On the Azure City plane, in a hidden forest, Gu Nan and three other people were advancing at full speed. Gu Nan was carrying a small bottle in his hand.
Right now, nearly an hour had passed since they woke up. Their strengths gradually recovered to the peak of Acquired Realm, and Ye Chong, their strongest, had even begun to enter the Innate Realm.
"Why didn't those people pursue us here? That's why I'm saying that you all didn't seriously examine the information!" Gu Nan spoke frankly with assurance.
The three people listening to him felt their lips twitch. They almost couldn't stop themselves from beating him up.
'You're clearly the one who didn't examine the information seriously!'
Gu Nan's footsteps didn't stop as he said indifferently, "The first three failed attempts all had a common feature: that is, they could never throw off their pursuers. Clearly, the enemy has the means to track them down."
"Since their goal is the Ice Soul's Blood, it's not unusual to be able to track it. Perhaps the tracking target is the blood itself." Ye Chong guessed, frowning as he looked at Luo Bing's blood in Gu Nan's hands. In any case, Luo Bing was dead, so they had no choice but to let Gu Nan carry out his plan.
When he heard this, Gu Nan sneered, "In the second mission attempt, the team of four fled in four different directions towards the end, but they were all overtaken. How do you explain this?"
"This....."
"Clearly, the other party's tracking methods were left after they first made contact with the enemy. You guys only thought about buying time and restoring strength, but it never occurred to you that strength is sometimes not the most important thing."
These words silenced both Ye Chong and Lin Ruo. They never thought that their plan actually had such a huge flaw.
'Was it wrong from the beginning…?'
And Gu Nan continued to explain.
"How can Azure City's Young Master locate us? If you read the background story, you should find that Luo Bing has been to Azure City before. Someone probably noticed her then.
"In other words, the tracking device on her body probably wasn't acting on her bloodline, or else they would've found her a long time ago. Why would they wait so long for us to reincarnate here?"
No one could answer Gu Nan. Lin Ruo fell into a long silence, even unconsciously slowing her pace.
It wasn't until a long time later that Qin Xuanji suddenly asked, "How do you know so many things when it's obvious that you only glanced at the information? And I've thought about it for a long time, but I still don't remember Luo Bing visiting Azure City…"
"Oh, I made that last part up."
"…"
"…"
Another half an hour later, the four came to a streaming body of water, which was an estuary where the river fed into the sea.
"Guys, you don't have to have such tense expressions..."
"Didn't you see that I left so much blood in the original location? It's precisely to confuse the other party. Even if they're tracking the blood, we can still buy some time!"
Lin Ruo's face looked cold as she asked disdainfully, "Are you sure it wasn't because your hand shook and some blood splashed out?"
Gu Nan turned his head away, indicating his intent to ignore the other party so as to avoid answering.
"Alright, let's pour half of the blood here..." Gu Nan smiled and spoke with some kind of evil delight, and his hands were doing exactly that.
Just like that, the precious blood containing the power of the Ice Soul's Blood was poured into the estuary and washed away in the blink of an eye. No trace of it could be seen anymore.
...
Just when Gu Nan was angering the heavens and the people with his actions, a group of people also arrived at the orphanage at the foot of the mountain.
"Young Master, the descendent of the Ice Soul's Blood who we found before is just ahead."
"Are you sure it's the Ice Soul's Blood?" A young man with sky blue hair stepped out of the limousine and looked at the orphanage in the distance.
The man next to him replied flatteringly, "It's precisely because we aren't certain that we troubled Young Master to make a personal trip…"
"En." The young man nodded slightly. The matter of the Ice Soul's Blood was too important and he couldn't rely on others, so he could only come in person.
"Young Master, Young Master…" The person who went ahead to scout the situation ran back in a panic, out of breath.
"Not good, Young Master... that Luo Bing, she's dead!"
"Dead?!"
Azure City's Young Master immediately stared with wide eyes. He'd thought of the possibility that the other party might run away, or sense something and find a helper, but it never occurred to him that the target would be dead.
'If the holder of the bloodline died... then what about the bloodline?'
Thinking of this, Azure City's Young Master thundered angrily, "Hurry! Get there as fast as you can! Before the spiritual power in her blood dissipates!"
However, the Young Master never imagined he'd see such a scene when he finally arrived.
Luo Bing's corpse was lying in front of the orphanage with wide open eyes. Sparkling and translucent blood remained at her neck, shining with a faint blue light.
The Ice Soul's Blood was indeed remarkable. When exposed to the air for a long time, instead of solidifying and deteriorating, it actually became more and more brilliant, with an inexplicable chilliness.
"That's right, this is the Ice Soul's Blood!" Azure City's Young Master was pleasantly surprised. He finally found the bloodline he'd been searching many years for!
An old man went forward to investigate. After a moment, he returned to the Young Master and whispered, "Someone took most of the blood…... With the density of her bloodline, the Ice Soul blood can only be preserved for three days at most after leaving her body."
"Three days? That's enough!" Azure City's Young Master had a cold smile. He immediately bowed at the old man. "I'll have to trouble Elder Xu to act."
Elder Xu nodded gently, carefully taking a trace of Luo Bing's blood as he started chanting.
That drop of blood began to shine with a faint light, then unexpectedly started floating in mid-air, slowly sinking between the old man's eyebrows.
Azure City's Young Master stood aside, looking calm. With Elder Xu's aid, he could draw out the bloodline's power with a unique secret technique and locate the direction of the Ice Soul blood. This was his trump card.
Moments later, Elder Xu suddenly opened his eyes and pointed his finger to one side, "That way."
"Chase after them!"
...
"The blood suddenly started to emit a blue light just now. What does this mean?"
"It's probably some kind of tracking method." Gu Nan shook the small bottle in his hand and sighed. "It must've been Luo Bing's corpse... Unfortunately, we didn't have much time, otherwise it would've been best to burn down the entire orphanage."
The three people got chills from hearing this.
Lin Ruo's brows wrinkled, and she spoke frankly, "Your actions are too cruel. You're willing to use any means in order to complete the mission. Sooner or later, you will be entangled in karma... You even killed Luo Bing, which is already very dangerous in itself."
"What danger can there be?" Gu Nan raised an eyebrow, his expression full of disapproval.
"Karma." Ye Chong finished for Luo Bing with a heavy expression, "Although we don't know whether Luo Bing's karma will fall on us, there is still a risk of that happening... Once we're entangled by karma, it will be extremely difficult to advance to the Prodigious Realm in the future."
According to Star Realm's theory, "rebirth karma" will lead to inner heart demons and hinder the cultivator's progress, especially when attempting to advance to a higher realm.
But Gu Nan scoffed at that.
If entering into a dungeon plane counted as rebirth, then when he was grinding countless dungeons in Langya World, he had already been reincarnated countless times, which meant he would've been entangled in an astronomical amount of karma.
But even so, didn't his advancement to Tier 2 Evil God, the equivalent of this world's "Innate Realm," still go smoothly without a hint of resistance?
As long as he had the Evil God Temple, Gu Nan didn't care about this whole karma thing.
"Next, we need to find a living being, even a living human can work... Oh, there's a wild boar over there. It'll do."
As Gu Nan's voice fell, a wild boar's miserable cry rang out in the forest.
Devotee's Game System Inspired Note
» This section of the chapter is a Fan based created system to mock-up or simulate the 'Status Information' of our MC - Gu Nan. This implies that you are free to skip reading this and continue your journey onto the next chapter.
» All catalog data below is a summary of various information achieved by Gu Nan that corresponds till the end of the related chapter and is compiled into a singular 'Status Screen.' Additionally, the invented system below would continue to evolve as we progress and learn more about the novel itself.
MC's Status Information
Name: Gu Nan
Current Location: Radiant Tower's branch office on Ruby Fish Star's sixth asteroid belt
Current Soul Location: In a hidden forest on the Azure City plane
Status: ⟪ Evil God ⟫
Advancement Direction: Agility Type
Current Evil God Rank: Tier 2
Equivalent Martial Art: External Kung Fu Master - Innate Realm Third Stage
Current Evil God Temple Quest:
→ Main Mission Objective/s:
-— Protect an item and prevent the enemy from snatching it for three days. - External Source
◈ Status: On Going
Current Evil Points: 336
Overall Evil Points: 816, Overall Evil Value: 26
Exclusive Skills Acquired:
— Deceitful Steps. ｢Movement Speed increased by 30%. Attack Speed increased by 50%｣
Item/s owned:
→ Four Element Crossbow. ｢A Tier 2 crossbow weapon that can generate four types of elemental arrows—earth, water, wind, and fire—based on the user's needs and does not need to load arrows.｣