Lake ripples gradually calmed.
Those who entered the water were gone without trace, those who went far were also gone without trace, only the clear breeze and bright moon remained.
Later, a person walked onto the grassland under the stars and moon.
Walking barefoot, a white-clad woman with long hair, it was precisely that white-clad female immortal.
She walked to the lakeside, her bare feet stepping on pebbles. Lake water repeatedly lapped at the backs of her feet, her skirt hem fluttering, and she gazed at the jade-green lake surface.
After a long time, another person rapidly flew over from the distance under the night curtain. It was the returning Qin Jue.
Qin Jue landed at the lakeside and looked around, appearing to hate something with gritted teeth. But unfortunately the traces of Yu Qing’s trio were long gone, and he did not know where to chase or search.
This was also something within his expectations when he returned. They could not possibly stay here obediently waiting for him to come back and capture them. It was normal that they had run away.
What was beyond expectation was that he again saw the white-clad beautiful figure by the lake. His heart suddenly felt fearful and uneasy, his mouth full of bitter taste. He truly did not know how to explain himself.
He had long heard of the great name of the fire cricket. It was said that even Xuan-level cultivators had difficulty catching it. When the Jian Yuan Hall had sent subordinates to the ancient tomb wasteland to catch it, he had heard his subordinates report back that the fire cricket was not easy to deal with. This time he had personally experienced it.
To put it plainly, he had not caught it.
He chased and chased all the way, chasing with his life, chasing very far in one breath, and then the fire cricket’s shadow disappeared.
How could he be resigned? He searched everywhere, almost going mad.
In this dark night, looking for something that could run, and ran faster than him, and was also very small in size. How could one possibly find it?
Crazed, he searched around aimlessly, nearly driving himself to collapse. The last chance the immortal had given him, was it just gone like this?
He himself did not know what was wrong with him. How could he let the fire cricket run away right under his eyelids?
He truly had not dreamed that that damned fellow would actually disregard his own life and death to release the fire cricket.
But he had to admit, as expected of the Tanhua Scholar who was the world’s number one talent. Suddenly pulling such a move completely threw him into a fluster, forcing him to temporarily let the other party go, forcing him to urgently chase the insect first.
Now he had hurried back, hoping he could still find those three fellows. Perhaps as their master they had a way to recall the fire cricket. This was his only hope now.
However, hope was shattered, and he had to face the white-clad immortal.
He leaped, landing not far behind the white-clad immortal, then respectfully stepped forward with small steps to salute. “Greetings, Immortal.”
The white-clad immortal with flowing long hair wasted no words. She raised her hand and pointed in a direction on the lake surface. “Seven li from here underwater, those three are hiding there.”
“…” Qin Jue looked up in astonishment, then followed the direction the immortal’s finger pointed, only coming back to himself after a good while. He immediately knelt down and kowtowed. “Thank you, Immortal, for pointing out the way.”
Although a trace of doubt inexplicably flashed through his heart, after getting up he still impatiently leaped up and flew away, rapidly skimming over the lake surface all the way, quickly turning into a black dot and disappearing into the distance.
The white-clad immortal by the shore was expressionless.
A distance of seven li was nothing for Qin Jue’s cultivation level, and he quickly arrived.
However, this whole day and night, he had almost been constantly rushing about, hardly stopping at all. His internal energy consumption was indeed enormous, but he was still confident in dealing with Yu Qing’s trio.
When he reached about the right distance, he did a headfirst dive through the air and directly plunged into the water to search.
After a moment, the water surface in this area seemed to show signs of churning and turbidity. Then undercurrents surged, and the water surface rippled.
Suddenly three human figures successively shot out from the water. After leaping out of the water, they had no choice but to fall back onto the surface. It was precisely Yu Qing’s trio, still holding swords in their hands.
The three had panicked expressions all over their faces. After falling into the water, they swam at full speed beneath the surface, quickly leaving this churning turbid area like fish.
Earlier when the three had submerged in this area, they had felt something abnormal underwater. They saw many giant skeletons, giving the feeling of mountains piled up underwater.
Later, that is just now, they suddenly discovered that Qin Jue had also jumped into the water searching for them, startling them.
And at the same time, the giant skeletons at the bottom of the water suddenly collapsed. A colossal thing emerged from the bottom of the water, also the most enormous thing they least wanted to face.
The three were nearly pressed down by the colossal thing’s countless tentacles. Fortunately, Qin Jue’s strength was formidable, attracting the colossal thing’s combined encirclement and suppression, giving the three of them a chance to catch their breath. There was nothing to hesitate about. Escape was the only option. They fled for their lives in the water with all their might.
Their cultivation was insufficient. Although they could not run swiftly on water like walking on ripples, relying on their cultivation they could still enter water like fish, shuttling through the water quite rapidly.
Splash!
Surging waves and towering billows. On the lake surface illuminated by star and moonlight, a pillar-like tentacle rose.
The tentacle coiled around a long spear. The long spear pierced through Qin Jue’s back from behind, threading Qin Jue through in mid-air.
Qin Jue, bleeding from front and back, held a sword in one hand and tightly gripped the spear shaft that pierced his abdomen with the other. He glanced at the three people rapidly fleeing in the water, revealing a miserable smile, seemingly talking to himself. “Tanhua Scholar, have I been calculated by you again?”
Just at this moment, there was also a hibiscus emerging from water. An enormous tentacle lifted up a human figure, a white-clad woman. It was precisely his white-clad immortal.
Standing barefoot on the tentacle, she approached him and replied. “He did not calculate you. You are too stupid. I guided you step by step to his front, yet you actually let the fire cricket run away. What meaning is there for someone like you to live?”
It was actually the immortal punishing him. Qin Jue’s face was full of shock. He did not understand, and said with grief and indignation. “Immortal, you just pointed out the direction for this lowly one to chase and capture them. Why are you instead helping them?”
White-clad woman: “I am not helping them. Since I have personally acted, do you think they can still run? Their ability to come to my lair was originally induced by me. What I feared was that you, this idiot, would fail, making it convenient for me to act personally. Only by being far enough from those three groups of people would I not fear being detected by those three groups when I act.
When they just hid in the water, I could have killed them. Not killing them was to avoid startling the snake by beating the grass. Your cultivation is higher than theirs. You could easily escape, and could easily force me to make bigger movements. From the moment you saw me, it was impossible for me to let you leave alive.”
Qin Jue heard something different from her words. Suddenly alert, he angrily shouted. “You are not the Cloud Immortal. Who are you?”
White-clad woman: “Who I am, you who kneel and kowtow are not worthy to know.”
The tentacle skewering Qin Jue began to wave, about to slap him toward the water surface.
And at this moment Qin Jue also went all out. “Ahh!” He suddenly let out a tragic roar. His entire person actually forcibly pulled himself off the spear that pierced him, shooting toward the white-clad woman.
He also disregarded the long spear thrusting at him from behind again, directly fighting desperately. Blood choked in his mouth, carrying endless grief and indignation, he slashed toward the white-clad woman with full force.
The white-clad woman did not have the slightest intention to dodge.
Shua. Her entire person was instantly split diagonally into two halves by Qin Jue’s sword. Yet no blood was seen. Instead, the original form of a ghost fetus was revealed.
The instant he saw the ghost fetus’s original form, Qin Jue’s eyes widened. Although he had not seen it before, he had heard of it. Seeing the tentacles before his eyes again, and thinking again of so many tentacles churning underwater, he seemed to remember something.
Pu! The pursuing spear again pierced through his chest, directly slapping him into the water.
In the water, tentacles shot out to greet him, instantly coiling around him like pythons. The sharp tips of the tentacles poured into his mouth. Very quickly, the entangled Qin Jue rapidly withered into a skeleton. Then he was released, slowly sinking into the turbid lake bottom.
Yu Qing’s trio, fleeing for their lives, looked up from time to time. Seeing that they were close to the shore, they suddenly noticed something wrong. They all turned their heads to look, only seeing that a wall of waves suddenly rose in the lake, pushing higher and higher, arriving before them in an instant.
The three immediately lost control of their bodies. Like small boats in surging waves, they were thrown up by the waves, then immediately swallowed by the enormous waves.
The mountain-toppling enormous waves crashed onto the shore, then rapidly flowed back into the lake. The momentum was grand and shocking, disturbing the weather of the area.
The three people who had crashed onto the shore were again dragged back into the lake by the enormous force of the water flow.
The three almost simultaneously swung the swords in their hands, fiercely thrusting them into the ground. Both hands gripped the sword hilts tightly.
The vegetation uprooted by the water flow, the soil swept back, the random stones rolled back, all came at the three people’s bodies.
The shore-crashing enormous waves finally receded. The three people left on the shore were covered all over with grass fragments, as if wrapped in cocoons formed of grass.
Yu Qing released one hand, sweeping away the rubbish covering his head and face with one move. He had just spat several times when he suddenly saw a pair of beautiful bare feet standing before his eyes.
He jerked his head up, only seeing a white-clad woman standing before him, looking down from above, revealing a gentle smile toward him. “I said, we would meet again. I also said, I would make you beg for life but be unable to live, and beg for death but be unable to die.”
The corner of Yu Qing’s mouth twitched violently. Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie, who were also looking up, were stunned. Nan Zhu cried out in alarm, “Yun Xi!”
Sensing movement behind him, Yu Qing quickly turned his head to look. He only saw an enormous and terrifying figure rising from the turbulent lake water, countless tentacles waving about, who knew how many times larger than the one in the Jian Yuan Mountain ancient tomb.
“Damn it!”
Yu Qing cursed once, his face full of fierceness, his intention to go all out very obvious.
He knew too well that falling into the opponent’s hands, he would probably truly face a fate worse than death.
He slapped the ground with one palm and rose, drawing his sword by the momentum. A sword light immediately flipped the white-clad woman onto the ground. The latter turned into a ghost fetus upon falling to the ground.
“Run!” Yu Qing roared and ran.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie sprang up and ran after him.
Suddenly a rumbling sound appeared in the sky above. Enormous tentacles one after another绞杀 toward the earth like windmills, sweeping across the earth.
Earth and stones flew apart. The three martial brothers were as anxious as homeless dogs, chaotic as ants on a hot pan, running east and west, jumping around incessantly.
The three fleeing people seemed to be toyed with. Not only did they not escape, they were instead forced back.
Seeing nowhere to escape, Yu Qing, nearly in despair, suddenly fixed his gaze. He discovered that house with the sign hanging saying “Yun Jian,” which seemed to have been shifted quite a bit by the enormous waves. Under such powerful impact from the enormous waves, that house was unexpectedly completely unharmed.
“Go!” Yu Qing roared again, dodging and advancing under the constantly stabbing and falling tentacle strikes.
Actually without his calling, Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie had no thoughts left at all. They already completely did not know what to do. In short, wherever old fifteen ran, they would steel their hearts and flee there, desperately rolling and fleeing without stop.