Chapter Ninety-Four: Blood Escape Talisman

A cold edge entered Lin Yi's voice, and even Angie on the other end of the line could not help shivering, as if she had been plunged into a frozen world.

Though she did not know what had happened, she knew Lin Yi was truly enraged.

She still remembered the last time he had been this angry, when Doudou was hurt; after that, the balance of power across River Province changed completely.

"Understood." Angie did not ask further. She only needed to make sure she handled matters properly for him, and for Mr. Lin.

But at that moment, Lin Yi's eyes turned even colder. On the turtle shell he had left with Little Red, he had placed a trace of his divine sense.

If Little Red bit the shell to pieces, that divine sense would attach itself to it, allowing Lin Yi to know Little Red's condition at any time.

Just now, however, he had clearly felt Little Red's aura growing weak.

"Angie, there's no need to prepare anything."

With those words, Lin Yi's terrifying divine sense instantly enveloped all of Orchid City.

He stepped forward, and when he appeared again, he was already outside the city.

Shrinking the Earth to a Footstep.

A true immortal technique: within the range covered by divine sense, one could arrive in an instant.

Of course, this art placed a heavy burden on the body. For ordinary cultivators, using it once required at least half an hour of rest.

Only Lin Yi, who had tempered his body to the extreme, could use this divine art as a means of travel.

Even so, he still found it too slow. The divine sense spread in a broad circle gradually contracted, gathering into a single narrow thread that spanned more than a hundred li.

From Orchid City to Phoenix Mountain was more than three thousand li. In other words, if Lin Yi used Shrinking the Earth to a Footstep, he would need just over thirty uses to get there.

...

Phoenix Mountain.

Qin Yong dispersed the white cocoon like drifting clouds, revealing the vigilant three-tailed red fox within.

The fox had tried to flee, but the group had surrounded it completely.

A low growl rumbled from the red fox. Its forelegs lowered slightly, and the fur along its spine stood on end.

Wu Fangling had already been resentful at not getting a share of the beast core. Now that she saw the red fox daring to snarl at her, the anger in her chest erupted all at once. She viciously kicked the three-tailed red fox in the belly.

"So this is how ungrateful you are," Wu Fangling snapped angrily.

The fox cried out in pain and whirled around to bite her.

"Tch." Wu Fangling curled her lip in disdain. The fox was a spirit beast, yes, but only a three-tailed red fox, roughly equivalent to a ninth-layer Innate expert. If it had been a half-step grandmaster three-tailed red fox, she would have run as far as she could.

She drew her whip and lashed it hard at the red fox.

Who would have thought the fox would leap lightly aside, dodging the strike, then open its jaws wide and lunge for Wu Fangling's throat.

"Grandmaster, save me!"

Wu Fangling's face changed. She had not expected the fox to be this fast even under the oppressive aura of several grandmasters.

"Stay still."

Master Mo drove an elbow into the fox's spine. With a sharp crack, the fox's backbone snapped cleanly in two.

Agony drove the fox to howl again. It tried to stand, but after several struggles, it could not rise.

Without expression, Master Mo stepped on the fox's head, drew out a small knife, and said coldly, "I'll skin and strip this three-tailed red fox first. Wu Fangling, prepare a few jade flasks to collect its blood."

A spirit beast was treasure from head to tail. Its bones could be refined into magical implements, and its blood could be used to temper the body or craft pills.

"All right." Wu Fangling hurriedly took out five jade flasks, each the size of a fist.

Master Mo took the flasks, then his dagger shot toward the three-tailed red fox.

The fox seemed to sense its fate and let out an unwilling growl.

Clang.

Yet when the dagger struck its chest, a flash of golden light burst forth and severed the arm holding the blade.

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"Who is it!"

Master Mo's expression changed drastically. As a grandmaster, he had been cut off at the arm without even sensing it.

Not only Master Mo, but everyone else also turned solemn, hurriedly drawing their weapons and looking around in alarm.

"You all deserve to die!"

A cold voice suddenly rang out. Everyone then saw a man appear several hundred meters away.

It was Lin Yi.

"Playing ghostly tricks!" Qin Yong gave a cold snort. He knew waiting to die was not an option, so he swept his hand, and the white drifting clouds all rushed toward Lin Yi.

Those clouds looked as thin as hair, yet they were unbelievably tough, comparable to steel wire.

"Nothing more than crude use of force energy."

Lin Yi's gaze was icy. In his hand he held a golden spear. He flicked it gently, and a streak of golden light split through space.

The resilient white currents were shattered instantly. Worse still, the remaining force of the golden light kept going, slashing toward Qin Yong.

Qin Yong panicked. Before he could even release his protective force, the golden light passed straight through his neck.

Thud.

A large head dropped to the ground, and blood sprayed from the severed neck more than a meter high.

Qin Yong, now drained of life, collapsed stiffly to the ground.

Silence.

No one had expected Qin Yong to be beheaded without even the slightest resistance.

The pupils of Master Mo and the others contracted, and they all retreated in terror.

"What kind of person is he?"

Master Mo was horrified. Qin Yong was a grandmaster, not some common nobody.

If even he could be killed in a flash, then going up against this man himself would most likely end the same way.

Could he be a spiritual lord?

Master Mo thought it over, but quickly dismissed the idea.

Lin Yi was too young. He had once seen a spiritual lord, and there was simply no method for reversing old age into youth.

Unless... Lin Yi was someone who practiced spellcraft or the Dao.

"Senior, we are people of the Blood Oath Alliance." Master Mo asked in a grave voice.

He deliberately invoked the Blood Oath Alliance, hoping the other man would show some caution.

The Blood Oath Alliance might not hold immense power throughout the whole nation, but it was certainly renowned in regions such as Miaojiang, River Province, Mountain Province, and River Province.

Moreover, the Blood Oath Alliance repaid every grudge tenfold; very few dared oppose it.

Lin Yi's face remained expressionless. He took one step forward, and in the next instant he was already beside Master Mo.

He seized Master Mo by the throat and tightened his fingers slightly. With a crack, Master Mo's neck broke outright, his head lolling sideways onto his shoulder.

And yet he was not completely dead. His eyes bulged wide in utter disbelief that, after announcing the Blood Oath Alliance, Lin Yi still dared to kill him.

"You, you actually..."

Master Mo spoke with unwilling bitterness, but before he could finish, Lin Yi's fist had already shattered his heart.

At that point, even ten lives would not have been enough to save him.

Then Little Red gave a faint whimper.

Lin Yi strode over and crouched beside it. Little Red struggled to lick his palm with its tongue.

"Good. It's all right."

Lin Yi spoke softly. He gently stroked Little Red's head, and a thread of warm true essence flowed through its body, rapidly mending the wounds.

Through that true essence, Lin Yi could sense that Little Red's spine had been violently broken by someone, and the fury in his heart surged yet again.

"It was him!"

Wu Fangling cried out in alarm. Up close, she also recognized Lin Yi.

She had investigated everyone who had come into contact with Li Xiaonan.

However, Lin Yi's background was too ordinary, and he himself seemed too unremarkable, so she had not paid him much mind at the time.

She had never imagined that this man could be so terrifying. In just a few short seconds, two grandmasters on her side had already been killed.

Grandmasters were no small fry.

Any grandmaster would be a guest of honor wherever they went, yet here they could not even put up a fight.

Terrifying.

"Sis, you know this man?" Jia Yueru asked in a low voice.

"No." Wu Fangling shook her head and said bitterly, "I only know his name is Lin Yi. I'm afraid the people we set up to ambush Li Xiaonan were all taken care of by him."

Jia Yueru was shaken. She could not understand how Li Xiaonan could possibly know such a frightening master.

If what her elder sister said was true, then with Lin Yi here today, their situation was likely dire.

"Sis, maybe we should slip away quietly," Jia Yueru said, glancing at Lin Yi, who was still stroking Little Red.

"How are you going to slip away? Didn't you see how fast Lin Yi is? Even a grandmaster couldn't guard against him at all. Right now all we can do is pray that Lin Yi doesn't recognize us. Maybe we'll still have a sliver of hope," Wu Fangling said.

After Lin Yi set Little Red's spine back in place, he turned to look at Wu Fangling, his eyes devoid of the slightest warmth.

Wu Fangling took two fearful steps back, but she did not panic. Instead, she asked calmly, "Sir, we have no grudge with you in the past and no enmity today. If you want this three-tailed red fox, take it. Why kill our people?"

"You are Wu Fangling, aren't you?" Lin Yi said.

Wu Fangling's expression sank at once. She had still been harboring a bit of hope that Lin Yi did not recognize her and Jia Yueru.

But clearly, she had been thinking too much.

Wu Fangling said nothing more. She immediately drew out a white bone flute and began to play.

In an instant, the ground all around trembled faintly, and countless insects crawled toward Lin Yi.

Seen from above, the area within several hundred meters would have looked like a sea of insects, horrifying to the extreme.

Taking advantage of the opening, Wu Fangling quickly shouted, "Second sister, Master Ye, run separately!"

Jia Yueru and Master Ye did not hesitate. The three of them fled in three different directions.

"Hmph."

Lin Yi gave a cold snort, and those insects recoiled at once as if they had encountered their natural predator.

Wu Fangling seemed to sense something and glanced back. Her pace immediately quickened again.

She had thought those insects could at least slow Lin Yi down a little, but she had never expected them to last even a second before collapsing and scattering.

"Where do you think you're going?"

A cold voice suddenly appeared by her ear, and Wu Fangling's pupils contracted.

She clenched her teeth and pulled a red talisman from her storage pouch.

It was a blood escape talisman. By burning one's own vital blood as fuel, it could transport the user ten li in an instant.

Wu Fangling had only this one, and she had spent many treasures to exchange for it with a cultivator. It was exceedingly precious.

But in her present situation, no matter how painful it was, she had no choice but to use it.

Wu Fangling secretly summoned her internal energy and spat out a mouthful of essence blood.

The blood landed on the blood escape talisman, which instantly blazed with red light.

Lin Yi naturally recognized the talisman as well, but he did not care in the slightest.

In the world of cultivation, blood escape talismans were essentially discarded relics. Using one would not only deplete one's essence blood, but also damage the foundation itself, making the loss far outweigh any gain.

Moreover, Lin Yi could tell at a glance that this blood escape talisman was only a simplified version, capable of moving at most ten li.

"Lin Yi, I will remember this debt today. There will be another day, and I will make sure you wish you were dead."

Wu Fangling shot Lin Yi a venomous, hate-filled glance, then turned into a streak of red lightning and sped into the distance.

Lin Yi looked at that crimson flash and casually struck out with a palm.