Chapter 144: Deep in the Mang Mountain Range

The Zouwu beast was swift, far beyond the speed of ordinary Five Seas Realm martial practitioners.

The deformed elder who dove down had only caught up by utilizing flight abilities. The magic power in his body was incomparably pure, several times stronger than Li Youyi's, at the third stage of the Five Seas Realm.

Before his figure even arrived, his cloud of magic power had already pressed down upon Li Youyi and Li Ling, like thousands of silk threads binding their bodies.

Li Youyi faced a formidable enemy; he gripped the Huang Long Sword tightly, his internal magic power surging wildly through his one hundred and twenty golden meridians, converging toward his arm to break through the suppression of the magic power cloud.

The moment the deformed elder entered within four zhang, Li Youyi seized the opportunity and slashed out a long, dragon-patterned sword beam that resembled a yellow river of swords.

The deformed elder was a veteran of a hundred battles with rich experience; seeing the extraordinary nature of the Huang Long Sword, he stopped abruptly in mid-air and spat out a three-inch-long crimson flying sword, which collided with the incoming dragon-patterned sword beam.

"Boom!"

The crimson flying sword, nurtured within his lung-lobe Qi sea, was as dazzling as a ball of flame, its speed like a stream of light and its power immense. But after piercing through the dragon-patterned sword beam, its speed plummeted, and it was shaken away by Li Youyi's horizontal sword strike.

Struck by the residual force of the dragon-patterned sword beam, the deformed elder fell to the treetops, instantly put dozens of units of length of distance between himself and the Zouwu beast.

"Third realm of the Five Seas!"

Li Youyi held his sword, staring fixedly at the deformed elder who was catching up once more.

Further away in the darkness, several deformed figures flew in mid-air; judging by their speed, they were all at the Five Seas Realm level. On the ground, there were also powerful auras constantly approaching, several of which were far stronger than that deformed elder.

"The Zouwu is too large a target. With Five Seas Realm deformed beings flying in mid-air, they can see us from over ten miles away. This can't go on; we won't be able to escape at all."

Li Youyi felt heavy-hearted and asked, "How long will it take for Chan Hai Guan Wu to recover his strength?"

Li Ling could not give him a definite answer. After pondering for a moment, she said, "I have a way to hide the Zouwu."

Li Youyi said, "In that case, when that deformed elder catches up again, you and I will join forces to kill him as quickly as possible, then go invisible and change direction to escape. The other experts of the Three Chen Gong Iron-Clad Army are still far away and will surely lose their target because of this. Do you have an invisibility technique?"

"I am a Heaven Fire Realm Great Thought Master; I naturally have my own means of invisibility," Li Ling said.

The strength of a Heaven Fire Realm Great Thought Master was sufficient to rival a third-realm Five Seas Realm Wu Xiu. Those with profound attainments and numerous methods could even suppress a fourth-realm Five Seas Realm Wu Xiu.

Li Ling had only recently broken through to the Heaven Fire Realm, so she was naturally not the latter.

"Rumble!"

The Zouwu beast galloped through the forest, shaking the earth and mountains; trees were snapped and shattered wherever it passed.

After running for another seven or eight li, the deformed elder caught up again, moving through the trees like a giant black bat. He did not get close, maintaining a distance of at least ten zhang, using his magic power to control that flying sword to harass them.

He knew very well that with his cultivation, he could not kill the two people on the back of the Zouwu beast; intercepting them by force would be extremely dangerous.

But if he could stall them until the large group of Iron-Clad Army experts caught up, the two would have no way to escape.

"We cannot remain in this stalemate; let's act now."

Li Youyi tapped his insect tube, and seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors flew out first, surrounding the night sky from seven different directions to seal off the deformed elder's retreat.

Immediately after, he leaped off the Zouwu's rump to intercept the deformed elder flying ten units of length away.

"Awoo!"

A dragon's roar rang out, and a yellow dragon shadow appeared beneath his feet, as if he were riding a dragon, his heroic posture divine and strange.

The deformed elder gave a soft 'eh', recognizing the profound nature of Li Youyi's movement technique, but he did not take it to heart.

From their previous exchange, he had already gauged the opponent's strength: the magic power was only at the first stage of the Five Seas Realm, at most just entering the second realm of the Five Seas, and it was only by relying on the powerful sword in his hand that he had blocked his flying sword.

A child holding a heavy weapon—this was never a good thing; it usually ended with the person dead and the weapon lost.

The deformed elder could not slow down while flying at high speed; he spat out his flying sword and clashed with the incoming Li Youyi in an instant.

"Bang! Bang!"

The flying sword and the Huang Long Sword collided more than a dozen times in succession.

Sparks bloomed, and sword Qi overflowed.

Fighting from mid-air all the way to the ground, Li Youyi slashed out his final sword, and that three-inch-long crimson flying sword was actually shattered into pieces, destroyed on the spot.

"You..."

The deformed elder was so angry he nearly spat out a mouthful of blood; that was a precious mid-grade magic tool, and the loss was immense.

The grade of the opponent's brass battle sword was definitely higher than a high-grade magic tool.

Having lost his flying sword, he dared not engage in close-quarters combat with Li Youyi even more, so he turned and flew away, preparing to increase the distance.

"Bang!"

A Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperor rushed out from behind and slammed into him.

Because he was wearing an iron-cloth battle suit, he chose to take the hit head-on.

The strength of the tiny moth far exceeded the deformed elder's estimation, comparable to the full-force punch of a second-realm Five Seas Realm Wu Xiu, and his body was instantly thrown off balance by the impact.

Li Ling, holding the Zouwu which had shrunk to the size of a cat, appeared on the ground beneath the deformed elder, and dozens of bright, brilliant light traces flew out from between her brows.

Like a glowing blade of grass, it grew rapidly, turning ten-plus zhang tall.

Every blade of grass was incomparably sharp, burning with flames capable of incinerating the physical body of a Five Seas Realm Wu Xiu, wrapping around the deformed elder and quickly burning through his protective magic power.

"Heaven Fire Realm!"

As the deformed elder's body fell downward, he mobilized his magic power and injected it into the iron-cloth battle suit on his body. Immediately after, a zhang-tall battle-method intent figure appeared, pushing the flaming light traces apart.

How could Li Youyi give him a chance to break free? He sent a sword strike piercing through the air.

"Puchi!"

The deformed elder raised his arm to block, but how could he block the Huang Long Sword?

Both his arm and the space between his brows were pierced through.

Withdrawing the sword, the deformed elder's corpse hit the ground with a thud.

The Zouwu revealed a look of disappointment in its eyes, waving its claws, very much wanting to participate.

"Go!"

Li Youyi didn't even have the interest to pull the iron-cloth battle suit off him; he recalled the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors and immediately activated the invisibility power of his high-grade magic tool night-traveling cloak, his figure disappearing as he fled toward another direction in the night.

Li Ling held the Nether Lamp, the light turning from blue to dim, and then her whole person merged into the night.

Of course, they did not think that this would allow them to shake off those pursuers from the Iron-Clad Army, because the traces on the ground could not be erased in time.

But when the pursuers needed to slowly search for traces on the ground to continue forward, how could they catch up to them?

Two hours later.

Li Youyi and Li Ling had already penetrated several hundred li into the Mang Mountain Range, their internal magic power and thought power almost completely exhausted. Fortunately, there were no auras of pursuers behind them; clearly, they had temporarily shaken them off.

Taking this opportunity, Li Youyi released the seven Phoenix-Winged Moth Emperors, letting them carry the two of them off the ground for a distance to break the traces on the ground.

They continued forward.

The peaks in the mountain range became increasingly majestic and towering, like giants, their summits completely submerged in the cloud layer.

In the sky, shrill cries came from time to time, and flocks of giant-sized Death-Spirit Bone Birds flew overhead. One could imagine that if those deformed Wu Xiu capable of flight were to penetrate this far, they would definitely not dare to fly above the treetops.

The ground in the forest was heavy with yin energy, and large numbers of stone horses, stone tigers, stone figurines, and stone steles appeared... Every time they walked a distance, hair-raising sounds emerged from the darkness.

Sometimes it was the sound of swift footsteps, sometimes the laughter of children, or the murmurs of a woman.

Li Youyi and Li Ling slowed down, desperately recovering their magic power and thought power, restraining their auras as much as possible.

The cat-sized Zouwu jumped and ran beside Li Ling's feet, stopping from time to time to bare its teeth and hiss at the darkness, looking fierce.

It was not strange that there were many Death-Spirit evil demons deep in the Mang Mountain Range. With Li Youyi's current Five Seas Realm cultivation, he did not fear ordinary evil things, and his courage was far greater than before.

Both of them were silent, completely unlike the way they used to laugh and curse.

Escaping the false, returning to the real.

Li Youyi broke the silence and asked, "I heard that every peak in the Mang Mountain Range is an emperor's tomb, burying many ancient Sons of Heaven. Is that really the case?"

Li Ling was heavy-hearted, her pretty face grave: "There is such a saying! It is said that since ancient times, Son of Heaven-level powerhouses of Yingzhou would bury themselves in the Mang Mountain Range. Because this place is near the Blood Sea and the Death-Spirit Mist Realm, where coffins from other realms gather, it is a world-renowned land of extreme yin. Being buried here, one might have a chance to reverse life and death."

"Of course, legends surely have exaggerations; it's impossible for every peak to be an ancient Son of Heaven tomb. If a Longevity Realm powerhouse were to rashly excavate such a tomb, they might suffer disaster."

"In reality, many peaks in the Mang Mountain Range have been hollowed out by grave robbers; there are extraordinary tombs, but they don't reach the level of an ancient Son of Heaven."

Magic power radiance flowed from their legs, each step covering two or three zhang.

Arriving at an open area located halfway up the mountain, Li Youyi stood at the edge of the cliff, looking toward Yao Guan City.

The sky was dim, and yin energy steamed between the trees.

"Calculating the time, it should be dawn; why is the entire sky covered by dark clouds, and no light can be seen?"

Li Youyi felt the terror of the depths of the Mang Mountain Range; the celestial phenomena here were completely different from the outside. Being in it, his mood was suppressed and dull, and he just wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Li Ling pointed behind him: "Look over there!"

Li Youyi turned to look.

A hundred li away, a magnificent mountain range lay like a giant dragon, spanning east and west.

The height from the ground to the top of the mountain range was probably six or seven thousand meters, like a black barrier at the end of the world, blocking all sight.

The dark clouds above their heads still had a faint brightness, but the cloud layer above that mountain range in the distance was completely dead black, like a thick, impenetrable black cloth.

Li Ling said: "I have never been to the depths of the Mang Mountain Range. But that should be the final ridge of the Mang Mountain Range, the last line of defense in that great war a thousand years ago. Crossing it, one can leave the Lingxiao Life Realm and enter the boundless Nether Realm of the Dead."

"It is said that a thousand years ago, the other side of the mountain range was also a prefecture governed by the Nine Li clan, named Yunzhou."

"According to the elders who crossed the mountain range to trade in the Death-Spirit market, Yunzhou is completely shrouded in darkness; the former villages and market towns are so desolate that only ruins remain. The former cities, because of the existence of Heavenly Law Earth Springs, could grow various precious medicines, and were occupied by Death-Spirits and evil demons, turning into ghost cities and demon domains."

"In Yunzhou, humans are extinct; only those with powerful cultivation dare to penetrate the darkness, heading to the former state capitals or sect ruins to search for treasures and classics lost for a thousand years."

"This Iron-Clad Army of the Three Chen Gong must have borrowed the path from Yunzhou, bypassing the other side of the mountain range to Yao Guan City, which is why they descended like divine soldiers, catching us off guard."

In Li Youyi's mind, he thought of Zhu Qinfeng, the Yanzhou Governor who died deep in the Nine Li Insect Valley, and asked: "What about Yanzhou then?"

Li Ling did not know much and said uncertainly: "Yanzhou seems to be located further west of Yunzhou."

(End of chapter)