“What did you say!” Chef’s face darkened at once, his entire being seeming like something was about to explode out of it.

　　Yet Yan Luo did not notice that and instead turned back and sent a voice transmission to Shen Ying beside him. “Little girl, cooperate with me for a while.”

　　“Hmm?” Shen Ying was baffled and suddenly lifted her head to give him an unusual look. “Big brother, you are playing with fire, do you know that?”

　　“…” What the heck is with this tone and lines specially meant for a tyrant CEO?

　　Yan Luo faltered for a moment but still reached out and pulled Shen Ying up then turned around and continued saying with some excitement, “If you both want to save this girl then do your best, otherwise… huh? Huh!”

　　Before he could finish, he suddenly felt a massive Sword Qi come weighing from above him. A great golden sword instantly appeared above his heard and was about to strike down. For a moment, he felt his Qi surging within, the array formations beside him were in instant pieces, a sky full of killing intent rushed over, even the three-legged below could not bear it and fell out of the air.

　　Yan Luo’s entire being was appalled. Don’t mention resisting this sudden Sword Qi and killing intent, he couldn’t even open his eyes, boundless fear spread throughout his body and only one word filled his mind: death. He could only open his eyes wide and watch as the huge sword above his head come swinging right towards himself, it was about to strike him.

　　“Chef!” A voice suddenly sounded beside him.

　　The blade paused instantly and stopped at a position less than half an inch above his head and slowly dissolved into lighted dots before disappearing. In the next second, the other party’s icy cold voice appeared beside him.

　　“Do not touch my Master!” Yi Qing had unsure when, appeared on the array stone and turned to put an arm around the person beside him while staring murderously at him.

　　Shen Ying also reached out and patted his shoulder. “That’s why I told you to not play with fire!”

　　Yan Luo: “…”

　　His legs turned to jelly in the next second and he slumped onto the ground, cold sweat flowed down from his forehead as he belatedly understood something.

　　“Foodie, are you okay?” Lonemoon had also flown over.

　　“Mm.” Shen Ying nodded and turned to look at the three-legged bird under her feet. “Do you think, this can… be eaten?”

　　The corner of Lonemoon’s mouth twitched, indeed, it’d been unnecessary to worry about her, she was still thinking about eating at this time.

　　Beside her, Chef habitually pulled out a dagger. “Try and we’ll know.”

　　With that said, a dagger in one hand and his other wrapped around Shen Ying, he jumped down, heading towards the guard beasts array. As if sensing its own fate, the bird started to caw madly, yet it was suppressed by a Sword Qi and could not move at all, it was about to give its life to the dagger.

　　“Wait!”

　　Two voices sounded at the same time!

　　“Spare the bird!” Yan Luo reacted belatedly.

　　Below, Buggy also grabbed onto Yi Qing’s leg. “Great Immortal, you can’t kill this!”

　　“Why?” Master and disciple questioned in unison.

　　“Ah?” Yan Luo paused. “Because… because this is the array guarding beast!”

　　Shen Ying frowned. “Is it poisonous?”

　　“…” It’s not, but you guys are! Who would want to kill an array guarding beast?

　　Whereas Buggy was hit with an idea and quickly spoke up, “Great Immortal, the three-legged fire bird is a protector beast of Yang City, there’s only this one, it cannot be killed!”

　　“Oh.” Shen Ying then called Chef back, turns out it’s to protect animals, nothing could be done then. She turned and looked a the bird on the ground in disappointment.

　　The entire fire bird immediately quivered under her gaze. When the Sword Qi on it was lifted, it squawked at once and turned to crawl back into the fire hole on the ground, trembling. Before it entered, one of it’s claw even grabbed onto the Heart Array Stone and placed it firmly back in it’s original spot, pretending like it had never came out.

　　Yan Luo: “…”

　　Lonemoon: “…”

　　Buggy: “…”

　　Even the birds will probably become scheming now.

　　“All of you…” Yan Luo then swept his gaze across the few people present, recalling that terrifying Sword Qi earlier, his body shivered. He suddenly understood why they wanted to hide their capabilities when breaking through the arrays earlier. With such strength, don’t mention him, it would be difficult to find a match in the entire end of the void. For a moment, he became even more confused. “Seniors, all of you are this capable… why do you still choose to participate in the league?”

　　“Why, are we not allowed to participate?” Lonemoon questioned back.

　　Yan Luo froze. “Well, it’s not that you can’t, just… this competition is meant for disciples from the various academies.”

　　“We’re disciples too?”

　　“…” Who are you lying to? Did there exist disciples with cultivation at your levels?

　　“Teacher Yan, who stipulated that disciples cannot have high cultivation levels?” You and your organizing team did not restrict the cultivation levels of participation, is it my fault?

　　“…” Sounds very reasonable. Yan Luo frowned, so there still existed such taunting manipulations. Though it was stated at the start that this was a competition between academies, they indeed did not restrict cultivation levels, the more they didn’t mention whether it was for disciples or teachers, everyone simply took it that it was meant for disciples only.

　　Lonemoon decided to admit it, seeing that he’d been exposed. “We were passing by this place and found that this competition was rather interesting, so we signed up to have some fun.”

　　“…” Is bullying a bunch of kids really so interesting? He really wanted to say, so shameless! But he wasn’t their match so he really didn’t dare to!

　　Now that he thought back, everything that Ren Qing said previously could all be true. These people entered their mystic realm, captured the monsters kept by them and even sold them away to their disciples participating in the competition… earlier, they even almost captured their array guarding beast.

　　Don’t all of your consciences hurt?

　　Yan Luo’s heart ached.

　　When they hold such competitions in the future, they absolutely must restrict the cultivation of participants.

　　————

　　Shen Ying and gang became the first people to pass the second round of the competition. On top of that, all four came out at once. Since the time they entered the maze, it took less than an hour, there’d never been a faster record than this. Yet what was even more shocking than this was that, following them, more and more people began to walk out of the maze and everyone was unscathed, as if they’d never encountered any array formations.

　　The originally estimated competing duration was six hours, yet in less than four hours, almost everyone was out. By the time the competition ended, of the 75 participants who entered, 70 had passed, leaving a mere five who did not make it or had already been transported out earlier due to injuries.

　　Everyone from Immortal Spirit Academy was dumbfounded, this seemed to be different from what they had imagined. At any rate it was a quarterfinals and should naturally be more difficult than the qualifiers. According to the original plan, it would be great if 15 people managed to passed, but it ended up that 90% of the participants all made it to the semifinals, what kind of situation was this.

　　Only the crowd in the know, Yan Luo knew about the situation. It was all because of those two people who pretended to be disciple with low levels of cultivation, even the array guarding beasts was terrified and was left with severe post trauma. It downright refused to come out even after they’d left, causing the array formations in the maze to become ineffective, so the subsequent so-called maze was really left with the maze, would anyone not be able to walk out of it?

　　Yan Luo’s heart ached but Yan Luo couldn’t vocalize it.