Chapter 568 - 514: An Unexpected Delight

Chapter 568: Chapter 514: An Unexpected Delight

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Heaven-shaking roars pierced the clouds as one terrifying attack after another rained down from the flickering, towering figures. Each strike was enough to make one’s Heart Spirit tremble, a sight too dreadful to behold.

In the face of such terror, the few lucky survivors scattered like startled birds, desperately seeking cover or having already found a quiet place to hide from the disaster.

The many Cultivators of the Chen Family and the Overlord Saber Alliance had clearly anticipated this. As soon as the Blood Qi anomaly began, they all vanished without a trace.

Even as the entire city decayed into chaos, not a single Cultivator from the Chen Family or the Overlord Saber Alliance was anywhere to be seen. It was clear that once the situation spiraled completely out of control, the Chen Family had decisively cut its losses, completely abandoning any control over the city.

As for Chu Mu, the architect of this entire catastrophe, he was naturally well aware of his situation.

After Qing Ling led the group of Chen Family Golden Core Cultivators away, he had decisively consumed his last Divine Shadow Pill and Heavenly Deceit Pill. He then stored Wangcai and the Corpse Puppet in his Qiankun Bag and, using the city’s chaos as cover, hid himself among a stretch of collapsed ruins in the southwest, near the city wall.

Concealed by several Array Prohibitions, his hiding spot was not particularly conspicuous amidst the city-wide chaos.

Still, Chu Mu couldn’t hide his apprehension about how effective his concealment truly was.

After all, there weren’t many living Cultivators left in the vast expanse of Bazhou City.

In a city this large with so few survivors, it wouldn’t be hard for a Nascent Soul Great Power to find him, no matter how well he was hidden.

He had, after all, just rejected the Chen Family’s recruitment offer yet again. Not to mention, he was the root cause of this entire mess.

He knew that if one of the Chen Family’s Nascent Soul experts detected him, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him with a single, casual strike—sending him straight to Hell.

Chu Mu glanced at the Nascent Soul Battle raging in the sky, but his gaze quickly shifted, finally settling on the Chain Array that still enveloped the entire city.

Ripples spread across its surface and the network of Array Prohibitions trembled. Under the relentless barrage of Divine Power from more than ten Nascent Soul Great Powers, the Chain Array was clearly on the verge of collapse.

’All I have to do now is wait for this array to break,’ he thought. ’The moment it does, I’ll flee thousands of miles away.’

As for how the situation here developed from that point on, he was powerless to help.

After all, for a mere Golden Core Cultivator like himself, participating in a conflict between Nascent Soul Level experts was far too risky and unpredictable.

Take this time, for instance. If the Chen Family’s Nascent Soul Great Powers hadn’t been tied down by the Blood Evil Array, he likely would have been swatted to death by an enraged Nascent Soul expert the moment that telepathic message was sent.

No matter how many tricks he had up his sleeve, they were all meaningless in the face of such an absolute disparity in power.

The gap between Grand Realms was an absolute chasm, as wide as the distance between heaven and earth.

Chu Mu pondered for a moment before something seemed to occur to him. He glanced around to confirm it was still safe, then looked down at the Qiankun Bag at his waist.

He sent his Divine Sense into the bag, and the image of the Flood Dragon corpse, dozens of yards long, appeared in his Divine Sense Perception.

Though the Flood Dragon was dead, the majesty of its draconic bloodline remained. Even as a corpse, it was as imposing and inviolable as a mountain range.

Chu Mu hadn’t feared the Flood Dragon when it was alive, so he certainly felt no hesitation now that it was dead. Forming his Divine Sense into a blade, he slashed down without mercy, slicing open the Flood Dragon’s corpse.

The blade flashed again and again, dancing across the creature’s body. In just a few moments, the enormous, dozens-of-yards-long dragon corpse was completely dissected. Its bare skeleton, neat stacks of flesh, scales, organs, and even its blood were all tidily arranged within the Qiankun Bag.

With the dissection complete, Chu Mu felt a flicker of confusion. He carefully inspected everything again, confirming for a third time that the dragon corpse was indeed just a corpse, with no other objects on or in it.

’So where’s the treasure from Xuanyu True Master that Qing Ling mentioned?’

Chu Mu raised an eyebrow. His Divine Sense swept out, finally settling on the Jade Box sealing the Flood Dragon Soul and Dragon Pill.

The Jade Box was crimson and crafted from Tier Three Fire Spirit Jade. Its surface was crisscrossed with Array Prohibitions, with layer after layer of sealing Array Patterns densely inscribed over every inch.

With a flicker of his Divine Sense, the Jade Box floated into the air. At Chu Mu’s command, several Array Plates from his Storage Ring flew one after another into the Qiankun Bag.

The Array Plates settled into place one by one, Array Flags fluttering as a complex network of Array Prohibitions interwove. Several Grand Arrays materialized within the confined space of the Qiankun Bag.

Only then did Chu Mu slowly begin to undo the layers of seals on the Jade Box. Just as he predicted, the moment the seal broke, a streak of deep purple lightning flashed out of the box and slammed right into the layers of Array Prohibitions he had prepared.

As if refusing to accept its fate, the deep purple lightning changed direction several times in an attempt to escape. But it was no use. The layers of Array Prohibitions had transformed the narrow space into an inescapable cage.

Finally seeming to realize its predicament, the darting streak of purple lightning came to a halt. Its light shifted, transforming from the phantom of a Flood Dragon into a human figure. He looked up at the ’sky’ within the bag and began to speak urgently, "Fellow Daoist—"

Before he could finish, several Array Prohibition Chains shot out, binding Chen Xuanyu’s soul. An image formed from Divine Sense then materialized—it was Chu Mu, now standing before him.

He reached out, and an irresistible force surged toward the bound Chen Xuanyu. One by one, several palm-sized cloth bags were forcibly ripped from his Divine Soul, coming to rest hovering in Chu Mu’s palm.

The bags were a pale, translucent cyan, with a gentle luster. They felt as light as air in his hand, but the faint spatial fluctuations they emitted made their function perfectly clear.

Chu Mu glanced at the still-struggling Chen Xuanyu—or rather, the Flood Dragon Soul—before his gaze shifted to the Storage Bags.

Storage Bags, with their simple Storage Spaces, were vastly different from his Qiankun Bag, which contained a world of its own.

Their Storage Space was weak and could generally only hold inanimate objects.

His Qiankun Bag, on the other hand, was, in a sense, a small world in itself.

That was why placing Storage Items inside a regular Storage Space would most likely cause a spatial disturbance, annihilating the space itself.

When his Divine Sense probed one of the Storage Bags, its contents appeared in his perception. Chu Mu froze, as if he had discovered something unbelievable. A complex mix of joy, confusion, and other emotions flickered across his face.

After a long moment, he withdrew his Divine Sense Perception. His gaze shifted to the imprisoned Chen Xuanyu, and an irrepressible smile spread across his face.

’What an unexpected windfall.’

This Chen Xuanyu had truly given him a heavenly surprise!

...