The Poisoned Pursuit

Chapter 264: Escape

He waited a while longer, but the blood-cloud remained a hazy, foggy mass with no sound. Whenever one of the lesser ghosts drew near the densest part of the mist, it was instantly shredded into pieces, revealing nothing.

Wang Chan could no longer remain seated. He formed a hand seal, and the skulls floating on the surface of the blood-cloud opened their jaws wide. Several dozen arm-thick beams of black light shot out simultaneously, converging from all directions on the spot where Han Li had been.

A soft bang echoed.

Within the mist, a faint white light flickered. Amid the violent collision of black and white radiance, a translucent barrier of white light appeared indistinctly in the fog. The Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master frowned slightly, but then immediately thought of the pristine white scale shield Han Li had summoned at the start of the battle.

Wang Chan furrowed his brow, hesitated for a moment, then muttered to himself:

“Fine. For the sake of so many high-quality magical tools about to be in hand, I’ll sacrifice a little essence blood. Wouldn’t want this brat to pull some trick and escape.”

With that, he extended his right index finger, bit the tip, and squeezed out a single, viscous drop of blood, letting it fall gently onto the blood-cloud below him. Then he plunged both hands deep into the cloud, concentrating fully on activating his technique.

As Wang Chan chanted slowly, the crimson blood-cloud surrounding Han Li began to rotate. The spin grew faster and faster, pressing inward toward the center. The blood ghosts dissolved automatically and vanished.

The green-crimson mist, carried along by the blood-cloud’s accelerating spin, was rapidly absorbed and assimilated into the cloud. The center gradually cleared, revealing a massive white light shield shaped like an inverted bowl. At its apex was the white scale shield.

Beneath the light shield, Han Li stood with one hand holding a strange, short-handled dagger that radiated a dazzling yellow light. In his other hand, he clasped a stack of gleaming talismans, poised to attack. Beside him floated a green orb and a red orb, still emitting thick green-crimson mist. Wang Chan saw everything clearly.

“You—” the Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master sneered, about to add more taunts.

But the moment he uttered a single syllable, Han Li suddenly raised his hand. The short dagger trembled lightly and transformed into a several-zhang-long streak of blinding yellow light that shot straight toward Wang Chan. At the same time, the stack of talismans in Han Li’s other hand flew out, materializing into over a dozen blazing fire dragons that charged en masse.

“Kid, magical tools can’t break my Blood Spirit Grand Art—unless…”

Wang Chan, originally unconcerned, summoned the skulls to spew black energy. But as he smugly reached the word “unless,” he suddenly remembered something. His expression changed dramatically. He shot straight up like a crane, launching himself clear of the blood-cloud.

At that instant, the yellow streak pierced through several blocking skulls with a series of puff sounds, then punched straight through the blood-cloud along with the fire dragons. Yellow light burst forth from the spot where Wang Chan had been meditating. A white streak shot out through the gap and fled at extreme speed. The yellow streak turned and followed close behind.

“Talisman Treasure!” Wang Chan shouted, furious and shocked.

He had been careless. He hadn’t realized that Han Li’s use of the mist was merely a delay tactic—buying time to activate the Talisman Treasure. Otherwise, even if the opponent possessed a Talisman Treasure, Wang Chan would never have let him finish activating it. But the odds of an early Foundation Establishment cultivator owning a Talisman Treasure were indeed very slim—so slim that Wang Chan had overlooked the possibility.

Still, even if the kid had a Talisman Treasure, as the Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master, Wang Chan was hardly afraid. He himself carried two Talisman Treasures, one of which was a very rare special-property artifact. Naturally, he would not let Han Li escape.

Seething with rage, Wang Chan leaped back into the blood-cloud, swept the cloud up around him, and gave chase at lightning speed using blood escape.

About the time it takes an incense stick to burn, Han Li stood on the Divine Wind Boat, coldly watching the blood-cloud drawing near again. He suddenly waved a hand. The yellow streak tailing him turned back unexpectedly, stabbing straight toward the Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master hidden in the blood-cloud.

But Wang Chan was already prepared. He tossed an item from his hand—a golden skull that swelled in the wind. The skull opened a massive jaw and clamped down on the yellow streak in one bite, halting its advance completely.

Han Li was startled. He tried to recall the streak several times, but the yellow light only bounced and struggled inside the golden skull’s mouth, unable to move further.

Wang Chan gave a sinister laugh. The blood-cloud around him surged again. A chill ran down Han Li’s spine—he was about to be trapped once more. But just then, the blood-cloud, which had begun to roil, suddenly subsided. Wang Chan, who had been forming hand seals, turned pale. Not only did his flying speed slow, but a faint green-black tinge appeared on his face.

Han Li, who had been watching his opponent intently, was taken aback.

Then he saw fear flash across the young master’s face. With a long, piercing shriek, Wang Chan abandoned the golden skull that was still grappling with the yellow streak, wrapped himself in the blood-cloud, and shot back the way he came like lightning. Han Li stood frozen in place, utterly baffled.

After a moment of hesitation, he turned the golden skull and the yellow streak back into two talismans, easily collecting them in his hand. Then he stared at the Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master, whose figure was rapidly shrinking into the distance. He didn’t know what to do.

Chasing after him seemed far too bold.

But as the young master’s shrieking faded, Han Li suddenly realized something. He quickly steered the Divine Wind Boat in another direction and vanished over the horizon.

…

Not long after escaping danger, Han Li went through a detailed review of the situation—and immediately felt deep regret.

He finally understood why his opponent had fled instead of pursuing. Wang Chan had been poisoned. And not just any poison—the extraordinarily lethal ink flood dragon poison.

The cause was that the fool had absorbed a massive amount of the “Greenfire Miasma” poison mist into his blood-cloud. That mist, when Han Li had refined it, had been designed to incorporate the residual cinnabar poison of the ink flood dragon. Now, the blood-cloud, which had absorbed that poison-laden mist, had drawn the toxins back into Wang Chan’s body during the high-speed pursuit. No wonder he had panicked and retreated!

The more Han Li thought about it, the more he cursed his own stupidity. Going back now would be sheer madness. He had squandered a perfect opportunity to kill a powerful enemy and seize even more treasures from his body—just let it slip away. The frustration was maddening.

Still, he couldn’t quite understand why Wang Chan had abandoned even a Talisman Treasure as powerful as the golden skull without recalling it.

What Han Li didn’t know was that the Ghost Spirit Sect’s young master, equally cautious and quick to flee when things turned sour, was himself fuming with rage. Beside him were the two Core Formation Li brothers, staring at each other in stunned silence.

The truth was that Wang Chan, fleeing back the way he had come, had run into the two Ghost Spirit Sect elders who had just wiped out all the cultivators from the other seven sects. Worried about their young master’s safety, they had come to check on him.

Seeing Wang Chan poisoned, they naturally used their profound cultivation to force the toxin out.

Now that the poison had been purged, the young master vaguely realized how he had been poisoned. But he took Han Li’s unintended action as a deliberate trap. Never having suffered such a humiliation, Wang Chan immediately hated Han Li to the bone and, in his mind, elevated him to a formidable rival.

Driven by these thoughts, Wang Chan refused to give up. Despite his body’s lingering weakness, he dragged the two old men another several hundred li in the original direction, chasing fruitlessly before finally turning back. But the bitter frustration lodged in his heart like a fishbone that would never come out.

As for the golden skull Talisman Treasure he had discarded because it was holding Han Li’s own Talisman Treasure and couldn’t be retrieved in time, he didn’t grieve over it much. He had already used it many times—it was probably nearly drained of power. Even if Han Li took it, he could only use it once or twice at most. Nothing serious.

But what really made his blood boil was that, upon returning to the small peak where he had set the ambush, a ghost spirit guard reported that a group from the Joyous Union Sect, one of the Six Demonic Sects, had suddenly attacked them.

There had been no casualties, but the two female cultivators they had subdued were snatched away. The leader, whose “remarkable” delicate features were unmistakable, was Tian Buque—the second son of the Joyous Union Sect’s sect leader. A ruthless figure of the younger generation, no less notorious than Wang Chan himself.

Upon hearing this bad news, Wang Chan’s expression only darkened slightly on the surface, but inside he felt like vomiting blood. Han Li and Tian Buque had just been added to his personal kill list.

“Let’s go. Inform the Yan Clan ancestor. We begin the evacuation immediately,” Wang Chan said coldly after taking a long breath.

Meanwhile, Han Li wasted no time. He flew at full speed toward Yellow Maple Valley. But halfway there, he ran into a mixed group of cultivators from Carving Knife Dock and Moon-Masking Sect. Under the declaration of a late Foundation Establishment cultivator leading them, Han Li was summarily conscripted.

(Author’s note: Sorry! I’ve been busy with family matters these past few days, so updates may be a bit unstable. Please forgive me! But I’ll still try my best to keep up two chapters. This one makes up for last night’s.)