Chapter 5247: Forcing Oneself
Chu Feng soon arrived at the Purpleflame Upper Realm’s Purpleflame Mountain Range, where the Situ World Spiritist Clan’s branch was located. It was a vast purple mountain range spanning an area comparable to an Ordinary Realm.
The purple color came from a flower called Purpleflame Flower, a precious medicinal herb with a unique fragrance that could be used for forging pills. The mountain range and the realm were named after it.
The Purpleflame Flower could only thrive in the conditions of the Purpleflame Mountain Range. It was impossible to cultivate it anywhere else. That was why the Situ World Spiritist Clan had constructed a formation over the mountain range to monopolize this precious resource.
The formation served two purposes: Collecting the flower fragrance and preventing outsiders from intruding into the area.
It went without saying that the formation had to be extremely powerful to cover such a huge mountain range. Even an average True Dragon World Spiritist would struggle to achieve this feat, let alone a God-cloak World Spiritist.
Even a Half-God level cultivator wouldn’t be able to breach the formation.
This left Chu Feng in a dilemma.
However, he soon realized that Situ World Spiritist Clansmen could freely enter the barrier as long as they had a token on them. This simplified matters for him.
However, he didn’t dive into action right away. He was operating alone now, so he would always do three things before making a move. He would construct a concealment formation, activate Divine Concealment, and prepare an escape teleportation formation.
Only after carrying out these three steps did he finally kill a Situ World Spiritist Clansman and steal his token.
He was able to pass through the powerful formation with the token in hand, but he noticed right away that his teleportation formation had been neutralized by the formation.
In other words, he needed to construct a new teleportation formation if he wanted to use it to escape from the mountain range, so he quickly headed to a remote location and did so.
He knew that there was a powerful protective formation inside of him, but he didn’t know what would happen if he invoked it. More importantly, he didn’t want to waste his precious protective formation on the likes of these people.
Thus, it was best for him to proceed carefully.
Once he was done preparing his escape measures, he proceeded to construct a barrier to prevent the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen from getting away.
Once everything was in place, Chu Feng began sneaking into the depths of the mountain range to scout the situation. Considering how important this place was, the Situ World Spiritist Clan might have dispatched experts here.
Upon realizing that the strongest expert here was only at rank eight Martial Exalted level elder, he activated his barrier and sealed off the area. Then, he killed off the elder by piercing through his dantian.
“It’s you?!”
By the time the elder registered what was going on, his dantian had already been shattered, rendering him helpless.
“Run! Chu Feng is here!” the elder screamed.
He knew that he was already dead meat, so he could only pray that the others could get away.
Chu Feng didn’t bother stopping him, as he was confident that none of the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen would be able to breach the barrier he had constructed beforehand.
Upon hearing the shouts, the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen immediately fled in a fluster, but they quickly found themselves trapped inside a barrier. They couldn’t help but fluster as the cries of agony from their surroundings grew louder and louder until it was finally their turn to scream.
It didn’t take long for Chu Feng to decapitate all of the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen, but shockingly, none of them was dead yet. Even without their bodies, they were still screaming their heads off.
Chu Feng had preserved their lives with their formations. That was his way of torturing them.
Pah!
Pah pah!
A series of claps echoed.
Chu Feng raised his head, only to widen his eyes in astonishment. Unbeknownst to him, there were two people watching him from the sky.
One of them was a white-haired elder with a bulky figure and a cold expression, who quietly looked at Chu Feng with wariness in his eyes.
The other was a black-haired elder with an emaciated physique but glowering eyes reminiscent of a ferocious beast. It was evident that he had taken many lives in his time.
The one who had clapped was the black-haired elder.
Neither of them was wearing the Situ World Spiritist Clan’s robes, but Chu Feng could sense that they didn’t come with goodwill. To make things worse, they were both stronger than him.
“How vicious. I was still doubting my ears when I heard the stories, but I have no choice but to believe it now.”
The black-haired elder eyed the suffering Situ World Spiritist Clansmen and broke out into hearty laughter. He seemed to derive joy from watching such bloodshed.
“Who are you?” Chu Feng asked.
“Do you remember Yue Lian?” the black-haired elder asked.
“You’re Yue Lian’s subordinates?”
“That’s right.”
“How did you know I’m here?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. It sure is fascinating to meet someone who has the same hobbies as me. I’m particularly into torturing talented prodigies. Lord Yue Lian did order us to capture you alive, but he didn’t say that we can’t torture you beforehand,” the black-haired elder said teasingly.
It was almost as if Chu Feng was meat on his chopping board.
Weng!
Chu Feng immediately invoked his teleportation formation and vanished.
“Trying to escape?”
The white-haired elder whipped out the Situ World Spiritist Clan’s token and activated it. The surroundings shook intensely in response. He was attempting to reinforce the formation to hinder Chu Feng’s teleportation.
“Did he manage to get away?” the black-haired elder asked in a panic.
He had exerted his oppressive might to stop Chu Feng the moment he disappeared, but he realized that he was unable to stop the latter at all. Despite his old age, he was a playful man. Due to that, he hadn’t informed the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen that they were here.
In fact, they had also gotten in by stealing the clansmen’s tokens. Even the special token that could control the formation in the white-haired elder’s hand was stolen as well.
None of the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen had known that there were two experts dispatched here to protect them.
This was the black-haired elder’s idea.
That was why he was frightened. If Yue Lian learned that Chu Feng had escaped under their eyelids due to his playfulness, they would surely be punished for their failure.
“The formation around the mountain range obstructs the power of teleportation, so he can only teleport within the mountain range. I have already modified the formation such that even those with the tokens wouldn’t be able to leave the mountain range anymore. Thus, he must still be inside the mountain range at the moment,” the white-haired elder said.
“That’s good.”
The black-haired elder heaved a sigh of relief.
“I told you to not fool around and make a move straight away. Do you finally understand what a tricky opponent that lad is?” the white-haired elder grumbled.
“You slipped up too, Brother Tian. I have devoted myself to martial cultivation, but you’re a White Dragon God-cloak World Spiritist. You should have been able to stop him from getting away if you have constructed a formation in advance,” the black-haired elder replied.
“That’s hard to say. There’s something unusual about that lad’s world spiritist techniques. I can’t see through his formations even though his spirit power is beneath mine. It’ll be wise not to underestimate him. Let’s quickly find him lest complications occur,” the white-haired elder said.
“Let’s split up,” the black-haired elder suggested.
The two of them began combing the mountain range with their respective searching means, but to their horror, they were unable to find anything at all despite having searched the area thrice. Left with no choice, they could only return to the Situ World Spiritist Clan’s branch, where the screaming had already come to a halt.
The Situ World Spiritist Clansmen had finally succumbed to their injuries and died.
“Brother Tian, are you sure that Chu Feng is still inside this mountain range? Why can’t we find him?” the black-haired elder asked.
“I sealed off the mountain range the moment he invoked his teleportation formation, so there’s no way he could have gotten out. There’s no way he could have breached the formation and escaped either. He must be hiding somewhere,” the white-haired elder said.
“Are you certain about that?” the black-haired elder asked once more.
“Yes, I am,” the white-haired elder replied.
“Brother Tian, there are two choices now.
“One, we can tell Lord Yue Lian that we arrived late and missed Chu Feng by a hair’s breadth so that whatever happened here will have nothing to do with us.
“Two, we can tell Lord Yue Lian that we arrived here on time, met the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen, and took the master token over the formation from them. We proceeded to patrol the mountain range afterward, but Chu Feng secretly sneaked onto the grounds and massacred the clansmen. We were able to seal off the formation in time before Chu Feng made a getaway, but we weren’t able to find Chu Feng anywhere.
“We can go with either one of the stories since the Situ World Spiritist Clansmen are all dead. The first option would be the safer option. We will be berated for arriving late, but there won’t be any problems afterward. If we go with the second option, we’ll be meritorious subjects if we manage to capture Chu Feng afterward, but if that fails, we’ll be punished for our failure.
“What do you say, Brother Tian?” the black-haired elder asked.
“The second option. I am confident that Chu Feng is still here. There’s no way he could have gotten out unless he’s a True Dragon World Spiritist,” the white-haired elder said.
“All right, I’ll trust you.”
The black-haired elder quickly used his means to inform Yue Lian about the situation here. Following that, the two of them continued scouring the area for Chu Feng, but they were still unable to find him.
Chu Feng was indeed still in the mountain range, just that he had thoroughly hidden himself using Divine Concealment and his concealment formation. Neither the black-haired elder nor the white-haired elder was strong enough to see through his concealment.
He had already noticed the changes in the formation around the mountain range. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to escape, he didn’t bother attempting that. Rather, he headed to the corner of the mountain range and dived underground, where he began cultivating.
While the black-haired elder and white-haired elder were combing the area, he had already confirmed their strength. The white-haired elder was a White Dragon God-cloak World Spiritist whereas the black-haired elder was a rank two Half-God level cultivator.
Chu Feng was no match for them at the moment, but it would be a different story if he could make a breakthrough to God-cloak.
It was fortunate that he was only a step away from reaching that level. He was previously biding his time for a suitable opportunity before making a push for it, but a more forceful measure could work as well.