Chapter 4821 — Blood Sacrifice Domain

Just as Wei Zhao's mind raced to work out a countermeasure, a frightful suction force suddenly came from behind him. The first pull felt much like the earlier Chest-Rending Claw, but an instant later he sensed something was badly wrong.

This time the force was ten times stronger than before, and worse, because the surrounding air had turned into bloody black qi, his whole body felt sunk in a mire. Even shifting slightly was desperately difficult, let alone fighting the sudden pull from behind.

In the darkness, a ghastly blood finger wreathed in a faint ghostly glow pressed close against Wei Zhao's back. The next instant it looked certain to punch through his heart from behind—and Wei Zhao was utterly unaware of it.

Fortunately, the jade pendant gave warning. In that split second, on the very brink of disaster, Wei Zhao did not hesitate: he used the Extreme Butterfly Microstep and, at the same time, blasted true qi wildly from his back regardless of the cost. Only then did he finally break free of the double shackles of the bloody mire and the suction force, shooting forward like a cannonball.

Yet before Wei Zhao could breathe easy, the jade pendant's warning rang out again, sharp and urgent—and this time the pull from behind abruptly reversed direction, sucking him forward instead. Because of the speed he had just unleashed at full power, Wei Zhao could not even stop now; his body hurtled forward, utterly beyond his control.

At last Wei Zhao spotted the ghastly blood finger waiting ahead, and his scalp went numb. He simply could not control himself; at this rate he would be delivered straight onto it and impaled. One look told him this blood finger was a hundred times more dangerous than the Chest-Rending Claw from before!

Damn it—fine, I'll gamble my life! In that desperate moment Wei Zhao's fighting spirit was finally roused. He could no longer worry about such things. If he could not stop, then he would charge straight ahead without a backward glance and see who was fiercer!

In that instant, Wei Zhao fired off two blasts of Five Elements Killing Qi toward the front and added a surge of lightning power as well. He would surely be wounded by the blood finger this way, but the Xishan great one would not come off well either—it was a posture of pure life-and-death recklessness.

"You think you can trade lives with this old man? You underestimate me!" The Xishan great one gave a cold laugh, and before his words even fell, the blood finger ahead vanished silently into the bloody mire.

Wei Zhao's heart lurched with dread. By doing that, the other man had cleared the path ahead, but every move Wei Zhao had just made had been rendered entirely pointless. That outcome was far more galling than a mutual wounding, because it meant he was being played with at will.

Only someone like Wei Zhao could replenish true qi endlessly, anywhere and at any time. Anyone else would have lost a great deal of strength from that single exchange. This Xishan great one was truly cunning and slippery: a few casual, perilous feints on his side could effortlessly drain an opponent's true qi dry—a victory without even bloodying his blade.

"This Blood Sacrifice really is damn eerie!" Wei Zhao cursed inwardly. With the clinging black qi and bloody mire all around, this place had become the other man's home ground entirely. Wei Zhao could not even catch a shadow of him; the enemy could strike or withdraw as he pleased, and the slightest lapse on Wei Zhao's part would invite unimaginable consequences. At this rate, even an immortal would be ground down alive.

"Looks like this isn't some trash evil cultivator—he's got real skill, even knows a flashy move like Blood Sacrifice! Low-grade as it is, at the Xuan Sheng level it's practically invincible. You really are out of luck, kid. Hurry up and find a way to run—you can't beat him." The ghost thing spoke with maddening composure.

"Screw it, Senior, you've really screwed me over!" Wei Zhao howled in protest. It was the ghost thing who had egged him on to lure the Xishan great one out and kill him, and now look—the man was chasing him down relentlessly while he had no answer at all. This time the ghost thing had truly done him dirty.

"How was I supposed to know a mere Xuan Sheng evil cultivator would know Blood Sacrifice? This is your own bad luck, kid—you can't pin it on me. Heh heh." The ghost thing gave a sheepish chuckle.

In truth, it really was not his fault. Even by his own breadth of vision and experience, Blood Sacrifice counted as an earth-defying move.

The existence of the Blood Sacrifice Domain put these evil cultivators naturally in an unassailable position, and their attack power rose dramatically with it as well. Facing peers of the same level, they cut them down like chopping vegetables, and even killing across realms was easy. The one drawback was the enormous price of using the move—just as with the Xishan great one this time, who had spent one of his own arms outright.

"Fine, fine, fine—it's my own rotten luck, all right?" Wei Zhao gave a speechless, bitter smile. This time he had completely given up any thought of continuing to tangle with the Xishan great one. After all, even the ghost thing said he could not win, so there was certainly no fighting to be had; the only option left was to run.

The restrictive effect of the Blood Sacrifice Domain was plain to see—especially for speed-type fighters. Once caught inside, they were suppressed to death. Fortunately, Wei Zhao differed from ordinary speed fighters: he was faster still, and his true qi was limitless!

With the terrifying speed of the Extreme Butterfly Microstep, even reduced by fifty percent it remained considerable. Add to that Wei Zhao's periodic no-holds-barred blasts of true qi, and he not only kept up a fearsomely fast momentum but, more importantly, his trajectory was erratic—now left, now right, every shift abrupt and without warning—so that the Xishan great one, despite holding absolute initiative, simply could not find a suitable opening for a killing blow.

"That damned dog runs fast!" The Xishan great one abruptly lost his composure. He had paid the price of an arm to use Blood Sacrifice—if he still failed to kill Wei Zhao now, he would have lost far too much.

In fact, within this Blood Sacrifice Domain, if he were willing to trade wounds with Wei Zhao and fight to mutual ruin, openings like the one just now would come at any moment. But he was unwilling to accept that. He had already paid an arm; if he then fought to mutual ruin with the man, he would likely be crippled if not dead. What would be the point of killing Wei Zhao then?

He was killing Wei Zhao only to use his head as a stepping stone, to open a path to the old Xishan Sect and thereby soar to the heavens. But if he were crippled in the process and his strength fell sharply, then never mind soaring—the fellow evil cultivators of the same sect in this branch alone would devour him alive!

Fleeing madly all the way, the Xishan great one who had used Blood Sacrifice was formidable, but when it came to the art of escape, even the Kaishan-stage cultivators of the old Xishan Sect had been helpless against Wei Zhao—let alone a mere late Xuan Sheng.

One chased, one fled, and a full day passed again. Even Wei Zhao, with his inexhaustible true qi, was somewhat worn out, while the Xishan great one, down an arm, had been drained badly. It was only thanks to the Blood Sacrifice Domain, which meant he scarcely needed to expend his own true qi, that he had not been ground to death outright—otherwise ten Xishan great ones would have been exhausted to nothing.