Chapter 4543 — A Chase and a Flight

With a piercing shriek that tore through the air, the bone claw instantly traced a lightning-bright arc, hurtling straight for the crown of Wei Zhao's head with a speed no eye could follow, as though determined to crush it to pieces in a single grasp.

Before the claw had even arrived, the dreadful malevolence radiating from it had already overwhelmed him; the spirit bird beneath him could not so much as stir its wings, and bird and rider alike plunged straight downward.

"Detonate!" Fortunately, Wei Zhao had been ready for exactly this. In that sliver of an instant, the top-grade bomb he had been hurriedly assembling all this while flew from his hand, meeting the hideous bone claw above him dead-on.

BOOM! A thunderous blast rang out across the whole of the Weihu Sea in an instant; tidal waves surged up, the skies and waters changed color, and every soul in Weihu City turned pale with shock. The folk of Mocheng were already well acquainted with that devastating roar—but this was their first time living through it.

At the edge of the shockwave, the spirit bird burst out with Wei Zhao, reeling and staggering, beating its wings frantically as it fled at top speed. At the heart of the blast, the bone claw—though it had taken a vicious hit with no chance to brace—merely paused in its motion. It was not so much as scratched.

"Heh heh, and you thought a little piddling strength like that could ambush this Patriarch? What a pipe dream!" The Old Sect of the Western Hills sneered as he drew the bone claw back. Wei Zhao's top-grade bomb was enough to kill a high-tier Nascent Soul expert outright—even a Xuan Ascension cultivator caught off guard would come away black and blue. But to take on him, the Old Sect of the Western Hills? He was still a long, long way off.

Listening to that jeering laughter behind him, Wei Zhao felt a chill creep into his heart. The assembly time this round had been short, true, but the top-grade bomb was, after all, his final killing move—even the Furious Flame Thousand Bursts Fist could not match its power. And yet even that had done nothing at all against the Old Sect of the Western Hills.

It wasn't that Wei Zhao had mistimed his strike; his strongest killing move simply had not been able to scratch his foe in the slightest. It had barely interrupted the man's attack—that was all. The gulf between them was enough to drive a person to despairing silence.

"Run, and run fast. If that crooked, heretical bastard catches up to you again before you reach the Five Venoms Marsh, you're a dead man, kid," the Ghost Thing urged in his mind.

"You don't say..." Wei Zhao shook his head again and again with a bitter smile. He needed no urging to flee for the Southern Island for all he was worth—and this time was far more dangerous than the last. Before, the Old Sect of the Western Hills had still wanted to use him to refine a trump-card puppet, and so dared not lightly harm his flesh. Now there was no such scruple. The man had opened with a killing move.

The top-grade bomb might just barely block one strike, but a second was utterly out of the question. And he knew well enough that his enemy could lock onto him with his divine sense and appear at his heels with a mere turn of thought. To think of shaking him off on the spirit bird's speed alone—how could that possibly work?

"Rest easy. So long as your absolute speed can outstrip that crooked, heretical bastard, you needn't fear him dropping in on you out of nowhere. He can no longer lock onto you with his divine sense," the Ghost Thing said with a sudden laugh.

"Huh? But I haven't smeared on any marsh mud?" Wei Zhao blinked.

"With me here, what the hell do you need marsh mud for!" the Ghost Thing snapped. Never mind the Old Sect of the Western Hills' smug posturing—at his peak, before this former Azure Dragon, the man was nothing but a third-rate piece of trash not worth mentioning. Even reduced to his present sorry state, blocking that man's divine-sense lock was child's play for him.

"Er..." Only then did Wei Zhao recall that the Ghost Thing was a grandmaster of the primordial spirit. In the use of divine sense he was at least ten streets ahead of the Old Sect of the Western Hills. Then he smiled bitterly. "If you knew that all along, why didn't you step in last time? I thought I was done for more than once."

"Last time that thing wasn't going straight for the kill. Why would I risk making a move?" The Ghost Thing curled his lip dismissively. "Remember this, kid—every time I act, there's one more chance for someone to spot a flaw in me. And once anyone learns I'm holed up in you, then neither of us will ever have a peaceful day again."

"Noted." Wei Zhao nodded gravely. He said no more, and urged the spirit bird on at full speed toward the Five Venoms Marsh.

Meanwhile, the Old Sect of the Western Hills, shrouded in his black mist, gave a savage laugh and, out of habit, tried to descend upon Wei Zhao's head—only to find, a moment later, that not a damn thing had moved. He was still hovering exactly where he had been.

"Hm?" The Old Sect of the Western Hills knitted his dark brows and instinctively moved to confirm Wei Zhao's position again. Then his expression changed drastically: Wei Zhao had simply vanished from his divine-sense perception. And that was not all—the spirit bird had vanished with him. What in the hell kind of ghost story was this?

On a fine day like this, not so much as a blade of grass within five li—no, within a hundred li—should have been able to escape the Old Sect of the Western Hills' divine-sense lock. Yet for some reason, the auras of Wei Zhao and the spirit bird had genuinely, utterly disappeared.

It was an eerie, uncanny sensation, as though some exquisite technique had wiped them clean out of existence. Even the Old Sect of the Western Hills admitted himself utterly incapable of such a feat. It was simply beyond belief.

"Waaah-yah-yah-yah! Ling Yi, you little wretch, don't you think you can escape this way—this Patriarch is going to kill you today if it's the last thing I do!" The Old Sect of the Western Hills was hopping mad with rage. Yet he swiftly calmed himself, focused his gaze, and peered into the distance. Then a surge of incomparably mighty true qi erupted from the black mist, and his whole body shot off like an arrow in hot pursuit of Wei Zhao's flight path.

He was, after all, a towering figure of the Mountain-Opening stage, a mighty devil-cultivator; when the Old Sect of the Western Hills truly cut loose, his speed was nothing short of astonishing—especially now, burning true qi without regard for cost. His flying speed was a good notch faster even than the spirit bird's!

Watching that black speck behind him draw ever nearer, Wei Zhao—who had just breathed a sigh of relief—was once more face to face with a mortal foe. He had already rated the Old Sect of the Western Hills' strength highly, but he had never imagined the man could still catch up like this, flying faster than the spirit bird itself. Was this thing even human?

Faster, a little faster. All of Wei Zhao's hopes for survival now rested on the spirit bird. The Ghost Thing had already made it impossible for their foe to descend on them at will; if even so he could not escape, then it could only be that fate willed it so.

Thankfully, Huang Xiaotao's spirit bird did not disappoint him in the end. Its speed still fell short of the Old Sect of the Western Hills', but the distance opened up in the earlier chaos was enough: it succeeded in reaching the skies above the Five Venoms Marsh just before its pursuer could close the gap! (To be continued...)