A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

Chapter 666: Chapter 363: Thunder Escape Technique

“Tch, what an old trick!” the Demon Cultivator scoffed.

She wasn’t flustered in the slightest, calmly dealing with Lü Zhong’s attacks. Whether he lunged with a straight thrust or an upward slash, she reacted in the shortest possible time and dodged with perfect timing.

With a squelch, the Demon Cultivator’s claw pierced through Lü Zhong’s abdomen.

“Is that all you’ve—” The Demon Cultivator’s face was a mask of ridicule, but before she could finish, she sensed something was wrong. ‘I clearly pierced this cultivator’s chest, so why didn’t I feel a heart?’

Seeing the colorful expression on her face, Lü Zhong gave a faint smile.

The only vital point of an Incarnation Body was the head, where the Divine Soul resided. It controlled the entire body, and its loss meant the death of the Incarnation. Besides this vital point, the rest of the body, whether it was the Lower Dantian or the chest, was composed of Spiritual Qi. In essence, there was no difference.

At the same time, a black dot suddenly materialized on his fingertip.

It wasn’t large, only about the size of a sesame seed.

Yet, the moment the Demon Cultivator saw the black dot, terror filled her face. She desperately tried to pull her hand back, but Lü Zhong held it in a death grip.

Just then, Lü Zhong jabbed his finger forward.

It struck the Demon Cultivator squarely in the chest.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kill the Demon Cultivator with a single poke, but in that brief moment, she was already on the verge of breaking free, leaving him no other choice.

The scene he had envisioned did not unfold as he’d expected.

Perhaps the number of nodes was insufficient, or maybe this was its inherent effect, but the black dot’s area of influence was only the size of a fist. After absorbing a bit of the Demon Cultivator’s flesh and blood, it immediately vanished.

Lü Zhong wasn’t disappointed by this.

In fact, he had expected it.

Then, with a thought, he relinquished control of the Incarnation.

「In the Quiet Chamber.」

Lü Zhong slowly opened his eyes and began to summarize the gains and losses from the recent encounter.

His previous idea was indeed feasible. However, it had prerequisites. He probably needed to construct enough nodes, or perhaps a complete Singularity, and let them fail and collapse to create a spatial black hole. Only then could he achieve his goal of “banishment.”

Otherwise, the result would be just like what had happened a moment ago.

A moment later, another thought crossed Lü Zhong’s mind:

‘The Incarnation’s skill in Concealing Breath and Traces is a complete inheritance of my own. Logically, it shouldn’t have been discovered so quickly. And yet, it had traveled less than ten thousand li into the Vast Forest Sea before being found by a Transformed Demon Cultivator.’

‘Was it just bad luck, or…’

With insufficient information, Lü Zhong couldn’t draw any useful conclusions.

Helpless, he could only give up on the matter. He then contacted his other two Incarnations, told them about the one that had been ambushed and destroyed, and warned them to be more vigilant.

After sitting cross-legged for a while, Lü Zhong resumed his deductions on the nodes.

The days passed, one after another.

While he was in closed-door cultivation, news of the Demon Court’s reconstruction spread, causing a huge uproar in the Southern Barbarian Immortal Cultivation World.

Unsurprisingly, the various factions held inconsistent attitudes regarding the resurgence of the Demon Race. Aside from the mainstream opinion of vigilance, a number of “human traitor” sentiments also surfaced.

At the direction of the Nascent Soul cultivators, the Qian Nan Alliance began a massive manhunt.

At first, the results were quite remarkable.

But as time went on, the related trades moved into the shadows through extremely secretive channels. No matter how strict the crackdowns were after that, they couldn’t stop the rampant smuggling.

It grew more rampant with each passing year.

At the same time, a series of bloody massacres began to occur frequently in the border regions. Their purpose was to plunder inheritances, their methods were exceptionally cruel, and they often resulted in the complete annihilation of entire sects or families. At first, they happened a hundred li from the border, but then they crept forward, little by little, gradually penetrating deeper into the heartland of the Human Race as their targets changed.

Under these circumstances, Lü Zhong could no longer sit still.

The Demon Cultivators were now frequently raiding the borders, their arrogance growing by the day. This indirectly harmed his own interests, so he prepared to take action in Shuini’s stead and teach the Demon Cultivators a lesson.

He rose and walked out of the Quiet Chamber, coming face-to-face with Shuini.

Her expression was not good; there was even a faint trace of worry on her face.

“There’s bad news!”

“Just yesterday, Ming Zhao led an ambush against some Demon Cultivators, but it turned out to be a trap within a trap, and he was ambushed by them instead. After a bloody battle, the Elder and disciples of the Celestial Blade Sect were almost completely wiped out. Although Ming Zhao was lucky enough to escape with his life, he was severely injured and nearly lost his physical body!”

“I don’t think you should go this time,” Shuini said with concern.

Lü Zhong shook his head, declining her well-intentioned advice. “Ming Zhao was ambushed, and the morale of the Human Race has plummeted. The Demon Court must be celebrating wildly right now. That’s all the more reason I must go. Otherwise, there will never be peace again!”

Once the Demon Court becomes too powerful, the True Spirit Sect will be the first to suffer.

Although the Bihai Sect was in the east, he had understood the principle of “if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold” since he was a child. How could he just sit by and watch as the defensive barriers were broken one by one? Right now, the Daoist Sects couldn’t even fend for themselves. Hee Yun and the others hadn’t been seen for a long time, which surely meant something major had happened in Central Earth.

Looking across the vast Southern Barbarian region, he was the only one who could take action.

As for gathering the power of all the Nascent Soul cultivators?

That would likely play right into the hands of the Demon Race’s Semi-Saint. Facing a Great Demon whose strength was comparable to a Great Cultivator, Lü Zhong had little confidence he could win; he was only somewhat sure he could escape.

In that kind of situation, he wouldn’t be able to save anyone else.

Seeing that she couldn’t persuade Lü Zhong, Shuini flipped her hand over, produced a Dao Transmission Bead, and sighed. “That Thunder Rune is extremely profound. For now, this is all I’ve been able to analyze. I’ve compiled it into a Summoning Mantra. Why don’t you test it now and see if it can help?”

Lü Zhong looked surprised to hear this.

He took the Dao Transmission Bead. Inside was just a single Technique Mantra.

He summoned the Star Mirror. Under the effect of the Technique Mantra, the treasure actually began to flash with lightning. With a deafening BOOM, the silver Treasure Mirror vanished.

“Is… is that Thunder Escape?” Shuini asked in astonishment.

“That’s right.” Lü Zhong was also surprised.

He had never expected that the primitive Thunder Rune would actually be a Thunder Escape Rune.

The Thunder Escape Technique was far beyond any ordinary Escape Skill.

Just now, with a casual activation, the Star Mirror had used Thunder Escape to instantly teleport over a hundred zhang away. It was hard to imagine how far it could go if activated with full power.

A thousand zhang? Or ten thousand?

Just then, Lü Zhong sensed something.

He immersed his Divine Sense into the Star Mirror, and his expression turned grim.

Perhaps because the Technique Mantra was incomplete, when the Thunder Escape Technique was activated, the sudden surge of the Power of Thunder wouldn’t harm the Artifact Spirit, but it would damage the Magical Treasure itself. Although the damage was minuscule, the cumulative effect could not be ignored.

Clearly, this technique could not be used carelessly.

Noticing the change in Lü Zhong’s expression, Shuini, who was standing beside him, also realized something. “What’s wrong?” she asked with concern. “Is there some hidden danger with the Thunder Escape Technique?”

“It’s nothing, just a minor issue,” Lü Zhong said with a smile.

This was the truth.

Compared to the slight damage, the benefits of obtaining the Thunder Escape Technique clearly outweighed the drawbacks. In any case, he now had another life-saving trump card.

To be on the safe side, Lü Zhong waited for a few more days.

After stocking up on three dozen Jia Yuan Heavenly Talismans, he finally took his leave of Shuini. Upon leaving the gates of the True Spirit Sect, he flew straight toward the border, where the demon scourge was growing more rampant by the day.

…

Three days later, in the dead of night, Lü Zhong appeared somewhere on the border.

Using scene regression and after several days of relentless tracking, he had already locked onto the whereabouts of a Cow Demon.

At the same time, by following the clues, he finally confirmed one thing: the Demon Court had seemingly gotten a taste of success and wanted to replicate its last victory. Thus, they had deliberately sent this Cow Demon to expose its tracks while simultaneously carrying out a large-scale slaughter.

The goal was simple: to force the cultivators’ side to make a move.

‘Perhaps their intentions don’t stop there…’

Lü Zhong thought to himself.

As for what exactly those intentions were, he, who had never been good at strategy, couldn’t guess.

There was only one thing he could do now.

It was very simple: overwhelm cunning with brute force!

With the Thunder Escape Technique in hand, Lü Zhong estimated that even if he encountered that Demon Race Semi-Saint, he had a seventy to eighty percent chance of getting away.

Under these circumstances, as long as he could take out the Cow Demon, which was being used as bait, with lightning speed, he could make the Demon Court suffer a major loss.

The only question was, what kind of trump card did the Cow Demon have?

Transformed Demon Cultivators were even rarer than Nascent Soul cultivators. They were definitely not considered disposable pawns. The Demon Court would not abandon one so casually; they would surely have given it something for protection.

Therefore, before making a move, Lü Zhong had to figure one thing out.

What was that protective item?