Chapter 63: Fleeing Deep into the Cold Mountain
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Facing what might be the most powerful existence in this world, confronting the most miserable possible outcome, Chen Changsheng felt fear, tension, and unease... but still not despair.
He had despaired when he was ten years old, gotten used to it, and knew it was useless.
He looked at the middle-aged scholar by the distant stream, his right hand gripping a button inside his sleeve.
The middle-aged scholar seemed to notice something. His gaze suddenly turned sharper, cold light like swords, a terrifying aura spreading across the wilderness.
With a thunderous roar, the stones in the air were violently shaken apart.
The wind and snow grew fiercer, the mountain path even colder. Accompanied by several crisp sounds, many cultivators' weapons fell to the ground!
Chen Changsheng found his right hand disobeying him, as if truly frozen stiff, unable to crush the button in his palm!
Relying on the continuous array power from the Cold Mountain, hundreds of celestial stones fell again.
The middle-aged scholar raised his right hand and flicked a finger toward the distant mountain path.
An invisible, traceless aura pierced through the encirclement of celestial stones and arrived at the mountain path.
Chen Changsheng's right hand was locked by the middle-aged scholar's qi, but his left hand could still move.
A very faint metallic friction sound was heard. The metal ball that flew out of the sword sheath expanded at an unimaginable speed.
In Chen Changsheng's left hand appeared an old umbrella.
A yellow paper umbrella.
A roar thundered across the mountain path. The stream water surged up, splashing into ten thousand flakes of snow.
That aura struck the surface of the yellow paper umbrella.
An unimaginably violent force traveled down the umbrella's ribs and reached Chen Changsheng's body.
Like a small stone hit by a hammer, Chen Changsheng whistled backward through the air and slammed heavily into the hard cliff wall!
Dust billowed, then gradually settled.
A clear human-shaped imprint appeared on the cliff wall, along with a pile of stone debris, but Chen Changsheng was nowhere to be seen.
...
...
Chen Changsheng managed to break free from the middle-aged scholar's qi lock and vanish in such an unimaginable way, naturally relying on the button he had been holding in his palm.
It was not an ordinary button; it was a Thousand-Mile Button.
Back in the National Academy, when Luoluo encountered the demon clan assassin, she had used a Thousand-Mile Button, but it was blocked by the Heavenly Net.
The Heavenly Net was the Demon Lord's weapon. Although its power was long diminished, it was just enough to counter the Thousand-Mile Button.
Now, the Heavenly Net should be in the hands of the Zhou Dynasty court.
Today in the Cold Mountain, Chen Changsheng encountered the master of the Heavenly Net. He used the Thousand-Mile Button to flee but was not blocked by the Heavenly Net—instead, he was blocked by a huge stone.
He should have already left the Cold Mountain's range by now and joined up with Mao Qiuyu and Linghai Zhiwang below, but he was still in the mountains.
The thousands of stones suspended in the sky had sealed off the entire Cold Mountain, so he couldn't escape.
That was a boulder as big as a small hill, lying right across the front of the mountain path.
Chen Changsheng's face was deathly pale. His internal injuries erupted, and he spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone.
The middle-aged scholar's earlier distant finger strike was faintly even stronger than the sword of Zhu Luo he had seen in Xunyang City.
If not for the yellow paper umbrella, he would surely be dead by now.
Even so, a crack had appeared on the surface of the yellow paper umbrella.
Chen Changsheng looked at the bloodstains on the stone, confirmed there was no smell, but still couldn't relax. He grabbed a handful of dust from the ground and covered the blood, then dashed swiftly up the mountain path.
In past battles, he rarely fled, let alone abandoned his companions. But today was different, because he had no chance of defeating the middle-aged scholar—not even of holding him back for a moment. And he knew clearly that the middle-aged scholar's target was himself. The farther he fled, the safer his companions would be.
So he fled, with unwavering determination.
He activated the Burning Sword, recklessly burning his true essence, and sprinted toward the peak of the Cold Mountain at an unimaginable speed.
Under the cover of night, a dragon of dust rose among the mountains, reaching several miles away in an instant.
...
...
By the stream and on the mountain path, all was silent.
People stared at the cliff wall after the dust settled, at the impact marks left behind, deeply shocked. Tang Thirty-Six and Zhezhe did not look; they only stared at the middle-aged scholar by the stream, their faces pale, fear in their hearts, knowing they might die in the next moment, yet still fixing their gazes on him.
The middle-aged scholar moved, walking upstream.
The Cold Mountain Celestial Stone Array reacted, and hundreds of celestial stones surrounded him.
Zhezhe and Tang Thirty-Six also moved at the same time, lunging at the middle-aged scholar. They knew well they were no match for him, but it was obvious he was after Chen Changsheng. He was surely going to pursue him now, so every moment they delayed counted...
They failed to hold back the middle-aged scholar, but they did not die either.
Far from Snow Old City, in the human world, the middle-aged scholar's time was precious—at least more precious than their lives—so he ignored them.
Zhezhe and Tang Thirty-Six had no way to keep up with the middle-aged scholar's pace.
The middle-aged scholar seemed to walk very slowly, yet in an instant, he appeared on a distant peak.
Most terrifying of all, he was carrying those hundreds of celestial stones along with him.
Those celestial stones possessed unimaginable weight, now all bearing down on the middle-aged scholar, yet they could not slow his steps for even a moment.
Heavy rumbling sounds echoed through the mountains, like thunder. Countless cliffs collapsed, and mountain paths broke apart.
This scene was eerie, shocking, fearsome, and full of power.
With the departure of the middle-aged scholar and those celestial stones, the wind, snow, and pressure by the stream and mountain path instantly vanished.
With a boom, the stream water shook free from the ground, shooting hundreds of feet into the sky, then falling like rain.
The cliff walls, mountain paths, and grasslands trembled violently. Muffled groans sounded continuously.
In the woods, persimmons like yellow lanterns fell to the ground, whether ripe or green, smashing into a pulpy mess.
Just like the corpses and flesh by the stream.
...
...
That huge stone still hung silently in the air, very close to the ground, as if resting, like a small hill.
The middle-aged scholar stood on the opposite cliff. He reached out and grabbed the air, and the hill-sized stone flew over, landing in his hand.
Compared to this hill-sized boulder, he seemed tiny, almost completely hidden.
A mountain resting in his hand—this sounded somewhat absurd, but it truly happened.
A cold wind suddenly rose among the night-shrouded cliffs, blowing away the dust on the stone's surface, revealing the not-yet-dried bloodstains beneath.
The middle-aged scholar lowered his head and sniffed at the spot. His expression remained indifferent, but he slowly closed his eyes, as if intoxicated.
"My son was not wrong."
The middle-aged scholar opened his eyes, looked at the bloodstains on the stone, and revealed a faint smile, looking very satisfied.
The landscape on his face brightened a few shades, gaining some vitality.
The next moment, that landscape darkened by several degrees.
Because he raised an eyebrow.
—Not yet fully ripe, but it should be enough.
The hidden injuries left from back then should be fully healed.
He could finally shed his heavy burden and continue advancing toward the ultimate state of freedom.
Thinking of this, thinking of the thousand long years, even he could not help but feel some emotion.
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(Next chapter at eight in the evening.)