Chapter 388
I’ve Led the Villain Astray, How Do I Fix It?
Chapter 388
“Ah!” With a miserable scream, Haiyan fell from mid-air.
Earlier, he used his technique to conceal himself among the trees again. However, this time, the nine spiritual thunder arrows surrounded the space he evaded, leaving him no chance for escape at all.
Fortunately, the two arrows that hit his left shoulder and right leg were both Little Eight’s shadow arrows. If one of them was Xu Ziyan’s divine thunder arrows, he would have been killed immediately.
Even the shadow arrows were a copy of Purple Night Divine Thunder simulated by Little Eight. They were weaker than Little Greenie’s in terms of power, but the nature of the thunder-type spiritual power remained unchanged, without the slightest reduction.
The moment Haiyan was hit by the arrow, he felt an intense pain in his left shoulder and right leg at the same time. The needle-like pain then spread throughout his body from the two wounds.
For Haiyan, the stinging sensation was bearable, but the loss of control over his body that followed was the most fatal.
“I…!” Since he lost control of his body, Haiyan could only watch helplessly as another purple arrow firmly pinned his body to the ground with terrifying power. It seemed like he wanted to say something before his death, but Xu Ziyan had no reason to listen.
After taking Haiyan’s interspatial pouch away, Xu Ziyan immediately contacted Xu Zirong to confirm their location. However, there was no response from Mr. Blood Contract for a while, causing him to feel extremely uneasy.
The blood contract between him and Xu Zirong had been fused for so many years, reaching the point where they could communicate their thoughts and intentions with each other. Even if they were thousands of miles apart, they could accurately locate each other.
However, the blood contract had not response to his call. That could only mean that either Xu Zirong was shocked and lost conscious, unable to communicate with him at all, or the other party was using some special magic artifact that could isolate the two of them in different spaces.
Neither of those two possibilities was what Xu Ziyan wanted to see. With a grim expression, he flew towards the location where Xu Zirong last left a message.
In fact, Xu Zirong was indeed trapped, but the cultivator named Red Scales, who trapped him, was also facing a difficult situation. He could only watch as Xu Zirong leisurely wandered through his adept illusion techniques.
Flower Tail and Red Scales, the former excelled in using poison, while the latter excelled in illusion techniques. Flower Tail had previously ambushed Xu Ziyan and his group, but after Xu Zirong summoned a large number of trees, it was Red Scales who encountered Xu Zirong first.
As soon as the two sides met, they immediately started fighting without saying a word. Neither Red Scales, nor Xu Zirong, had the slightest intention of negotiating with each other.
“Oh my, Little Cultivator Xu is really ruthless. You’re truly my great friend! Why have so many rules in fights? Just winning is enough!” Tianle somehow pulled out a handful of roasted melon seeds, leaned against a tree, while spitting out the melon seed shells, casually commenting on the battle between Xu Zirong and Red Scales.
However, after a while, he could not help but express dissatisfaction. He threw the melon seeds in his hand and angrily glared at Flower Tail, who was about to launch a sneak attack on Xu Zirong. What a joke! It was such an exciting battle, yet someone came to spoil it, before he had seen enough. He really could not tolerate it!
“Hey! What are you sneaking around for? Don’t disturb me while I’m watching the show!” Tianle scolded Flower Tail.
That Flower Tail glanced sideways at him, and sneered. However, his actions remained swift as he continued to pounce towards Xu Zirong’s back.
“What the hell! Are you taking me for a sick cat when I’m a tiger that doesn’t show its might! How dare you ignore me!” Tianle was provoked by Flower Tail’s mockery and immediately entered his crazy mode. Taking out an unnamed artifact from his storage ring, he threw it directly at Flower Tail.
Flower Tail naturally noticed Tianle’s sneak attack, but when he saw that what he threw was a jade circlet, he almost burst out laughing.
That jade circlet was a magic artifact of decent quality, but it belonged to the category of mainland goods. In the world of cultivation, the so-called mainland goods were somewhat similar to products made through the assembly line production system. Each craftsman followed a set of processes to produce a fine-quality jade circlet.
Of course, such crafted artifacts had an undeniable con, which was that everyone would know their capability. It was impossible to launch a surprise attack or catch anyone off guard with them.
The jade circlet, a mid-grade magic artifact, must be held in hand in order to unleash its special power imprisoned within.
The reason why Flower Tail found it amusing was because the jade circlet needed to be held by a cultivator in order to be effective, which was its biggest characteristic. It was quite laughable that the other party threw it as a hidden weapon to him.
If it were not for the urgent situation, Flower Tail would have liked to laugh heartily at the foolishness. A cultivator at the nascent soul stage with such standards—— Could he have been produced from a pile of elixirs?
Yet, his thoughts clearly proved the fact that the thoughts of normal people would never be able to understand the thought process of a crazy lad.
Just as Flower Tail was about to burst into laughter at Tianle, he witnessed the jade circlet suddenly exploding before his eyes.
Well, you didn’t see it coming. It did explode.
Tianle, the bizarre one, did indeed use the jade circlet as a hidden weapon, but in a different way than Flower Tail had anticipated. He turned the self-destruction of the jade circlet into his own killer move.
The self-destruction of magic artifacts was always an extremely devastating event.
Caught off guard, Flower Tail was engulfed in a burst of flames.
Tianle patted the nonexistent dust off his palms and performed a suave gesture of flicking his hair. He coldly chuckled, “Idiot, you already knew the capabilities of the jade circlet, haven’t you thought that I know it too?”
“You damn b*stard, how dare you ambush me!” Flower Tail emerged from the flames in a sorry state, roaring furiously at Tianle.
Tianle remained composed despite the fact that the self-destructive jade circlet failed to take Flower Tail’s life. ╮(╯_╰)╭ Well, after all, someone like Flower Tail, who has been engaged in constant battles, would have been a true laughingstock if he were killed by a self-destructing magic artifact.
Of course, death might not have been the outcome, but being injured by the explosion was a certainty. That thing was still a magic artifact after all. An explosion at such close range would produce a surge of spiritual power no less powerful than a full-force strike from a nascent soul cultivator.
Flower Tail managed to block the attack, but he was also injured. His hands were dripping blood, and it seemed like he was basically useless now. Although cultivators did not necessarily rely on their hands to attack, losing both hands would undoubtedly have some impact.
Tianle shook his head at Flower Tail, wearing an expression of contempt, “Tsk tsk, how about that? Didn’t expect me to self-detonate my artifact, did you? Can’t help it…” He spread his hands, feigning nonchalance as he casually brushed aside the broken strands of hair on his forehead, “I’m wealthy after all, you know? Apart from having plenty of artifacts, what else do I have? If you have the ability, why don’t you throw a few artifacts and self-detonate them for fun?”
Flower Tail was infuriated by Tianle’s arrogant tone and felt like spitting blood. However, he could not bring himself to do the same thing as Tianle.
The reason was simple—— Artifacts were expensive!
Even for Flower Tail, it would cause him great distress to casually self-destruct a few artifacts. If someone saw Tianle casually detonating a jade circlet, they would definitely curse at him for being wasteful.
But what kind of person was Tianle?
As long as he was happy, even if he had to detonate his own life-bound artifact, he would be willing to do so.
Of course, Tianle had not gone mad to that extent at present. He only randomly detonated one of the collections of the nascent soul cultivators they obtained from the secret passage.
Those magic artifacts could be regarded as unexpected gains for him, so he casually detonated a few of them without any regrets.
Flower Tail felt like he was about to spit blood from being provoked by Tianle’s words. Naturally, he harbored deep resentment towards him.
(Tianle: Skill to taunt others, got it √)
He gave up on sneakily attacking Xu Zirong, and charged towards Tianle instead.
Tianle bared his teeth and grinned, “Oh my my my, why are you so impatient! Tsk tsk, you need some work on your cultivation of inner peace!” Before his words even finished, his figure had already flashed and disappeared into the dense forest.
For Tianle, who had already mastered various skills of escaping, it would be a piece of cake to shake off Tianle’s pursuit.
However, he did not do that. Instead, he kept moving to the left and the right, constantly teasing and luring Flower Tail, leading him farther and farther away. Soon, they had completely left the area where Xu Zirong was fighting.
Amidst the fierce battle with Red Scales, Xu Zirong took a glance in the direction where Tianle had left and decided to slightly lower Tianle’s unsightly position on his mental annoyance list.
(Tianle: ……)
Speaking of Red Scales, he was actually quite unlucky.
His illusions were originally razor-sharp when encountering enemies. Often, they would toy with opponents effortlessly, leaving them entangled and bewildered within his grasp.
His illusions stemmed from his innate talents, unlike formations that had obvious nodes and focal points. To break through his illusions, one needed a solid state of mind; otherwise, they would easily be lost within.
At the beginning of the fight, Red Scales had not unleashed his innate talents. Although the mark of their young master was on the both of them, Red Scales always believed that a formidable expert of the dragon clan had intervened. Those two unlucky human beings were probably scapegoats carrying the blame.
Of course, regardless of whether they were scapegoats or not, since the mark was on them, they had to die. Therefore, when Red Scales discovered their traces, he did not hesitate to take action.
However, the development of the situation was slightly unexpectedly for him. He initially thought that the most troublesome among the three would be the sloppy-looking cultivator. To his surprise, the beautiful human cultivator displayed strength that was in no way inferior to his opponent.
Regular tactics had no effect, and Red Scales did not intend to waste any time. He directly activated his innate illusion technique.
His illusions could create incredibly perfect land of fantasy, but those illusions required a complete story to make people completely immersed within.
In short, he just fabricated an immaculate life for his enemies. As long as the enemies were enticed by that perfect life, they would be addicted and forever lost themselves to that illusion, unable to wake up again.
Red Scales’s tactic had killed countless cultivators. Without the absence of external help, almost no one could escape from the illusion he created.