Chapter 377: The Trap

Zhang Nuo's figure, like a bolt of lightning, charged directly into the place where numerous beams of light were rising ahead! With a lift of his palm, several streaks of Sword Qi shot out!

Those cultivators in mid-air had cultivation levels of only about the Golden Core Stage; not a single one dared to step forward to intercept him, simply letting Zhang Nuo fly past!

"Kid Zhang! If you continue like this, don't blame this old man for being impolite!"

Chunyangzi's voice became angry! Zhang Nuo's heart jolted violently! The Evil Qi on his body suddenly diminished by a few points, and the previous bloodthirsty impulse became somewhat quiet!

He shook his head within the beam of light, took a deep breath of cold air, and said:

"Senior! I feel so strange! Why are my mental fluctuations so intense? This is too abnormal!"

Having sobered up a bit at this moment, Zhang Nuo felt more and more that things were not as simple as he had thought! Looking ahead, beams of light were still rapidly rising from the ground!

"I can't say for sure either! But you have been a bit abnormal lately!"

Seeing that Zhang Nuo had finally regained his senses, Chunyangzi let out a long breath and then said:

"Stop thinking about this for now; you had better think about how to escape from here!"

Looking at the beams of light rising continuously all around, Zhang Nuo also felt a massive headache! A moment of impulse had actually led him to drill into the place where the Taixu Palace was gathered. If he didn't escape quickly, a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator might appear, and by that time, I'm afraid it wouldn't be so easy to escape!

With the Black Butterfly Wings on his back flapping wildly, Zhang Nuo, inside his beam of light, was like a meteor cutting through the sky, charging forward headlong!

"Where did this brat come from? To be so arrogant!"

A deep voice rang out from the ground below, followed by a cyan rainbow shooting into the sky! Zhang Nuo's Divine Sense swept over and discovered that the opponent was a cultivator at about the Nascent Soul Middle Stage!

Ignoring him, Zhang Nuo continued to fly forward rapidly; he wanted to charge directly out of this territory controlled by the Taixu Palace within a short time!

Just as Zhang Nuo's figure had finished crossing the sky, that cyan rainbow flew over. Within the beam of light, an old man with tiger-like eyes and sword-like eyebrows stood tall! Looking at the beam of light that had already flown into the far sky, he felt very puzzled!

This Nascent Soul Stage cultivator was very strange! He looked aggressive, but he had no intention of fighting at all! He just flew past at a very fast speed!

"Who is the person in front?"

The tiger-eyed old man asked a cultivator beside him:

"Reporting to the Sect Leader! He is Zhang Nuo!"

Upon hearing the name Zhang Nuo, the old man let out a strange, angry cry!

"Hehe! Truly, there is a path to heaven you do not take! There is no gate to hell, yet you break in! This old man couldn't find you, couldn't see you! Yet you delivered yourself to my doorstep! I will avenge the cultivators of the Heaven Sword Sect who have fallen! Give me your life!"

As he spoke, the tiger-eyed old man flicked his hand gently, and a refined steel Flying Sword, a full zhang long, appeared before him. The next moment, he stepped onto the Flying Sword, and with an infusion of Spirit Power from within his body, the Flying Sword emitted a blinding cyan glow and, with a 'whoosh', chased directly after Zhang Nuo!

This old man was none other than the Sect Leader of the Heaven Sword Sect, Wu Jian! Normally, once one's cultivation reaches the Golden Core Stage, one can fly directly by controlling a beam of light; even if one uses some Flying Magic Tools, the speed would not be much faster!

But this refined steel Flying Sword of Wu Jian's was completely different; it was a sword specifically used for flying! With the injection of the cultivator's Spirit Power, it could instantly increase his flight speed significantly!

That day, Wu Jian's daughter, Wu Junyan, returned to the Heaven Sword Sect and told him about Zhang Nuo, which angered the old man so much he nearly fainted! Was the opponent's move too ruthless? In one go, he had destroyed several of his capable disciples! That was secondary; because of the scene Zhang Nuo had caused, Wu Junyan now always felt a sense of panic in her heart. As long as she closed her eyes, she would think of that cave full of severed limbs and broken arms, and the bloody smell seemed to surround her at all times!

Several days had passed, and the young woman was still unable to cultivate! This gave Wu Jian a massive headache! Heart disease requires heart medicine; no matter what he said, it was useless!

Every time he thought of this, Wu Jian would grit his teeth and curse Zhang Nuo for being despicable! Today, having finally seen Zhang Nuo in person, how could he let him go easily?

Zhang Nuo, flying wildly within his beam of light, swept his Divine Sense behind him and felt that a beam of light was following closely several hundred zhang away, and its speed was not the least bit slower than his!

Greatly shocked, Zhang Nuo was truly stunned. His flight speed, combined with the amplification of the Butterfly Wings, was already at the extreme among Nascent Soul Stage cultivators; even a Nascent Soul Late Stage Great Perfection cultivator shouldn't be able to catch up to him by relying on flight speed! Yet this cultivator behind him, whose cultivation looked to be only at the Nascent Soul Middle Stage, had an incredibly fast flight speed!

"Are there such experts in the Taixu Palace?"

He muttered to himself in his heart, and Zhang Nuo dared not be the least bit negligent! Being on the Taixu Palace's territory, once entangled by someone, escaping would be harder than ascending to heaven!

"Hehe! Kid Zhang, this time you've caused a huge disaster!"

Chunyangzi said with some schadenfreude. Zhang Nuo had no time to pay attention to him now! He kept flapping his Butterfly Wings, almost pushing his speed to the limit!

Wu Jian behind him was not to be outdone; under the frantic urging of his Spirit Power, the Flying Sword beneath his feet emitted a buzzing sound! Leaving a long tail in mid-air, it showed no signs of falling behind at all!

At the same time, Wu Jian took several Sound Transmission Talismans from his bosom, whispered a few words to them, and these talismans turned into streaks of firelight, flying in all directions!

"Not good!"

Seeing the old man behind release the Sound Transmission Talismans, Zhang Nuo secretly cursed! It was obvious that the opponent was calling for help! In this Taixu Palace, one didn't know how many cultivators had been absorbed from the outside world!

The firelight of the Sound Transmission Talismans quickly disappeared into the surrounding area, and before long, intense beams of light rose from all over! Zhang Nuo was anxious, but for a moment, he simply couldn't shake off Wu Jian's pursuit behind him!

"Little brat Zhang Nuo, where are you fleeing to!"

Below Zhang Nuo's body, a beam of light shot into the sky, and at the same time, the cultivator within the beam gave a loud shout! He had only been considering how to shake off Wu Jian, so this sudden shout gave Zhang Nuo a fright! Looking down, he saw a burly man in the beam of light, holding a massive sword-type Magic Treasure, pouncing toward him with bared fangs and brandished claws!

If it were elsewhere, Zhang Nuo would have long since stepped forward to destroy him, but now, trapped deep within the layers of encirclement by the Taixu Palace crowd, he dared not be arrogant! The Black Butterfly Wings on his back wrapped around his body, and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared from the spot. When the burly man charged into the high sky, there was no one there!

Just as a hint of surprise appeared in his eyes, in the void several hundred zhang away, spatial fluctuations arose, and Zhang Nuo revealed his figure, continuing to flee toward the distant sky without stopping at all!

The burly man stomped his foot in anger! A beam of light surged from his body, and he also chased after Zhang Nuo!

At this very moment, on a small mountain tens of thousands of miles away, an old man sat cross-legged in his Cave Abode with his eyes closed. Before him floated dozens of white, jade-like Dharma Arrays!

On these Dharma Arrays, various Fowen flickered incessantly! After a long while, the old man opened his eyes, gathered all the Dharma Arrays before him into his sleeves, and a malicious smile flashed in his aged eyes!

"Zhang Nuo! Even if you are exceptionally gifted, you would never guess that I played tricks on the 'Seven Kill Ring'!"

The person speaking was none other than Nanxuan Laozu. The 'Seven Kill Ring' he had given Zhang Nuo years ago looked plain on the surface, but secretly, it had been implanted with a certain Dharma Array specifically designed to deal with one's mental state!

This Dharma Array was integrated with the ring; the array was the ring, and the ring was the array. With such a brilliant technique, let alone Zhang Nuo, even a cultivator one realm higher than him wouldn't be able to see the clues!

When a cultivator's cultivation reaches a certain level, flaws will appear in their mental state! Nanxuan Laozu was precisely utilizing this point! When he calculated that the cultivator who condensed the Nascent Soul was Zhang Nuo, he secretly pondered that the time to trigger this backup plan had arrived!

When Zhang Nuo was at the Golden Core Stage, his cultivation was not very high, so even if Nanxuan Laozu had activated this technique, the impact on Zhang Nuo would definitely not have been too great! But advancing to the Nascent Soul Stage was different! First of all, the improvement in cultivation would give a cultivator a sense of complacency, and with strength much greater than before, their way of thinking about things would also change!

Relying on the weakness of mental state changes to use Evil Qi to make people explode with rage—this was Nanxuan Laozu's original intention! If Zhang Nuo did not have the 'Seven Killings' destiny among the 'Seven Kill, Break, and Wolf', this method might not have been able to achieve such good results!

After the spell was cast just now, Nanxuan Laozu had already analyzed from the evolution of the Dharma Arrays that Zhang Nuo was currently in a state of rage. However, for all his calculations, he had never counted on the fact that there was still a Chunyangzi inside Zhang Nuo's body. If it weren't for Chunyangzi's timely reminder, I'm afraid this time, Zhang Nuo would have truly done something out of line!

For several years, Nanxuan Laozu had been troubled by Zhang Nuo's Nascent Soul formation! He understood Zhang Nuo's personality all too well; it was possible that Zhang Nuo hadn't obtained his clues during this time, otherwise he would have definitely come knocking on his door long ago!

"Hehe! This old man would like to see, as a newly advanced cultivator, what you can do to me? Perhaps I don't even need to take action; as long as the Evil Qi on your body reaches a certain concentration, you will degenerate into a murderous demon!"

His snow-white long eyebrows moved, and Nanxuan Laozu sneered.

Zhang Nuo knew nothing about all this; he attributed his momentary impulse to an unstable mental state! Even Chunyangzi had not noticed a thing!

Zhang Nuo had used the 'Seven Kill Ring' many times, and no matter what, he would never have guessed that Nanxuan Laozu would play tricks on this item!