge of Wizard Embryo Fragments had been even more incomplete, mistakenly taking the Virus element for a fragment and bringing it back into the mental domain.
Compared to the Ring World Laboratory, the Priest standing before him clearly knew exactly how to identify and extract these fragments.
Was the black-robed priest going to rip the fragment straight out of his consciousness next?
No, he couldn't let that happen!
For the first time since becoming a World Priest, Li Ban furiously circulated his spiritual rhinoceros mist with utter madness.
He mobilized every last drop of spiritual rhinoceros he possessed, battling frantically against the black-robed priest's invisible hand.
"It seems you've already thoroughly fused with this Wizard Embryo Fragment."
"But even a fused Wizard Embryo Fragment—I can still dig it right out!"
The enemy's power was simply overwhelming. Even though Li Ban was fighting with everything he had, he could only helplessly feel his fragment being nudged bit by bit, threatening to tear away from his body.
"Ah!!!!"
Li Ban let out a furious roar, his eyes turning bloodshot.
Amidst his enraged bellowing, tiny specks of starlight suddenly flickered to life within his mind.
The cosmic Star River that had vanished ever since he became a Priest seemed on the verge of reappearing. An incredibly majestic and boundless aura was lying in wait, ready to erupt.
Neither Li Ban nor the powerful black-robed priest noticed a thing.
Right at that moment, someone in the distance suddenly roared.
"Let him go!"
The restless, shifting Star River instantly vanished again.
Casting a sideways glance, Li Ban actually saw Shi Ming sprinting madly toward them.
He was running so hard that he had even lost a shoe.
'Can Shi Ming's Undying Halo withstand a Priest?'
Li Ban had just thought it unlikely when he suddenly noticed the black-robed priest's expression change drastically!
The man yanked back the hand rummaging through Li Ban's mind, his figure flashing as he retreated a full ten meters away.
Li Ban swayed on his feet, barely managing to stand firm.
Seeing the black-robed priest abruptly teleport into the distance, Shi Ming's face filled with sheer disbelief. Yet he still chose to rush straight to Li Ban's side first.
"Brother Li, are you okay?"
Seeing the black-robed man plunge his hand right into Li Ban's skull just moments ago had terrified him so much his eyes had nearly split from their sockets.
Murder was one thing, but actually sticking a hand inside someone's brain to stir it around? It was completely inhuman!
But when he finally reached Li Ban's side, he discovered that there wasn't a single wound on the man's forehead.
Then what in the world had the black-robed man been doing?
Performing a magic trick?
Li Ban was equally bewildered. He hadn't expected the black-robed priest to show such an astonished, even somewhat terrified expression upon seeing Shi Ming.
By the time he looked over again, the man's expression had changed once more.
The black-robed priest slapped his forehead, looking like a man rejoicing over surviving a disaster. "You scared the life out of me. So it's just you."
"Shi Ming, do you know him?" Li Ban asked in a low voice, leaning on Shi Ming for support.
"I don't know him!" Shi Ming replied, his voice booming in contrast.
Shi Ming stared at the black-robed man's thoroughly forgettable face and listened to the voice that completely mismatched it, absolutely certain he had never met the man before.
Yet the black-robed priest was looking at Shi Ming exactly as if he were an old acquaintance.
The black-robed priest broke into a relaxed smile. "This little Gray Robe is your friend?"
"Yes!" Shi Ming declared without hesitation.
"If I try to kill him, will you protect him with your life?"
Shi Ming took a step forward, shielding Li Ban behind him, and raised his chin. "I will!"
Then, putting up a fierce front to mask his fear, he added, "Are you crazy? Why do you want to kill him?"
The black-robed man shook his head, looking somewhat regretful, and then turned his gaze to Cat Girl, whom he had left on the ground.
Noticing the priest's gaze, Li Ban tried to step forward but was once again blocked by Shi Ming.
"She's my friend too, you can't touch her either!" Shi Ming said, narrowing his eyes and glaring stubbornly into the black-robed man's eyes. "She's my friend's friend!"
The black-robed man froze, looking rather frustrated, but he genuinely made no move toward Cat Girl.
"What a shame to waste a good fragment, and what a pity to waste a fine batch of beast blood."
He shook his head and looked back at Li Ban, his expression turning downright strange. "You're going to suffer a lot in the future for getting so close to him."
Li Ban furrowed his brows. He tactfully stayed right behind Shi Ming, though he didn't keep his voice down.
"What's it to you?"
It was admittedly a brash thing to say while facing a powerful black-robed priest, but considering the man had just tried to rip away his Wizard Embryo Fragment, Li Ban simply couldn't bring himself to speak politely.
The black-robed priest curled his lip and suddenly vanished from the spot.
When he reappeared, he was already far in the distance, casually striding away with his back to them.
With every step he took, he vanished and reappeared even further away. He flashed continuously until his figure was completely swallowed by the mountain forest.
"Phew."
"Phew."
Seeing the man finally leave, Li Ban and Shi Ming let out long exhales of relief in perfect unison.
The two exchanged a glance and burst into laughter, reveling in the joy of surviving a disaster.
"Many thanks, Brother Shi," Li Ban said, solemnly cupping his hands in gratitude.
Shi Ming waved it off, a thankful look lingering on his face as well. "Honestly, maybe... it didn't really have anything to do with me."
Li Ban had realized it too.
The black-robed priest had likely mistaken Shi Ming for someone else.
It must have been someone who looked remarkably similar to him.
He stretched his stiff limbs, walked over, and helped Cat Girl up, simultaneously using Flesh on White Bones to mend her internal injuries.
Cat Girl curled up beside Li Ban, leaning her head against his shoulder as she closed her eyes to rest.
The massive emotional rollercoaster just now had simply drained too much mental energy.
With the powerful enemy inexplicably retreating, Cat Girl no longer wanted to think about anything and fell straight asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Since she wasn't going to die today and still had to live through tomorrow, everything else could wait until she woke up.
Li Ban simply hoisted Cat Girl onto his back and led Shi Ming into the adjacent mountain forest.
They were still far too close to Hundred Flowers City here; it was dangerously exposed, so it was best they go into hiding first.
Along the way, he and Shi Ming began discussing why the black-robed priest had let them go.
"Maybe he mistook you for one of your relatives."
But Shi Ming shook his head. "I haven't had any relatives for as long as I can remember. An old man back home always took care of me."
An orphan?
Then his background was even more suspicious.
An Undying Halo, an orphan background—this was a classic protagonist template!
"Does the old man know anything about your background?"
"He was only responsible for looking after me. He doesn't know anything else. Plus, no matter what I do, he never interferes."
Just as expected, the man taking care of Shi Ming was anything but ordinary. He definitely knew something.
"Is he still in Yu Province now?"
Shi Ming looked somewhat lost. "After I got arrested, I didn't want to implicate him, so I had him sell off the family property and leave."
Li Ban stopped in his tracks.
This mission to escort Shi Ming to the Unreturning Place was getting weirder and weirder.
The person who ordered Du An to send Shi Ming to the Unreturning Place was also a Priest.
It was highly likely that he knew about Shi Ming too.
So, once they finally arrived at the Unreturning Place, what in the world was going to happen?