Chapter 45: Tracked just ten minutes away

"So what happened? For you to decide on using the talismans it should have been someone you judged you couldn't handle. That means someone at the palace stage right?" Yi Jie suddenly asked disrupting the imaginative fantasy those two were in. Feng Xin almost choked on his drool from being startled by the question with Yang Qing throwing Yi Jie an aggrieved look for ruining his food fantasy as he was just getting to the good parts.

"I don't think the trouble had anything to do with the party targeting those from the Order." Feng Xin said seemingly reading the trail of thought Yi Jie was heading to.

"Its source had more to do with the Green fog swamp sect. It seems they had a run-in with the blood ghost hands syndicate. From what these two told me one of their elders the deacon by the name of Dong Yanlin was a member of the syndicate.

When I caught up with these two Dong Yanlin was already dead, destroyed by your spell. Yang Qing how much firepower did you pack in a reconnaissance technique? I saw the aftermath, it had leveled a half a mile radius and my two friends here survived by the skin of their teeth and it was mostly because of that tupelo tree of theirs." Feng Xin suddenly asked when he remembered the scene he had picked Peng Zhen and Gui Bingwen in.

"The green swallow technique? Did you see the attack, how great was it, how about the level of its sentience?..." Yang Qing rapidly fired more questions with excitement showing on his face as his spittle flew everywhere that the rest had to form a wide berth from him.

"Calm down will you? I didn't see it in action I only saw its aftermath. For more details, you will have to ask the survivors. But from what I could tell its level of sentience was pretty high." Feng Xin hurriedly replied to stop Yang Qing's bombardment.

"No wonder he drools so much. What's with that level of saliva in his mouth," Feng Xin thought as he took additional steps. At his current distance, he didn't feel safe enough to dodge Yang Qing's spittle.

"Fine fine…Huh, why are you guys standing so far away?" Yang Qing asked in confusion once he had calmed down and noticed the rest standing a few meters away from him.

"Mmmh I wonder why the green swallow would attack though. I put in self-preservation means if it met an attack that it couldn't dodge but speed is its strongest suit if it met something with enough speed to match, our two elder friends here would have long been dead facing something of that level. The only other reason would be if it met something with negative yin qi steeped in murder. The spell itself is made of qi which is Yang in nature the antithesis of negative qi borne from places filled with death and the greater the density of it the adverse the reaction of the spell. I wonder what could trigger it. Feng Xin, did you happen to find anything with a dense negative yin qi in the area?" Yang Qing said as he deeply pondered on the weird reaction from the green swallow spell technique. It was one of the few spells that he still kept using and improving ever since he was in the foundation establishment stage.

"If we are talking about negative dense qi then without a doubt it's from this. Even the guy who was chasing after us it was because I had it in my possession," Feng Xin said as he removed the Ao Yin saber from his storage ring. It was firmly sealed in place with the four-element life divergent seals.

"Is that an Ao yin bone!!!? Someone was even crazy enough to fashion a weapon from it. Those fellows from the blood ghost hands syndicate never disappoint when it comes to doing insane things," Yang Qing said as he picked up the bone saber. Yi Jie and Mao Yunru also had visible frowns on their faces as they stared at it. The Ao Yin tended to have that effect on people. It was a creature built for brutal slaughter and torment. It not only feeds on its victims" flesh but it also imprisons their souls and torments them for almost an eternity. As long as the creature was alive the torment would continue.

Most have been collectively wiped out from the continent. Almost every sect, empire, or clan is united in their fear and hatred for the beast. Though there have been those who had once tried to enslave those ferocious things to use for their gain. Most failed and ended up corrupted by it which led to the eventual destruction of those sects as they had their minds corrupted and made into puppets of perpetual slaughter. However, there was one beast-taming sect called the Myriad beasts sect that succeeded in taming a few of them. Using the Ao Yins they grew to be as strong as the two holy lands from the southern continent. The Myriad beasts sect grew rampantly and tyrannically that the two holy lands i.e. the radiant sword sect and the flowing valley sect joined forces to annihilate them it wasn't only them, different sects and families had also rallied together and the Myriad beasts sect was decimated root and stem. Everything about them even their inheritance was erased from history. It has been over 10,000 years since their destruction. Only the powerful sects have records of its existence.

A huge powerful wave came and went as quickly as it had appeared but it was enough to almost paralyze everyone present. Everyone collectively stared at one place, it was where Yang Qing stood. His hair was half green and half brown with one of his eyes looking like a moon and the other one looking like the sun. A few seconds later his look went back to normal.

"Hehehe sorry about that, I tried to sneak my spiritual sense in there and got attacked hehehehe but it's all okay now," Yang Qing said as he awkwardly laughed. The remnant spirit of the Ao Yin had attacked him just as it did Feng Xin the moment he tried to sneak a glance. He instinctively attacked it with his full power for a second before he severed his sense however a remnant of that attack leaked out which is why he hurriedly stopped. Yang Qing wasn't worried about destroying the bone as he detected it was from an Ao Yin that was in the late stages of the palace realm. Although it had waned over time it still had the strength of at least an early-stage palace realm cultivator.

"The one who created this weapon is rather insidious. To maintain the Ao Yin's spirit he constantly fed it cultivators' blood and souls. From what I could deduce they numbered in the thousands," Yang Qing coldly said.

"I will have to turn this over to Lei Weiyuan they may have a way to trace its creator using the seal techniques he left on it. So Feng Xin what happened after you left the place where you picked the Ao Yin bone? Did the palace stage cultivator attack you there?" Yang Qing said as he went to place the bone saber on his podium. A gold siegel appeared that sealed it further in place there was even a faint muffled painful roar that was heard the moment the seal landed on the bone.

"No I left there safely without being targeted and once I heard of the possible blood ghost hands involvement I called the green mountain branch for reinforcements. Luckily their branch leader Hu Fang was around and offered to act personally. We agreed to meet halfway at white fork mountains. Flying with Ellie I thought we'd make it in good time before anything unexpected happen but I forgot I had used the cleansing dew on a certain mirage dragonfly I got. Its effects became a tracking beacon for that expert. He caught up with us when we were less than 30 miles away."

...................... (40 Minutes earlier)

"Ellie it seems like we are almost there you did a great job there buddy," Feng Xin said as he gently patted Ellie's head. Feng Xin had an old goat skin map in his hand. There was a white symbol moving along the map and it was heading to a mountainous region with the name white fork mountain above. The white symbol was them. The map was a precious monarch-grade treasure used by the Order to get around. Every map was linked to the owner through their blood essence. Wherever the owner had traveled, the features of the area would be highlighted on the map while the areas they hadn't ever stepped into would be a blank canvas.

"At this speed, we will be there in 10 minutes or less," Feng Xin silently muttered to himself. His pupils suddenly froze as he looked behind him. Peng Zhen and Gui Bingwen hurriedly looked back because they were surprised to see the look of alarm on Feng Xin's face. It was an even greater shock for Haishi who during her brief interaction with him not once had she seen him even mildly flustered. She joined the rest to look back too and just like the rest she couldn't spot anything. Unlike the two elders beside her, she was visibly terrified when she didn't see anything. She had seen how powerful Feng Xin was and she knew something capable of drawing that look from him was bound to be scary.

It didn't take long for the rest to finally see a red dot speedily zoning in on them.

"Things just couldn't go smoothly tsk a palace stage expert. Ellie, you need to prepare yourself the moment an opportunity comes up you need to use everything you have to fly us away. As long as you buy us a minute or two we may make it through this." Feng Xin said as he removed three purple talismans from his storage ring grimly staring at the figure that was now less than a mile away. The figure only halted when he was half a mile away revealing a scarlet-robed man in his late thirties.