Chapter 4283 — Finding the Star Ink Milk
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
No one dared show the slightest negligence. Each of them immediately pushed their movement techniques to the absolute limit, chasing hard after the direction in which Chang Daoping's figure had flickered. At a moment like this, to fall behind meant truly letting the Star Ink Milk slip through one's fingers, and living out the rest of one's days in regret.
The consequences could be even worse than that, for left to their own devices, they would not even know how to leave the ruins—they might well be trapped here to die.
Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao exchanged a glance, then likewise poured everything into the chase. Chang Daoping's current speed was in fact already extremely fast, several times greater than when they had been moving through the dense forest outside. Even with a broad, flat, empty street before them, the others found it painfully hard to keep pace with him.
Among the group, aside from Luo Tuoxiang and Cao Shishi, who were relatively stronger, the rest all wore plainly strained expressions. Chang Daoping had not made things too difficult for them, but the current pace was essentially the limit of a mid-Golden Core expert; that they struggled to keep up was entirely normal.
Watching this, Wei Zhao felt a chill creep up from the bottom of his heart. Chang Daoping truly did not mean to make things too hard for the five he had brought himself—barring mishaps, all five ought to be able to just barely keep pace. But by deliberately holding the speed at this level, his intent to make things difficult for Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, whose nominal strength was only early Golden Core, could not have been more obvious.
Any other ordinary early-Golden Core expert would not merely have failed to keep up without falling behind—they would likely have lost the trail at the very first step. It was only thanks to the fact that both Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao excelled in movement techniques and speed, and were moreover experts who had achieved perfect breakthroughs into the Golden Core stage, that their strength far exceeded that of ordinary early-Golden Core cultivators.
Wei Zhao, in particular, could replenish true qi for himself and Huang Xiaotao at any time. Free of that worry, the two could go all out; even the极限 speed of a mid-Golden Core expert could not shake them off.
When Chang Daoping discovered this, it genuinely gave him a shock. He had deliberately raised the pace so high partly so that the others would be too busy chasing to memorize the route, but on the other hand he truly had meant to shake off Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao.
After all, as far as he was concerned, by this point Wei Zhao and the other had no use value whatsoever. Rather than let them follow along and share in the Star Ink Milk, it would be better to simply ditch them halfway—clean and final, saving himself the trouble.
Yet to his surprise, these two, plainly only at early Golden Core, possessed such deep reserves of strength that even this could not shake them off. It was simply unbelievable.
As a full-fledged Nascent Soul expert, Chang Daoping could of course go even faster; if he truly set his mind to shaking off Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, it would be no difficult matter. But if he went faster still, he might not have shaken off the two of them before the others gave out first.
Though he had taken precautions before, holding something back deliberately when they passed through the Moon Shadow Formation, these people had been chosen by him, and their ties to him were anything but ordinary. Apart from Cao Shishi, his dual-cultivation partner, the rest were all loyal subordinates he had cultivated for many years. Luo Tuoxiang, for one, even had a tie of kinship—a distant cousin relationship.