Rescue I

Dragon Snake, Nine Curves, and the others immediately spread out their spiritual senses and looked toward the source of the voice.

The voice had been transmitted through indiscriminate divine-sense diffusion.

Normally, this method of diffusion made it difficult to determine a direction, yet at this moment, everyone found the source with unusual ease.

Ahead and to the left of the flying ship, two fleeing lights—one chasing, one escaping—swiftly drew everyone's attention.

The escaping light ahead appeared to be a divine soul, carrying a faint green glow.

The one pursuing it was entirely blue. Within it sat an ornate chair, upon which an elderly man radiated an extraordinary presence, his expression vicious.

"Is that Feng Panjun of the Feng Family!? How has he been reduced to only a divine soul!?"

The cultivators aboard the flying ship immediately recognized one of the two figures.

"Feng Panjun is a descendant of the Feng Family's Great Roc Ancestor. Who would dare hunt him down so brazenly?"

Nine Curves Immortal Elder sensed that the situation was amiss.

"The one behind him is... Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall!!?"

Dragon Snake recognized the man behind Feng Panjun as well.

He had lived long enough and examined countless jade-slip records. Naturally, he had seen and heard of Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall's distinguishing traits.

Having recognized him now, he seemed unable to believe it.

After all, Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall was a Seeker of the Dao. Ordinary Seekers of the Dao were given that title because most of them concealed themselves in the deepest central regions of the star domains. Unless faced with life-or-death peril, they were nearly impossible to detect.

Yet Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall was an exception. Over the past hundred-odd thousand years, he had occasionally made small movements.

Although compared to the other Celestial Venerables, the frequency was pitifully low.

Compared to the rest of the Seekers of the Dao, however, he was practically the sort who loved running about outside.

But how had the Feng Family provoked this Old Devil?

"It really is Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall." After carefully checking once more, Dragon Snake finally confirmed his judgment.

"You are not mistaken." Nine Curves said gravely. "He was once the Grand Supreme Elder of the Qu Lin Sect. Why has he now appeared to hunt down a great sage of my Azure Lake Mountain?"

"Should we make a move?"

A translucent gray-black orb suddenly appeared in Dragon Snake's hand.

"Of course. We will first receive Feng Panjun!" Nine Curves reached out and grabbed, and a Jade Scepter appeared in his hand. He lightly swept it toward the two fleeing figures.

A membrane-like curtain of milky yellow light suddenly appeared before Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall.

Screech!

The light curtain instantly bulged into the enormous outline of a Jade Scepter. Like a massive hammer, it smashed fiercely toward him.

Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall's expression changed. As he charged forward, he suddenly reached out, seized the Jade Scepter, and crushed it hard.

Crack!

Amid a crisp explosion, the Jade Scepter shattered directly, turning into countless yellow fragments that sprayed everywhere.

Yet in that instant of opening, a ring of fiery-red rune formations appeared around Feng Panjun's divine soul, wrapped around him, and pulled him away.

"Do not resist. I am Dragon Snake Celestial Venerable!" A voice entered his ears.

Feng Panjun immediately abandoned resistance, and his entire divine soul vanished from midair.

When he appeared again, he was already inside the flying ship.

Dragon Snake, Nine Curves Immortal Elder, and the others gathered around him.

"Great Sage Feng! How did you end up in such a state!? Could the one hunting you truly be Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall?!"

An elderly Earth Immortal could not help asking urgently.

"Huang Han World Master? You are not dead?!" Feng Panjun recognized the man questioning him, and his expression jolted.

"Of course I am not dead. But you—where is your physical body?"

Huang Han frowned.

"If Nine Curves Immortal Elder and Dragon Snake Celestial Venerable had not intervened, you would likely have faced certain doom this time."

"It was destroyed... My thanks to the two Celestial Venerables for your righteous aid!"

Feng Panjun immediately understood what had happened and hurriedly clasped his hands toward Dragon Snake and Nine Curves as they approached.

His divine soul was no different from a living person in height and build, except that he had no physical substance.

What gave everyone even greater hope was that he had actually shot out from the white mist calamity energy.

What that represented was simply self-evident.

Many of the cultivators present had little connection with the Feng Family, yet they all crowded closer now.

They wanted nothing more than to know why he could travel through the calamity energy for so long relying solely on his divine soul.

"Great Sage Feng, you are too courteous."

Nine Curves said solemnly.

"We are currently inside the flying ship, but it will not be easy to evade Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall's investigation."

He paused.

"I used the Mortal Heart Scepter to temporarily disrupt his five senses, but I cannot block his sixth and seventh senses.

Fortunately, Brother Dragon Snake joined hands with me. We can barely conceal the flying ship."

"Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall? Even the two Celestial Venerables cannot deal with him?"

Huang Han World Master asked uncertainly.

"The other party is a Seeker of the Dao... However, Brother Dragon Snake and I are no pushovers either. If we are discovered, we may be able to reason with him and settle matters peacefully. If that fails, we will make other plans..." Nine Curves said seriously.

Naturally, he had trump cards. As a disciple of a Dao Ancestor, even a Seeker of the Dao would not make him overly wary.

But such trump cards became one fewer each time they were used. Moreover, they inflicted tremendous damage upon himself, so it was best not to use them if possible.

At this moment, the flying ship was concealed within a vast cloud of black-gray dust produced by an explosion, rapidly flying away from the calamity energy.

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than debris amid a cloud of dust.

Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall had only just rushed out of the calamity energy when the white calamity energy behind him caught up and swallowed him again. His trace could no longer be seen.

Yet no one believed that a Celestial Venerable Seeker of the Dao would be so easily swallowed and assimilated.

Feng Panjun was brought into the flying ship, and special methods were used to inscribe rings of defensive, shielding, and interference formations around him.

This was to prevent Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall from sensing and discovering him.

When Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall broke out of the calamity energy again, he found that Feng Panjun's aura had vanished. The other party could not possibly have fled far in so short a time, so he had to be hiding.

"Someone actually assisted him?"

Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall's eyes shifted, and he immediately sensed that something seemed to be concealed nearby.

But the other party's methods ran deep, making them impossible to search out in a short time. Especially now, when Dao arts were difficult to use and the rules had shattered, wide-range searches were even harder.

Feng Panjun was a cooked duck to him. If the duck still flew away, then it would truly mean he had been looked down upon far too much as a Seeker of the Dao.

A trace of chill flashed through his eyes.

He spread his arms wide and fiercely embraced the space before him.

"Embrace the Great Void, scatter the stars and split the stones!"

As his arms closed around the void, the white mist throughout a radius of over a thousand spirit miles surged crazily toward him as if seized by some immense gravitational force.

It was as though a colossal vortex had appeared within the white-mist void.

The enormous gravitational pull dragged everything in the vicinity. Countless meteor fragments, white mist calamity energy, and even the remaining dust from explosions were all pulled back, gathering into a spinning white sphere before his chest.

Dragged by the immense force, a patch of black amid the debris and dust immediately drew his attention.

All the other dust was being drawn by his divine art and rapidly gathering toward him. Only that patch continued moving at its original speed, flying away into the distance.

And it was extremely fast.

"Trying to leave!?"

He abruptly stretched out a hand. A small blue sphere resembling a planet emerged in his palm, and he hurled it at that cloud of black-gray dust.

Screech!!

The instant the blue sphere left his hand, it grew with the wind. In the blink of an eye, it expanded from fist-sized to the size of a human head.

As it flew farther away, its diameter expanded at an ever more frantic rate.

In less than several breaths, the tiny blue sphere had expanded to a diameter of several thousand meters.

Not only that, Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall continuously threw five more blue spheres of the same color from his hand.

All six spheres rapidly swelled to diameters of a thousand meters from different directions, smashing toward that cloud of black-gray dust.

Just as the six blue spheres were about to strike the dust—

"Palace Zither Scepter!"

An aged voice suddenly rang out.

Hum!

The black-gray dust scattered, revealing a battered black flying ship within.

The ship's shape had been completely warped, covered in scars and gaps. In some places, fuel from its power furnace was still slowly leaking out.

Yet at that instant, an enormous crimson phantom of a Jade Scepter appeared around the flying ship.

It happened to envelop the entire vessel completely.

The six blue spheres arrived in an instant and crashed viciously into the crimson Jade Scepter.

Boom!!!

Amid the violent explosion, two star-pattern formations flashed and vanished, joining forces to block the remaining blast.

After the shockwaves passed, Dragon Snake and Nine Curves Immortal Elder revealed themselves and looked from afar at Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall.

"So it is Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall himself. With the Great Calamity descending, Your Lordship still has the leisure to wander around. Are you not afraid your true essence will be exhausted and you will perish, your Dao scattering into nothingness?!"

Dragon Snake called out coldly.

They could not defeat him, but they could still barely hold him back or exhaust a great deal of his true essence and cultivation.

In such a Great Calamity, once one ran out of true essence, the sweeping calamity energy would bring instant annihilation.

The two dared to reveal themselves directly because they were certain he would not lightly make a move. He could not afford to consume too much true essence.

"Two Celestial Venerables?" Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall's expression tightened slightly. He had not expected to encounter two Celestial Venerables in such a backwater corner, and neither was an ordinary Celestial Venerable. Their incarnations seemed exceptionally powerful.

They had not reached the stellar level, but they possessed fluctuations at the peak of the planetary level.

"So the divine soul of Feng Panjun earlier was saved by you?"

His gaze darkened as he spoke each word.

"Why ask when you already know, Hall Lord?" Nine Curves Immortal Elder said in a deep voice. "How did the great sage of our Heavenly Alliance offend you, for you to commit such an act of destroying another's cultivation?"

The two of them remained ready to unleash their strongest divine arts at any moment, lest the other party suddenly turn hostile.

But in such a dangerous situation, avoiding battle if possible was also a means of preserving their own safety.

"Heavenly Alliance? Heh heh." Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall suddenly burst into wild laughter. "What does destroying someone's cultivation amount to? Even the current Heavenly Alliance—I kill whenever I wish! Who dares stop me!!? Who can stop me!!??

If you do not hand him over, this ancestor will wipe out the two of you as well!"

"What imposing arrogance!"

Dragon Snake and Nine Curves both changed expression.

"Arrogance is not shouted into existence!"

Without another word, Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall abruptly flung his hand forward.

Screech screech screech screech!!

In an instant, dozens of densely packed yellow spheres flew from his palm and expanded as they flew. In the blink of an eye, they had swollen to over ten thousand meters in size, crushing in from all directions toward the two men and the flying ship.

"This ancestor's Star Grasping Great Art was formed by refining eighty-one meteor stars and incorporating them into a divine art. Every meteor star carries no less than ten million jin of force. Let us see how you can withstand them!"

Lord of the Myriad Stars Hall sneered.