"Hhe... and..." a soft, gentle, and lodic female voice, filled with fear and confusion, answered Yang Qing’s question.
The respondent was Haishi, whose shaky limbs and fear-stricken gaze kept shifting between the unconscious body Yang Qing was standing next to and a certain area within the water do. She tried to avoid looking directly at it, only throwing a fearful, furtive side glance in its general direction.
Even if her compound eyes didn’t focus on it precisely, it was easy to guess the target of her fear based on the direction she glanced at. It was none other than the small grey salmon swimming languidly within the do. It looked as if it were fast asleep, its movents seemingly just a result of the do’s current dragging it along.
But that slumbering fish—smaller than even one of her compound lenses—scared Haishi so much that she wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between herself and the do as possible. The fear she felt reminded her of her good old days back at the Green Fog Region.
"It happened so fast," she mumbled absentmindedly.
Yang Qing had handed both her and Boishi transmission pearls. He had done so to make the journey more convenient, not for anything specific. He didn’t want to spend the entire trip talking to himself. While they could communicate through their spiritual senses, like he did with the natural yin array cicada, maintaining such a link over ti would place great strain on the souls of the two spirit beasts, unlike with the cicada.
They’d need at least to reach the late stage of the core formation realm for that burden to ease—or better yet, break through to the palace realm. At that stage, they’d gain greater control and mastery over not only their souls but their bodies as well. They’d be able to communicate normally with Yang Qing, even without relying on their spiritual sense, whether they were in a transmorphed human form or their natural beastly one.
Bolin, who had remained silent until now, picked up where Haishi and her incoherent explanation had left off.
"He snuck in here," said Bolin as he pointed to the unconscious body, "and then he got attacked when he tried to get past the barrier by force."
Just like Haishi, he avoided saying who had done it, but his awkward gaze fell in the sa direction as the mirage dragonfly’s. And while he seed to handle it better, he looked just as petrified as she was.
How could he not be, given what he had witnessed?
He wasn’t entirely certain, but based on his experience and the intuition honed from years of dodging death in the Green Fog Region, he was fairly sure the unconscious human was a palace realm expert. Albeit in terms of presence, he still seed slightly lacking compared to Feng Xin.
Bolin wasn’t sure if that was maybe because Feng Xin had an extraordinary presence about him or if it was simply the lasting impression he had left when he casually destroyed their encirclent.
Regardless of his impressions between the two, it didn’t change the fact that the unconscious body lying in front of him likely belonged to a palace realm expert. Yet that palace realm figure—soone even a thousand clones of himself couldn’t hope to defeat—had been taken down in a single strike.
He had seen it happen, yet common sense told him it shouldn’t have been possible. The figure had just reached for his saber when a brilliant, chilly white ray struck him the instant his hand touched the hilt. The next thing Bolin saw was that sa figure lying unconscious on the ground, his robes shredded.
The fact that Bolin hadn’t even reacted to the speed of the attack—or the collapse that followed—was stupefying enough. But what he found most unfathomable was that he wasn’t even sure who had done it. Everything had happened too fast. The only thing he was certain of was that a human cultivator was lying unconscious in front of him with no visible injuries, despite the ferocity of the attack, and that the attack had originated from the do.
He knew it had to be one of the salmon. His strongest guess was that it was the small one—the one that sent shivers down his spine despite its relaxed and harmless appearance. From the mont it appeared, all his instincts had been screaming about how dangerous those salmons were, especially that one.
If it’s that scary, what about him? thought Bolin as his apprehensive gaze fell on Yang Qing, whose aura and deanor were just as relaxed and unassuming as that salmon. These salmon are just a manifestation of his spell... how much more powerful is he? Bolin added to himself, his expression turning somber as he looked at Yang Qing.
Feng Xin had already left a lasting impression on him. As for Yang Qing’s other team mbers—if Bolin were asked who he feared the most, ranked in descending order—it would be:
Yi Jie in first place. They may have only interacted once, but from the mont Bolin saw him, he instinctively felt Yi Jie was even more dangerous than Feng Xin.
Second place would be a tie between Feng Xin and Luo ili. She had co as a surprise. At first glance, while she raised so alarm bells, it wasn’t to the level of Feng Xin. But after training with her, Bolin realized just how terrifying she really was.
Third place would be Zheng Fu. Of all of them, while this was technically third, Zheng Fu was the one Bolin had ntally marked to avoid at all costs. He had the sa aura and gaze as the residents of the Green Fog Region—that silent but overwhelming bloodthirsty nature honed from taking countless lives and skirting the line between life and death.
As for last place, it was a tie between Su Jinjing and Yang Qing.
Su Jinjing was a weird one. The feelings he got from her alternated between two extres—so part of him feared her as a dangerous foe, one possibly even more dangerous than Zheng Fu, but at the sa ti, she felt harmless. That contradiction wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Bolin. It was sothing he often sensed in spirit beasts that weren’t aggressive by nature but had a brutal side if triggered.
His friend, the green flash viper, gave off that sa feeling. Which was why, even though they were close—long-ti friends, even—Bolin was always slightly guarded and apprehensive around him. He was never completely safe to be around. And it was the sa thing he felt with Su Jinjing.
But Yang Qing was different.
He didn’t feel even the slightest hint of threat from him. Try as he might, his instincts just couldn’t pick up anything. At first, he’d assud it was because Yang Qing was a palace realm expert and he was still in the core formation realm—so naturally, he couldn’t sense him clearly.
But now, he was certain that wasn’t the full reason... at least not entirely.
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