Chapter 0883: Escape
I can’t win. That was the only thought in Qu Baiyi’s head as he saw the two attacks clash against each other.
Qu Baiyi quickly retreated the moment his domain broke. He hoped that Ning Cheng wouldn’t take it as an opportunity to chase after him.
Fortunately, Ning Cheng didn’t chase after Qu Baiyi. However, the backlash caused his dantian to surge violently. Even his Sea of Consciousness erupted with a tearing pain, causing him almost to spurt out a mouthful of blood.
After finally neutralising the backlash effects, Qu Baiyi looked at Ning Cheng with a blank stare. Who was this cultivator? How was he so powerful? This person’s domain wasn’t any weaker than that produced by a half-step Dao Sculpting cultivator. No, rather, even half-step Dao Sculpting cultivators would find it hard to match.
One had to know that he held the 11th spot among the Grand Essence’s 12 Sacred Children. It meant that he was far stronger than an ordinary cultivator. Yet, the cultivator’s strength in front of him could easily match the top three of the Grand Essence’s 12 Sacred Children. No one else among the rest could match against Ning Cheng.
The other cultivators who wanted to step forward to deal with Ning Cheng quickly stopped. Even Huo Erqi’s expression changed a few times, but he didn’t say anything. Although Qu Baiyi was below him in the ranking, Qu Baiyi’s strength wasn’t much below him. Therefore, Huo Erqi had made it a point to not make an enemy out of Qu Baiyi. But noticing the result, he almost felt sure that Ning Cheng was a secret disciple cultivated by a particular prominent sect.
“I’ll still repeat what I said earlier. Everyone can already see that there are many divine gra.s.s gardens here; grab whatever you can. If anyone dares to disturb me or want to s.n.a.t.c.h my divine gra.s.s garden, then don’t blame me for not stopping.” Ning Cheng coldly stared at Qu Baiyi. He even snorted before turning away. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Qu Baiyi and landed in front of a high-grade divine gra.s.s garden. Ning Cheng then raised his hands and continuously shot out array flags.
Seeing Qi Baiyi and Huo Erqi staying silent, the other cultivators naturally wouldn’t come forward. Moreover, seeing that Ning Cheng had already started to break the formation in front of him, the others quickly formed into teams and began attacking the formations nearest to them. The only difference was that Ning Cheng used array flags to break the formations while the rest of the cultivators had to rely on brute force.
In the beginning, Ning Cheng still had to take a few minutes to break through a formation, but the more formations he broke through, the faster he became.
The others teamed up and broke apart one of the array formations around one medicinal garden after spending some effort and time. But by that time, Ning Cheng had already broken through the defensive formations around five divine gra.s.s gardens. Seeing Ning Cheng easily break open one formation after another with so much ease quickly arose the other cultivators’ jealousy. But no matter how jealous they felt of Ning Cheng, no one dared to s.n.a.t.c.h anything from Ning Cheng.
By the time Ning Cheng broke through the seventh high-grade divine gra.s.s garden, all the high-grade divine gra.s.s gardens had already been swept clean. The only things left were the low-level divine gra.s.s gardens.
After half-an-incense stick worth of time, even the low-grade divine gra.s.s gardens had been broken open and swept clean. Ning Cheng alone managed to grab more than an 80% share of the divine gra.s.ses.
Everyone quickly divided the rest of the divine gra.s.ses from the gardens amongst themselves. However, no one left, not even Ning Cheng.
This place had so many divine gra.s.ses and even two powerful Human-faced Poison Centipede. From this, everyone understood that this place must contain a top-grade divine source.
After all the divine gra.s.s gardens got swept clean, the ground beneath one of the high-grade divine gra.s.s gardens still gave off rich spirit qi fluctuations. Moreover, one’s spiritual consciousness couldn’t penetrate the ground at all.
“This place should contain the source of divine gra.s.ses’ growth. Let’s act together.” Huo Erqi pointed to the fluctuations of spirit qi coming from the ground and spoke up. He didn’t talk about distribution at all. With Ning Cheng here, he understood that he couldn’t continue to act like before and claim the lion’s share of the loot.
Everyone readied their weapons and moved forward. Even Ning Cheng held on to his long spear.
More than a dozen people collaborated and attacked at one point. In just a few minutes, a loud bang erupted, and the ground collapsed. Suddenly, an empty world that looked like an endless abyss appeared within the range of everyone’s spiritual consciousness.
A moment later, a strong fishy smell erupted. Ning Cheng was the first one to discover that something was wrong. There indeed was a strong fluctuation of spirit qi coming from below. But at the same time, he also saw another Human-faced Poison Centipede sleeping inside this place. The explosion from a moment ago had woken up that sleeping Human-faced Poison Centipede. It let out a h.e.l.lish scream before raising its head.
The poison centipede hadn’t made any moves yet, but its aura had entirely suppressed everyone. The suppression was so bad that they couldn’t even breathe.
Everyone immediately felt a bad premonition. Just the head of this poison centipede exceeded a thousand feet in length. From this, one could say that once this poison centipede stretched out its body, it could easily cover the entirety of this s.p.a.ce.
A terrifying s.p.a.cial vortex suddenly emerged, and four cultivators who had no time to retreat got pulled into it. They couldn’t even scream before they lost their lives.
Ning Cheng had noticed that horrifying poison centipede earlier than the others, and he had already backed away immediately. Even so, as the s.p.a.cial vortex swept over, he still felt the terrifying wave of suction force coming from it.
Moreover, this poison centipede had not fully woken up. Once this Human-faced Poison Centipede fully sobered up, how terrifying would it become? Ning Cheng fully activated the Twin Wings of the Heavenly Clouds and escaped as far as possible.
Not only Ning Cheng, but everyone else also did the same and escaped like crazy people.
The Human-faced Poison Centipede quickly discovered that something was not right with its home. Its medicinal gardens had disappeared, and even its two children had also vanished. A terrifying roar erupted from somewhere behind Ning Cheng, and an even more violent s.p.a.cial collapse seemed to pull Ning Cheng back.
Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness could only sense a destroyed world at its edge that got swept away by the s.p.a.cial whirlpool. As for the two cultivators who fled in the same direction as Ning Cheng. They disappeared into the vortex without any ability to resist.
Ning Cheng continued to escape with all his might. Even when he encountered some good divine gra.s.ses, he didn’t stop to collect. After fleeing for a few days, Ning Cheng could no longer feel the poison centipede’s aura at all. Only then did he slump onto the ground and took in a big sigh of relief.
With that terrifying poison centipede sobering up, not many of those dozen people would have managed to escape. Even Qu Baiyi and Huo Erqi would find it challenging to escape from it.
When he arrived at this place, Ning Cheng couldn’t find his bearings. He just wanted to sense the direction of the teleportation array when two beautiful figures flashed away within the range of his spiritual consciousness.
“Qionghua?” Ning Cheng almost yelled out in surprise. One of the disappearing figures looked precisely like Shi Qionghua.
Whether it was Shi Qionghua or not, Ning Cheng wanted to catch up to that shadow and confirm it.
But just as Ning Cheng was about to rush over, a familiar fishy smell and a powerful suppressive aura washed over him. Ning Cheng fully activated the Twin Wings of the Heavenly Clouds once again, choosing a direction opposite to the one taken by the two beautiful-looking female cultivators.
The fishy smell and the suppressive aura both belonged to that horrifying poison centipede. Ning Cheng didn’t expect that even when he ran for several days, this poison centipede would still catch up to him. From this, Ning Cheng understood that the poison centipede must have put a mark on him. Since the poison centipede chased him to here, the others must have suffered from bad luck. Maybe he was the last survivor.
This time, however, the poison centipede was fully awake. It no longer was in the previous state of confusion. Ning Cheng could feel the powerful s.p.a.cial vortex trying to suck him in. He even felt the death-like aura that slowly closed in on him. Even the fishy smell around him had started to grow heavier with each pa.s.sing moment.
Ning Cheng’s heart sank. If this continued, the Human-faced Poison Centipede’s domain would suppress him entirely. At that point, the s.p.a.cial vortex formed by the poison centipede would suck him into its stomach.
At this time, Ning Cheng felt a little regretful. He should have brought out the Starry Sky Wheel. With the Starry Sky Wheel, he could escape and look for the mark without anyone disturbing him.
Ning Cheng kept running like a crazy person, with a long Human-faced Poison Centipede chasing him around. No one dared to come anywhere near the poison centipede’s path on seeing this. Some unfortunate cultivators who couldn’t get away in time fell into its mouth with it rushing through the area.
But the poison centipede’s main target was Ning Cheng. As long as the others escaped to a specific range, the poison centipede would ignore them.
Everyone then focussed on Ning Cheng running in front with the poison centipede chasing after him in shock. Who was this person? What did he do? How could anyone in their right mind choose to anger such a terrifying spirit beast?
Feeling the Human-faced Poison Centipede getting closer and closer, Ning Cheng knew that he had no choice left. If he didn’t think of something, today would become his death anniversary next year.
Spiritual Consciousness Chop, Dark Consciousness Storm, Time Wheel, Sunset’s Twilight, None-depend-on…..
Ning Cheng went through all the spirit techniques he knew and found that he knew of no spirit technique that could stop, or at least hinder, this Human-faced Poison Centipede chasing after him. It’s not that these spirit techniques weren’t any good; rather, it was his strength that wasn’t up to the mark.
Maybe the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow could stop it for one or two moments. But if he brought out the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow, he would truly die.
Besides, Ning Cheng felt that the strength of the Human-faced Poison Centipede’s power was not what the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow could lock onto and kill. Just like his spirit techniques, it’s not that the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow couldn’t kill it; rather, it was his strength that couldn’t support it. If he was a Dao Sculpting cultivator, he could most likely kill this poison centipede in one shot. But unfortunately, he wasn’t a Dao Sculpting cultivator. The huge power gap wasn’t something that he could fill with other means.
Right now, the Five-coloured Star Splitter Arrow could block it for one or two moments. But it only referred to the situation if he managed to fire the arrow, not when he hadn’t fired the arrow.
Moreover, the strong suction power brought forth by the s.p.a.cial vortex had already affected Ning Cheng’s speed quite drastically. Ning Cheng didn’t dare to waste time anymore before turning around and stopping. He had decided on doing something, which either would turn out as something extremely stupid or pure genius. Burning his essence blood, Ning Cheng grabbed the Seven Bridges Realm Book before making seals in the air. He wanted to cast the Seven Bridges Spirit Technique’s First Bridge of Coping.
A gloomy and cold air rushed out from the realm book and a huge stone stele then suddenly appeared and blocked the suction force of the s.p.a.cial vortex. A moment later, five characters appeared on the stone stele ‘First Bridge of Coping’. A faint white stone arch bridge then slowly started to materialise behind the stele.
A billowing blood river then suddenly appeared under the bridge. Ning Cheng saw that the Human-faced Poison Centipede had just arrived when the First Bridge of Coping blocked it. No, the bridge didn’t block it; rather, it was the Human-faced Poison Centipede who took the initiative to stop. This poison centipede seemed a little afraid of the First Bridge of Coping, but it didn’t seem to care much about the growing Yin Qi around it.
The gloomy winds carried with it a sorrowful voice, “No retreat from birth, no retreat from death; once you enter, you never return….”
Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness and celestial essence flowed out like a leaking tap. Rather, it felt like a dam emptying through a ma.s.sive hole. But even then, the First Bridge of Coping and the blood river under the bridge still looked fuzzy.
Ning Cheng felt very gloomy at the sight of this. He understood that he couldn’t fully materialise the First Bridge of Coping. Moreover, Ning Cheng could manifest the First Bridge of Coping to such a degree due to the Seven Bridges Realm Book. If it kept going like this, even if the Human-faced Poison Centipede didn’t come after him, he would turn into a dried husk.
Fortunately, the centipede stopped in front of the First Bridge of Coping. From the looks of it, it felt some apprehension towards the bridge’s low-level version. However, it also couldn’t figure out the sudden change in the situation. Ning Cheng could tell from his location that the First Bridge of Coping only had a weak deterring influence on the Human-faced Poison Centipede.
Sure enough, the Human-faced Poison Centipede hesitated for a short while before rushing onto the First Bridge of Coping.
The rolling Yin Winds slowed down the speed of the Human-faced Poison Centipede. It allowed Ning Cheng to take this opportunity and bring out the Starry Sky Wheel. At the same time, he grabbed the Seven Bridges Realm Book and pushed the Starry Sky Wheel to its limits to escape once again.