Chapter Ninety-One: Flight

It was as though the first crack had opened in a flower bud, and a tender petal had peeked through. It was as though a chrysalis had burst apart, releasing the fragile wings of a newborn butterfly. It was as though the shell of a golden cicada had split, and with a faint chiming whisper, delicate wings had slipped free. It was as though stars had streaked across the heavens, as though thunder had torn open the clouds, as though sunlight had burned recklessly across the sky, as though great rivers and mighty streams had surged in joyous rush across the earth.

Countless visions bloomed before Ji Hao’s eyes: the collapse of heaven and earth, the rising and setting of the sun, the birth and death of stars, the gathering of winds and clouds, the blossoming and withering of flowers, the changing of rain and snow. In that single instant when his finger drew its slight arc, it was as if all the mysteries of the world had been laid bare before him. Ji Hao saw clearly a vast and intricate sealing formation woven from densely packed runes within the blood-red light.

That gentle stroke passed precisely through the weakest seam among those runes.

As a bud splits, as a chrysalis bursts, as a cicada shell is helplessly broken by the frail pressure of wings, as stars, thunder, the sun, and great rivers move freely according to the ancient laws of the universe, an unstoppable and wondrous force tore through the blood light, shattered the rune seal that had held firm within it, and sliced a massive wound across the red radiance.

“The Great Evolution numbers are fifty; one is set aside, forty-nine are used. Between heaven and earth, all things must leave themselves a thread of life. In other words, all things under heaven, unless they transcend heaven and earth, must have a flaw. The first Heaven-Splitting Stroke points directly to that one hidden thread between heaven and earth, searching for the seam and striking the void, and thus it can break through all laws of heaven and earth.”

The phantom’s finger completed its arc as its thunderous voice rang out: “Pity. Regret. Sorrow. Tragedy. If I had understood such a principle back then, I would not have fallen to this state. Little one, why are you still standing there? Run for your life!”

Ji Hao’s soul convulsed with searing pain, and the primal core within his spirit sea nearly exploded.

That one stroke had unleashed a storm of phenomena before his eyes, laying bare the boundless profundities of the Great Way between heaven and earth. Ji Hao could not possibly comprehend such deep and mysterious truths. It was like a worm lying in mud and water, unable to understand how the exalted gods commanded the workings of heaven and earth.

A weak soul was merely a mirror, reflecting only a copy of the shadow of all heavenly principles. Yet even this mere reflection held mysteries less than one trillionth of the true secrets of the world. Ji Hao’s tiny, fragile soul was nearly stretched to the point of bursting and annihilated.

The Bloodlight Ghost Slaying Formation was broken. It was not that Ji Hao did not want to flee, but that his soul had already reached the brink of collapse, and he could no longer control his body.

He spat blood in great mouthfuls. His soul was in grave trouble, and within his body a dense crackling sound erupted like beans being fried in a pan.

Just after that finger stroke, nearly all the muscle below Ji Hao’s right elbow had been blasted away by the terrifying force of recoil, leaving half his arm bone exposed, faintly shimmering with crystalline light. The backlash then surged from his fingertip into the rest of his body. Tiny fissures split open across the exposed bones of his arm, and those cracks raced onward through his body: arm bone, shoulder blade, ribs, spine, leg bones...

With a series of sharp cracks, at least half the bones in Ji Hao’s body had fractured.

Even if his soul had not been injured, he would no longer have been able to control his body and flee, for his body itself would not permit such violent movement.

Only Manman’s eyes flashed with a divine glimmer. She seized Ji Hao at once, stuffed the badly wounded Crow Elder into his arms with one hand, then hoisted Ji Hao onto her shoulder as though she were carrying a bundle of straw, and broke into a mad sprint.

The little girl possessed monstrous strength, and when she ran, she was wild and ferocious to an unreasonable degree.

One stomp of her foot struck the ground with a thunderous boom, smashing a pit more than fifty feet wide and well over three hundred feet deep into the earth. The force launched her body forward with a black blur, sending her straight into the dense forest.

Towering trees crowded the forest. In that one charge, Manman covered seven or eight miles. She shot forward close to the ground, and along the way at least a hundred giant trees were smashed to splinters by the impact of her head and body. Countless trunks toppled one after another, carving a straight road through the forest.

“Damn it!” Di Luo shuddered in terror and slapped himself hard across the face. He looked up at the bloody moon in the sky, where the faint illusory blood moon had already split open with a clearly visible crack. He screamed in disbelief, his voice shrill and ragged: “This is a formation personally forged by the master craftsmen of the Xiu clan. How could that brat possibly break a battle-grade formation?”

Jiang Yao’s eyes glittered with strange light. She shouted at the top of her lungs: “That brat must be hiding some priceless treasure on him! Catch him and that girl! If they escape, none of you will ever leave the Southern Wastelands alive!”

Di Luo let out a cold laugh and pointed at the bloody moon in the sky. A streak of blood light flashed in the direction Manman had fled, and the bloody moon instantly exploded into countless shards, dissolving into specks of crimson radiance that vanished without a trace. The great formation covering a radius of more than ten miles crashed down in an instant.

Glancing at Jiang Yao with dissatisfaction, Di Luo said with confidence, “The Bloodfang Band is mighty, dear priestess witch. You have no idea how strong our Bloodfang Band truly is. In this barbaric hellhole of the Southern Wastelands, we come and go as we please. No one can stop us.”

Jiang Yao smiled coldly and murmured a name: “That little girl is his daughter! His youngest, most cherished daughter! And her mother comes from the highest royal bloodline. Her mother is...”

Di Luo’s face stiffened and twisted completely. He stared at Jiang Yao in terror and despair for a long while, then suddenly jumped up and shrieked, “After them! Kill that little girl and that brat no matter what! Destroy every trace here, destroy every trace we left behind. Not even a breath of our scent or a single strand of hair can be left behind! Wipe this place out completely, wipe it out!”

Nearly hysterical, Di Luo pointed at Jiang Yao and roared, “You damn woman, do you want to get us killed? You want to get us killed! The Bloodfang Band cannot deal with those terrifying monsters. I, I, I have to make up for this mistake!”

Jiang Yao watched the panicked Di Luo with smug delight and sneered again and again. She laughed softly, “If I did not do it this way, how could I dare say that once everyone here is killed, that brat Ji Hao is doomed? If that little girl dies, not only Ji Hao, but everyone connected to him will die too!”

The warriors of the Ga clan howled as they followed the trail left by Manman and gave chase.

Manman’s more than a dozen guards shouted and charged forward, brave to the point of recklessness, trying their utmost to block these demons of the Ga clan.

In a furious storm of hacking blows, the dozen-odd guards were chopped into a bloody pulp. The more than a thousand warriors of the Bloodfang Band and the tens of thousands of servant soldiers of the Ga clan, like fiends escaped from hell, screamed themselves hoarse and pursued in the direction Manman had fled.

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