Streams of divine sense from the Holy Spirits crisscrossed back and forth, forcing Yang Kai to stop and conceal himself from time to time. His speed plummeted, and it took him a full hour just to cover a hundred li.
Meanwhile, outside the Wulao Land, the expressions of numerous Holy Spirits were uniformly grim, for not a trace of their respective bearers could be detected. If only a handful had gone silent, it would simply mean those particular bearers had lacked the strength or luck to survive, meeting their ends within the Wulao Land. But for every single Holy Spirit to be in the same situation — something was clearly wrong.
Throughout all of recorded history, the Wulao Land had opened countless times, yet never before had the situation been so bizarre — every single bearer had vanished without a trace, their fate unknown!
Many Holy Spirits exchanged uneasy glances, their eyes searching one another's faces with uncertainty and suspicion. What in the world had happened inside the Wulao Land to leave every bearer completely unaccounted for?
On a hillside, Yue He watched with anxious eyes, but even as a Fifth-rank Open Heaven cultivator, finding Yang Kai's trail among tens of thousands of people was no easy feat. After searching fruitlessly for a long while, she could only turn to Zhu Jiuyin and ask, "Have you found the young master?"
Zhu Jiuyin's face was so dark it seemed ready to drip ink. She let out a cold snort. "No. That brat is likely in grave danger."
Failing to leave the Wulao Land at the first opportunity could only mean that Yang Kai had met with some mishap.
She couldn't quite figure it out. That brat wasn't weak — among all the bearers, he was one of the most formidable. How could he have fallen here? If he fell, that was one thing, but it would also ruin her grand plan. Was she going to fail to leave the Tai Xu Realm yet again?
And who knew when the Tai Xu Realm would open again — and even when it did, there was no guarantee anyone could break in!
"The Lord is blessed with incredible fortune. Nothing will happen to him," Guo Ziyan tried to comfort Yue He. "Miss Yue He, please don't worry. The Lord may simply have been delayed by something."
Zhu Jiuyin sneered. "When the Wulao Land closes, everyone is forcibly expelled. Since that Yang fellow hasn't appeared, he never will — hmm?"
As she spoke, she suddenly turned her head toward a particular direction, a faint glimmer of something strange flickering in her dark eyes.
In that instant, she had clearly sensed Yang Kai's aura flash by and vanish!
She recalled an unusual treasure in his possession, and the realization dawned on her.
A deafening boom rang out as a violent surge of energy erupted, instantly annihilating over a thousand cultivators. One of the Holy Spirits, unable to locate its bearer, had flown into a rage and struck out in fury.
With all hope of leaving the Tai Xu Realm gone, this Holy Spirit no longer cared about the lives of those ants, and proceeded to massacre indiscriminately to vent its wrath.
The Feiyi's colossal body wove through the crowd as it sighed lamentingly, opening its enormous maw to unleash a terrifying suction force that devoured cultivator after cultivator. Before, Qu Huashang had kept it in check, preventing it from swallowing people whole. Now that Qu Huashang was gone and it had lost all hope of escaping the Tai Xu Realm, it intended to feast to its heart's content.
Chaos erupted! Tens of thousands of cultivators were seized with terror. Many had narrowly survived death within the Wulao Land, reaping enormous wealth and fortune, believing their dreams of soaring to new heights were finally within reach — only to be struck by catastrophe before those dreams could be realized.
Figure after figure fled outward at full speed. In less than the time it took to finish a cup of tea, roughly thirty percent of the tens of thousands of cultivators had already been killed or wounded.
A hundred li away, Yang Kai glanced back, his face a mask of horror.
Thankfully, he had fled quickly enough; otherwise, he would have been caught up in this catastrophe too. He pulled the Shadowless Veil tight around himself once more, silently pondering — if Zhu Jiuyin had truly left some tracking method on him, she should have noticed by now.
No matter what, this was no place to linger. At worst, he could find another opportunity to contact Yue He later!
Half a day later, the commotion behind him had gradually subsided. Yang Kai had entered a quiet valley, where he silently dispelled the Shadowless Veil's power before quickly re-activating it to shroud himself once more.
Not long after, a streak of light suddenly shot toward him from the horizon. Yang Kai let out a cold snort. As expected, Zhu Jiuyin had indeed left a tracking technique on him — otherwise, she couldn't have found this place so quickly.
The streak of light was incredibly fast, arriving nearby in the blink of an eye.
Yang Kai lifted the Shadowless Veil, revealing himself, and focused his gaze on the incoming light. Within it were four figures — unmistakably Zhu Jiuyin, Yue He, and their companions.
But in the next instant, Yang Kai's expression changed drastically. He roared, "Zhu Jiuyin, are you an idiot?! You can't even tell there's someone behind you?! You're going to get me killed!"
With that, he turned and bolted.
Because trailing behind Zhu Jiuyin, several more streaks of light were hurtling toward them in hot pursuit.
Leading the pack was Jin Wu, trailed by the Holy Spirits Zhu Yan, Bing Bao, Shen Yuan, Kun Sha, and others — seven or eight in total.
The Feiyi had taken the form of a two-headed grotesque figure. One of its heads chuckled. "Brother Jin Wu, you truly are clever. How did you know that wench Zhu Jiuyin was suspicious?"
Jin Wu snorted coldly. "This woman is holding three hostages. If they were useless, why would she keep them? Since she took those three and left, she clearly has a purpose. But what I can't figure out is — where are all the other bearers? Why has only this wench's bearer appeared?"