A Chaotic World

When Lu TIanzi finally opened his eyes after exiting the meditative state, he immediately felt that something was wrong.

It was far too quiet.

Before this, drumming had reverberated throughout the fortress and demons could be heard shouting and rushing towards the Northern Gate. That chaos was exactly what gave Lu Tianzi the freedom to act as he pleased and search for the Treasury.

While challenging the wind barrier, the angry howling of the winds constantly assaulted his ears. At that time, he had no clue as to what the situation outside was like.

Now that Lu Tianzi had broken through the wind barrier and consolidated his cultivation, he finally had the time to appreciate his surroundings once more.

It had already been more than half an hour since he entered the Shadowfront Fortress. During this time, all that Lu Tianzi managed to obtain was a mysterious red pearl, but Lu Tianzi still decided that it was time to leave.

After all, he only managed to obtain the location of the Treasury from the demon through the Heaven's Oath, so even if he wanted to continue looking for resources, he would not know where to even start.

If he really had to slowly search through the fortress room by room, then it would be a wonder for him not to be discovered!

Lu Tianzi could only curse his luck that this so-called Treasury did not contain items that he was looking forward to obtain, especially Essence Stones that he needed so desperately for his cultivation.

But looking at the mysterious red pearl in his hands, Lu Tianzi could not help but feel a sense of trepidation in his heart. He had no doubt that there was definitely more to the red pearl than he understood.

Carefully hiding the mysterious red pearl into his clothes, he promptly left the room without even bothering to hide the corpses of the two demon guards.

As if the fortress was completely deserted, Lu Tianzi did not spot any other demons along the way, even up till when he finally reached the small room that led to the side door out of the fortress.

Lu Tianzi felt that it was somewhat strange, but he was not intending to spend time investigating the matter. If he really wanted to, he could slowly think about it after he returned to the safety of the wilderness.

Safety of the wilderness…

He mused silently in his heart upon thinking about this.

Lu Tianzi never thought that there would ever come a day when he would consider the wilderness as safety grounds. But compared to the danger of remaining within the demons' fortress, it truly was much safer in comparison!

He took a quick look behind the door and felt more relieved upon realising that the two demon corpses from before were still tucked neatly in hiding.

Not wanting to waste anymore time, Lu Tianzi opened the door and sped out of the fortress, heading straight for the shadows of the forest.

As for what happened to the assault party that attacked the fortress, Lu Tianzi had no intention of checking it out.

The last thing he wanted right now was to risk being caught up in a chaotic battle where he could lose his life at any moment!

However, Lu Tianzi could roughly surmise that since the assault party dared to launch a direct assault on the fortress defence, they must have some sort of plan to lead the demon defence troops into a trap.

In that case, the assault party should be able to draw enough attention to buy time for Lu Tianzi to escape far enough before the demons realised what he did!

Little did he know that the assault party had immediately retreated after launching a quick surprise attack to take down a few sentries on the fortress wall, not at all intending to engage the demons in an all-out battle.

What leading the demon defence troops into a trap?

There was no such thing at all, and thus the assault party were definitely not going to be able to draw the attention needed to buy time for Lu Tianzi's escape.

The assault party was far too decisive in their actions this time, retreating immediately after striking just once, and thus the pursuing demons simply had no way of finding them.

At this moment, the demon defence troops had already given up on chasing after the shadows of the assault party, and were slowly heading back towards the Shadowfront Fortress, right in Lu Tianzi's direction!

Lu Tianzi never expected that barely after leaving the perimeters of the Shadowfront Fortress, he would once again encounter another group of demons!

And this was not a small group of demons wandering in the wilds.

There were dozens of them, if not a hundred, or even more than that!

Lu Tianzi's heart turned cold and immediately slammed his foot down in front of him, digging into the ground as he skidded to a complete stop.

However, such an action was far too conspicuous, and there was simply no way for the demons not to notice.

If Lu Tianzi was able to detect the group of demons, then they were naturally able to detect him as well. On top of that, within the group were a few demons at the Essence Condensation realm!

These demons had a perception strength that even exceeded that of Lu Tianzi!

"Who is there?!" a demon bellowed as the entire group turned in his direction.

Lu Tianzi frowned deeply upon sensing countless demons sweeping their perception over him.

He naturally would not answer the question. Without hesitation, Lu Tianzi sprinted off in another direction, trying to escape as quickly as he could!

He knew that there was simply no way for him to survive if he were to be caught by this group of demons!

"Peak Essence Building realm?" a calm voice sounded out from a demon in the centre of the group.

This demon was Captain Nanhong Yechang, leader of the group and also one of the six main guardians of Shadowfront Fortress, directly under the command of General Nanbai Zhaoyu.

He stood tall with sharp facial features and sported a short beard. His muscular body matched his stoic face well, giving off a commanding aura with just his presence alone.

With a quick sweep of his perception, Nanhong Yechang had already determined Lu Tianzi's current cultivation realm. Considering that Lu Tianzi had not even broken into the Essence Condensation realm, he naturally was not too worried.

After all, including him, there were multiple Essence Condensation realm martial artists in their group.

Even discounting them, there were still dozens of demons at the Essence Building realm. There was simply no way that a single human martial artist would be able to fend off the continuous attacks of dozens of opponents at the same cultivation realm!

But at the same time, he did not overlook the fact that Lu Tianzi had come from the direction of the fortress.

There was no way that Nanhong Yechang was going to just watch as Lu Tianzi escaped.

"Capture him."

Nanhong Yechang gave the order and countless demons immediately gave chase!

All those that moved were demon martial artists at the Essence Building realm. As for those who had already broken through to the Essence Condensation realm, they simply disdained to lead the pursuit of a mere Essence Building realm opponent.

Instead, they calmly followed along behind, intending to only arrive to handle the prisoner after their subordinates did the capturing part for them.

It was just a Peak Essence Building realm martial artist, so what could go wrong?

"Tch!" Lu Tianzi clicked his tongue in irritation after realising that there were multiple demons hot on his tail.

But there was nothing he could do about it other than to continue running.

As Nanhong Yechang expected, even though Lu Tianzi was able to easily crush any opponent at the Essence Building realm, facing dozens of them at the same time was still too much for the current him.

All he could do was to keep running and pray that the other party would eventually give up on the chase!

But their Captain Nanhong Yechang had already personally ordered for Lu Tianzi's capture, so how would the demons dare to give up?

Even if they had to push themselves to the very limit, they still had to carry out the order!

After all ,if they were to return empty handed, the demons knew exactly what kind of gruesome fate would be awaiting them!

One ran, while the others pursued.

Just like this, they covered a huge distance in this lethal game of tag.

The darkness of the night and the dense vegetation in the forest did not serve to deter either side as the involved parties continued with no hesitation, wildly sweeping out their perception so that they would not lose track of each other.

Martial artists at their level had a terrifying amount of stamina.

Even if they had to run all night in order to achieve their objective, it would not be a problem for them at all.

However, there was one other factor that quickly came into play.

Lu Tianzi was exceptional even amongst Peak Essence Building realm martial artists, and his speed was something that not everyone would be able to match.

As the pursuit continued into the night, the group of demon martial artists in pursuit slowly started to spread out as each of these individuals were capable of maintaining different speeds.

The slower demon martial artists gradually fell behind while the fastest ones even started to slowly but steadily close the distance to Lu Tianzi!

While the demon martial artists had their perceptions locked onto Lu Tianzi, Lu Tianzi similarly had his perception sweeping out behind him, and he started to realise the existence of this situation that arose due to the demons martial artists' varying speed.

With that in mind, Lu Tianzi quickly formulated a plan in his head.

After all, he had also noticed that some of the demon martial artists were slowly catching up to him. It would be unlikely for him to escape this situation even if he continued to run.

If so, then he would just have to fight back!

Just as the fastest demon martial artist was about to reach him, Lu Tianzi slammed both of his feet down into the ground, coming to a abrupt stop.

After bending his knees like a tightly wound up spring, Lu Tianzi suddenly erupted with a powerful burst of speed as he kicked out from the ground with all his might!

He drew his sword, slashing out mercilessly at the approaching demon martial artist!

A cold light flashed in Lu Tianzi's eyes as he drew upon the Spiritual Essence within his inner world. A thin film enveloped the entire blade as Lu Tianzi was determined to end this as soon as possible, before the others had a chance to catch up.

The fastest demon martial artist was completely caught by surprise as he saw Lu Tianzi switch from escaping mode to attacking mode within a single instant, his face turning ashen as he watched the sword approach at an unthinkable speed.

If he were the one to capture Lu Tianzi, then what kind of recognition would Captain Nanhong Yechang bestow upon him?

That was the thought that had completely occupied his thoughts as he found himself drawing nearer and nearer towards Lu Tianzi.

But who knew that at this moment, his prey would suddenly turn on him?

This demon was a martial artist at the Peak Essence Building realm. Yet in order to catch up to Lu Tianzi, this demon martial artist was still forced to invest almost all of his strength into maintaining this top speed.

He had been absolutely sure that under the pursuit of so many demons, there was simply no way that Lu Tianzi would stand a chance, and nobody in such a situation would be foolish enough to stand and fight.

Thus, he had only left a tiny bit of his strength for his defence, and that was to be his downfall.

The demon hurriedly brought up his twin daggers to block the attack, but upon contact with Lu Tianzi's sword, his defence was blown away in an instant!

Not to mention his haphazard defence, even if the demon had been completely ready, there was still no way for him to withstand Lu Tianzi's attack that had called upon the power of materialised Spiritual Essence!

This was a level of power that had already exceeded the Essence Building realm!

After blowing away the demon's defence, Lu Tianzi's sword continued unimpeded in its path.

The helpless demon could only watch on in horror as the blade headed straight towards his neck.

Slash-!

In a single clean strike, Lu Tianzi had directly decapitated the demon martial artist who was at the Peak Essence Building realm!