Chapter 69: Escape

The blood general was standing right in front of Long Tao. Long Tao was shocked upon noticing that the general managed to catch up to him. The blood general on the other hand was shocked to see an insect of Qi master level 3 standing in front, and even more shocking thing was that he just killed one of his men who were at advanced Qi master right in front of him in an effortless manner. It was as if the Qi master advance level practitioner was some weed being cleaved out by a sickle. And the show of brute strength, as he crushed the other guy was even more astounding. The blood general had never seen such a practitioner in his life. Although he was familiar with skipping levels to fight, fighting with a difference of 6 levels and overwhelming the opponent was unknown even to him.

The general calmed himself down as he looked at Long Tao and asked" Who the hell are you and why did you kill my people?". Long Tao was nervous at first but then he remembered that the blood general was still new to this region and didn't know what actually occurred" I am an independent practitioner and I am here to hunt beats in the beast tide. Your men attacked me first and tried to capture me. When asked about my crime, they were adamant. Being arrogant with this small amount of power lead to their deaths. Who the hell are you?" Feign an act was the first idea that came into Long Tao's mind. He wanted to see how it would play out with the general.

"Independent cultivator with such great skills doesn't exist. I am impressed by how easily you managed to kill all of my people, but you will have to pay for your crimes. My people are not something you can hunt as you like." Long Tao gave out a serious expression. It was as if he was in some sort of dilemma, as to what to do. The Blood General was not a fool. His gut told him that the practitioner in front of him was not an ordinary one. He needed to capture and excavate the secrets that this boy holds. It is the only way to find a reason for his feelings. He took an attack stance. The motive was clear, he was to capture the boy, and do minimum harm in the process.

The Blood general moved and threw a punch at Long Tao. Long Tao took the stance to guard against it and was pushed far behind. This was an effortless attack from a Qi general and Long Tao couldn't even take a single punch. He spewed blood on the ground. This was the first time that Long Tao has been injured since he started cultivation. He believed in the meticulous planning of his path of martial way and had never ceased to overcome a difficulty. This was the first time that he felt his enemy was someone he couldn't beat. From his estimation, he has to reach the 9th layer of Qi master just to take the previous punch properly. "Can you tell me his cultivation.". The keeper was silent for some time and then irritatingly said" The guy's cultivation is at intermediate Qi general, level 5 most probably. You are no match for him. You need to hold via some means. The absorption is already 85% done, just 4 hours more and we will be having the whole mine for ourselves. ".

"Prepare yourself. I don't care about mine anymore. You will abort the absorption when I say and we are going to teleport out of here. This is not something I can hold without the two beats, and they are busy fighting among themselves." Long Tao was now searching for a way to get out of This place when suddenly Blood general gave out the laughter of surprise." You are able to take a hit of mine while staying conscious. Your body seems to be hiding multiple secrets. You are on my must capture list now. "Another punch was thrown at him. This time long Tao used all his power into guarding but was still thrown far away by the impact. Although he didn't spurt out blood, his organ was shaken a bit. The reason he was able to hold was because of the body cultivation he had reached.

The Blood general was shocked. He was quite sure that he used more power in this punch than the previous one, and the boy before him didn't seem to be injured heavily. Just how tough was this guy's body. He wanted to continue, but suddenly a loud hiss was heard. A large shadow threw itself at Blood general and he was pushed back in the clash. Looking at the clear picture, a new entity had entered the brawl now. It was the Slytherin. It had been attracted by the fight of the metal clawed bear and the silver-winged condor. The guy was a huge one and all the things which it crawled upon began to decay from the poison on its body. This beast was one of the dept users of poison. Even the blood general was alarmed.

The Slytherin crawled towards the blood general and began attacking him. As a beast that had been out in the wild for a long period, it instantly recognized that the bigger threat was the Blood general. It first decided to take care of him and then would devour Long Tao too. The Slytherin started to attack the general with its body. It was to be noted that the scales on the body of the Slytherin were quite hard and it had been naturally modified to act as a perfect defense mechanism in case of needs. The other fact that one needed to take an account for was that the Slytherin was still not using venom, one of its most lethal weapons of use. The Blood general was aware of it and hence had his guard up while clashing with the Slytherin.

As the brawl had started, Long Tao made a run into the mines. Neither the general nor the Slytherin were concentrating on him as they knew he couldn't run away from the mines and began clashing at its entrance. Long Tao was already inside the cave by now and was on his way towards the artifact. He knew that he couldn't waste any time, because the duo clashing outside may change their minds anytime and decide to come into the mines. Soon enough Long Tao was at the core of the upper mine. He could see cracks on the ground and natural energy gushing out of it. The artifact was nowhere to be visible, but Long Tao decided to make contact.

"Where are you". "The absorption is at 90% now. I am about to be finished. You need to hold for another 2 hours and we can go out.". Long Tao laughed nervously. Another 2 hours. He would be dead/captured at any moment and this guy wanted him to be calm and hold for another 2 hours. Long Tao started to think about what he could do for the next period of time. Then he looked around and an idea struck his mind. Due to the continuous mining expedition of the Chu country, the walls were shallow now. If he were able to collapse the whole floor, then even if the two entities outside didn't die, they would be stuck here. He could take that chance and escape. The next thing he needed to do was to find a way to collapse the whole floor. Long Tao had drawn lots of exploding talisman when he was learning both in firmament palace and the crimson lord world. But the amount that was about to be used was substantial.

Long Tao did the economics and found out that the loss incurred would worth the gain received if he managed to take the whole mine. The puppets and controlled soldiers were summoned and handed with the talisman. Long Tao already knew the structure of the mine and hence, he identified the weakest spots available for the attack to be successful and result in the absolute collapse of the mine. The talisman was stacked out and just as the plan was about to end, the fight outside stopped. He could hear shadows approaching the interior of the mines. Both the Blood general and the Slytherin decided to explore the interior, giving up on the fight outside.

The Qi in the atmosphere had already pointed out that there was a natural resource here. They needed to snatch it. Long Tao asked the keeper again" How much longer?". The keeper said "98%, just some more time.", but just then two figures appeared before Long Tao. Both the Blood general and the Slytherin reached at the same time and were eying the surrounding. Even the Blood general could tell from the cracks in the floor that there was something below, but the QI was beginning to disappear. Both the figure looked at Long Tao who smiled and said:" You two seem exhausted from the fight, why don't you rest for a bit and then we can continue the conversation".

The Blood general began to advance towards Long Tao, but the Slytherin sounded a loud hiss as if proclaiming that Long Tao was its prey. "Are you going to heckle with me for this brat. I will have him no matter what the consequences would be." The Slytherin gave out a loud hiss, but suddenly Long Tao gave out a laugh." None of you two seem top ask for my opinion. I am not your slave to take possession of. If you ask me, I would like you two to be buried down here.". Long Tao put up a hand sign, and a loud bang was heard, accompanied by multiple blasts. The mine began to shake and collapse.

The artifact came out at the proper time, and Long Tao was absorbed into it. Then it disappeared, leaving the blood general and the Slytherin confused in the mess. The roof shook and collapsed on them. Long Tao was out now and started to escape when the keeper's voice sounded" You should go in the direction of the fight. They are already dead due to the confrontation. You are a lucky brat, to get your hands on the corpses of two level4 beasts.". As Long Tao appeared at the scene, he found out that the keeper was right. There were two corpses lying in here, dead. He collected them in his case, looked towards the mine one more time, and then escaped towards the Jiao country. The adventure this time was breathtaking and took him near to the end of his life.