บท 28: Escape
Bai Yun ran out of the cave as fast as he could. Behind him he could hear the group making noices, and Bai Qing ordering the people behind to chase after him. A second later he heard someone run behind him. He knew that it was Bai Qing. It would be easy for them to dodge the lava spiders. It was just that they had no desire to do so until then. The fact that Bai Yun was no longer interfering in the fight also helped.
Bai Yun ran out of the cave in an instant. He caught three people fighting in his perception. Of the three people, two of them were ganging up on the third person. He smiled. Bai Qing had indeed left someone behind as he expected. He had instructed the couple to attack the person Bai Qing had left behind at exactly midnight.
Bai Yun ran towards the trio. The couple was clad in complete black clothes and robes that covered every part of their body, other than their eyes, just like Bai Yun. Then this person turned to look as he felt Bai Yun approach, but his expression quickly turned to that of despair when he saw Bai Yun's clothing. He started to fight back with even more vigor, but considering that he was at the same cultivation stage as the other two he was easily being suppressed.
Bai Yun closed the distance quickly. Then just as the other person used a powerful attack to knock back the couple and turned to face him, he used wind motion to close the distance in the blink of an eye. Bai Yun had appended in the sentries blind spot too quickly, and before he could react, Bai Yun send him flying away with Lions roar.
Bai Yun checked up on the sentry and knocked him out using the Assassin God's technique. He turned towards the couple, and walked up to them, and waited. A few seconds later he felt Bai Qing exit the cave. Since he wanted to lead Bai Qing away before the complete group could regroup, he had gone slowly on purpose.
It was time for the escape plan to begin. He walked up to them and pretended to talk to the couple. Since his perception range was larger than Bai Qing's he waited until Bai Qing found them, looked up, and said "Scatter." In the next instant, all three of them ran off in three directions.
Bai Yun turned his attention towards Bai Qing's group. He saw that other than Bai Qing the four sixth stage qi condensation cultivators had also followed behind. This confused him. Bai Yun knew that some people had to stay behind for a short time so that others could quickly escape the enraged lava spiders. But he expected him to bring the two seventh stage qi cultivators as they would be faster. The people at only the sixth stage of qi condensation couldn't keep up with any of them. But then he realized that Bai Qing did so because he probably didn't trust Bai Hao considering what happened, and was also banking of the sentry. Bai Yun smiled. This was better for him anyway.
Bai Qing paused for a second, and then the group split into three. The four sixth stage cultivators split into groups of two and chased after one of the couple respectively. Bai Qing chased after Bai Yun himself. This was exactly as Bai Yun predicted. Bai Qing's pride would be hurt that he was unable to notice him and would chase after him to heal that hurt pride.
Bai Yun quickly ran away from Bai Qing, but he was gaining upon him quickly. Even after Bai Yun completed the skin sewing for a leg, he was still slower than Bai Qing. But just as Bai Qing started to get close to him, Bai Yun used wind motion to widen the distance.
Bai Yun looked at Bai Qing who was advancing towards him. Bai Qing also used his movement technique to get close to him. But Bai Qing seemed to not be very proficient in the technique, which meant that he was still slower.
But Bai Yun could not keep up with this too much. Wind motion took up too much energy. So he slowed down, and as Bai Qing neared him, turned around and attacked him with his sword. Bai Qing reacted immediately and send an attack back on his own. But Bai Yun did not want to fight with Bai Qing. Even though he had the confidence to walk out alive in a life or death battle, he wasn't sure of his chances of defeating Bai Qing in a straight up fight. Also, the other two would soon shake off the lava spiders and come to reinforce Bai Qing. He had to escape as quickly as possible.
So Bai Yun used Bai Qing's attack to send himself flying back by borrowing its force. He felt a mild jolt hit him. Bai Qing immediately caught up once again and attacked, forcing Bai Yun back. Bai Yun felt his energy reserves running low.
Bai Yun took out a qi fruit. He had collected a lot of them in recent days. Even though the use of a qi fruit was to increase cultivation, Bai Yun with his god sense could use it to recover some energy. But this was extremely dangerous, as the small qi fruits did not have energy which was pure enough. Thus it was possible for its energy to contaminate his qi whirlpool, and making it impure as well as weaker. It would be very difficult to get rid of the excess impure energy.
But Bai Yun had no choice. He used the power left in him to quickly run away.
"Do you have to chase after me so badly? I am not interested in you that way. Why don't we just go our separate ways, and let bygones be bygones. Didn't Buddha say to show kindness to your enemies? Let us walk the path of non violence brother." Bai Yun said. In exchange Bai Qing simply attacked him harder.
Soon the two of them established a strange rhythm, with Bai Yun running away and Bai Qing chasing. But Bai Yun's face was slowly getting paler due to the increasing impurities in his qi whirlpool. Bai Qing noting what was going on, and was in no hurry to finish. He had pills to recover energy, which was much better than fruits. He took his time, and chose to slowly whittle his opponent down, as he was wary of an all out attack.
Suddenly Bai Yun stopped running. In front of him was a tumultuous river. The waves of the river rose dangerously and the spray hit him in his face. This was an extremely dangerous location for a qi condensation stage practitioner, the river at the edge of the weed valley.
"What can you do now?" Bai Yun heard a voice behind him. He turned to see Bai Qing standing just a short distance from him. "You have nowhere to run anymore. Hand over the supreme weed fruit, and I will let you go. Else you will not survive the night."
"Why do you think that you have won?" Bia Yun asked.
"How do you propose to escape. You are breathing so hard. It is obvious that you have no strength left. If it wasn't for that strange movement technique of yours, I would have caught up to you a long time ago. It is over." Bai Qing replied.
Bai Yun smiled cryptically. "Let me give you a lesson Bai Qing. Just because you cannot do something, don't assume others cannot either. Nothing is over until you die."
With that Bai Yun leapt back into the river in a single bound. Under the astonished eyes of Bai Qing, he fell into the river, and quickly submerged, and was hidden from view.
"You bastard! If you want to kill yourself, then at least have the decency to give me the supreme weed fruits first." Bai Qing screamed. After waiting there for a minute, he quickly took off back to the cave.
As Bai Qing was leaving the river, at a place a few hundred meters from where he jumped into the river, Bai Yun was lying on the shore of the river panting.
The river beyond the weed valley was extremely dangerous. It contained extremely dangerous currents and whirlpools, making it very dangerous to cross. No one in the first stage of the qi step would be able to cross it. In fact, when he was explaining his plan to the couple, he had told them that he would be able to outrun Bai Qing. He even showed wind motion to them in order to make them believe it. Bu the truth was that with his pathetic amounts of qi, he would never be able to do so. He would run out of qi long before he could get out of Bai Qing's range.
Thus the only way was to make him think that he had died. And the river was the best place for this. Even if Bai Qing thought that he was alive, he wouldn't chase after him. The truth was that the dangers of the river was mainly due to the unpredictability of the current and the dangerous whirlpools. If he got caught in a powerful current, it could only sweep him far away. And the whirlpools that suddenly appeared out of nowhere was the greatest danger. In fact, it was the whirlpools that killed people, not the currents.
It was due to his god sense that he managed to escape. The precognition ability of the god sense allowed him to notice the whirlpools before they formed and also to dodge the currents that would take him away from the shore.
But even then it was extremely dangerous. In the twenty seconds he stayed in the water his precognition activated thirty times. He had to use wind motion and all his powers in order to reach the shore. Even though there were no damages, there was not a single cell in his body that was not trembling in exhaustion. He even used his third soul tendril, giving him a horrendous headache. Even then there were nine times he was sure he was dead.
At this moment Bai Yun was scolding himself for jumping nearly ten meters far into the river, instead of simply taking one step back and falling near the shore. He had done it in order to look cool and only to look cool.
After promising himself to never again look cool ever, Bai Yun slowly stood up and bit into a qi fruit. As the energy flowed inside him, he frowned. By now the energy inside his body had turneda little impure. A stomach ache had joined his headache. Bai Yun quickly changed his clothes, and ran towards the cave.
Bai Yun reached the cliff side a little farther from the cave. It was far enough that Bai Qing's group could not sense his presence. He took out a piece of the cliff as if it was a brick. Inside was a hollow space, from which Bai Yun pulled out a bundle of weeds. He quickly ripped the bundle apart to reveal his storage ring.
A quick probe inside the storage ring and he found the three supreme weed fruits inside them. Bai Yn smiled after he verified that nothing had been touched.
'Good.' He thought. 'They did as required. Now it is time for my part.'
The first part of the plan was over. It was time for the second part to start.
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I don't like the fact that I am using stage to describe both qi condensation and the steps inside qi condensation. For example till now it was third stage of qi condensation as well as qi condensation stage of qi step. Thus from now on it will be that each step is divided into three realms. So for all the chapters from now on it will be third stage of qi condensation realm in qi step. I will use the weekend to both clear the queue as well go back and change it in previous chapters over the weekend.
(It was at this point that the author realized that he had no life)
PS: putting it here as this is too big for authors thought
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