Battle for the Body

"Elder Huo Yi... I'm too badly injured. If you keep carrying me like this... cough, cough... neither of us will get away..."

His voice came in broken fragments, accompanied by ragged gasps that revealed his agony. Huo Xuan, the genius most prized among the Flame Clan's younger generation, lay limply on Huo Yi's back, his breath weak and fading.

A massive wound over a foot long split across his sweat- and blood-soaked back. It was deep enough to expose bone, a horrifying sight. Strange energy fluctuations corroded the edges of the wound without cease, preventing any possibility of natural healing.

Within the clouds and mist not far behind them, several concealed yet powerful auras followed like shadows.

"What nonsense are you talking about? The clan has already fallen. What meaning is there in an old man like me surviving?" Dark-red bloody foam spilled from Huo Yi's lips—the backlash of forcibly exhausting his strength to resist their pursuers.

"Even if I have to throw away this life, I must get you out! You young people are the Flame Clan's only hope of rising again!"

Huo Yi, a Dou Sheng expert of the Flame Clan, carried Huo Xuan on his back as the two continued fleeing under the protection of Dou Qi.

Yet the Soul Clan pursuers were exceedingly experienced. Relying on their overwhelming advantage in numbers and perception, they maintained a distance that was neither too close nor too far. As time passed, their encirclement tightened further and further, as though they intended to slowly wear Huo Yi down.

"Damn it, those Soul Clan bastards just won't let go." The prolonged, desperate chase had filled Huo Yi with frustration. More importantly, even as a Dou Sheng, his Dou Qi was nearly exhausted after such a long and fierce battle.

He was