Chapter 437: A Battle of Wits in The Air
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Yun Yang pushed forward as carefully as he could, and, befitting the breeze he was now, he camouflaged himself by wholly blending into nature and drifted forward as softly as he could.
Anyone in Yun Yang's vicinity or even anything that went through him would not be able to feel anything unusual. It was like the soft caress of a breeze; one could feel it but it left no trace – that would be all!
Therefore, Yun Yang, who was in such a state, assumed himself to be in an incredibly ideal form.
Then, there was no more movement from below; the other party had completely disappeared, seemingly more adept than Yun Yang in vanishing – whether it was the person, sword, sense, deific consciousness, or even the attack itself, it was like they never existed!
The only remnant was the instincts of a cultivator that told of danger.
Yun Yang knew that his crisis was far from being resolved. The quieter it was now, the more dangerous it would be later! The moment he let his guard down would be the moment he perished!
Moving about a dozen miles in that assumed faultless state, Yun Yang suddenly felt as if he had run headlong into something; perhaps, he had touched something off.
It was like a shapeless barrier that stretched from heaven to earth to thoroughly block him within an area and now, he had touched it since he had reached the area's border.
The split second when Yun Yang came into contact with the barrier, he knew that things were awry; he morphed into stray breeze at once and retreated to a perimeter thousands of feet away.
Almost at the same time he had moved, the brilliant sword light bolted into appearance out of nowhere and cut the space he had just touched into fragments, just like before! Nothing within that space could possibly have survived.
A freshly formed black hole could be seen, the rent in the air slowly recovering.
Yun Yang let out another soft grunt in his heart. Although his reaction was timely, and he managed to disperse his own essence, he had still been struck by the sword energy; the smallest amount of it caused his divine sense to throb with crackling pain. In addition to that injury, his mind felt muddled while his internal organs felt like they were on fire, pulsing with agony.
The strike this time had caused even more serious damage than the previous one – it was an all-round attack that managed to break through to his physical, mental, soul, and deific consciousness!
Yun Yang suspected that this bizarre sword energy was created to target his manifestations; it was not against the tangible physical body, but only against the soul, inflicting damage to the physical body and mental faculties indirectly from the divine sense. Such power was indeed terrifying.
Yun Yang who was already alert was even more on guard.
The sword light had scored, yet, did not really linger, disappearing once again like it had never existed. It was also like it had melted into the air as its points of origin and departure could not be seen at all.
The circumstances were peculiar! The crisis Yun Yang felt grew stronger than before.
He soared upwards rapidly, at least ten of thousands of feet above the ground, but he could still feel the sense of danger that latched onto him, not even leaving for a moment. Regarding this, Yun Yang lamented inwardly.
Yun Yang was never one to give up easily, or else he would not have gone up against a city, despite knowing Zilong City was set up with the spiritual restraining formation previously. He knew the limits of his true capability, but he had still chosen to be full of bravado in threatening Ziyou's emperor and officials to take back the Niello Bear's mystical core. There were too many examples of his persistence.
Coming back to the matter at hand, Yun Yang was truly clueless as to any countermeasures now. The capability and power of this skulking fellow was not something he could tackle; the strength was even much stronger than Ling Xiaozui's, in Yun Yang's knowledge!
Could Mr. Nian have turned up personally?
However, how could Mr. Nian be this formidable? What sort of standard would he have to be at? Perhaps his estimation of Ling Xiaozui's capability had been wrong.
It had to be. Just like he had previously thought that Old Bai's performance was excellent but sixth heaven's Old Bai was still not an opponent of Jun Moyan's single strike.
It seemed that ignorance was truly bliss!
Just as Yun Yang was musing, the sword light came again. It flashed before vanishing, never lingering for long. In that exchange, I Yet Yun Yang felt like his divine sense was being struck.
Yun Yang did a rough calculation; the opponent had probably used some method of discernment, as if already knowing that he was in the area of this vicinity. Now, the sword energy had locked down approximately fifty thousand feet in a perimeter around the space entirely.
It was undoubtedly a massive area, but the other party's sword, his speed, and strength, was able to omit the space and distance, appearing wherever it wanted to be
If he lingered, perhaps Yun Yang would be killed very soon! There was no luck to be spoken of.
No matter how he manifested and diverted himself, the tactic of his opponent could be repeated countless times; the series of attacks could be fatal ultimately, ridding him of the ability to maintain his wind manifestation.
It was Yun Yang's first time to encounter such a situation. Despite the fear in his heart, he could not sit around and wait for his death! Therefore, he began thinking anxiously – what should he do to escape and free himself from the current crisis?
Currently, the most lethal point was the geographical advantage. The other party had set the unusual border to box him within a certain area. He had to change this disadvantage to better his own situation, but how could he do it?
The general wind direction was towards the northeast. If he had changed the direction abruptly, there would be an oddity that would result in him being caught and killed at the instance of change! It was more or less the same if he were to switch to a cloud.
Blood? Water? Flame?
These manifestations could not be used either!
There was the thunder manifestation… its speed was faster than the wind but the depletion was overly draining. Besides, he would make an obvious target. Even if he turned into thunder and lightning, it was still a piece of cake to be killed in at the snap of his fingers.
Helpless, Yun Yang could only maintain his trail of drifting slowly and floating towards the south. It was not that there was no reason behind his action…
The south was the nearest to the ground and where the highest peak below was. His enemy should be here, drawing away the sword that was targeting him.
If he drifted towards the north, he could stay away from his enemy, but doing so would allow one to fall into the foe's focused direction; it was inadvisable.
"The more dangerous a place is, the safer it is. Now that nothing can be done, I can only take the risk and walk the opposite direction, as expected of me…"
Yun Yang continued moving slowly towards the south, but had directly divided himself into millions of slivers of breeze, extracting himself quietly.
Below him, the sword light took action again, still flashing as it had before and somewhere near the barrier was torn into a void within an instance once more. This time though, it did not affect Yun Yang; it was a lost arrow, actually not hurting him.
Then, the sword light did not vanish, but it blinked thrice continuously. The thousand feet of space near the north was torn into three black holes almost simultaneously. If Yun Yang had been within the vicinity of the black holes, he would have been severely injured and would have lost his wind manifestation even if he could survive the attacks.
In a way, Yun Yang's decision to move thousands feet southward in the short period of time was exceptionally brilliant. The three strikes did not deal any damage to him, but Yun Yang had the chills from being terrified.
The power the strikes possessed, especially when he watched them with his own eyes, made it hard to put the petrification he felt into words.
More so, he was already watching from the side but Yun Yang was still yet to discover where the sword light had come from and returned to. It was unbelievable!
With Yun Yang's current cultivation base that had entered the heaven realm, it was not top notch but the ordinary Tenth Perfection grandmasters were no longer his opponents, being able to take them down in one strike. The battle in Zilong City prior to this had already proven this point.
In spite of it, he still could not figure out this opponent he was currently facing, not even one bit.
If Yun Yang's wind manifestation were to be breached, he would most probably die in pieces... his soul would be annihilated and irrecoverable too, which meant a horribly complete death.
After several futile strikes at the north, the bizarre sword light paused for a second, like it was thinking.
Yun Yang's train of thought was jolted as well, quickly maneuvering his wind form to the north. Where he put himself right now was exactly the spot where the void was being sliced open by the three continuous strikes.
Indeed, just as he began to move, the petrifying sword light started flashing numerously across the thousands of feet of space from north to south. It was soon obvious that Yun Yang's guess was correct; upon attacking in vain, the sword's owner had guessed Supreme Cloud's thoughts and countered them at once, striking again without hesitation.
If Yun Yang were to be just a step slower, he would not have avoided the series of blows.
Amidst the engulfing fright, a hint of delight rippled in Yun Yang – he had seen a favorable turn, perhaps the crux related to this battle's outcome!
"Mr. Nian has remarkable intelligence and prescience. It's obvious that he's already sure that I'm in this area, so he'll definitely exhaust his ways to kill me. He won't give up on such a good opportunity."
"However, it's one thing to be sure I'm here and another to actually secure where I'm really at. His incessant strikes at the north isn't intended to kill, but to probe. After realizing the situation, he'd definitely clean up his surrounding areas."
"So his surroundings will become the most dangerous place at this time. moving to where he's just attacked will, instead, be the safest spot." Yun Yang thought nervously.
"Still, what will he do after scanning the south? How can I utilize the point that he can't actually pinpoint my exact location?"
"He has most probably guessed that I've taken refuge at the place where he has just attacked for temporal safety, so… after he has blasted the south and continued to lay siege in the south, what I should do is… continue northward?"