Chapter 716: Xiao Nanfeng Seizes the Treasure
The ancestral fire dragon's pearl blazed with black flame. A frightening aura shot toward Ao Canghai.
"Well met. Vast seas, I invoke you!" Ao Canghai declared.
An endless deluge of seawater appeared out of nowhere, forming a raging ocean that attempted to drown the ancestral fire dragon's pearl. The clash of fire and water created huge clouds of steam as the seawater vaporized.
The ancestral fire dragon's pearl's momentum was quickly drained by the seawater. Though Ao Canghai was eagerly aiming for the relic, he had no choice but to take on the zombie king first to prevent being struck by a pincer-type attack.
Ao Canghai struck the zombie king with a flurry of blows, causing the black smoke surrounding it to dissipate.
The resulting shockwaves caused the ground itself to crack and the mountains in the vicinity to collapse.
The zombie king grew weaker and weaker, and its actions became more and more sluggish. The ancestral fire dragon's pearl gradually stopped attacking Ao Canghai; it was encased by a bubble of water.
"Good!" Ao Canghai exclaimed.
With what remained of his strength, he sent a palm technique slamming into the zombie king and propelling it into the ruins of a nearby mountain. Then, he turned and reached for the ancestral fire dragon's pearl within the bubble of water.
Just then, a shadow darted forward. The shadowy figure attacked Ao Canghai with a palm, who was forced to defend with his fist.
The two attacks struck each other and unleashed shockwaves of energy, causing the bubble of water surrounding the ancestral fire dragon's pearl to burst. The shadowy figure reached out and caught the pearl first.
"Another Boundless Immortal?" Xiao Nanfeng narrowed his eyes from afar.
Someone else was attempting to snatch the relic before he could!
The Boundless Immortal was shrouded in black fog, his features obscured. He reached out for the ancestral fire dragon's pearl, whose flames instantly shot up his arm and caused him to shudder. He was unable to attune to it instantly.
"Do you think I'll let you steal my relic? Dream on!" Ao Canghai thundered as he shot forward.
The two Boundless Immortals began to take on each other, releasing countless waves of energy into the air. The other Boundless Immortal seemed to be slightly weaker than Ao Canghai, but not by much. The two cultivators continued to fight over the relic, neither quite managing to secure it while holding the other back.
"Damn it, who are you? Are you too ashamed to reveal your identity?" Ao Canghai roared.
The Boundless Immortal was naturally unwilling to do so. He shouted, "The rest of you, attack! I've immobilized the ancestral fire dragon's pearl for the time being, and you can claim it at will. Hurry!"
"Understood!" A large group of cultivators flew by from afar.
"Claim the ancestral fire dragon's pearl!" Ao Canghai commanded his subordinates as well.
"Understood!" Ao Canghai's subordinates sent the zombies flying and rushed over.
The zombies, now undeterred, began to head toward the pearl as well.
More importantly, the zombie king had emerged from underneath a pile of rubble as well. It began to manipulate the dragon pearl from afar, causing it to shake off its pursuers and fly toward the zombie king.
"Damn it!" the two Boundless Immortals both shouted.
They shot toward the pearl without any hesitation, as did the zombie king itself.
A three-way fight unfolded.
The zombie king possessed only rudimentary intelligence, and didn't consider the possibility of allowing the two Boundless Immortals to weaken each other first. It treated them both as its enemies and attacked them to the best of its ability.
Ao Canghai and the Boundless Immortal were both frustrated by this turn of affairs, but neither was quite willing to cooperate with the other against the zombie king. As a result, they were each forced to fight two other Boundless Immortals. The situation quickly grew chaotic.
Meanwhile, Ao Canghai's subordinates, the subordinates of the Boundless Immortal cloaked in black fog, and countless zombies all shot toward the ancestral fire dragon's pearl.
Cries and shouts rang out from all over.
In the distance, a few cultivators hidden in the darkness began to shudder. They could see that the Boundless Immortal's body was already starting to give off black smoke—a sure sign of his zombification.
The zombified Boundless Immortal suddenly howled into the air as two blood-red fangs appeared in his mouth.
"Another zombie king? Hurry up—we have to flee!" Countless cultivators scrambled to get away, shrouded by the darkness.
One zombie king was fearsome enough; two would surely kill them.
In the distance, Ao Canghai continued to chase after Xiao Nanfeng, only to find the pursuers ahead of him suddenly stop.
"Where is he? Where's Xiao Nanfeng?" Ao Canghai demanded.
"He's gone! We can't find him," a Martial Aspect reported.
"Impossible. Even if his cultivation techniques are unique, he's only a True Immortal. He can't outrun you, and that ancestral fire dragon's pearl is potent enough that no ordinary storage relic can handle it. He can't just have vanished!" Ao Canghai exclaimed.
"We've lost him," the Martial Aspect replied, grimacing.
"Hold on. Who told you he was flying in this direction?" Ao Canghai suddenly asked alertly.
"Hm? Where did that blue-robed cultivator go?" someone exclaimed.
The cultivators looked around them. That blue-robed cultivator that had pointed out Xiao Nanfeng's whereabouts had vanished without a trace.
"That cultivator must have been in cahoots with Xiao Nanfeng all along. You've all been tricked!" Ao Canghai roared.
The cultivators blanched as they considered this possibility.
"But we weren't able to find Xiao Nanfeng at all after he was pummeled into the ground. We made sure to examine our surroundings with spiritual power, but we found no trace of him. If Xiao Nanfeng was already gone by then, what was the point of the blue-robed cultivator leading us astray?" another Martial Aspect asked.
Ao Canghai's eyes suddenly twitched. "That blue-robed cultivator had to be Xiao Nanfeng!"
"What? Impossible! We badly injured Xiao Nanfeng to the point where he was vomiting out blood. His robes were ruined by our attacks and the fire from the ancestral fire dragon's pearl. How could he have changed his appearance and robes so quickly?" a Martial Aspect exclaimed.
"Xiao Nanfeng must have an artifact of high-enough quality for him to store the pearl within. Furthermore, have you forgotten about the rumors regarding what happened at Taixu, and how Xiao Nanfeng took advantage of Long Er's body?"
"Possession? You mean that that blue-robed cultivator might have been a body double that Xiao Nanfeng prepared in advance? He possessed that blue-robed cultivator to mislead us?!" the Martial Aspect cried out.
"Damn it, if we had been any more observant, we'd have noticed signs of possession on that blue-robed cultivator's body—but we were all so anxious about catching Xiao Nanfeng that we didn't think of it! He really did trick us!" another Martial Aspect gritted out.
"Head back and keep searching for him!" Ao Canghai commanded.
"Understood!" The Martial Aspects rushed off furiously.
Meanwhile, in a secluded valley, Xiao Nanfeng's yin body emerged from the blue-robed cultivator's mindscape.
The blue-robed cultivator transformed into a giant sheep with a dazed expression on his face, as if he were coming to his senses.
Xiao Nanfeng knocked him unconscious and sealed his cultivation.
"Thankfully, I caught this sheep spirit just in case. It's a pity that its identity must have been exposed by now, so I can't use it any longer." Xiao Nanfeng sighed.
He stored the sheep spirit's body in the gourd by his waist, then pulled out an unconscious wolf spirit from his gourd.
He unsealed the bindings around the wolf spirit's body, then entered its mindscape. The wolf spirit woke with a shudder, then transformed into a different human.
Possessing the wolf spirit's body, Xiao Nanfeng rushed off into the distance, away from his pursuers.