Escape? Just Where Do You Think You Can Run?

"Fifth Soul Skill—Sharp Arrow!"

As the words fell, Zhao Linchuan's finger traced across the blade of the Supreme Ease Golden Edge, and the sword suddenly blazed with brilliant golden light.

The radiance was searing and pure, as though the sun's brilliance had been gathered into this single sword.

Its razor-sharp intent soared almost straight into the heavens, and even the sky above seemed to split open beneath its force.

Two points of golden light ignited in Zhao Linchuan's eyes, like a pair of drawn swords.

Holding the sword in his right hand, its tip angled toward the ground, he said coldly, "Shadowless Sword—Formless Slash!"

As his words fell, he swept the sword upward.

There was no sword light, no fluctuation—not even the wind made a sound. Yet Gu Rong's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints.

"Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang...!"

A dense string of crisp, ringing impacts erupted, as though countless fine swords were striking adamantine all at once.

The sound was sharp and rapid, like a torrential downpour beating on an iron roof, or countless hummingbirds flapping their wings at once.

The Bone Dragon phantom protecting Gu Rong was instantly battered by thousands upon thousands of blows.

Invisible slashes came at it from every direction. The Bone Dragon began to tremble violently, its soul-light dimming as its body steadily shrank. Cracks spread across its surface, growing deeper and denser, like rotting wood gnawed by countless ants.

"Ah—!"

At last, an invisible slash broke through the Bone Dragon's defenses, piercing the seemingly indestructible skeleton and carving a sword wound down to the bone across Gu Rong's body.

Blood sprayed as Gu Rong's body jerked.

"What the hell?!"

Gu Rong roared, a trace of fear flashing through his eyes.

He abruptly drew back his arms. His Martial Soul Avatar faded with them, and he turned to flee.

He was as fast as lightning, his body becoming a blur in the air, but Zhao Linchuan had no intention of letting him go.

Zhao Linchuan lightly stamped his right foot on the ground. A golden stream of light spread from it, like a golden vine swiftly unfurling across the earth.

The light expanded faster and faster. In the blink of an eye, a hexagram array more than thirty zhang across rose from the ground, shining brilliantly and dyeing the sky for a hundred zhang around it gold.

At each of the hexagram's six points appeared a Four-Winged Holy Feather Beast, each with four wings and a single horn, its body roughly two zhang long.

Their bodies were pale yellow, and their four wings shimmered softly in the sunlight. The single horns on their foreheads resembled finely crafted jade swords, glowing with a faint golden light.

"Soul Bone Skill—Pegasus Spirit-Binding Array!"

"Clatter, clatter, clatter...!"

A series of chains dragging across the ground rang out, like the Grim Reaper's scythe scraping against a whetstone.

Six golden chains shot from the horns of the six pegasi, swift as lightning, and coiled toward Gu Rong's limbs, abdomen, and neck!

"Not good!"

Caught off guard, Gu Rong had only just turned around and had yet to build up speed when the six chains, like spirit serpents, had already wrapped themselves around him.

The golden chains clamped tightly around his limbs and torso, locking him fast and leaving him unable to move.

He struggled desperately, only to find that the harder he fought, the tighter the chains grew. Their golden light blazed brighter and brighter, as though they would swallow him whole.

"Ninth Soul Skill—Bone Transformation Divine Dragon!"

Gu Rong cried out, and his ninth Soul Ring flashed. An immense surge of Soul Power burst from within him.

His body suddenly swelled. His bones crackled, his flesh melted away, and Gu Rong vanished in an instant. In his place appeared a fully corporeal Bone Dragon a hundred meters long!

This Bone Dragon was even larger than his Martial Soul Avatar. Its wings spread wide enough to blot out the sky, and its head rose high. The ghostly green flames in its eye sockets burned fiercely, radiating a suffocating pressure.

"Clang, clang, clang...!"

The Bone Dragon thrashed violently in the air. Several chains shattered around its body, and the golden links snapped one after another under its struggles, scattering into golden specks that vanished in the air.

It glanced back at Zhao Linchuan, apprehension and unwillingness flickering in its ghostly green eyes.

But it dared not linger for even a moment. It turned and sped toward the distant horizon, moving so fast that it flew several hundred zhang in the blink of an eye.

"Where do you think you're going?!"

Zhao Linchuan barked. He pushed off the ground with his right foot, his body surging into the air as he prepared to give chase—

"Husband..."

Yan Lingji's voice drifted over calmly from behind him. "Leave what comes next to me."

Zhao Linchuan stopped and looked back at her.

Yan Lingji stood on the battlefield-ravaged ground, her skirts fluttering gently in the wind and her hair streaming about her like a goddess descended into the mortal realm.

Her Sixth Soul Ring—the blood-red Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring—flashed suddenly!

The Mystic Bird Vermilion Bird phantom that had hovered behind her began to rapidly shrink and change shape.

The outline of the giant bird blurred. Its blazing flames drew inward and compressed, becoming a dazzling stream of light.

In the blink of an eye, that stream of light solidified into a long, blood-red bow in her left hand.

The bow was crimson from end to end, its surface covered in fine flame patterns. The bowstring was thin as a strand of hair, yet glimmered with a silvery-white light, as though woven from moonlight.

Both ends of the bow curved gently upward, each bearing a lifelike carving of a Vermilion Bird with wings spread, as though the birds might take flight from the bow at any moment.

Yan Lingji held the bow in her left hand and raised her empty right hand. A flash of vermilion light, and a crimson arrow was already nocked against the string.

Its tip was sharp as a needle, and its fletching consisted of two exquisite Vermilion Bird tail feathers that shimmered with rainbow colors in the sunlight.

Then, the seven Soul Rings that had originally circled her suddenly left her body and floated in the air before her.

One by one, the Soul Rings stood upright, arranged in layers in the order black, black, black, black, black, red, red. Like a line of upright arches, they formed a neat row in front of her arrow.

At the same time, Yan Lingji had drawn her bow to a full moon.

Her feet sank deep into the earth. The soil cracked outward beneath her, forming a hollow several meters across.

Silvery-white flames leaped around her, enveloping her entire body in a sacred white glow.

Two points of silvery-white fire blazed in her eyes, reflecting the Vermilion Bird carvings on the bow.

"Escape? Just where do you think you can run?"

"Go!"

Yan Lingji parted her vermilion lips, and the long arrow leaped from the bowstring!

"Whoosh—!"

The arrow shot forth like a streak of white aurora, trailing a long tail of flames as it flew toward the circular opening at the center of the seven upright Soul Rings.

It was so fast that even time seemed to fall behind it.

The arrow passed through the first black Soul Ring, and its power surged as the ring dimmed.

It passed through the second black Soul Ring, its power surging again as the ring dimmed.

The third, the fourth, the fifth... With every Soul Ring the arrow pierced, the aura around it surged once more, and its size grew a little larger.