Chapter 1141: Fleeing from the City

Not far away from Immortal Lord Miao Fa's little courtyard was a restaurant, and seated in one of its booths was none other than the red-haired woman by the name of Chi Meng.

There were around a dozen flagons on the table before her, most of which were already empty.

Looks like she's finally found him!

A faint smile appeared on her face as she looked out the window at the streak of blue light racing through the air.

The hook-nosed man from the golden pagoda was also standing in the booth, and he praised, "Your wisdom is truly unmatched, Mistress Chi Meng. Could it be that you had already guessed that Liang Fang was a Nine Origins Temple spy?"

"I didn't know, but the Golden Origin Immortal Region is the Nine Origins Temple's territory, so no matter how vigilant we are, infiltration from the Nine Origins Temple is all but inevitable. As opposed to worrying about something that I won't be able to prevent anyway, it's much better to keep a close eye on Miao Fa, and she'll eventually find Han Li for us," Chi Meng replied.

"But won't that allow Miao Fa to seize the initiative? What if she manages to capture Han Li before we can get there?" the hook-nosed man asked in a concerned manner.

"That's not a concern. Han Li was able to evade capture from the Heavenly Court for so long, and he even managed to destroy Qi Mozi's physical body, so he definitely won't be captured so easily," Chi Meng replied with an assured smile.

The hook-nosed man was still rather concerned, but he didn't say anything further.

"Miao Fa's already gone far enough, let's go after her now," Chi Meng said as she swept a sleeve through the air, releasing a burst of red light to encompass both herself and the hook-nosed man before setting off after Immortal Lord Miao Fa.

......

A golden lightning array appeared in the air above a lush mountain range in the Golden Origin Immortal Region, and the array contained none other than Han Li and Lan Yan.

After leaving Golden Void City, they had traveled using the Ink Dragon Flying Boat for some time, following which Han Li stowed the flying boat away, then concealed his own aura using the Myriad Acupoint Tranquility Technique before traveling on foot for a while.

Given his current physical constitution, traveling on foot wasn't much slower than traveling by flight.

After that, Han Li had teleported close to twenty times in succession using his lightning teleportation array to reach this point.

They were now an immeasurable distance away from Golden Void City, and he had done everything in his power to cover his tracks, so he was fairly confident that they were safe.

From there, Han Li turned back to look in the direction of Golden Void City with a contemplative look on his face.

Given how closely he was being pursued by the Heavenly Court, traveling by interregion teleportation array to the greater Golden Origin Immortal Region was far too risky.

It seemed that he had no choice but to take Wyrm 3's advice and focus on advancing his own cultivation base for now.

He was already at the peak-High Zenith Stage, and he had made all of the preparations required for a breakthrough to the Great Encompassment Stage, so it was time to attempt a breakthrough.

If he could reach the Great Encompassment Stage, his powers would be enhanced to a whole new level, thereby significantly boosting his chances of successfully rescuing Jin Tong from the Nine Origins Temple.

Having made up his mind, he began to inspect his surroundings.

According to a map of the Golden Origin Immortal Region that he had acquired, this was the Oasis Mountain Range in the northwestern part of the Golden Origin Immortal Region. It was a very secluded place, and there weren't any special spirit materials or demon beasts to be found here, so it was very quiet and a perfect place for seclusion.

Han Li flew down onto an obscure part of a mountain below, then swept a sleeve through the air, releasing a flurry of sword qi that quickly dug out a cave into the mountain face.

After some brief renovations, a cave abode took shape, and he set up numerous layers of restrictions that encompassed the entire cave abode and the surrounding area in a radius of several dozen kilometers.

𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

All of these restrictions were imbued with different types of law powers, so they would be able to stall even a Great Encompassment cultivator for some time.

"Fellow Daoist Lan, I'm going to go into seclusion here, you can take this time to rest as well," Han Li said, and Lan Yan nodded in response.

Han Li didn't waste any more time as he made his way into the secret chamber, while Lan Yan entered another room before taking a seat.

After entering the secret chamber, Han Li swept a sleeve through the air, conjuring a crimson restriction that encompassed the entire room.

With another sweep of his sleeve, he released the Essence Fire Child.

The flames on the Essence Fire Child's body were still predominantly silver, but some of it had begun to turn white, and the law power fluctuations emanating from its body had also become significantly more formidable than before, which was naturally a very encouraging sight for Han Li.

The Essence Fire Raven had been refining that white fire bead this entire time, and its efforts were certainly paying off.

"I'll be going into seclusion for some time, so I won't be able to supervise Lan Yan. Keep an eye on her for me, and if she tries to do anything out of line, you have my permission to kill her," Han Li said as a cold look flashed through his eyes.

The Essence Fire Child nodded in response, then flew into the surrounding crimson restriction as a streak of silver light.

Lan Yan didn't seem to harbor any intentions of plotting against him, but this was going to be an extremely important period of seclusion for him, so he had to proceed with the utmost caution.

Unfortunately, Weeping Soul was still yet to fully refine Ghost King Wu Chao's power. Otherwise, he would feel much more confident and assured with her protection.

Having said that, the Essence Fire Child should've also been more than capable of keeping Lan Yan in check.

With that in mind, Han Li sat down with his legs crossed and began to meditate.

Close to half a day flew by in a flash, and by the time he reopened his eyes, he had already primed himself into the best possible condition.

With a sweep of his sleeve, he summoned a white incense burner, protruding out which was a stick of silver incense that was around three inches tall.

After igniting the stick of incense, it began to release faint, white smoke that resembled morning mist, alongside a faint, fragrant aroma.

This Soul Condensing Incense was extremely beneficial to the soul and could significantly increase one's chances of a successful breakthrough to the Great Encompassment Stage.

Han Li then flipped a hand over to produce three jade vials, within one of which was the True Profound Pill that had been given to him by Daoist Xie, and that was going to be the most important contributing factor to a Great Encompassment Stage breakthrough for him.

As for the other two vials, one of them contained a type of golden spirit liquid, while the other contained three green pills, and both of those things had been painstakingly acquired precisely for this breakthrough.

First, Han Li picked up the jade vial that contained the golden spirit liquid, then tipped a few drops of it into his own mouth.

A burst of radiant, golden light instantly appeared over his body, while his time law powers began to churn like boiling water. His Mantra Treasured Axis, Time Severing Torch, Clear Time Vial, Eastern Vicissitudes Divine Tree, and Illusory Dawn Hourglass all appeared around him in succession, then began to rapidly revolve around his body.

Han Li's eyes immediately lit up as he picked took one of the green pills from the other vial, then closed his eyes to channel the Great Five Elemental Illusion Mantra

The True Profound Pill was something that was only to be taken at the very end, so it remained in its vial for now.

Han Li closed his eyes, and the golden light radiating from his body became brighter and brighter, while a burst of tremendous time law power fluctuations swept through the air, causing the entire secret chamber to tremble and quiver.

Inside another room in the cave abode, Lan Yan's eyes abruptly sprang open as she cast her gaze toward Han Li's secret chamber with a stunned expression.

Meanwhile, above a certain swamp in the Golden Origin Immortal Region.

A streak of blue light flew onto the scene from afar, then drew to a halt above the swamp to reveal Immortal Lord Miao Fa and her two maidservants.

"Esteemed holy envoy, the trail of Han Li's spiritual qi fluctuations suddenly cuts off here," one of the maidservants said, and she was holding a translucent, blue basin that reflected the surrounding area.

Specks of green light were rising up from within the basin, and they stretched all the way to this precise spot from afar before abruptly vanishing here.

"Looks like he must've concealed his aura from this point onward," Immortal Lord Miao Fa mused as she raised an eyebrow.

"The Mirror Water Basin is no longer able to track him, so you'll have to do so yourself from now on, esteemed holy envoy," the maidservant said.

"Alright, you two can stand down," Immortal Lord Miao Fa said with a dismissive wave, then opened her mouth to release a ball of blue light.

Numerous translucent, blue threads surfaced within the blue light, then converged toward a single spot, quickly forming a millstone-sized, vertical, blue eye that began scouring the surrounding area.

Rings of blue light could be seen flashing within the vertical eye, presenting a profound sight to behold.

Initially, Immortal Lord Miao Fa was brimming with confidence, but as she continued to inspect the surrounding area with the vertical eye, her confident expression quickly turned to disbelief.

How is this possible? Even a mid-Great Encompassment cultivator like myself shouldn't be able to hide their tracks from my Water Emperor Divine Eye, how could Han Li possibly have such an advanced self-concealment technique up his sleeve?

Of course, the reality was that Immortal Lord Miao Fa was overestimating Han Li. If he had continued to travel from this point using his immortal spiritual power, then no matter how he tried to conceal his spiritual power fluctuations, there was no way that he would've been able to cover his tracks.

However, it was from this point onward that Han Li began using the Myriad Acupoint Tranquility Technique to conceal his own aura, and Lan Yan had been thrown into the Flower Branch domain, so of course there were no tracks left behind.

Immortal Lord Miao Fa had failed to take this possibility into account and was solely searching for residual spiritual power fluctuations, so she was naturally struggling to find anything.

However, her Water Emperor Divine Eye was so powerful that she was ultimately able to find some residual spiritual power fluctuations left behind by some of the immortal treasures in Han Li's body, such as his Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords.

However, these spiritual power fluctuations were extremely faint, and they were constantly cutting off intermittently, so she could only proceed onward in a slow and timid manner while continuing to track the faint trail left behind.

Chi Meng and the hook-nosed man were trailing along far behind, and they were very disgruntled by this slow rate of progress, but neither of them were proficient in tracking techniques, so they had no choice but to rely on Immortal Lord Miao Fa.