‘... Xinyi…?’ Qian Yu’s concentration fell apart as he heard Tian Xinyi. Opening his eyes, he turned to where the fight had been taking place, only to find that the red colored figure had disappeared. Squinting his eyes for Tian Xinyi, he barely saw the small collapsed figure. 

“XINYI!” Qian Yu stood up and sprinted his hardest to her side. Feeling her body, he could feel the warmth radiating from her which let Qian Yu sigh in relief.

‘Mmm… I’m just a little tired,’ Tian Xinyi muttered.

Qian Yu gently picked up her body. “That’s good then…. Well done,” 

“It must have been tough…” Qian Yu said as he started to weakly stroke her head.

‘Mmm… hehe.... This feels good,’ Tian Xinyi weakly laughed.

“Alright, take a good rest,” Qian Yu quietly said as he continued stroking her head. 

With that settled, Qian Yu turned his attention to the sky which was still a bloody red mess. Yet after a few minutes, he noticed some changes in it. As if the source of it had disappeared, the red hue in the clouds began to disappear slowly. 

An hour passed as Qian Yu slowly watched its presence disappear from his soul world and around the same time, Tian Xinyi had called out to him. 

‘Master, you should check out the outside world. Something is wrong,’ Tian Xinyi said. 

“You’re up? I’ll go now that the red hue is completely gone and you’ve recovered to a certain extent,” Qian Yu said. From his past experiences, he would be completely isolated from the normal world when using Soul Exploration. Only a strong external stimulus would cause his body to react and forcefully stop Soul Exploration. So far, everything had seemed fine, hence Qian Yu was in no rush and had decided to stay with Tian Xinyi until now. 

Taking a deep breath, Qian Yu recited the scripture to leave his soul world. 

Yet as his senses returned, he quickly found himself in a new environment. It was extremely dark with only a few lanterns lighting the area but he easily recognized the prison bars as his eyes adapted to the dark.

His arms and legs felt sore as he tried to move them. *Clang!* The sounds of chains rustling against each other resounded out as he pulled on his right arm. Looking around, he saw that each of his four limbs were chained as well. 

*Sccreeech!* Qian Yu pulled on the chains with all his might but they didn’t bulge. Closer inspection of them though, let Qian Yu see the light inscriptions carved into them, likely strengthening their durability.

“Why is it so strong?” Qian Yu furiously continued to pull on the chains. 

“No… why am I so weak…” Qian Yu suddenly realized his body felt rather weak, as if it was malnourished. 

“My qi… damn it…” Qian Yu realized it was coming from the lack of qi. In the beginning he had thought the events in his soul world had caused him to be tired and a little sluggish but now, he could it was from the low amount of qi in his body.

“An array formation?” Qian Yu looked around and found some markings on the ground. 

“He woke up! Go tell the commissioner!” Qian Yu heard some shouts in the dark as his ruckus continued. 

‘Xinyi are you there?’ Qian Yu asked hurriedly. 

‘There’s a Martial Saint or Emperor coming… I’m afraid I can’t do anything right now…’ Tian Xinyi said. 

*Click!* The sounds of the door opened as Qian Yu heard some footsteps arrive closer to him. As the face appeared from the dark, Qian Yu recognized it to be the female Martial Saint that had arrived on the scene just moments before he was attacked by the corrupted Martial Fighter.

“What’s going on? Why am I being imprisoned!?” Qian Yu yelled out 

In response, the woman stayed quiet as she stared into Qian Yu’s eyes. 

“What should we do? He woke up? Should we tell that girl from the Bai Family?” One of the guards by her side, though, was still panicking. 

“Shut up!” The woman glared at him. “Tch, on one side there’s the Bai Family and on the other side, I have to abide by the damn regulations,” she cursed. 

“Then what-” the guard spoke up again.

“Nothing! Just wait for the higher ups to send someone down here. God damn it!” the woman shouted as she proceeded to exit the prison cell. 

“And you!” she suddenly turned back to Qian Yu. “You’re such a headache!” She gave one last curse before leaving with the guards. 

“What…” Qian Yu was taken aback from the woman’s anger, yet it wasn’t a completely useless exchange. 

‘... it sounds like Jia’er pressured them a bit after I collapsed… Did they capture me in case I was corrupted?’ Qian Yu quickly guessed. 

‘Ugh… I’m fine but how would they know that? How long will I be stuck here…’ Qian Yu bit his lips.

Meanwhile, True Ice City had resumed a period of peace. The outburst from the corrupted Martial Fighter didn’t impact the state of the city at all and the weaker enemy cultivators had been captured and isolated as prisoners of war. 

Martial Emperor True Ice was still missing but with the new Martial Emperor here, it didn’t matter. The battle here had been the most important one in the northern part of the country and from gathered intel, no further hostile enemy actions had been directed here. 

As such, the city had begun rebuilding and reconstructing with the help of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers here. Leaving to reinforce the cities further south would take a lot of time to travel to. More importantly, it would lower their defenses and could lead to the enemy troops to refocus their attention on here. 

In a newly built inn, two women sat on the balcony as they stared towards Tiger’s Den. 

“Sigh, it’s already been a few days but we haven’t heard anything,” Zhen Yue’s normally energetic face had been lackluster over the last couple of days. 

“If anything happens to him… I swear I won’t let them off,” Bai Jia sat across from Zhen Yue. 

“Sister Sun is still missing as well…” Zhen Yue sighed. 

“... She has gone missing after that surprise attack on the Martial Fighter. Something must have happened,” Bai Jia muttered as they both fell silent.

“After everything is settled, we need to buy a lot of stuff. Communication artifacts mostly,” Bai Jia spoke up as she took out the storage rings they had received from the battles. Totaling everything together, they had only gathered a sum of 2000 spirit stones. Likely, none of the Martial Fighters they killed had super strong and wealthy backgrounds with thick wallets like Jiang Hai.

*Click!* the door behind them opened as Zhao Xieren walked through. The usual clean and pure white Ice Arts robes she wore were filled with specks of dirt and dust. 

“Done helping for the day?” Bai Jia turned to Zhao Xieren. 

“Mmm, the soldiers have started to retire for the night,” Zhao Xieren said as she walked to the balcony. Staring at Tiger’s Den, she then turned her attention towards the parts of the city being rebuilt. A sigh escaped from her mouth before she walked away to the bathroom.

Meanwhile, chaos was ensuing elsewhere in the continent. In the skies above the Chen Capital, giant flying artifacts had surrounded the city. Along with them though, tens of thousands of small dots were seen hovering next to them. As for the city below, a large defensive barrier had formed. 

“Get into position for the Heavenly Sword Piercing Formation!” a loud voice reverberated in the skies. 

“Our mission today. Kill the corrupted Martial Emperor. The King of the Chen Empire!”