Chapter 570 - 516: Pursuit

Chapter 570: Chapter 516: Pursuit

BANG!

Hundreds of miles away, a sword light crashed to the ground with a dull roar, blasting a massive crater. A battered Corpse Puppet lay motionless within it.

Even with the unparalleled physique of a Tier Three Corpse Puppet, taking a direct killing blow from a Nascent Soul Great Cultivator was clearly too much for it to endure.

At that moment, what little life force remained in the Corpse Puppet flickered like a candle in the wind, threatening to go out at any second.

Meanwhile, Chu Mu staggered to his feet in the crater. He looked at the battered Corpse Puppet before him, then glanced toward the sky where the Nascent Soul Battle was still faintly visible, a profound sense of relief washing over him for having survived the ordeal.

’If I hadn’t managed to mobilize a sliver of my Divine Sense in the nick of time and throw the Corpse Puppet out of my Qiankun Bag—using its towering, unparalleled physique as a shield to take that blow from the Qing Cang Ancestor for me—I... would have certainly died!’

’With such an absolute gap in cultivation and power, survival would have been impossible!’

After staring blankly for a long moment, Chu Mu finally snapped out of his daze. Not daring to linger, he waved his hand, recalling the nearly destroyed Corpse Puppet into his Qiankun Bag. Then, with a single leap, he shot into the sky, transforming into a streak of crimson saber light that vanished into the clouds in the blink of an eye.

No more than a dozen breaths after Chu Mu departed, several streaks of Tunneling Light zipped across the sky. A moment later, a few figures appeared above the crater where Chu Mu had crashed.

Qing Ling waved a hand, and a projection materialized. As if rewinding time, the image displayed the entire scene: Chu Mu plummeting from the sky, retrieving the Corpse Puppet, and then making his escape.

"Southwest. He must be seriously injured. After him! Don’t let him get away!"

"Send word in the Ancestor’s name. Tell our allies in every direction to be on the lookout. If anyone spots him, they are to report immediately. He must not be allowed to escape!"

With a flick of her sleeve, Qing Ling dismissed the projection. Tossing out those words, she shot off like a flash of light, heading in the direction Chu Mu had gone.

Instantly, a web of sound transmissions spread out, encompassing all of Bazhou City. Or rather, the entire network the Chen Family had laid out across the Bazhou Basin sprang into action.

Meanwhile, the streak of crimson saber light soaring through the heavens seemed to sense something. The light dissipated, revealing Chu Mu’s form.

He stood amidst the clouds, frowning as he felt a faint but persistent sensation of being watched. Any relief he’d felt from his narrow escape vanished completely.

’It seems... things aren’t peaceful outside Bazhou City, either!’

Chu Mu scanned his surroundings. Almost instantly, his gaze settled on a nearby mountain peak where his senses picked up the faint traces of an Array Prohibition.

After a moment’s thought, he swept his gaze across the surrounding mountains and forests. Each time, without fail, he detected the presence of more Array Prohibitions.

The only difference lay in how conspicuous their traces were.

’So, does this mean no one has made it out of the Bazhou Basin alive yet?’

Chu Mu’s eyes narrowed. From the looks of it, his earlier suspicion was true.

The Chen Family had also set something up outside Bazhou City.

’It was probably meant to prevent news of the catastrophe in Bazhou City from leaking out. And now, this setup... was meant for me?’

Chu Mu took out his Sound Transmission Order. Just as he expected, and just like back in Bazhou City, all outgoing transmissions were completely blocked.

"Break!"

With a sweep of his sleeve and a cold snort, Chu Mu sent several beams of saber light shooting out in all directions.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The saber light struck the locations of the Array Prohibitions, setting off a series of deafening explosions. Amidst billowing clouds of dust, the traces of the prohibitions vanished.

As he leaped forward, an ancient, exquisite Bronze Compass appeared, hovering over his palm. Its needle spun before quickly settling on the southwest—the exact same direction he sensed his Sky-Breaking Flying Boat to be.

’However, given the current situation, it’s clearly not a good time to rendezvous with the Sky-Breaking Flying Boat.’

’No matter how well hidden the Sky-Breaking Flying Boat is, it can’t remain completely undetected with pursuers hot on my tail. Meeting up with them now would just needlessly expose my trump card. Worse, it might even lead to Zhao Shuang and the others on the boat being discovered...’

He waved his hand, and a Flying Boat appeared before him. It was about thirty feet long and entirely silver-white. He had refined it as a temporary replacement when he first entered the Golden Core Realm, after losing all his belongings in the battle in the Demon Realm.

After he completed the Refining of the Sky-Breaking Flying Boat, he had swapped this one out, and it had been sitting in his Storage Space for many years.

He formed a series of hand seals, casting several Techniques onto the Flying Boat. Lines of Array Prohibitions lit up one after another. Finally, with a flicker of fluctuating Spiritual Pressure, the Flying Boat took off, carrying a trace of Chu Mu’s Divine Soul Aura as it disappeared into the clouds and sped toward the distant horizon.

As for Chu Mu himself, he descended from the sky, concealed his aura, and vanished into the forest below without a trace.

Just as he had anticipated, it wasn’t long before several streaks of Tunneling Light shot across the sky above. Without a moment’s hesitation, they sped off in the direction the Flying Boat had taken.

About a quarter of an hour later, with a faint ripple from a prohibition, Chu Mu’s figure slowly reappeared. He stared in the direction the Tunneling Lights had vanished, his expression grim and uncertain.

The Chen Family’s setup was quite clear to him.

It was nothing more than a Chain Array forming a surveillance network that encircled Bazhou City.

Judging by the traces of the Array Prohibitions he’d just seen, they were all incredibly crude; even a Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivator would have no trouble destroying them.

Their only function was surveillance.

With this surveillance system covering the area outside Bazhou City, the Chen Family could monitor any Cultivator who appeared there and track their movements.

Even if someone destroyed a node, the grid-like nature of the system would allow them to immediately isolate the corresponding area and lock onto the intruder’s location.

Ordinarily, he could think of countless ways to evade such a surveillance network.

But now...

’In the vast Bazhou City, with its hundreds of thousands of Cultivators, how many could possibly have survived this catastrophe? And of those, how many could have escaped?’

’When the Grand Array finally fell, the few Cultivators who were lucky enough to survive were all annihilated by the indiscriminate attack of that Chen Family Nascent Soul expert.’

’By now, aside from the Nascent Soul experts still fighting, the number of Cultivators who made it out of Bazhou City alive could be counted on one hand.’

’There were precious few survivors, and I am one of them.’

’The Chen Family has their eyes on me. They won’t ignore even the slightest anomaly that appears in their surveillance network.’

’Moreover, he still had no idea just how far the Chen Family’s network extended.’

’How much of it was visible, and how much was hidden from sight?’

’And, unsurprisingly, this setup clearly shared the same origin as the one inside Bazhou City. It must be the work of the Chen Family’s Array Dao Nascent Soul expert.’

’It was impossible to overestimate the methods of a Nascent Soul Realm Array Master!’

As his thoughts raced, Chu Mu knew he couldn’t delay. That Flying Boat was just an ordinary Tier Three vessel, a temporary replacement he hadn’t put much effort into. It was only a matter of time before the Chen Family Cultivators caught up to it.

He had to use this window of opportunity to shake the Chen Family’s pursuit for good.

After all...

No one knew how the Nascent Soul battle in Bazhou City would turn out.

If he couldn’t shake his pursuers before the battle in the city was decided, he might find himself being hunted by a Nascent Soul expert!

His expression grim, Chu Mu swept his sleeve, and dozens of colorful, bird-shaped Puppets appeared. Each was only the size of an ordinary bird, with varied forms modeled after mundane creatures. As their wings beat, they radiated the vivid life aura of a common animal.

Anyone would likely overlook such insignificant, mundane creatures at a glance.

Yet these small Puppets, modeled after common birds, were actually as high as Tier Three Lower Grade in quality.

They were called "Cyan Birds," and each one was equivalent to a Magical Treasure.

However, the function of these Cyan Bird "Magical Treasures" was extremely specific.

Ultimate Concealment, and highly effective reconnaissance while under its effects.

They had no other abilities. Even their physical bodies were extremely fragile; a Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivator could destroy them with a little effort.

Of course, with the level of Concealment these Puppets possessed, no Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivator would ever be able to detect a trace of them.

Even a Golden Core Cultivator of the same realm would find it nearly impossible to notice the marvelous Cyan Bird Puppets without being on high alert beforehand.

With a sweep of his sleeve, Chu Mu sent the dozens of varied and colorful Cyan Bird Puppets shooting out in all directions, and in the blink of an eye, they vanished into the forest.

If he hadn’t performed the Refinement on the Cyan Bird Puppets himself, allowing him to sense their locations in real time, even his own Divine Sense Perception would have struggled to detect the slightest trace of them...

...