Chapter 1596: Hunt in the Fog (Part Four)

At the same time, a faint light flashed in Han Zhumei’s hand, mixing in with the chaotic spatial fluctuations and disappearing in an instant.

As Li Yan launched the heavy water pearl, the Li Fire Profound Yellow Fan was already in his palm.

Just as he was about to attack again, he saw Han Zhumei turn and flee without any intention of lingering in the fight.

With a swift, slanted movement, she floated into the large patch of wind blades not far from him, and then with a flicker, she disappeared into it.

Seeing the other party’s figure disappear in an instant, Li Yan immediately stopped his pursuit. Instead, he also rushed out from this only remaining gap.

While still in mid-air, he also waved his hand, and the large patch of flying needles disappeared. His figure also flashed and once again vanished into the dense forest.

And at the same time, he made almost the same move as Han Zhumei. Just as he was retracting the flying needles, a slight fluctuation also rose in his hand.

That fluctuation was also fleeting, hidden by him within the act of retracting the flying needles. Han Zhumei, similarly, did not notice.

This time, the two of them exchanged blows and then immediately retreated. But only the two of them knew the danger involved. If they had hesitated even for a moment, they would have been hit by the other party’s overwhelming attack.

Their attacks were their strongest in their respective large-scale arts. If the other party were to be hit, even if they could withstand this wave of attacks, then in the situation where they had lost the opportunity to hide, the other party would probably not give them any subsequent chances.

After a burst of explosions, the fog quickly spread out, revealing a large expanse of open ground. There were no longer any trees or bushes there.

Only a dead silence after the explosion remained, and the nearby wild beasts and birds had long been scared away to who knows where.

Here, only a patch of surging fog remained, which then quickly gathered again, and then it became deathly silent again…

In a patch of waist-high bushes, Han Zhumei, in her transparent form, was standing here. Her pair of beautiful eyes, through the gaps in the forest ahead, scanned the dense fog in front.

There, although her gaze could not penetrate, in her divine sense, the forest ahead was already a large open space. The peaks on her chest were rising and falling slightly.

She had to control those wind spirits that were still attacking, and it was only after expending a considerable amount of magical power that she was able to retract them.

At this time, in her mind, she was quickly thinking about the encounter just now. She had wanted to ambush the other party, but she had been ambushed by the other party again.

‘One person as bait, one person ambushing outside? Did all of them split up? Are they trying to delay for time?’

At this moment, Han Zhumei felt that perhaps all of the other party’s Spirit Transformation cultivators had scattered, or rather, all the members of the Broken Army Sect had also dispersed.

Were they deliberately trying to drag this out for five days with their side?

Until now, she had still not been able to figure out the other party’s background. As Han Zhumei’s thoughts kept turning, she suddenly noticed that something was wrong.

‘Is it really such a coincidence that the other party has two such skilled stealth experts? But this is a bit too coincidental! And during the exchange just now, I was clearly in a pincer attack, but that Li Yan, after rushing out, did not take the opportunity to pursue and kill after his attack missed. Instead, he hid again. And the person who attacked from behind, since they had already engaged me, as long as they delayed me for a breath, I would have completely fallen into their trap. Yet at that time, the other party did not take the opportunity to attack and entangle me again… This means… that after one strike, since it was not effective, they knew they could no longer lock onto me…’

Han Zhumei thought of the person who had attacked her with a rain of needles from the periphery. From beginning to end, they had not shown themselves. She suddenly understood.

That might have also been a trap set by Li Yan, and he had used himself as bait, placing himself at the center of that ambush circle to lure her in.

“That cunning fellow!”

At this time, Han Zhumei felt that she had been tricked again. Even the flaw that the other party had occasionally revealed when operating their cultivation method might have been intentional.

All of this was to lure her into the trap. And although she had fallen into the trap, because she was also extremely careful, she had also laid a layer of an ambush circle.

And that Li Yan had not been able to discover in the first instance that she had actually already appeared in his vicinity, so he had lost the best opportunity to kill.

When Li Yan noticed that something was wrong and also discovered her, because she had instantly launched an attack, the two ambush circles overlapped, resulting in both of them failing.

“But, when did he set up the ambush circle? Such a large circle, could he also, like me, be able to use some kind of law power to quietly set up a trap?”

At this time, Han Zhumei seemed to have figured it out. Li Yan, like her, probably wanted to quietly hunt the other party.

It was just that the other party’s means of setting up an ambush were so brilliant, how had she not noticed at all?

For a moment, she was dazed again, feeling that perhaps there really was a third person here who had taken advantage of their first exchange to set up a trap.

And just in her daze, a blurry image suddenly flashed through Han Zhumei’s mind.

It was when she and the other party had their first exchange. After both of them had missed their attacks, they had each disappeared into other parts of the forest.

That Li Yan seemed to… seemed to have drawn a blurry arc when he disappeared into the forest before vanishing!

“It was that… arc. He had set up a means before landing and sneaking again!”

Han Zhumei discovered in astonishment that the arc Li Yan had made when he landed in the forest seemed to be the place where the rain of needles had appeared just now.

Thus, Han Zhumei was not just shocked.

Instead, she felt that this cultivator named Li Yan in the Broken Army Sect had a depth of scheming and a precision of calculation that she simply could not compare to.

Because, the first time the two sides fought, it was only under the condition that they had both sensed something was wrong.

It could be said to be a probe, or it could be said to be a life-and-death struggle at the moment they truly met. It was a battle between these two.

It could turn from illusion to reality, and from reality to illusion in an instant. But neither side knew what the situation would be after the actual exchange. Everything was dependent on adapting to the situation.

And the two of them, just in that instant, after one strike missed, both chose to lurk again without any prior agreement. And just in that hasty response, Li Yan had actually thought of such a follow-up move.

And all the traces were done so naturally, without the slightest sense of deliberateness. This was also an important reason why Han Zhumei had made a wrong judgment later.

Furthermore, Li Yan had echoed the bait of his cultivation method seeming to have a flaw, twice in a row, as if unintentionally exposing himself. This also led to Han Zhumei believing her own judgment.

“This person… is terrifying!” Han Zhumei muttered to herself.

At this moment, Li Yan was standing at the very top of a large tree’s canopy. This tree was very tall and overlooked a vast sea of forest.

But at this moment, all he could see was a vast sea of mist. Logically speaking, for him to be standing here like this was a great taboo for a lurker.

But vision was basically useless here. Under the vast dense fog, one could only rely on divine sense.

Li Yan chose this place. Just from a psychological perspective, with the open space around, the sense of security would be much less.

But he just chose to appear here. He estimated that Han Zhumei would not notice this place in the first instance.

Li Yan’s figure was still transparent, and his divine sense was also scanning the surroundings. At the same time, he was also thinking about the scene of the two of them fighting again just now.

“Wind-attribute cultivators are really hard to deal with! If it were my main body here, perhaps I could have killed her in that one strike just now. It’s really a pity…” Li Yan thought to himself.

Previously, he had taken advantage of that landing and circling to quietly lay out numerous Sealing Demon Needles.

Although the second time, he had used himself as bait, in the end, he was still quietly approached by the other party and almost counter-killed by her again.

Twice he had attacked, and twice Li Yan had missed, and both times he had almost been counter-killed. This was also quite rare for him.

If not for the restrictions here, Li Yan would have attacked with more than just the Sealing Demon Needles. The Fragmented Poison, soul art attacks, at the moment Han Zhumei revealed herself, could have taken her life.

Now, this imprint body of his, the means he could use, were truly few and far between.

Li Yan could only search again while his thoughts raced, recalling the process of the previous exchange, trying to find the other party’s weakness from it.

However, after two exchanges, Li Yan was confident that if he wanted to leave now, he should be able to leave safely. The other party could also do the same.

But he couldn’t leave. If he let such an enemy go, it would be absolutely dangerous for Mu Guyue and the others to deal with her.

If things went wrong, they could all perish at the hands of this woman.

But this Han Zhumei was also a concealment expert. The other party couldn’t find him, but how could Li Yan find her? This gave Li Yan a headache.

This was the first time Li Yan had encountered such a super concealment expert, which made him feel so tricky for a moment.

Time passed quietly. Li Yan, who was standing on the canopy, suddenly, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

A gentle breeze came, and the dense fog on the surrounding mountains surged. And Li Yan quietly disappeared from the top of the tree canopy.

Only the branches and leaves, covered in mist, remained, looming in and out of view in a patch of mist, making a slight rustling sound as they swayed…

The middle-aged beautiful woman’s name was Ling Shan. She was a mid-stage Spirit Transformation expert and was currently the strongest person on the Bright Flame Sect’s side, apart from Han Zhumei.

In her hand, she was holding a voice transmission talisman. It was a message that Han Zhumei had just sent. It contained only a short sentence: she had encountered one to two Spirit Transformation cultivators from the Broken Army Sect.

One of them was confirmed to be Li Yan, and she would find a way to kill the other party.

“One to two Spirit Transformation cultivators? Doesn’t that mean there’s only one Spirit Transformation cultivator that hasn’t been found?” Ling Shan thought to herself.

Because when Han Zhumei sent out the voice transmission talisman, she had taken advantage of the intense spatial fluctuations during the great battle to activate it in an instant.

At that time, she still hadn’t figured out how many people the other party had. They had ambushed her from both inside and out, so she could only quickly say one to two people.

And when Han Zhumei had figured it out, she didn’t dare to use the voice transmission talisman again. She had already figured out that this Li Yan was also proficient in the art of stealth, and was in no way inferior to her.

As long as she used the voice transmission talisman again, the subtle spatial fluctuations might expose her position.

This was the extraordinary scheming of a stealth expert. Even in the instant of escape, she still didn’t forget to seize that brief moment to instantly send out a voice transmission talisman.

As Ling Shan thought about Han Zhumei’s words, she also felt that perhaps the Broken Army Sect had really dispersed.

At this moment, she was leading people through a hillside. On her two sides, a line of teams was arranged in order, constantly advancing rapidly.

In her team, there were three Nascent Soul cultivators and more than thirty Golden Core cultivators. After the entire team spread out horizontally, the distance between each other was maintained at about ten li.

This distance, even for a Golden Core cultivator, was just a matter of a breath.

In fact, even if two people were separated by several hundred li, it would still be an instant to arrive. But at this time, their divine sense and all aspects of their senses were greatly affected.

Especially in their divine sense, the scene they saw after probing out was like it was full of burrs, which would of course affect their investigation.

So each of them was only responsible for searching a range of five li on their two sides, which could maximize the guarantee that the places they had investigated would not be missed.

And Ling Shan was located in the very middle, her divine sense controlling a range of about one hundred and sixty li on each side.

In this way, everyone in this team was under the cover of her divine sense. If a problem occurred in any place, she could arrive in an instant, and she could also quickly gather everyone together.

At the same time, her divine sense also did the first sweep of investigation, the Golden Core cultivators did the second investigation, and the three Nascent Soul cultivators were behind them, also spread out horizontally, doing the third review.

In this way, they were constantly advancing rapidly from the periphery inwards, circle by circle. What they were doing now was not breaking a formation, but just finding a trace of the other party.

If the Broken Army Sect wanted to hide, they would either use an art or a formation.

If it was an art, with this kind of investigation involving even Spirit Transformation and Nascent Soul cultivators, those Golden Core cultivators of the Broken Army Sect would simply not be able to hide. So it should only be a formation.

These were all analyzed by the Bright Flame Sect before. They only needed to detect the formation fluctuations, and for the time being, they didn’t need to consider breaking the formation, so their speed was very fast.

And the other two teams, just like Ling Shan’s, were also the same. It was just that the leading Spirit Transformation cultivators of those two teams were both at the initial stage.

With the three teams spread out at the same time, they had so far searched for more than four thousand li from the periphery inwards. This was the result of them deliberately slowing down and searching carefully.

After Ling Shan confirmed the jade slip in her hand, she also quickly informed the other two of this news…

And at a certain moment, Ling Shan, who was advancing, suddenly, her expression froze.

Because at this time, one hundred and thirty li in front of her, she suddenly sensed a faint fluctuation similar to a formation.

“Broken Army Sect?”