Chapter 66: Winter Has Arrived (More Later, Seeking Support)

  Although I failed the English exam yesterday, but today's exam passed, I want to thank the girl sitting next to me. When the exam was about to end and I had given up hope, she actually swapped her answer sheet with mine!!! Girl, although you are not beautiful, but you have a kind heart. Thank you, good people will be safe for life. This afternoon's exam also met a god-like teammate, I just added some fuel and passed. It turns out that this year, being gay is not as good as chasing girls!!!

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  The queen bee spent a week molting, and before that, she had also spent a week cultivating her soul power. Now, Zong Yin has been in the practice room for twelve consecutive days.

  At this moment, the queen bee was like a headless fly, frantically circling around Zong Yin who was lying on the ground. Through the soul imprint between the two, the queen bee could sense that Zong Yin's current state was not good.

  The queen bee has been growing for twelve days, and its venom has already made Zong Yin somewhat unbearable. This is still the case after Zong Yin rationed the queen bee's food every day. If he let the queen bee eat its fill every day, he might not have been able to withstand it.

  Zong Yin's body was already soaked, as if he was lying in a water bath. He took deep breaths carefully, as if using too much force would make his lungs explode. As the queen bee's venom entered his body, his soul was almost dissolved, and all his strength was drained away.

  This was not the most terrifying part, it was the despair that seemed to have no hope in the entire world that truly frightened Zong Yin. He had to force himself to establish a glimmer of hope, a hope that would not let him give up. Hun Yu had said before he went into seclusion that if Zong Yin followed that despair, his heart would also die along with it.

  Zong Yinyin's hope was to find that mysterious black shadow and have it take him back. He had already experienced enough of this new world, all those descriptions of happy and beautiful scenes were false! Since he arrived, nothing good had happened! As time passed, Zong Yinyin wanted to go home, he thought of his mother, his classmates, if possible, he wanted to bring Zhao Ya Jing, that poor mother, with him when he left, after all, in this world, she might be the only one who cared about him.

  Under the persistence of revenge and nostalgia, Zong Yin still gritted his teeth, striving to resonate with soul power, operating "Soul Realization", in despair and hope, making every effort to form new soul power.

  After more than half a day of painful struggle, the toxicity of the Queen Bee finally passed, and Zong Yin's soul power also successfully broke through the 990th level. As long as he was given another day, he would be able to break through to 1000 and condense his Central Soul Stone.

  "There's only one more day left, I don't know if I can make it... Ah, at the critical moment, Hun Yu actually went into seclusion, no one to encourage me, really lacking in confidence."

  Zong Yin let out a sigh, lying on the ground in a big character shape, closing his eyes and whispering softly. The toxicity of the queen bee was getting stronger and stronger, and Zong Yin didn't know if he could make it through tomorrow. Every day, the growing soul power was increasing, and the degree to which the queen bee's venom softened his soul was also deepening. Zong Yin was very afraid that by tomorrow, the queen bee's toxin would exceed the range of his soul's endurance.

  If so, lightly, the soul will be traumatized and its power will permanently lose a part; severely, the soul will disperse and become a walking corpse.

  At this time, he wanted to learn about the power of Zhongshu from Hun Yu, in order to give himself some motivation. However, after Hun Yu returned to Soul School, he started a closed-door meditation and no matter how much Zong Yin called out to him, he couldn't get any response.

  The queen bee seemed to have understood what Zong Yin was saying, and carefully landed on his chest, avoiding her stinger from piercing his flesh again. She buzzed and called out, as if encouraging Zong Yin.

  Zong Yin smiled wryly and moved his arm, taking out a palm-sized piece of fresh meat with blood from the storage ring and placing it to one side. Although feeding the Queen Bee meat would make her grow faster, he really couldn't bear to starve this little creature that was so intelligent. Besides, there was only one day left anyway, and he didn't mind adding a bit more toxicity. If he couldn't break through to the Soul Master stage, then there was only one path - death. What did it matter how strong the Queen Bee grew if he failed? And if he succeeded, then Zong Yin at the Soul Master stage wouldn't be afraid of the Queen Bee's toxin even if she hadn't fully grown yet.

  Waiting for the toxin to dissipate, Zong Yin felt his strength gradually returning to his body and began to cultivate his Soul Blade. He had been thinking about how to fully utilize his Soul Blade to achieve an unexpected effect.

  "Zong Yin, Hei Sen is looking for you."

  Just then, the door of his practice room was knocked and Yang Jun's deep voice sounded outside.

  Zong Yin furrowed his brow, and inexplicably felt that something bad was going to happen again. With some effort, he stood up and opened the door for Yang Jun.

  "One person's solo practice is useless, strong people are often honed in actual combat, let's spar next time."

  Yang Jun glanced at the puddle of water behind Zong and said with a completely serious tone.

  "You'd better go find someone else, why did Hei Sen suddenly come looking for me?"

  Zong Yin rolled his eyes and didn't bother to reason with this guy whose brain only had fighting and nothing else, no doubt he was still brooding over Zong Yin's victory in the first water test and was looking for a rematch.

  With a puzzled expression, Zong Yan asked again with an odd tone. If something big happened, Hei Sen would definitely come himself, but letting Yang Jun bring the message was somewhat thought-provoking.

  "Not just you, but also several other students in the class from the southwest direction, I am one of them. It's convenient that I know you're here, so I'll let you know that winter is coming..."

  Yang Jun surprisingly didn't say much nonsense this time, his face turned solemn and he explained slowly, but his last sentence was filled with worry, and he subconsciously glanced southwest.

  Although Yang Jun did not explicitly state what was going on, Zong Yin had already vaguely guessed some of it. The southwest direction was exactly the border direction where the Xuanling Kingdom and the demon tribe were adjacent. Every year before winter, there would always be scattered demons from various secret passages crossing the border, appearing in some towns of the Xuanling Kingdom, burning, killing, and looting, and after accumulating enough wealth and food to get through the winter, they would slip away again.

  This is the way of the demon clan when everything goes smoothly, but once some special situations occur within the demon clan's territory, countless regular armies of the demon clan will appear, such as internal strife, external wars, natural disasters and so on.

  The regular army of the demon tribe is powerful, but it never defeats the regular army of the Xuanling Kingdom. Instead, it only engages in frontal containment, while another branch of demon warriors known as the "Locust Legion" takes advantage of the opportunity to kill into small towns and villages without heavy military protection, plundering all food, property, and women, leaving a trail of scorched earth in their wake.

  "The Locust Legion" has never confronted any army head-on, relying on its extremely strong mobility to single-mindedly target those with little threat. Since its establishment twenty years ago, it is said that the number of casualties does not exceed one hundred people, and is a demon tribe army that makes the border guards tremble with fear.

  The way the demon tribe is doing it, anyone with a brain knows what's going on. The demon tribe is not good at farming and actively giving that piece of land in the southwest to the Xuanling Kingdom is actually turning that piece of land into a hunting ground, coming over to hunt every now and then.

  In the face of the demon tribe's actions, the Xuanling Empire was indeed helpless. The three southwestern provinces were vast in area, with fertile soil and suitable temperatures, accounting for 70% of the empire's grain production and 30% of its meat production. Additionally, there were several important mineral veins, making it impossible for the empire's high-ranking officials to abandon them. In their eyes, as long as the demon tribe did not invade, the deaths of those civilians were irrelevant; as long as they could obtain their share of benefits, that was enough.

  It's already October, and at most there is only one more month to go before the frost sets in within the demon tribe's territory. For demons without sufficient food, it has indeed become time for them to venture out and hunt. Autumn is precisely when "prey" is at its plumpest.

  Before Zong Yin left Jiuhuan City, it seemed that there had been no large-scale precipitation in the demon realm for two consecutive years. Could it be...

  With this understanding in mind, Zong became somewhat worried and quietly followed Yang Jun to the designated place in the dark forest.

  Nor did he know how Zhao Yajing, who made him feel the warmth of his mother in this world, was doing now. The two deeply in love, even under the obstruction of the madam and the old lady, should have been doing well.

  "Let me go! Help! Don't kill me! As long as you don't kill me, I'll do whatever you want! Please let me go! Yang Jun! Zong Yin! Save me!"

  When Zong Yin's mind was a mess, thinking about things, a familiar female voice with a crying tone suddenly appeared, constantly shouting and even calling out Yang Jun and Zong Yin's names.

  Subconsciously raising her head, she saw two soldiers in military uniforms carrying Fengzi away to the school gate, one on each side. Fengzi's face was covered with tears and she kept shouting towards Zong Yin and Yang Jun. Those two soldiers were obviously not good people, as could be seen from the hand that was free on their bodies.

  A flame of anger suddenly ignited within him. Although he and Fengzi couldn't be said to have any deep feelings, she was after all one of the few friends that Zong Yin had, and Fengzi was the first person in this world that he had touched. At this moment, the place where he had once touched her was being touched by someone else, and a man's possessiveness stirred up, making Zong Yin feel extremely uncomfortable inside.

  Directly launching a counterattack, he raised his petrified right arm, and Zong Yin was about to charge out when a powerful hand pulled out his right arm wrapped in rocks.

  "What's wrong?! Save him!!"

  Zong Yin turned his head and saw that the one holding him back was none other than Yang Jun, who was normally even more impulsive than him. With a loud roar, Zong Yin struggled to break free again.

  Alas, Yang Jun didn't know when his strength had broken through to Soul Master level 3. Every time a Soul Master's level increases, it's not like the Soul Apprentice where you can't see any difference. A level 2 Soul Master with rich combat experience can even defeat a level 1 Soul Master without using soul techniques.

  Zong Yin and Yang Jun differed by more than 2,000 units of soul power. Zong Yin wanted to break free, but it wasn't that easy.

  "Don't go, Fengzi's father has been killed, and the ruler has ordered her entire family to be executed."

  Yang Jun's next words left Zong Yin stunned on the spot.