"Hm? Interesting." A flicker of surprise crossed the lean Soul Ancestor's eyes. Clearly, he had not expected Lin Yan to withstand his strike with a Soul Master's cultivation. But his movements never stopped. Like a festering sore clinging to bone, he closed in again, his hands turning into a skyful of finger shadows that enveloped the major pressure points all over Lin Yan's body.
The burly Soul Ancestor caught up as well, blocking Lin Yan's retreat. He clenched his fists with a vicious grin, earthen-yellow Soul Power gathering around them.
A powerful enemy ahead, his retreat blocked behind-the situation was utterly dire!
Lin Yan's gaze sharpened. He knew he could hold nothing back now. Drawing a sharp breath, he mustered what little Soul Power remained within him and swung his longsword, its blade releasing a clear, resonant hum. He stopped merely defending. His swordplay abruptly changed, shifting from seamless, tightly woven defense into an assault like a sudden storm!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Several fierce streaks of sword light spilled out. Rather than going straight for vital points, they stabbed at vulnerable areas such as the lean Soul Ancestor's wrists and elbows and the burly Soul Ancestor's eyes, attacking what they had to protect! It was an approach that courted injury on both sides, forcing both Soul Ancestors to defend or dodge.
Seizing the opportunity, Lin Yan stamped hard against the ground and shot backward like a cannonball. At the same time, he flicked his left hand, sending several cold glints toward the lean Soul Ancestor pursuing closest behind-ordinary iron caltrops he had prepared earlier. Though they could not injure a Soul Ancestor, they were enough to cause a brief obstruction.
The lean Soul Ancestor swept his sleeve, his Soul Power surging as he knocked every caltrop aside. But in that momentary delay, Lin Yan had opened a little more distance and changed direction, fleeing desperately toward the place where he had faintly heard water earlier.
"A dying struggle!" Watching from behind, the effeminate man snorted coldly and sped up in pursuit with the Soul Elder guard. Within his olfactory domain, Lin Yan's scent trail was perfectly clear. There was nowhere for him to hide.
The chase resumed through the dense forest, fiercer than ever. Disregarding his Soul Power expenditure, Lin Yan pushed his speed to its limit. His wounds tore open as he ran, blood staining his clothes red, but he paid them no heed. He knew this was his only chance to survive!
The sounds of air splitting and the oppressive weight of Soul Power drew ever closer behind him. The two Soul Ancestors sent attacks at him from time to time, forcing Lin Yan into one difficult evasive maneuver after another, danger threatening at every turn. Several times, sharp gusts from their fingers skimmed his scalp and back, taking strands of hair and strips of cloth with them.
Finally, after he passed through a thick patch of shrubs, the view ahead opened up. A river more than ten meters wide, its current swift, lay across his path! Its clear waters crashed against the rocks in the riverbed with a rushing roar.
An intense will to survive blazed in Lin Yan's eyes. Without hesitation, he charged toward the riverbank!
"He's trying to escape through the water! Stop him!" The effeminate man spotted the river too. His expression changed, and he shouted urgently.
The lean Soul Ancestor was the fastest. His third Soul Ring suddenly lit up, and his entire body seemed to turn into a streak of azure light. His speed instantly soared to its limit, and almost in the blink of an eye, he was less than five meters behind Lin Yan. Curling his fingers into claws, an eerie gleam flickering at their tips, he raked viciously toward the center of Lin Yan's back with a bone-piercing chill! If that claw landed squarely, it could punch through metal and stone!
Feeling the fierce killing intent of that lethal strike behind him, Lin Yan's scalp prickled. He knew he could never withstand this move. He did not even have time to dodge!
At this hairbreadth moment, a trace of resolve flashed through Lin Yan's eyes. Instead of trying to block or evade, he lunged forward, pouring every last bit of Soul Power within him into his legs without reserve and kicking hard off the ground!
Splash!
Just as the lean Soul Ancestor's fingertips were about to touch the clothes on his back, Lin Yan plunged headfirst into the rushing river like a nimble fish, throwing up a great spray of water.
The lean Soul Ancestor's supposedly certain strike caught nothing but an afterimage and a few cold droplets.
"Bastard!" Unable to halt his momentum, the lean Soul Ancestor rushed to the riverbank. His face turned livid as he watched Lin Yan vanish, swallowed by the river in an instant.
The effeminate man and the other two quickly reached the riverbank as well. His expression was so dark it seemed water might drip from it. He immediately activated his Scent Tracking Soul Skill and probed carefully.
Yet this time, within his previously unfailing olfactory domain, Lin Yan's once perfectly clear scent trail seemed to have been severed by a blade at the river's edge. It abruptly grew indistinct and faint, then finally dispersed completely amid the rushing water and damp mist!
The river, this body of flowing water, had become the perfect scent remover.
Unwilling to give up, the effeminate man followed the bank some distance both upstream and downstream. But without the scent to guide him, finding Lin Yan, who was deliberately hiding, amid this broad river and the complicated terrain on the far bank would be like fishing a needle from the sea.
"Aah!" At last, the effeminate man could no longer suppress his fury. He slammed a fist into a tree beside him, snapping its trunk with the blow. His face twisted, his canine pupils filled with frustration and rage.
The cooked duck had actually flown away just like that!
The thousand-year blood ginseng, the Mind-Clearing Spring, and the other secrets that brat might have hidden on him, given how easily he had killed two Soul Elders... now it had all gone down the drain with this damned river!
"Young Master, what do we do now?" the burly Soul Ancestor asked heavily.
The effeminate man's chest heaved violently. Only after a long while did he barely manage to suppress his fury. Through gritted teeth, he said, "That brat is as slippery as a loach! And he's decisive, with considerable tricks up his sleeve... we can't just let this go! Send people to investigate! Find out where he came from and what his name is! I refuse to believe he can hide underwater forever!"
He stared venomously at the ceaselessly flowing river, as though he meant to drag Lin Yan's figure back out of the water.
"Let's go!"
In the end, he could only leave in bitter frustration, his heart full of resentment and rage. Silence returned to the riverbank. Only the river flowed tirelessly on, as though nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, several li downstream, in a slow-moving stretch at a bend in the river, a bedraggled figure crawled out of the water into the grass on the opposite bank.
It was Lin Yan.
The moment he reached land, he collapsed onto the grass, gasping for breath, his face as pale as paper. The icy river had stripped away much of his body heat and washed away the blood and most of his scent, but it had also consumed a tremendous amount of his stamina. That final burst and the underwater swim had all but wrung out his last shred of strength.
He rolled over with difficulty and gazed up at the sky visible through gaps in the branches and leaves, gradually steeped in dusk. Relief at having survived the ordeal welled up in his heart.
Wind-Chasing Dog... Scent Tracking... I really was careless this time, Lin Yan reflected.
After resting briefly and recovering a little strength, he struggled into a sitting position and checked his condition. His Soul Power was nearly depleted, his stamina overdrawn, and he had several flesh wounds that were not too serious. He took out some clean strips of cloth and bandaged his wounds, then changed into dry clothes.
Once he had finished, he looked around. He was now far from the main road and the earlier battlefield, in a completely unfamiliar mountain forest.
"Safe for now..." Lin Yan breathed a sigh of relief. He decided to find somewhere secluded to recover his Soul Power and stamina first, then work out his bearings and head for the nearest human town.
Though perilous, this experience had also made him more clearly understand the dangers of the Douluo Continent and the inadequacy of his own strength.
"I can't go back to Nuoding City for now." Lin Yan's gaze flickered as he made his decision. Since that effeminate man had been able to send people to follow him outside the city, he could very likely investigate and discover that he came from Nuoding City as well. Returning would be no different from throwing himself into the net.
He needed to find somewhere new first, somewhere he could safely absorb the thousand-year blood ginseng and improve his strength.
After a brief rest, Lin Yan's figure disappeared into the vast mountain forest beneath the gathering dusk.