Ye Zichen’s words blew past their ears like a gentle breeze. They immediately discovered that he’d completely disappeared from view, just like the Xuan-Yuan Sword. They saw no trace of him whatsoever.
“Where did he go?” The gathered sky supremes all reached out with their divine awareness, which intercrossed to form a net with no gaps whatsoever.
A gentle breeze, grains of sand, flowing water.
Nothing in heaven and earth could escape their divine awarenesses, yet they still couldn’t locate Ye Zichen.
Chen Jiannan still clenched his sword as if he were about to strike. His face was ashen. Ye Zichen’s final taunt was like a thorn embedded deep in his heart.
Did he escape?
He was a glorious ninth-stage sky supreme, only one step away from becoming a diviner, yet he’d let an ant who just barely became an earth supreme escape right beneath his nose?
This was absolutely the greatest shame of his life; he’d never live this down.
“Impossible!” Chen Jiannan roared internally. He’d kept his divine awareness locked on his surroundings since he first started fighting Ye Zichen. It was impossible for him to disappear so thoroughly and so suddenly. He was definitely still here.
Whoosh!
Chen Jiannan’s divine awareness enveloped the entire wasteland.
Even if Ye Zichen had dug underground, he’d find him for sure.
“How utterly terrifying!” Ye Zichen stood on the first floor of the Yao-Sealing Pagoda. He clutched his chest; his heart was still beating like a drum. Although the Five Elements were a peerless grand dao, he still had no means to resist a ninth-stage sky immortal like Chen Jiannan.
The gap between their realms was simply too vast.
They were right; Ye Zichen hadn’t left the wastes. In fact, he hadn’t left the spot he’d “disappeared” from.
He’d simply used the Yao-Sealing Pagoda’s transformation to become an insignificant speck of dust and escape their notice. Hopefully, they’d get frustrated and give up.
“Master.” As soon as Ye Zichen appeared inside the pagoda, Jiao Qi and Meng Huairong went up to greet him.
Xuan-Yuan Xiang was there too. It was her first time in the Yao-Sealing Pagoda, and she was full of curiosity. She could sense that this was a spatial divine artifact, but it could support living things, and moreover, it had the same Laws as the outside world.
She hadn’t expected Ye Zichen to encounter such great fortune after just one hundred years apart.
“Big Sister Xiang, sorry about what I said earlier. Please don’t take offense.” Ye Zichen smiled at her apologetically. He knew his words were hurtful.
“Forget it. I’ll be the bigger person and let this slide” she said, scrunching up her nose. “What’s going on outside?”
Ye Zichen didn’t explain. Instead, he waved his hand, summoning a curtain, which reflected the situation outside the pagoda.
“It looks like things aren’t going particularly well,” said Xuan-Yuan Xiang.
Of course! Those people are all sky supremes, and they’re all after you. How could they possibly just give up after failing to get their hands on you?”
“As expected, my innate beauty is too much. All these people want me!” said Xuan-Yuan Xiang, looking awfully narcissistic. She brushed her fingers through her hair to show off. Ye Zichen truly had no idea how to respond to that, so he didn’t. He simply focused on the screen showing the situation outside.
Hurry up and leave!
You can’t find me here, so why are you wasting your time?
He inwardly prayed and urged them to hurry up. In this situation, his only escape was if these sky supremes left on their own.
“Tch tch tch, not even Brother Chen can do it, huh?” laughed Jackdaw. “You let an earth supreme escape right beneath your nose?”
He was surprised when Ye Zichen disappeared as well. He reached out with his divine awareness as well, but found nothing.
“Don’t just watch,” snorted Chen Jiannan. “If he disappears, you demons can’t get your hands on the Xuan-Yuan Sword either.”
“So what? If we lose it, we lose it,” jeered Jackdaw. “The Xuan-Yuan Sword isn’t all that useful to us demons anyway.”
When Chen Jiannan heard that, he froze. Yes, the demons wanted to vie for the Xuan-Yuan Sword, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary for them. They weren’t as desperate for it as the humans and yao
“If I can’t find the Xuan-Yuan Sword, you can give up on obtaining the Chiyou Sword,” said Chen Jiannan, trying a different tactic.
“Then come on and show me what you’re made of. My hands were starting to get itchy anyway. How about we duke it out right here?” With that, Jackdaw’s sky supreme aura exploded outward with a boom, permeating the surrounding air. His towering demonic energy made the yao and humans feel rather out of sorts. Even Chen Jiannan was stunned and uncomfortable; he wanted to fight just like that?
It makes no sense to fight right now. Why did I have to go on and say all that? But I already said it; I can’t back down now.
“Duke what out? None of us have found the Xuan-Yuan Sword yet. Both of you, drop it, and stop bickering,” said Yin Hu. “If you ask me, the Xuan-Yuan Sword and its wielder are definitely still in the area. We ought to keep looking for him.”
Yin Hu broke their stalemate. Chen Jiannan went with the flow, snorted, and ignored Jackdaw.
Right at that moment, one of the yao exclaimed, “I found it!”
He summoned a pair of hammers then slammed hard against the earth.
Bang!
When the hammers hit the ground, it exploded into nothingness. Only a single grain of sand remained without the slightest damage. It simply lay there at the bottom of a deep crater.
“They found me even in here?” Ye Zichen furrowed his brows.
The next moment, he heard Chen Jiannan send a transmission from the outside. “Are you going to keep hiding?”
They’d already discovered him, so there was no point pretending any longer. Ye Zichen simply reached out with his divine awareness and responded, “You found me? Not bad at all!”
“Hmph. You’re nothing but an earth supreme. No matter how deeply you hide yourself, you can’t escape,” shouted Chen Jiannan, his gaze sinister. “If you know what’s good for you, come out and surrender. Otherwise, even if you stubbornly seal yourself inside, you won’t be able to escape death.”
Chen Jiannan’s expression grew sour, and he felt jealousy deep within his heart.
A spatial divine artifact.
In the God Realm, spatial divine artifacts, especially those that could contain people, were the rarest of all. He was a ninth stage sky supreme, but he’d never gotten his hand on one. Yet this little earth supreme hadn’t just won the Xuan-Yuan Sword’s favor; he’d even found himself a spatial divine artifact to hide in. The mere thought of it infuriated him.
Other people had always seen him as a proud son of heaven with awe-inspiring good fortune.
But now, compared to Ye Zichen, he was nothing at all.
In the face of Chen Jiannan’s threats, Ye Zichen only laughed. “Do you think I’m stupid? Or is there something wrong with your brain?”
He sneered in utter contempt, then continued, “Won’t I die if I go outside? If you think you’re all that, why don’t you come in and kill me?”
Chen Jiannan’s fury reached the heavens. Thunder crackled over the horizon, and the clouds overhead darkened. “You’re seeking death!”
