Chapter 1593: Hunt in the Fog (Part One)

Han Zhumei stood on the thin branch, her body swaying slightly with the gentle breeze in the fog, bobbing up and down.

She was also vigilantly scanning her surroundings, but all she could see was the surging fog and the hazy, dark gray scenery of various heights and lows…

Within her divine sense, in this area, apart from crawling insects like ants, a total of four hundred and sixty-seven various wild beasts had appeared.

Just as she was passing through a moment ago, a feeling of heart palpitations arose for no reason, as if a dormant ferocious beast was wandering nearby.

Moreover, she seemed to have brushed past it. This made Han Zhumei’s heart jump in surprise, and she immediately flashed to this spot.

But when she stopped and carefully investigated the surroundings again, she no longer had that feeling. That momentary palpitation seemed to be just an illusion.

‘Was it my imagination? Or is there a super expert in hiding among those people from the Broken Army Sect? But there is no such person in the information we obtained. Could it be that newly promoted Mu Guyue?’

Han Zhumei’s thoughts raced, quickly going through the information of everyone in the Broken Army Sect in her mind. And among all of them, Mu Guyue had the least information!

Han Zhumei felt that her perception just now was not wrong.

She was riding the wind. Every wisp of wind in the world was her eyes and ears, and also her feet…

Li Yan was also carefully observing his surroundings. He also felt that his momentary discomfort was not a mistake!

Sometimes, the unknown reactions produced by a living being itself were even many times more sensitive than a cultivator’s divine sense.

Moreover, Li Yan’s hunter’s instinct was something he had exchanged his life for in his youth, through countless narrow escapes from death.

It was precisely because of this that Uncle Chang and Li Wei had repeatedly taught the young Li Yan, who always sneaked into the mountains, a lesson. That was a hunt where one could go and never return at any moment…

“There are no demonic beasts here. We have already completely investigated all areas before the dense fog arose. Only wild beasts exist. Wild beasts at most have physical concealment. The blood in their bodies and the faint aura they emit cannot possibly escape my detection. In that case, there is only one result. That is, a cultivator also appeared nearby just now! A cultivator… a cultivator who is good at concealment… it’s that wind-attribute woman surnamed Han…”

As his thoughts raced in his mind, a somewhat shocking idea suddenly flashed through.

“She also left her team. She has the same purpose as me. She wants to wait for an opportunity to kill the other party’s Spirit Transformation realm expert!”

At this moment, Li Yan seemed to have figured something out.

He might have encountered his own kind. The other party was also an expert in concealment, and both of them wanted to ambush the other’s sect and kill their strongest expert.

He had this idea because it was his usual habit, not intentional.

The other party, as a wind-attribute expert, and a late-stage Spirit Transformation realm expert at that, was the only supreme expert in this Mountain River Diagram.

So it was natural that she would have such courage and thoughts.

Moreover, Li Yan also realized another thing at this moment. The other party was also using her speed advantage to find the people of the Broken Army Sect as soon as possible, and then point out the direction and location for her own sect’s cultivators.

“She wants to get rid of the Broken Army Sect as soon as possible!”

The more Li Yan thought about it, the more he felt that his guess was extremely likely.

Although he had not seen the other party, nor had he found where the other party was hiding, all of this stemmed from Li Yan’s confidence in his own instincts.

At this moment, he felt that he was at least sixty percent sure that the feeling he had just now was not an illusion.

Since there was such a high probability of confirmation, Li Yan would naturally treat it as real. He had not expected that the other party’s plan would be surprisingly similar to his own.

The only difference was that he had no intention of guiding the Broken Army Sect to launch a main attack!

“She should still be nearby. Since we’ve met, I can’t let you leave here again. Otherwise, it would be very tricky for Mu Guyue and the others to deal with this woman!”

As Li Yan’s thoughts turned, he had already made a decision.

And in his perception, the feeling of the scene being destroyed still existed in his heart. Li Yan did not feel that everything around him had returned to a completely harmonious feeling.

Li Yan felt that before, when his mind was relaxed, he had let himself go.

For another concealment expert, the other party should also have their own set of methods for sensing the fusion of all things in the world.

So it was very likely that the other party had also noticed that something was wrong. So there was a fifty percent chance that this person had not immediately moved away, but had suddenly stopped.

This was why he had been feeling that the surrounding environment could not achieve a natural fusion of heaven and earth…

Han Zhumei was still standing on the tree branch. She had already closed her beautiful eyes and was quietly using an art to sense her surroundings.

The name of this art was “Moon White Wind Clear.” It was to use all the wind-attribute power around to detect any abnormalities in the spatial aura.

Because wherever the wind passed, whatever it was blocked by could be perceived, and it could also cause plants, wind, and clouds to undergo changes that should not have occurred.

This formless wind, in the eyes of others, was formless, or rather, random and without any pattern.

But in Han Zhumei’s perception, it had a clear form.

For example, when she used the wind to sense a tree, even if she did not use her divine sense, wherever the wind passed, it would either pass through or feel an obstruction.

When the wind passed by a large tree, as long as this large tree existed, whether it was visible or concealed by an art, it was actually just hidden, not truly disappeared.

Then that place, under Han Zhumei’s “Moon White Wind Clear” art, would, between reality and illusion, possibly outline the silhouette of a large tree in that space.

The reason why it was said to be possible was because if the other party’s immortal art level or strength was much stronger than hers, they could naturally break her art and make her unable to sense it.

Or, whatever form the other party wanted her to sense would appear. In the end, this was still an art.

As long as it was an art, there would naturally be a distinction between strong and weak.

But when Han Zhumei also became suspicious and began to cast her art to expand to the surroundings, to sense the various forms of all things around her, she was surprised to find that it was exactly the same as the scene that appeared in her divine sense, without the slightest difference.

This was the first time she had encountered a cultivation method of the level of “Stealthy Night Art,” and it was being used by Li Yan, who had already reached the Spirit Transformation realm.

This art had already reached the point of melting into mist and turning into water. Naturally, his form would not show any abnormalities.

“Could it be that I really sensed it wrong? Or does the other party have a magical treasure or talisman that can conceal my art…”

Han Zhumei was puzzled after her investigation yielded no results.

In her heart, she did not feel that her previous perception was wrong. Instead, it was most likely that her actions had also alarmed the other party.

And she had already somewhat confirmed that this person should be the female cultivator named Mu Guyue, because the methods Li Yan had displayed in the previous trial were not this strong.

Otherwise, the other party could have, like her, directly dodged the attacks of those heads and demonic beasts, instead of consuming a large amount of magical power from beginning to end.

As for Ren Yanyu, she was even more familiar with her. The other party definitely did not have this ability. Then the only one left was Mu Guyue.

Han Zhumei investigated again in confusion, but still found nothing. And using her divine sense here made her very uncomfortable.

After her divine sense went out, it would be interfered with by various things, like a wisp of divine sense covered in dense burrs, making her unable to see her surroundings clearly.

Han Zhumei’s beautiful eyes had wind and clouds slowly flowing in them. Just as she was thinking about whether to leave here and continue forward, or to observe quietly for a while, her beautiful eyebrows suddenly raised slightly, because seventy zhang away from her, a patch of mist suddenly stirred slightly.

The surging of the mist was originally a very normal thing under the blowing of the gentle breeze in the forest. Others might not be able to detect anything wrong.

But Han Zhumei, who was still using the power of heaven and earth’s wind to perform “Moon White Wind Clear,” could feel the difference.

The direction of the surging of the mist in that area, a small patch of extremely faint mist, did not change with the gentle breeze in the forest, but instead went slightly against the wind.

That small patch of mist was mixed in the dense fog. Even if Master Wei were to observe carefully here, he would most likely not see anything wrong.

But in Han Zhumei’s perception, an abnormality wrapped in the wind appeared.

“It’s you!”

As Han Zhumei’s beautiful eyebrows raised, the magical power in her body quietly surged. Without seeing her make any movement, a huge wind blade suddenly appeared above that patch of mist.

This huge wind blade was formed by the convergence of the wind there. It appeared almost in the instant of her thought, and then it slashed fiercely towards that ball of mist.

Li Yan still couldn’t find where the other party was hiding, but he knew he couldn’t hesitate any longer. Otherwise, once the other party left, it would be difficult for him to find this woman.

He could release a wisp of his divine sense to pull on the branches and leaves in other places, or startle some wild beast to cause a commotion, thereby revealing a flaw in the other party.

But in reality, the result of him doing that was actually useless!

If the other party was like him, an expert in stealth and concealment, then before discovering him, just seeing the movement of branches or wild beasts, but not finding the source of the divine sense, then besides being more certain that someone was lurking in the dark and had discovered her existence, this would only make that Han Zhumei more vigilant, and there would be no other better result.

In that situation, before Han Zhumei discovered Li Yan’s true hiding place, she would be even less likely to act rashly and expose her own position.

And if Li Yan exposed his divine sense to pull on branches and leaves, if he was already under the cover of the other party’s art, then for a cultivator, the space under the cover of their art would very likely find the source of the divine sense in the instant it was sensed, and would still directly lock onto Li Yan.

Thus, Li Yan simply let his own aura leak a little. He wanted to provoke the other party to attack, so that he could, in an instant, reverse-lock onto the other party’s position.

And just as Li Yan’s aura had just leaked, a suffocating heart palpitation instantly rose in his heart.

In the instant his heart skipped a beat, Li Yan, almost without thinking, had already shot out!

And at the same time, Li Yan had already sensed that in two places, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was converging and fluctuating in an instant.

One place was above his own head, and the other place was on a branch of a large tree.

The place where Li Yan was, in an instant, the mist condensed into a black shadow, and shot towards a direction in the dense forest like a bolt of lightning.

At the same time, the moment Li Yan’s figure appeared, without looking back, he flicked his hand, and a black light shot out from his hand, striking precisely at the tree branch he had sensed.

“Swish!”

“Bang bang bang…”

First, with a soft sound, a huge wind blade cut through layers of dense fog like lightning and slashed at the position where Li Yan had just been.

Li Yan could even sense that the hem of his clothes, which had been flying back due to his forward rush, had been cut off at a corner.

“Such a fast attack!”

This was the only thought that flashed through Li Yan’s mind. Ever since he decided to expose his position to lure the other party to attack, his divine sense had been firmly locked on his surroundings.

But he still hadn’t discovered what means the other party had used to attack. It was as if a ghost had drilled out of the fog and was already above his head.

That suffocating attack made Li Yan fly out without any regard for anything else.

The attack of a wind-attribute cultivator was truly like the wind, strange and unpredictable, without a trace!

And almost at the same time, Han Zhumei, who was standing on the large tree, had also just cast her hand seal.

But just as her hand seal was just forming, she felt a black shadow suddenly appear in this world from the dense fog.

Then, just as the black shadow appeared, she, like a cat with its fur standing on end, without even thinking, lightly tapped the tree trunk with her foot, and her body floated backwards at extreme speed.

Then, in her line of sight, she saw a fist-sized black shadow instantly break through the dense fog, stirring up the world, and with a violent momentum, it had already reached her chest.

“Such a fast reaction!”

In an instant, a thought also flashed through Han Zhumei’s mind.

Seeing that the black shadow was even faster than her retreat, at this moment, Han Zhumei’s body suddenly became as soft as if she had no bones.

Her body, like a piece of paper, instantly drifted with the wind and turned to one side, giving people a feeling of being completely weightless.

And just as her body floated up like a piece of paper, the black shadow had already passed through the position where she had just stood, with a domineering wind.

Then, it passed through under her floating armpit, even causing her clothes to be pulled and flutter…

Then, the first explosion sounded!

It was a giant tree as thick as a person’s waist behind where Han Zhumei had floated up. In an instant, a transparent hole was punched through the trunk of the tree.

Amidst the flying wood chips, the entire large tree shook violently.

Then, another series of loud bangs sounded in dense succession!

The black shadow swept past, sending branches and leaves flying in the dense forest. Slightly smaller trees were directly broken in the middle with one blow.

Under the inertia of the huge force, the upper half of the tree trunk, with its tangled and broken vines, shot up into the sky, and only after flying a certain height did it crash down with a bang.

Then there was another series of crashing sounds of branches and leaves, and the black shadow, as if without any resistance, continued to crush and smash its way into the depths of the forest.

The rumbling sound went on and on, echoing far and wide, startling countless birds and beasts in the forest!