Yin-Baleful Maze Cavern.
A three-inch figure, green from head to toe, fled in panic from Profound Serpent's ruined corpse. It turned into a faint green streak and hurtled toward the cavern entrance.
"Bind!"
Just then, a weak shout rang out.
It was High Person Qianzhen!
Though gravely wounded and near death, he still had a formation master's instincts and sense of timing.
He forced up the last of his true essence and aimed the Bronze Compass in his hand toward Profound Serpent's fleeing Nascent Soul.
The compass flashed. He forcibly drew on the remnants of formations still lingering in the cavern, gathering countless silver runes into a flowing net that dropped squarely over the Profound Serpent Manor Master's Nascent Soul.
"Eee!"
The green Nascent Soul charged left and right. Wisps of smoke burst from it wherever it struck the net, and it shrieked in agony, but it could not break free of a formation made specifically to confine Nascent Souls.
From Ji Yuan's appearance to the shattering of the Profound Serpent Awl, the destruction of the Profound Serpent Manor Master's body, and the trapping of his Nascent Soul, everything had happened in two or three breaths—too fast for the eye to follow.
High Person Bloodslaughter had cut down the Profound Serpent Manor Master's body with one stroke and was about to claim his spoils.
But someone had appeared out of nowhere and knocked aside the blow he had been sure would hit, using his bare hand. That had spared High Person Qianzhen. Already hot-tempered, Bloodslaughter flew into a rage when he saw the man take the chance to attack Profound Serpent as well.
At the last moment, though, he recognized him.
"You!"
When Ji Yuan had first appeared, he had instantly killed a Nascent Soul Middle Stage cultivator. Every Nascent