Chapter 395: Reluctance!

“Who are you, and why were you hiding here?!”

There’d be no way that the beast tamer would drop his guard with someone coming out of nowhere, even if it looked like they meant no harm.

To be more specific, this person didn’t look like he had an ounce of wanting to fight, and his soulforce was as serene as one could possibly get.

Still, the fact that his soulforce flared up a little bit beforehand meant that caution would needed to be had just in case.

It didn’t look like Nalan Yin minded the hostile look on the beast tamer’s face, though. “This one is Nalan Yin, I was just taking a nap here coincidentally, nothing too conspiratory. I didn’t want to get caught up in your battle, so I hid my aura, so please don’t mind me, senior.”

“Nalan Yin?”

His name didn’t seem like an important one, but for some reason, the beast tamer felt as though he had heard this name somewhere before.

“Haha, I’m just a nobody from the newer generation. If there’s nothing else more to be said, then I’ll be taking my leave….”

Nalan Yin turned to the left to walk away, but a burst of soulforce from the beast tamer stopped him cold in his tracks.

“Senior,” Nalan Yin sighed, “what’s the meaning of this? I’ve said already I’ve no ill will.”

Following the beast tamer’s command, the thunderfire wolf growled menacingly at Nalan Yin before settling into a hostile stance.

"A nobody?! Would a nobody dare walk into the Soulbeast Forest right after a soulbeast wave happened? Speak! Who is your master? And why were you following me?!” The beast tamer demanded.

He wouldn’t let Nalan Yin go now; since he was seen in such a haggard state, Nalan Yin wouldn’t live to tell the tale.

This led to Nalan Yin furrowing his eyebrows together. The beast tamer was clearly ready to kill him and was only asking for his master just to reconfirm his identity.

He looked at the beast tamer, who shivered slightly. It felt as though Nalan Yin was looking straight through him, but that feeling made him feel even more vigilant than before.

Nalan Yin would have to die for sure. His urge to kill him was even stronger than before now.

No matter who Nalan Yin’s master was, he wouldn’t be leaving here alive. As long as he covered his tracks well enough, no one should know what happened.

But then, Nalan Yin’s eyebrows raised upwards in surprise first before he smiled. “Haha, you flatter me too much. My master ordered me to come to the forest to find a soulbeast to form a contract with, not grudges.

He paused here to take a breath. “My master is….Ling Yin!”

The beast tamer didn’t care at all for the first part, but then when he heard the name, his eyes dilated instantaneously with shock!

“Ling Yin….Ling Yin the Wanderer?!” The beast tamer exclaimed, “You’re the apprentice to him?!”

Nalan Yin nodded with a smile.

“Ah! I know now! The first elder said before that Ling Yin the Wanderer has an apprentice named Nalan Yin!” Memories of where he heard Nalan Yin came flowing into the beast tamer’s mind all at once.

“Haha, if there’s nothing more the senior wants, then this one will be taking his leave then.” Nalan Yin smiled and bowed.

The look on the beast tamer’s face had taken on a shade even darker than before, but he didn’t stop the other from leaping down the mountain and disappear into the night.

He didn’t move even an inch from his spot until Nalan Yin’s soulforce couldn’t be felt anymore. It wasn’t as though he fully believed in Nalan Yin’s words, but….

He couldn’t risk it!

‘Ling Yin the Wanderer’, that was a name that could make any sliver of urge to kill evaporate from him!

If Nalan Yin was from a major school or perhaps a youngling from a major house, he’d probably take his chances and kill the boy. But, he couldn’t do that if he was the apprentice of Ling Yin!

If the deed was done, Ling Yin would be able to find out, no matter how much the beast tamer destroyed all evidence and hid his tracks. Even if Ling Yin had to travel the entire world, he’d find the beast tamer and exact revenge!

For it was said in the legends that Ling Yin the Wanderer was omniscient….

In this world, there existed five great wandering soul cultivators. There weren’t many that knew about Ling Yin, but of those who did, ninety-nine percent of them had never seen him before, making him one of the most mysterious figures to all soul cultivators.

Observer of the Heavens, the Allknowing, Seeker of the past, Oracle of the future—

—All these described Ling Yin’s person in his legend.

As a wandering soul cultivator, he had affiliations to no one and could stand shoulder to shoulder with even the headmaster of the Fate School!

For that reason, the beast tamer didn’t dare fight Nalan Yin and stood aside to watch him go by without another word.

Meanwhile, Nalan Yin was already a good distance away from where the beast tamer was. Turning his head, he smiled before continuing his peaceful walk into the forest.

Every so often, he’d whistle a tune to himself or mutter something to himself under his breath.

“The people of the Beast Taming School are really overbearing, aren’t they? If I didn’t say master’s name, he would’ve attacked me for sure. That would’ve been a hard batle to fight then….

“Tsk. A ‘death upon meeting’, type of person. If a person like that were to die in this forest, that wouldn’t be a bad thing….

“It was surprising to see that kid here again, though. Seem’s like we really are ‘fated’....”

……

In the completely opposite direction, Bai Yunfei was wearing his Walk-on Strawhat and using the Soul Concealment Art to the best of his ability to obscure his soulforce.

With the aid of those two things, he was able to run through the forest on physical strength alone.

Already an hour had passed since he fled from the beast tamer, but for the sake of maintaining his cover, Bai Yunfei didn’t dare use any soulforce just in case.

He probably wouldn’t be found out here, but Bai Yunfei thought it prudent to err on the side of caution and continue running under this cover.

Since he was running using his own physical strength rather than using soulforce, none of the soulbeasts paid attention to him, and even if they did, Bai Yunfei ran away faster than they could catch up.

In another two hours, Bai Yunfei was already a long ways away.

Finding a small brook, Bai Yunfei decided to stop and take a rest here.

Sitting on top of a giant stone, Bai Yunfei let out a sigh of relief before gulping in the refreshing cold air.

There wasn’t a single spot on his body that wasn’t hurting. It felt as though tens of thousands of ants were crawling over and biting his body, and the wound on his left shoulder was still bleeding slightly. The blood that had been spilt from it earlier had already stained his robes a crimson red, and if not for the blood clot that had formed and his bodily strength, Bai Yunfei would’ve fainted from blood loss a long time ago.

Circulating soulforce around his body, Bai Yunfei sighed again in relief. He took to a crossed-legged position to get comfortable and started healing himself.

By relying on the +13 effect of Yun’s Soul Ring, he could heal himself without worry of running out of soulforce. His own soulforce had already replenished itself for the most part on his way here, so all that needed to be taken care of now was his physical wounds.

About an hour later, Bai Yunfei opened his eyes back up. Taking a look at his own now uninjured body, he smiled.

Standing up, Bai Yunfei stretched in a way to release the air between all of his joints with a satisfying pop.

From the looks of things, he was fully healed!

If the beast tamer saw him now, he would’ve been so shocked at the sight that his eyeballs would pop out from their sockets.

Bai Yunfei’s eyebrows furrowed together slightly upon realization that his robes were still a bloody mess. With a leap, he landed straight into the brook….

It didn’t take long for him to fully wash himself in the brook. With a fresh new set of robes, Bai Yunfei was already back to a minty-fresh condition; as if he didn’t even fight the bloodlion or beast tamer at all.

He climbed onto a nearby tree and hid himself inside of the foliage. Now that he was hidden, he laid on top of a thick tree branch and relaxed.

Soon enough, he fell asleep.

Despite his physical wounds being fully recovered, the fatigue extolled on his mind was significant enough for him to take a rest to fully recover.