Chapter 1649: Thousand Wasp
A wolf-like devilish beast with the head of a snake suddenly said, "Hiss hiss, what do we do? That Spirit Realm being is way too fast for us to keep up with; even Master Wu Qi is only barely able to remain on his tail."
"Do you even need to ask? Of course we keep giving chase! Master Wu Qi gave all of us a tracking plate that shows us everyone's locations, didn't he? We'll be able to track down Master Wu Qi even from millions of kilometers away," a boar-like devilish beast with a pair of extraordinarily long ears replied.
"Hmph, at your speed, you might not even be able to catch up to Master Wu Qi within the next century!" the snake-headed wolf scoffed as it rolled its eyes with disdain.
"What are you trying to say? You're making it sound like you're the only one who can catch up to Master Wu Qi, and all of us are just weighing you down!" The boar-like devilish beast appeared to be quite simple and honest, but it was actually quite a cunning being, and it was turning everything on the wolf-like devilish beast with its words
However, this wolf-like devilish beast was one of the most powerful beings in the group to begin with, so it merely chuckled coldly and offered no reply to this.
Its attitude naturally drew discontent and animosity from all of the other devilish beasts present.
A glittering and translucent little beast with a glazed five-colored body suddenly interjected, "That's enough. Yuan Mang's right; all of us are capable of flying at different speeds, so it would be implausible to expect all of us to be able to catch up to Master Wu Qi. However, it wouldn't be right to leave those three to pursue that Spirit Race being on their own. How about this? We'll pick the fastest five beings among us to continue giving chase, and the rest of us will go back for now and await further orders."
There was a hint of a commanding tone in its voice, and surprisingly enough, none of the rowdy and uncouth devilish beasts present offered any objections in response to its proposal.
As such, after a further round of arguments, five of the fastest devilish beasts in the group were selected to continue giving chase, while everyone else returned the way they'd come.
The snake-headed wolf beast and the glazed five-colored beast were naturally among the five devilish beasts that continued to give chase, and after shedding the rest of the group, they really were able to travel far faster than they did before.
Thus, a collective streak of black light that was over 100 feet in length hurtled through the air in a flash.
...
Azure and white lightning flashed around Han Li's body as he disappeared amid another loud thunderclap. In the next instant, he appeared several thousand feet away before vanishing again.
From afar, one could just catch a glimpse of him on one side of the sky before he appeared on the side, then completely disappeared from view after another flash.
Not only after the arc of azure and white lightning disappeared from the area, a streak of three-colored light would speed past in a soundless manner before also vanishing after just a few flashes.
Han Li didn't even have to turn around to know that the three devilish beasts were still several tens of kilometers away, pursuing him with all their might.
His brows furrowed slightly as a dark expression appeared on his face.
He'd already been flying for half a day with the three devilish beasts trailing behind him, and even though the gape between them was slowly widening, he was still far from being able to throw them off his trail.
The devilish Qi in the Golden Devil Mountain Ranges severely restricted the spiritual sense of outsiders, yet it only worked to enhance the spiritual sense of devilish beasts, allowing them to detect everything up ahead for hundreds of kilometers with ease.
At this rate, he most likely wouldn't be able to shake off these three devilish beasts even if he were to lead them on a chase for half a month.
However, there were only less than 10 days before the Golden Devil Mountain Ranges were due to be closed, so he didn't have that much time to waste.
Furthermore, there were holy-grade devilish beings in these mountain ranges, and the longer he kept this up, the greater the chance that one of them would be drawn to the scene.
Han Li naturally wasn't going to continue to stack the odds against himself.
On top of that, after such an extended period of flight, he'd expended a lot of the Divine Devilbane Lightning in his body already, and he wouldn't be able to maintain his Thunderstorm Wings for too much longer.
In contrast, the three devilish beasts were able to draw upon the power of that strange mirror to keep up this speed for an indefinite amount of time. Thankfully, the pack of devilish beasts that he was most wary of had already been completely thrown off his trail.
As such, as time gradually passed by, the killing intent in Han Li's heart grew more and more pronounced.
However, he merely continued to fly through the air at the same speed, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
After flying for a while longer, a vast expanse of grey mist suddenly appeared up ahead. It wasn't exactly very dense, but it appeared from afar that it covered quite a massive area.
A cold light flashed through Han Li's eyes upon seeing this, and lightning flashed around his body as he plunged headfirst into this mist without any hesitation.
Following a loud thunderclap, Han Li appeared at a certain point within the mist, and he immediately surveyed his surroundings as blue light flashed through his eyes.
After ascertaining that there weren't any devilish beasts lurking nearby, he flipped his hand over to produce a purple talisman. He plastered the talisman to his own body, and it transformed into a ball of a spiritual light than enshrouded his entire body.
At the same time, silver runes were churning incessantly within the ball of light.
The silver light then disappeared in a flash, and Han Li vanished along with it.
He had just used the High Zenith Invisibility Talisman to conceal himself.
After using the talisman, he could even fool early-Body Integration Stage beings, let alone the three Spatial Tempering Stage devilish beasts behind him.
If it weren't for the fact that using the talisman would severely hamper his speed, thereby making him unable to escape from the three devilish beasts' sensory range in a short time, he would've already used it to assist in his escape.
Thus, he hid himself within a cloud of relatively denser mist, and remained completely stationary as he cast his gaze toward the direction that he'd just come from with an expression of rapt focus on his face.
A distance of several tens of kilometers was nothing to the three devilish beasts, and they covered it virtually in the blink of an eye.
As such, the three-colored streak of light arrived at the border of the sea of grey mist almost as soon as Han Li hid himself within it.
A ball of spiritual light flew through the air before revealing itself to be a triangular copper mirror.
Right at this moment, the three-colored light faded, leaving Wu Qi's trio standing in its wake.
"What happened? How did that man's aura suddenly disappear in this area?" the massive devilish falcon asked with a hint of bewilderment flashed through its green eyes.
"Did he manage to escape?" the azure wasp chimed in in a confused manner.
"There's no way that he could've escaped! Even the holy-grade masters wouldn't have been able to cover such a vast distance in such a short time," Wu Qi concluded as he cast his gaze toward the sea of mist up ahead with a dark expression on his face.
"Oh? So that must mean that he's using some kind of concealment ability or he has some other treasure that can conceal his aura," the devilish falcon analyzed upon hearing this.
"That's mist likely the case. It looks like he knows that he won't be able to escape from us, so he's just going to stop here and make a final stand." A sinister smile appeared on Wu Qi's face as he spoke.
"Hehe, that man's cultivation base is even lower than mine; he's just going to bring certain death to himself." Both the azure wasp and the devilish falcon chuckled coldly upon hearing Wu Qi's words.
"Hmph, don't get complacent. He must have some tricks up his sleeve for him to dare to do this. I've refrained from telling you two this, but the young master died a few days ago, and this man is most likely the killer. Otherwise, Master wouldn't have been infuriated to the point that he'd deploy us at such an important juncture," Wu Qi harrumphed coldly as the sinister smile vanished from his face.
"What? This man killed the young master? Is that true?" the azure wasp exclaimed.
"The young master possesses a similar cultivation base to this man, but Master had given him several special treasures, so there's no way that man could've killed him unless he's far more powerful than his cultivation base suggests. In that case, he really will be a rather troublesome opponent that we have to exercise caution against," the devilish falcon said in a rather grave voice.
"Even if there's some risk involved, it's a risk that we must take. If we can't kill or capture this man, I'm sure you two are well aware of the consequences that await us when we have to face Master's wrath," Wu Qi said in a grim manner as he suddenly grabbed onto his two massive horns and detached them from his own head.
He then swung them through the air, and they transformed into a pair of shimmering black war hammers. In conjunction with his burly frame and his suit of black metal armor, the pair of war hammers gave him an extremely menacing appearance.
After hearing Wu Qi's words of warning, a hint of fear flashed through both the black falcon and the azure wasp's eyes.
The devilish falcon then immediately let loose a sharp cry and flapped its wings as it hovered on the spot. Yellow light radiated in all directions, and its body transformed into that of a tall and thin yellow-robed man in the blink of an eye.
The man was holding a white bone spear in one hand and a shimmering golden buckler in the other.
The bone spear had a layer of black flames surging all over it, and the sound of indistinct ghostly howls could be heard emanating from it. As for the buckler, there was a giant devilish image of a creature with three heads and six arms emblazoned on its surface, and its round edge seemed to be very sharp.
Meanwhile, a low buzzing sound rang out from within the azure wasp's mouth, and at the same time, its transparent wings began to tremble and blur.
An incredible scene then ensued in the next instant.
Azure light swirled all over the giant wasp's body, following which countless balls of light surged forth in a frenzy from its wings, covering the entire area in a radius of over 100 feet.
Wu Qi and the yellow-robed man's expression changed slightly in unison as they hurried backed away, seemingly quite wary of these balls of light.
The balls of light then flashed and transformed into egg-sized azure wasps that were the spitting image of their creator, expect shrunk down significantly, of course.
"Qing Zhen, your Thousand Wasp Avatar Technique seems to have become far more potent. Last time I saw you use this ability, you were still unable to manifest so many devilish wasps," the yellow-robed man said in a slow voice as he appraised these smaller azure wasps.
"Hehe, that's because I reached a higher level of this cultivation art not long ago. Not only can I summon more avatars now, each of them is far more powerful than the individual wasp avatars I could summon in the past," the giant wasp replied in a smug manner.
"That's very good. In that case, we'll have a better chance of hunting down our target. Qing Zhen, you get these avatars to lead the way, and we'll search through this sea of mist; that man is most likely hiding in here," Wu Qi chortled with glee as he slammed his war hammers together before him.