When Ancestor Guizhi unleashed an even more powerful force of the Wood Demons to manipulate these Wood Demon plants, a far more intense Wood Demon aura inevitably manifested around him.
This, in turn, finally gave Jiang Chen's search a sliver of a trail to follow.
"The moment has come!" Jiang Chen rejoiced inwardly. His divine consciousness locked onto that region — an area spanning roughly ten li in all directions.
He was certain that this Wood Demon expert who controlled the Wood Demon plants had to be hiding somewhere within that zone.
Jiang Chen approached at a leisurely pace, unhurried and composed.
In his current state, clad in the Vested Garment of Purity, he concealed his presence so perfectly that he was as good as separated from this plane of existence entirely. Even as he walked right through the thickets of Wood Demon plants, not a single one of them could detect him.
Though these Wood Demon plants were formidable, they were ultimately nothing more than demonic constructs animated by Ancestor Guizhi's will. In terms of true form and power, they were nothing special.
To detect someone wearing the Vested Garment of Purity, one's cultivation would first have to far surpass Jiang Chen's, and moreover, one would need to have mastered a powerful spatial Divine Ability.
Only a powerhouse who had comprehended a spatial Divine Ability could sense the existence of a separate spatial pocket within the void, detecting the unique fluctuations of airflow between spaces.
Only under those circumstances was it remotely possible to pick up a faint trace.
Clearly, the Wood Demon plants in their current form fell far short of that threshold. And Ancestor Guizhi himself had evidently not yet reached that level either.
Jiang Chen drew steadily closer to the zone where Ancestor Guizhi was hidden, feeling his way through the aura of the surrounding Wood Demon plants. With every step, his conviction grew — Ancestor Guizhi was right here.
"The Vested Garment of Purity truly lives up to its reputation as a treasure my father left for me to traverse the mortal world. Even at this proximity, the other party remains utterly oblivious." Jiang Chen's heart raced with excitement.
If he could get close enough to stand right before this Wood Demon patriarch, he had any number of ways to dispatch the opponent.
After all, regardless of how powerful an enemy might be — if you were standing right in front of them and they had no idea you existed, the possibilities for a surprise attack were virtually limitless. The number of ways to kill them in that moment was simply too many to count.
Ancestor Guizhi, for his part, remained completely unaware. But inwardly, he was growing somewhat puzzled. Just moments ago, he had sensed that An Jiaye was on the verge of fleeing.
Yet suddenly, An Jiaye seemed to have changed his mind and resumed fighting with renewed ferocity.
This bizarre shift naturally triggered Ancestor Guizhi's wariness, and his sharp instincts caught a whiff of something amiss.
Still, he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong.
"Could it be that this fellow has brought reinforcements?" The thought flashed through Ancestor Guizhi's mind, and he immediately strengthened his defenses while spreading his divine consciousness outward in all directions, alert to every detail that might pose a threat.
But after several sweeping scans, he sensed nothing bearing down on him from any direction.
Though Ancestor Guizhi was by nature suspicious and prone to second-guessing, he had considerable faith in his own judgment.
After a moment of deliberation, he steeled himself: "This fellow is no ordinary cultivator among the humans. The way he's acting so fearless — he must have some secret technique or Divine Ability in his arsenal that allows him to escape in an instant. If I want to finish him off, I need to make sure I can lock down the surrounding space in a single instant, leaving him no chance to flee."
If the opponent were only at the early stage of the Divine Dao, Ancestor Guizhi could seal the space around him effortlessly, trapping him with no possibility of escape.
But this opponent was at the mid stage of the Divine Dao. Pinning him down would require some extra effort.
That said, Ancestor Guizhi was confident he had the means to pull it off.
The reason he had held back until now was twofold. First, he wanted to probe the opponent's hidden cards. Second, he had been deliberately conserving his strength, unwilling to blow all his trump cards in a single battle. After all, unleashing his true ultimate technique would inflict some measure of damage to his own vital essence.