Chapter 830: Evacuation!
Meng Hao transformed into a beam of prismatic light that shot off into the distance. Hundreds of people trailed behind him in pursuit, but as of now, most had cultivation bases that didn’t compare to his at all, and the others were incapable of releasing the seals that would make them his match. Furthermore, Meng Hao had the Heaven-defying Lightning Cauldron and its Form Displacement Transposition. Therefore, it only took a few hours for him to completely lose any pursuers.
The hundreds of people who remained behind fell silent. After a while, some of them just decided to give up; they immediately flew up into the air to leave Planet South Heaven. However, there were still quite a few who weren’t willing to give in so easily.
This was especially true of the sects and clans whose Young Lords and Ladies had been captured by Meng Hao. They obviously could not leave, and had no choice but to join together to search for Meng Hao.
By this point, they didn’t care about the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite Temple’s good fortune at all. It had all been acquired by Meng Hao. Therefore, it was easy to imagine how, once everyone left Planet South Heaven, it wouldn’t take long before Meng Hao’s name was spread throughout the Ninth Mountain.
Meng Hao now sped along silently through the mountains, wearing a wide bamboo hat. The hat was actually quite miraculous; after putting it on, his aura was completely concealed, making him completely unfathomable. He could even use the hat to change his appearance.
If that were all there was to it, it wouldn’t be a big deal, and the item could be considered as useless as chicken bones. After all, even after changing his appearance and hiding his aura, any intelligent person who had seen him take the hat would know it was him as soon as they saw the hat itself.
However… the bamboo hat had another function. After putting it on his head, the music of a great Dao surrounded him. Although it wasn’t very clear, he felt incredibly tranquil once the music entered his ears.
Meng Hao felt that it wasn’t a bad item, so he put it on as he began to rifle through the bags of holding he had acquired. Wang Mu’s bag of holding had quite a few miscellaneous objects in it that caused Meng Hao’s eyes to shine. The Dao Protectors’ bags were also filled to the brim.
“Rich! These Chosen from outside South Heaven are all totally rich!” His eyes shone as brightly as two suns. After quickly putting the bags of holding away, his body flickered as he sped onward.
Two hours later, a boom echoed out, and the ground quaked. An enraged roar could be heard, along with a bloodcurdling scream. The source of the commotion was a group from one of the Three Sects and Six Churches, the Church of the Blood Orchid. Only moments before, Meng Hao had suddenly appeared and attacked them. He didn’t kill anyone, but did beat them to a pulp until they were seriously injured, and then took their bags of holding.
Even as he made to leave, he scanned the bags of holding belonging to the Chosen of the Church of the Blood Orchid, after which his fury raged.
The bags of holding weren’t all empty, but were definitely much lighter than they should have been. It was almost as if someone had looted them at some point earlier in time!
“Dammit!” cried Meng Hao. He turned and thrashed the Church of the Blood Orchid disciples a bit more. Their Dao Protectors were enraged to the point of insanity, but with their cultivation bases sealed, all they could do was endure.
As for the Chosen, they were forced to write promissory notes. The hatred they felt for Meng Hao was now completely beyond description.
“These South Heaven people are all bandits and thieves!” said one of the Chosen from the Church of the Blood Orchid, a young woman who appeared to be on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Don’t worry,” Meng Hao said grimly. “I’ll help you get your revenge. Who the hell dares to steal my business!?”
Six hours later, in another part of the mountain range, the ripples of magical techniques spread out in all directions from a group from one of the Five Holy Lands, the Blue Lotus Sky.
Their fate was the same as the Church of the Blood Orchid. Meng Hao was invincible, booms rang out, and serious injuries were inflicted. Afterwards, Meng Hao took their bags of holding, and was happy to find that they were much fuller than the last group, and had not been ransacked before.
In the following several days, Meng Hao roamed about, occasionally killing people, but mostly just inflicting injuries. Despite that, widespread indignation and discontent rose up among the various power groups. Many opted to just leave, and when they finally reached the starry sky outside Planet South Heaven, they breathed sighs of relief. The Dao Protectors’ cultivation bases were restored, and they hated Meng Hao down to their bones. However, they were incapable of setting foot back on the planet, and had no choice but to stamp their feet angrily and leave.
This was… an evacuation….
Meng Hao had single-handedly stood up to all the Chosen and Dao Protectors of the various sects and clans of the Ninth Sea. Now, the mountains were being evacuated. The fate of anyone he ran into was to be picked clean after failing to escape.
When he came across empty bags of holding, he would often make their owners write promissory notes. Anyone who didn’t cooperate suffered the same fate as Sun Hai, and were dragged around by the hair.
More and more sects and clans chose to leave. Even Mount Sun and the Li Clan eventually lost their courage and had no choice but to depart. Sticking around was simply a source of too much pain for them.
Though the Dao Protectors had higher cultivation bases than him, those cultivation bases were sealed. The fact that Meng Hao, a member of the junior generation, had defeated them, was driving them mad.
A few days later, Meng Hao spent an entire day searching without finding anyone left behind in the mountain range. After some thought, he came to the conclusion that everyone had left. However, it was at this point that suddenly, he stopped in place and turned to look off in the distance. Because of the level of his cultivation base, he was just barely able to make out some faint ripples.
“There’s still someone who hasn’t left?” he thought, surprised. During the past few days, he’d been methodically attempting to force a complete evacuation, and had assumed that everyone had already chosen to leave. Unexpectedly, he now found that there were still people remaining.
He disappeared in a flash as he shot off into the distance. Soon, he caught sight of a group of four people who were traveling along at maximum speed. One of them was Fang Xiangshan. Next to her were two old women, apparently her Dao Protectors, and finally, an old man, who was presumably one of Fang Yunyi’s Dao Protectors.
As Meng Hao neared, the faces of these four Fang Clan members flickered. The two old women stepped forward and glared at Meng Hao. As for Fang Xiangshan, hatred flickered in her eyes as she looked at Meng Hao.
“Everyone else has gone,” he said suddenly. “Why haven’t you people?”
In response to his words, Fang Xiangshan’s face flickered suspiciously, and she rushed out from behind her two Dao Protectors to charge toward Meng Hao.
The old man quickly grabbed Fang Xiangshan’s arm.
“Young Lady, let’s get out of here!”
The other two Dao Protectors, the old women, transformed into beams of light that shot toward Meng Hao.
“Go find your clan uncle Fang Xiufeng! Then you’ll be safe! Get out of here!”
They had been advancing with extreme caution, and were obviously scared of attracting Meng Hao’s attention. However, now that Meng Hao was here, there was no need to try to remain hidden, so they sped forward as fast as they could.
When Meng Hao heard the words “Fang Xiufeng”, he couldn’t hold back from coughing lightly. He was just about to say something when the two old women let out shrill shrieks, and then attacked viciously. A cloud of poison spread out, within which were two skeletons that radiated mysterious light. As they passed through the air, the vegetation beneath them withered up and died.
Meng Hao frowned, then punched out with his right hand. The Mountain Consuming Incantation caused a mountain range to materialize, which swept out to crush down onto the two old women.
Rumbling could be heard as the two old women attacked with all the power they could muster. False Immortal cultivation base power exploded out as they attempted to block Meng Hao.
Meng Hao snorted coldly, then waved his hand, causing his Dharma Idol to appear, whose fist slammed into the ground, causing everything to quake and fissures to appear on the surface of the land. The Blood Demon Grand Magic appeared, and instead of chasing after Fang Xiangshan, he continued to battle with the two old women.
After enough time passed for an incense stick to burn, booms filled the air and the old women coughed up blood. Their bodies were severely withered as they were tossed down to the ground, where they stared at Meng Hao with venomous hatred.
“You’re dead!”
“We’re in the lands of South Heaven, and a powerful expert of the Fang Clan is stationed here! Now that you’ve dared to treat us this way, you’re going to die beyond the shadow of a doubt!”
“I wasn’t planning to kill you, so stop tempting me,” Meng Hao said coldly.
With that, he turned and shot off in pursuit of Fang Xiangshan. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something fishy going on with her. By now, everyone had left South Heaven, but she was still here. Most important of all was her reaction to his words just now.
“Could it be that there’s still some good fortune left to be had in this place?” he thought curiously. Even as he sped through the air, the two old women’s faces flickered. Gritting their teeth, they flew after him in pursuit.
Meanwhile, nine enormous teleportation portals had opened up in the starry sky outside of Planet South Heaven. Glittering light spread out in all directions as more than a dozen figures appeared in the nine huge teleportation portals.
The figures were blurry, and were obviously not true selves, but rather divine will clones. Despite being nothing but divine will, for them to appear here caused ripples to spread out through the starry sky, and immense pressure to bear down on Planet South Heaven.
The figures all began to speak at almost exactly the same time.
“Fellow Daoist Fang, we can forget about what happened in the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite Temple…. However, I only hope that you can return Ji Yin of the Ji Clan to us. Fellow Daoist Fang, please show some charity….”
“Elder Brother Fang, a Chosen of Mount Sun was also captured…. Please, allow him to be released!”
“The Li Clan has a good relationship with the Fang Clan. How could Li Ling’er of the junior generation possibly have been taken captive here…? She’s a young woman, and if her purity has been compromised, the Li Clan can tolerate it. However, don’t forget, Fang Xiufeng, Li Ling’er is the future fiancée that links our clans!”
“Elder Brother Fang, my eldest son Song Luodan was also taken captive. We became friends as soon as we met way back when, Elder Brother Fang. Look what’s happened now….”
“Elder Brother Fang, you’re close friends with the Pontifex of the Church of the Immortal Emperor. Ai… the Pontifex is sealed in critical meditation and can’t come out. So… could you give us some face? Sun Hai is one of my own descendants.”
“Big bro Fang… the Patriarch is somewhat at a loss considering what happened, and asked me to come talk with you…. Uh… my son, your nephew, Fang Yunyi was also taken captive….”
As the voices echoed about in the Great Tang of the Eastern Lands, Shui Dongliu shook his head and smiled, then vanished. Fang Xiufeng and Meng Li also chuckled bitterly. After the restrictive spells had been removed from the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite Temple, they had seen and heard everything that had occurred.
“That rascal, he’s too….” Fang Xiufeng sighed, and couldn’t help but feel that he was, indeed, somewhat in the wrong. Had the people outside of South Heaven been rude and abusive, then the situation would have been easier to deal with. However, they were very calm and polite, and they were correct to point out the relationships that existed. As a result, Fang Xiufeng felt a bit embarrassed.
His wife, Meng Hao’s mother, was actually beaming with joy and was clearly very pleased.
They exchanged a look. Then, Fang Xiufeng muttered and then waved his hand toward the sky. Everything trembled, and an enormous rift appeared. More than ten figures immediately flew down from up above.
Even though they were still blurry, their appearance caused all of Planet South Heaven to tremble from the incredible pressure that spread out. However, this was Planet South Heaven, and they still needed to act cautiously.
They clasped hands in greeting to Fang Xiufeng and Meng Li, and in response, Fang Xiufeng smiled wryly.
“Fellow Daoists, this matter… oh, never mind. I’ll take you to the scene to make sure the members of your junior generation are all safe.”
These people were being polite because they had no desire whatsoever to offend Fang Xiufeng. In response to his words, the group transformed into prismatic beams that shot toward the mountainous location of the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite Temple.