Nine Star Hegemon Body Art (WN)

“Perhaps the fluctuations of the formation disturbed them? Now what? Should we hide?” asked Xia Chen.

“We can’t hide. They have definitely sensed something, so we have to immediately flee. Prepare yourselves. As we can’t do spatial transportation, I’ll bring you both away.” Long Chen’s expression was serious as he sensed an imminent danger.

BOOM!

The earth exploded as Long Chen’s Kunpeng wings flapped, and he shot out of the ground. Immediately, he saw countless devil experts patrolling the surroundings.

When Long Chen flew out, those devil experts immediately snarled and shot toward him.

“Human race! I really loathe your aura!”

In an instant, a half-step Eternal expert unleashed a heaven-shrouding claw toward the three of them. The power of this claw shook the world and solidified the space around them.

Upon facing such pressure, Xia Chen and Guo Ran’s expressions completely changed. This devil expert’s aura was on par with the Eternal black tortoise that they had previously encountered. As a vast killing intent had locked onto them, the two of them stiffened, their bodies no longer listening to their orders.

Hence, they were horrified. This half-step Eternal was probably not at all inferior to the Eternal black tortoise.

Buzz.

Long Chen’s Kunpeng wings quivered, and with Xia Chen and Guo Ran in tow, he streaked through the air.

BOOM!

The place where they had been standing exploded as this devil expert’s claw blew it apart. However, his powerful attack narrowly missed its mark.

Seeing this, the devil expert was shocked and enraged at Long Chen’s ability to escape his pressure lock. He immediately shot after Long Chen

In hot pursuit, hundreds of devil experts followed. There were dozens of Heaven Venerates amongst their ranks, while the rest were World Kings.

However, despite being powerful, they weren’t a match for Long Chen in terms of speed. The longer the chase went, the further behind they ended up, eventually losing sight of Long Chen altogether.

Those devil experts roared in fury, but there was nothing they could do but watch as the three of them escaped.

Long Chen flew for over an hour with Xia Chen and Guo Ran before finding a secluded place to rest.

“Damn, it’s a good thing that we ran quickly. Otherwise, we would have been doomed,” said Guo Ran fearfully.

“How was that devil expert so terrifying? Its aura completely locked me down. I couldn’t even move,” said Xia Chen in shock.

“It’s a good thing that boss isn’t afraid of its lock. Otherwise, we really would have met our end. I’d hate to die after making so much money!” said Guo Ran solemnly.

Long Chen took a deep breath and let out a deep sigh. Just like them, he had been badly frightened just now. That half-step Eternal’s spiritual pressure was incredibly powerful. Fortunately, Long Chen’s soul was strong, and his will was firm. If he had slowed down one step, they would have been dead for sure.

Xia Chen and Guo Ran were unable to move under that lock. It was the absolute pressure from the disparity in realms. Strangely, half-step Eternals were unable to do that in the Nirvana Overflow Heaven, but this absolute pressure manifested itself here.

This kind of absolute suppression was next to impossible to defeat, and the only way to counter it would be to reduce the gap in realms. For example, if Xia Chen and Guo Ran became World Kings, this absolute suppression would definitely weaken a great deal. Although there might still be some pressure, it wouldn’t be to the point that they couldn’t move. At least, they would be able to flee. However, in their current state, they couldn’t even make a run for it.

Furthermore, that was just a half-step Eternal. Had he been a true Eternal expert, Long Chen didn’t know whether or not he would have been able to escape.

Previously, Long Chen had said that the golden-winged devil and the five-color black tortoise were just rogue cultivators, and even though they were Eternal experts, they were the weakest of them all. Now, it seemed that his deduction was accurate. The real experts of this world weren't existences that the three of them could take on.

“Now what? Should we run?” asked Xia Chen.

Since they had been noticed, there might be a large-scale search for them now. They could still make it if they ran right away.

Long Chen shook his head. “It is probably too late. If we directly run, we might just be throwing ourselves into their net. They’re definitely locking down the gate right now.”

Upon hearing this, Xia Chen and Guo Ran were both disheartened. The logic was sound. If they were in the devil experts' position, they would undoubtedly secure the exit before attempting to capture their targets.

Most importantly, they would probably break the laws of space around the gate. When the time came, transportation formations would be useless, and they really would have nowhere to run.

“Then what can we do?” asked Xia Chen.

“We’ll ignore them and continue acting according to the original plan. With my speed, they can’t catch up anyway. As long as we don’t get surrounded, we’ll be fine. Moreover, since we’re already here, we can’t go back with nothing. We have to bring back more treasures and also think of a way to deal with them,” said Long Chen.

Xia Chen and Guo Ran nodded. Given Long Chen’s unparalleled speed and the sheer size of this world, as long as they were more careful, searching for them would be like searching for a needle in the ocean.

“Alright. I’ll set up extra transportation nodes. With them, we’ll have more places to hide, and escaping will be easier,” said Xia Chen. He immediately started setting up transportation formations and illusion formations in some secluded areas. If anyone were to destroy or even notice them, he would instantly know.

The three of them continued searching for ruins, setting up more transportation nodes as they went. The more transportation nodes they put up, the safer they felt.

Half a day later, they found another vestige of the human race. This place was completely destroyed, and they didn’t find any resources. However, they did find a broken stone stele.

The stone stele had a map on it. When the three of them saw this map, they were overjoyed. This map was ancient, and many areas looked indistinct. However, they could still recognize the general terrain.

They quickly found where they currently were, as well as the position of the Heaven Battling Divine Sect. With those two markers, reading the rest of the map was easy.

“The Heaven Battling Divine Sect was a supreme sect. That’s why its marker is so big. On the other hand, this sect was a minor power, so its marker is only the size of a soybean,” said Guo Ran as the three of them quickly started to decipher this map. The map didn’t have any characters on it, but the marker for the Heaven Battling Divine Sect was the size of a fist. It seemed that the ancient powers of this world could be differentiated by size.

“Boss, there’s another place as big as the Heaven Battling Divine Sect here! Let’s take a look!” exclaimed Guo Ran, pointing at a corner of the map.

Long Chen looked and found that that place was quite far. “There’s no need to go directly. Let’s draw a path to go through as many ruins as we can. Also, the major sects had to have faced the strongest blows, so they might not actually have more treasures. Since we’re here, let’s go through them all.”

Xia Chen and Guo Ran nodded, feeling like this was reasonable. They immediately set off, but they had just reached the first ruins when a jade plate on Xia Chen’s waist flashed.

“Boss, this is interesting.” Xia Chen looked at the jade plate with a faint smile.