"How could the teleportation carry us this far?"
Qin Hanwu was stunned.
Normally, teleportation energy affixed to a person could only transport them within the confines of the same world.
That alone was already a formidable feat.
Yet now, the Ancient Race had been moved beyond this world entirely.
And judging by the speed of travel, they had clearly already entered the teleportation tunnel.
But it should be impossible for anyone to have set up a teleportation formation inside the teleportation tunnel — that defied all reason.
Of course, there was another possibility.
That they hadn't entered the teleportation tunnel at all, but rather some immensely powerful existence was carrying them away.
But how could that be?
If such an existence were involved, why would Xia Xingchen need to go to all this trouble?
They could have simply struck directly, slaughtered everyone, and taken the Ancient Race away.
"What exactly is going on?"
Qin Hanwu was utterly baffled, but there was nothing he could do now. If he gave chase, it would certainly be too late.
Besides, he couldn't even determine their current location.
All he could do was return to that underground world first.
But the moment he entered, his expression changed drastically.
He was shocked to discover that the underground world had been damaged, and every top expert within it — second only to himself — had been trapped behind barriers.
As for the others, there was simply no way to rescue them.
Qin Hanwu, however, flicked his finger casually and shattered the sealing barrier with brute force.
"What happened?" Qin Hanwu demanded furiously.
Upon seeing him, all the trapped Firmament Immortal Sect experts knelt down in unison.
"My Lord, we were lured into a trap."
The leading elder broke into tears on the spot.
It was only after the elder recounted the events that Qin Hanwu finally understood what had transpired.
It turned out that after he had chased after them, another Spirit World Master had appeared. This Spirit World Master was equally powerful — approaching the peak of True Dragon level.
First, the enemy had set up isolation barriers to prevent them from sending messages.
Then, they discovered that the members of the Ancient Race had in fact remained here all along, hidden beneath concealment barriers.
The figure that had seemingly rescued the Ancient Race members earlier was nothing more than a false illusion created by the barrier.
The entire purpose had been to lure the tiger from the mountain — to draw Qin Hanwu away.
Once the strongest among them had been removed, this Spirit World Master had brazenly walked in and carried all the Ancient Race members away.
But before leaving, they had plundered every powerful expert of the Firmament Immortal Sect who had arrived as reinforcements.
All the treasures on their bodies had been seized, and after the robbery, they had been locked up behind sealing barriers.
"Xia Xingchen, what exactly are you after? Do you want those people of the Ancient Race to tarnish the name of my Firmament Immortal Sect?"
Qin Hanwu stared at the compass in his hand. Those figures had completely vanished, and he gritted his teeth in fury.
Yet he could not determine Xia Xingchen's true intentions.
At the same time, he regretted his own arrogance.
If Xia Xingchen had only been luring him away, then had he activated the compass earlier to lock onto their positions, the trap would never have worked.
But what he didn't know was that even activating the compass at that time would have been useless.
Xia Xingchen's careful timing had been part of Chu Feng's plan all along.
While they couldn't erase everyone's tracking imprints within that window, they could set up a formation that would seal their imprints for a period of time, preventing the Firmament Immortal Sect from locking onto them.
That was why Xia Xingchen had been watching the hourglass — that time marked when the imprint-sealing formation would expire.
Of course, to buy more time for Chu Feng and the others, Xia Xingchen had continued leading Qin Hanwu on even after that time had passed.
Only when his acceleration talisman was about to expire did he use an escape talisman to break free from Qin Hanwu.
As for what came next, it unfolded exactly as Chu Feng and his companions had planned.
Even though the tracking imprints eventually recovered, by the time Qin Hanwu and the others realized what had happened, it was already far too late.