Hu Lei obviously enjoyed torturing opponents.

After some time spinning, he shook Gan Ning’s body loose from his whip’s grasp. The young man’s body slammed into a nearby tree.

Bang!

Gan Ning collided with the crown of the tree face first.

Hu Lei cackled once more. His prey no longer had any energy to resist. After being struck by his violet thunder, it would take at least several hours to fully recover. Gan Ning was like a lamb to the slaughter.

Hu Lei sidled over leisurely.

However, something unexpected happened. Gan Ning, supposedly amid the leaves, had disappeared into thin air.

“Hmm? That kid ran away?” The Polylore genius didn’t believe it. He was very confident in his violet thunder.

Even a ninth level empyrean cultivator would be stunned by a head-on attack from it. For Gan Ning to have escaped of his own volition was impossible!

He looked all around him, but Gan Ning was nowhere to be found. Furious, Hu Lei swept a large radius around him clean with his whip.

Trees and foliage were levelled and reduced to fragments and dust. But still, there was no Gan Ning in sight!

Where was he? Was Hu Lei dreaming?

“How can this be?!” Hu Lei exploded with rage. He couldn’t accept what had taken place before his eyes.

“I don’t believe you can get away from me, kid!” He refused to accept something that defied so much common sense.

Was Gan Ning naturally resistant to lightning?

But even if he hadn’t gotten seriously hurt, where had he gone after being thrown about?

Shouldn’t he have had some path to fly in or a tunnel to burrow into?

“Tunneling?” Hu Lei suddenly became thoughtful. Maybe the kid had fled through the earth.

It was impossible for him to have flown away. Hu Lei had eyes enough to catch Gan Ning’s trail of flight. From where he’d been among the branches, into the ground seemed far more realistic.

Unfortunately, he had totally demolished the surroundings himself. It was going to be hard to find evidence of that.

However, he did manage to find a small hole near where the tree had been after a while. The burrowing spot – if it was one – was very small, to the point of being nearly imperceptible.

“Is that kid capable of transforming his size? This hole is rat-sized!” Hu Lei was incredulous.

He wasn’t going to let his prey get away from him.

So what if Gan Ning had dug down? Hu Lei cast out his consciousness in search of a residual aura. Finding that would allow him to pinpoint where Gan Ning was.

In truth, Gan Ning hadn’t gotten far. He wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere by himself. A Goldbiter Rat had saved him.

In terms of seniority, this rat was in the generation directly below the king. Its cultivation was reasonably good in light of this, but obviously couldn’t compare even to Gan Ning, much less Hu Lei.

It had come to Gan Ning’s rescue upon discovering that young master Chen’s companion was seriously injured. It couldn’t just well leave the human to die.

Because of this, it had exhibited daring uncommon for its race, dragging Gan Ning into the ground. Gan Ning’s adult mass meant that the rat, only half his size, couldn’t get far.

It became pretty exhausted after only a short distance. Not that it wasn’t strong enough, but it couldn’t tunnel quickly with Gan Ning in tow.

Though Gan Ning had been incapacitated physically by the Violet Thunderbolt, his consciousness was still intact. He was astonished to see that a rat had saved him.

He knew himself that he couldn’t possibly escape.

“Brother rat,” he said apologetically, “thanks for saving me. You can leave me here, alright? Don’t worry about me. Hu Lei wouldn’t dare kill me, but he wouldn’t think twice about killing you.”

Since they were both competing geniuses, Hu Lei was absolutely forbidden from killing Gan Ning. But that protection didn’t extend to this rat. If Hu Lei knew it was responsible, he would cut it down without hesitation.

The Goldbiter Rat was clever enough to understand human language. Its eyes darted here and there thoughtfully.

“Hurry up and go. I’m safer here than aboveground, at least.” Gan Ning was a kind-hearted youth. It was odd that this rat had shown up at all, but he wasn’t going to let it get caught in the crossfire.

The rat pondered a moment, then dragged Gan Ning away to a slightly more discreet location. It squeaked a few times to tell Gan Ning to stay put so that it could go call for help.

As Gan Ning wasn’t fluent in ancient beast language, he had no idea what the rat was communicating. Still, the fact it meant well was obvious enough.

“Go, don’t stay with me anymore.” Gan Ning patted the Goldbiter Rat’s sleek fur.

“Heh, you think you can get away now?” A voice came from overhead like a thunderclap.

There was a loud boom!

The earth was cleft open by a sundering blade. Starlight flooded into the darkness of the underground.

Where Gan Ning hid was ten yards below the earth, but Hu Lei had cut that deep with a single stroke. The injured genius sprawled helplessly before his hunter.

Hu Lei glanced at Gan Ning coldly. “Are you struggling with the dregs of your strength, kid? Tch. Is that small rat brave enough to oppose me, too? Just die!”

Saying this, he swept his whip at the Goldbiter Rat.

His weapon came to a screeching halt mid-trajectory.

Countless vines had risen up from all around to intercept it. These vines had a rather exotic coloration: they were split between icy blue and fiery crimson. They latched onto the Whip of Violet Thunder, locking it in place.

What the hell?!

Hu Lei was met with an unexpected development. He jerked his arm upward, attempting to push the vines out of the way, but was only disappointed. The whip refused to budge, while more and more vines entangled themselves around it all the while.

He was quite bewildered now.

“Who is it?!” Even the most stupid of cultivators would know that another opponent had arrived. An expert, at that.

Gan Ning’s eyes lit up when he saw the vines. He recognized them; they were from senior brother Jiang Chen’s Bewitching Lotus of Ice and Fire.

“Hahaha, karma has arrived, Hu Lei!” He was filled with confidence in his stronger friend.

Now that senior brother Jiang Chen was here, he was going to make Hu Lei pay double for what he had done!