9. Losing Consciousness
Ji Long ran over with eyes wet with tears. His feelings are filled with frustration, anger, powerlessness, and so on. This was the first time he had felt the complicated feeling of someone sacrificing for him, especially someone close to him doing so.
He felt a huge power behind him, but he didn't dare to stop and just pray for his mother's safety. As much as he hates to say it, he was just a weakling in front of such a power.
From what he knew, his mother's cultivation realm was at the fifth level of the Core Formation. However, from what he had sensed just now, her strength seemed to be greater than he knew. Even so, her family appeared to be stronger since her mother didn't dare to stay behind.
He understood pretty well. If she didn't go with those two men, the Ji clan would be in danger. Well, he didn't really care about the Ji clan, but he still had his father and sister. Knowing the two men's strength alone, even the Ji clan could do nothing about it and the Ji clan might probably sacrifice him, his father, and his sister due to the trouble his mother created.
Ji Long almost ran out of strength. His vision darkened. If his mother had known that she had miscalculated how much strength he had left, she might have regretted letting him escape.
Ji Long subconsciously tried to hold back his consciousness with his willpower alone. But due to his weakened strength, the skill that should have eliminated his presence was no longer activated.
Unleashing his skill to dispel his presence might not completely be able to avoid spiritual beasts that had sharp instincts and senses of smell. But thanks to the skill he has, he can minimize being targeted by spiritual beasts.
Unfortunately, not with his current condition.
Ji Long looked around with a face full of fatigue. He didn't know exactly where he was because he just ran away to escape the pursuit of the two men who were with his mother.
He seemed to be in front of a steep valley that had the same width from top to bottom. It was a gorge. From his perspective, the gorge was not formed by erosion but was created by a sharp strike that split the rock mountain in half. That was because he could still feel a faint sword energy, and it was likely that the gorge was over a thousand years old.
Ji Long fell to his knees while holding his wound on the waist. Even though it had stopped bleeding, he still felt pain because the wound had not healed yet. Furthermore, the faint sword energy that could even suppress him caused his body to have to endure it.
From behind, he heard the roars of spiritual beasts which left him no other choice but to continue forward knowing the gorge in front of him was almost devoid of spiritual beasts. Which meant, the gorge in front of him was much more dangerous than the spiritual beasts.
Yet, even though the gorge was dangerous, it didn't mean that no spiritual beasts would dare to approach. A large animal around two meters in height, with red fur on the body, and black on the belly and legs approached Ji Long step by step. The muzzle, cheeks, eyebrows, and inner ear rims are mostly white while the bushy tail has a red and buff ring pattern and dark brown tips.
"Damn it. It's a giant red panda." Ji Long grumbled.
Ji Long knew quite a bit about the spiritual beasts that existed in his world. Of all the beasts he knew in his previous world, in the present world, they were much bigger and stronger. Other than that, high-level spiritual beasts even possessed intelligence that could surpass that of humans. That's why they are called spiritual beasts.
When Ji Long prepared to form a hand seal he heard something ridiculous.
"A human dared to barge into this lord's territory? Hmmm, but how could a weakling arrive in this place unnoticed I wonder?" The red panda observed a human in front of him.
"IT SPEAKS!"
Ji Long was dumbstruck to see that a beast could speak human language. But then again, he held his waist as the pain had not gone away.
"What is so strange about it? You can speak, this lord can do that as well."
Ji Long didn't know how to reply. This was the first time he knew of a talking beast. He knew there was a bird that could talk, but that bird was just imitating other people's words, unlike the beast that was in front of him.
Still, he kept his alert knowing that the spiritual beast in front of him might attack him anytime. Too bad, the more he focused, the more he weakened as his strength was at his limit.
Ji Long started to stagger. His vision grew darker with his consciousness dimming every fraction of a second. And finally, he fell to the ground in front of the red panda.
— — — —
Oblivious of Ji Long's situation, the fight between Ji Yuling and the two men who wanted to bring her back was still going on.
The red-horned man grumbled.
"Shit. Her strength increased the more we fought. It seemed she started to burn her vitality. If she burns up her vitality as she said earlier, even though we might survive, we still can't escape our Lord's death sentence. Our Lord wanted us to get the little princess unscathed."
Then, he decided.
"Wait, wait, little princess! Please stop!" The red-horned man raised both of his hands. And the expressionless man also stopped attacking her.
Ji Yuling also distanced herself from them, but still didn't dare to put out her vigilance.
"I won't agree if you said you need to bring my son."
"No, no, no. Please don't misunderstand. I won't pursue that matter anymore. Our mission is just to bring you back. But, little princess, our appearances were seen by your son. I'm afraid…"
"You don't need to care about that! My son is not as stupid as you think."
"But, how about your father? If he knows that you're already married…"
"If you said nothing, will my father know? Just shut up or I will seriously kill you both!"
Naturally, Ji Yuling knew her situation pretty well. Well, her father seemed oblivious to her situation. He didn't know if she was already married to a human. When she was still 13 years old, she went to a human continent alone to gain experience as well as infiltrate to gain intelligence. And his father left a certain artifact in case she met a life-and-death situation. If she used the artifact, she could summon a projection of his father. But, Ji Yuling never used that, so her father thought that his daughter lived pretty well in the human continent.
Her father ordered the red-horned man and the expressionless man to bring her back. If her father ordered them to take her unscathed, then they had to do as ordered. Unless they wanted to die.
Ji Yuling could fight all out against them, but they were not. It was obvious who was at the advantage. Both of them were afraid that Ji Long would blabber everything after meeting them and they wanted to ascertain by erasing his memories. However, Ji Yuling wouldn't let them. And knowing that Ji Yuling would do anything to ensure her son's safety, they gave up pursuing the matter.
— — — —
On the other hand, as soon as Ji Hao, who was in the city of Jiaxing, found out about the disappearance of his wife and son after seeing the letter left by his wife. He started to panic while looking for them in various places.
Ji Feng could not even believe that her mother left without her knowledge which at the same time made her afraid that her mother secretly hated her and preferred to take Ji Long with her.
Even though Ji Hao tried to calm her down by saying something nice, her daughter turned deaf.