Chapter 1452: A Bolt of Heavenly Lightning

There had been too many Spiritual Infant cultivators in the city to work out how many more of Mystic Heaven Palace's had slipped in under false identities, and so they had assumed that keeping a close watch on the three elders would be enough. Instead the three had vanished without a trace right under their noses!

"Forgive us, Master!" Both disciples were struck with horror at the sight.

The Chaotic Devil Elder did not spare them a glance. He seized a shard of one ice sculpture, his figure turned into a black streak of light and rose into the air, and after a sweep of the surroundings he slipped away in silence.

"Junior Brother, gather our people and go after Mystic Heaven Palace's Hall of Discipline disciples. I'll go help Master," one of the black-robed men said under his breath, then hurriedly drove his flying astra after the elder.

The other melted into the shadows.

***

Outside Chaotic Devil Island, Elders Mei and Lan of Mystic Heaven Palace lay hidden beneath the surface of the sea, sealed within a sphere of thin ice.

They had already put some distance between themselves and the island.

That was not only for fear that the Chaotic Devil Elder might cut in, but out of wariness toward the factions standing behind the Myriad Devil Assembly.

To strike near Chaotic Devil Island would break the rules and provoke those people, and even if Mystic Heaven Palace had no fear of reprisal, it would still have to weigh the consequences, unless its disciples were never to set foot in the Boundless Sea again.

Countless incidents over the years had proven that they did indeed take savage revenge on anyone who overstepped.

Inside the thin shell of ice, one elder sat and the other stood. Elder Mei kept her eyes fixed toward Chaotic Devil Island.

They had finally traced the sacred relic and it was about to come back to them, yet for reasons she could not name, the unease in her heart would not settle.

She went back over every arrangement they had made and could find no oversight.

The three ice sculptures maintained the illusion that they were still in the city.

With most of the Chaotic Devil Elder's attention tied up by the sudden arrival of the Great Heavenly Peng Saint, that much was enough. More would have been like gilding the lily, cleverness turning into its own undoing.

They did not expect to deceive him for long. The point was only to buy the time they needed to take the sacred relic back, without the Chaotic Devil Elder spoiling things.

Once they had it, every Mystic Heaven Palace disciple would converge, and even someone as formidable as the Chaotic Devil Elder could do nothing but watch them leave.

The arrangements out here gave them even less to worry about.

To avoid alerting the enemy, everyone lay in wait outside Chaotic Devil Island.

Every Spiritual Infant elder of Mystic Heaven Palace was scattered across every direction but the north, casting an inescapable net.

The north was the route the Great Heavenly Peng Saint and the demon kings had to take on their way home, and they had no wish to expose themselves, draw a powerful enemy, and invite some accident. So they had placed only a single elder there, one skilled in the Breath Concealing Technique.

If whoever carried the sacred relic left by the north, they would wait until the Great Heavenly Peng Saint was far away before striking. Any other direction made things far simpler.

To guard against the target doubling back or circling around, the elders in ambush were not to move on their own.

The two of them would close in fast, guided by the ice key's resonance, and if they could not catch up in time, the elder lying in wait there would show himself first and tangle the target up.

They would arrive moments later. Nothing could go wrong.

And in the unlikely event that all three together proved no match, the elders lying in ambush in the other directions would be reaching the field by then as well. The target would not be able to escape!

Elder Mei thought that unlikely, though.

Even if that wretch had enjoyed fortune enough to defy heaven and broken through to the middle stage of the Spiritual Infant Realm, she was confident of bringing him down, unless he had reached the late stage.

Her thoughts were still racing when she caught, from the corner of her eye, the light on the ice key beginning to move. "The trade fair is over?"

The ice key, an eight-faceted piece of mystic ice, hung before Elder Lan's chest, flickering without pause.

Elder Lan gave a grunt, closed his hand loosely around it, and let his eyes fall half shut. "He's circling around."

That was what they had expected.

The two waited patiently, eyes locked on the key. After a dizzying series of shifts, the sense it carried pointed due south!

"Due south!" Elder Lan shot to his feet.

They had bet wrong, guarding the western side of Chaotic Devil Island, the side facing away from Mystic Heaven Palace.

Elder Mei moved faster. Her fingers stabbed rapidly at the empty air, and with a rapid cracking the thin ice of the sphere shattered into countless shards that scattered through the water. In an instant the shards drew back around them, becoming a mass of cold qi that wrapped the pair and tore away through the sea.

They had not gone far before Elder Lan cried out in alarm, "This is bad! His evasion speed is incredible!"

What they cultivated was Mystic Heaven Palace's finest Ice Evasion Technique, one that met few equals in the whole of the immortal cultivation world, and the man was faster still!

Elder Mei's face darkened. "Shi Xue is holding the south. Have her tie him down. She's been at the peak of the early stage for a long time, held at that bottleneck for years. Even against a middle-stage Spiritual Infant cultivator she can put up a fight."

"Right!"

***

Outside Myriad Devil City, Qin Sang left without trouble and immediately sensed several auras near Chaotic Devil Island that plainly belonged to Spiritual Infant cultivators, undisguised, their presence soaring into the sky.

They sat like guardians presiding over the eight directions.

So these are the Spiritual Infant cultivators the factions behind the Myriad Devil Assembly brought in. Qin Sang thought.

Those experts, with the Chaotic Devil Elder on top of them, did indeed leave few people willing to act rashly on Chaotic Devil Island.

But all they could guarantee was the peace of the stretch immediately around the island. If a fight broke out beyond that stretch, they would only watch it coldly.

He kept a measure of wariness toward them too, since any one of them might be in league with the Chaotic Devil Elder.

Reining in his aura, he found a gap and slipped away from the island, deliberately doubling back several times.

He drove out his spiritual consciousness and searched with the Sky Eyes ability alongside it, and once he had confirmed there was no one following and had passed beyond their sight, he stopped hesitating, turned into a bolt of lightning, and shot away.

I have the Seven-Master Buddha Seal and the materials to upgrade the Golden Sinking Sword. A pity I couldn't gather everything the Spirit Elevation Rite needs. It seems like Primordial Yin Water and Yin Nether Soil can't be obtained outside Hundred Flowers Valley, which explains how Valley Master Mu could stay so patient and never try to contact me. The question is how many Myriad Spirit Fruits it will cost me...

He kept watch on his surroundings while turning over what the trade fair had gained and cost him.

It went smoothly enough. The Chaotic Devil Elder didn't pull any tricks, though whether that's because he wouldn't or couldn't, I can't say. The great factions behind the Myriad Devil Assembly are not people to be trifled with, and they can hold him in check. Looks like both of my fallback preparations went unused. An array artifact set and three pill formulas wasted for nothing.

He had not flown far when his gaze sharpened. An instant later the Sky-Eyed Butterfly sent out its warning as well.

His spiritual consciousness was powerful enough that he had picked up the anomaly ahead before the butterfly did.

That owed something to the other party's concealment being less than masterful, of course. Otherwise, at such a distance, spiritual consciousness would have struggled to find anything, and the butterfly's role would have been irreplaceable.

Who's there? Qin Sang cursed himself for jinxing it, and at the same time a doubt stirred in him.

He had felt no mark planted on him, so how had this person pinpointed the direction he had left by?

Unless... A flash of insight brought the mysterious ice box in his Thousand-Jin Ring to mind.

He was not going to waste words on it, though. Whatever this person's background, and whether or not they had come for him, skulking about in the dark was no sign of goodwill.

Without a word, feigning ignorance, Qin Sang silently recited the Lightning Control Technique and threw out a bolt of heavenly lightning!

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