It had been a month since the group started their journey.
Based on Aiqing's words, they should've arrived in the Soaring Blaze Phoenix Empire together with the group.
Nevertheless...
A rural village almost at the border between the Azure Imperial Kingdom and the Vermillion Sonata Kingdom.
"Oh, this one should be good too, give me a hundred stacks, and these ones too, and this one!"
Aiqing continuously roams the streets as she picked a stall one after another, ordering a bunch of different kinds of sweets.
Huotian and the rest look at Aiqing as she continued to search for so many sweets unstoppably.
Huotian looks at her martial niece and couldn't help but ask Shenyu: "How many villages had we passed by now?"
"From the start till now... We've already visited a hundred and two villages, thirty-two cities, and two barracks..." Shenyu spoke, as she looks at Aiqing who's filling up the spaces in her five pieces of storage rings.
All of them looks at Aiqing full of amazement, even at their prime with eating sweets, they couldn't have reached even a quarter of Aiqing's fill, even if all of them are combined.
Aiqing then looks at Shenyu, the dark aura wrapping Shenyu had already decreased tremendously, from before; 'I can handle at least this much...'
Aiqing had already taken enough time, and any more will attract disaster towards their group.
Aiqing then looks at Shi Lue Yu: "Uncle, please protect lady Shenyu, she's your top priority already?"
Shi Lue Yu chuckles: "Of course, but my responsibility is to protect all of you, I shall protect all of you equally."
"Haaa..." Aiqing sighs; "Uncle, I want you to protect them, not me, I can handle my own, don't worry, but please emphasize on taking care of Princess Shenyu, got it, uncle?"
Shi Lue Yu already knows Aiqing's attitude and just chose to pretend to give up: "Sure, I will do my best."
Aiqing sighs; "As a cultivator, you don't need to worry about me, after all, my father had already thought me a lot of things within the fire path, and you could consider me unrivaled in this whole continent!"
Hearing this, everyone laughs, but Vielka, on the other hand, had her ears twitched, she herself is a proud expert of the fire path. Hearing someone say that she's unrivaled, it really pierced the pride she holds in it.
Aiqing felt the displeasure in Vielka's eyes as she looks at the latter and smirks arrogantly, she then turned her head and spoke: "Let's go! Being a deadweight would sour my reputation after all. Hihihi."
The others didn't notice Aiqing's words and only thought that she just wants to kid around, but to Vielka, these words assaulted her the most; "Tsk."
She could only make a noise due to the seal that her own grandma placed on her, preventing her from unleashing any type of strength.
The five of them then rode Aiqing's flaming chariot and continued their journey.
After a while, exactly between the borders of the Vermillion Sonata Kingdom, the Azure Imperial Kingdom, and the Soaring Blaze Phoenix Empire, Aiqing stops the flaming chariot.
Aiqing slowly approaches Shenyu and grabs her arm: "Stay still for a second."
After Aiqing spoke, the black aura has a part of it as it detached from Shenyu and slowly attached itself to Aiqing moving inside her body until it travels towards her eyes.
Aiqing's red fiery eyes turned dark, Aiqing immediately looks from her left and saw a huge dome of black aura just a thousand kilometers away, Aiqing smirks: "So it is an ambush."
Aiqing then continued, and when she's a few hundred meters away, she halts again, the dark mass of aura had condensed into a massive hill-sized one, causing Aiqing to feel a little afraid.
"Little Qing'er, why had we been stopping here and there?" They wanted to keep quiet due to Aiqing's eccentric behavior, but they felt a little bewildered at Aiqing's patterns.
Aiqing smiled: "Well if I wasn't cautious, we would've already died."
"Huh?" All of them looked at Aiqing with shock, they could've died?
Shi Lue Yu then spoke: "We could've died? I'm here, I can definitely protect you all."
Aiqing looks at ahead and spoke: "Haven't I told you it before? I am the strongest here in this group, not you, Uncle Shi."
Shi Lue Yu was about to rebuke, but before he could, he sensed a few powers starting to make their way on their spot.
Aiqing chuckles: "Your ambush won't work, so better yet, why not just all of you reveal yourselves!"
As Aiqing spoke of these words, the massive amount of dark energy started to dissipate and slowly, it scattered throughout many directions, gathering into many silhouettes.
Aiqing looks at them and frowns, but with Aiqing's superior cultivation from her father, her perception has a much wider gap and just about three hundred meters away, she felt the thing that her father had felt before: "My father faced many of these uncultured beings before..."
Aiqing smirks, realizing the power these people possess made her feel something inside of her.
Slowly, all of them revealed themselves, at least fifty experts slowly floated out of the forest, directly looking down on their group of five.
All of them felt terrified, Shi Lue Yu couldn't even put his guard up due to shock: "That's... Thirty Immortal Foundation ranked experts..."
Shi Lue Yu trembles as he saw the number of experts soaring in front of them, he almost gave up, but then looks at Huotian and Shenyu alternately, deep within him, he looks at Shenyu; 'I'm sorry, I can only save my nephew...'
Shi Lue Yu was about to hold Huotian's arm but Aiqing spoke: "Old Uncle, let me teach you, how a true genius of a martial path of fire works, let me broaden your horizon and witness the awesomeness, grandeur, and the difference between people and a person like my father."
Aiqing spoke but is clearly looking at Vielka, Aiqing then continued: "What you can comprehend depends on your own, so good luck, paper."
Aiqing soared up to as she stared at these experts: "Uncle Shi, use everything you've got to protect them, or you can just run away with Martial Uncle Shi and save yourselves!"
Hearing this, Huotian frowns, he saw his uncle's eyes earlier, and clearly, that is an eye that has already lost hope in fighting, yet, he couldn't blame his uncle, he just wants to save Shenyu earlier and leave everyone else. But remembering Aiqing and his uncle, he stood his ground.
After all, being chased by an Immortal Foundation ranked expert is akin to a baby running away from a lion, if Shi Lue Yu were to escape, he could clearly be safe, but bringing someone along, he might die in the process.
The masked men felt elated since there's nobody running, their job will be easy, but Aiqing's next word made them felt anger.
Aiqing soared into the sky, higher than anyone else, looking down on all of these experts, a smile appeared on her lips: "I will give you one final warning, begone and never show your faces in front of me, ever again and you will be spared from your eternal damnation!"
Immediately, those experts wanted to charge, but Aiqing cuts them short: "Just kidding, I just wanted to copy one of my father's dialogues, you know, I idolize him so much."
Hearing Aiqing's words, these 'experts' couldn't control their anger anymore as they charge towards Aiqing with an intent to kill.
"Just hurt her until she's nearly dead, we need to capture her alive." One of the experts spoke, still, he felt enraged and wanted to kill Aiqing on his own.
He had just received a huge boost in his cultivation as a reward for the mission, he wanted to flaunt his power to the masses, yet, a tiny little girl who's cultivation is a realm lower than his is making fun of him, and not just him, there are thirty of them at the Immortal Foundation rank!
"Yes!"
"Oh?" Hearing their words, Aiqing spoke: "You want to go easy on me?"
Aiqing asked, but she never waited for their answer as she suddenly vanishes from their sight and suddenly appeared in front of them.
"WAA!?" All of them felt shocked.
"Burning Fury's Hell Prison!!!" Aiqing howls, a hundred pillars of fire burst forth from the ground as it quickly stretches high above the sky before all of them connected, turning the location where Aiqing and the thirty experts are at.
"This.. What kind of skill is this?!"
"A fire skill materializing?!"
Vielka looked at Aiqing in shock, she couldn't believe what she's seeing right now.
"No need to be so hasty..." Aiqing spoke, licking her lips as she stared daggers at the enemies in front of her before continuing: "Hehehe, after all, you lot will die by my hands."