Ancestor Jinxiao was seething with frustration. Ever since Ancestor Yinchui had been captured, he had been tracking his quarry for three days now. The pursuit was growing longer with each passing day—every time he felt he was closing in, the wretched brat slipped away at the last moment. Again and again, this farce repeated itself.
It gnawed at Ancestor Jinxiao's pride. With his strength, he was unquestionably among the top five—if not the top three—of all the Ancestors of the Demon Race.
Yet he was utterly helpless against a single young man. From the way the kid conducted himself, there was even a faint sense that he was toying with him.
What infuriated him most was that the brat's escape route was completely unpredictable—one moment east, the next moment west—making it impossible for Ancestor Jinxiao to discern any pattern to his intentions.
More than once, he had been tempted to contact fellow demon cultivators to help cut off the escape routes. But the kid moved with such ghostly elusiveness that even with several allies, they might not succeed in cornering him.
More crucially still, Ancestor Jinxiao had no desire to let cultivators from the other nine lineages come and claim a share of the prize.
These past few days had only reinforced Ancestor Jinxiao's certainty: this human brat was none other than Jiang Chen. And within this young man lay secrets of staggering significance.
Those secrets fed Ancestor Jinxiao's avarice, swelling it further with each passing day.
A young cultivator, maintaining this grueling chase for days on end without growing fatigued—how was that possible? The only explanation was that the boy possessed a powerful treasure sustaining him.
In terms of raw speed, Ancestor Jinxiao held no decisive advantage. This was the thing that frustrated him most. If he possessed the swiftness of the Wing Demon Lineage, he would certainly have caught up with the brat by now and taken him alive.
He could sense it clearly—the boy's strength was far inferior to his own. Even with several True Spirits at his side, the brat could never match Ancestor Jinxiao.
Their ability to capture Ancestor Yinchui had most likely relied on cunning schemes and a surprise ambush.
Jiang Chen, for his part, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this wild game of cat and mouse. For days on end, he deliberately drew Ancestor Jinxiao along, leading him on a merry chase. Still, this was not without risk—more than once, Ancestor Jinxiao had come dangerously close to cornering him.
If cornered, the only option would be a fight to the death.
The gap between Jiang Chen and his pursuer was still enormous. Unless he could break through to the Divine Dao Fourth Stage and leverage his full arsenal of treasures alongside the Four Great Divine Beast True Spirits, he might have a chance of subduing Ancestor Jinxiao.
Without that, his current combat strength would at best allow him to hold his own in a stalemate—and might even leave him at a disadvantage.
Most importantly, Jiang Chen had no desire to reveal his true fighting strength. That would draw the attention of the entire Demon Race.
If he were to expose his power, he had to ensure he could kill his opponent first—otherwise, the revelation would serve no purpose.
His current strategy of fleeing in every direction actually served to project weakness. And more than that—by luring Ancestor Jinxiao away and denying him any rest, Jiang Chen was buying time for the Gold-Munching Mouse clan.
If the Gold-Munching Mouse clan seized the opportunity, these past few days should have been enough for them to clash with the Gold Demon Lineage.
With hundreds of millions of descendants, the Gold-Munching Mouse clan held a clear numerical advantage over the tens of thousands of cultivators in the Gold Demon Lineage. Moreover, their abilities were a natural counter to the Gold Demon Lineage's powers.
Furthermore, along the way, Jiang Chen had released the Four Great True Spirits and sent them back to the Immortal Sacred Ground, while he alone drew Ancestor Jinxiao on a merry chase through the wilderness.
Several more days passed. Ancestor Jinxiao was nearly beside himself with rage. A nagging suspicion had begun to form in the back of his mind—the brat had been deliberately luring him this whole time, and his motives were far from innocent.
At the kid's speed, he clearly had the ability to shake off the pursuit entirely. So why did he always hover at the edge—always maintaining that tantalizing distance, giving Ancestor Jinxiao the illusion that one more push would bring him success?
He had to admit it was an illusion.
And that illusion, perhaps, was something the brat had deliberately created.