Chapter 1478: A Decision is Made

Upon hearing this, the expressions of many of the people below, which had just relaxed, became tense again.

Li Yan also saw that the expressions of more than a dozen of them did not show any surprise, but their faces became more solemn. Among cultivators, he, Li Yan, was not the only smart one. Many people here, after experiencing the hasty battle just now, had already thought of various possibilities.

“Senior, then can we continue to advance and join up with the experts of our hall or the Aegis Guard, and then turn back and encircle and annihilate them together!”

“Or we could hide and look for an opportunity to escape and annihilate the enemy!” a cultivator suggested at this time.

“No. We don’t know the exact location of the front line now, but we are very clear about how far the sect is from here and in which direction. As for staying here to hide, if the sect can react and kill these enemies in the middle ground, we can take the opportunity to cooperate in an ambush or wait for an opportunity to escape. But all of this is under the condition that the sect has the upper hand. Once the enemy gains the upper hand here, we will be truly surrounded, with no hope of escape.

“You all, put the fallen disciples of the sect into the Void Shadow space, and we will bury them after returning to the sect! Quick, move faster, we need to leave this place quickly!”

Li Yan quickly made arrangements. He wanted to return to the sect quickly, or at least get closer to the sect to get reinforcements, before the other party’s deployments were fully unfolded. The disciples who had already died did not need to be specially put into a living being’s Void Shadow; they could be directly put into an ordinary Void Shadow as items.

Upon hearing this, the people below also felt that what Li Yan said was reasonable. Even if what he said was unreasonable, they still had to obey Li Yan’s orders in the end. And this Senior Li was not a cold-blooded person. Before leaving, he did not forget to instruct them to collect the bodies of their companions. At least it showed that Li Yan was not that cold-blooded. This also meant that once they died in battle, they would not have to worry about being completely finished off by a companion’s fireball…

…

Three hours later, in a dense forest, Li Yan stood there with a grave expression. Mu Guyue still stood quietly by his side. And opposite them, more than twenty Golden Core cultivators also stood in the forest with various expressions.

At this time, night had already fallen. The faint starlight covered the treetops. Occasionally, a sliver of light would filter into the forest, but the forest was mostly pitch black. However, such darkness did not affect the cultivators much.

Things had indeed taken a turn for the worse. In the past two hours, Li Yan and his group had fought another great battle. While they were flying back, they were ambushed from the river below as they passed through a certain area in the air. In an instant, dozens of cultivators appeared from the bottom of the river. This time, their luck was slightly better. The other party did not have any Spirit Transformation level experts, but was led by four Nascent Soul cultivators with dozens of Golden Core cultivators, who launched a surprise attack.

After a great battle, Li Yan and his group had lost another three people before they escaped to this place. And Li Yan and Mu Guyue, working together, had also quickly killed two of the other party’s Nascent Soul cultivators and seriously injured one. The other one, seeing that the situation was not good, had led his men and fled in disarray.

Li Yan did not pursue them, but also led the remaining people and quickly fled.

On the rest of the journey, they no longer dared to fly at high altitudes, but led their men and flew close to the ground all the way. Even so, Li Yan still sensed three abnormal auras, and the other party had a large number of people each time, but he had managed to avoid them in advance. But in this way, their speed had slowed down.

During this period, Li Yan also discovered that although Mu Guyue could not use her soul power, her sensitivity to danger was just as keen, not much inferior to his own. He relied on his soul power to sense the heaven and earth, while Mu Guyue could only rely on her innate sensitivity to navigate here. Li Yan felt that if he put aside his soul power and also had no divine sense, his sensitivity to danger would probably be inferior to Mu Guyue’s.

A member of the Demonic Clan was a member of the Demonic Clan. Their bloodline was naturally suited for battle. No matter what the conditions were, they could quickly adapt.

“You all, spread out and be on guard. I need to think about the route back!” Li Yan immediately said to the Golden Core cultivators.

“Yes!”

The Golden Core cultivators, one by one, went on alert and immediately followed the order. They now obeyed Li Yan even more. They had all seen with their own eyes how fierce their captain was when he fought. The Nascent Soul cultivator who fought against him was almost instantly killed. Li Yan’s methods were bizarre and ruthless, which was why the ambushing enemy had been so shocked and had fled in panic.

After watching these people disperse, Li Yan also glanced at Mu Guyue, and then a soul slip appeared in his hand.

“You also keep an eye on the surroundings. I need to find a secluded route to see if I can return to the sect smoothly!”

Upon hearing this, Mu Guyue did not speak, but with a leap, she flew onto a large tree and then leaned quietly against a thick branch.

‘When did he cultivate soul arts? I remember when I met him at the bottom of the sea, I almost killed him, but he never used any soul arts. Logically, when a person is in a desperate situation, they would definitely use all their means. How could they still hold back…’

Watching Li Yan holding the soul slip and carefully examining it over there, Mu Guyue couldn’t help but think to herself.

This Li Yan was clearly a Poison Cultivator and a Body Cultivator. Where did he learn Soul Cultivator techniques? In the two battles today, she had once again confirmed that the Li Yan before her was the same human cultivator she knew. He had displayed both his poison arts and his body refining arts without reservation. It was just that the current Li Yan also possessed extremely bizarre soul arts!

His own cultivation was no longer that of the small cultivator she had met back then. She might not even be his match even if she recovered to her peak. Especially in the battle over the river this afternoon, Li Yan’s soul arts made Mu Guyue feel extremely sharp. The moment the two of them sensed the attack, they had immediately charged towards the four Nascent Soul cultivators.

Mu Guyue had seen a faint blue light flicker in Li Yan’s eyes, and a Mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator in front of them had fallen straight from the sky.

Li Yan’s “Saintly Soul Transformation,” when used against cultivators below the Late-stage Nascent Soul realm, coupled with his powerful soul power, already had an absolute crushing advantage. Those star powers were very strange. They could make his already mastered basic soul arts, after being infused with star power, increase in power by one to two times. And the cultivator who was hit might have their soul numbed by the starlight, experiencing a brief out-of-body experience and a dazed consciousness. Li Yan would often quickly follow up with another blow, and he could pierce through the other party’s soul, turning them into a corpse with their body intact!

No matter how Mu Guyue’s emotions fluctuated, Li Yan seemed to be infusing his soul power into the soul slip, but in fact, the situation was not like that at all. When he raised his wrist, he had already quietly extended his divine sense into the “Earthen Patch.” After experiencing two great battles in a row, Li Yan realized that the danger here had risen sharply, and he could no longer delay.

…

In the far west of the “Earthen Patch,” the green-robed elder was lying on the ground, being constantly baked by the scorching sun from above. He no longer knew how many years he had been lying here. At the very beginning, he was often beaten wildly by that damned brat. At that time, he just wanted to die quickly. He didn’t want to be constantly humiliated like this. But that brat just wouldn’t let him die. And every time he came, apart from beating him wildly, he never said a single word to him.

On the verge of being driven mad, he kept roaring and asking the other party what he wanted, either to answer him or to give him a quick death. But what greeted him was still a wild beating, which not only left him with open wounds but also subjected the green-robed elder’s psyche to more humiliation and blows. He felt that that person was a madman, perhaps his brain had been damaged by cultivation, and he was simply not of sound mind.

And just when he thought that this life worse than death would never end, suddenly, that brat stopped showing up. This made the green-robed elder at first think that he had gone mad, that he was having hallucinations, that he was still being beaten, but he had just become numb. But after he repeatedly confirmed his own condition, he felt that he was not hallucinating from being beaten. The other party just hadn’t appeared for a long time.

After a period of being on edge, he began to think that the other party had forgotten him. But later, that person really never appeared again. So, he just lay here quietly. He felt that after what seemed like year after year, he finally let out a sigh of relief in his heart. But later, he was just imprisoned in the desert like this, lying there day after day, unable to do anything.

After losing the beatings, everything became too quiet. He increasingly felt that the scorching sun in the sky was becoming more and more unbearable. What was even more terrifying was that there was no sound here at all. There wasn’t even a gust of wind in this desert, as if it were completely isolated from the world. And he couldn’t cultivate. He could only, day after day, stare at the five-colored halo in the sky, feeling the moisture in his body being evaporated bit by bit. But because his magical power was still there, and his cultivation was high, he would naturally regenerate moisture and vitality. This process was silent, long, and painful.

There was no day or night here, only the unbearable searing heat. This made it so that after a long time, the green-robed elder could no longer keep track of time. He was in a daze, not knowing how long had passed.

“Let me die… let… let me die…”

The green-robed elder in the desert stared at the five-colored halo in the sky. He had fantasized more than once that the temperature could be several times, dozens of times higher, so that he could die sooner. Or that the light could be dozens or hundreds of times brighter, directly blinding him, so that he could also feel the arrival of the night. Perhaps then, he would feel cooler. He muttered to himself.

In fact, those occasional mutterings were already a subconscious reaction. Most of the time, even he himself didn’t know what he was saying. It was as if he was just talking for the sake of talking, just praying for his heart’s desires to be fulfilled…

And at some point, the light above him suddenly went dark, as if something was blocking the sky. However, this time, the green-robed elder had no reaction. In his dazed state, this had happened too many times. This made it so that after experiencing joy and sorrow again and again, his feelings and reactions were already in two different spaces and could not be quickly unified.

It was not until after several breaths that a very strange and bizarre expression appeared on the green-robed elder’s face. It was an expression of intertwined surprise and fear. At this time, his thoughts had only just returned a little, and this reaction was out of instinct. Because what he saw was a face, a seemingly familiar face. The green-robed elder was also a little surprised that there could suddenly be other colors in this space. But at the same time, the face that entered his eyes made him instinctively feel an extreme sense of trembling. It was an instinctive fear carved into his bones.

And the next moment, his consciousness became blurry. His head tilted, and he completely fainted.

After Li Yan appeared, he no longer delayed. Forming a hand seal, he pointed a finger at the center of the other’s brow. Then, as the soul power on his index finger fluctuated, in just a moment, several black shadows were pulled out from the center of the green-robed elder’s brow.

At the same time, as Li Yan’s other hand changed its hand seal, streaks of red silk threads immediately appeared. The moment those black threads appeared, these red threads, like a fishnet, directly wrapped around them. It was the soul imprint he had condensed…

…

After an unknown amount of time, the green-robed elder suddenly pushed himself up with both hands and sat up straight from the ground. His eyes were first filled with a daze, and he woodenly looked around.

The surroundings were still the place he was all too familiar with. But this time, he could move his body. He didn’t remember what had happened before. It seemed that he had lost consciousness while looking at the five-colored halo in the sky. Just now, in his daze, he had felt a force rise from within his body. The memory of thousands of years of cultivation, upon sensing that familiar force, had made him react in an instant.

After sitting up, the green-robed elder, out of an instinct carved into his bones, subconsciously began to circulate his magical power. Then, he was stunned on the spot!

After a full ten breaths, the light had returned to his eyes, but it was filled with deep disbelief. In his shock and doubt, he hurriedly mobilized his magical power again. After a few more breaths, this time he finally confirmed one thing: the magical power that seemed to have been lost for millions of years had returned!

Feeling the tide-like magical power rushing through his already dry and cracked meridians, this long-lost feeling made the green-robed elder’s chapped lips begin to tremble nonstop. He carefully and seriously raised his hands, watching the magical power flash with light from his palms. His eyes suddenly filled with two lines of tears.

“Alright, have you had enough of looking!”

And at this moment, an extremely indifferent voice suddenly sounded from above his head. This made the green-robed elder, who was immersed in joy, pause, and his body shuddered violently. The next moment, he had turned into an afterimage and appeared in the distance. And at this time, when he looked up at the place where the voice came from, the moment he saw clearly, the green-robed elder cried out in alarm.

“It’s you!”

And at the same time, his memories flooded back like a tide. This person had already appeared before. The moment he appeared, he had pointed a finger at the center of his brow!