Yin Hui sprinted through the forest as fast as his feet could take him. He heard the enormous explosion in the sky, but had no time to worry about Yu Mingxi at the moment. Behind him, the three Spirit Waking cultivators were hot on his tail, using various techniques in an attempt to capture him.
"Take this! Crater Palm!"
One of the Spirit Waking cultivators aimed his palm directly at the ground in front of Yin Hui. A deep crater formed and knocked Yin Hui off balance.
"Now! Use the qi chains!"
Another cultivator clapped his hands together and formed a set of glowing purple chains. These chains were special and could suppress it's victims ability to gather qi. However, before he could throw the chains, he was hit with a beam of pressurized air that knocked him hard into a tree.
The whole time Yin Hui was running he was also charging the Wind Bullet at the same time. The Wind Bullet he fired was at high power and broke some of the cultivators bones.
The leading Spirit Waking cultivator continued to fire Crater Palms all over the forest in an attempt to trip Yin Hui up once more. Luckily, Yin Hui had already grown accustomed to the cultivators timing, and dodged each one of the traps. He was trying to bait as many Crater Palms as he could, in order to deplete the head chaser's qi before he counter-attacked.
This continued for 5 minutes. Noticing that the cultivator using the Crater Palm seemed to be able to continuously fire without effort, Yin Hui abandoned his initial strategy and began to fly.
"He's flying! He must be a 2nd Aspect Spirit Waking cultivator! Everyone fly after him!" The head pursuer stopped using the Crater Palm and started to fly as well.
As Yin Hui soared through the forest, he used the Living Earth spell to manipulate the trees around them to confuse the three Tang cultivators. Branches carrying thick bushes of leaves moved into their way and blocked their sight.
"These damn trees! Burn them all!"
The head cultivator shot a torrent of fire out of his hands. The flames burnt through the blinding leaves and even the entire branch itself.
Yin Hui saw this and a thin smile appeared in his face.
They eventually flew to a clearing that was a dead end surrounded with burning trees. The flames made by the flame cultivator had spread fast and caused a huge forest fire. The only route of escape was up, but Yin Hui knew it would be difficult to escape if he moved to such an open environment. Because he was pursued by three cultivators of the same rank as him, he had to use the environment to even the odds. Yin Hui looked up at the clearing and grinned.
"Nowhere to run now! Get him!" A sinister smile appeared on the head chaser's face when he saw Yin Hui at the dead end. However, what he did not notice was that Yin Hui's body was glowing with a thin white aura.
"Blinding Light!" A bright flash emerged from Yin Hui's body, stunning the three cultivators. Yin Hui soared upwards through a clearing above and charged the Wind Bullet. This was his plan all along. With such dense flames surrounding the forest, he could use the Wind Bullet to magnify them and engulf all three cultivators in the inferno.
"It's over!" Just as Yin Hui was about to release the Wind Bullet, he heard someone calling out to him from below.
"Big Brother Yin Hui! Where are you?" Yu Zhuwa saw the Blinding Light spell being cast and followed it while searching for Yin Hui. He came across the dead end where he saw the three dazed cultivators who were affected by the spell.
"Damn it! That kid has got to have the worst timing." Yin Hui let go of the Wind Bullet and dived down to Yu Zhuwa. He picked him up and flew back into the burning forest. By now, the three cultivators had recovered as well and resumed their chase.
Along the way, they passed by many animals who were fleeing from the fire. At this point, the Tang cultivators resorted to using only their chains. They feared that if they used martial skills or spells, the entire forest would collapse on them.
"Hmm there are a lot of large beasts in this forest. Yu Mingxi said something about controlling them using the power of my spiritual sense. She called it the Beast Suppression spell." Yin Hui released his spiritual sense and a feeling of dread filled the area. He focused his attention on a pack of wolves running away from the flames.
Yin Hui covered the pack with his spiritual sense, planting a portion of it into each wolf. The wolves stopped running and their eyes turned red, as if they were possessed. They moved towards Yin Hui and arranged themselves in an escort position, guarding all sides.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
"It worked! Now let's see how much they can slow down my pursuers."
As the Tang cultivators got closer, Yin Hui commanded the wolves to attack. The pack of wolves pounced on the cultivators with killing intent.
"You think a few wolves can stop us?!" The head cultivator slapped away one of the wolves with his hand. However, this just made the wolf angry. The wolf that was knocked away quickly jumped back up and bit the hand of the head cultivator.
"Why you filthy mutt! Die!" This time, the head cultivator threw out a punch laced with spirit energy. His fist penetrated through the wolf's body, causing blood to splatter all over his blue robe.
Because of the wolves, the distance between Yin Hui and the three cultivators had increased slightly. Satisfied with the results, Yin Hui took over the minds of every single animal he could find and sent them after his pursuers.
Throwing the corpse of a tiger into the flames, one of the cultivators noticed something strange.
"Hey, aren't these animals slightly stronger then they should be?" One of the cultivators asked.
"Yeah... There's a faint aura of qi in them and their bites hurt way more then they should. Also, do you guys feel this aura of dread in the atmosphere?" Another replied patting the blood off his robes.
"Both of you shut up! It doesn't matter if they're slightly stronger, the most important thing is that we have lost speed and distance. If the animals are getting stronger just use stronger spells!" The head cultivator shouted.
Yin Hui let out a faint smile, using his spiritual sense he heard everything. If appeared as if his possession of the animals had also increased their physical attributes somewhat. He wasn't sure if this was because of his unique spiritual sense or the natural effects of the Beast Suppression spell. Regardless, such thoughts were currently irrelevant to him. What he really needed was a powerful beast that could severely injure his pursuers, enough for him to finish them off and devour their souls. He had already tried using a trio of bears, but even they could only halt them temporarily.
"Big Brother Yin Hui how about that?" Yu Zhuwa pointed far into the distance, where a flaming boar the size of a bear was resting.
"A spirit beast!" Yin Hui's eyes shined.
Spirit beasts were magical beasts that were similar to animals, but had unique properties and even had cultivation. They also possessed varying levels of intelligence, with some of them being able surpass human geniuses.
While common animals could evolve into spirit beasts by chance, they could also appear randomly through nature. The flame boar in front of Yu Zhuwa pointed to was an example of such a phenomena. Perhaps the large forest fire somehow summoned, or even created the flame boar that laid before them.
"I'm not sure if this spell works on spirit beasts, but I might as well try." Yin Hui extended his spiritual sense towards the flame boar and attempted to possess it. The boar immediately sensed the intrusion and shot qi-imbues fire towards Yin Hui.
"Damn it! I can't control it!" Yin Hui retracted his spiritual sense and flew the complete opposite direction he was initially going. The enraged boar got on its feet and went after him. It charged through the flaming forest at full speed, unaffected by the heat of the burning trees.
Flying at full speed back from where he came, the three Tang cultivators came into sight once more.
"Ha, has he gone mad?! He's charging straight at us! Quickly, throw the chains!" The head cultivator commanded.
The two cultivators beside him threw out the purple chains. Yin Hui weaved around one set of chains and used the Living Earth spell to block the other. He then created a giant hand that punched the three cultivators a few meters away. They were about to resume their chase when the sound of clopping was heard nearby. The head cultivator turned around and saw a bear-sized flaming boar running towards them.
"It's a spirit beast! Run!"
But it was too late. The boar shot a blast of qi imbued fire at the three cultivators, setting them ablaze. Each of them screamed in pain as the flames seared their flesh. A few short moments passed and all three of them dropped to the ground, their corpses reduced to smoking black husks. However, the flame boar's anger hadn't subsided. It trampled over the corpses of the three Tang cultivators and continued after Yin Hui.
"Well at least I don't have those three chasing after me anymore." Yin Hui kept track of everything using his spiritual sense. He was saddened by the fact that the flame boar completely obliterated the bodies of the three cultivators. Without the physical body intact, Yin Hui could not extract their souls using the Evil Fiend Devouring Technique.
Now that the three Spirit Waking cultivators were taken care of, Yin Hui planned to just fly into the sky and escape. However, the flame boar caught up fast and shot a wide blast of fire out of its mouth when he was about to make it through the clearing. The boar was intelligent and stopped Yin Hui every time with bursts of flames whenever he attempted to fly into the sky.
"Don't worry Big Brother Yin Hui. I packed a few beast warding talisman's into your bag of holding in case of situations like these." Yu Zhuwa tapped Yin Hui's bag of holding and took out ten paper talismans with the word 'Beast' on them.
"Take this!" Yu Zhuwa threw the talismans at the boar. They soared through the air like daggers towards the boar, but rapidly shriveled up and disintegrated due to the high heat of the forest.
"Oh no! I forgot that these talisman's weren't enchanted with protection spells! Therefore, their durability is like that of normal paper!"
Yin Hui sighed and shook his head. He now fully understood why the villager's said Yu Zhuwa was as clumsy as a pig. On the other hand, he wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this situation. None of his techniques could do anything to the boar and it was smart enough to counter all his escape attempts.
"Big Brother Yin Hui! Look! There's someone coming towards us!" Yu Zhuwa pointed ahead.
There was a human figure closing in on them at a very fast pace. Yin Hui cursed under his breath. Was it an enemy? Yin Hui extended his spiritual sense to figure out the identity of the unknown person, but it was instantly severed by the flame boar behind him.
"Damn it. In that case I only have one plan left." Yin Hui rushed to an area where there was a lot of open sunlight and prepared the Blinding Light spell. The boar followed and was momentarily stunned by a flash of bright light. Out of pure instinct, the boar ignited the sky above with a vortex of flame, leaving no gaps in between. When the light subsided, Yin Hui and Yu Zhuwa were gone, leaving a very confused boar in the well-lit clearing.