Chapter 817: Escape |
Edge of Miling Island.
Chen Mu stared at Wu Jie, who was rolling on the ground, desperately trying to extinguish the Seven Emotions Flames, his expression turning ruthless.
Boom!
The Delusion Seven Emotions Flame surged once more, and Wu Jie’s entire body completely turned into a great ball of fire.
Yin Mistaken Yang revolved in midair, streaks of Yin Yang Qi Divine Light continuously blasted into the flames.
He had thought this left no room for failure, but in the very next moment—
Wu Jie suddenly seemed like a balloon that had been punctured; with a bang, he exploded into a rain of blood, countless blood droplets shooting out in all directions like sharp arrows.
The Seven Emotions Flame clinging to Wu Jie was instantly blasted apart, scattering everywhere.
Chen Mu’s heart gave a jump, and he instantly escaped several hundred meters away to avoid the blood rain.
He saw that with Wu Jie at the center, the ground had already turned pitch black and charred.
The blood rain was like poisonous water, corroding the surrounding rubble and shrubs into riddled holes, emitting a constant sizzle.
At the center, a fist-sized lump of blood squirmed and swelled rapidly, and in the span of a breath transformed into a small figure half the height of a man.
The little figure bore a pair of gray, membranous wings on his back; his skin was a bluish gray suffused with deathly aura, gray-white dry hair hanging loose, fine sharp teeth jutting crookedly from his lips like a cluster of wildly growing spikes.
His palm-sized face was extremely bizarre, as if there were a dividing line down the middle: the left half looked like Wu Jie, while the right half looked exactly like Wu Neng’er from back then!
"This person... this demon, is he still Wu Jie?"
Chen Mu couldn’t help being stunned.
"If I’d had another two months, I would have completely cultivated the Maling True Form!" Wu Jie glared viciously at Chen Mu.
"It’s you! You’re the one who made me become this neither-human-nor-ghost grotesque monstrosity, cutting off my Dao path."
"You deserve to die!"
His eyes were bloodshot as he let out a roar, and dashed toward Chen Mu like lightning.
Chen Mu immediately cast the Nightmare Victory Spell again, only to find that the spell could no longer lock onto Wu Jie.
The opponent had shattered his original body, been reborn from a drop of blood, and his qi mechanism had completely changed; the qi he’d collected earlier was now useless!
Chen Mu’s heart lurched; just as he was about to flee, Wu Jie abruptly halted midway.
"No no no, I can kill him, I can kill him, just give me one more chance!" His face was filled with terror.
"Grandma spare me... Daoist Monarch spare me!"
It was as if countless insects were writhing beneath Wu Jie’s skin, and also as if a giant hand was constantly pulling his body outward; his entire figure was forcibly stretched to a full two meters tall.
His face kept changing, becoming more and more like... Daoist Monarch Jiang Men!
Chen Mu felt his hair stand on end, instinctively wanting to cast a spell and flee.
But the next instant—
Hum!
An invisible force suddenly descended, and even the surrounding air seemed to solidify.
Chen Mu was frozen in place; even the Shrinking Earth into Inches ability of his Longitudinal Rainbow Light was suppressed.
He was like a little insect trapped in amber, completely unable to move!
Seeing Wu Jie’s gaze grow colder and colder, Chen Mu steeled his heart.
Within the Dao Foundation Jade Seed, the Yellow Springs Gourd Spirit, which had been slowly circling, suddenly stopped, then spun backward once, and a streak of lustrous white light spurted from the gourd’s mouth.
As if teleported out of thin air, the white light instantly appeared not far in front of Wu Jie.
Puff!
With a soft sound, a fine line appeared at Wu Jie’s neck, and the expression on his face froze in an instant.
A Gentle Breeze blew past.
Thud!
His head fell to the ground.
The cross-section was smooth as a mirror, as if sealed by some eerie force. The blue blood within was clearly visible, yet not a single drop spurted out.
The invisible power that had just enveloped his whole body also vanished at once.
Awoo...
A roar filled with pain and fury suddenly came from deep within Miling Island.
The white clouds lazily drifting in midair were blown apart by this howl.
Chen Mu’s face changed drastically.
Yin Mistaken Yang Qi surged, blasting a hole in the invisible barrier of the Five Directions Flag.
With a flash of golden light, Chen Mu followed right behind and flew out.
One hundred thousand Ghosts exerted strength in unison; using the Vermilion Feather Sword, whose qi connection had previously been severed by the Five Directions Flag, as an anchor, a small, two-man-high Ghost Gate suddenly condensed.
Chen Mu practically tumbled head over heels as he rushed into the Ghost Gate.
And just as the Ghost Gate shrank and vanished, a massive black cloud descended from the sky, crashing down upon the location of Ghost Gate Pass.
Without a sound, the edge of Miling Island seemed to be swallowed by some invisible monster; in an instant, a massive gap several hundred meters long appeared.
A moment later, the black smoke dispersed, revealing Jiang Men’s figure.
"An Inner Cultivation of Spiritual Treasure, and the Yellow Springs Gourd at that—the hardest to cultivate in the Yellow Springs Sect?!"
"Heh! I truly didn’t expect such a person to be hiding under my command." His pair of golden vertical pupils gazed into the distance, his face dark as iron.
"To let such a cowardly little worm ruin one of my Divine Separations, truly..." Jiang Men forcibly endured the throbbing pain in his forehead, turned to glance back at Miling Island, his expression gloomy.
"If not for the Spiritual Eye Refinement being at a critical juncture, hmph!" With a flicker of his figure, he once more dove into the depths of Miling Island.
The Five Directions Flag barrier rose up again, white mist billowing within, returning once more to a deathly silence, as if nothing had ever happened.
...
Four hundred li away, on the pitch-black sea surface, a vortex of black mist appeared out of nowhere.
Chen Mu stumbled out from within.
The clothes on his back were in tatters, flesh and blood mangled; his left shoulder blade even exposed ghastly white bone, covered in fine cracks.
"So this is the terrifying might of a Daoist Monarch?!"
Glancing sidelong at his left shoulder, Chen Mu’s face was deathly pale, his heart tightening.
Just being grazed by the aftermath, the thirty-two-layer Heavenly Demon Armor had shattered like brittle crackers, layer by layer, and his own Protective Qi Mechanism had been crushed in an instant.
If he hadn’t run fast enough...
"Truly worthy of being a Daoist Monarch of the True Form Realm!"
Chen Mu still felt lingering fear.
Soul Capturing and Essence Returning!
From the Bottomless Pool within the Five Ghosts Bag, a large amount of Vital Energy was drawn out, transforming into Returning Yuan Strange Power that poured into his body.
The flesh on his back began to grow at a speed visible to the naked eye; rotten flesh sloughed off, new flesh sprouted.
In just the blink of an eye, the wound was sealed, stopping the continued loss of blood.
Chen Mu glanced at the injury he had roughly treated, then quickly put away the Vermilion Feather Sword he had used as an anchor just now.
"I can’t stay here for long; I must keep fleeing farther!"
He crouched where he was; this spot was only four to five hundred li from Miling Island. If Jiang Men Daoist Monarch wanted to pursue, he could arrive in the blink of an eye.
"Why didn’t I place the Vermilion Feather Sword a thousand li away in the first place!"
Chen Mu felt a stab of regret, and cast Longitudinal Rainbow Light, Shrinking Earth into Inches.
Golden light flashed again and again; with each flash, he crossed three to five li, like a firefly flitting through the night sky, rapidly fleeing into the distance.
...
After changing direction several times, he successively unleashed Longitudinal Rainbow Light, Yin Wind Escape Technique, and Five Elements Escape Technique.
He kept fleeing until daybreak, covering more than a thousand li, before Chen Mu finally stopped over a stretch of sea shrouded in gloomy clouds.
"He shouldn’t be able to catch up now, right."
He moved his fingers in a hand seal, using the Nine Cups Calculation Scripture to divine fortune and misfortune.
After several consecutive calculations without detecting any danger, he finally let out a slight sigh of relief.
Twelve Vermilion Feather Swords streamed out from his sleeve, flying off in all directions.
He still didn’t feel at ease relying solely on the Nine Cups Calculation Scripture; he had to verify it with his own eyes.
As the Magic Swords flew farther away, the Truth Listening Divine Power spread out with each sword as its center.
After sweeping several times in succession and confirming that there were no massive life fluctuations nearby, nor any sign of Daoist Monarch Jiang tracking him, he finally relaxed a little.
As his heart relaxed slightly, the pain in his back slowly surged up.
Not only his left shoulder; he felt aching all over his body.
In all his years of cultivation, this was the first time he’d been injured so badly.
"I can’t keep flying at full force like this; I need to take a breather and treat these injuries."
Chen Mu thought for a moment, then took out the Dragon Bone Boat.
This Magic Artifact had been obtained back at the Tangshan Institute of the Yellow Springs Sect in Yizhou; it was said to have come from the Heavenly River Cave Heaven and belonged to the Heavenly River Water Mansion.
It contained a world within, its size changing at will; it could travel through water and take flight, and was impervious to water and fire.
So long as it was supplied with Earth Spirit Vital Energy via White Jade Coins, or allowed to freely prey on living creatures, it required no full-time Manipulation, and could move on its own through the water.
In this way, he could free up his hands to heal and recover.
Pouring Mana into it, he restored it to a tens-of-meters-long, giant black-iron loach-like form.
Chen Mu crawled in through its gaping mouth, then controlled it to shrink down to the length of a finger, whereupon it dove into the sea and slowly swam in a direction that led farther away from Miling Island.