Chapter 432: Traces Finally Revealed

A bank of clouds drifted rapidly over the Nine Heavens Sea.

After passing over uninhabited islands and evading ferocious monsters, the clouds finally slowed to a halt, hovering in the air.

Three pairs of eyes peered down through the mist.

A massive spell formation, resembling an illusionary barrier, appeared below.

However, it flickered from time to time, unable to completely conceal the scene beneath.

Li Ban watched the busy figures faintly visible below and thought, 'As expected, the deeper we go into the Nine Heavens Sea, the more unstable the spell effects become. Although Du An used a formation to strengthen it, the array still fails occasionally.'

Beside him, Priest Shi Ye checked the Compass again, confirming the familiar aura was right beneath their feet.

"It's confirmed. The black-robed priest below is Du An," he said.

"Send the signal," Li Ban said.

Du An had another 8th Tier Black Robe beside him; as two Dark Moons, they couldn't just attack directly.

"Understood. Stay concealed." Priest Shi Ye folded the Compass shut. A beam of red light shot up from its center, piercing straight into the clouds.

This also meant they had actively exposed their presence.

The concealment formation below abruptly vanished. Through the mist, Li Ban locked eyes with Du An.

A sea breeze lifted the brim of Du An's hood, revealing his face before the fabric quickly fell back to hide his features.

Seeing that Li Ban had tracked him down, Du An didn't panic. Instead, he raised his hands and activated the setup hidden beneath the array.

For a mile around him, the sea grew eerily calm, forming a sharp contrast with the surging waves beyond.

Now, Li Ban needed to stall Du An to buy time for Priest Ling Feng to arrive.

Priest Ling Feng was an 8th Tier Solar Radiance and possessed the Power of Rules. Since that could easily trigger anomalies in the Nine Heavens Sea, he had trailed far behind Li Ban.

Li Ban leaped down from Xiu Ye's back, aiming straight for Du An on the Isolated Island.

Priest Shi Ye finally joined the fray. Stowing the Compass, he raised his hands and manifested a flock of birds formed from halos of light, sending them diving toward the small island.

On the Isolated Island, Du An finally reacted.

He raised both hands from his waist to above his head, as if hoisting an invisible, heavy weight.

Around the Isolated Island, the unnaturally calm seawater began to churn, bubbling as if brought to a boil.

Immediately after, semi-transparent bodies surfaced from the sea, all of them locking dead gazes on Li Ban and Shi Ye in the air.

The number of raw souls multiplied rapidly; in just a brief moment, hundreds had appeared.

"Raw souls?" Shi Ye exclaimed. "How can he control raw souls? And so many of them?"

Raw souls invaded the Nine Provinces every year.

If priests could easily control raw souls, why would the priests of the Three Major Factions leave so many people to guard the coastlines?

Defending year after year and remaining vigilant day after day was all out of fear that a massive raw soul invasion would destroy the balance of the Wizard World.

Seeing Du An control raw souls astonished Li Ban, but his surprise didn't stop there.

With the raw souls swarming toward them, Li Ban no longer needed to hide. Drawing his Light-Blade Saber with both hands, he charged into the army of raw souls.

These raw souls acted as if they held a blood feud with Li Ban, advancing wave upon wave to throw themselves at him, opening their maws wide to tear into his soul.

Supporting Li Ban from the rear, Shi Ye also drew a light-blade weapon.

The two stood back-to-back, fighting enemies coming from all directions.

However, despite the sharpness of their blade beams, it was difficult to completely destroy a raw soul in a single strike.

Without anyone else to land the finishing blows, they could only watch as the shattered raw souls reassembled themselves away from the battle, only to rejoin the fray once they were whole.

Furthermore, having maintained their Flight Spells for so long, the magic was losing its stability.

Shi Ye nearly plummeted into the sea, only restabilizing the spell after Li Ban grabbed him and pulled him up.

But just as Shi Ye steadied himself, Li Ban felt his own Flight Technique wavering.

However, he had barely dropped a meter when his feet suddenly touched something solid.

Xiu Ye had flown over, catching the two of them on her back once more.

"My Lord Priests, I will act as your foundation so you can focus entirely on fighting," Xiu Ye said.

Originally, Li Ban hadn't planned to let Xiu Ye participate in direct combat; the Knuckleduster he had prepared for her was strictly for self-defense.

But given the current circumstances, he couldn't refuse.

"Alright, Shi Ye and I will protect you. Be careful," Li Ban said.

With both of them planted on Xiu Ye's back, they no longer needed to divide their attention to maintain the Flight Technique, making their movements much sharper.

The number of raw souls surrounding them gradually began to thin out.

Li Ban glanced down and spotted Du An's figure through the gaps in the raw souls.

Du An had taken to the air from the Isolated Island, slowly drifting away from them to use the raw souls' interference to escape.

Seeing this, Priest Shi Ye waved his hands again, scattering more light-blade birds in all directions.

These blades of light avoided Li Ban and the giant dragon, instead punching massive holes through the bodies of the raw souls.

The pierced raw souls found their movements severely restricted.

Meanwhile, the Light-Blade Saber in Li Ban's hands violently surged, extending to ten meters long.

With two sharp swishes, he carved out a clear path between them and Du An.

Xiu Ye seized the opening and immediately dove downward.

Seeing that the gap between them had closed to less than a hundred meters, and realizing the raw souls couldn't kill the pair but were instead being cut down, Du An turned and accelerated his flight.

Li Ban suddenly retracted his light blade. He pressed both hands against his forehead, swiped forward, and pulled a thread of silk from between his eyebrows.

The thread turned into a phantom blur, shooting rapidly toward the back of Du An's head.

Du An's flight was fast, but the thread was faster.

No matter how Du An twisted and dodged, the thread remained locked straight onto the back of his head, impossible to shake off.

"The Power of Rules." Confirming that the thread's power had to come from a Solar Priest, Du An gave up on dodging.

Soon, the thread struck Du An.

A special Power of Rules now linked him and Li Ban together.

The thread tightened, preventing Du An from distancing himself. He was quickly yanked back to within a hundred meters of Li Ban.

Seeing that escape was impossible, Du An gritted his teeth and turned to charge at Li Ban.

Drawing a long silver whip with a backhand grip, he conjured a massive swarm of silver fragments around his body.

It was his famous signature technique—"Tendon Puller and Skinning."

Watching this familiar scene, Li Ban narrowed his eyes. The elements within his body stirred restlessly as he prepared to meet Du An in a head-on clash.

But right at that moment, a gust of clear wind swept past, suddenly blocking the space between Li Ban and Du An.

The wind then materialized into the figure of Priest Ling Feng. Shielding Li Ban, he raised his palm and struck at Du An.

Thanks to Li Ban and Shi Ye stalling for time, Priest Ling Feng had finally arrived.

He had been charging this strike for a long time. The moment his hand rose, the gale of the strike was already in front of Du An.

"Bang!"

Du An cracked his long whip, and the fragments around him fired in a volley, but the gale of the palm strike blasted them all away, scattering them in every direction.

Following that, a phantom palm struck Du An solidly in the chest and abdomen.

He violently coughed up a mouthful of blood. His robes shattered into pieces, and flesh and blood splattered outward. Mixed within were several metal fragments, which plunged into the sea alongside the silver light surrounding Du An.

Seeing this scene, Li Ban's gaze tightened once more.