Chapter 3407

Xiao Han had absolute confidence in Ye Liuyun, believing that if not for the suppression caused by the difference in realms, no one should be able to stand against him.

That was why he proposed holding a military competition, claiming that he wanted to see the soldiers’ strength, when in fact he merely wanted to intimidate them and prevent them from looking down on the people he had brought with him.

He also notified Ye Liuyun and the others in advance, telling them to prepare themselves. They had to win while doing their best not to make enemies of these veteran soldiers.

The military competition was scheduled for ten days later. Ye Liuyun, however, did not care about such things. He was delighted to have a chance to practice, and immediately began preparing enthusiastically.

He finally had an excuse to return to the spatial world of his clone and accelerate his cultivation of the power of heaven and earth, which was his weakest aspect.

At present, his power of heaven and earth could not hurt anyone at all. He felt as if the power of heaven and earth from the Void World had been completely sealed off by this world, making it impossible to draw it out.

Therefore, he needed more time to let his soul wander through the Void, digesting his soul source while increasing his power of heaven and earth.

Although using time acceleration would allow the quality of his divine essence to improve more quickly, he could not keep neglecting the improvement of his overall strength.

If his clone truly could not keep up, he would have no choice but to withdraw it. This was also an unavoidable decision for Ye Liuyun.

During this period, Lei Ming and the Dragon Girl’s physical bodies had already become capable of withstanding the pressure of the Void World. Vermilion Bird and Chi Lian, who had long since raised their realms to the peak of the ninth level, had also spent some time focusing on strengthening their physical bodies and had begun accelerating their cultivation in the spatial world of the clone.

If Ye Liuyun did not hurry, the demonic beasts would soon catch up with him. Moreover, quite a few members of the Death Legion had originally been soldiers of the Black-Armored Elite Corps. Once their physical bodies became capable of withstanding the pressure of the Void World, they too went to the spatial world of the clone to accelerate their cultivation.

Once they had completely consolidated the Void Qi Refining Technique, their realms would soon break through to the Void Realm. By then, it would be very difficult to resolve the question of these people’s identities.

Ye Liuyun did not want them to end up like the refugees outside. Therefore, he also had to hurry and improve his strength, striving to establish a certain position for himself first so that he could make arrangements for the others afterward.

Chen Mo was not too worried about this military competition. His strength was considered above average in the army, and he was not weak to begin with. Liao Yaotian and the others, on the other hand, were worried about taking a beating, so they too were working hard to improve their strength.

Ye Liuyun cultivated in the spatial world of the clone for twenty days, constantly using the method of letting his soul wander through the Void to sense the power of heaven and earth in the Void World. His soul source adapted very quickly, and the range of his spiritual sense soon expanded to ten li, but his power of heaven and earth showed almost no improvement.

Ye Liuyun grew anxious. He felt that the spatial world of the clone was too safe and lacked any sense of pressure. He believed that only by forcing his potential to the limit in battle could he improve more quickly.

Thus, he took the initiative to seek out Xiao Han and ask for permission to go out alone to fight, temper himself, and improve his strength.

Xiao Han also felt that Ye Liuyun was in excellent condition during battle. In addition, his spiritual sense was relatively powerful, so he should have no trouble avoiding danger. Therefore, he gave him special consideration and assigned him the task of inspecting the situation among the refugees outside the city, allowing him to go out and temper himself through experience.

“Focus on improving your own strength. It doesn’t matter if you can’t make it back in time for the military competition. After all, it’s only a competition. Even if we lose, it won’t prove anything. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow accustomed to these soldiers in the future!”

Worried that Ye Liuyun might rush back, Xiao Han specifically reminded him of this.

Ye Liuyun had not expected Xiao Han to be so magnanimous. However, he also knew that the competition was very important to Xiao Han. If they won, Xiao Han would have greater prestige when managing these soldiers in the future.

Thus, although he agreed aloud, he secretly told himself that he had to return in time.

He immediately left the city alone, without bringing Liao Yaotian and the others. Otherwise, he would have to look after them, and he would have to hold back whenever he used certain abilities.

As soon as he left the city, he directly used the power of heaven and earth to move rapidly away from it.

There were truly quite a few exiled prisoners and refugees outside the city. The exiled prisoners were all people who had been convicted by the dynasty and confined here, while the refugees were people without identities or those who had lost their identities.

As a result, the area was a chaotic mix of all kinds of people, and the martial cultivators’ realms varied as well. The strongest could even reach the fourth level of the Void Realm, while the weakest had never cultivated at all. They were mostly guards and servants from prominent families who had been implicated.

When powerful people gathered together, they naturally went around robbing others, while the weak naturally became their targets.

Ye Liuyun had not gone far from the city when he encountered several martial cultivators robbing someone. He immediately rushed over and attacked them directly.

The moment those martial cultivators saw his soldier’s uniform, they stopped robbing their target and charged at him together. They all knew that these soldiers made money by capturing them and selling them as slaves, so they hated soldiers to the bone and wanted nothing more than to kill them.

Neither side wasted any words. They unleashed all their best techniques the moment they engaged.

Ye Liuyun released his Guardian Divine Seal, allowing the guardian soul to draw upon the power of heaven and earth for its attacks while he sensed and practiced at the same time.

His divine essence and physical body both gave him a significant advantage, but his opponents had the advantage in numbers, so the two sides temporarily reached a stalemate. This was exactly what Ye Liuyun had hoped for: he could spend more time practicing against evenly matched opponents.

As expected, he comprehended more and more of the power of heaven and earth during the battle, strengthening it bit by bit. When his opponents discovered that Ye Liuyun was growing stronger the longer they fought, they began considering retreat.

Only then did Ye Liuyun unleash his power of bloodline to intimidate them and prevent them from escaping. He then practiced against them one by one. Afterward, he planted slave marks on the martial cultivators whose true essence had been exhausted, allowing them to recover immediately before fighting him again.

This was also Ye Liuyun’s first attempt to plant slave marks on others in the Void World, yet they still worked.

When he had first arrived in the Void World, all the divine soul contracts he had previously signed had already been erased, and he had not signed any divine soul contracts with anyone since.

While planting the slave marks, Ye Liuyun also tried soul searching, and it could still be performed normally.

After learning that the slave marks and soul searching were still effective, he felt much more at ease. With these two methods, he could rely on his powerful divine soul to remain undefeated whenever he faced danger in the future.

Through soul searching, he also learned that this was a bandit group that had only recently formed. There were just over thirty of them, and they had a bandit chief at the second level of the Void Realm.

“Take me to your hideout. Hurry up and recover. Leave everything there to me!” Ye Liuyun immediately ordered several of them to lead the way. He intended to wipe out the bandits’ den and keep all of them by his side as training partners.

Ye Liuyun also released his clone so that it could temper itself through battle alongside him.

The clone’s physical body and other powers were inferior to his, so it put on Demon-Hunting Armor for defense as soon as it emerged. The clone also had two fourth-level Void Realm golden dragon puppets in its hands, so it should have no problem protecting its life.