Chapter 815 The Dean’s Last Battle
At the same time, Kael’s vast Spiritual Sense swept across the entirety of Sunlance Academy.
He focused particularly on the servants’ compound, inspecting it from end to end. After he had taken every human servant with him during his previous visit, Sunlance Academy had spent the intervening years abducting humans from other planets to replace them.
These newcomers were far inferior to the former servants, but the academy had managed to gather enough to meet its needs.
“Kael, you have two choices,” the Dean of Sunlance Academy declared, his voice rolling across the grounds. “Enter my Inner Cosmos willingly—or die.”
His body expanded, transforming into a golden giant several hundred yards tall.
The commotion alerted the entire academy. Dense streams of cultivators converged on the central teleportation array, their numbers swelling with every passing moment. Members of the ten highest-ranked races had even drawn their artifacts, ready to help the Dean capture Kael alive.
They all knew that Kael was a master alchemist capable of refining Immortal Spirit Liquid. He was worth far more alive than dead.
“You human mongrel!”
The curse rang out from somewhere in the crowd.
Kael immediately located the speaker. It was Caedran of the Heavenly Phoenix Race—Seraphyne’s foster father.
“Caedran. It’s been a while.” Kael arched an eyebrow, a faint smile playing across his lips.
“You’ve already reached the Eternal Realm. Don’t address me as though I were your senior.” Caedran glared at him with such hatred that he seemed eager to tear Kael apart with his bare hands.
“I nearly forgot to tell you. Seraphyne is my wife now. We married several decades ago. As her foster father, it was terribly inconsiderate of you not to attend the wedding and share a celebratory drink with us.”
Caedran choked on his rage.
His gaze lost focus, and his aura weakened by more than half. He had raised Seraphyne from childhood with the intention of making her his future companion, pouring every resource he possessed into her.
And in the end, this lowly human had claimed her?
“Very amusing, Kael,” the Dean said with a booming laugh. “But no matter how sharp your tongue may be, you won’t escape capture today.”
He reached toward Kael and closed his hand.
A colossal palm descended from the sky.
Kael flickered out of its path and flew straight toward the servants’ compound, making no attempt to confront the attack head-on.
“After him!”
Countless cultivators shot after Kael.
He soon stopped above the servants’ compound. Below him, masses of humans stood with Soul-Locking Collars fastened around their necks, staring up at the sky. Their eyes were vacant, their spirits long since numbed by relentless, backbreaking labor.
Even so, a handful of them still called out Kael’s name.
“That’s Senior Lin. What is he doing here?”
“It looks like Senior Lin is about to be captured too.”
Weary sighs rose throughout the compound. The humans seemed almost indifferent to Kael’s appearance.
“Oh?” The Dean pointed down at the compound, his voice thick with mockery. “So even you understand that this is where you’ll eventually end up?”
“You’re mistaken. If I killed you beside the teleportation array, only a few cultivators would witness it. If I kill you here in the open, however, the leaders of every race in Sunlance Academy will be able to watch.”
For several seconds, the surrounding air seemed to freeze.
Then laughter erupted.
“Hahahahaha!”
The contemptuous roars merged into a deafening wave.
“You? Kill me?” The Dean pointed at himself. He laughed so hard that the stony patches covering his face began to crack. “Very well. Go ahead.”
He straightened and regarded Kael with open disdain.
Under the Spiritual Sense of an eighth-tier Eternal cultivator, Kael’s cultivation was plain to see. The Dean refused to believe that a mere first-tier Eternal could pose any threat to him.
The laughter gradually faded, leaving the air tense and still. Cultivators from the other races retreated a hundred miles, while the humans below hurried into the nearby protective barriers and watched the sky warily.
“I didn’t say I would kill you here,” Kael continued. “I’m going to kill you somewhere else.”
To everyone else, his words sounded like nothing more than an excuse to avoid the fight.
“I have no patience left for this nonsense, Kael. Enter my Inner Cosmos.”
The Dean reached for him again.
Kael slipped effortlessly beyond his grasp and shot straight into the sky.
“You think you can run?”
The Dean launched himself upward in pursuit.
The two soon broke through the atmosphere and entered outer space. Cultivators from the other races followed in rapid succession, spreading out around Kael until they had enclosed him within a vast sphere.
Kael looked down at the planet.
Every human in the servants’ compound had raised their head to watch him. They were not alone. Nearly half the planet’s inhabitants were now staring up at the battle unfolding in the heavens.
“This should be far enough,” Kael said. “Now I can kill you.”
A massive sword formed in his right hand. The Time Mirror, Astral Mountain, and an ancient bamboo flute appeared in his other three hands.
He wanted to see whether he could draw out even a trace of the Tribulation Hymn of the Myriad Gods’ power. If that proved impossible, he could at least test whether the flute could perform the Galactic Soul Requiem.
“Very well. Since you insist on resisting, I’ll cripple you first and imprison you in my Inner Cosmos afterward.”
The Dean’s body expanded once more. A gigantic sword nearly two hundred yards long condensed in his hand, but instead of attacking immediately, he attached a golden talisman to its hilt.
“A Grand Attraction Talisman?” Kael studied it carefully.
He might not know how to craft talismans himself, but he could certainly recognize one.
“So you know what it is. Good.” The Dean tightened his grip on the sword. “No matter what happens today, I will not allow you to escape.”
He raised the enormous blade overhead and brought it crashing down upon Kael.
Clang!
The two swords collided, sending a violent tremor through Kael’s entire body. When he tried to knock the Dean’s blade aside, a powerful attractive force erupted from it, locking the two weapons together.
Kael gave a mocking laugh. With another hand, he raised the bamboo flute to his lips and blew softly.
A mournful wail drifted through the void, like the sobbing of a female ghost.
Every cultivator below the Galactic Realm shuddered. They felt as though the music were dragging their souls from their seas of consciousness.
The weaker cultivators immediately retreated again, fleeing until they were a thousand miles away.
The Dean remained completely unaffected. Without the slightest hesitation, he swung his sword at Kael again.
Kael hurriedly put away the bamboo flute. With his Sound Spirit Root still so weak, the music was nowhere near powerful enough to affect an Eternal cultivator.
Clang!
The impact drove Kael back more than a dozen steps. Lotus-shaped sigils appeared beneath his feet with every step he took.
“What is this?” Greed lit the Dean’s eyes. “So this is what happens when someone advances using Immortal Spirit Liquid? Even your footsteps create sigils from the Immortal Realm?”
He raised his sword once more.
“That was only a minor test,” Kael said calmly. “Now that I’ve measured your strength, I can say with certainty that you’re far weaker than Malachar.”
“Malachar? What are you talking about?”
The Dean paused in confusion. News of Malachar’s death had yet to reach him.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Kael opened his mouth, and a drop of Immortal Spirit Liquid shot between his lips.
In the next instant, the Time Mirror blazed with light and froze the Dean of Sunlance Academy in place.
He was completely immobilized.
The only thing he could move was his face—and even then, only barely. Unlike Malachar, who had at least managed to move slowly under the Time Mirror’s power, the Dean could not move at all.