Dao of Money

Chen Ren had always known that if the lord truly chose to chase them, then there was very little chance they would stay ahead of him for long.

The distance between the grand library and the master lift made that even worse, and without the things in his spatial ring, this would have been no different from suicide. So the moment Chen Ren saw the floor lord rushing toward them on a flying sword, he didn’t waste even a second.

He pushed qi into the ring and the very next second, hundreds of talismans poured out behind him in a scattered wave.

They spun through the air.

“Yalan, light them up!”

In the very next second, heat washed over him.

At the same time, the twins shot up beside him. Li Qingxue looked back, saw that the talismans were not creating any visible attacks, and immediately asked, “What are they for, Sect Leader Chen? Did you use faulty ones? I don’t see anything happening.”

“Just keep moving down and use the rocks as cover,” Chen Ren said without looking back.

He did the same, driving his sword lower and lower while hoping the talismans would do what they were meant to do.

They were illusion talismans.

Special ones, meant to twist sight and create false scenes around them so that anyone chasing would be forced to see the wrong path, the wrong movement, the wrong direction. Mixed in with them were others that bent and deflected qi as well, so that even if the lord tried to search for them through qi sense, it would not work cleanly.

Shrey himself had told him to buy them.

He had said they would work. And right then, Chen Ren could only hope Shrey had been right.

And as he flew through the volcanic plains without feeling the lord right on his back, Chen Ren knew that Shrey had been right.

That barely relaxed him though because all they had gained was borrowed time.

Sooner or later, the lord would realise he had been deceived and come after them again. So they had to keep moving. Unfortunately, the lord was not the only thing trying to stop them. The beasts of this floor were still a problem.

They had already been difficult enough to avoid on the way to the grand library, and now that they were rushing low across the plains, it didn’t take long for them to become a nuisance again.

As they passed close to a chain of lava pools, huge lizards swimming through the molten rock lifted their heads and spat fireballs toward them.

Yalan snapped her tail and sent flames back to intercept them, but every time she did that, it became harder for all of them to just keep flying straight with the explosions blasting around them. If even one of them lost their footing here, there was a real chance they would fall into the lava below, and even if they survived that, they would lose time they could not spare.

Hence, Chen Ren immediately thought of something.

“Hold steady and keep moving as fast as you can!” he shouted. “Push qi around your bodies too.”

He did it first.

Qi wrapped around him in a thin barrier, and then he reached into his ring, pulled out several thundercrack orbs, and hurled them straight at the clusters of beasts ahead. Some burst in the air before they even struck anything.

Others dropped into the lava and exploded there, sending up violent splashes of molten rock along with torn pieces of beast flesh and dark blood.

In the next second, smoke rose and lava burst upward.

Chen Ren drove forward through all of it.

He managed to avoid some of the flying debris, but not all of it. In the end, a few splashes of lava still struck him.

The lava burned through the qi where it touched, but Chen Ren simply pushed more qi into those spots and kept going. A few drops of ordinary lava were not going to become a major problem on their own, and from what he could see, everyone else had handled it well enough too.

His plan worked for the moment.

Eventually, the burning plains gave way to rougher ground, a more rocky stretch where there were no flowing rivers of lava for a while. Even then, Chen Ren did not let himself ease. If his estimate was right, it would still take them at least a couple of hours to reach the master lift, even at this pace.

Flying swords could only go so fast, at least, the ones they had. With better-quality swords, he was sure they could have crossed the distance in less than an hour. Once one reached a certain speed, even most beasts would fail to get close.

But thinking about that did nothing for him now.

So he only kept moving and moving.

Then, out of nowhere, a voice he had not expected to hear again sounded right behind them, and sent a chill through him.

“You know, that was a pretty good strategy. Those illusions of yours really did throw the lord off. He was still chasing the wrong direction when I ran into him. I suppose he just isn’t at his best. You did wake him out of hibernation, after all.”

It was Jun.

Chen Ren turned immediately and saw him there with his two disciples, all three of them riding a small ship that was cutting through the air fast enough to close the gap between them.

For a second, Chen Ren could only stare.

He had no idea how Jun was even alive after holding the lord back for that long. When he had seen the floor lord break free and come after them outside the library, Chen Ren had truly believed Jun was dead. There had been no other explanation in his mind at the time.

But somehow, Jun had not only held the lord back, he was also alive and flying after them without a single visible injury on him. Only the heavens knew how he had managed that if he truly was in the foundation establishment realm like the rest of them.

As Chen Ren comprehended what it meant to have Jun chasing after them now, Yalan immediately asked from the side, “What do we do?”

“Keep moving. The three of them shouldn’t be that much stronger than us. We only need to stall them until we reach the lift.”

As he said that, he pulled even more talismans out of his ring and flung them high into the sky. They ignited at once with some flames from Yalan, and in the next second four huge conjurations burst out of them in the shapes of the heavenly beasts—a dragon, a tiger, a turtle, and a phoenix. They rushed straight toward Jun’s ship.

But all Chen Ren heard was Jun laughing.

He risked a look back and saw the demonic cultivator raise one hand. Reality itself seemed to twist in front of him.

A giant black hole opened in midair, as though the world had been warped and torn, and in the next breath it sucked in all four conjurations at once. Then it shrank in on itself and disappeared as if it had never existed.

Chen Ren’s eyes widened.

Beside him, Princess Yanyue had seen it too. “That was at least a peak sky grade technique.”

Chen Ren looked at her sharply. “How does he even have something like that?”

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Princess Yanyue shook her head slightly. “Only the heavens know. We just need to make sure he never gets close to us.”

Chen Ren nodded, but part of his mind was already turning over a worse thought. If Jun had one technique like that, then he might have more. Maybe several. If that was true, then suddenly it made far more sense how he had managed to survive the floor lord.

Another question he had been carrying for a while rose in Chen Ren’s mind again.

Just who was Jun?

But before he could stay on that thought for long, Jun’s voice rang out from behind them once more.

“You really must have stolen something important for the lord to chase you like this. Tell me if it was related to the medallion, and I’ll make sure all of you get an easy death.”

Chen Ren ignored him. Instead, he looked at the others. “Keep your focus on flying. I’ll make sure he never reaches us.”

Then he started pulling out more items and artifacts, everything he had bought or found inside the pagoda that could still be of use. The next hour passed in a blur of explosions, flashing qi, and constant movement. Again and again, Chen Ren threw something back at Jun.

Conjurations, beams, barriers, illusions—he threw one after another.

But none of it truly worked.

Jun’s ship kept coming relentlessly.

Every attack Chen Ren sent behind him was blocked or broken apart with almost casual ease. Jun never seemed to take any real damage. The only real use any of those attacks had was in creating smoke and confusion so Chen Ren and his group could keep changing direction and try to throw Jun off for a little while.

But even then, the man always found them again.

He stayed on their back as if he had already marked them somehow, and Chen Ren had a strong feeling that he probably had. There had been enough chances for Jun to do something like that. By the end of it, Chen Ren gave up on the idea of ever shaking him off completely.

All they could do now was stay ahead… and reach the lift. And get out of this floor before Jun could catch them.

Unfortunately, there was one major flaw in that plan, and it was obvious enough for anyone to see.

Till now, Jun had only chased after them.

He had not really tried to do anything else. He only defended, kept pace, and stayed on their back, probably thinking that sooner or later they would tire themselves out. But Chen Ren had never believed that would be all Jun was capable of. There was no way a demonic cultivator like him lacked methods to block their path once he decided enough time had passed.

About ten minutes after that thought crossed Chen Ren’s mind, Jun’s voice rang out again.

“I’ll give you one last chance! Stop, let me empty your rings, and I’ll kill you quickly. If you don’t do it within the next minute, I’ll capture you myself, and that won’t be a pleasant end for any of you.”

Chen Ren’s face tightened at once. He looked toward Princess Yanyue and Yalan.

“Get ready. No matter what happens, we keep moving.”

He took out two more thundercrack orbs, one in each hand, and waited.

A minute passed… then he felt it.

A huge wash of qi rolled toward them, and when Chen Ren looked back, he saw Jun with one hand raised. From inside his robes, tendrils made of flame burst outward and rushed after them, stretching longer and longer through the sky.

Chen Ren threw one of the orbs at the frontmost tendril immediately.

The orb exploded in midair.

Fire and smoke burst out, and for a second the tendril disappeared inside it, but then it tore right through the smoke and kept coming. Parts of it had been blasted apart, charred and broken, yet even while it moved, it was already healing itself.

Chen Ren’s eyes widened.

He knew he had maybe… five seconds before it reached him.

That’s not enough time, he thought and pushed qi into his hand.

In the next moment, a sword of lightning formed there, crackling and bright, and when the tendril shot within reach, Chen Ren swung down on it at once.

Even with all his strength behind it, the lightning sword didn’t cut all the way through.

The tendril twisted the moment it felt the strike and wrapped around his side instead. Chen Ren immediately formed another lightning sword in his other hand and hacked down on it too, shifting his footing on the flying sword at the same time so the tendril would not coil around the blade beneath him.

That kept him alive, but it also cost him speed and balance, and Chen Ren had no idea how long he would be able to keep that up.

If he fell here, then he already knew what it would mean.

He would be forced to use the ticket and leave the pagoda.

More tendrils arrived soon after that thought.

The others had to deal with them too. Princess Yanyue answered the one going after her by creating a huge lance and driving it straight forward. Yalan handled the ones chasing the twins almost by herself, her tail stretching longer with flame and knocking the tendrils away before they could wrap around the twins’ sword.

But after only a minute, there were even more of them.

By then, Chen Ren was already grappling with three tendrils on his own, and with both his hands occupied, there was no way for him to burn more talismans.

Then, suddenly he heard a cry.

His head snapped to the left just in time to see a tendril coil around Princess Yanyue’s sword and yank hard. Her footing broke at once.

She fell sideways toward a rock, and in the same instant more tendrils wrapped around her flying sword and crushed it apart into pieces.

Chen Ren’s eyes widened, and he forced qi through his body in a burst, shoving back the tendrils around him before darting toward Princess Yanyue, already reaching to pull her up.

Before he could reach her, one of Jun’s tendrils shot forward and wrapped around his arm.

It held even through the lightning raging along his skin.

Then it pulled.

And Chen Ren was dragged straight down onto the ground.

***

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