Pursuit and the Bizarre

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Zhou Zheng moved like a shadow, like lightning, shuttling at high speed through the mountain forest.

At this moment, his speed had reached an astonishing nearly three thousand meters per second. For a Title-level fighter, this was an unimaginable speed. Even the limit of an ordinary Flying Celestial level transcendent would not be much faster.

For Zhou Zheng to achieve this at the Title-level naturally owed much to the profundities of Myriad Lightning and Myriad Wind that he had mastered.

Moreover, either profundity alone would not do. They had to be combined to produce this effect.

More than twenty days ago, when Zhou Zheng used the two profundities together, not only did they fail to make him faster, they actually slowed him down.

But now, although Zhou Zheng had yet to combine the two profundities perfectly, their compatibility in his hands had already far surpassed what it had been before. Thus, using them together was now faster than using the Mystery of Lightning alone.

Not fast enough. Still not fast enough! Zhou Zheng desperately pushed himself, trying to run even faster.

He knew very well that his current speed was not actually inferior to a transcendent's. More critically, he was running on the ground while a transcendent flew in the sky. The other side could ignore the terrain, while he could not.

If this continued, once the other side discovered his trail, it would only be a matter of time before they caught up.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

As Zhou Zheng ran at full speed, the wind and lightning swirling around him grew increasingly harmonious.

The reason the Temporal Temple sent Cyclic Reincarnators to world after world to carry out all kinds of missions was that only amid danger, at the brink of life and death, could a life's potential be forced out. Boundaries that had once seemed impossible to break through might be overcome under such pressure.

Although Zhou Zheng was not yet trapped in a hopeless situation, he was already in danger.

Thus, he had unconsciously begun forcing himself to become faster.

Thanks to the nourishment of the Gate of Time and Space, Zhou Zheng's potential was undoubtedly immense. Amid this crisis, his understanding of combining the profundities of wind and lightning was improving at a rapid pace.

Before long, the fusion of the two profundities reached its final threshold.

But this final step was also the most difficult. Although Zhou Zheng did everything he could to merge them completely, he was always just short of it.

At that moment, a sudden explosion sounded in the distance.

"Heh heh, look what I found!"

A mocking voice rang out, making Zhou Zheng's heart sink slightly.

The next moment, Zhou Zheng sensed an immense danger coming from behind him. Without even thinking, he shifted sideways on the spot.

Boom!

A giant hand condensed from the power of heaven and earth appeared instantly where Zhou Zheng had just been, blasting a bottomless hole into the ground.

Zhou Zheng ignored it, continuing to run into the distance without looking back.

"You can't run!"

The voice sounded again. Before long, Zhou Zheng spotted a figure in the sky above him. The figure was very short, but its aura was extraordinarily powerful. It was undoubtedly a true transcendent.

Boom!

The man descended from the sky in an instant, a short dagger reaching the top of Zhou Zheng's head in a flash.

Clang!

Zhou Zheng instantly drew his sword and met the attack head-on.

Clang!

The sword tip collided with the dagger, and Zhou Zheng immediately felt an irresistible force crash into him.

This was the power of a true transcendent, a force far beyond the Title-level and utterly incomparable to a Pseudo-Transcendent. Even though Zhou Zheng's sword strike contained the power of two Myriad Profoundities combined at the Second Level, he could not withstand it at all.

Zhou Zheng did not dare take it head-on. His sword twisted slightly, and he instantly followed the immense force from the dagger to the side.

Whoosh!

Wind and lightning flickered around Zhou Zheng as he shot away again in the blink of an eye.

By then, the figure from the sky had landed. This person was the dwarf, one of the two who had previously appeared in the Gorge where Zhou Zheng and the others had been hiding.

As he watched Zhou Zheng's retreating back, he was still quite astonished.

He was a transcendent, yet he had failed to kill this mortal with a single strike. The other party's strength was outrageously high.

"Two profundities, wind and lightning, and neither is at a low level. What a genius!" The dwarf licked his lips, and the smile on his face turned bizarre.

"I've heard that some geniuses can break through during battle and counterattack from a desperate situation. I won't give you that chance!" the dwarf muttered. The next moment, his body began to change.

Like flowing water, the dwarf transformed into a silvery-white beast in the blink of an eye.

This beast was only three feet long. It had three tails, two sharp claws gleaming with a chilling light, and a ghostlike face that seemed to carry an exaggerated smile at all times.

This was actually the dwarf's true form. His appearance as a dwarf had merely been a transformed shape.

Whoosh!

The instant the beast appeared, it turned into a streak of silver light and vanished from where it stood.

In only a moment, the beast caught up to Zhou Zheng. Its two claws ruthlessly clawed toward Zhou Zheng's head, wreathed in wisps of rising purple flame.

This was the Myriad Profoundity it had mastered, Purple Flame. Though it was only at the First Level, it was still enough to greatly increase its strength.

The beast was too fast. The instant Zhou Zheng sensed danger while sprinting at full speed, the other party was already upon him. There was no time to block, so Zhou Zheng instinctively rolled away like a donkey in the mud.

Even so, three charred wounds, each a full three inches deep, appeared on Zhou Zheng's right shoulder. If he had been even a fraction slower, those wounds would likely have been on his head!

"Your heart will be next."

The icy voice came from behind him. Zhou Zheng had barely risen when he once again felt that sense of boundless danger descending.

Faster. I have to be faster!

At this moment, Zhou Zheng had no other thoughts. His desperate will to survive left only one word in his heart: fast.

Whoosh!

In an instant, the Silver Beast had closed in on Zhou Zheng, its claws already reaching for his chest.

At almost the same time, an invisible force appeared, and everything abruptly slowed.

Zhou Zheng, who had nearly been touched by the Silver Beast, retreated several thousand meters in a single instant.

Whoosh!

The beast suddenly pounced at empty air.

"What happened?" The beast's face was full of astonishment.

It glanced at Zhou Zheng in the distance, then pounced again the next moment.

A few thousand meters was nothing to this beast. It could cross that distance in the blink of an eye.

But the instant it neared Zhou Zheng, that strange sensation appeared again. Everything slowed...

Whoosh!

Zhou Zheng shifted to the side, evading the beast's attack. At the same time, he drew his sword and suddenly slashed at the beast.

Zhou Zheng was not fast, at least not faster than before. Yet when the beast tried to dodge, it failed to completely avoid the blow.

A transcendent body could not be harmed by mortals!

But Zhou Zheng's sword had been forged from transcendent materials.

Therefore—

Slash!

A huge wound suddenly opened across the beast's body.

Whoosh!

The beast was utterly horrified. It flew rapidly into the sky and stared at Zhou Zheng with an expression of utter disbelief.