Chapter 540
Chapter 540
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 540
>Chapter Title: Trapped
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“Earth Escape Technique?”
Li Huowang made a snap decision and pulled out his spine sword, slashing hard at one of the bulging mounds of dirt. A huge chunk of soil and turf was sliced right off.
As he shaved off the second mound, the last one had already reached his feet.
In the next instant, a stabbing pain shot through the sole of Li Huowang’s left foot. His entire left leg instantly went limp like a noodle.
“The thing in the dirt yanked out my leg bone!”
Gritting his teeth against the agony, Li Huowang plunged the purple-tasseled sword deep into the ground. Black, foul-smelling liquid bubbled up continuously.
“Li Sui!”
At Li Huowang’s shout, tentacles from Li Sui immediately filled the spot where his bone was missing.
There was no more time to waste. Li Huowang charged off toward the distant Peng Longteng, splashing through the muddy trail of gore.
But when he spotted more mounds surging up from the ground, racing toward him across the turf, his heart sank.
“There’s too many of them! No good, if this keeps up, they’ll pin me down! I have to head to Great Liang to hide!”
With that thought, Li Huowang yanked out his spine sword.
However, Zhuge Yuan blocked him with a grave tone. “Brother Li! No!”
“We absolutely cannot let these people know that the sword in your hand leads to Great Liang. What if the Dharma Sect has some master diviner among them? You’ll never know peace in Great Qi again!”
Li Huowang cursed under his breath and stomped both feet hard into the surrounding flesh. With a mighty shove from the tentacles, he launched himself high into the air, leaping toward the distance.
After a few massive bounds, Li Huowang landed on Peng Longteng’s shoulder and scanned the sea of Dharma Sect followers surrounding them.
Even from this height, he couldn’t see the end of them. “Just how many are there? How can there be so many? Did the entire Great Qi join the Dharma Sect??”
Suddenly, alarm bells rang in Li Huowang’s mind. He twisted aside on instinct as three locust stones hurtled down from above, slicing through his red Daoist robes and punching three bloody holes into Peng Longteng’s body.
Scanning the surroundings, Li Huowang spotted the attacker: a Miao woman whose limbs and neck writhed unnaturally, her silver headdress rattling with the motion.
The Miao woman moved across the masses of followers below her as if treading flat ground, closing in on Li Huowang rapidly.
Li Huowang hadn’t dealt much with Great Liang’s Dharma Sect, but every spell or attack from Great Qi’s Dharma Sect seemed tied to rock and earth.
As he laid eyes on her, Li Huowang’s pupils contracted slightly. He recognized this woman! She was one of those who had purged the Sitting Oblivion Dao from the sidelines alongside him back then.
Yet now, she bore no trace of the Sitting Oblivion Dao. She no longer believed in the Fighting Matron—she had fully converted to the Stone Deity.
In that moment, Li Huowang grasped just how dire things were in Great Qi. If the Dharma Sect could even absorb Sitting Oblivion Dao members, then the rest went without saying.
Who knew how many more like her there were? Li Huowang didn’t want to get bogged down here, but with the place packed shoulder-to-shoulder, even invisibility might not get him through.
As Li Huowang watched the Miao woman draw nearer with grim focus, his eyes caught on the corpses Peng Longteng was swinging around. An idea struck him.
“Hoo hoo hoo~”
Peng Longteng grabbed the two tentacles protruding from Li Huowang’s body and whirled him overhead with all his might.
As the speed built, Li Huowang’s eyes squeezed shut against the wind.
Just as three locust stones tore three bloody holes in him, Peng Longteng released his grip, flinging Li Huowang high into the air.
Wind whistled past his ears as Li Huowang soared higher and higher, high enough to glimpse the edge of the Dharma Sect horde. But as he plummeted back down, he still landed amid the crowd.
No matter. Li Huowang had figured out how to properly make use of his hallucination.
Peng Longteng coalesced beside him, seized his tentacles, and spun him up again.
After three rounds, when the splitting headache finally dropped Li Huowang back to earth, he landed beside a dirt mound instead of in the throng.
Ignoring his pounding skull, Li Huowang immediately displaced his body into the ground and vanished.
By the time the Dharma Sect followers swarmed the spot searching for him, Li Huowang was already halfway up a distant slope, watching them from afar.
“Dad! That’s great! We broke out of their encirclement! We won!”
Li Sui’s tentacles waved joyfully.
“Won?”
Li Huowang silently watched the ragged-clothed followers scouring for him and couldn’t help recalling the madwoman Peng Longteng had previously smashed into the mud.
These so-called Dharma Sect followers were nothing more than cannon fodder under the sect’s control. “Nothing to celebrate. There are no winners here.”
“Help...!”
A somewhat familiar voice rang out again. Li Huowang turned to see Jinshan Zhao pointing at the Dharma Sect followers.
Li Huowang had thought Jinshan Zhao would stay mute forever, but he hadn’t expected the man to speak up in a situation like this—even if it was just one word.
A single word, but paired with that expression, Li Huowang got the message.
“Help? How am I supposed to help? You’ve got grand ambitions and care about the suffering masses, but do I look like the Great Qi Emperor or the Director of the Astral Bureau to you?”
Li Huowang looked at him and said, “You think they’re pitiful? Tragic? I’ve got it way worse than them! Who pities me? I can’t even help myself—how am I supposed to help them?”
Jinshan Zhao’s trembling finger dropped as he dragged his severed lower half to a halt and fell silent.
Li Huowang pressed a hand to the crusted wounds on his body and sat down on the ground, waiting for his headache to ease.
He didn’t dare push himself right now. Peng Longteng’s antics had gone a bit too far several times already. If the innate one qi inside him lost control again, he’d probably end up back in the hospital.
“If you’ve been sticking by my side nursing some scheme like that, I suggest you vanish right now. I’m not like Brother Zhuge—I’m not that selfless.”
Panting heavily, Li Huowang tilted his head back to the sky as he addressed Jinshan Zhao.
Zhuge Yuan had no intention of joining in. Hands clasped behind his back, he stood there gazing at the distant Dharma Sect followers, who looked like ants from this range, his expression grave as he pondered something.
After a short rest, Li Huowang felt a bit better and moved to stand and leave before the Dharma Sect could track him down.
But as he rose, he found Jinshan Zhao standing right in front of him, face completely changed—grinning at him cheerfully.
“Hm? What’s with that look?”
Li Huowang quickly noticed that Jinshan Zhao wasn’t just looking at him, but at something behind him.
When Li Huowang whipped around, he nearly cursed out loud.
Three zhang away stood a ragged, emaciated woman with a white turban wrapped around her head. In the swaddling cloth cradled in her arms lay a half-rotted infant. Another hallucination had joined him.