"Li Ban!"
Up on the high platform, ignored by the busy priests, Shi Ming and Deng Jun—who had just returned to help defend against the insect tide—watched helplessly as Du An forced Li Ban down into the deep pool at the very bottom.
From that distance, they couldn't make out the exact details of the fight.
But they both saw a massive spray of blood erupt from Li Ban before he was swallowed by the churning water.
Du An plunged into the water right after him.
Deng Jun was sick with worry, but there was nothing he could do.
As for Shi Ming, his voice carried a more complex emotion beneath the worry.
Just a moment ago, he thought he had seen a halo of colorful light enveloping Li Ban.
Unlike the starlight of a Star Glow Priest, that light glowed with dazzling colors. Right after that, he vaguely heard a sigh echoing from the unseen depths.
Yet he had still heard it.
And it seemed he was the only one who did.
As if hypnotized, Shi Ming dizzily stepped over the platform's low railing and took another step forward.
He was now standing at the very edge of the platform.
Everyone else was focused on the fighting priests below; no one noticed what he was doing.
Taking one more step, Shi Ming plummeted straight down.
"Ah!" Only then did Deng Jun see Shi Ming falling.
He frantically reached out to grab him, but he was too late.
Shi Ming knew no spells. He couldn't fly. He didn't even have any martial strength.
Falling into the pool from such a height would definitely smash him to a pulp.
The priest closest to the pool did notice Shi Ming. He barely managed to free one hand to save him when Priest Qian Que's voice rang out.
"Let him fall!"
What?
The priest didn't understand, but he subconsciously obeyed Priest Qian Que's order and pulled his arm back.
"Him again?"
Xiao Suo, who had already been beaten bloody by Priest Qian Que, took the opportunity to retreat a few steps. He caught his breath, his expression turning ugly.
Large cracks had already appeared all over his body, making him look as if he might shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment.
"He really is risking his life to save Li—" His mocking smile froze halfway. Suddenly recalling Priest Qian Que's words, Xiao Suo's expression drastically changed. "Not good!"
He forcefully took Priest Qian Que's follow-up attack. With a sickening thud, a massive hole was bored straight through his chest and abdomen.
Vast amounts of death qi drilled into Xiao Suo's body through the gaping wound.
The flesh and blood around the injury instantly turned an ashen gray.
But Xiao Suo ignored his wounds. Using the impact of the blow, he shot down into the deep pool like a cannonball.
Priest Qian Que frowned. Turning around, he dove into the water right after him.
Their successive plunges sent massive splashes rising from the deep pool. Taking advantage of the water's cover, hundreds of purple slime bugs tried to surge upward.
The other two priests couldn't block them all. They could only hover above the surface, fighting with everything they had to eradicate the slime bugs.
The priests high in the sky had to temporarily set aside their worries for Li Ban and Qian Que. They threw all their strength into sealing off the swarm's charge, refusing to let a single bug escape.
Meanwhile, underwater, Du An's fingers successfully plunged straight into the center of Li Ban's brow.
Yet Li Ban offered no resistance.
Under the assault of Du An's silver fragments, his body had been reduced to little more than minced meat. Only his head and torso, which hadn't been the primary targets, remained relatively intact.
But Li Ban's eyes were closed, his expression calm. He didn't show the slightest hint of pain.
Though Du An felt suspicious, he decided to snatch Li Ban's fragment first.
Since he had resolved to become a black-robed priest, repairing his soul was no longer his top priority.
The instant he touched the fragment inside Li Ban's consciousness, Du An knew that Li Ban's fragment and his own could merge to form a nearly complete wizard embryo.
Xiao Suo hadn't lied to him.
Snatching and fusing with Li Ban's fragment would be enough for him to smoothly advance to Dark Moon Priest, and he would soon reach Solar Priest after that!
Yet the Myriad Ancient Pagoda had deliberately hidden this fact from him.
Perhaps they had simply been afraid that if Du An knew, he would turn into a Black Robe to steal Li Ban's fragment for the sake of advancement.
But this also proved that if Du An's chance of becoming a Wizard ever conflicted with the Myriad Ancient Pagoda's interests, they would abandon him without a second thought.
Du An once again hardened his resolve.
No matter what happened, nothing was more important than him becoming a Great Wizard!
But just as he tried to yank out Li Ban's Wizard Embryo Fragment, colorful light suddenly bloomed from Li Ban's body.
The light wasn't blinding, but it made it impossible to look away.
Alarm bells blared in Du An's mind because he found he couldn't move Li Ban's Wizard Embryo Fragment at all.
It was as if another hand inside was contending against his power.
That force was tremendously strong. No matter how hard Du An pulled, Li Ban's fragment wouldn't budge an inch.
And as the seconds ticked by, the aura radiating from Li Ban grew increasingly terrifying.
Suddenly, Li Ban opened his eyes. His pupils were gone, replaced by a psychedelic expanse of colors that looked like a swirling galaxy.
An intense, fatal sense of crisis washed over Du An along with the light.
Even so, he gritted his teeth and refused to let go.
Xiao Suo abruptly appeared beside Du An and directly severed the right hand that Du An refused to pull back. He then spun around, placed himself in front of Du An, and shoved him hard.
"Go to the Shattered Realm!"
He shoved Du An straight into the depths of the Unreturning Place.
Du An's eyes widened as colorful light suddenly shot out from Li Ban's eyes.
The light washed over Xiao Suo, whose body was already covered in cracks. His movements immediately went rigid, and his entire body instantly turned into tiny, mosaic-like pieces.
Crash!
The sound of something shattering echoed within Du An's mind.
Xiao Suo's body abruptly fragmented and exploded into countless tiny colored particles. Then, they were washed away by the merciless waters of the River of Helplessness, sinking into the darkness below and vanishing completely.
Du An scowled. Seeing that Li Ban seemed to be turning to look at him, he knew the momentum was lost. His opponent's trump card was more than just the white-robed priests of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda.
Gritting his teeth in a mix of resentment and helplessness, he dodged into the black rift at the very bottom of the deep pool just before Li Ban could fully turn around.
Right before Du An slipped into the rift, he vaguely saw Priest Qian Que dragging a person and appearing in front of Li Ban.
But the moment the person in Qian Que's grasp reached out and grabbed Li Ban, a stream of black mist suddenly materialized behind Li Ban. It enveloped Li Ban's head and surged straight toward the rift where Du An was.
The colorful light on Li Ban vanished instantly.
But seeing the black mist charging toward him, Du An didn't dare linger. He immediately vanished into the rift.
In a flash of shifting light and shadow, Du An opened his eyes to find himself stranded within the world-crevices of the Shattered Realm.
"Good. At least I didn't fall straight into the Dark Side of the Universe."
But it was incredibly dangerous here as well. Without the protection of a Wizard Lord, if he didn't want to eventually be swept into the Dark Side of the Universe, he had to find another minor world to hide in as quickly as possible.
"Dammit!!!"
He had given up everything he had as a white-robed priest, yet he still hadn't managed to get his hands on Li Ban's fragment and soul!
Du An's eyes bulged, so red they looked as if they might drip blood.
On the other side, Priest Qian Que hauled Shi Ming and Li Ban back up to the water's surface.
His body was uncontrollably emitting an intense light.
The glow looked as though it were trying to burst out through his skin, making his entire body appear slightly translucent and radiant.
Shi Ming's eyes were dull and lifeless; all he knew to do was grip Li Ban, who was now nothing but a torso and a head.
Both Li Ban and Qian Que were covered in purple slime bugs and bug silk, yet Shi Ming was completely clean. Not a single thing clung to him.
Qian Que caught his breath and frowned at Li Ban.
At this moment, Li Ban no longer had any colorful light on him.
His eyes were shut tight, and his face was devoid of color. Even his body had stopped bleeding, making him look exactly like a corpse.
After Qian Que's spiritual rhinoceros probed into Li Ban's consciousness, his frown deepened.
Shi Ming's appearance seemed to have had an effect, but the result wasn't nearly as good as he had hoped.
"Priest Qian Que!"
The three priests still struggling bitterly in the deep pool called out in unison.
But the first one to snap out of it was Shi Ming, who had been sitting there in a daze this entire time.
His body gave a violent jolt, and he looked down at Li Ban.
"He—I—"
Priest Qian Que raised a hand and tossed Shi Ming and Li Ban to the priests opposite him.
When he opened his mouth, blinding light spilled out from it as well.
"I am advancing. Everyone, leave."
Right before he was completely swallowed by the light, he said to Shi Ming, who had been caught by one of the priests, "You are the key to retrieving Li Ban's soul—"
He couldn't even finish the sentence before the light beneath his skin became impossible to suppress.
Priest Qian Que waved his arm. The five of them were blown high into the sky like tiny bugs in a storm, unable to control their bodies as they flew straight over the high platform and landed on the ground outside.
The very next second.
A massive amount of light energy erupted from the deepest parts of the Unreturning Place, as if a sun had just been born beneath the pool!
All the spirit practitioners who failed to turn their heads away in time instantly had their eyes burned by the light, completely blinding them for a moment.
Meanwhile, any slime bugs that had taken the opportunity to charge high into the sky were instantly reduced to flying ash under the illumination.
When the light finally faded, not a single purple slime bug could be seen anywhere near the Unreturning Place or the nearby high platforms.
The three priests had thrown themselves to the ground, only rising once the light had completely dissipated.
Two of them hurriedly ran off to rescue the people of the Myriad Ancient Pagoda and stabilize the situation.
Only one Star Glow Priest stayed behind beside Li Ban and Shi Ming.
He panted heavily, looking at Li Ban with incomparable heartbreak.
For Priest Qian Que to advance to Solar under these circumstances—even though he had stopped the insect tide and saved them—the flaws in his state of mind would be impossible to patch. He would forever be stuck at the Solar stage.
The Dark Moon Priest whom the Myriad Ancient Pagoda had pinned their greatest hopes on advancing to Great Wizard was just going to be—
But this wasn't the time for regret or sorrow; saving lives was more important.
He bent over to examine Li Ban's condition.
His mangled body was easy enough to deal with. Casting a recovery spell a few more times could eventually repair his severed limbs completely.
However, after checking him, the priest realized that Li Ban's soul was already gone.
The very bottom of the Unreturning Place connected to the Shattered Realm, but it wasn't like the Shattered Eye, which could reliably transport someone to a safe zone.
Entering the Shattered Realm through the bottom of the deep pool could throw someone into a hazardous area full of spatial rifts, or even plunge them straight into the Dark Side of the Universe.
Even priests wouldn't easily venture near the bottom of that pool.
"Du An must have attacked Li Ban underwater and knocked his soul loose, causing it to get sucked into the rift at the bottom of the pool!"
His heart burned with hatred. He couldn't understand at all why Du An had suddenly gone dark.
But he quickly recalled what Priest Qian Que had said to Shi Ming right before advancing.
Did Priest Qian Que want Shi Ming to go retrieve Li Ban's soul?
But how did Shi Ming have the ability to do that?
Unless—
"Shi Ming!" He grabbed Shi Ming, who didn't seem to have a single scratch on him. "What happened underwater? Why did Priest Qian Que tell you to retrieve Li Ban's soul?"