Chapter 701 - The End of the Road! Certain Death?

The atmospheric winds were as sharp as blades, leaving behind slashes on Li Qingshan. Even the Ox Demon Forges its Hide could not block it. He did not have the spare effort to use the Spirit Turtle’s Profound Shell either. Instead, he poured all of his attention into the pair of wings behind him.

When it came to the wings of wind, the “wind” part was vital. Even Li Qingshan had discovered out of pure accident that by condensing the atmospheric winds, the wings of wind could speed up by quite a lot, but he could not sustain it for too long. As a result, he flew into the atmospheric winds, even if it came at the cost of injury.

Slivers of atmospheric wind were woven into the wings of wind, allowing him to unleash unprecedented speed. He flew in the south west direction, or more accurately, away from the Ink sea.

The atmospheric winds whistled past his ears and the ground receded rapidly. New landscape constantly appeared from the horizon, with far too many things for the eye to see. If it were not for the fact that he was facing imminent doom, it should have been an extremely exhilarating sight.

However, even at such speeds, the feeling of danger inside him did not loosen up. Instead, it grew heavier.

Li Qingshan understood the Dragon King of Ink Sea was definitely faster than him. The only advantage he had was a head start of five thousand kilometers. If he could not deal with the splotches on ink on him, being caught was just a matter of time.

Fleeing blindly was useless. As a result, from the moment Li Qingshan discovered the function of the ink splotches, he immediately channeled his daemon core as hard as possible.

The daemon core of water and fire spun away, shining with scarlet and blue light. The phoenix burned and the spirit turtle suppressed, purging the aura of death from the daemon qi sliver by sliver before expanding through his body and dealing with the ink that was firmly adhered to him.

However, this process was very slow. They were like stubborn stains that would only fade a little after much scrubbing.

Li Qingshan flapped his wings without pause, maintaining the greatest speed he could achieve as he fled into the distance. The situation seemed like the exact opposite of Mo Yu and him earlier. He could not help but sigh with a smile, Retribution sure comes quickly!

He encountered the same issues that Mo Yu faced. First of all, his daemon qi could not last for much longer.

After a bitter battle, he could not even rest for a second before beginning his desperate escape. Powering the wings of wind depleted daemon qi, and he understood that cleaning the ink splotches off his body took up even more daemon qi. If he had not been prepared beforehand, he would have run out already.

He gripped the Asura Field firmly and withdrew the spiritual qi he had just stored in there, drawing it into his body. However, the efficiency was clearly nowhere close to directly using the Water God Seal. The rate of recovery was well below the rate of depletion. In order to conserve some daemon qi, he even refused to use daemon qi to recover the wounds caused by the atmospheric winds, relying purely on his natural regeneration.

His daemon qi was rapidly exhausted. Thirty percent, twenty percent, ten percent…

The Ocean pearl suddenly began to spin. If the daemon core was the essence of his daemon cultivation, then the Ocean pearl was the crystallisation of his human cultivation. As it spun away, spiritual qi channeled into the daemon core and was converted to daemon qi.

And, he still had one last trump card, the Divine Talisman of Great Creation!

The Cloudwisp association had developed very well. As the greatest contributor, his novels had been promoted actively, so the rate at which the Divine Talisman of Great Creation gathered the power of belief was already ten times faster than before. It could be described as his final line of defence.

However, there was another problem troubling him at the same time, which was exhaustion!

Flapping the phoenix wings took an extremely great strain on his body. The ox demon was known for its endurance. Ever since he obtained the innate ability, the Strength of the Earth, he had virtually never felt tried again, but right now, exhaustion was creeping through his body silently and spreading bit by bit.

Although he no longer needed to be standing on earth to use the Strength of the Earth, being so high in the sky still played a large effect, but if he left the layer of the atmospheric winds, his speed would immediately drop by a sizeable amount.

He was facing issues both inside and out right now. He had yet to even face the Dragon King of Ink Sea, but he felt like his body was already close to giving out.

……

Li Qingshan stood in the air. His scarlet hair drifted with the wind and his scarlet eyes gazed towards the east.

On the horizon, a darkness even heavier than the curtain of night spread over, obscuring the stars and moon. It was like a dark cloud. It filled half the sky in the blink of an eye, even reaching about the skies.

Immediately, Li Qingshan experienced an almost-suffocating pressure and his mind shook because of it, but he immediately calmed himself down and yelled at the sky, “Dragon King of Ink Sea!”

The dark clouds were like ink in water, constantly surging about like living animals. Scales and claws could be vaguely made out from them. A pair of dragon eyes lit up and glanced past him indifferently, stabbing right through him like a sword, before looking away. The ink-like clouds shot over his head and after another blink of an eye, it had reached the other end of the horizon.

Li Qingshan lowered his head, only to see a splotch of ink on his chest rapidly expand and spread. He frowned and his body erupted loudly, turning into thousands of droplets of water which fell into Calm Wave lake.

Thousands of kilometers away, Li Qingshan was overcome with horror. Through the eyes of his mirror clone, he finally saw the Dragon King of Ink Sea who had travelled over five thousand kilometers just to kill him. Originally, he wanted to keep him busy for a moment, but his clone had dispersed from a single encounter.

This was his most powerful mirror clone so far that possessed a portion of his strength. It was no weaker than any Daemon Commander, yet he actually failed to even see how the enemy had attacked him. Only when he was struck did he discover he had been pierced by a droplet of ink.

With his life force, he would not necessarily die even if he became riddled with holes, but when it came to the droplet of ink, perhaps it was better described as destroying the innate ability, the Watermirror’s Image, from its very basis than killing his mirror clone.

The great will within the droplet of ink even pierced through his clone and tried to attack his original body. If it were not for the fact that his Watermirror’s Image was different from regular clone techniques, that strike alone would have heavily injured his original body.

This was no longer just a difference in strength, but a chasm between realms of cultivation. It was no wonder the Dragon King of Ink Sea could dismiss the Dragon province’s Beast King or whoever he was with a single word, forcing him to give up on avenging his disciple. No matter what strategies and schemes were used, they were all useless before an opponent like that.

However, he had already achieved his two objectives of sending out the mirror clone. The first one was to estimate the Dragon King of Ink Sea’s speed, but the end result was he would definitely be caught before he could clean off all the ink. The second was to estimate his strength, but the end result was he would be dead once he was caught.

Right now, the situation of his original body was even worse than his clone’s. Even if he could make out how the Dragon King of Ink Sea attacked him, he probably would not even be able to withstand a single strike.

Although the distance between them right now probably could not be traversed by a mortal even if they spent their entire lives travelled, he was no different from a sitting duck with the danger he faced.

He had considered seeking refuge from the Golden Cicada Spirit King or the Great Banyan Tree King before, but their relationship was just fellow cultivators. The Golden Cicada Spirit King admired him, but he did not owe him anything. All he wanted to do was leap out of this well and anything that got in the way of his objective would be his enemy. Although the Great Banyan Tree King had gone out of his way to give him special treatment, he would not be turning his back on the neutrality he had maintained for ten millennia to endure the wrath of the Dragon King of Ink Sea for him.

When it came to fellows or fellow cultivators, that was referring to fellow cultivators on the same path. The part of “path” came before the part of “fellow cultivators”. They were only fellows when they were on the same path. If their relationship impeded their path, it would only ruin their friendship. Having been aware of this the entire time, Li Qingshan never planned on seeking refuge under anyone in the first place.

He was at the end of the road. Was this already certain death?