Chapter 1671 - Caged Up or Break Out

The mysterians definitely didn't think that Tianming would resort to such counterintuitive tactics. His Lifesteal Silverdragon opened a path, followed by his nine totems; the swords traveled even faster than Meow Meow in a short burst as they shot toward the group of five. All they saw were silver flashes, followed by nine swords flying at them, each of them unique from the rest in all aspects but their boundless sword ki as they executed the fusion strike.

"A nonabane?!" Only now did they manage to see Tianming's name and connect the dots. He was the first nonabane in a long while to have surfaced among non-mysterians. In the Astralium Seeking, there were no other nonabanes apart from those from the Skyway Bistar. Tianming was a dark horse they hadn't heard about before, and the five were shaken to have encountered someone like him.

"No wonder he instantly killed Whitejade Feng!"

"Dodge it! Careful!"

The attack was so fierce that even the faceless mysterians showed visible panic. Tianming targeted one of them and used everything at his disposal, including the Sixdragon Tribulation and the power of the Frozen Glasstree, to form his sword formation.

"Wangwu Yi, careful!" cried the other four, who had evaded, only to realize that Tianming was only after one of them. They had finally figured out his true motive.

"Hold on! Wait for Long to come! We can't let him elude us again!"

They quickly reacted. At the same time, the other groups of five began closing in on them; Tianming was feeling hard-pressed to escape.

"Don't directly engage him! Just interfere with him enough to stop him from leaving! Don't get killed by him!"

Their heads were still clear. If they could keep Tianming there long enough, they would be able to encircle him for good. But right now, there were only five people around him, so he had to act fast!

"Here we go!" As he opened a path with his totems to focus on a mysterian, Ying Huo, Lan Huang, Xian Xian, and Yin Chen emerged, launching their abilities together with Meow Meow. They all targeted Wangwu Yi, a beastmaster of the Wangchuan tribe, one of the great tribes of Skyway Monostar like the Yanluo tribe.

"Hmph!" Wangwu Yi was quite pissed that Tianming had taken him as someone he could kill to get away. His five lifebound faceless beasts, yellow springs, were top-tier beasts like the rakshasas. Five yellowish rivers appeared and formed a beastlike entity. They didn't have faces, but they all shared the 'Wang' character on Wangwu Yi's face. "Do you think I'm a pushover you can just kill?"

Tianming had already proven that he could kill a genius on the level of Whitejade Feng, so now he had to show that he could kill one person while the other four were nearby. Faced with Wangwu Yi's provocation and the other four's attacks, he was ruthless. Apart from Meow Meow, he had his other beasts block all of the attacks coming his way.

A flurry of explosions resulted. Tianming used his Myriadsword Providence, raining swords down on the yellow springs and breaking through them. Then he charged toward Wangwu Yi with his Grand-Orient Sword. Ying Huo, Xian Xian, Lan Huang, and Yin Chen took a lot of attacks during that time and had suffered quite a lot of damage to buy a chance for him to strike.

"Aaah! It hurts!" As they cried out, Tianming honed in on Wangwu Yi with his chilling black and gold eyes.

"You!" Wangwu Yi's spear turned into a flurry of illusions, forming an airtight defense around him. Even so, he was shocked to see Tianming's totemic calamity, as well as how he was willing to use his lifebound beasts as shields.

"Die!" That war cry sounded like he was bidding farewell. Wangwu Yi could only watch as Tianming fused six strikes into one and sliced through his spear strikes. Then came a punch from his left hand—the Kilofold Starcluster Fist! Imbued with the power of the Frozen Glasstree, the punch from Tianming’s black arm was unmatched in power, slamming into Wangwu Yi's head and immediately shattering it. Wangwu Yi was vaporized and eliminated. Tianming had managed to kill another mysterian, though he’d paid quite a huge price in the form of injuries to his lifebound beasts.

"Come back." Apart from Meow Meow, he swiftly took the rest back into his lifebound space. Though it was only a quick skirmish, Lan Huang and Xian Xian had suffered quite a bit of damage, while Yin Chen had lost two million bodies. Apart from Wangwu Yi, there were elites among the group that were on par with Ying and Yanwu Ming. Thankfully, Tianming’s name was no longer red, but he was almost surrounded.

"Go!" Using his totemic calamity swords to pave the way, he had Meow Meow accelerate. All the while, he had two million Yin Chens form a few metal centipedes to block attacks from behind him. Explosions rang out nonstop as two people closed in, only to be forced back by Tianming's totems.

"Go, go!" He was about to escape again. If he did, it would be another victory under his belt and another slap to the face for the mysterians! He managed to force the two away, at the cost of suffering some injuries. This time around, his escape had been a close one. With Meow Meow's speed and his name no longer red, the others simply couldn't keep up.

"Dammit!"

"We let that bastard leave again!"

"Keep chasing!"

Tianming had once more toyed with them, but his escape wasn't complete yet, as Long was getting really close to him—close enough to not need the red name to keep up.

"Yin Chen!" He sent another million Yin Chens out to form a centipede before they changed into a gigantic net of spiders that flew toward Long, but the specter almost instantly smashed that net to smithereens. From the sound of things, Tianming could tell that he had a tough body.

"You can’t escape!" The roar sounded like it came from a gigantic beast that had been imbued with the will of a genius specter. Tianming looked back at the Crimsonjade youth as the Infinite Silverthreads wrapped all around his glossy body.

"Hehe...." That slight mistake allowed Tianming to go incognito once more, losing Long for good. It meant that the Astralium Seeking would have to go on for three more days without anything happening, but it would be far more embarrassing than the first three days they’d had to wait.

"I wonder if they'll delay their grand battle again for little old me...." He really wanted to laugh. Though it had been a close encounter, he made it through in the end and greatly profited. No doubt, both the Violetglory Star and the Mysterium Cluster were rife with discussions about him!

Long and the rest would be pissed at him, too. He thought they would wait three more days for him to show up again for another laughable attempt, yet they seemed to have given up and settled on eliminating each other at a set location. Every hour, they would eliminate one among them. At this rate, they would settle on the top ten in three days.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Am I really going to enter the top ten without even having to do a thing?" It seemed that killing Wangwu Yi had been a pivotal move. However, he believed that there was no way the mysterians would let him enter the top ten. Perhaps they were getting rid of those that could instantly be killed by Tianming, leaving the last ten-odd of the best to deal with him so they wouldn't have to embarrass themselves again.

"Huh, I'm even more pumped about going for the top ten now." The pillars of light continued winking out, bringing him closer and closer to his goal. Being in the top ten was significantly different, though he doubted they would actually eliminate so many of their own and let him reach that point.