Chapter 960: Recovery

Yan Buji's instant movement distance grew shorter and shorter, the spiritual power in his body already exhausted. He gritted his teeth, pulled out a pill and swallowed it, forcibly squeezing out the last bit of strength.

"I must shake them off……"

He swept his gaze around, suddenly locking onto a distant glacier where icy mist permeated, making divine sense unable to penetrate!

"Let's gamble!"

He surged into the icy mist, his figure vanishing instantly.

The Three Holy Envoys pursued to the edge of the icy mist, the female cultivator said coldly: "He hid inside."

The old man's face darkened: "The icy mist blocks divine sense, and the Heavenly Secrets Ice Mirror has been destroyed—how are we to find him?"

The youth sneered: "Simple—blast the whole glacier to pieces, force him out!"

The female cultivator nodded: "Good!"

The three simultaneously formed seals, terrifying cold qi gathered, forming a huge ice-frost palm that slammed hard into the glacier!

"Profound Ice Annihilation Palm!"

Boom—

The glacier collapsed, the icy mist scattered, and Yan Buji's figure was forced to appear!

"Found you!" Han Xing laughed, his shape like a ghost as he closed in, an ice blade thrust straight at Yan Buji's back!

Yan Buji hastily turned, grey mist coalescing into a shield, barely blocking the strike—but Han Yue and Han Shuang's attacks followed one after another!

Bang!

He was blasted away again, shattering several chunks of ice rock, blood spurting wildly!

"It's over, Yan Buji." The female cultivator raised her sword coldly: "Your life is ours now!"

Yan Buji half-knelt on the ground, yet a flash of mad laughter flickered in his eyes.

"Is that so?"

He suddenly raised his hand!

"Useless!"

The youth snorted coldly, only to see the opponent seemingly unleashing some sort of space-sealing immortal artifact, the surrounding space becoming as heavy as green stone, hard to pierce!

"Damn, he still has a space-breaking immortal artifact! Hurry and kill him!"

Yan Buji gritted his teeth, unleashing the Net-Weaving Needle to frantically blast the surrounding space, but the Three Holy Envoys, seeing his endless tricks, were greatly startled and attacked together!

Unfortunately....

Yan Buji sighed helplessly, having no choice but to detonate the Net-Weaving Needle explosively, forcibly blasting open a space rift!

"Goodbye!" Yan Buji sneered, desire driving the Cosmic Dao Principles, while simultaneously employing the Instant Movement Technique to the extreme, activating the Heaven Gate Law to its peak—his figure vanished instantly!

"Damn it!" The old man roared: "He still has the strength to flee?!"

The female cultivator's face sank like water: "Pursue! Spatial shifts must leave traces—we'll follow the spatial fluctuations!"

The three again turned into streaks of light, chasing along the faint spatial ripples!

But no matter how the Three Holy Envoys searched for half a month, they could no longer find any trace of Yan Buji.

"How is that possible?!"

The female cultivator's expression turned grim, suddenly she had a guess: "That old thing, when breaking through to the Walking Dao Realm in battle, was using his original cultivation of the Desire Grand Dao to drive the Cosmic Dao Principles, but he shouldn't stop there!"

"You mean he also knows some formidable Cosmic Dao technique?!"

"It's the Heaven Gate Law!" The youth's face grew solemn: "He activated the Heaven Gate Law while landing with the Instant Movement Technique to escape, seeking nearby spatial nodes—perhaps we can still find his trail!"

"Good! We must capture him, otherwise the Palace Lord....."

The three shuddered all over—if they failed to catch this troublemaker, they likely wouldn't have a good ending either.

Elsewhere.

After successive battles and being hunted for months, Yan Buji finally had a slight chance to catch his breath.

"If I don't break through the Unity Dao Stage, I'll surely die." Yan Buji gritted his teeth, dragging his severe wounds into a snowfield in the Beichuan Ice Region, found a cave, drove out the earth-tossing rat monsters inside, and burrowed in.

For now, Yan Buji couldn't afford to think much; he could only heal his wounds as quickly as possible.

"This Beichuan Ice Region really is a muddy pit." Yan Buji sighed.

The Abni Sword was destroyed, the Net-Weaving Needle gone, my methods exhausted leaving me half-crippled—I might not even escape the pursuit.

But Yan Buji still couldn't leave here.

Gazing upon the path to sainthood!

This is Yan Buji's sole reason for staying here—even if he exhausts all means, as long as he doesn't die, he will eventually have a chance to see that Palace Lord attain sainthood!

Otherwise, how could Yan Buji place himself in a death trap, standing beneath a perilous wall?

Yan Buji curled up in the dark, damp depths of the cave, the lingering foul stench of the earth-tossing rat monsters filling his nostrils.

He struggled to prop himself up, every movement tugging at his wounds all over.

The piercing wound on his chest had scabbed over with a thin layer of ice—that was the residual cold poison from Han Yue's sword qi; the muscles of his right arm were crushed into powder by ice blades, white bone faintly visible; worst of all was the wound over a chi long on his back, Han Xing's ice poison eroding his spine.

"Cough... cough cough..."

A mouthful of black blood mixed with ice shards sprayed onto the cave wall, instantly congealing into scarlet ice crystals. Yan Buji trembled as he fished out the last three pills from his storage bag, only to discover his fingers had turned a strange bluish-black—the cold poison was spreading toward his meridians.

"Really... pathetic..."

He wryly smiled, stuffing the pills into his mouth all at once. The moment the medicinal power dissolved, his five viscera and six bowels felt as if scorched by fierce fire.

This is the "Scorching Blood Pill" that exchanges excruciating pain for vitality—originally used in desperate straits to perish together with the enemy, now it has become his sole lifeline.

Yan Buji earlier had used desire to suppress his injuries, but now to heal he must let desire seep out from his pores, forming a thin cocoon on his body surface.

Yan Buji circulated the Essence Method, guiding the medicinal power through his meridians. Whenever the power passed a wound, it clashed fiercely with the cold poison, emitting a grating "hiss-hiss" sound.

The excruciating pain made his vision darken, his teeth grinding audibly, yet he dared not relax in the slightest.

Three days and nights passed, the droplets of ice stalactites dripping from the cave ceiling accumulated into a small puddle at Yan Buji's feet.

His right arm finally regained a little sensation, but the ice crystal on his chest only shrank by one layer.

The worst part was that within his spiritual perception a familiar spiritual energy fluctuation reappeared, and the Three Saint Envoy's search radius was shrinking.

"The lingering spirits won't disperse..."

Yan Buji forced himself to stand, scraping a blue‑glowing ore from the cave wall.

It was Beichuan's unique "Cold Marrow Iron", a lethal toxin to ordinary people but capable of temporarily suppressing ice‑type damage. He crushed the ore, then roughly pressed the powder onto the wound on his chest.

Sss!!

The excruciating pain turned his vision instantly blood‑red.

Cold Marrow Iron and cold toxin Devour each other, and the resulting ice‑and‑fire agony was comparable to slow torture. Yan Buji clung to the cave wall, unaware that his nails were cracking.

Only after the ice crystal at the wound fully melted did he collapse onto the ground like a rag doll, his whole body soaked in cold sweat.

Another round of breath adjustment.

This time the flow of power was smoother, but Yan Buji knew in his heart that it was merely drinking poison to quench thirst. Though Cold Marrow Iron dispelled the surface cold toxin, the deeper corruption would take time to eradicate.

And now, what he lacked most was time.

"Not enough... still not enough..."