Moments later, a film of crimson light appeared over the surface of the jade plate, and it abruptly vanished on the spot.
Half of the elite devilish beings gathered around the jade plate also disappeared, leaving over 100 devilish beings behind.
They were led by a late-Spatial Tempering Stage devilish being, and they all descended toward Yuan Cha.
The leader of the devilish beings strode forward before extending a deep bow. "Mistress Yuan Cha, Master Xue Guang has already departed; do you have any orders for us?"
Even though he was a subordinate to Xue Guang, this devilish being was acting in an extremely respectful manner toward Yuan Cha.
"No, just stand by for now," Yuan Cha instructed in an indifferent manner.
"Yes, Mistress!" The devilish being naturally accepted the order without any objections.
Thus, the devilish beings all scattered around the stone platform to await further instructions.
As for Yuan Cha, she slowly closed her eyes again, and not long after that, the murder of crows scoured completed their search through another corner of the valley, then continued on toward another area.
Not long after that, they finally discovered something. Just as the crows were flying over a short shrub, over 100 of them suddenly began to circle around the plant while squawking loudly.
Yuan Cha abruptly reopened her eyes, and an elated look appeared on her face as she shot forth toward the shrub as a streak of white light.
At her speed, it would only take a few flashes for her to reach her destination, and right at this moment, the space around the shrub warped slightly.
Immediately thereafter, a burst of faint black Qi emerged before flying away, but it was clearly already too late.
Yuan Cha pointed a finger toward the black shadow, and all of the nearby crows immediately began to squawk in an extremely unpleasant manner while flying toward the black shadow like moths to a flame.
Perhaps one or two of these crows wouldn't be of any concern, but with over 1,000 of them swooping down at once, the black shadow was forced to stop and reveal its original form.
This was an inky-black Nascent Soul with an identical appearance to Han Li, and its entire body was radiating dense devilish Qi.
This was none other than Han Li's second Nascent Soul.
This second Nascent Soul wasn't as powerful as Han Li's main Nascent Soul, but following that ordeal in the Vast Glacial Realm, it had reached the peak of the Spatial Tempering Stage, and it possessed immensely powerful Devil Dao cultivation arts.
Even though it had been forced to stop by the oncoming murder of crows, it didn't panic in the slightest as it rubbed its hand together before raising both of them in unison.
Fierce black winds were swept up, and two bursts of inky-black devilish Qi erupted from within, transforming into a pair of black pythons that pounced straight into the murder of crows.
The two pythons surged through the air, and all of the crows in their path were instantly destroyed.
Even though the pair of pythons had gained the upper hand, the second Nascent Soul showed no signs of stopping as it quickly made a few more hand seals.
Right at this moment, spiritual light flashed up above, and Yuan Cha emerged before immediately reaching down with one of her slender hands before making a grabbing motion.
A resounding boom rang out as a giant white hand appeared out of thin air, then spread its fingers before pressing downward.
With her enormous powers, if the hand were allowed to descend, there was no way that the second Nascent Soul would be able to escape.
Thankfully, it was already prepared for this scenario and had a life-saving ability up its sleeve. All of a sudden, the Nascent Soul exploded, and a dozen or so inky-black fireballs shot forth.
Each fireball was around the size of an egg, and they instantly transformed into an inky-black Nascent Soul each before appearing several hundred feet away.
"You still think you can get away?"
Yuan Cha raised her eyebrows and let loose a delicate cry before uttering a peculiar incantation.
All of a sudden, a layer of translucent light appeared over the giant white hand, and it instantly exploded into a massive ball of white light.
Countless streaks of crystalline light shot forth from the ball of light, encompassing an area over 1,000 feet in size, as well as all of the black Nascent Souls.
Just as the Nascent Souls were about to unleash movement techniques to flee the scene, the streaks of crystalline light pierced through their bodies, and all of them exploded into balls of black flames aside from a single Nascent Soul, which twisted around to evade the oncoming attacks.
The only remaining Nascent Soul was the real one, and its expression changed slightly upon seeing its illusionary technique being broken. Immediately thereafter, it expelled several balls of blood essence out of its mouth, then made a hand seal before chanting something.
The blood essence dispersed into a cloud of blood mist, which completely inundated its body.
"Hmph, what trick are you trying now?" Yuan Cha harrumphed coldly as she swept a sleeve toward the cloud of blood mist.
A piece of black fabric shot forth out of her sleeve in a flash, then instantly sliced through the blood mist like a projection.
However, almost at the exact same moment, a streak of crimson light also emerged from the blood mist before flying away into the distance.
In the next instant, crimson light flashed in the distant sky as a crimson thread appeared, then blurred before vanishing again.
Yuan Cha faltered slightly upon seeing this before a frosty look reappeared on her face. "That's the Bloodshadow Evasion Technique! That is indeed rather troublesome to deal with, but that won't be enough for you to escape from me!"
She waved a hand toward the distance, and the two giant stone pillars tremored slightly before rising up into the air. They then combined as one to form the stone hall again before hurtling directly toward Yuan Cha.
Yuan Cha flew into the stone hall before issuing an instruction to the devilish beings down below, then flew away as a ball of white light.
The devilish beings down below naturally hurriedly followed along, and thus, the area was vacated in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, in the air above a lake that was countless kilometers away from the second Nascent Soul, Han Li had unleashed his sword art to create a giant azure dragon comprised of countless streaks of sword Qi. The azure dragon was pouncing toward a high-grade devilish being with an insect-like body, and the devilish being was instantly torn apart. Even its Nascent Soul was instantly destroyed before it could escape.
Han Li swept a sleeve through the air, and the azure dragon disintegrated into countless streaks of azure sword Qi again. The sword Qi revolved around in mid-air before hurtling back toward Han Li, then vanished into his body amid a flash of azure light.
Beside the body of the high-grade devilish being that had just been slain, there were also a dozen or so other bodies of high-grade devilish beings hovering nearby.
After stowing away all of the sword Qi back into his own body, Han Li's face paled significantly, and only after circulating his magic power through his meridians a few times did his complexion improve slightly.
"It looks like they've already figured it out, so I can't keep going in this direction. What a pity; if they had reacted any slower than this, then there really was a chance that I could've made it back to Deep Heaven City. I can't allow myself to become predictable, so I'll have to try my luck by going in another direction. It's a good thing that my pursuers have already been shaken off, so there's a good chance that I'll be able to escape," Han Li mused to himself.
Back when Han Li had unleashed that secret technique to conjure up projections of himself, Qu'er and his second Nascent Soul had been among the projections, and they had lured away the two Sacred Ancestors. Meanwhile, he had concealed himself using his High Zenith Invisibility Talisman and remained at the same location.
With his drastic increase in cultivation base, it was impossible for the High Zenith Invisibility Talisman to maintain its concealment effect for too long. If Yuan Cha and Xue Guang had merely remained on the spot for a while, he would've been forced to reveal himself, and that was why he hadn't used his talisman earlier during his escape.
Chapter 1959: Fleeing
He had already taken a huge risk to send out his spirit body and second Nascent Soul in a last-ditch effort, so he had naturally decided to use this talisman as well. As expected, Xue Guang wasn't able to see through his deception in time, and he was able to shake off his pursuers.
Not only was he taking a risk by doing this, his spirit body and second Nascent Soul were in even more peril than he was.
Thankfully, the spirit body was formed by the immortal zoysia, and Qu'er was also a spirit being of heaven and earth, so as long as they had enough time to conceal themselves, they should be able to remain hidden.
As for his second Nascent Soul, he had given it his other High Zenith Invisibility Talisman. On top of that, the second Nascent Soul had cultivated a Devil Dao secret technique that allowed it to manifest wings with its devilish Qi, and it had also cultivated the Bloodshadow Evasion Technique.
With those two techniques up its sleeve, it wasn’t completely implausible that the second Nascent Soul could escape. After all, once the two Sacred Ancestors realized the second Nascent Soul wasn't his true body, they'd most likely just abandon it.
This was why he had immediately exposed himself and began slaying devilish beings when he felt the timing to be about right.
News of his exploits had most likely already reached Xue Guang and Yuan Cha, and he didn't want to be pursued by them again, so he had no choice but to truly abandon Deep Heaven City and go elsewhere.
With that in mind, Han Li no longer hesitated and fled in another direction.
During the next two months, Han Li began to dart around all over the place in an extremely unpredictable manner.
Initially, the Xue Guang clones were unable to track him down, and could only react to reports from other devilish beings that had sighted Han Li.
As such, they were always a step too late, and by the time they arrived, Han Li would already be gone.
Strangely enough, Yuan Cha wasn't with them, and Han Li had no idea where she was.
He was naturally more than happy to see this, and if it weren't for the fact that he was sorely lacking in magic power, he would've been very tempted to turn around and retaliate against the Xue Guang clones.
Unfortunately, under these current circumstances, he could only continue to run for his life.
The three Xue Guang clones were becoming more and more frustrated from this fruitless chase, and they dedicated even more devilish troops to hunting Han Li down, spreading them far and wide to try and intercept Han Li.
On top of that, they were able to make use of the teleportation formations that the devilish army had already seized control of to aid in their pursuit of Han Li, and as a result, he was constantly kept on his toes.
It was often the case that he would immediately depart from a place after recovering around 30% to 40% of his magic power, not daring to stay any longer than that. Even so, he was still almost cut off by the three Xue Guang clones on several occasions.
Thankfully, his intuition as a Body Integration cultivator saved him on those occasions, alerting him and allowing him to get away just in the nick of time.
As such, Han Li was naturally becoming more and more cautious, and he was forced to abandon his plans of traveling to other major human settlements, including the Holy Sovereign City and the four true spirit families, choosing to flee elsewhere instead.
In the other directions, the number of devilish troops was drastically diminished, and the time it took for the three Xue Guang clones to get to him began to increase.
This gave Han Li a lot more respite, and he was able to meditate for longer periods of time, thereby allowing him to gradually recover his magic power.
Unfortunately, this didn't last long. Three months later, Yuan Cha suddenly reappeared alongside the three Xue Guang clones, and they immediately set off after him in hot pursuit, not affording him any opportunity for respite.
It was often the case that they would get to him when he had only been cultivating at a certain place for around four to six hours, and he would be forced to flee again.
Thankfully, there weren't many other devilish beings nearby, so he was always able to make his escape relatively easily.
However, during the next month, the four Sacred Ancestor clones were always hot on his heels now matter where he went, and he finally realized that something was wrong.
The four Sacred Ancestor clones seemed to have a method of determining his approximate location. It clearly wasn't very accurate, but it was enough to render him unable to shake them off.
Yuan Cha was clearly the one who held the key to this tracking method, and she had only just recently obtained it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get away so easily in the past.
Han Li employed a few more methods to try and shake off his pursuers, all to no avail, and his heart sank further and further. As such, he became even more cautious and began to take routes that would take him further and further away from the devilish beings in the area.
Thus, time passed by one day after another, and they began to approach the border of the human territory.
This area was very close to the primordial world, and ancient beasts were often able to force their way through the restrictions here, so no human cities had been established in the area. As such, this was also the most barren and desolate part of the human territory.
Without any human settlements here, there obviously wouldn't be any devilish armies situated here, either.
With Han Li's incredible speed, there were very few high-grade devilish beasts that had been able to keep up with him and the four Sacred Ancestor clones, and the only ones that had been able to keep up were only able to do so as they had been drawn into Xue Guang's giant jade plate.
Han Li continued to hurtle through the air as a streak of light with a dark expression.
With his current level of magic power, it was unwise to continue to maintain his Kun Peng form, so he could only revert back to his human form.
At this point, he had already been fleeing for over half a year, and his constant changes in direction made the four Sacred Ancestor clones unable to chase him down, but even with his resolute will, having to flee for his life for so long was taking a heavy mental toll on him.
However, he was now even more determined to continue fleeing and engage his pursuers in a battle of attrition.
There was no way that the four Sacred Ancestor clones could keep this up forever. They had to be expending just as much magic power as he was, and they also wouldn't have had much time to recover their magic power.
High up in the air millions of kilometers away from Han Li, a stone hall and a giant plate were hurtling through the air.
Within the jade plate, the three Xue Guang clones were standing before the crystalline wall, discussing something with Yuan Cha, whose image was being depicted on the wall.
"So you're still unwilling to enter our All-encompassing Plate, Fellow Daoist Yuan Cha? You should be just as aware as I am how much magic power we're expending by separately controlling flying treasures like this. I descended into this realm in quite a hurry, so I'm not carrying many magic power regeneration pills. I managed to get some from my subordinates, but after flying for this long, those pills have almost all been used up as well. At this rate, there's no guarantee that we'll be able to outlast that human brat. "We don't know how many regenerative pills he's carrying; even now, he's still displaying no signs of magic power exhaustion. I'm sure you're not carrying many regenerative pills, either, right, Fellow Daoist? In that case, it would be wise of us to fly in one treasure together so we can take turns resting," one of the Xue Guang clones urged
.
"I naturally have no objections to this, but why can't you three come to my stone hall? Why do you insist on making me enter your All-encompassing Plate?" Yuan Cha asked.
"Hmph, why ask a question you already know the answer to? The cultivation arts we're using contradict with the protective stone Qi cultivated by the Stone Devil Race. If we try to meditate and recover our magic power in your Stone Devil Hall, the effect will be minimal. Hence, it's much better for you to come into our All-encompassing Plate," Xue Guang insisted.
"Is that so? I'm more concerned that you'll unleash the power of your All-encompassing Plate on me if I were to enter it. You're renowned in our sacred realm for devouring the blood essence and magic power of others, so don't tell me that something like this is beneath you," Yuan Cha chuckled coldly, completely doing away with all semblance of pleasantries.
"You're overthinking things, Fellow Daoist. Both of us only have our clones here; if I were to do that, your true body definitely wouldn't let me get away with it," Xue Guang sighed in a resigned manner.
"Hehe, I wouldn't be so sure about that. What you're saying makes some sense, but I'm still not willing to take the risk. Perhaps this clone of mine doesn't possess enough blood essence and magic power to tempt you, but if we take into consideration the Chaotic Yin Yang Qi and Devil Sealing Lock that's currently in the Han brat's possession, even I would be tempted to do something radical," Yuan Cha said as a mocking sneer appeared on her face.
The three Xue Guang clones' expressions changed slightly upon hearing this, and they glanced at another before one of them asked, "Chaotic Yin Yang Qi and Devil Sealing Lock? What are you talking about?"
"Why play these childish little games, Xue Guang? I saw that Han brat extracting Chaotic Yin Yang Qi from the Devil Sealing Lock using the Earthly Hellish Flames. I heard that there was a very good chance that the Devil Sealing Lock had fallen into your hands; it seems that the rumors were true. I don't know how you managed to lose the treasure to a human, but you sent your three clones into this realm for the Chaotic Yin Yang Qi, right?" Yuan Cha chuckled coldly in response.
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 1131