Escape

Li Jingtian froze for a moment, an expression of sorrow on her face. Touching Li Xuanling's head, she murmured softly, "I must trouble you to do it, then." Her words had barely left her mouth when an uproar broke out outside the tent, accompanied by the clamor of many shouting voices. From the sky above came Mu Jiaoman’s deep, furious bellow: "You again? Who on earth are you?! Provoking us again and again! Do you really think we're made of clay to be walked over?!" Li Xuanling and Li Jingtian exchanged a glance and threw open the tent flap. Hovering in midair above the stockade stood a middle-aged man holding a sword. Translucent, pale-blue River true essence flowed continuously around him as he looked down composedly at the Shanyue soldiers rapidly gathering beneath his feet. It was none other than Li Tongya. Gripping his cyan blade, Li Tongya calmly swept his gaze over the many Shanyue below. When he spoke, his voice, augmented by magical power, resounded across the entire stockade: "My Li clan and the Shanyue have always minded our own business. You launched a sudden, unprovoked raid against our Mount Lijing, plundering our spirit rice and abducting our people—and yet you dare ask who I am?" Below, Li Xuanling let out a long breath of relief and whispered with joy, "It's Father!" Furious beyond measure, Mu Jiaoman stepped into the air, followed by two Shanyue Qi Refinement human shamans. He said in a heavy voice, "The Shanyue of the Four Ridges crossing the border was the very compensation promised by your demonic sect! How dare you go back on your word now? Since this spirit rice, spirit fruit, and captive population have entered our pockets, they belong to the Shanyue!" Glancing warily at the flickering sword ray wavering around Li Tongya's blade, Mu Jiaoman gritted his teeth and said, "Withdraw now, and we won't hold this against you." Li Tongya sneered. Raising the grayish-white longsword in his hand, he unleashed several streaks of sword qi, shocking Mu Jiaoman and the other two into a state of high alarm. When Li Tongya had crossed the border more than ten days ago in search of Li Xiangping, he had already fought a battle with Mu Jiaoman and his men. Knowing full well how difficult this man was to deal with, the three hastily cast arts and formed hand seals in a flurry. All three of them had achieved Qi Refinement using the secret arts of the Shanyue tribe, and what they had swallowed was impure qi hastily cultivated without orthodox qi-harvesting techniques. Not only was their magical power inferior to Li Tongya's, but their proficiency in riding the wind and controlling qi was even more lacking, plunging them once again into a disadvantage. Li Tongya had painstakingly cultivated the Mystic Water Sword Art for nearly thirty years. His sword ray was swift and piercing, forcing the trio to dodge repeatedly and throwing the encampment into complete pandemonium, like a boiling cauldron. "Now's our chance!" Li Xuanling swiftly snapped the shackles on his legs with a kick. Pulling Li Jingtian to her feet, he snapped the necks of the two Shanyue guards at the entrance with both hands, sprinted forward a few steps, and leapt over the wooden fence. Stationed outside this section of the fence were two more Shanyue soldiers, staring blankly into the sky with their mouths wide open. Li Xuanling struck both of them on the crown of their heads with two Golden Light Techniques. Without caring whether they lived or died, he slapped a Divine Movement Technique onto his legs, scooped up Li Jingtian, and plunged into the mountain woods. The entire sequence of movements was as smooth as flowing water and swift as a leopard. Taking advantage of everyone looking up toward the sky, he carried Li Jingtian out of the stockade in a dozen-odd breaths. By the time the few men near the military tent came to their senses, he had already vanished without a trace. There were no true experts in the vicinity; the few at Embryonic Breathing had already rushed to quell the chaos, and the spiritual sense of a Qi Refinement cultivator reached only ten-odd zhang. Those fighting in the air above were completely oblivious. "Curse you!" In midair, Mu Jiaoman roared in fury, grinding his teeth as he shouted, "If the Great King were here, how could you ever be permitted to act so brazenly!" Jianixi possessed a cultivation at the seventh layer of Qi Refinement. Having had a fortuitous encounter in his early years, he had not only cultivated an orthodox art but had also swallowed a type of heaven-and-earth spirit qi. With his saber technique honed to sheer perfection, he had been able to subdue the numerous factions across the Northern Foothills, commanding all seven Qi Refinement human shamans. Li Tongya did not bother answering him. He merely weighed the strengths of Jianixi and Li Chijing against each other in his mind. Flicking his cyan blade, he thought, "I am only at the second layer of Qi Refinement, while among these three, one is at the fourth layer and two are at the second layer. I am relying entirely on the Xuanshui sword qi to keep them suppressed. If this drags on, I might truly be worn to death here. I must stay vigilant." Forcing back the three closing in with an arc of sword qi, Li Tongya glanced down with a trace of worry. Seeing that order was gradually returning to the stockade beneath him, he pondered, "I wonder if the two children have escaped yet. I'll fight for a dozen more bouts before retreating to seek another opportunity." Parrying a dozen or so exchanges, Li Tongya swung his sword once more to force the three back. Without a word, he stepped across the sky and headed east. At this sight, Mu Jiaoman roared in anger, "What nerve! Do you truly think you can come and go as you please?!" Gritting his teeth, Mu Jiaoman rubbed his hands together. A plume of black qi gushed forth, and his vital essence visibly weakened by a few fractions—this was precisely the shamanic secret art in which the Shanyue excelled most. The dense black qi coiled in the air for a moment, suddenly swelling several times over. Bearing a massive skull at its forefront, it hurtled straight toward Li Tongya. Watching the spectacle from below, Lu Jiangxian was taken aback. This black qi felt remarkably familiar, bearing a faint trace of something produced by the magical mirror. He even felt as though he could summon the black qi over and devour it with a mere flick of his finger. Reflecting for a few breaths, Lu Jiangxian looked at the somewhat weakened Mu Jiaoman and weighed having an insignificant bite of dessert against keeping himself hidden. Choosing the latter, he continued to play dead inside the mirror, merely stirring his divine sense to observe Li Tongya's condition closely. High above, although Li Tongya did not understand the art the Shanyue chieftain was using, he knew it was certainly nothing good. He weaved through the air to evade it for a while, but the black qi surged faster and faster, striking Li Tongya squarely in the back. Mu Jiaoman burst into hearty laughter and cried aloud, "The shamanic curse art is wondrous and extraordinary! Even if you fly to the ends of the earth, you cannot escape it!" A chill crept into Li Tongya's hands and feet. The flow of magical power within his body turned slightly sluggish, and his flight speed decreased by a fraction. Yet after examining himself carefully, he found nothing else wrong. "That's it?" Li Tongya was even slightly taken aback. Looking at the three pursuers behind him, who were still gradually falling behind even though his speed had dropped a notch, his expression turned rather strange. Mu Jiaoman was all the more shocked and enraged. Sensing the peculiar looks from his two subordinates behind him, he felt like needles were sticking into his back, and muttered to himself, "What the fuck is going on?" Only Lu Jiangxian, darting through the mountain forest alongside Li Xuanling below, chuckled silently. He could feel that the vast majority of the black qi had been seized by his divine sense, clinging motionless to Li Tongya's clothes, and he carefully examined the structure within it. "It resembles talisman qi a bit, yet falls far short. Rather, it looks as though the object of prayer in the Sacrificial Beast Method was changed from the magical mirror to the caster himself, heavily altered and weakened—more like a helpless compromise in the absence of the magical mirror..." "The shamanic path must certainly share deep ties with the magical mirror!" Recalling the Golden Core yellow talisman qi in the direction of Dajueting, Lu Jiangxian quietly committed the inspiration gained from the black qi to memory. With a casual thought, he dispersed the black qi on the spot, musing silently, "When I have time, I might as well look into this stuff. That way I won't be stuck inside the mirror day after day with nothing to do but sleep."