Two Foundation Establishments Tricked!

The Two Foundation Establishment Cultivators Fooled Lame! Outside the market, Stony Slope was a place of jagged rocks and not a blade of grass.

Wearing a mask, Zhao Hao appeared silently beneath the shadow of a massive boulder, his figure like a ghost.

Not far away stood two people.

One was a man in blue robes, none other than Wu Tang, the second-rank alchemist of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion.

The other was an old man in gray robes, his entire body exuding an aura of decay.

Foundation Establishment Early Stage.

Zhao Hao only swept him a glance before reaching a judgment in his heart.

This old ghost already had half a foot in the coffin. The deathly aura on him was heavier than that of the Corpse Refining cultivators he had seen before, and his eyes were muddy. He looked like a ruthless character.

"Fellow Daoist Zhao, you're here." When Wu Tang saw Zhao Hao, he took the initiative to come forward.

He pointed at the old man beside him and introduced him. "This is Fellow Daoist Sun Ze. He is the ancestor of a cultivation clan. His lifespan is nearly spent, and he wishes to go to Ten Thousand Immortal City to seek an opportunity to break through."

"Fellow Daoist Sun, this is the Fellow Daoist Zhao I mentioned to you."

Sun Ze's murky eyes swept over Zhao Hao, and his withered face pulled out an expression uglier than crying. His voice sounded like two stones grinding against each other.

"Fellow Daoist Zhao, I have long heard of you."

"Fellow Daoist Sun." Zhao Hao replied in the same hoarse voice, which counted as a greeting.

The three of them each had their own thoughts, and the atmosphere instantly became somewhat awkward.

Wu Tang gave a dry cough and broke the silence.

"Since everyone is here, there is no time to lose. Let us set off at once."

As soon as he finished speaking, he was the first to summon a flying sword flowing with green light. With a light leap, he landed steadily on the blade.

Sun Ze, meanwhile, took out a blood-colored flying wheel shaped like a crescent moon. It spun with a whirr, swelled violently in the wind, and with a tap of his toes, he stood upon it, blood energy curling around him.

Their movements flowed like moving clouds and running water. As spiritual power surged, they instantly rose from the ground and shot straight into the clouds, soon hovering two hundred zhang up in the sky.

Only after finishing all this did they lower their heads, waiting for Zhao Hao to follow.

But after waiting for quite a while.

They saw Zhao Hao urging that pitch-black Ghost Bone Sword upward, swaying unsteadily until he reached a height of around sixty zhang, then he stopped going higher.

That speed, that posture—rather than calling it flying on a sword, it was more like taking a stroll in the air.

Wu Tang and Sun Ze exchanged a glance, each seeing a trace of confusion in the other's eyes.

"Fellow Daoist Zhao?"

Wu Tang urged his flying sword and slowly descended, keeping level with Zhao Hao. A hint of puzzlement showed on his face. "Why not fly higher and faster? At this height, not only is the spiritual power consumption great, but the speed cannot be raised either."

Sun Ze said nothing. He merely controlled his blood-colored flying wheel and hovered on the other side, his cold gaze nailed unwaveringly onto Zhao Hao, as if he wanted to see through him.

Zhao Hao controlled his flying sword, making himself appear a bit steadier, and only then did he ask back in a hoarse voice, neither hurried nor slow.

"Fellow Daoists, what kind of times are these?"

His voice was not loud, yet it clearly entered both their ears.

Without waiting for the two to answer, he continued speaking.

"The Extreme Yin Sect and the Heavenly Sword Sect are fighting until their brains are about to spill out. In all the Northern Lands, where is there still any place of peace?"

"You fly up to two hundred zhang, and the sword light and spiritual energy can be seen from dozens of li away. You're simply beacons in the dark night. Aren't you afraid someone will come looking for trouble?"

"No matter which side's patrol cultivators entangle us, a round of questioning will be unavoidable."

"If our luck is bad and we attract some family's Golden Core cultivator, with our little bit of wealth, would it even be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth?"

After this speech, the sky above Stony Slope fell into a brief, deathly silence.

The smile on Wu Tang's face froze.

A trace of lingering fear also flashed through Sun Ze's murky eyes.

That was right!

They had only been thinking of reaching Ten Thousand Immortal City as quickly as possible, and had actually forgotten this most fatal point!

Right now, this stretch of land was a gigantic quagmire of war, filled everywhere with mad dogs whose eyes had gone red from killing!

The three of them were Foundation Establishment cultivators. Once they were discovered, whether they were surrounded and exterminated by the righteous path as demonic cultivators, or treated as fat sheep by demonic cultivators looking to shake them down, their outcome would not be good.

Especially Sun Ze!

His lifespan was nearly exhausted. This trip was to fight for his life, not to throw it away! He could not afford even the slightest risk!

Zhao Hao's words had simply spoken straight into his heart!

"Fellow Daoist Zhao's words are absolutely correct! This Sun was negligent!"

Sun Ze was the first to state his stance, the expression on that old face of his incomparably grave.

Without another word, he directly controlled the blood-colored flying wheel beneath his feet and sank sharply downward!

Wu Tang also drew in a deep breath, then cupped his hands solemnly toward Zhao Hao.

"Many thanks for the reminder, Fellow Daoist Zhao. This Wu failed to think it through."

With that, he also urged on his flying sword and descended after him.

And so, an eerie scene appeared.

Two seasoned Foundation Establishment cultivators, who should have been racing like wind and lightning through the clouds, had actually lowered their flying altitude to only twenty zhang above the ground!

That was a whole large section lower than Zhao Hao's sixty zhang!

Their expressions were solemn as they flew cautiously along the treetops of the mountain forests below, as if the few of them were carrying out some top-secret mission with nine deaths and one life.

"..."

Looking at the two "old seniors" beneath him, flying even more "wretchedly" than he was, Zhao Hao was speechless for a while.

At the same time, the vigilance in his heart quietly rose.

These two fellows looked as if they had been fooled lame by him, but in truth, each cherished his life more than the last, each was slipperier than the last.

He hoped this journey would go smoothly!

"In that case, let us take this route."

Wu Tang took out a map jade slip. The three of them sent their divine senses into it and jointly confirmed the final route.

They would first head south through the border of the Extreme Yin Sect and enter the territory of the righteous sect, Thousand Buddha Temple, then continue west along the chaotic region where the territories of Thousand Buddha Temple, Ten Thousand Soul Hall, and Extreme Yin Sect intersected, heading all the way to Ten Thousand Immortal City.

Although this route was somewhat roundabout, it would allow them to avoid the battlefront between the Extreme Yin Sect and the Heavenly Sword Sect to the greatest extent.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Three streaks of sword-light, in an extremely strange formation, skimmed along mountains, rivers, forests, and seas as they sped south.

Several consecutive days of low-altitude flight consumed far more spiritual power than flying at high altitude.

On this day, when nearly half of the Li Fire Power in Zhao Hao's dantian had been consumed, the three of them slowed down in tacit agreement.

"A hundred li ahead, there is a mortal city called 'Blackstone City.' It is a stronghold at the border between Thousand Buddha Temple and Ten Thousand Soul Hall. How about we go there to rest our feet and recover some spiritual power?" Wu Tang proposed at just the right time.

Sun Ze and Zhao Hao had no objections.

However, when the three of them rode their sword-lights and had just flown over a mountain peak, catching sight of the city's outline from afar, their flying movements all paused at once, and they hovered in midair.

They saw that beneath the distant horizon, above the city that should have been a place where mortals dwelled, there were actually two dense streams of ghostly qi as thick as water buckets circling!

One black and one gray, they were like two ferocious poisonous dragons, tightly shrouding the entire city.

The yin wind howled in fury, and even from several dozen li away, the sound of ghosts weeping could still faintly be heard.

The scene seemed to be telling the world that this was not some mortal city at all, but a ghost city!