Chapter 51: Hidden Dragon Concealment Art
Lu Qingyang huddled in a rock crevice at the edge of the Corrupted Bone Swamp, the bronze ring clutched in his palm burning hot.
The Shura Vertical Pupil rotated uncontrollably, mapping the Spiritual Qi trails of the Taiyi Pavilion pursuers five li away into blood-red threads.
The Yao Beast remains floating in the depths of the muddy swamp glowed with phosphorescence, casting a mottled green and white light on his face, while three abacus beads from his sleeve had already embedded themselves in the rock fissures, forming a simple Earth Listening Array.
"Seven Foundation Establishment Peak, two Golden Core Early Stage..." He licked away the blood foam seeping from the corner of his mouth, and the vertical pupil of his left eye, reflected in the corrupted water, suddenly contracted.
The purple-gold gourd he had snatched from the Rebirth Palace three days prior grew hot in his embrace, the prison dragon pattern on its body glowing faintly, resonating with a certain spot at the bottom of the swamp.
As the pursuers' leader's compass needle spun wildly, Lu Qingyang abruptly inverted the gourd onto the ground, and the nether river water gushing from its mouth instantly corroded all vegetation within ten zhang, the curses of the pursuers echoing from within the rising poisonous mist.
Using the poisonous mist as cover, he activated the Earth Escape Art and shrank into the muddy swamp.
When a Flying Sword swept overhead, it sliced off half of his hair tie; the tattered silk fabric had not yet landed before it was torn to shreds by the carrion fish in the corrupted water.
Mud mixed with fragmented Yao Beast bones scraped against his skin, and the Shura Vertical Pupil stung as it analyzed the geological structure—eighty zhang deep, the hand bone of a complete skeleton was clutching half of an Incomplete Manual of the Thousand Mechanisms Transformation.
The floating Yao Beast remains in the corrupted water suddenly converged, forming a translucent image of a one-eyed old man.
Lu Qingyang's pupils constricted, memories of listening to stories at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion years ago surging forth: the storyteller, spitting with excitement, had described the Ghost Calculation Sect Elder Gu Qianji's Heavenly Evolution Finger, which was identical to the starting stance of the remnant soul before him.
A faint light glowed at the tip of the translucent image's finger, pointing directly at the bronze ring in his embrace.
"Old geezer, still thinking of Possession at a time like this?" Lu Qingyang sneered, and the abacus beads he shook from his sleeve accurately struck the dantian acupoint of the translucent image.
The remnant soul trembled and sank into the purple-gold gourd; the prison dragon pattern on the gourd's body suddenly moved like a living thing, and the nether river water swirled back into a vortex, tearing the Spirit Binding Net laid by the pursuers to pieces.
Amidst the angry shouts of the Taiyi Pavilion Cultivators, Lu Qingyang leveraged one of the pursuers' Flying Swords to leap up.
His finger, using the Grand Void Finger, tapped the prison dragon pattern at the center of the vortex, and the entire swamp suddenly sank three zhang, the pursuers crying out as they plummeted into the suddenly revealed Rebirth Well.
Just before the well entrance closed, he snatched a Storage Pouch from the nearest Cultivator; inside the pouch, a Taiyi Pavilion Pursuit Order prominently displayed his portrait, the bounty having increased by three hundred Spirit Stones since last month.
"Only worth this much?" He spat out clotted blood, mud dripping down his forehead.
As the abacus bead pried open the secret compartment of the ring, the Hidden Dragon Concealment Art engraved on the inner layer was faintly warm.
The first line of the Cultivation Technique, "The Dragon fights in the wilderness, its blood is black and yellow," came into view, and the Shura Vertical Pupil suddenly stung—a hundred li away, deep within the clouds, the bronze ram of the Taiyi Pavilion Sky Patrol Boat had already torn through the dusk.
Lu Qingyang rolled into a pile of Yao Beast remains in the corrupted water; the moment the purple-gold gourd attached itself to his chest, the nether river water enveloped him in an amber-like cocoon.
The Soul Searching Light descending from the Sky Patrol Boat swept across the swamp; a Golden Core Cultivator's sword tip pried open the pile of bones where he was hidden, and when the sword tip was only three inches from his nose, Gu Qianji's skeleton at the bottom of the swamp suddenly burst forth with the Incomplete Manual of the Thousand Mechanisms Transformation.
The soaring mechanical Puppets attracted the pursuers' attention, and Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to escape along the edge of the swamp.
The Hidden Dragon Concealment Art in his embrace automatically began to circulate, and the illusory Dragon scales appearing around his body merged with the Death Qi in the corrupted water, actually forming a corrupted corpse identical to him on the surface of the muddy swamp.
By the time the Sky Patrol Boat descended with lightning and fire to blast the substitute to dust, he had already submerged himself into the Ancient Tomb remnant stele thirty li away.
The Earth Vein Direction Map recorded on the stele suddenly resonated with the Cultivation Technique, and the Shura Vertical Pupil reflected a Spiritual Vein node a hundred li away.
Lu Qingyang bit his fingertip and drew a Dragon Guiding Talisman on the stele surface; the vibrations from underground startled flocks of carrion vultures into flight.
By the time the pursuers arrived, following the Spiritual Qi fluctuations, he had long since escaped along the underground currents of the Earth Vein into the depths of a cold pond three hundred li away.
The Profound Yin Marrow at the bottom of the cold pond nourished his meridian injuries, and Lu Qingyang gazed at the Shura Vertical Pupil reflected in the water's surface.
As the Cultivation Technique circulated to its third cycle, the vertical pupil suddenly reflected the coral bell on the wrist of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion's courtesan—the pattern on that bell was identical to the ram totem of the Taiyi Pavilion Sky Patrol Boat.
He tightened his grip on the bronze ring, the smile in the pond's reflection gradually chilling: "So the pleasure quarters are the biggest hunting ground after all..."