The white figure grinned, and without retracting his finger, he shot a ray towards the sword. However, the sword did not break and injured him instead.

“Your sword’s will is enhanced with a spell.” The man frowned as he looked at the blue blood dripping from his finger. “You are not a traditional sword cultivator.”

After the first blood that had remnants of the sword’s will on it dropped, the wound healed almost instantly without leaving any scar on it.

However, the drop of blood did not hit the ground. Instead, the man sent it flying towards Chen Jingzhai, leaving a white trail behind it.

The blood did not hit its target. The white man frowned and kicked himself up into the air. In the next second, a black figure came out from the ground and chased after the man in wings.

“A Garde 3 puppet? Interesting.”

The white figure was impressed with Chen Jingzhai’s ability to control a puppet while trying to escape and at such a far distance as well. Just his divine mind alone was already on par with a Golden Core Sage.

With a punch, the puppet sent out a powerful white force towards the flying man. The wave from the attack even turned tall trees around it into dust.

Instead of where he was, the man was now standing on the ground completely unharmed. He had only appeared for a mere second before he disappeared once again to chase after Chen Jingzhai. It was clear that he had no intention of letting the cultivator escape.

Just like Chen Jingzhai, the disciples of the three clans did not fight their opponent head-on.

With Kong Guang in the lead, the three disciples of the Great Three Sword Branches formed a sword formation.

They were guarding themselves against the attacks from four Grade 2 Sky Blue White Cranes that were trying to chase after Chen Jingzhai.

The two Golden Core Sages, Lu Tao, and Ji Shuanghua stood at both sides of the sword formation to combat the cranes that had taken human forms.

Celestial Maiden Han had taken her elixir cauldron out and shot fireballs out of it.

The fireballs were as big as a door, brightening the entire dark forest up. It easily took down trees and set everything on fire. The entire surrounding got so hot that the white cranes were reluctant to approach them.

With her protection, the rest of the cultivators from the Elixir Twilight Clan were able to escape quickly.

The cultivators from the Soaring Clouds Clan had deployed their cloud vapors. Miao Xin and the other two disciples turned into clouds, and with Miao Fa and Miao Yun looking over them, they were able to escape to the left.

With the help of all the trees and uneven terrain, they were able to evade most of the cranes’ attacks as they waited for a chance to counter back.

Chen Jingzhai had caught the attention of the only crane who had reached the Complete Golden Core Plane.

As for the rest of the cranes, the strongest among them were around the intermediate Golden Core Plane.

“You sure are fast at running!” the white figure scolded as he continued to chase after Chen Jingzhai.

He thought that it was going to be like a simple game of hide and seek.

It was only then he learned that the rumors surrounding Chen Jingzhai were true. Even he, a beast who was as powerful as a Golden Core Sage and who had reached the complete stage, was not able to capture the young man instantly. That fact alone had agitated him.

Realizing the situation going on in the forest, the man with a pair of wings took a deep breath. He decided that it was time to go all out, or else he would only be embarrassing himself, or even worse, the entire clan.

He extended his wings, showing blue feathers at the bottom of the wings. With his wings spread open, he looked like he was a symbol of holiness.

With a gentle flap, he doubled his speed and charged toward Chen Jingzhai. His speed had already surpassed the cultivator who had reached the Complete Golden Core Plane and quickly shortened the distance between him and his target.

Chen Jingzhai did not show any reaction to that. While still underground, he also increased his speed.

With the enhancement from his spells, his earth escape method was as fast as a Golden Core Sage.

But that still wasn’t enough to outrun the beast with a pair of wings.

That was the beast’s unique talent, and Chen Jingzhai realized that he needed to think of another method.

No matter what happened, his goal was to stall his opponent. If the whole party was attacked by a Sky Blue White Crane, who had completely gathered its golden core, they could lose someone. The thought of that made Chen Jingzhai look for a solution even harder.

The white figure grinned as he was about to catch up to Chen Jingzhai. However, just a few seconds before he could reach the young man, a loud whistle came out of nowhere.

The white crane quickly covered his ears tightly as a wave of energy entered his brain through the whistle. It caused him to drop from the air and stumbled toward the ground.

Chen Jingzhai was surprised to see that his attack worked better than he had thought. He continued to activate the Mourning Staff with his spiritual power to keep the whistle going. After a few seconds, the white crane’s ears began to bleed.

The white figure suddenly opened his mouth and let out a silent cry. Chen Jingzhai groaned as the Mourning Staff in his hand was broken into pieces.

“Shit!” Chen Jingzhai cursed and quickly ran to the right.

The white crane slowly recovered, and this time, he was completely infuriated. He never thought that Chen Jingzhai was able to hurt him. It was a humiliation to him, one that he had never felt after gathering his golden core.

There was no way he was going to let Chen Jingzhai live after that. With a big flap of his wings, he chased after Chen Jingzhai, but this time, he became cautious.

Due to the fact that Sky Blue White Cranes would not have a complete eardrum until they had reached adulthood, attacks from sound methods were their weakness. Even if they could unleash an attack with their voices, they couldn’t defend themselves against one.

That was why Chen Jingzhai’s Mourning Staff which wasn’t even a magic treasure was able to cause huge damage to the demonic beast. It made the beast wonder if Chen Jingzhai had already known about their weakness beforehand.

Although it wasn’t a well-kept secret, they didn’t go around announcing that they were weak to sound attacks, especially not to human cultivators.

The thought of that made the beast leak out even more intense killing intent.

Chen Jingzhai continued to run away deep inside the ground.

In order to make sure that the strongest white crane would chase after him, he used his special talent to locate the beast’s weakness.

However, despite that, he still felt immense pressure on his shoulder.

In the end, one who had reached the complete stage of the Golden Core Plane was way stronger than those who were still in the middle stage.

It was unfortunate that he had to lose the Mourning Staff in the process as he found out that he was compatible with the item. He did not expect that the staff would be broken into pieces by the white crane’s attack.

The more vicious the crane got, the more reasons for Chen Jingzhai to not let the beast approach the rest of the party. If that were to happen, the outcome would have been devastating. Chen Jingzhai had no choice but to run toward the right just as they had discussed beforehand.

He knew that the direction he was going would lead him to the crane’s territory, but he had no choice. At the very least, he still had a lot of aces up his sleeve. He was confident that he could even survive the attack from a Nascent Plane lord and he was also confident that the crane that had reached the Spirit Plane would attack him due to him being the Master-Uncle of the Luo Sheng Sword School.

“Stop! Unless you have a death wish, turn back!” the white figure yelled at Chen Jingzhai.

Yet, the young man ignored that and continued to run forward. It wasn’t until he was at the edge of the white crane’s territory that he realized that he was at the foot of a hill that had a lot of caves on it. Not a single tree could be spotted on the hill.

“That bastard!” The white crane knew that Chen Jingzhai was doing that on purpose to get on his nerve.

He would be greatly humiliated for being unable to stop an outsider from approaching their territory. That anger made him speed up even more.

Chen Jingzhai suddenly changed his direction and moved around the border of the white crane’s territory. There was still a hint of shock on his face.

The young man cursed in his head, wondering if the white crane had a death wish. He could not believe that the lord would actually try to attack him.

Just a few seconds ago when Chen Jingzhai was about to enter the territory, he felt a powerful killing intent directed toward him. He would have been stunned by that if not for the protection of the divine stone.

However, that shock quickly turned into anger. He glanced at the Sky Blue White Crane’s territory for a second and decided to go all out. With a wave of his arm, he summoned Golden Flame from the Primordial Essence World.