The pair being chased all the way to other continents by the True Immortal Ma Liang were none other than Six Wings and the Ice Phoenix.
"That should be obvious. It was most likely the ambush at the Blood Sky Continent, where we joined forces with those Blood Dao sects to lay a trap for him. That must have sent him into a genuine rage. But there's no point talking about it now. Do you have any way to shake off the calamity behind us? This time, he'll probably catch up in less than two hours." The Ice Phoenix replied without any trace of politeness.
"If I had any other means, would I have let myself suffer such severe losses to my true essence? Heh heh, it seems this time we really will become a pair of doomed lovers," Six Wings said flatly.
"Pooh! Who wants to be your doomed lover? Sit cross-legged and stay still. I'll use a secret technique to give you a hand." The Ice Phoenix spat lightly, then hardened her resolve.
"What help could someone of your meager strength possibly provide?" Six Wings blinked in surprise, taken aback by her words.
"Though my cultivation is far below yours, my true form is a direct descendant of the Five-Colored Celestial Phoenix. The profundity of some of my innate secret techniques is not something you can easily imagine." A trace of pride crept into the Ice Phoenix's voice.
"If you say so, then I might as well try everything — a dying horse is still worth treating as a living one." Six Wings' expression shifted, and he took a deep breath.
Sure enough, he promptly sat cross-legged in the crater and closed his eyes without a moment's hesitation.
The Ice Phoenix let out a soft sigh, flickered forward, and appeared directly behind Six Wings. She too sat cross-legged, opened her mouth, and exhaled a cloud of pale white frigid mist. Within it, something crystal and shimmering could be glimpsed — a thumb-sized five-colored round bead, slowly revolving without end.
With a low shout from the woman, she pinched a hand seal with one hand, and a sheet of crystalline radiance unfurled behind her. The spectral image of a colossal Ice Phoenix materialized.
In the span of a single breath, the bead emitted a deep, resonant hum. Layer upon layer of dense true essence energy gathered on its surface, then blurred and wavered, condensing into a thick, near-liquid state.
Only then did the Ice Phoenix grit her teeth and lightly tap the bead with a single finger.
*Whoosh.*
The bead shuddered, then transformed into something intangible and vanished in a flash, slipping into Six Wings' back.
The Ice Phoenix murmured an incantation, her ten fingers weaving through hand seals with the speed of a turning wheel. A halo of crystalline light radiated from the surface of her body, and her complexion gradually turned pale and translucent, giving her an appearance that was eerily otherworldly from a distance.
At the same time, Six Wings felt countless threads of extreme cold pouring from a living focal point at the base of his back into his various Meridians. The frigid streams then transformed into torrents of true essence energy, converging and flowing into his Dantian.
There, a small crystal figure that had been sitting in his Dantian looking utterly listless suddenly stirred to life upon contacting the influx of true essence. It sprang up, dancing and waving its arms in unbridled delight.
"This is origin force! You're actually channeling your own origin directly into me!" Six Wings could no longer contain himself and snapped his eyes open, a mix of shock and elation on his face.
"Fortunately, you and I both possess bodies of extreme cold, and our cultivation of origin-based arts shares some similarities. Otherwise, even if I were willing to offer my origin force, it simply wouldn't be possible." The Ice Phoenix's expression remained perfectly flat as she spoke.
"With your origin force channeled into me, I naturally can convert it into true essence within a short time and once again deploy a secret technique to escape. But your cultivation simply isn't high enough — I'm afraid you can only manage this a few times at most. We must come up with another strategy to get away." A cold glint flashed in Six Wings' eyes as he spoke thoughtfully.
"Oh? You have another idea already?" The Ice Phoenix's expression shifted.
"I actually had a plan to redirect the trouble eastward from the start. The only reason I couldn't put it into motion was that the madman was pressing us too hard and there was no time. But now, with your origin force buying me time, it just might be feasible." Six Wings made no effort to hide anything.
"Then what are you waiting for? Hurry up and convert the true essence, and let's act quickly." The Ice Phoenix raised her slender brows and spoke without any courtesy.
"Heh heh, did you really need to remind me? As soon as I've recovered a little, we'll head straight for the nearest city that has a teleportation array. We'll use it to travel as fast as possible to the territory of the Jiaochi Clan. I've already looked into it — the Jiaochi are one of the foremost superpowers on the Thunder Continent. There's no way they lack Mahayana cultivators. That should give us a chance to tie up this True Immortal madman." Six Wings answered without a moment's thought.
…
One month later.
Gai Ling City, one of the Jiaochi Clan's main strongholds, was completely submerged beneath a boundless, rolling river of blood.
Countless Jiaochi clansmen thrashed and screamed within the crimson torrent, but their struggles were utterly futile. They could only watch helplessly as their flesh and blood melted away bit by bit, until they finally merged with the river itself.
Hovering above the blood river was a slender youth, his expression blank and emotionless.
Beside him floated the butchered remains of over a hundred high-ranking Jiaochi cultivators, strewn haphazardly across the sky.