Chapter 1549: Escape and Pursuit
Song Wen and Rong Shao simultaneously unleashed hundreds of strands of spiritual power, sweeping wildly in all directions. They blasted away the hundreds of shattered chain fragments that had encircled them, preventing Lu Ling from reestablishing the formation.
However, this precaution proved unnecessary.
With the formation shattered, Lu Ling’s suspended figure trembled violently. Blood gushed from his mouth like a spring, instantly staining his robes crimson. He was in no condition to cast another formation.
Strike while the iron is hot!
Fearing further complications, Song Wen wasted no time. He immediately manipulated the Soul Cleaving Blade to strike again, aiming directly for Lu Ling’s face.
At the same moment, Song Wen lunged forward, charging toward Lu Ling with lethal intent.
Lu Ling’s pale face twisted with boundless madness and venom.
“This debt will be repaid,” he snarled. “One day, I will tear you both limb from limb and refine your souls into ashes!”
Before the words faded, Lu Ling flipped his hand and summoned a silver talisman.
The talisman shattered instantly, erupting in a blinding silver light.
Bathed in the silver glow, Lu Ling’s figure gradually became ethereal.
Tu You, standing several meters behind Lu Ling, suddenly panicked.
“Lord Lu Ling, please take me with you!”
Tu You lunged forward, but his hands grasped nothing, passing right through the silvery light.
A chilling glint flashed toward his chest.
In an instant, his entire left chest was shredded, and his left arm was severed at the shoulder.
The immense force of the Soul Cleaving Blade sent him flying backward.
“Fellow Daoist Rong Shao, capture Tu You! I want him alive.”
Song Wen halted, extending his hand to unleash a wisp of spiritual power that coiled around a fragment of the shattered chains.
Lu Ling had fled in such haste that he had no time to retrieve the scattered chain fragments.
Song Wen couldn’t let Lu Ling escape.
Not only would Lu Ling’s escape inevitably draw the Divine Blood Gate’s experts, but the Nine Aperture Profound Connection Mushroom had yet to reach its ten-thousand-year maturity. All their painstaking efforts to enter the Fallen Demon Valley would be for naught.
Moreover, Song Wen had already marked Lu Ling as the “ultimate medicine” for his breakthrough to the peak of the body integration stage—a prize he was determined to claim. How could he let such a succulent morsel slip through his fingers?
After securing the chain fragment, Song Wen began casting the Thousand Miles Breath Tracking Technique, paying no further attention to Rong Shao and Tu You.
Rong Shao, with his peak body integration stage cultivation, should have no trouble subduing the severely wounded Tu You, who was only at the mid body integration stage. If he couldn’t even manage that, this “ally” would prove utterly worthless.
The Thousand Miles Breath Tracking Technique was quickly activated.
A wisp of azure smoke curled upward from the fragment, drifting gently northward.
Judging by the smoke’s movement, Lu Ling couldn’t be far—likely within a thousand miles.
The silver talisman Lu Ling had used was a teleportation talisman, capable of instantly transporting one ten thousand miles. The fact that he had only traveled a thousand miles suggested he hadn’t escaped the Yin Spring Cave. Instead, his teleportation had been interrupted by the cave’s stone walls, cutting his journey short.
Song Wen moved swiftly, darting northward.
As he moved farther from the Yin Spring at the heart of the Stone Bamboo Forest, the surrounding Yin Energy grew denser, sharply reducing Song Wen’s sensory range.
The direction indicated by the azure smoke also shifted constantly.
After all, Lu Ling couldn’t be staying in one place.
If Lu Ling were to remain stationary, Song Wen would become wary. That would likely mean he wasn’t pursuing a fleeing fugitive, but rather walking into a carefully laid trap.
After chasing for over fifteen hundred miles, Song Wen reached the cave’s edge.
Before him, a freshly carved opening gaped in the stone wall.
The cave entrance was barely three meters high, stretching deep into the rock.
Song Wen’s divine sense was suppressed to a range of only thirty meters, preventing him from perceiving the depths of the cave’s passage.
He summoned his peak seventh-tier Blood Corpse to lead the way, instructed the shadow void to remain vigilant, and then followed several meters behind the Blood Corpse, charging into the cave.
The cave passage extended straight ahead for about fifty kilometers. Song Wen burst out of the tunnel onto a cliffside, sandwiched between layers of Yin Energy as thick as blankets.
Below lay an abyss, its depths swallowed by an all-consuming darkness. Above, no sunlight penetrated the inky blackness.
Yet the Yin Energy here was noticeably thinner than within Yin Spring Cave, allowing Song Wen’s divine sense to recover slightly, extending to seventy meters.
Carefully observing the wisps of green smoke before him, Song Wen noticed they drifted upward.
Lu Ling had fled upward.
Yin Spring Cave was located near Exit Three of Fallen Demon Valley.
Exit Three was guarded by a formation and garrisoned year-round.
If Lu Ling could escape Fallen Demon Valley and reach the camp at Exit Three, he would have a slim chance of survival and could use the camp’s communication formation to report everything that had happened in Yin Spring Cave to the Divine Blood Gate.
With these thoughts, Song Wen swiftly ascended into the sky.
However, Lu Ling’s escape speed far exceeded Song Wen’s expectations.
Song Wen pushed his escape speed to its limit, his magical power surging around him. The Thunder Kui Wings on his back beat incessantly, carving a straight path through the dense Yin Energy.
Suddenly, a pitch-black claw, sharp as an iron hook, shot out from a crevice in the cliff face, lunging straight for Song Wen.
It was a bat-like demon beast, its body spanning six meters and its wings nearly thirty meters wide, its strength at the late seventh-tier.
Song Wen neither dodged nor defended, allowing the claw to shatter his skull.
When he reappeared, he was already dozens of meters above the bat demon beast.
Without pausing, he continued his ascent.
The bat demon beast shrieked and gave chase.
Fortunately, despite being an aerial creature, the bat demon beast seemed ill-suited for sustained flight. Song Wen gradually widened the distance between them.
Before long, Song Wen had soared over a hundred thousand kilometers, reaching the vibrant, multicolored poisonous mist that shrouded the entire Fallen Demon Valley.
Lu Ling stood beneath the mist, a thin layer of withered yellow energy swirling around him.
“Heh heh! Fellow Daoist Lu Ling, that meager Five Decays Yellow Spring Qi you possess won’t be enough to carry you through the entire poisonous mist. You’ll likely exhaust it halfway through and succumb to the poison.” Song Wen’s voice dripped with mockery.
“It’s you! How did you track me down? And how do you recognize the Five Decays Yellow Spring Qi?” Lu Ling exclaimed, his voice a mix of shock and fury at Song Wen’s sudden appearance. “Don’t think you’ve already won just because I’m injured and my spiritual power is severely depleted. The outcome is far from certain!”
Song Wen remained silent.
Nine tentacles rapidly extended from his head.
He intended to capture Lu Ling alive, allowing the shadow void to intervene—the safest course of action.
“A void fiend!” Lu Ling’s eyes widened in horror. “How could a void fiend be parasitizing your body?”
A black Corpse Coffin suddenly materialized before Lu Ling.
The coffin lid sprang open, revealing a blood-faced Corpse Puppet with sharp fangs.
“Fellow daoist, you are indeed well-informed.”
Before the Corpse Puppet could leap from the coffin, Song Wen’s nine tentacles began to tremble slowly, emitting a series of resonant hums.
Instead of spreading outward, the hums converged into a single, visible sonic wave that shot toward Lu Ling.
“Ah—!”
The humming struck Lu Ling’s ears like a demonic melody, piercing his divine soul like ten thousand steel needles. He let out a piercing scream, his body swaying violently as he teetered on the verge of falling from the sky.
At that moment, a black shadow surged from the Yin Energy below—the bat demon beast.
“You damned beast! Tired of living, are you?”
A cold glint flashed in Song Wen’s eyes.
He hadn’t bothered with the creature earlier due to the urgency of the situation, but now it had willingly come to its death.
(End of the Chapter)