A quarter hour earlier, on the mountain path of Spirit Tempering Peak.
Two figures sped along at breakneck speed, one ahead of the other, their robes snapping loudly in the mountain wind.
Running in front was a young woman dressed in the pink, short, fitted combat attire unique to Undying Flame disciples. Her calves, exposed beneath her skirt, were taut and lean, and every push from the ground sent her shooting forward an extraordinary distance.
She was not particularly tall, even slender, yet she steadily carried a young man in her arms. He wore the robes of a Profound Heaven Sect inner disciple. His features were refined, and his normally composed brows had gone somewhat pale as they furrowed faintly from the jolting.
He stood a head taller than the woman and was cradled sideways in her arms. The posture could hardly be called graceful; it was even somewhat comical. Yet at this moment, no one who saw it could laugh.
Because behind them, a black figure was rapidly closing in.
It was a Nascent Soul Realm demonic cultivator, with a sinister face and dense black mist coiling around his body. Every step he took left a deep footprint in the earth. Black vapor seeped from the edges of those prints, corroding the ground into fine cracks.
The demonic cultivator slashed out a jet-black surge of demonic energy from his palm. Like a curved blade, it shrieked sharply as it tore through the air toward the pair's backs.
The woman reacted swiftly, abruptly shifting her footing and floating half a foot to the side like a willow catkin, narrowly evading the strike.
The demonic energy grazed past her shoulder and slammed into a massive tree ahead with a boom. The trunk snapped in response. Black smoke rose from the break