Chapter 144 The Breeze Blew into Yangguan
The devils drew near to darkness.

Since there was no terror, there was no fear.

“What else is more terrifying than the devils in the dark?” thought Situ Yan.

To Situ Yan, there was nothing more fearful in the dark than the devil. However, he was soon to find out that he was wrong. Indeed, there was something more terrifying, and that was the heaven and the earth which existed naturally. The heaven and the earth remained standing through day and night, transcending them.

Situ Yan had intended to speed up and cover a greater distance by making use of the darkness since he had wasted so much time during the day when they fell into the five formations. By now, he was unable to determine where Ye Que and his party were and how far apart they were from the Demon Seeds. Although his subconscious mind led him to believe that they were not far, they were delayed by the formations after all. Moreover, whoever laid the formation also needed time to do that. The more challenging the formation, the more complicated it would be to lay it, and the more time it would be needed.

There was a fifty percent chance for either party to succeed.

Based on Situ Yan’s understanding, it was not that simple to lay formations. One would need to use Spirit Stones or other special items to carry out the task. Having met with five formations in a day, he had reason to believe that even if there were more traps ahead, it would not be many.

It would not make sense if there were more.

Not to mention these young disciples who were fleeing for their lives, even if it were the head of a sect who laid the formations, he would not be carrying sufficient Spirit Stones with him.

The attack launched on the sects of Truth Cultivator in Northern You were done in secret. No one would have heard a word about it beforehand, and therefore, no one was prepared for the attack.

Never would Situ Yan imagine that the formations laid by Ye Que were not the conventional formations which were popular among cultivators. The formations recorded by the mystical words in the Divine book were ancient formations. During those old days, Spirit Stones were not even invented. Therefore formations were laid relying purely on elaborated designing and drafting using True Energy.

They trudged on in the dark of the night.

In the party, there were five devil cultivators in all, with one who had achieved the Formless Realm, three who were halfway in achieving Formless and one in Starburst Realm.

As they trod on the path, their faces were covered with dust.

To Situ Yan’s surprise, this seemingly quiet and secluded path which led southwards seemed to be laid with numerous formations within one night. The more southwards they traveled, the more frequently they entered formations, and the more difficult it as to break through them. By the time they entered the tenth formation, Situ Yan was completely lost. He stood amid the formation for an entire hour without moving. It was not because he was fearful; rather, he just had no idea how to go about it.

These formations seemed to be completely integrated into the heaven and the earth. There was totally no color, scent, sound, and any other form of traces by which they would be spotted. However, they were also not intended to bring any harm. They were simply there to confuse the way. The formations had made tracking Ye Que’s party down a near-impossible task. If they were just passing by, there would not be any problems since the formations simply mislead people to a wrong path.

“A master in formations!”

“However laid these formations had to be a master in formations!”

“To be able to lay so many formations within such a short span of time quietly, and they are able to trap you no matter how cautious you are, this is definitely not what a young cultivator could do.”

“The critical thing is that these formations were not related in any way, although it was apparent that they were laid by the same person. However, the thinking process and effect of each formation was totally different, which could not be figured out. And they seemed very ancient and were not the same as the famous formations recently.

Situ Yan had come into contact with formations when he was in the Mountain Valley of Pure Blackness. This was the reason that this time, he was able to break through the formations along the way. Moreover, based on his cultivation as well as his age, he was a qualified and confident master of formations. However, Situ Yan was unable to concentrate at this moment.

At the very least, he already could not understand the huge formation before his eyes.

He had no idea how to solve it.

Where was the door of life? He was totally clueless.

A drop of sweat dripped down from his forehead. Given that he was perspiring even in such a chilly winter night, one could imagine how hard and fast his brain was working. Standing right at the middle of the huge formation, Situ Yan scrutinized every corner of his surroundings. He even stretched out his hand and moved it left and right to observe the effect of the formation on his body as well as its effect on the mobilization of the Spiritual Force.

Time passed minute by minute and finally, Situ Yan led his party of Demon Seeds out of the formation after nearly two hours. By now, the initial contemptuous look on his face was taken over by a somber and perplexed expression. How was it possible for a devil cultivator in the Formless Realm to be feeling so confused?

“Are we going to press on in our pursuit?”

This was the first thought when Situ Yan went out of this formation. What if he exhausted all his energy in order to catch up with Ye Que and his company only to find that someone among them was a profound master in formation, or that they were a group of powerful cultivators in the Cultivation World who had been hiding their talents? In that case, he would be digging his grave.

While Situ Yan was violent and cruel by nature, he knew better to treasure his own life.

If he were given a chance to choose between the life of the Devil Lord and his own life, Situ Yan would choose his own life anytime. The Devil Lord still had the chance to resurrect, there would be many Demon Seeds who would readily continue his legacy. However, if Situ Yan himself were to die, would there be anyone to lead him on his way on the Reincarnation Bridge? Would Three Life Door allow him to reincarnate?

However, there was something which he could not avoid just because he did not feel like doing them. He was merely the leader of a small team of devil cultivators. A young devil who just entered the Formless Realm would not have the authority to make many decisions. The plan to destroy the sects of Truth Cultivators in the Northern You had been firmed up in Mountain Valley of Pure Blackness a long time back. Given that the Pavilion of Wind and Thunder and the Broken King Gorge were the first stops, any escape from the sects would be intolerable.

Moreover, these sects were already in their late degenerated stages.

Furthermore, the group which had escaped consisted of novices of the Psychic Realm!

Given the above circumstances, it would be too humiliating for him to return if he failed in his mission.

“Captain.”

“Do we continue going or not?”

The path ahead was pitch dark in the absence of moonlight overhead. The cold breezes blowing from all directions were like ambushing wild beasts, all ready to devour them. All of a sudden, the hearts of the devil cultivators were gripped with an unknown fear.

“Will we enter another formation if we take the next step forward?”

“Can I break through the next formation?”

“What if we’re trapped in it forever?”

“Up until now, we’ve only met illusory formations, which simply confused us. What if the ones ahead contain the power to attack? Will we perish in the formations ahead?”

At this instant, the feet of the five demon cultivators, including Situ Yan seemed to have been perfused with lead. While they willed themselves to move, their feet refused to obey their command.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing whistle echoed through the air like a spirit that stretched far and long.

After a while, Situ Yan let out a breath, and with a low tone of voice, he said, “The time is late, and we’ve been hastening on in our journey the entire day, I suppose everyone’s exhausted by now. There is no point to rush just for a moment. Let’s have a rest for the night and continue on our journey once there is daylight. That shouldn’t delay us much.”

The devils who were proficient in traveling in the dark of the night were deterred by Ye Que’s formations so much so that they became fearful of traveling in the night.

A total of nine days had passed.

Traveling southwards, while Ye Que had been studying and cultivating the formations for nine days and nights, Situ Yan had also been pursuing them for nine days.

During this short span of nine days, Ye Que was deeply convinced by the formations recorded in the Divine Book, while Situ Yan had been through a hopeless journey. Although he was certain that the target of his pursuit was right ahead of them and he knew they were not heading in the wrong direction, it was just impossible to catch up. This journey of pursuit was like a test, a test of his wisdom.

The questions of the test were the formations.

Every formation was completely different from the other.

He could only proceed after breaking through each formation.

Situ Yan had not exhausted this much mental strength since he left Mountain Valley of Pure Blackness. This was a blow to both his physical body and mind. In fact, doubts arose in him with regards to his talent and intelligence as far back as the fourth day. He wondered how this person who laid the formations was able to think of so many different ways of doing so, so much so that each formation differed from the other. How was it that he could not understand them?

What kind of a deity was this person?

Could that fleeing party really consist of only novices in the Psychic Realm?

When they came to the fifth day, the five devil cultivators’ faces were pale and ashen. Their eyes were lifeless. It would not be surprising for one to fall into formations day after day, solving and breaking through them, being impacted by the ancient formations, not to feel the effect of the blow on their Spiritual Sea and Divine Capital and shaken up.

On the sixth day, the devil cultivator in the lowest cultivation in the Starburst Realm finally could not go on anymore. Having a nervous breakdown, he begged Situ Yan to let him leave because he did not want to be trapped in a formation. In return to his request, as expected, Situ Yan slashed his throat with a wave of his sword. What surprised Situ Yan, however, was that a smile appeared at the corner of this Starburst devil cultivator’s mouth. It was a smile of relief as if he had been liberated.

On the seventh day, there were only four remaining devil cultivators. They did not even manage five miles of the journey that day. It was because Ye Que had laid altogether seven formations within this relatively short five miles of the road. Moreover, these seven formations were subtly connected.

It was not that Situ Yan did not think of making a detour to avoid the formations, but there were just too many routes leading south that he did not want to risk losing the traces of Ye Que and his party by taking another route. For this reason, he pressed on southwards along this road. There was no shortcut to it. They were devil cultivators, not some killers who were professional in tracking people down.

On the eighth day, although the number of formations along the road had somehow decreased, however, the formations were getting progressively more effective. They were no longer simply illusory or deceitful formations. Apparently, they were potentially aggressive. The devil cultivators were more or less adapted to entering formations, breaking through them after sapping their brain cells. Although it was exhausting, at the very least, it did not pose any risk to their lives. However, this sudden attack had freaked out all four devil cultivators so much so that one of them who had achieved halfway in the Formless Realm, and who was not attentive, had his left eyes impaled in an instant.

By the time they entered the ninth day…

In fact, the ninth day was non-existent, because Situ Yan had given up. He recognized in his heart the fact that the pursuit for the lives of this group of cultivators was a mission impossible to for him.

On the path leading to the gates of Luoyang.

A party of people and horses passed in a relaxed manner.

A gentle breeze went through the curtains of the horse carriage. The chill in the air was gone. Ye Que and his party of cultivators had finally entered the borders of Luoyang.

Under the warm sunlight, Ye Que alighted from the horse carriage and stood on top of a hill and stretched, while Red Bean stood by his side and yawned. While Ye Que spent nine days in studying formations, Red Bean was by his side for these nine days, accompanying him. The only difference was that Ye Que looked excited and energetic. Even his level of cultivation had made a leap. On the contrary, Red Bean’s big eyes were surrounded by dark circles. Her hair fell on her shoulders in an unkempt manner, and her strange-looking ponytail looked even odder.