Starfall Arrow Rain

Whoosh-

A cyan-blue streak of arrow light tore through the wind and snow, crossing dozens of meters in an instant and heading straight for the Iron-Faced Soul Saint's back.

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint was activating his Martial Soul Avatar, almost all his attention focused on the wounded female Soul Saint.

Only when the arrowhead drew near did he sense the bone-piercing chill behind him.

An ambush!

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint's pupils abruptly contracted.

The arrow came too fast. It was already too late to dodge it completely.

In his haste, he could only wrench his body around while gathering Soul Power in his right arm. Dense black mist surged from his body, forming a thick barrier around the arm.

The next instant, the arrow struck with a crash.

Squelch!

The Soul Power barrier held for only an instant before the cyan-blue arrow light forcibly pierced it.

The arrow shot through the Iron-Faced Soul Saint's right arm, spraying blood, then pierced several thick ancient trees in succession before finally vanishing into the wind and snow.

"Argh!"

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint let out a roar of pain.

The searing pain threw his Soul Power into disarray, and the rotting vulture Martial Soul Avatar in midair grew indistinct with it.

The female Soul Saint, who had been under immense pressure, immediately gained a chance to catch her breath and retreated with her companions.

"Who's there!"

Clutching his wounded arm, the Iron-Faced Soul Saint whipped his head around.

The other Evil Soul Masters also quickly scattered, warily looking toward the direction the arrow had come from.

But all they saw was swirling snow and branches swaying gently in the cold wind.

There was no one in sight.

"Above."

An Evil Soul Master suddenly looked up.

Everyone followed his voice and looked.

Lin Yuan sprang into the air with the rebound of a branch.

His long black hair streamed behind him in the cold wind, and the Imperial Bow had already appeared in his left hand.

Four Soul Rings disguised by the Ring-Mimicking Soul Tool rose from beneath his feet.

Yellow, yellow, purple, purple.

"A Soul Ancestor?"

After seeing Lin Yuan's Soul Rings clearly, a flicker of astonishment crossed an Evil Soul Master's eyes.

That arrow had actually come from a Soul Ancestor?

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint's expression did not ease because of this.

An exceedingly sharp force lingered in the wound on his right arm, constantly eating away at his Soul Power. Had he not reacted in time, that arrow would have struck not his arm, but his heart.

"Kill him!"

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint shouted harshly.

Several Evil Soul Masters immediately switched targets, raising their hands to attack Lin Yuan in midair.

Black mist, flames, and several rays of Soul Power rose together.

However, Lin Yuan moved faster than they did.

Suspended in the air, he held the bow in his left hand and drew back the string with his right.

Soul Power poured furiously into the Imperial Bow.

A cyan-blue arrow of light swiftly formed on the bowstring.

This arrow gave off no particularly astonishing pressure, and its shaft was even slenderer than the ordinary arrow he had fired earlier.

But as the bowstring gradually reached full draw, the air around the arrowhead began to warp slightly.

Specks of starlight drifted from the shaft, trailing tiny streaks of light around Lin Yuan.

"Just one arrow?"

The white smiling mask floated beside Lin Yuan.

No one but Lin Yuan could see its presence.

"There are so many people down there."

"Are you planning to have them line up and run into it one after another?"

Lin Yuan ignored it.

During his six years of training in the Worship Hall, aside from increasing his Soul Power and wearing down the Ambrosial Arbor, he had never stopped studying how to use the Imperial Bow.

Soul Skills were powerful, but they remained limited by Soul Rings and his own cultivation realm.

Thus, based on the Imperial Bow's characteristics, he had combined the power of The Hunt with archery to create an attack of his own.

Self-Created Soul Skill-

Starfall Arrow Rain!

As the attacks were about to reach him, Lin Yuan released his fingers.

Humm-

The bowstring thrummed.

The lone cyan-blue arrow flew from the string.

It had traveled only a few meters when its shaft suddenly lit up.

One streak became two.

Two became four.

Those four continued splitting in flight.

In the blink of an eye, the originally solitary arrow had become hundreds upon thousands of cyan-blue streaks of arrow light.

Countless arrows spread outward with Lin Yuan at their center.

Each streak trailed a slender tail of light like a meteor crossing the night sky, densely filling everyone's entire field of vision.

From below, it looked as though all the stars in the sky were falling at once.

The Soul Skills hurtling toward Lin Yuan collided with the arrow rain first.

Boom!

The cyan-blue arrows exploded one after another.

The Soul Power unleashed by the explosions instantly scattered the flames and black mist, while the remaining arrow light passed through the lingering shock waves and poured toward the squad of Evil Soul Masters below.

"Defend!"

A Soul King cried out in alarm.

Everyone unleashed their defensive Soul Skills.

Soul Power barriers, walls of black mist, and various Martial Soul phantoms appeared in succession, enveloping the dozen or so Evil Soul Masters.

The next moment, the meteor-like arrow rain crashed down.

Boom, boom, boom, boom-

Dense explosions thundered through the snowy forest.

Every arrow that struck its target erupted into a burst of cyan-blue Soul Power.

A single arrow was not powerful enough to severely wound a Soul King.

But there were simply too many arrows.

One was blocked, only for a second, a third, and even dozens more to strike the same defense at once.

An Evil Soul Master at the Soul Ancestor level had barely raised his barrier when cyan-blue light swallowed his entire field of vision.

Crack!

The barrier shattered at the sound.

Successive shock waves hurled him away. His body snapped a conifer before slamming heavily into the snow.

The other Evil Soul Masters could no longer concern themselves with besieging the women, either covering their heads and scrambling for shelter or devoting all their Soul Power to defense.

Snow blasted into the sky.

Ice chips, splintered wood, and dust mingled, swiftly engulfing the entire battlefield.

The besieged female Soul Masters were likewise stunned by the sight before them.

They could only see countless cyan-blue meteors streaking overhead, yet not a single arrow fell toward their position.

Every arrow precisely avoided the ice-blue barrier.

It was as though each arrow had a target of its own.

"Who's helping us?"

The female Soul Emperor maintaining the barrier asked instinctively.

No one answered.

Lin Yuan had already put away the Imperial Bow in midair, and his body dropped.

Just before reaching the ground, he twisted at the waist and landed firmly on both feet in front of the women.

Thud!

Snow splashed outward.

Cyan-blue Soul Power rose from Lin Yuan's body, covering him like burning stellar flames.

His robes snapped in the currents of Soul Power.

He was clearly only a Soul Ancestor, yet the presence he radiated far surpassed that of an ordinary Soul King.

Four disguised Soul Rings circled his body.

The Imperial Bow in his hand radiated a cold, sharp edge.

The girls protected behind him raised their heads together.

The girl of only six or seven, with long ice-blue hair, stared blankly at Lin Yuan.

The youth who had suddenly appeared before her looked no older than fourteen or fifteen.

Yet that arrow rain, like a shower of falling stars, had been fired by him alone.

"You..."

The female Soul Emperor was just about to speak when Lin Yuan said calmly:

"Stay here."

As his words fell, he raised the Imperial Bow again.

Several powerful fluctuations of Soul Power still remained within the dust.

Although Starfall Arrow Rain had disrupted the Evil Soul Masters' formation and wounded many of them, it was not enough to completely eliminate a Soul Saint and several Soul Kings.

Lin Yuan had never intended to end the battle with this move.

The arrow rain had only been meant to suppress the enemy.

And to buy himself time to charge his attack.

He stepped half a pace forward with his left foot and lowered his body slightly.

His left hand raised the bow.

His right drew the string.

A cyan-blue arrow of light formed from pure Soul Power slowly appeared upon the Imperial Bow.

The wind and snow around Lin Yuan abruptly stilled.

Then the Soul Power between heaven and earth began to converge furiously upon the arrow.

The cyan-blue light grew brighter and brighter.

The shaft, originally only as thick as a finger, gradually became solid, while rings of revolving starlight emerged around it.

Humm-

The Imperial Bow gave a low thrum.

A powerful presence erupted from Lin Yuan's body.

Cyan-blue Soul Power soared into the sky, faintly forming the enormous phantom of a curved bow behind him.

With every fraction farther he drew the string, the oppressive weight in the air grew heavier.

The female Soul Masters instinctively held their breath.

Even with Lin Yuan's back toward them, they could still feel the terrifying power rapidly accumulating within that arrow.

The smiling mask floated above Lin Yuan's head.

"It's not over yet."

"Aha heard them cursing you in the smoke."

"They're saying some truly nasty things."

Lin Yuan remained unmoved and simply continued drawing the string back.

The wounded female Soul Saint watched the bow phantom behind the youth, surprise and uncertainty appearing in her eyes.

She had never seen such a Martial Soul.

Still less could she understand how a Soul Ancestor could gather such a powerful attack.

The dust ahead gradually thinned.

Disheveled figures emerged from within it.

Several of the weaker Evil Soul Masters were already lying in the snow, their fates unknown.

The five Soul Kings were likewise covered in wounds, their robes torn by the explosions and their presences no longer steady.

Their leader, the Iron-Faced Soul Saint, stood at the very front.

His right arm was still bleeding, and the iron mask covering half his face had been blasted away, revealing a grim, twisted face.

"Who the hell is it!"

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint roared, sweeping away the last layer of smoke before him.

"How dare you ruin my-"

His voice cut off abruptly.

Behind the smoke, Lin Yuan had already drawn the Imperial Bow into a full moon.

An azure arrow of light pointed straight at the distant squad of Evil Soul Masters.

Before the arrow had even been loosed, the sharpness it radiated had already plowed a long, thin furrow through the snow.

The anger on the Iron-Faced Soul Saint's face swiftly froze.

As a Seven-Ring Soul Sage, he understood far better than the Soul Kings behind him just how much power that arrow had accumulated.

What unsettled him even more was that, although Lin Yuan's arrowhead clearly pointed in only one direction, he felt as though he could not escape its lock no matter which way he fled.

It was as if, from the moment the smoke cleared, they had already become prey with no hope of escape.

"Defend!"

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint shouted sharply.

The Soul Kings snapped out of their daze as if waking from a dream and immediately unleashed all their remaining Soul Power.

Dense black mist swiftly gathered.

Layer upon layer of Soul Power barriers stood before them.

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint even endured the injury to his right arm and activated his Seventh Soul Ring once more.

An enormous phantom of a rotting vulture rose from the black mist and spread its wings, enveloping all the Evil Soul Masters.

Lin Yuan watched them calmly.

The bowstring had already been drawn to its limit.

Tiny flecks of stardust continually drifted from the azure arrow of light. Each speck of light that fell to the ground silently pierced the thick snow.

The girl with long, ice-blue hair stood behind him, watching his profile.

Facing a Soul Saint and several Soul Kings, he had neither tension nor anger in his eyes.

Only the calm of a hunter locking onto his prey.

The Iron-Faced Soul Saint stared fixedly at him.

"Who exactly are you?"

Lin Yuan did not answer.

He merely said softly:

"Goodbye."

His fingers released.

Boom-!

The bowstring's reverberation rang out like an explosion of thunder.

The azure arrow of light, charged to its utmost limit, left the string in an instant.

The instant it flew, the arrow transformed into a dazzling meteor, hurtling straight toward the squad of Evil Soul Masters with unstoppable might.

The rushing air flung up all the snow along its path.

The first black mist barrier shattered with a boom the moment it touched the arrow's light.

Then came the second.

The third.

Soul Power barriers exploded one after another, utterly unable to slow the azure meteor in the slightest.

"Stop it!"

His face contorted ferociously, the Iron-Faced Soul Saint poured all his remaining Soul Power into his Martial Soul Avatar.

The rotting vulture let out a piercing screech and crossed its enormous wings before itself.

The next moment, the azure meteor engulfed it completely.

Rumble-!

Dazzling light instantly enveloped all the Evil Soul Masters.

The wind and snow, the trees, and the earth all shook at once.

A terrifying torrent of Soul Power swept forward, forcibly tearing apart everything in its path.

Several breaths later, the blinding light gradually dissipated.

A vast stretch of coniferous forest ahead had vanished.

Only a deep trench remained in the once-level snowfield.

The trench stretched into the distance, its edges charred black and shattered, while azure starlight that had yet to die out still lingered within.

A cold wind blew across the ravaged battlefield.

All around, there was silence.