210: Chapter 210 Escape from a Desperate Situation

At the critical moment.

Wang Zhuo's sword had already slashed down, with three-colored light enveloping all of the Azure Phoenix and Qin Ce's paths of retreat.

Fire, lightning, and shadow—three energies intertwined into a web of death, pressing down from directly ahead.

There was no way to avoid it.

The wind energy Qin Ce could mobilize was less than half of his peak; Shadow Sight was completely sealed by the Space-Locking Chain, and the Azure Phoenix's Phoenix Dance Nine Turns required energy support, which was suppressed by more than half.

Even if they tried to tank it, they wouldn't be able to hold out.

A Gold Rank Three Absolute Swords was not something a Silver Rank body could withstand.

Right then, Tianlu, who was in his arms, suddenly moved.

Tianlu poked its head out from Qin Ce's embrace, its antlers slamming hard against the black chain on his wrist.

The expression on its little face was extremely indignant.

Nine-colored light lit up from the tips of the antlers—not the soft, moonlight-like glow from before, but a sharper, blade-like light.

The moment the light touched the chain.

Clack!

The chain suddenly went limp.

It didn't break or shatter; it was a kind of "limpness" as if it had been dazed.

Under the illumination of the nine-colored light, those dense, dark-red runes melted rapidly like ice and snow doused in hot water.

The black chain turned from hard to soft, then from soft to loose, sliding off Qin Ce's wrist and falling toward the ground like a dead snake.

Qin Ce was stunned for a moment.

The fluctuations of energy within his body told him what had happened.

Tianlu's "Turning Malice into Auspice"—the core talent of the first level of Nine-Radiance Spiritual Wisdom. It converted malevolent, negative things into auspicious, positive ones.

The Space-Locking Chain was "malice," a shackle, a suppression.

Tianlu's nine-colored light had "converted" it.

It temporarily changed the energy structure of the Space-Locking Chain, turning it from a "shackle" into a "liberation"!

This duration was extremely short, only an instant.

And this instant decided Qin Ce's life and death.

"Tianlu, good job!"

In the next moment, the energy inside Qin Ce's body surged out like a flood breaking a dam. The wind energy that had been suppressed for too long rushed frantically through his Meridians, bursting through all the nodes that had been sealed by the Space-Locking Chain.

The Azure Phoenix also regained its full strength at the same time; its silver-green feathers suddenly brightened, and nine Wind Cores were activated simultaneously.

"Xiao Qing, Wind Cores."

The Azure Phoenix flapped its wings vigorously, and three of the nine Wind Cores flew out.

They arranged themselves in an inverted triangle directly behind the Azure Phoenix.

Then, those three Wind Cores simultaneously lit up with a blinding silver light.

Three rounds of wind currents surged, all spiraling clockwise backward, but at different angles to each other.

They linked together, forming a massive, high-speed flowing wind energy belt behind the Azure Phoenix and Qin Ce.

It formed a winding, unpredictable wind corridor. This wasn't Phoenix Dance Nine Turns, but it was a flexible application built upon its foundation.

It was a movement-assisting skill that Qin Ce had figured out himself based on the characteristics of the Wind Cores.

With the three Wind Cores in an inverted triangle and the wind currents all converging with the flow, a high-speed energy belt could be formed.

The Azure Phoenix and Qin Ce placed themselves within this energy belt, and in the next instant, they were sucked backward at high speed by the wind energy.

They weren't flying; they were instantly "sucked" away.

This speed was several times faster than the Azure Phoenix changing direction on its own.

The moment Wang Zhuo's Three Absolute Swords slashed down, Qin Ce and the Azure Phoenix were no longer in that position.

The Wind Cores pushed their bodies back a dozen meters, and the three-colored light grazed past the Azure Phoenix's tail feathers, slamming into the valley below.

The flames exploded into a dark-red fireball, the lightning plowed a charred trench into the ground, and the shadow energy corroded a patch of grass.

A breach was blown into the pool in the valley, and water gushed out loudly.

While being propelled by the Wind Cores, the Azure Phoenix fully spread its wings, every silver-green feather standing on end as wind energy flowed over their surfaces, merging with the energy of the Wind Cores.

Its body traced an extremely exquisite arc in the air.

This deliberate action allowed the Azure Phoenix to evade Wang Zhuo's subsequent combo and pursuit!

Once again, it slid from Wang Zhuo's front to his rear flank.

Another evasion by a hair's breadth.

Wang Zhuo's blade almost grazed the edge of Qin Ce's clothes, the sword wind tearing a hole in his combat uniform.

But it still didn't wound his flesh.

In the moment they crossed paths, Tianlu looked back.

Lying on Qin Ce's shoulder, the nine-colored light on its antlers flashed, and a rune shot out from the antlers, precisely sticking to Wang Zhuo's forehead.

Lumeng!

Tianlu was also full of anger toward this enemy who had attacked them immediately!

This was Tianlu's control skill.

To a Gold Rank Beast Tamer, the control effect of Lumeng was practically zero.

The moment the rune touched Wang Zhuo's forehead, it was shattered by the energy in his body, failing to cause even an instant of hesitation.

But when the rune exploded, it made a crisp "pa" sound.

Like the sound of a slap to the face.

Wang Zhuo was stunned.

Not because of pain—the power of the rune's explosion didn't even scratch his skin.

But because of that sound, that "pa," sounded too much like a slap.

As the dignified eldest son of the Wang family, leading eleven Gold Rank Beast Tamers to hunt down a Silver Rank commoner, he had his lethal strike evaded and was then "slapped" on the forehead by a black iron rank cub.

Humiliation.

Blatant humiliation.

"Qin Ce—!!!"

Wang Zhuo's roar exploded through the mist, startling the surrounding Vicious Beasts into fleeing in all directions.

He spun around abruptly, the Silver-Patterned Peacock flapping its wings hard to chase after Qin Ce.

The Gold Rank Silver-Patterned Peacock was incredibly fast; the giant bird with a fifteen-meter wingspan traced a golden streak through the mist, moving so fast it pulled a sharp whistle from the air.

But the Azure Phoenix was not slow.

The Azure Phoenix was mid-grade silver, while the Silver-Patterned Peacock was Low Grade gold—a full rank's difference.

Under normal circumstances, the speed of a Gold Rank flying Pet Beast would crush a Silver Rank one.

But the Azure Phoenix was no ordinary Silver Rank; the Nine-fold Azure Sky talent made its wind energy purity far exceed those of the same rank, and the Dragon Roaming movement technique allowed its burst speed over short distances to rival a Gold Rank's.

Combined with the thrust from the Wind Cores, the Azure Phoenix's speed was on par with the Silver-Patterned Peacock.

But Wang Zhuo didn't chase alone.

"Spread out! Surround him! Don't let him escape!"

All eleven people moved at once.

Han Zhang rode his Iron-Feathered Vulture to flank from the left, while the other nine closed in from different directions.

This wasn't their first time cooperating; the eleven-man encirclement formation reformed within seconds, pressing in on Qin Ce from all sides.

Eleven Gold Rank attacks were launched simultaneously.

The Iron-Feathered Vulture's iron feathers poured down like a rainstorm, each one containing Gold Rank metal energy, moving so fast they pulled black afterimages through the mist.

The Thunder Eagle's electrical arcs exploded in the air, turning into a blue power grid that covered a range of several hundred meters.

The Wind Falcons' Wind Blades were numerous, angled sharply, and covered a wide area; though not as condensed as the Azure Phoenix's, they made up for it in density.

The Frost Giant Python's ice spikes blocked the lower path, and the Rock-Armored Turtle's energy waves sealed off the ground.

There were also the Shadow Leopard's shadow arrows, the Fire Lion's fireballs, the Poison Toad's toxic mist...

Eleven attacks, eleven attributes, from ten different directions, poured toward Qin Ce and the Azure Phoenix at once.

This was Wang Zhuo's tactic.

He had studied Qin Ce and the Azure Phoenix's skills.

Shadow Sight, Shape-Shifting Position, Spatial Exchange—the core of these skills was to teleport to a safe position the moment an attack was about to hit.

But the premise of teleporting was that there had to be a "safe position" to move to.

If eleven attacks covered all space, leaving no blind spots, no gaps, and no safe positions, then no matter how strong Shadow Sight was, it would be useless.

This was a perfect counter designed against Qin Ce's skill system.

However, the scene Wang Zhuo expected, where Qin Ce had no way to escape, did not occur.

Because Qin Ce didn't use Shadow Sight at all.

At such a distance and under such a density of attacks, the flight speed of the Shadow Sight skill simply wasn't enough to escape.

Wang Zhuo was indeed a Genius; he had actually found a strategy to counter the Shadow Sight skill.

But no matter how much of a Genius he was, he couldn't have imagined that Qin Ce's progress was countless times faster than he thought.

One should see a person in a new light after even a three-day absence.

And for Qin Ce, after three days, he would have new trump cards!

In the next moment.

The Wind Cores were deployed again.

The previous Wind Cores had already been recalled.

Eight silver points of light drifted out from between the Azure Phoenix's feathers, not scattering aimlessly but shooting out toward eight different directions.

Each one landed precisely in a position he had calculated—the weakest direction of the encirclement, the angle with the sparsest attacks, the gaps between the Pet Beasts' positions.

The eight Wind Cores activated simultaneously the moment they reached their positions, silver light spreading from each one to form eight ten-meter-diameter wind zones in the mist.

Then the Azure Phoenix moved.

It didn't break out in one direction but wove frantically between the eight Wind Cores.

From the position of the first Wind Core, it was pulled by the core's power to the second;

From the second to the third; from the third to the fourth.

Every turn was inconceivable, every movement unpredictable.

A Thunder Eagle's electrical arc struck from the front; just before it hit, the Azure Phoenix was pulled to the left by the Wind Core's power, the arc grazing its tail feathers.

An Iron-Feathered Vulture's feather shot from the right; the Azure Phoenix's body made a sharp turn in the air, pushed upward by another Wind Core's power as the feather flew beneath it.

Eight Wind Cores, eight turns.

Each turn happened to avoid an attack, and each movement happened to slip through a gap in the assault.

It wasn't luck; it was calculation.

The moment he was surrounded, Qin Ce had already calculated the position of every Wind Core, the angle of every turn, and the trajectory of every attack.

The Azure Phoenix wove between the eight Wind Cores like lightning, a silver-green bolt of light traversing the rainstorm of Gold Rank attacks.

Wang Zhuo's expression changed.

Because after the Azure Phoenix's eight changes in direction.

His encirclement had been broken through.

When the Azure Phoenix emerged from the last of the eight Wind Cores, it was no longer within the encirclement.

It was outside the ring, beyond everyone's attack range.

The eleven-man encirclement formation had been torn open by the eight Wind Cores.

Qin Ce didn't look back.

The Azure Phoenix flapped its wings vigorously, and a Wind Core activated again, forming a wind energy belt in front of it that directly accelerated and pushed the bird forward at high speed.

Through the mist, across the wasteland, over the dried-up riverbed, they fled into the distance.

In the blink of an eye, the distance between the two sides opened up to over a kilometer.

Han Zhang chased for a bit on his Iron-Feathered Vulture but couldn't keep up.

The Thunder Eagle's owner tried to intercept with electrical arcs but couldn't reach.

The Wind Falcon's owner pursued with Wind Blades, but the Azure Phoenix easily dodged them with Dragon Roaming.

The eleven people hovered in the mist, watching that silver-green figure get further and further away, smaller and smaller, until it finally vanished into the depths of the fog.

No one chased further.

It wasn't that they couldn't catch up, but that even if they did, they couldn't keep him there.

The Azure Phoenix's speed was on par with the Silver-Patterned Peacock, and the acceleration from the Wind Cores made it even a notch faster.

Even if they caught up, Qin Ce still had eight Wind Cores in hand and could break the encirclement again.

Han Zhang turned to look at Wang Zhuo.

"Young Master, what do we do? Do we still chase?"

Wang Zhuo didn't answer.

He hovered in the air, looking in the direction Qin Ce had vanished. The expression on his face changed from anger to gloom, and from gloom to calm.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes; when he opened them again, the fire of rage in his eyes had been suppressed.

He had experienced too much over these past few months.

Falling from high altitude during the beast tide, being mocked by the whole city, and having all his glory snatched away by Qin Ce.

He had learned that anger couldn't solve problems.

He had also learned that only by staying calm could one win.

"Chase," Wang Zhuo's voice was very calm. "Of course we chase."

He raised his hand, and the diamond-shaped crystal in his palm lit up.

A 3D holographic map spread out before him, with thirteen points of light moving slowly in their respective positions.

The dimmest one was moving rapidly toward the northwest.

That was Qin Ce.

The greatest harvest this time was confirming that the first person to get a ruins key was indeed Qin Ce!

So all of this was not a loss!

"Run?"

The corners of Wang Zhuo's mouth slowly curled into a cold arc.

"You can run for a while, but can you run for a lifetime?"

His finger tapped the map, and the light point representing Qin Ce was marked, a red halo lighting up around it on the 3D map.

"The key to the God-level Ruins isn't just a tool for charging. It also allows us to see the locations of other keys." Wang Zhuo's voice was very soft, almost as if he were talking to himself. "No matter where you run, I can see you. No matter how fast you run, can you outrun the tracking of the key map?"

He closed the map and turned to look at the ten people behind him.

"Follow him, there's no need to rush. The energy depth of a Silver Rank Beast Tamer is more than one grade below a Gold Rank's. How long can he run? An hour? Two hours? Once his energy is exhausted, he won't even be able to fly. Killing him then will be as easy as flipping a hand."

Han Zhang nodded and turned to make several gestures to the people behind him.

The ten people regrouped, their formation changing from an encirclement to a pursuit.

They were no longer in a fan-shaped encirclement but had changed into a wedge formation, following behind Wang Zhuo.

Han Zhang acted as flank support on the left, while the other eight were positioned on both sides behind them, some in the air and some on the ground.

The Silver-Patterned Peacock flapped its wings, carrying Wang Zhuo as it chased in the direction Qin Ce had disappeared.

The nine Pet Beasts behind followed closely; at the Gold Rank, Pet Beasts all had their own ways of traveling.

They could all fully keep up with the speed. Nine Gold Rank auras dragged nine long trails through the mist.

Sitting on the back of the Silver-Patterned Peacock, Wang Zhuo looked down at the 3D map in his palm.

The light point representing Qin Ce was still moving fast, starting off very quickly, but it had now begun to slow down.

This proved that at this moment, Qin Ce still didn't know that Wang Zhuo could track him in real-time!

The arc of Wang Zhuo's mouth deepened a bit more.

"Keep running, Qin Ce. Let's see how long you can last!"

...